Santu De Silva to Juozas Rimas:

>try "Mache dich mein Herze rein," a Bass solo towards the end, and "Ich
>will dir mein Herze schenken,"(sp?) a Sporano aria about a third of the
>way through (...) the choruses are definitely more arresting, but the way
>Bach wrote arias, they're the closest thing to instrumental writing with
>voice that you can find in the Baroque repertoire, as most people seem to
>agree, unofficially.

I don't agree.  It's true that many people seem to agree to this idea, but
I can't see why.  Bach's vocal writing is far from the instrumental, much
more than Haendel's.  See, for example, "Ev'ry Valley shall be Exalted" or
"Rejoice Greatly" (Messiah).  They are almost "concerti" for solo voices.
'Au contraire', "Mache dich mein Herze rein" (St.  Matthew's Passion)
doesn't need a great vocal technique to be sung (of course, notice that I
didn't write "to be well sung"), nor "Ich will dir mein Herze Schenken".

Pablo Massa
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