Bach Collegium Japan
Masaaki Suzuki
conductor
Roderick Williams OBE
baritone
Wednesday, February 1, 2023 | 7:30 p.m.
Morse Recital Hall in Sprague Memorial Hall
Program
Johann Sebastian Bach 1685–1750
Orchestral Suite No. 2 in B minor, BWV 1067
I. Ouverture
II. Rondeau
III. Sarabande
IV. Bourrées I & II
V. Polonaise & Double
VI. Menuett
VII. Badinerie
Johann Gottlieb Janitsch 1708–1763
Sonata da Camera in G minor, “O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden,” Op. 4, No. 21
I. Largo
II. Allegretto
III. Adagio
IV. Vivace
Georg Philip Telemann 1681–1767
Cantata for solo bass, “Der am Ölberg zagende Jesus,” TWV
1:364
Arioso: “Die stille Nacht umschloß den Kreiss der Erden”
Aria: “Ich bin betrübt bis in den Tod”
Recitative: “Er rung die heilgen Hände aus überhäuftem Schmerz”
Aria: “Mein Vater!”
Recitative: “Allein, die Angst nahm jeden Nu mit Haufen zu”
Aria: “Kommet her, ihr Menschenkinder”
Roderick Williams OBE, baritone
Telemann
Paris Quartet No. 1 in D major, TWV 43:D3
I. Prèlude. Vivement
II. Tendrement
III. Vite
IV. Gaiment
V. Modérément
VI. Vite
Bach
Cantata for solo bass, “Ich habe genug,” BWV 82
Aria: “Ich habe genug”
Recitativo: “Ich habe genug”
Aria: “Schlummert ein, ihr matten Augen”
Recitativo: “Mein Gott! wenn kömmt das schöne: Nun!”
Aria: “Ich freue mich auf meinen Tod”
Roderick Williams OBE, baritone
As a courtesy to others, please silence all devices. Photography and recording of any kind is strictly prohibited. Please do not leave the hall during musical selections. Thank you.
Artist Profiles
Bach Collegium Japan
Masaaki Suzuki, director & harpsichord
Roderick Williams OBE, baritone
Ryo Terakado, violin
Mika Akiha, violin
Stephen Goist, viola
Emmanuel Balssa, violoncello
Robert Franenberg, violone
Masamitsu San’nomiya, oboe/oboe d’amore
Liliko Maeda, flauto traverso
Hisato Iwasaki, stage manager
Akiko Sugiyama, orchestra & tour manager
Bach Collegium Japan was founded in 1990 by Masaaki Suzuki, its inspirational Music Director, with the aim of introducing Japanese audiences to period instrument performances of great works from the baroque period. Comprised of both baroque orchestra and chorus with soloists, their activities include an annual concert series of Bach’s cantatas and a number of instrumental programs. The award-winning ensemble has begun to explore classical repertoire, releasing a recording of Mozart’s Requiem in November 2014, which they followed up with their recent release of Mozart’s Great Mass in C minor. The recording won the Choral category in the 2017 Gramophone Awards.
They have acquired a formidable international reputation through their acclaimed recordings of the major choral works of Johann Sebastian Bach for the BIS label. Most recently, they celebrated their 30th anniversary in 2020 with a Gramophone Award in the Choral category for St. Matthew Passion.
2014 saw the triumphant conclusion of their recorded cycle of the complete Church Cantatas, a huge undertaking comprising over fifty CDs initiated in 1995; this major achievement was recognized with a 2014 ECHO Klassick ‘Editorial Achievement of the Year’ award. Their recent recording of Bach Motets was honored with a German Record Critics’ Award (Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik), Diapason d’Or de l’Année 2010 and, also in 2011, with a BBC Music Magazine Award. BBC Music Magazine again recognized Masaaki Suzuki and Bach Collegium Japan, selecting their recording of Mozart’s Great Mass in C minor as Recording of the Month in January 2017. The disc follows their first recording of Mozart— the Requiem—released in 2015 and builds on Suzuki’s continuing wish to explore the tradition and line of Christian music.
Bach Collegium Japan and Masaaki Suzuki have shared their interpretations across the international music scene with performances in venues as far afield as Amsterdam, Berlin, Paris, Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles, Melbourne, New York, and Seoul, and at major festivals such as the BBC Proms, the Edinburgh International Festival, the Hong Kong Arts Festival, New Zealand International Arts Festival, Ghent’s Festival of Flanders and Festival Cervantino in Mexico.
