Bach's music against war and discrimination
Composer Johann Sebastian Bach altered his famous St. John Passion three times over the years, continually adapting it to the spirit of the times. The story, which tells of the Passion of Jesus Christ, seems more relevant than ever. The Leipzig Bach Festival features not only two of Bach's surviving versions, but also some unusual transformations.
The opening weekend of "Queer Passion" – with a new libretto by Thomas Höft – focused on the suffering of people from the LGBTQ community. "Especially in Russia and the USA , queer people are once again being discriminated against and oppressed," author, dramaturge, and director Thomas Höft told DW.
Bach in Arabic against the wars in the Middle EastThe "Arabian Passion," arranged by Bulgarian musician Vladimir Ivanoff, gives Bach's music an oriental flair. Performed open-air on Leipzig's market square, his message for peace between East and West reached a large audience. Ivanoff compiled excerpts from Bach's St. John and St. Matthew Passions in 2006, under the impression of the US invasion of Iraq. "I saw the suffering of the people there and drew a parallel to the Gospel," he told DW. "I would never have imagined that after almost 20 years, this topic would still be so relevant in the Middle East ."
The Passion excerpts are sung in Arabic by Lebanese actress and singer Fadia Tomb el-Hage, who lives in Germany. "I grew up in Lebanon, and there was almost constant tension," she told Deutsche Welle. "For as long as I can remember, there have been repeated civil wars." Since Israel's recent attacks on Iran, she has been deeply concerned about her relatives and friends in Lebanon. She sang the aria "Have mercy" from the St. Matthew Passion in a particularly moving way.
Transformation beyond music"Transformation" is the motto of this year's Bach Festival. "That's a word we hear a lot these days," Bach Festival director Michael Maul told DW, alluding to the transformations in the economy, the digital world, and climate change. "We've applied this term to music, and it's very fitting for Bach's works."
Johann Sebastian Bach repeatedly reworked his own pieces, re-orchestrated them, or used new texts. There are also several versions of his Mass in B minor, a World Heritage Site. The opening concert featured his first, short version from 1733, which is rarely performed. The Gewandhaus Orchestra and the Leipzig St. Thomas Boys' Choir, conducted by St. Thomas Cantor Michael Reize, received thunderous applause. Whether in Portuguese, German, or Japanese, the touching moments of the boys' high voices were commented on by many guests outside St. Thomas Church after the concert.
The Bach Festival is one of the most international classical music festivals in Germany. Based on ticket sales, this year's event will welcome visitors from over 50 countries, from Burundi to South Africa and the USA to Latin America. A particularly large number of guests come each year from Asia to experience Bach's music at the original locations, where Bach served as Cantor of St. Thomas's Church from 1723 until his death in 1750. In this capacity, he directed, among other things, the renowned St. Thomas Boys' Choir, one of the oldest boys' choirs in Germany.
The Bach Festival is organized annually by the Leipzig Bach Archive, which celebrates its 75th anniversary this year. To mark the anniversary, Director Peter Wollny was delighted to receive a generous donation from the USA, the Kulukundis Collection. It consists of letters, writings, and autographs from the sons of the great Baroque master Johann Sebastian Bach. The Leipzig Archive owns the world's second-largest collection of writings, books, and objects related to Johann Sebastian Bach and his extended family. The Bach sons' collection is currently valued at approximately 10 million euros.
Bach parodies with a winkTransformations of Bach's texts often sound amusing to modern ears. Bach later reworked several of his secular cantatas into sacred cantatas for the Church. The secular texts were replaced with sacred texts in a so-called "parody" process. Some of the original secular cantatas will also be heard at the Bach Festival.
The Christmas Oratorio is one of Bach's most frequently performed works and bears several parallels to earlier secular cantatas. The well-known chorale "Jauchzet, Frohlocket," a hymn to God the Ruler, previously stood in a completely different context. The same melody can be found in the secular Hercules cantata from Greek mythology, which Bach dedicated to an Elector. One aria is not about Hercules' duel with the enemy, but rather about the attraction of the female sex and the struggle against one's own lust.
Michael Maul also contributed a special libretto to the entertainment with Bach's music. "It's a kind of lighthearted Singspiel, in which I considered how Bach might have set Goethe's Faust to music," says Bach Festival director Maul. The whole thing was created to mark the 500th anniversary of "Auerbach's Cellar." The former wine bar, where the poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was inspired to write his drama "Faust," is now a tourist attraction. "Bach's Faust" will be performed there several times during the Bach Festival.
Michael Maul has also transformed Bach into the digital world, bringing him to life. Using augmented reality, Johann Sebastian Bach will play a harpsichord concerto as an avatar and comment on it in his reputedly gruff manner. "These are mostly quotations from himself or from his immediate environment, with humorous elements," explains Michael Maul. The digital event can be viewed using appropriate 3D glasses. With the portable equipment, the concert will also go on tour after the Bach Festival. Invitations from the USA, Malaysia, and Japan have already been received.
The Bach Festival in Leipzig runs until 22 June
dw
