Composer: Johann Ludwig Bach (1677–1731)
Work: Trauermusik
Performers: Anna Prohaska, soprano; Ivonne Fuchs, contralto; Maximilian Schmitt, tenor; Andreas Wolf, bass; RIAS Kammerchor; Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin; Hans-Christoph Rademann, conductor
Label: Harmonia Mundi
Catalog Number: HMC902080
Format: CD / Download
Release Date: January 31, 2011
Runtime: 77 minutes
Recording Type: DDD
Johann Ludwig Bach is one of those composers whose surname guarantees attention while his actual music remains comparatively neglected. That makes this Harmonia Mundi recording of Trauermusik especially welcome, because it presents him not as a footnote to the greater Bach dynasty but as a composer of genuine stature. Performed by the RIAS Kammerchor, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, and a well-chosen team of soloists under Hans-Christoph Rademann, this 2011 release restores weight and dignity to a large-scale sacred score that deserves to be better known.
The first thing to say is that Trauermusik does not sound like a curiosity. It sounds like a serious, fully imagined ceremonial work. Harmonia Mundi describes it as Johann Ludwig Bach’s most ambitious surviving composition, and the music bears that out in its scale, its formal variety, and its clear sense of devotional architecture. Running 77 minutes, it unfolds in multiple parts with choruses, chorales, recitatives, arias, and duets, creating an experience that feels at once meditative and public-facing, intimate and ceremonial.
Rademann’s performance is admirable for its sense of proportion. He does not overdramatize the work, nor does he treat it as a museum piece. Instead, he lets the music breathe. The larger choral movements have breadth and gravity, but they never feel immobile. The more inward solo passages are given room to register emotionally without being sentimentalized. This balance is crucial in a funeral work, where excessive weight can deaden the music just as surely as excessive polish can drain it of feeling.
The RIAS Kammerchor is the backbone of the performance. The choir sings with impressive unanimity, textual clarity, and tonal discipline. In the grander sections they project solemnity without heaviness, and in the chorales they find a plainspoken devotional strength that gives the work much of its emotional center. The choral singing never calls attention to itself for superficial effect; it serves the music’s structure and rhetoric with intelligence.
Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin provides playing of elegance and character. The instrumental contribution here is not merely supportive. It enlarges the expressive world of the piece, shading the vocal writing with dark color where needed and opening the texture toward consolation in other moments. The ensemble’s period-instrument sonority gives the score a welcome transparency, allowing Johann Ludwig Bach’s craftsmanship to come through cleanly.
The soloists are uniformly strong. Anna Prohaska’s soprano brings brightness and poise, while Ivonne Fuchs contributes warmth and inwardness. Maximilian Schmitt sings with a pleasing directness, and Andreas Wolf anchors the lower register with authority and steadiness. What is particularly satisfying is the way these singers function not as star turns imposed on the work, but as parts of a carefully integrated whole. The track listing itself reflects the score’s varied design, moving fluidly between recitative, aria, duet, chorale, and chorus.
No, this is not a lost St Matthew Passion, and it does the music no favors to suggest that it is. Its strengths lie elsewhere: noble construction, sincere feeling, and an impressive command of ceremonial sacred style. Johann Ludwig Bach proves here that he was capable of writing music with real dramatic instinct and spiritual seriousness. That alone makes the disc worthwhile. The fact that the performance is this polished and persuasive makes it more than worthwhile; it makes it necessary listening for anyone curious about the wider Bach family or the richness of early eighteenth-century German sacred music.
For a blog devoted to recordings off the beaten path, this release has obvious appeal. It combines musicological interest with genuine musical reward. More importantly, it never feels dutiful. This is not a disc to admire from a distance. It is one to play, absorb, and return to.
