Bach: Cantata No. 51 “Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen” / Gustav Leonhardt
This is one of the two cantatas in the Complete Bach Cantata Collection that does not feature a boy soprano. This is a solo cantata for soprano. The first aria is a gorgeous piece where the coloratura soprano plays a big role in the dialogue with the trumpet. It may be certainly too much for a boy to sing. After the recitative, the third aria, “Hochster, mache deine Gute” is a beautiful piece with gentle basso continuo passages and a melancholy soprano melody. The chorale in the fourth piece is just like a trio sonata with two violins. The soprano adds the melody of the chorale to it. It is reminiscent of a choral prelude for organ. The last piece, “Alleluja,” is seamlessly connected to the chorale. The trumpet and soprano again compete in difficult passages in this difficult piece. In the first and last movements, the soprano is required to play a high C at one point each, the first time at the end of the scale and the second time at the leap. Cantata No. 51 is performed by Aksel Rykkvin and is available on YouTube. This time I’ll introduce another performer Clint Van der Linde.
The final movement “Alleluja” was found on YouTube performed by Aksel Rykkvin.
Because of the difficulty of performing this cantata, it has often been speculated that it was written for a female soprano, but there is no hard evidence. The most likely natural conclusion is that it was sung by one of the extra best boy sopranos in the the “Thomanerchor”. This is just my guess, but it seems to me that if Leonhardt and Harnoncourt had worked on their complete cantata cycle at a time when they had these two boy sopranos, they probably would not have used a female soprano. #baroque #bach #cantata #片山俊幸
