It will be a very solemn moment at Leipzig’s annual Bachfest, for Koopman has finished his life’s work: recording all Bach’s cantatas! Volume 22 is probably already available in the shops. He won’t stop, of course: on his website he announces that he will start recording Bach’s latin churchmusic.
Paul Witteman, a Dutch journalist,TV presenter,writer and classical music connaisseur wrote a mildly ironic column in “De volkskrant”. He describes Koopman as a workaholic who never stops exploring and learning from obscure documents in church archives and libraries. For he is not only a musician but also a man of science and is never satisfied with easy answers.
In a recent lecture ,Koopman mentiones the Dutch translation of the Matthaeus Passion (“Our language, Dutch, hurts the music” – but that performance is a commercial succes in the Low Countries!!) and he is pitiless in condemning Bach performances without “a real choir” . (Joshua Rifkin, Jan Van Veldhoven/Dutch Bach society etc).
For Willem Mengelberg and his quasi Wagnerian interpretations, he has,surprisingly, a soft spot…”Before WW2 people perceived and listened differently to music .And they watched paintings differently aswell .Take those horrendous Vermeer falsifications by Han Van Meegeren.Nowadays,we can hardly understand that they were seen as authentic, but then (ca 1920-1930) Vermeer was perceived in a totally different way.” Koopman claims that the influence of jazz and popmusic, has sharpened our feeling for rythm – there is more attention to rythm in Baroque music .
And ,yes, even after all those years working on the cantatas, he still thinks that BWV 127 “Herr Jesu Christ, Wahr’Mensch und Gott” is the most beautiful….The opening chorus ,with intertwining flutes, oboes and strings ,of an incredible beauty.
Here is that infamous work by Van Meegeren and a real Vermeer to recover again!
