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A Holiday Bach Program

A concert in collaboration with the Atlanta Community Symphony Orchestra

Bryan F. Black, Director, DeKalb Choral Guild
Leanne Elmer Herrmann, Accompanist

Juan Ramirez, Conductor, Atlanta Community Symphony Orchestra

Saturday, December 2, 2000
Performing Arts Center
Riverwood High School
Atlanta, Georgia

Brandenberg Concerto No. 1 in F Major by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

Fugue in G Minor by Johann Sebastian Bach

Sing We to This Merry Company, 15^th century English folksong, edited by John Stevens, performed by The Chamber Singers

Donkey Carol (1976), words and music by John Rutter (b. 1945)

Uns ist ein Kind Geboren by Johann Sebastian Bach
Cliff Norris, Baritone
Jack Sartain, Tenor
Mary Slaughter, Alto

Overture to Suite No. 4 by Johann Sebastian Bach

Program Notes by Michaelene Gorney

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), who through his works codified the harmonic and melodic patterns which form the basis of Western art music from the Baroque to the 20th Century, enjoyed an uneventful but successful career, similar to that of other musicians of his time in Lutheran Germany. He served as organist at Arrnstadt, as court organist at Muhlhausen and later concertmaster in the chapel of the Duke of Weimar, as music director at the court of a Prince of Cothen, and, finally, as Cantor of the St. Thomas School in Leipzig. The latter was a respected, important position in the Lutheran world to which Bach applied after the death of cantor Johann Kuhnau. He was offered the position after it had been declined by two other eminent musicians, Georg Telemann and Christoph Graupner. Bach's music was most often dictated by the requirements of whatever position he held at any given time--he was, after all, a craftsman--and was always written for the glory of God.

Uns ist ein Kind geboren takes as its text the Epistle of Titus, Chapter 2, verses 11-14 ("the grace of God appeared to me"), and the Gospel of Luke Chapter 2, verses1-14, relating the nativity of Christ. It is identified in lists of works by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) as Cantata BWV (Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis) 142, but is now thought by most scholars to be the work of Johann Kuhnau (1660-1722). Kuhnau, who preceded Bach as cantor of the city of Leipzig, was an organist and a scholarly writer on music, as well as a composer best known for keyboard works. Having studied music from the age of 11, he also studied law at the University of Leipzig and practiced law early in his career while working as a musician. He was active as a teacher, an organist, a conductor of church music, and served as director of the University. Since Kuhnau composed many sacred cantatas, it is quite reasonable that Bach, for his own study, would have copied a Kuhnau cantata in his own hand, thus giving rise to the assumption that Cantata BWV 142 was Bach's own. The harmonic and melodic movement of Uns ist ein Kind geboren does conform to standard Baroque tonal patterns–-those also used by Bach and solidified by him for posterity–-but missing are the creative chromatic complexities employed within the Baroque harmonic discipline by the ultimate Baroque master. Bach scholars now tend to ignore this work, but it is bound to remain in the Bach-Werke, if only because the attribution to Kuhnau cannot be definitively proven.

Sources consulted in the writing of these notes include: The Concise Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians by Nicolas Slonimsky A Listener's Guide to the Cantatas of J. S. Bach by Simon Crouch, published by Classical Net at www.classical.net.