ELIN MANAHAN THOMAS ON RECORDING ALLES MIT GOTT (6 Oct 2005)

The soprano Elin Manahan Thomas talks to Simon Baker about making the first ever recording of Bach’s Alles mit Gott…

Can you tell me about the discovery of Alles mit Gott and how you came to be involved in making the first recording of it?

As far as I know Alles mit Gott was discovered by Michael Maul in June of this year in a shoe box in Weimar. I think that he had been looking for something else when he found it amidst two hundred pages of folio. Having discovered the words he then found the music. I only found out about it when John Eliot asked me if I would like to sing the solo on the premiere recording.

It is scored for soprano solo, strings and continuo.



Is this the first new piece of Bach to be discovered since 1935?

I think that it might be. It is certainly the first vocal piece to be discovered in a very long time, but how brilliant that it happens to be for soprano!

When did you first see the score and what was it like singing it for the first time?

I didn’t get the score until the week before because it took some time to get it from the Leipzig Archive. For understandable reasons they didn’t want to let it out of their sight because of copyright and all that. I had to sign an affidavit that I wouldn’t photocopy it, I wouldn’t show it to anyone, I wouldn’t sing it on the street. I got my own copy through the post about the week before we recorded it.

It has got twelve verses so my instinctive reaction was “Oh my God that’s long.” We only recorded three of them, so it’s not quite so long. It is a brilliant piece. Singing it through my first reaction was “Oh what a happy piece.” It is very upbeat. It is quite high in a soprano’s range which is really nice. It is just a nice free easy going fun piece. It feels like a birthday ode. It is very optimistic.

What can you tell us about the music and text of Alles mit Gott?

The text is liturgical. Alles mit Gott und nichts ohn ihn: Everything with God and nothing without him. Each verse carries on in that vein. It is a strophic piece. It was written to celebrate the birthday of Wilhelm Ernst, Prince of Saxony.

There are twelve verses which come out at about four minutes long each, as there is a beautiful string ritornello at the end of each vocal strophe. Like the style of Ich will dir mein Herz schenken in the Matthew Passion, it has got that real dancey feeling to it.

How does it compare with Bach’s other solo soprano sacred cantatas?

It is not a virtuosic display of vocal technique, however because it is strophic it is different from everything else that I have ever done by Bach, apart from the early hymnal stuff, which actually I grew up on because my dad used to play me that at home on the piano. So it is really strange, because for me, it is a bit like going back in time to before I discovered the Matthew Passion.

My dad sat in on the recording so he was just in heaven. It was brilliant!

Alles mit Gott is very simple, very honest and very heartfelt.

You obviously like it very much but what should we, as listeners, listen out for?

I think that it is a tune that you will go away humming. I still hum it now and that is quite unusual for Bach. My fiancé Bob hums it round the house too, and that says a lot! It has a definite pattern to it which I think is quite a happy pattern. The ritornello with the strings at the end is really lovely. As a piece, it is triumphant yet quite light and jolly. It’s a piece to put a smile on your face.

You are of course no stranger to performing and recording as a soloist with John Eliot but was recording Alles mit Gott different from your previous projects working with him and the English Baroque Soloists?

Yes, it was very different. It was very exciting. Turning up and knowing that you are the first people to play and record this new piece of Bach, and that it is entirely up to us. We are actually making music and putting this piece together for the first time. There are no precedents.

People will come to it with absolutely fresh ears. They won’t know what to expect. It is not that they can’t or shouldn’t have expectations- that is not a fair way of saying it- but they can’t expect something else, which is a really lovely feeling.

It was great doing it with John Eliot because we were all discovering it together. We did it at a slightly higher pitch, at the Weimar pitch, so that was different too.

It was great fun. For everyone it was a really happy day. Everyone thought, “This is new. This is going somewhere.” Part of me was also wondering if ‘he’ was listening. Sitting tapping his foot on the floor and saying, “It is faster than that!”

How does it feel to be part of history?

Really exciting. Especially as it is Bach, because I really did grow up on Bach. I think of his chorales as a major part of my upbringing and hymn singing. The Matthew Passion was the first piece that I ever did when I was 14 years old. I just love Bach. I adore him. You can find a piece of music in Bach for every thought. So to find a new piece, when not even one musician can say they have exhausted Bach’s emotions and moods already, is just astonishing.

I am really excited about it coming out. I just hope that people like it. There is nothing to dislike but I hope that it doesn’t fall on slightly deaf ears because I think that it really is a great piece and it should be done lots.

Do you think that there are other undiscovered Bach masterpieces hidden in the Anna Amalia Library and elsewhere?

I am going to go and dig up their drainpipes and find out! There must be. Surely there must be. If you can go through two hundred pages of folio and find words and words and more words. There just must be music for it. Obviously in an ideal world we are about to stumble across his one and only opera or even his first opera of many. If there are any more though I would like them all to be for soprano!

What else can we look forward to seeing you and hearing you in soon, and when can we hear you perform Alles mit Gott live?

For John Eliot I am doing a Midsummer Night’s Dream by Mendelssohn, which is a bit scary. I am also doing Cantata 151 Süßer Trost, mein Jesus kommt for him at Christmas.

The British premiere of Alles mit Gott is on 18th December in Cadogan Hall, London.

I am also releasing my debut solo disc at Christmas too, which is very exciting. It’s a collection of ever so slightly ‘mad’ songs- Ophelia, Mignon and modern pieces by Judith Weir and Richard Rodney Bennett. It is very exciting.

Then there’s a tour with John Eliot and I’m getting married in February!

To buy Alles mit Gott now click here.

The Edge of Reason will be released from mid November 2005 on Pasticcio, available from www.pasticcio.co.uk