Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra’s ‘Week of Bach’

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Milwaukee Symphony Bach Fest

“Rejoice, rejoice greatly” Milwaukee. The weekend of March 22 you will be able to reach back 300 years and over thousands of miles to Leipzig, Germany when Johann Sebastian Bach assumed the position of Thomaskantor (music director) of the St. Thomas Choir. And interestingly, Bach was born on March 21, 1685, according to the old Julian calendar. Reaching out with you will be Ken-David Masur, the Leipzig-born music director of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra.

There will be two programs. Masur has selected some of Bach’s favorite compositions: Brandenburg Concertos # 1 and # 5, the Violin Concerto in E major, and the Orchestral Suite in D major for the first program which features harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani and Baroque violinist Rachell Ellen Wong.

For the second program, Bach’s Magnificat, Masur and the orchestra will be joined by the Milwaukee Symphony Chorus under the direction of Cheryl Frazes Hill. The Magnificat is Bach’s setting of the scripture passages taken from the Gospel of Luke when Mary learns that she will bear God’s son. At the beginning of Mary’s canticle is the verse “Magnificat anima mea Dominum” or “My soul magnifies the Lord.” The first version, in E-flat major was completed in 1723. Bach revised and transposed this 10 years later into D major, BWV 243 which will be performed Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon.

A week of Bach—and don’t forget the free Bach Opening Ceremony on Monday, March 18, which sings for itself. Details about the music can be found online and in the concert program. But this was a good time to talk music and Masur was kind enough to agree.

You were born in Leipzig and Bach came to Leipzig 300 years ago. On a personal level and as a musician (are they one and the same?) how aware were you growing up about Bac –was it in the water you drank and the air you breathed? Did it and does it still impact even the non-musical resident?

First, I believe all people are musical, if not as a self-expressing kind, they are certainly able to resonate with “live” music. Therefore yes, Bach’s music was and continues to be for everyone. He has given the casual listener some of the most beautiful melodies and the most advanced professional musician today some of the most challenging music ever written. Some of the greatest composers in history have that in common, to be at such a level of craft and complexity while at the same time being accessible. He is also one of the few composers to never have written a “bad note.” Whether you listen to the simplest menuet that all kids (or adults) learn on their instrument as part of their easy lessons, or the most complex orchestral or vocal works. 

When I was growing up in Leipzig, Bach was for sure celebrated and revered, but not alone. Don’t forget its other illustrious former citizens, including Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn, Clara and Robert Schumann, Edvard Grieg, and Wagner, just to name a few. Bach’s music wasn’t just played in all the concert halls, as well as the surrounding churches, including those that he himself had serviced as cantor and as director of the Saint Thomas boys choir, but it was clear that his music had influenced everything that came after him. At some point, of course I thought that this is all because of Leipzig. However, it’s when we moved to New York when I was a young teenager that I realized he is studied, performed and celebrated globally. Even though as a child I felt both great joy in listening to his music, it was sometimes also frustrating as a student singing and playing his music, as it can be extremely challenging. 

And when you studied trumpet, was it the Baroque trumpet (I think in Bach’s day they were pitched differently?) Do you have a special affinity to Bach?

When I played Bach’s music on trumpet, I played modern pitch, but on a rotary valve piccolo, which was very warm sounding. Everything from Cantatas to oratorios, including one of them under my father, who loved Bach and would do St Matthew Passion everywhere he went. (I actually prepared the radio choir and children’s choir in Paris for him 20 years ago). 

Yes, Bach’s music continues to give me moments of discovery and great inspiration unlike any other. It is so joyful and also so deeply understanding of our common humanity that I truly believe it lends itself as a great vehicle to connect with people across ages and across any life experience. 

My own “deep dive” on Bach started at my undergraduate University. When I discovered that unlike other peer universities, there was no Bach Society in existence, I was fortunate enough to become the first music Director of a chorus and orchestra made up of students, and we performed Cantatas, the Christmas oratorio, orchestral suites and symphonies by JS Bach’s sons. Bach’s music brought me such a deep feeling of Home, and subsequently an unexpected love for Music as a career path, since my first conducting experience stems from there. 

There are six Brandenburg Concertos. Why/how did you select these two?

For our inaugural festival of his music, we wanted to find a way to include as many of our extraordinary musicians of the orchestra together with our illustrious artists in residence Rachell Ellen Wong and Mahan Esfahani. As a result, we have an extraordinary mix of works in each of our two subscription concerts. A Brandenburg Concerto, as well as a violin, and a keyboard Concerto will be part of each of the concerts. While Mahan and Rachael will be leaders of their own concerti, we will also have our own concertmasters Jinwoo Lee and Ilana Setapen leading as well as other principles in the orchestra featured on solo parts. 

With all the wonderful cantatas and Masses Bach wrote why did you select the Magnificat?

First of all, it is a truly magnificent work of his that features both the chorus and the orchestra in brilliant ways. It was important for me to include our own wonderful MSO chorus in a substantial way for our inaugural Bach festival. In addition, it’s the 300th anniversary of Bach beginning his tenure in my hometown of Leipzig, and the Magnificat was one of the works written then. 

Wong will play a Baroque violin. Could you comment on the difference?  Are the other instruments used this weekend also Baroque period instruments? And what should the audience expect?

No, our orchestra will play on modern instruments however, there are some members of the orchestra who own Baroque bows and are free to use them. As we know, it’s possible to emulate the sensitivity and unique musical properties of playing in the Baroque style on modern instruments. In addition, Rachell Ellen Wong will be a wonderful artistic partner, since she is equally at home in both worlds and able to instill that sensitivity with whomever she collaborates. 

Last year in the Shepherd you drew a line from Beethoven’s 9th Symphony to Mahler’s 2nd Symphony. Is this line now extended backward in time to Bach’s Magnificat? 

When I first became music director, here we immediately discussed how it would be wonderful to expand the repertoire for our world class orchestra, and for the enjoyment of our audiences, not just in terms of the romantic period or music written by living composers, but also by looking to Bach, since his music has universal appeal and has been largely proprietary to early music ensembles. A modern-day symphony orchestra is comfortable and adapt in any style as our orchestra has shown many times. Perhaps above all, Bach’s music and the celebration of it is in service of a much greater hope, which is to connect with people throughout the city in different ways and for all ages. 

I read that Bach’s skillful use of dissonances between the tenor and alto voices in some of his compositions imparts an emotional depth to the music in a blues-like fashion. Is there any connection with MSO’s program the previous weekend entitled Nothing but the Blues?

(Laughing) I asked myself the same question. In actuality, like the blues perhaps, Bach always wrote music that was deeply cognizant of its time, the difficulties challenges and the individual and communal pain that may have been experienced at any given time. He knew that music needed to be identifiable by each individual if it was going to then transport us to a level of redemption and healing. Like the blues, Bach’s music can be melancholic, somber and deeply probing of our soul, one of the reasons why his music was largely forgotten after he passed in the classical period, perhaps. Composers then tended to rarely use minor keys or overly complex harmonies or dissonances on a regular basis. 

Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra’s Bach Fest, March 22-24 at Bradley Symphony Center, will indeed be a celebration, a wonderful birthday party with a yummy cake prepared by the members of the orchestra, iced by Masur with sprinkles provided by harpsichordist Esfahani and the cherry on top by Baroque violinist Wong, the Grand Prize winner of the inaugural Lillian and Maurice Barbash J. S. Bach Competition.