Great Bach Choir

To many pious German devotees of Johann Sebastian Bach, the singing of the St. Thomas Church Choir in Leipzig, East Germany, is the voice of Holy Writ. The choir school, attached to Leipzig's famed Evangelical Lutheran Thomaskirche, proudly points to J. S. Bach's service as its cantor for 27 years (1723 to 1750), has long constituted itself chief guardian of his music. Last week the 80-boy choir made a sortie from behind the Iron Curtain. Occasion: the Bach Festival at Ansbach, West Germany. Critical verdict: St. Thomas' parade-drilled ten-to-18-year olds can still sing Bach with a precision and authority rarely equaled by any other choir in the world.

The St. Thomas Choir soared through three Bach motets, developing the counterpoint with the honed accuracy of an efficient cable-weaving machine. Under the conducting of Kurt Thomas, 53, who made his debut as the group's cantor (i.e., choirmaster) only four months ago, the tone was rich and powerful, the movement of sound clear and regular. An audience of 2,000 Bach lovers gave Thomas and his singers an ovation.

Prosperity & Poverty. The St. Thomas Choir bears roughly the musical relationship to the more widely publicized Vienna Boys Choir that the Boston Symphony does to the Boston Pops. St. Thomas was founded in 1212 by local decree (signed by one Dietrich the Oppressed), and long before Bach took it over, the choir was known throughout Europe. Bach, the 15th St. Thomas cantor, persistently complained about his teaching chores, fought a running battle with the school administration, nevertheless managed to compose enough church cantatas for one to be sung every Sunday for five years without repeating. Few St. Thomas cantors have ever made a serious stab at composing since. The post still carries great prestige (and pays handsomely: $25,000 a year).

The East zone Communists have showered the choir with state prizes and given its directors a free musical hand. Every year 2,000 or so applicants stream into Leipzig for tryouts. Choir members still rehearse five hours a day, learn a new Bach cantata each week, give three public concerts every weekend. State-supported now, the school has at various times been so poor that it was kept going only by flying squads of choristers who wandered through the city singing for alms.

Performance & Tradition. The St. Thomas Choir has sometimes been criticized on the grounds that its stringent interpretations strip Bach's music of emotion. The more lyrical school of Bach interpreters--including Karl Richter of the Munich Bach Choir and U.S. Harpsichordist Ralph Kirkpatrick--insist that Bach should be played more dynamically. "Thomas performs Bach," says one critic; ''Richter celebrates him." Actually, Cantor Thomas is a more venturesome man than some of his predecessors at Leipzig. After Bach's death, says the 28th cantor of the 15th, his music was almost completely forgotten until Mendelssohn discovered and revived it 75 years later. By that time the thread of succession was broken (Bach, in the custom of his time, rarely wrote into his scores any indications of tempo or dynamics). But Cantor Thomas believes that performance is more important than tradition. "Musicologists are constantly making new discoveries," he says. "We can only get a just interpretation by assimilating all this material--and even then, we can only hope."

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