CD ECM Records Hilliard Ensemble - J.S. Bach: Morimur

2001

Christoph Poppen - vioara
The Hilliard Ensemble
Monika Mauch - soprana
David James - contratenor
John Potter - tenor
Gordon Jones - bariton



In music of the baroque era it was popular to use the medium of numbers for conveying secrets and riddles, and Bach studies have illuminated many new 'meanings' in his sacred works. Now 'Morimur' explores the coded references, and hidden messages in his solo violin music, opening a window on Bach's thought at a time when he was deeply affected by the sudden and tragic death of his wife, Maria Barbara, in 1720. Building on the research of Professor Helga Thoene, violinist Christoph Poppen and the Hilliard Ensemble have realised a unique project for ECM New Series: They offer a stunning experience by interweaving the verses of the 'hidden chorales' of the Ciaccona with Bach's harmonically complex violin part.

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Recording of the Month, Stereophile
Stern des Monats, Fono Forum

You are about to hear one of the world’s greatest and best-known pieces in a completely new light. Indeed, you may be about to change your view of the composer whom the entire musical world reveres above all others: Johann Sebastian Bach. The work is the Partita in D Minor for solo violin, and the person responsible for what seems set to be a thorough revision of Bach and his music is a German musicologist by the name of Helga Thoene. The radicality of the rethink Thoene’s work requires is matched by the excitement her discoveries bring. ... Thoene has discovered the presence of a multitude chorales shot through the textures of the Sonatas and Partitas. ... The German violinist Christoph Poppen and the Hilliard Ensemble have just recorded the Partita and “its” chorales on a CD entitled Morimur, for the Munich-based label ECM, presenting the music first separately, and then combining the violin and voices. The effect is stunning. The Chaconne in this new incarnation is one of the most moving things I have heard in years – spookily so, since what you are now hearing hasn’t been heard since the thoughts passed through Bach’s mind. You are, in effect, eavesdropping on the greatest mind in musical history from inside Bach’s own head.
Martin Anderson, Fanfare

Whether the new meanings the project has unpacked would survive in a stand-alone performance, it seems as though Poppen’s Chaconne at least could suggest this new psychological world reasonably well all by itself. Throughout, the Hilliard Ensemlbe sings with great warmth and ethereal purity of intonation. They appear close-up (as does Poppen), so much so that their initial breaths are clearly audible; but the venue (the Monastery of St. Gerold in Austria) and engineering create a warm, richly reverberant ambiance. The opening and closing of the programm bring violin and voices together in two breathtaking moments: “Auf meinen lieben Gott” and the Chaconne, the latter bearing in this second playing the full weight of the program’s meaning. ... Morimur amounts to a whole greater than the sum of its original parts; for the sake of that whole, few listeners should object to the rearrangement of Bach’s materials or to the addition of vocal glosses to the Chaconne. Very warmly recommended, whatever a listener’s opinion of numerology.
Robert Maxham, Fanfare

Morimur contains more than enough profound art and music to qualify it for “Recording of the Month”, even “Recording of the Year”. The Hilliard Encemble is its usual perfect, impeccable self. It took me exactly two seconds to get used to hearing these well-known chorales performed by only four singers in a nonstandard complement of soprano, countertenor, tenor, and baritone. Newcomer Monika Mauch blends effortlessly with the three men, and the quartet’s control of entrance, attack, dynamics, and general interpretation seem almost suprahuman. I doubt if these chorales have ever been sung with greater artistry, poise, or a more perfectly placed reverence. But my primary reason for returning again and again to Morimur is Christoph Poppen.
Richard Lehnert, Stereophile

One of the starting points of the CD is a theory developed by Helga Thoene, that there are a number of chorale tunes buried in the texture of the Ciaconna. Her analysis is certainly plausible, and the chorale tunes sung to the Ciaconna make musical sense, but the texture is sufficiently complex to mean that it is impossible to be sure. If Bach were merely a musical puzzle setter, that is where the matter would rest. But Morimur is not simply a musical crossword: the performers explore something of Bach’s inner journey. In particular, they explore something of his journey with death, in an age when many children didn’t survive childhood, when people died young, and Bach himself had become an orphan by his early teens. Most tellingly, in the summer of 1720 Bach had been away with his patron for three months, and returned to be greeted with the news that his wife, whom he had left in good health, had died, and been buried a week before. The D minor violin Partita seems to have been written a short time afterwards. In that context it is no surprise to allusions to chorales associated with death and resurrection peppering the Ciaconna. It is reasonable to ask whether Bach meant these chorale tunes ever to be sung, or whether they were simply things floating more or less consciously in his mind as he wrote. However, in taking us through the partita, and relevant chorales, the Hilliard and Christoph Poppen take the listener on a journey which is entirely consistent with the images of Bach’s approach to death and resurrection found in the cantatas that it rings true, and is profoundly moving.
Mark Argent, Early Music News