The treasure of St. Gallen

My father-in-law, a retired pastor, listened to a Bach cantata every Sunday all his life; Karl Richter, Helmut Rilling and so many others followed one another on his record player, then on his CD player, and finally on his computer. He found his musical and spiritual nourishment there. A few years before his death, he told me, his eyes shining, that he had just discovered the project of the J.S. Bach Foundation in St. Gallen: the performance of Bach's complete vocal works, enriched by theological and musicological reflection. "Their Bach is so alive, so clear, so compelling..." I agreed wholeheartedly. I agreed with him wholeheartedly, and to this day I share his admiration for this project on a scale scarcely imaginable.

Since 2006, at the rate of one concert a month, Bach's complete vocal works have been revisited, put into perspective and performed with a momentum and fervor that leave no room for doubt as to the topicality of this music. It took twenty-five years to complete the entire tour of this immense work; most of it has already been done, so it's easy to imagine the energy and conviction of all the musicians and organizers. Funding is provided exclusively by two private foundations ("J. S. Bach-Stiftung St. Gallen" and the "Internationale J. S. Bach-Stiftung Zürich"), an impressive patronage.

Artistic direction is provided by Rudolf Lutz, professor at the Schola Cantorum and a performer of impeccable skill; the choir and orchestra musicians are all specialists in Baroque music, not to mention renowned soloists such as Julia Doyle, Peter Harvey and Daniel Johannsen.

Each concert - including the musical introduction by Rudolf Lutz himself and the theological and philosophical reflection on the text - is recorded and made available to everyone in the Foundation's free media library, on Youtube and on DVD. The musical works, without commentary, are also recorded on CD - again, the quality is impeccable. In twenty years, an unparalleled treasure trove has been collected and generously made available to all.

Unfortunately, for French-speaking audiences, language remains a barrier to understanding the depth and accuracy of the interpretation: the spoken texts are in German only, and the printed texts are in German and English. For the original texts of the works, a detour via one of the translations available on the web is therefore highly recommended.

The latest release, the 50ᵉ (!) CD, opens with the secular work Zerreisset, zersprenget BWV 205, composed for the birthday of August Müller, professor at the University of Leipzig: a veritable opera in miniature, featuring personnel from Greek mythology. The performers delight in drawing on all the dramatic registers of the period, which Bach mastered masterfully.

After the short, intimate wedding cantata Der Herr denket an uns BWV 196, the CD concludes with the cantata for Michaelmas Day Es erhub sich ein Streit BWV 19, which shows the sophistication with which Bach illustrates the texts and comments on them musically. A typical stroke of genius, for example, is the superimposition of a trumpet chorale over a tenor aria, the implicit text of the chorale "Lord, let your angel bear my soul" reinforcing the sung text "Angels, stay with me".

Like every publication from the J.S. Bach Foundation in St. Gallen, this CD deserves our full attention and a place in our library - or simply in our computer "favorites".

The J.S. Bach Foundation: bachstiftung.ch/
The free media library: bachipedia.org/werke/