The Cantata BWV 101, Nimm von uns, Herr, Du treuer Gott (Take from us, Lord, faithful God), first performed in 1724, turns around the lutheran hymn “Turn away, God, your immense wrath”, written in the context of an outbreak of the plague in 1584, understood as a punishment from Heaven. Bach composed his work for the 10th Sunday after Trinity, a date when the sermon addresses the passage in which Jesus laments the fate of Jerusalem and prophecies about its destruction. The opening chorus has a strangely solemn atmosphere. As usual, the hymn goes for the soprano voice, but around it a complex choral counterpoint is built inside an independent orchestral polyphonic framework. In it, the listener finds is a dance-like repeated-note subject in the opening bars, rounded off by an almost balletic hiccup-like three-note figure with an accent on the second note (a “sighing” motive), not to mention colourful harmonic twists, all that in contrast with the hymn’s rather plaintive tone. At first, it may sound rather cerimonial, rather “catholic” in its liturgical atmosphere, as something that you’re witnessing rather than taking part in. It is almost as if Bach had kept to his own lofty jaw-dropping standards, and it was for the congregation to rise to it. Of course, there is a dramatic point there. The text basically says “we no longer need to be punished – we have risen from our previous state of ungodliness and we have learned our lesson”. And the lesson is the hymn.
This is a cantata where the development from the melody of the hymn is almost didactically spelled out throughout the whole work. The tenor aria, originally composed with an odd sprightly (and virtuosistic) solo for the flute (Bach would later replace it for the violin), sounds like an unconvincing piece of contrition. This spiritual journey is just in the beginning. It is followed by a soprano recitative where the freer rhythm typical of recitation stems directly from the hymn’s lines. The bass aria goes even further in even having an abrupt tempo change between the hymn melody (the original “lesson”) and the florid development of the subject (the “improvement” derived from learning the lesson). A second recitative, this time for the tenor voice, follows more or less the same lines of the second movement – and this is when we find the emotional core of the cantata: the soprano/alto duet. I use the word “emotional” because it is the item in which the quotations from the hymn are less “for show”. There they are so integrated in the musical discourse and the affetto is so intimate and sincere that it doesn’t feel like a demonstration of any kind. During the earlier parts of the cantata, the text turns around “I’m suffering too much”, “I’ve paid enough”, but here it goes rather for “Think of Jesus and how HE suffered bitterly for all of us”. Somehow, the duet is the moment when one really sees the development. It is simply more mature in tone, and I find it is no wonder that it receives the more “spiritual” music in the whole work. It is the spiritual destination of our cantata.
I was curious to know how conductor Rudolf Lutz would approach the opening chorus. Most recordings go for a rather somber atmosphere, with a slower tempo to match, the notable exception being John Eliot Gardiner. And I had the intuition Mr. Lutz would go in that direction. It is what the music demands in purely sensorial terms – and my joke about its “catholicity” made me feel that the “Vivaldian” exuberance would make sense here. And it did – it sounded grand, theatrical and intense, and this also is fitting for it as the first station of a journey that ends in the simplicity and honesty of the final chorale. Although the solo flute better evokes the “insincerity” in the tenor’s aria, I am glad Mr Lutz followed Gardiner’s example and chose the violin instead. I can’t say if tenor Daniel Johannsen chose the open-toned, “air quote”-like Charaktertenor tone for words like Sündenknechte or Flehen on purpose. In comparison, Gerd Türk (in Suzuki’s recording) and Christoph Genz (in Gardiner’s) sound more consistently dulcet, but the impression of the superficiality of the regret and the repentance are more powerfully conveyed the way it was sung this evening. As Mr. Johannsen sang his recitative in altogether sweeter voice, I can only believe it was an interpretative decision – and a very intelligent one. Although Miriam Feuersinger found her recitative a bit low for her voice, her pellucid soprano was ideally matched to Margot Oitzinger’s absolutely natural contralto. They sang their duet with such disarming artlessness and honesty that I doubt that I have ever heard it better sung as this evening. The single non- Austrian soloist this evening, German bass Wolf Matthias Friedrich displayed admirable control of his divisions, but in comparison seemed a bit Schwarzkopf-ian in his finicky phrasing. The chorus – and I can’t say this enough – sang splendidly. The orchestra too offered ideally warm sounds in the glorious acoustics of the Kirche Trogen, the second performance a bit more polished in what regards the oboes in the bass aria.
I HEAR VOICES 
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