In 2010 the ensemble celebrated its 20th anniversary with a series of special concerts in Tokyo, and in 2013 they were invited to appear at New York’s Lincoln Center where Masaaki Suzuki and the choir collaborated with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra to open its Bach Variations Festival. The 2013–14 season saw the ensemble debut in
the Czech Republic at the Prague Spring Festival and in Mexico. A sold-out tour in Fall 2015 marked their fifth tour of North American cities, including Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and Washington, as well as a major European tour including a weekend residency at the Barbican Centre in London, re-invitations to Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw and Théâtre des Champs Elysées, Paris, and debut appearances at Dublin’s National Concert Hall and the Vienna Konzerthaus.
The 2019–20 season included a return to the US and Canada performing at Carnegie Hall, Montreal’s Bach Festival, Armstrong Auditorium and for early music presenters in Seattle and Vancouver. European highlights included appearances at the Leipzig Bachfest, Thüringer Bachwochen, Fribourg International Festival of Sacred Music, and Gewandhaus Leipzig, as well as reinvitations to Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw and Théâtre des Champs Elysées, Paris.
Members of the Bach Collegium Japan orchestra, with Masaaki Suzuki leading from the harpsichord, look forward to reuniting with baritone Roderick Williams for a tour in February 2023 that includes returns to the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., the Boston Early Music Festival, Toronto’s Royal Conservatory, Kansas City Friends of Chamber Music, and their debut with a performance at New York’s 92NY and two performances at the Ordway Theatre for the Schubert Club in Saint Paul.
Masaaki Suzuki, music director
Since founding Bach Collegium Japan in 1990, Masaaki Suzuki has established himself as a leading authority on the works of Bach. He has remained their Music Director ever since, taking them regularly to major venues and festivals in Europe and the USA and building up an outstanding reputation for the expressive refinement and truth of his performances.
In addition to working with renowned period ensembles, such as the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Philharmonia
Baroque Orchestra, Suzuki is invited to conduct repertoire as diverse as Brahms, Britten, Fauré, Mahler, Mendelssohn and Stravinsky, with orchestras such as the Bavarian Radio, Danish National Radio, Gothenburg Symphony, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, and Yomiuri
Nippon Symphony Orchestras. This season he visited the Montreal Bach Festival, the New York Philharmonic, the San Francisco Symphony, the Mozarteumorchester Salzburg and the Lahti Symphony Orchestra.
Suzuki’s impressive discography on the BIS label, featuring all Bach’s major choral works as well as complete works for harpsichord, has brought him many critical plaudits –the Times has written: “it would take an iron bar not to be moved by his crispness, sobriety and spiritual vigour.” 2018 marked the triumphant conclusion of Bach Collegium Japan’s epic recording of the complete sacred and secular cantatas, initiated in 1995 and comprising sixty-five volumes. The ensemble has recently recorded the Gramophoneawarded Bach’s St. John's Passion and St. Matthew’s Passion.
Artist Profiles cont.
Bach Collegium Japan has been invited in a previous season to participate, as one of three ensembles, in the cantata cycle at Bachfest Leipzig, where they also gave a critically acclaimed performance of Mendelssohn’s Elias; their busy touring schedule also took them to the United States, performing at venues including Alice Tully Hall in New York and San Francisco’s Davies Symphony Hall. This autumn, they had completed a European tour with concerts in Wroclaw, Cologne, Vienna, Dusseldorf, Lausanne, Paris, Antwerp, Madrid, and The Hague. The ensemble will also visit the United States and Canada during winter.
Suzuki combines his conducting career with his work as an organist and harpsichordist; he recently recorded Bach’s solo works for these instruments. Born in Kobe, he graduated from the Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music with a degree in composition and organ performance and went on to study at the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam under Ton Koopman and Piet Kee. Founder and Professor Emeritus of the early music department at the Tokyo University of the Arts, he was on the choral conducting faculty at the Yale School of Music and Yale Institute of Sacred Music from 2009 until 2013, where he remains affiliated as the principal guest conductor of Yale Schola Cantorum.
In 2012 Suzuki was awarded with the Leipzig Bach Medal and in 2013 the Royal Academy of Music Bach Prize. In April 2001, he was decorated with ‘Das Verdienstkreuz am Bande des Verdienstordens der Bundesrepublik’ from Germany.
