Video transcript
Festival of Instrumental Music 2022 - Recorder repertoire - 02. Cantata 147

[intro music]

SUSAN SUKKAR: My name is Susan Sukkar, and I work at the Arts Unit. And for 'Cantata 147', I'm going to be playing the solo descant part.

HANS-DIETER MICHATZ: My name is Hans-Dieter Michatz, and I've been teaching at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and with Symphonia Jubilate. I'll be playing the descant 1 one part.

MIKAELA SUKKAR: My name is Mikayla Sukkar, and I teach at Petersham Public School, Ashbury Public School, and Ride East Public School. And I'll be playing the descant 2 part.

ALICIA CROSSLEY: My name's Alicia Crossley from Birchgrove Public School. And I'll be playing the treble recorder part.

TRACY BURJAN: My name's Tracy Burjan, and I work at Concord West Public School and Senfronia Jubilate. And today, I'll be playing the tenor part.

DANIEL MURPHY: My name is Daniel Murphy, and I teach at Stratford South Public School. And today, I'll be playing the bass recorder part.

CATHERINE DAVIS: My name is Catherine Davis. And I play with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. And I'll be playing the piano part.

[music - johann sebastian bach, 'cantata 147']

SUSAN SUKKAR: Now we come to the section where we demonstrate some of the tricky spots for you in Cantata 147. And we're going to start with Hans talking about the descant 1 part and some general principles that you can apply to your recorder playing.

HANS-DIETER MICHATZ: Thank you, Susan. Well, this piece is really quite easy to play for you all I just want to make a few points that make it even better when you try. You can tell that the piece is basically about making a good sound. So, I would advise that you don't blow too hard and try to make the best sound you can, especially when you get to really extreme notes, like the very low notes you have to play.

[recorder playing]

They will not work if you blow too hard, of course. We all know that. And I'd probably say, rather speak a 'doo' than a 'too' into your recorder, so it doesn't shove too much and the sound just squeaks. Another one is at letter E, make sure that on the G sharp, you've got that finger down here on the half hole. Because, otherwise, it will be very out of tune. And then also, at bar 54, there's a rhythm that's a little bit tricky because you have to hold them in long enough.

[recorder playing]

That's the main thing. If you need extra breath-- but you can have a competition about getting through all the phrases without breathing-- if you need an extra breath, never breathe on the bar line, but choose another note to breathe after. Especially, the long ones are good because you can make them a little bit shorter and then breathe after it. That's it for descant 1.

MIKAELA SUKKAR: Now, looking at descant 2. So, we have a couple of tricky spots. If we first look at bar 52, all the way to bar 55, we'll see that our rhythms are, first, minimum crotchet, minimum crotchet. And then it changes. We have a crotchet, than a minim. So, just be careful there not to continue the same rhythm that we're used to, but to change it and first play a crotchet at bar 54, and then a minim.

If we look down at figure H, we'll notice that we no longer have the melody like we do at the beginning, and we now are playing a harmony. So, the descant 2 part can be really brought out there. It can be really strong and beautiful-sounding. And maybe spend a little bit extra time learning those notes because they're new and we haven't played this tune before in this piece. That's it.

ALICIA CROSSLEY: For the treble part, most of the time, we'll be playing along the same sort of melody as the bass recorder part. So, if you have both trebles and basses it's good for them to listen to each other because they're playing the same melody a lot of the time in this piece.

For the treble recorder part, a good part to focus on is letter E. So, you'll see most of the play through this Cantata, we're playing F sharps. In E, we now revert to F natural, so thumb and second finger on. And you also have your high A, so which is the same as low A, half thumb. Make sure your thumb's not with the fingernail gouging in. We just vent slightly. And it shouldn't be off as well. So, for your high A there. And you want, just as Hans was saying before, a nice doo, doo, doo, doo, for the articulation on that little quaver run.

[recorder playing]

So, nice and smooth. So, we don't want it staccato, just nice and smooth as if we were singing it.

TRACY BURJAN: With the tenor part, let's have a little look at letter H. As in the descant 2 part, we have minim, crotchet, crotchet, minim. And remember to always breathe after the minim because our tenor part has some quite long phrases. And we need a little bit of breath, extra breath, to play the tenor. At the very end, we have a C sharp. So, for C sharp, it's like A, but take your thumb off to play that C sharp. So, that little ending goes.

[recorder playing]

And that's it for the tenor part.

DANIEL MURPHY: And in the bass part, if you have a look at letter A, we're starting with a low G, up to a high F sharp, so go to interval the 7th. That same thing happens again at letter C, At H, it changes. We're going from low G to high G, so from low G to high G. The second last part, just like the tenor, we have a C sharp. And on bass, that's 1, 2, 1, 2, and 1/2 at the bottom. That's it for the base.

SUSAN SUKKAR: Thank you, everybody. That was really terrific. So, this piece, generally, needs to be very legato and contable, which means in a singing style, so long phrases and beautiful sound. That's what we're aiming for.