Next in my series of Bach cantatas is BWV 106, the funeral cantata Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit (also known as the Actus Tragicus). The cantata opens with a “sonatina” which contains a truly moving and beautiful line played by two recorders. This moves straight into the great movement 2a chorus of “Gottes Zeit.” The movement 2b tenor arioso features more lovely downtrodden recorder playing. Movement 2c is a short bass aria but more upbeat – the recorders continue to shine. Movement 2d is an arioso with chorus. Movement 3a is a somewhat long alto aria with viola da gamba accompaniment, that moves into the movement 3b arioso/chorale with the same accompaniment. The closing movement 4 chorale features the recorders again.

I own performances of this cantata from Gardiner, Leonhardt, and Suzuki. Gardiner and Leonhardt lump the cantata into four tracks, whereas Suzuki breaks up movements 2 and 3 into separate tracks. Suzuki opens slower than the rest, and both Gardiner and Leonhardt deliver excellent recorder playing. Leonhardt really tugs the listener’s strings in the movement 2 chorus, despite taking it a little slower than the rest. Suzuki gets some fine performances from his singers, but takes things a tad too slow and does not convey the weight that this cantata needs. It is tough to find any fault with Gardiner’s performance, but Leonhardt brings a little more emotion into the piece, except for the boy alto in movement 3.

Rating: 9 out of 10.

I have always disagreed with George Martin, the producer of the Beatles albums, when he tried to convince the Beatles not to release The White Album as a double album. He thought that not enough of the songs recorded during those sessions were worthy of release and the album would be better served by releasing it as a single record. I think this would have been a mistake. Sure, I could live without “Revolution #9,” but there are too many other great songs on The White Album to fit on a single long-playing record. If I am a big fan of a band or an artist, I want to listen to as much material as I can from that band or artist. It amazes me how good some albums of b-sides and leftovers are from such bands as Smashing Pumpkins or Oasis.

But if I am evaluating, critiquing, and reviewing music based solely on what has been lumped into one album, then Iron Maiden gets points deducted from some albums for having some lackluster material when they could have just as easily not released as many albums. As a fan, I think it is great that Iron Maiden released Piece of Mind in 1983 then Powerslave one year later. But when reviewing these albums 20 years after first hearing them, hindsight affords me the opportunity to opine that Iron Maiden could have made “the best heavy metal album of all time” if they had released the 4 best songs from Piece of Mind and the 4 best songs from Powerslave as one album. How about this track list for an album:

1. “Aces High”
2. “2 Minutes to Midnight”
3. “Where Eagles Dare”
4. “Revelations”
5. “Flight of Icarus”
6. “The Trooper”
7. “Powerslave”
8. “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”

I’m sure others would disagree, but in my mind that would have made the best heavy metal album ever. Having said all that, this is supposed to be a review of Powerslave. As you can tell from the track list above, four songs stand head and shoulders above the rest. “Aces High” starts off the album on a “high” note, and the album continues with “2 Minutes to Midnight” which is one of Iron Maiden’s most political songs, with its anti-war sentiment. I am not one to dismiss a song by a rock band just because it is an instrumental, but “Losfer Words” isn’t anything memorable. Neither are the next three songs on the album, which aren’t even worth mentioning. The song “Powerslave” is a great song, but even better is “Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” a 13 minute epic based on the poem of the same name by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” is one of my all time favorite songs. The story of a sailor who survives a nightmarish supernatural encounter with death forced to live out his days telling his tale, combined with the emotion of Bruce Dickenson’s vocals, Steve Harris’s trademark “galloping” bass line, and a haunting middle section make for a song like none other.

Based on the strength of only 4 songs, Powerslave still receives high marks. That’s how good those four songs are.

Rating: 8 out of 10.

I start my series of Bach cantata reviews with BWV 80, Ein’ feste Burg ist unser Gott. The opening chorus of is one of the great choruses of the Baroque. Movement 2 has a good driving string line over the bass aria w/chorus. Movement 4 is an unimpressive soprano aria. Movement 5 features the return of the opening chorale but with different and driving instrumental accompaniment. Movement 7 is a tenor/alto duet with accompanying oboe da caccia but is nothing special. The cantata closes with a straight chorale.

I have heard several performances of this cantata, and own CDs by Rifkin, Gardiner, and one from a set called “Enjoyment of Music.” Rifkin’s one-per-part philosophy robs this cantata of its true power and majesty. Gardiner is not as powerful in this cantata as I would have expected him to be and underplays most movements except the chorus in movement 5. I wish I knew who performed on the Enjoyment of Music set: Richter? Werner? Herreweghe? Leppard? That is the best performance of the three.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10.

The approximately 200 cantatas written by Johann Sebastian Bach represent a crowning achievement not only in the history of Western music but as a work of any art ever created by mankind. While that may seem like high praise for music that was written mostly for Lutheran church services, to me Bach’s cantatas represent nothing more than pure, abstract music. I don’t speak German, and the mostly religious texts have little or no meaning to me, but the music itself speaks volumes. Bach’s cantatas contain the entire range of human spirit and emotion, from the life affirming chorus beginning Ein’ feste Burg ist unser Gott to the melancholy of the funeral cantata Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit to the lightheartedness of a story about a man trying to curb his daughters love for coffee in Schweigt stille, plaudert nicht. For me it doesn’t matter what the story or religious text is: it all represents music which can express more emotion and convey more meaning than any words can.

As with any art or music, I enjoy some of the Bach cantatas more than others. And in this blog, I plan on sharing those thoughts and ratings of the Bach cantatas that I have listened to. I primarily want to note brief thoughts about individual movements within each cantata, ignoring the recitatives. I have also found that different performances of a cantata can change my opinion of the music dramatically, so I will provide comparisons of performances that I have heard of the same cantata. The rating I provide represents my opinion of the overall impact of the composition as heard through the best performance that I have encountered.

I will admit that after first listening to We’re Only in It for the Money by Frank Zappa my exact response was “there goes 12 bucks I’ll never get back again.” It was one of the first Zappa albums I bought. I purchased it based on all of the positive reviews it received during the Rykodisc reissue around 1996. My first impression was that the album was simply too odd, with inane spoken sections and weird sounds at the end. But for some unknown reason, maybe because I didn’t want to admit that I had wasted 12 bucks, I did listen to the album again. Upon further listening, melodies stuck in my head, and the craziness actually started to become humorous. The more I listened to the album, the more brilliant it became. Standard song structures (“Who Needs the Peace Corps?”) mixed in with patches of dialog (“Telephone Conversation”) leading into brief songs that sound like they were written in the 1920s (“Bow Tie Daddy”) and Edgard Varèse style instrumental sections (“The Chrome Plated Megaphone of Destiny”) all somehow come together to create a work of art that is greater than the sum of its parts.

While most of the first half of the album is devoted to satirizing hippies and the Summer of Love, the second half contains what became the only true single from the album, the song “Let’s Make the Water Turn Black” about some unsavory habits of two of Zappa’s childhood acquaintances. Zappa’s answer to Sgt. Pepper’s reprise comes in the form of “What’s the Ugliest Part of Your Body?” and the melody of “Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance” features as the climax to Zappa’s next album, Lumpy Gravy (or is it phase 2 of We’re Only in It for the Money?).

While the references to hippies, flower power, and San Francisco in the late 1960s may seem dated, the music does not. The sense of humor and fun that comes through in the finished product lends a timeless quality to the record. We’re Only in It for the Money easily stands as one of Frank Zappa’s best albums, if not the best.

Rating: 9.5 out of 10.