Roderick Williams OBE, baritone
Roderick Williams is one of the most soughtafter baritones of his generation and performs a wide repertoire from baroque to contemporary music in the opera house, on the concert platform and in recital.
He enjoys relationships with all the major UK opera houses and has sung world premieres of operas by, among others, David Sawer, Sally Beamish, Michel van der Aa, Robert Saxton and Alexander Knaifel.
He performs regularly with all the BBC orchestras, and many other ensembles including the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Philharmonia, London Sinfonietta, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the Hallé, Britten Sinfonia, Bournemouth Symphony, and Scottish Chamber Orchestra. Abroad Roderick has worked with the Berlin Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Deutsches SymphonieOrchester Berlin, Russian National Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, and Bach Collegium Japan, amongst others. His many festival appearances include the BBC Proms (including the Last Night in 2014), Edinburgh, Cheltenham, Bath, Aldeburgh, and Melbourne Festivals.
Recent and future opera engagements include Oronte in Charpentier’s Medée, Don Alfonso in Così fan tutte, Pollux in Castor and Pollux, Sharpless in Madame Butterfly, and baritone soloist in the new production of Britten’s War Requiem, all for English National Opera; Toby Kramer
in Van der Aa’s Sunken Garden in the Netherlands, Lyon and London, Van der Aa’s After Life at Melbourne State Theatre, Sharpless for the Nederlandse Reisopera, the title roles of Eugene Onegin for Garsington Opera and Billy Budd for Opera North, Van der Aa’s Upload for The Netherlands’ Oper Koln, Park Avenue Armory New York, and the Bregenz Festival, and Papageno in Die Zauberflöte, as well as the title role in Il ritorno di Ulisse for the Royal Opera House. Recent and future concert engagements include concerts with the New York Philharmonic, Rias Kammerchor, Singapore Symphony, Gabrieli Consort, Sao Paolo Symphony, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia Baroque, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony, Music of the Baroque Chicago, Berlin Philharmonic, Hallé Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, BBC Proms, Bayerische Rundfunk, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, and with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.
He is also an accomplished recital artist who can be heard at venues and festivals including Wigmore Hall, where he recently performed all three Schubert cycles in one season, Kings Place, LSO St Luke’s, the Perth Concert Hall, Oxford Lieder Festival, London Song Festival, Beethovenhaus, Snape Maltings, Edinburgh Festival, Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, Concertgebouw, and the Musikverein, Vienna. He appears regularly on Radio 3 both as a performer and a presenter.
His numerous recordings include Vaughan Williams, Berkeley, and Britten operas for
Chandos and an extensive repertoire of English song with pianist Iain Burnside for Naxos. Most recently he has recorded the three Schubert cycles for Chandos and an award-winning disc of French song with Roger Vignoles for Champs Hill.
Roderick Williams is also a composer and has had works premiered at the Wigmore and Barbican Halls, the Purcell Room, with the Rias Kammerchor and live on national radio. From 2022–23 season he takes the position of Composer in Association of the BBC Singers.
He will be the Artist in Residence at the 2023 Aldeburgh Festival and is currently ‘singer-in-residence’ for Music in the Round in Sheffield, presenting concerts and leading on dynamic and innovative learning and participation projects that introduce amateur singers, young and old, to performing classical song repertoire. He was Artist in Residence for the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra between 2020-22. He was awarded an OBE for services to music in June 2017.
Program Notes
Samuel Suggs
Although scholars disagree as to the chronology of the orchestral suites (BWV 1066–1070), or “overtures” as Bach called them, many agree that the heart of these suites lies in Leipzig. Bach most likely turned to the Collegium Musicum, comprised mainly of students at the University of Leipzig, for his orchestral forces in these larger works. The group, consisting of 50 to 60 members with many virtuosos in its ranks, regularly played public garden concerts in the summers. While the Triple Concerto, BWV 1044 is Bach’s only extant concerto for flute solo, and the composer had also written a handful of trio sonatas, flute sonatas, and an unaccompanied partita for the instrument, he must have known a great flutist in the Collegium, since the virtuosic flute role in this orchestral suite is so boldly foregrounded.
