Knut Nystedt: Immortal Bach

What if you could recompose your favorite J.S. Bach piece?  What parts of the piece would you play around just to see what it would sound like, because you hear it a certain way when you listen to it?

What if you could keep Bach's timeless music from decomposing?

Knut Nystedt's 1988 work, Immortal Bach, attempts precisely that.  Surprise!  The harmonization parades itself as a classic isometric chorale setting by the composer as of cantata finale movements, but the original is a solo voice and continuo setting included in Georg Christian Schemelli's Gesangbuch of 1736.

Original.  Not kidding.

Supplying a four-part harmonization for the first three phrases, you would think the composer had revived Bach enough to make Felix Mendelssohn click the "like" button.

Not so!  There's more!


The instructions for the chorale set it apart, and make music theory lovers like myself shiver with joy.  In performance, all vocalists sing the first chord for 4 seconds, then progress at different rates - some continue at 4 seconds per quarter notes, but others for 6, 8, 10, or 12 seconds.  Once the first group reaches the cadential chord, they wait until everyone else resolves to it, and release together.  The same procedure applies to the rest of the phrases - things get very interesting sonorically with the eighth-note passing tones.  Depending on the recording, the chorale may be sung before (Nystedt) or after (which I prefer for better contrast).

Come, sweet death;
Come, blessed rest;
Come, lead me in peace!


Just when it seems like nothing can get better than 18th-century counterpoint, someone adds a spatula and kaleidoscopes all of the harmonic possibilities so we can hear them.

I wonder what text-painting the composer has in mind?

Recording:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pftYqg6iyvQ