For Love of Bach
German composer Johann Sebastian Bach, the Cantor of Leipzig, was one of the greatest composers who ever lived.
It is a bit puzzling, then, that Cincinnati, a city with an important German heritage, not to mention a distinguished musical one, has no Bach society or organization devoted to performance of his music.
Until now, that is.
Carlton Monroe, director of music at St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Terrace Park, resolved to do something about that when he created the Cincinnati Bach Ensemble two years ago. The Ensemble comprises 16 vocalists (including bass Monroe) and a core of instrumentalists, most drawn from the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.
In conjunction with the Rev. Darren Elin, rector at St. Thomas (and a musician himself), Monroe also created the Bach Vespers at St. Thomas to provide a venue for performance of Bach’s music as it was originally conceived.
Bach Vespers at St. Thomas is a blend of the Episcopal Vespers service – known as Evensong – and Bach’s cantatas, which were written for performance as part of Sunday services at Thomaskirche in Leipzig, where Bach served from 1723-1750.
There are six Bach Vespers at St. Thomas this season, beginning Oct. 13 with Bach’s cantata “Am Abend aber desselbigen Sabbatas,” (“On the evening of the same Sabbath”), BWV 42. There will be a prelude recital, a regular feature of the Bach Vespers, by CSO oboist Lon Bussell, beginning at 5:45 p.m. before the service. Other Bach Vespers are set for Dec. 8, Jan. 12, Feb. 9, March 23 and April 27, all at 6 p.m. at St. Thomas Church, 100 Miami Ave. in Terrace Park.
“I had a passion for Bach’s music,” said Monroe (who also drew inspiration from the late Elmer Thomas, professor of choral music at CCM and a parishioner at St. Thomas). “I always felt Bach’s music had a universal quality, meaning that in some ways, it transcended the Lutheran theology into broader human themes. I’ve always been drawn to that and when I got to St. Thomas, I was sort of looking at the tradition of Evensong, which is the typical Episcopal expression of Evening Prayer, and thinking, is there a way to blend these together?”
“There are models around the country of churches doing something like this,” he said. “There are two Lutheran churches, one in Chicago and one in Manhattan, that do a Bach Vespers, and there’s Emmanuel Church in Boston, which is an Episcopal church, and as their principal Sunday morning service, they do a Bach cantata every Sunday.”
Bach’s works have been performed, of course, by the Cincinnati Symphony, May Festival, the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and other ensembles in the area. The CSO presented a brief, but popular “Bach and Beyond” chamber orchestra series from 2001-2003 that fell victim to budget cuts. “While those were wonderful, there was never an opportunity to do Bach more closely related to the way it was presented originally,” Monroe said.
Bach’s cantatas (he wrote over 600, of which about 200 survive) were written for Sunday morning services at Thomaskirche in Leipzig. “They weren’t written for vespers services, so to speak,” said Monroe, “so we’re not trying to historically recreate Bach’s services. The elements we’re borrowing are the biblical readings. We do the ones that were read for the cantata we perform.” Instead of a sermon, Monroe offers a Reflection, which he calls “a kind of combination of sermon and program notes.”
“It’s always based on the cantata. I want the service to be appealing to a churchgoer who knows nothing about Bach and to a music lover who knows nothing about church. So my message is designed to straddle those worlds a little bit.”
For St. Thomas Church (which coincidentally has the same name as Bach’s church in Leipzig), the Bach Vespers also serves as outreach.to the community. “Not necessarily as a recruitment tool, but as a way to appeal to a broader group of people,” said Monroe. “That is probably key to the church adopting it. It’s been something that draws people that otherwise wouldn’t come to our doors.”
“Classical sacred music, like classical music, is such an incredibly enriching language,” said Elin, a tenor who came to the ministry through his studies at the Institute of Sacred Music at Yale. “When you bring church music back into the church – particularly if you’re struggling with how to define yourself, or you want to find God – you’re left with a sense of wonder and inspiration that starts to transcend how you look at yourself in the world.” Evensong at St. Thomas, unlike some Evensong services, also includes congregational music, Elin said. “We do hymns, even the chanting. If your tradition was very far from Christianity, you’d feel comfortable engaging with the sense of the holy or the transcendent.”
