You will not find any reference to Fasch in either of the current
Penguin or Gramophone Guides, so a few notes to
place him in context will not be out of place. Fasch trained under
Kuhnau at the Thomasschule in Leipzig; as a student, he founded
the collegium musicum that is now considered to be the
ancestor of the famous Gewandhaus Orchestra. On the death of Kuhnau
in 1722 he was approached by the Leipzig authorities to apply
for the post of Kantor. Having just received a lucrative position
as Kapellmeister at Zerbst, he declined the offer and the post
was offered to Telemann. When his Hamburg employers refused to
release Telemann, Graupner became the candidate of choice. Graupner,
too, found it impossible to obtain his release and the post eventually
went to one Johann Sebastian Bach. Both Telemann and Graupner
received substantial financial and other improvements to their
contracts as a result of their being denied the Leipzig position.
Though the Leipzig authorities rated Bach only
fourth-best, they were certainly right to think Telemann then
the best qualified candidate and they appreciated Bach’s worth
– the story that they thought him ‘mediocre’ is based on a misunderstanding
– so there is no reason to believe that they were wrong in their
high opinions of Fasch and Graupner. Certainly neither deserves
to have disappeared almost without trace. Fortunately the recording
companies are doing something to redress the balance.
The Suite which opens this recording is
one of a large number of such pieces which both Fasch and Telemann
produced: the Telemann Suites and, arguably, those by Fasch,
influenced Bach’s four Orchestra Suites. (Bach transcribed some
of Fasch’s Suites for his own collegium musicum in the
1730s.) This work not be quite in the same league as Bach and
Telemann – it’s best in this respect to try to forget that he
was their contemporary – but it is an attractive work, often
looking forward to the classical style, and it receives a stylish
and lively performance here.
The opening Ouverture is given plenty of
weight, but never allowed to sound ponderous. The tempi for
the two Aria movements are also well chosen – the largo
fifth movement never allowed to drag – and the dance movements
are suitably sprightly. Though the basic model for the Suite
is French, there is some Italian-style virtuosic violin writing
in the Finale, well played here (presumably) by Zsolt Kalló,
first violin and artistic director. Just don’t expect the kind
of pyrotechnics that we’ve had recently in baroque music from
Italian violinists and conductors. The recording is good.
If, like me, you find that this Suite has whetted
your appetite to hear more of Fasch’s orchestral music, Johan
van Veen made a selection on CPO 777 015-2 Recording
of the Month and Zane
Turner was only marginally less pleased with a CD of Fasch’s
Concertos (Capriccio SACD 71049). The Archiv/Pinnock CD which
ZT preferred seems to have been deleted. Capella Savaria have
recorded a complete CD of Fasch’s Suites on Dynamic CDS233 –
not reviewed on MusicWeb, so far as I am able to discover, but
well received by other reviewers. You may also want to try a
CD of Graupner’s orchestral works, including a Suite in F (MDG
341 1252-2), as recommended by Johan
van Veen.
Fasch’s Passion is a shortened version of
the so-called Brockes-Passion. With a text by Barthold
Brockes and first set by Keiser in 1712, Handel and Telemann
also composed versions. Bach adapted parts of it for the St
John Passion. Capella Savaria already have a track record
in the Brockes-Passion: they recorded the Handel version
some time ago for Hungaroton, reissued by Brilliant Classics
in a 4-CD set, coupled with the St John Passion, somewhat
dubiously ascribed to Handel, and recommended with some reservations
by Robert
Hugill (I’m not sure that this set is still available; it
may have reverted to Hungaroton). They have also recorded the
Telemann setting (Hungaroton HCD3113032, 3 CDS).
The Fasch Passion exists in two forms; it
has been edited for this recording by the conductor, the French
musical scholar Mary Térey-Smith, from a manuscript in the Leipzig
Stadtbibliothek. The Brockes-Passion is often criticised
for its overt sentimentality but Fasch’s cut-down 48-minute
version is less open to that criticism.
This is a work on a much smaller scale than Handel’s
setting or Bach’s Passions: it’s more like the 8 o’clock Communion
to their 11 o’clock High Mass. Not only is the work overall
much shorter, individual sections are also comparatively brief
and light. The opening chorale Mich vom Stricke meiner Sünden
(“To free me from the bonds of my sins, my God is bound”) lasts
a mere 3:36 compared with Bach’s adapted version of the same
words as an alto aria in the St John Passion (4:45 in
Gardiner’s far from sluggish version). Handel opens his Brockes-Passion
with a Sinfonia, then takes 5:41 in the Archiv/Wenzinger
version to set the same words. Bach takes 9:13 for the opening
chorus of the St John and 6:50 for that of the St
Matthew Passion.
Some of the more emotive words are set as recitative
(tracks 15, 17 and 23), presumably because Fasch wanted to avoid
overdoing the sentimentality.
The agile performance of Fasch’s opening chorale
sets the tone for a brisk performance. Some may find Térey-Smith’s
tempi a little too brisk, but they seem just about right to
me. She avoids all accusations of over-sentimentality and there
is never any sense that she takes things too fast for the singers,
either the chorus or the soloists.
