Bach through a microscope

July 9, 2004

By Lisa Gislason
Oregon Bach Festival staff

For me, sitting through a rehearsal of the Bach Cantata BWV 147, “Heart and voice and deed and life”, was like looking at the score with a microscope.

In a performance, the listener hears the piece in its entirety from beginning to end. You have a sense of the whole big picture.

In rehearsal, when there’s starting and stopping of phrases, chorales, solos, and ensembles, the listener is forced to pay attention to the details and becomes more aware of the technical aspects of the piece. You start listening for musical phrases that appear at first in the voice, then in the violin, then the bass, or the brass. Your ears become fine tuned to details in the music. It’s a thrilling and educational experience.

As I watched, the student conductors rehearsed the sections and then Maestro Rilling gave comments on ways to improve intonation, tempo, phrasing and balance. His suggestions helped the musicians and the music always improved. The various personalities of the conductors came through in the music also. The listener could tell if the conductor was communicating clearly with the orchestra by how they responded to his or her baton.

This was especially evident when two different conductors worked through its famous chorale (with the theme of Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring). One conductor was very clear on the eighth-note triplets and a clean rhythmic interpretation. The other conductor added more stretch and lyrical phrasing and the choir responded accordingly. It was not about good or bad, right or wrong. It was how two different people have two different styles of conducting and interpreting the music.

The rhythmic bounce and pull of Bach’s music filled me with a sense of joy and hope, and a more keen sense of melodic phrases appearing in the various instruments and voices throughout the cantata.