Songs for the Dead
Photo by Tushar Wahab
Two pillars of their ages – Bach and Glass. Actus Tragicus, Bach’s sublimely beautiful funeral cantata for 4 voices, 2 recorders, 2 violas da gamba and continuo is transformed in harmonious euphony. And scenes from Phillip Glass’ monumental opera Akhnaten, set in death-obsessed ancient Egypt. Members of The Song Company and The Marais Project merge with Thoroughbass to present these deeply profound works.
Anna Fraser – soprano, Lanneke Wallace-Wells – mezzo soprano, John Longmuir – tenor, Mark Donnelly – bass
Alicia Crossley – recorders, Jo Arnott – recorder, drums, Jennifer Eriksson – viola da gamba’ Cathy Upex – viola da gamba, Angus Ryan – cello, bass voice, Diana Weston – Harpsichord
SUNDAY, 6TH MARCH, 2011 AT 2.30PM
Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit, BWV 106 (1707), also known as Actus Tragicus, was written when Bach was only 22 years old. Nevertheless, the Bach stamp is undoubtedly present, the work as profound as any he later produced. It could have been intended as a memorial to his uncle, Tobias Lämmerhirt who left him some money. The work is of the old church cantata type, the text formed from biblical extracts and hymns. The instrumentation – 2 recorders, 2 violas da gamba and continuo, is unique in Bach’s output.
Bach’s text starts by acknowledging the presence of God in death, he who determines our fate. He proceeds to remind us of the inevitability of death, and the need to prepare for that event. Having determined that, he provides comfort and spiritual succour. The work is completed with a song to the glory of God and the Holy Trinity.
Akhnaten (1983) is the third opera in Philip Glass’s trilogy based on people who changed the world by the power of their thinking (the others are Einstein on the Beach and Satyagraha (Ghandi)). The pharaoh Akhnaten imposes monotheistic worship of the sun on his people, displacing and destroying all other gods, including the eradication of all figurative and written mention of their names. Revolutionary in his ideology, his differentness is immediately obvious in his physical appearance. He is neither male nor female – he is both. Depictions show him to have had enlarged thighs, hips and buttocks and prominent breasts. His wife is Nefertiti, his mother Tye. He is also married (in essence) to his mother. Her influence on him is profound, her power immense.Tensions within the opera thus arise from multiple sources – from Akhnaten’s hatred of his (never-seen) father Amonhotep III (Oedipal in nature), from his (incestuous) love for his mother, from the interconnectedness between Akhnaten, his wife and his mother, from his religious fervour, and from ultimate destruction.
Three ‘scenes’ from the opera are presented (not in order)
The Window of Appearances
Like the pope waving to the masses from his window in the Vatican, the royal family (Akhnaten, Nefertiti, Tye and their children) appear. We can see they are there, but the picture is incomplete – we only have glimpses of reality. The three main characters appear – first Akhnaten, then Akhnaten and Tye, then Aknaten and Nefertiti, each pulling him towards themselves, surrounding him, finally enveloping him in an impenetrable triangle. Sharing with him his ardour for the new religion, they join in an exquisite song extolling the manifold bounties of creation as manifestations of the power of Aten.
Hymn to the Sun
For the first and only time, the text moves away from archaic Egyptian, which has produced a music of its own, to more direct communication in English. Glass signals in this way that this is the most significant event of the opera. Indeed, in his own words: ‘I wanted it (the Hymn) to affect the listener in a special way. The Hymn contains the kernels of Akhnaten’s thought…..I wanted to create the effect of entering Akhnaten’s mind.’ Through both song and text, Akhnaten achieves transcendence.
The Funeral of Amenhotep III
Akhnaten’s father Amenhotep III is dead. The funeral procession accompanies the bound body to the barque which is to transport the dead pharaoh across the Nile – from the Eastern bank (the City), where the sun rises, to the Western bank where the sun sets, and where the dead kings are laid in their monumental temples of death. Ritual, procession and a relentless gathering of power and movement characterise this scene, telling of the glory of the dead king but also presaging ominous changes.