The Schola Cantorum sing well. I’d have liked to
know how many of them there are – the booklet lists the individual
players in the Capella Savaria – but they are a smallish group
and they never swamp the music. Their singing of the chorale
Herr, laß dein bitter Leiden (“Lord, let Thy bitter suffering”,
tr.19) rounds off the first part well, with emotion and objectivity
well in balance, and their account of Ein Lämmlein geht
(“A lamb goes forth and bears the blame”, tr.20) opens part
two equally effectively. (Did I really hear some of them sing
Lammlein, not Lämmlein?) Just occasionally on
track 20 some of the individual male voices sounded over prominent.
The two male soloists give a good account of themselves,
but I was less taken with Mária Zádori as the Daughter of Zion.
She has a fine voice, if just a little shrill for my taste,
but she seems to fail to appreciate that her role is to comment
affectively, even emotionally, on the action. Some of these
words, as in Gott selbst, der Brunnquell aller Guten
(tr. 11) may not be to modern taste – “He begins to bleed for
sinners, until He is drained of blood; from this flood of torment
(Qualenfluten, emphatically not “floods of grace”, as
per the translation) He offers us His blood to drink.” – but
those are the words which Fasch sets and he would not have expected
them to be sung in such an objective and uninvolved fashion.
The contrast between her rendition on track 11 and the following
choral, Ach wie hungert mein Gemüte (“O how my soul hungers”),
in which the choir strikes the right balance, shows what is
missing.
Péter Cser as Jesus, an attractive light-voiced
bass, is also able to keep sentiment and objectivity in balance
in Mein Vater, schau, wie ich mich quäle (“My father,
see how I am tormented”, tr.14).
The same over-objectivity is true of Zádori’s singing
on tracks 24 and 25. (The text says Hat dies mein Heiland
leiden müssen? for tr. 24, but I am sure that she sings
das, not dies. She is probably right: see below
for the many errors in the libretto.) Only in Hier erstarrt
mein Herz und Blut (“My heart and blood are numbed – or
congeal”, tr.29) did I feel she really came close to the right
balance between emotion and objectivity.
The tenor, Zoltán Megyesi gives a much better account
of himself in those arias where he comments affectively. In
Sünder, schaut mit Furcht (“Sinners, see and be afraid”,
tr. 16) he does not unduly tub-thump his message to sinners
to repent. He also gets just the right amount of emotion in
Brich, mein Herz (“Break, my heart”, tr.18) and he sounds
suitably contemptuous of the foolish crowd on track 27, again
without overdoing things.
The tune of the final choral (tr. 36) is very similar
to Bach’s O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden and the Palm Sunday
processional hymn “All glory, laud and honour.” Bach used this
tune several times, not just in his Passions and a version of
it clearly existed well before his time. The fine performance
of this chorale brings a recommendable version of Fasch’s Passion
to a successful conclusion. With good recording throughout and
at Naxos’s budget price, this CD of an otherwise unrecorded
work is self-recommending, except ...
At this stage I was about to award a thumbs-up
for a very worthwhile recording ... but black marks for Naxos’s
failure to include texts and translations, which are available
only from their website. This is not the first time they have
penny-pinched in this way; I hope it is the last, but I’m realistic
enough to realise that they have now established a trend. They
aren’t the only offenders, but I had hoped for better. The booklet
lists the opening words of each section and the diction is clear
enough for those with sufficient German, but that is not the
point. An A4 printout from the web just won’t fit in the CD
case without a lot of trimming and folding – couldn’t they at
least make the pdf pages small enough to fit? – and what about
those without web access?
As if that were not bad enough, the libretto, once
downloaded, is far from satisfactory. Minor misprints such as
‘fogt’ for ‘folgt’ and ‘cloth’ for ‘clothes’ are neither here
nor there, but the translation often resorts to paraphrase,
as on track 28, where the original is much abridged in the process.
On track 19, the English “Lord, let thy bitter suffering be
the guiding light that moves me forward to overcome my sinful
desires” both adds to and subtracts from Herr, laß dein bitter
Leiden mich reizen für und für, mit allen Ernst zu meiden die
sündlichen Begier – “Lord, let thy bitter suffering thoroughly
provoke me in all seriousness to set aside my sinful desires”.
Worse still, both the libretto and the track-list
in the booklet give the text of track 9 as Das
Gott, dem alle Himmelskreise, when the soloist clearly sings
the more grammatically correct Der Gott ...
I have not been able to track down the original text of the Brockes-Passion,
but the track listing for Wenzinger’s version of the Handel setting
gives the incipit of this aria as Der Gott, which
I am sure is correct. And shouldn’t the opening chorus be Mich
vom Stricke meiner Sünden, as in the Handel text, not
the unidiomatic Mich von Stricke ... as printed?
(Bach, of course, modifies it to Von den Stricken
...) I have pointed out the mistranslation of track 11 above.
Naxos should seriously consider revising both the booklet and
the web libretto. If and when they do, I’ll gladly restore the
thumbs-up recommendation – especially if they print the libretto
inside the booklet.
Brian
Wilson
see also Review
by Johan van Veen
