JS Bach Weichet nur betrübte Schatten BWV 202 Rifkin

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Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) • Cantata BWV 202: Weichet nur, betrübte Schatten (1708-1717) • 1. Weichet nur, betrübte Schatten (Aria: S) • 2. Die Welt wird wieder neu (Recitative: S) 06:03 • 3. Phoebus eilt mit schnellen Pferden (Aria: S) 06:30 • 4. Drum sucht auch Amor sein Vergnügen (Recitative: S) 09:43 • 5. Wenn die Frühlingslüfte streichen (Aria: S) 10:20 • 6. Und dieses ist das Glücke (Recitative: S) 12:53 • 7. Sich üben im Lieben (Aria: S) 13:36 • 8. So sei das Band der keuschen Liebe (Recitative: S) 18:13 • 9. Sehet in Zufriedenheit (Gavotte. Aria: S) 18:38 • Soprano: Julianne Baird • Performed by Joshua Rifkin and The Bach Ensemble (1989). • The wedding cantata Weichet nur, betrübte Schatten, although traditionally assigned to Bach's Köthen period, most likely dates from about midway through his years at the court of Weimar, where he served from 1708 to 1717. Recent literary scholarship has attributed the text to the court poet Salomo Franck, who furnished most of Bach's librettos during this time; and the only extant source of the cantata, a manuscript copy written in 1730, preserves a notational peculiarity - the cancellation of sharps with flats rather than naturals - that Bach abandoned by 1715. Beyond these features, moreover, several musical traits point to Weimar. The recitatives resemble others composed there both in their brevity and in their arioso closes; the sinuous oboe line and slow-fast-slow layout of the opening movement have frequent parallels in arias from the years 1713-14 but few thereafter; and the fourth aria exploits a manner of combining voice and obbligato instrument whose only real counterparts in Bach's output date from 1715 or earlier. • Bach presumably wrote this music for a couple close to himself in age and station - or so we may imagine from the lack of any reference in the text to the husband's noble rank or learned profession. Whether by Franck or not, the libretto shows a practiced hand, moving in deft strokes from the waning days of winter to that time when - as the second aria tells us - even godly fancy turns to love, then bringing home the moral that wedded bliss will offer pleasures richer and more enduring than those of spring. Bach's setting eagerly grasps the pictorial opportunities provided by the text. The very first words call forth one of his most arresting inventions, with oboe, then voice serenely dispelling the wintry shadows of the strings. A vaulting continuo line in the second aria represents Phoebus coursing on his chariot, while the steadier pace and insinuating violin part of the third aria suggest Cupid venturing slyly forth to savor the happiness he was wrought. Almost inevitably, the dactyls of the fourth aria call forth a lilting triple-meter dance; and teh concluding Gavotte - which probably had more than just the one strophe that survives - makes the Terpsichorean element fully explicit. • The performance of 'Weichet nur' obviously took place at the festivities that succeeded the wedding ceremony itself. Given the nature of both the text and the music, it does not seem far-fetched to envisage the company assembled out of doors, basking in the first warmth of spring and all coming together to dance the Gavotte in the newlyweds' honor. - Joshua Rifkin • Painting: Arnolfini Portrait (detail), Jan van Eyck

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