THE TWO WORLDS OF J. S. BACH

New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 930, 7 June 1957, Page 5

THE TWO WORLDS OF J. S. BACH

N the home of Johann Sebastian Bach there was frequently a cradle in one room and a coffin in the next. Eleven of his 20 children died before him; those surviving gave their father troubles in proportion to their numbers. Bach was a prisoner of this world’s demands; always accompanied by grief; always pursued by envy and pettiness and conflict. Yet throughout his life he wrote about 20 pages of music a day; works which are unsurpassed in their blend of meticulous craft and the strong faith which inspired and sustained their composer. With Bach, says Albert Schweitzet, art and religion were one and the same thing. These two loyaltiesto life earthly and divine-provide the title and theme of a maior series of

programmes, Bach; Citizen of Two Worlds, starting soon from YC stations. Written by Dr Hans Besch for broadcast by the North-West German Radio in the "Bach Year," the programmes dig deeply into the apprenticeship and career of Bach, in both its material and musicalreligious aspects. The dramatised presentation is by actors of the NZBS Production Studios, working from a translation made by the Australian Broadcasting

Commission; the liberal musical illustrations are those used for the original broadcast in Germany, and are by courtesy of the North-West German Radio. Such outstanding artists as Monique Haas (piano), Professor Helmut Walcha (organ), Hans Hotter (baritone) and Margo Quilleaume and Martha Schilling (sopranos) are heard in these passages. The whole series is in 18 programmes, each of one hour duration. Dr Besch, a Bach scholar of 35 years standing, notes that an article in Pravda, the Moscow paper, once claimed that Bach wrote his many religious works only to save his numerous family from destitution-implying that his faith was only a matter of form, a self-interested conformity, Yet, says Dr Besch, the

appeal of Bach’s music is that it is often a comfort and support to faith; it is directed to the soul of man. Even, perhaps, to the Russian soul. "In 1950," he writes, "when the bones of Bach were transferred from the destroyed Johanneskirche in Leipzig to the Thomaskirche, a detachment of Russian officers appeared, bringing a wreath of roses as big as a door." The Thomaskirche, mentioned above, was the church’ at. which Bach served as cantor for

27 years up to his death in 1750. There he produced 265 of his 295 church cantatas, a number of secular cantatas, the six great motets, five masses, including that in B Minor, four Passions, including the St. Matthew, and a great variety of other works. This in spite of a demanding round of duties which included the instruction of pupils at St. Thomas’s School. Bach only managed to escape giving. classes in Latin by employing a substitute teacher at his own expense, In spite of his natural and occupational bias toward religious music, Dr Besch points out, Bach embodied in his works all types of dances of his age, he sang of the passion of the coffee drinkers, of the joys of the hunt and of love’s young dream. As a man he belonged to his own

age; as a genius to all ages. The part of Bach in the NZBS production is played by Lawrence Hepworth. Others are William Lloyd, as Goethe, Charles Tingwell as Mendelssohn, Athol Coats as Wagner, Ernest

Blair as Albert Schweitzer, and William Rees as Bach’s biographer, Spitta, The narrator is Sidney Musgrove. (Bach: Citizen of Two Worlds, all YC stations, weekly for 18 weeks, beginning Friday, June 14, at.9.15 pm.)