In addition to the six Bach cantatas, Bach Vespers at St. Thomas” is branching out beyond Bach in a couple of cases this year” said Monroe. “In December, we’re collaborating with Annalisa Pappano (of the early music group Catacoustic Consort). She’s leading a group of local players called the Cincinnati Viol Ensemble. Along with singers from the Bach Ensemble, we’ll do English verse anthems.” Looking to more collaborations, the Bach Vespers in February will feature the Cincinnati Camerata choir, which will perform with the Bach Ensemble led by Camerata music director Brett Scott.
The Bach Vespers – and music at St. Thomas -- is moving into new music, too. Composer-in-residence Douglas Pew (whose one-act opera “The Game of Hearts” was premiered by National Opera in Washington D.C. in Nov. 2012) has written a cantata, “The First Fruits of Them That Slept,” that will receive its world premiere on the Bach Vespers service in April.
Pew, a faculty member at Northern Kentucky University, “loves writing sacred music,” said Monroe. Now in his second year as composer for St. Thomas, Pew has also written a pair of canticles (“Magnificat” and “Nunc Dimittis”) for a special service of Choral Evensong Nov. 10 at the church. The St. Thomas Choristers and Parish Choir will sing them as part of a residency they will spend July 6 and 7, 2014 at the National Cathedral in Washington D.C.
Working for St. Thomas “feeds both of us,” said Monroe. “We jokingly say with me being music director and he (Pew) being the composer, that the two of us together are doing what Bach did by himself.”
For more about Bach Vespers at St. Thomas, visit bachvespers.wordpress.com.
For more about St. Thomas Episcopal Church, visit www.stthomasepiscopal.org
Bach Vespers at St. Thomas:
Bach
Vespers
Oct.
13 – 6 p.m.
Bach, “Am Abend aber desselbigen Sabbatas,”
BWV 42
YoungGeong
Lee, soprano
Audrey
Walstrom, alto
James
Onstad, tenor
Luis
Orozco, bass
St.
Thomas Schola Cantorum
Cincinnati
Bach Ensemble
Prelude
recital: Lon Bussell, oboe
Bach
Vespers for Advent
Music
for Viols and Voices
Dec.
8 – 6 p.m.
Cincinnati
Viol Consort
Cincinnati
Bach Ensemble
Verse
anthems by Thomas Tompkins, Orlando Gibbons and William Cobbold
Bach
Vespers for Epiphany
Jan.
12 – 6 p.m.
Bach, “Süsser Trost, mein Jesus kömmt,”
BWV 151
Soprano
to be announced
Catherine
Fishlock, alto
James
Onstad, tenor
Bass
tba
St.
Thomas Schola Cantorum
Cincinnati
Bach Ensemble
Prelude
recital: Randy Bowman, flute
Bach
Vespers
Feb.
9 – 6 p.m.
Bach, “Geist und Seele wird verwirret,”
BWV 35
Mozart,
Sonatas da chiesa, K.67 and K. 336
Sara
Jackson, alto
The
Cincinnati Camerata
Cincinnati
Bach Ensemble
Brett
Scott, guest conductor
(presented
in conjunction with the Cincinnati Early Music Festival)
Bach
Vespers for Lent
March
23 – 6 p.m.
Bach, “Liebster Jesu, mein verlangen,”
BWV 32
Bach, “Ich bin vergnügt mit meinem Glücke,”
BWV 84
Bach, Ciaconna from Partita for
Violin, No. 2, BWV 1004, with choral interpolations
Kerri
Caldwell, soprano
Errik
Hood, bass
St.
Thomas Schola Cantorum
Cincinnati
Bach Ensemble
Prelude
recital: Manami White, violin
Bach
Vespers for Easter
April
27 – 6 p.m.
Bach, “Halt im Gedächtnis Jesum Christ,”
BWV 67
Douglas
Pew, “The First Fruits of Them That Slept” (world premiere)
Johann
Wilhelm Hertel, Concerto a Cinque
Kate
Tombaugh, alto
James
Onstad, tenor
Luis
Orozco, baritone
St.
Thomas Parish Choir and Choristers
Cincinnati
Bach Ensemble
Prelude
recital: Douglas Lindsay, trumpet
Note:
all prelude recitals begin at 5:45 p.m. in the church, 100 Miami Ave., Terrace Park.