BWV 71 and 193 by the Chapelle des Minimes

Thérèse Hanquet wrote (June 24, 2007):
Sorry, I know these cantatas are not on the list for discussion now, but I am following a suggestion of ed myskowski to give a report of one of our concerts, and the last one of the season was this morning, with on programma BWV 71 and BWV 193. Here a link to the concert annoucement so you have the names of the conductor and soloists: http://www.minimes.be/public/affiches/gal/2006-2007/juin2007.jpg

Just to situate the context: our ensemble has been created 26 years ago to perform Bach vocal music and has already performed almost all cantatas (some of them several times). There is a concert once a month on Sunday morning, always in the same chuch, the Minimes church, in the centre of Brussels. I am a relatively new chorist but some of them have been there for many years, and our artistic director is one of the founders.

All members of the choir and string players are amateurs, but with some or much musical education and experience. The continuo players (organ, contrabass, cello, bassoon) are volunteer professional musicians. The vocal soloists and some intrumentists (trumpets, oboes, recorders, etc) are paid professionnals. The entrance to the concerts are free and there is no reservation, but many people give money and we sell programmes and advertisements in order to finance the cost of the concerts.

For each concert the choir and the orchestra have three separate rehearsals and one rehearsal together (and with the soloists). It requires much homework, at least for those like me who are not strong sight readers (I use MusicTime to practice and I find it a wonderful tool). But the work is worth it, it is so much fun to sing in this context. This season we had six different conductors, some experienced and others less so but all very good and we learned a lot from each one. Our conductor for this concert - Jan Caals- is a fine singer, and for the choir it is a pleasure to be conducted by someone who can give very reliable and informed advice regarding the way of singing.

Our public is fidel and enthusiastic. The concerts are at 10:30 AM and some people are already sitting there at 9:00 when we start warming up!

I really enjoyed those two cantatas, particularly BWV 71 where the choir has much to sing, and the orchestration is very festive (trumpets, timpani). For this cantata, the 4 soloists were sitting among us, as there are two choruses (#1 and 7) which alternate between "Coro pleno" and "Coro senza ripieni". For these we sung only where it was indicated "Coro pleno" or "con ripieni", while the soloists sung the parts "Senza ripeni". It was the first time I was so close to the soloists during a concert and I really enjoyed it.

Although Chorus #3 ("Dein Alter sei wir deine Jugend") is indicated "Senza ripieni", we performed it with the choir and the soloists remained seated while we sung (by the way just a few days before, we passed an audition and we had to sung that piece in quartet OVPP - quite fun even though us alti must go down rather low in some places).

As for the beautiful chorus #6 ("Du wollest dem Feinde"), the conductor asked us to sing it with a very "round" and soft sound and I think it sounded very good. Funnily enough the part that caused the most concern at the last rehearsal was the last one where all voices sing in unison the same repeated low C....

In BWV 193 we had only one chorus to sing but quite animated and repeated it at the end. The two female soloists had beautiful but difficult parts and managed these very well.

The audience seemed very pleased. As there is no occultation in the church, we could see the faces of the people, which illuminated more and more throughout the concert. This a very pleasant feeling, that we shared too, thanks to this wonderful music.

I hope I did not make too many mistakes in my report as I am still a novice in matter of Bach performances...

I will keep you informed about our new season (2007-2008) as soon as the information is on our website.

Nessie Russell wrote (June 24, 2007):
[To Thérèse Hanquet] Thank you Thérèse. This was especially nice to read:
< Our public is fidel and enthusiastic. The concerts are at 10:30 AM and some people are already sitting there at 9:00 when we start warming up! >

Without an audience this type of music will die.

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