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Unser Leben ist ein Schatten by Johann Bach
No, not our beloved J.S. Bach. His great-great uncle or cousin several times removed
(or some such arcane relationship). 

As most of you know, Johann was sort of a de rigeur first name in the musical Bach family. I guess it was kind of like George Foreman's naming all of his sons George. One assumes that most of these Johanns actually were called by their middle names; otherwise imagine the chaos when, having discovered crayon-writing on the wall, a Bach parent shouted out, 'Johann Bach, you come here this instant!' It would be an instant crowd scene.

So, anyway: As I mentioned on Thursday, this particular Johann-without-a-middle-name Bach (1604-1673)--there were several so denominated--was the grandson of Veit Bach, the baker and miller who, according to J.S. Bach, founded the musical Bach family. Only three works by J. Bach survive. They appear in the 'Altbachisches Arkiv', a collection of works by the Bachs before Bach. These three pieces make one wish we had more--they're fantastic, especially today's motet, 'Unser Leben ist ein Schatten auf Erden'
('Our life is but a shadow upon earth').

The piece is a precursor of J.S. Bach's motets, but it seems to bear a closer relationship to certain works of Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672), especially to the first section of his 'Musikalische Exequien', which (as you might recall from an earlier project) is a masterful assemblage of biblical texts and hymn texts, moving fluidly from freely-composed passages to chorale-based sections.

In the case of 'Unser Leben ist ein Schatten', there are two biblical passages (one from the Book of Job and one from the Gospel of St. John) and four chorales. Over the past several weeks, I have introduced all four of these latter as part of our Wednesday Chorale series. They are, in order of their appearance in today's motet:

   1. Two verses of Johann (they're all over the place) Flittner's 'Ach was soll ich Sünder machen;
   2. One verse of Nikolaus Hermann's 'Wenn mein Stündlein vorhanden ist';
   3. Two verses of 'Ach wie flüchtig, ach wie nichtig', by Michael Franck and Johann (see what I mean?) Crüger;
   4. One verse of Johann (you can't escape 'em) Leon.

The texts--biblical and poetic--are all carefully chosen and ordered to develop the central theme of the work, which is the impermanence of mortal existence and the imperative to look beyond, epitomized by the refrain of the first chorale: 'Meinen Jesum laß ich nicht!' ('I will not leave my Jesus').

The ensemble is an unusual one: Nine-part double-choir, asymmetrically divided into 6-part and 3-part ensembles. Check out the opening statement of the title/theme. It's absolutely sui generis, an imaginative and super-expressive setting in which the central thought--that our lives here are fleeting--
is perfectly rendered in musical terms.

The entire piece is like this--the music is incredibly responsive to its text, and the alternation of choirs adds spatial and dialogic elements which add immeasurably to the effect. All of this is beautifully rendered by the redoubtable ensemble Vox Luminis in the attached recording; to me it's somehow like a painting in sound.

For a different perspective which brings out the antiphonal aspect of the work,
check out this performance on YouTube.

I have underlaid the translation in the attached score, so that you can follow closely the way the music conveys and expresses the text. Also attached is a text-translation sheet which includes source attributions for each passage.
Click here to download learning materials
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