It's totally different when you can actually follow what's going on. The text hangs together very well, unlike many of the Bach cantatas. And the performance itself was top-notch. There wasn't a dry eye in the church during the chorale:
Wenn ich einmal soll scheiden,I just wanted to hug Opera Guy during this chorale. But the easy availability of culture, and of cultured people, is something I really like about Germany. Opera Guy is a particularly cultured guy, but there is more where that came from.
so scheide nicht von mir,
wenn ich den Tod soll leiden,
so tritt du denn herfür!
Wenn mir am allerbängsten
wird um das Herze sein,
so reiß mich aus den Ängsten
kraft deiner Angst und Pein!
I grew up in the southwest suburbs of Chicago, where culture is something that you hide in the back of the sock drawer. (I used to go on long car rides in order to get time to myself to listen to Beethoven.) There's the Chicago of the Chicago Symphony, the Lyric Opera, the Art Institute, a great avant-garde restaurant scene, theatre, and incredible diversity in sexual and gender expression. That was not the Chicago where I grew up. I grew up six miles south of Midway airport. There were decent Italian food and cable TV. That was it. My church (a normal Catholic church) and my high school (an all boys Catholic high school) had no choir except for one guy.
My parents are an open minded sort--in fact they're great people--but this type of stuff just isn't on their radar screen. I dragged them to a Handel concert once and they thought it was agonizing. So the easy availability of culture...people who are not afraid of it and have some serious Sitzfleisch...are something I really like about Germany.
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