The “suite” at the time encompassed a collection of stylized dance movements—to be listened to, not as ballet, but as concert pieces—generally preceded by an overture. In the orchestral suite, the prelude pays homage to the three-part form of French overtures (such as those to the ballets of Jean-Baptiste Lully) with a limping introduction, a fugal Allegro, and a closing dance. In this sense, the ending of the B-minor overture is extrapolated over six rounded dance movements instead of one. In the keyboard and unaccompanied cello suites, each suite contains more or less the same order of dances, ending with a gigue. The orchestral suite, however, is a potpourri of once-popular dance forms (in this case
ending with a rare battinerie or “jest”) of which only the minuet persisted into the latter half of the 18th century.
Sonata da Camera, “O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden”
janitsch
Patrick Campbell Jankowski
As with typical sonatas da camera, Janitsch’s contains lighter movements in a dancing style, introduced by a more wandering prelude; also typical is the egalitarian treatment of its three melodic voices atop the basso continuo. A deeply felt Largo opens the sonata. Its abundance of suspensions, or momentarily held dissonances, instill a sense of yearning. A more jovial dance movement follows, and then a surprise arrives in a setting of J.S. Bach’s “O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden,” from the St. Matthew Passion. Janitsch worked in Germany and was more or less a contemporary of Bach (outliving him by a few years). The inclusion of this liturgical element is likely connected to the sonata’s dedication to Janitsch’s nephew, and imparts the work with a unique tenderness not always found in these lighter examples of chamber music. An even more spritely movement in triple meter rounds out the sonata as expected: joyfully and danceably.
Cantata for solo bass, “Der am Ölberg zagende Jesus”
telemann
Patrick Campbell Jankowski
Telemann was perhaps Johann Sebastian Bach’s most recognizable contemporary, and his popularity during his lifetime vastly
Orchestral Suite No. 2 in B minor bachexceeded Bach’s. Both composers wrote a number of cantatas and many of these depicted in poetic, humanistic fashion the Passion of Christ. Telemann, unlike Bach, seemed more attracted to solo passion cantatas as opposed to larger-scale works, and this one for solo bass is a fine example. Arias are sprinkled with narrative recitatives, and begin in a mournful tone, depicting with austerity the loneliness of Christ awaiting his crucifixion. The tone brightens from there, with a more optimistic central aria “Mein Vater,” and concluding with an appeal directly to the listeners (the “sinners” in this instance), noting that, at the very least, they’ve avoided the flames of hell. A rather dark textual image, though set in a startlingly jovial manner.
Paris Quartet No. 1 in D major telemann
Patrick Campbell Jankowski
When visiting a new place, it is customary to come bearing gifts for your host. In the instance of Telemann’s first visit to Paris, he wrote six new quartets for flute, violin, cello (or viola da gamba), and continuo, which he likely performed alongside the musicians who had brought him to the city. These quartets were certainly a success, and this first example shows why. Each instrument is featured prominently in solo lines, and moments of virtuosity abound in each of the movements: more or less three full movements with two interspersed “preludes” introducing the latter two dances. These preludes interestingly begin with the same discordant harmonies, and hold on to that overall tension for just long enough to make the subsequent dances all the more
inviting. A second set of six quartets was published during Telemann’s stay, indicating something of a “hit.”
Cantata for solo bass, “Ich habe genug” bach
Samuel Suggs
Bach composed BWV 82 for the Feast of Purification, which fell on February 2, 1727. The Purification is described in the Gospel of Luke as taking place forty days after the birth of Jesus in which the family is met by Simeon the God-receiver at the temple of Jerusalem to sacrifice a lamb and a pigeon. Originally for a bass voice, representing the voice of Simeon, the cantata was so wellreceived that Bach created this arrangement for female voice and flute (BWV 82a). Upon meeting the infant Jesus, Simeon is moved — and in the weeping, sighing rhetorical style of the time, longs for death (sleep) after seeing the light of Christ.
The piece opens formally with a poetic ritornello featuring obbligato flute (or oboe in the original version) in such strong relief from the undulating strings and plodding bass as to suggest a concerto texture. The programmatic gravity of these gestures paints the scene as the trio processes towards the gates of the temple. The opening motif in the flute is reminiscent of the soprano aria “Zerfliesse mein Herze” from the St. John Passion, and, possibly due to its success, a month after BWV 82 was completed, Bach wrote “Erbarme dich, mein Gott” for the St. Matthew Passion on a similar motif.
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