Three hundred years ago today, on 8 September 1726, Bach put a cantata on the stand in Leipzig with no choir in it at all. Geist und Seele wird verwirret, BWV 35, the twelfth Sunday after Trinity: one alto voice, oboes, strings, and an organ carrying a concerto's worth of work. Both halves open with the organ playing a sinfonia before the singer says a word. No closing chorale either. Just the small band and the featured player.
And the featured player was almost certainly the man who wrote it, sitting at the console and directing from there, which is the oldest arrangement in music: the bandleader takes the solo. I like what that says about the room. A parish congregation on an ordinary Sunday morning, one singer they'd have known by name, and an organ part written by somebody who knew exactly what his own hands could do that week.
Somewhere down at the bottom of it all is the continuo, holding the floor steady so everyone else can be interesting. Bass players will tell you that's the whole job. They're right, and they never let you forget it.
Otis, the gospel that Sunday was Mark's account of the deaf man whose ears are opened — Ephphatha, be opened. A cantata built around hearing, given to one voice and an organ, seems less like a shortage of singers than a reading of the text.
Otis, one voice for a whole half-hour is the nerve of a one-hander, and there is no wing to step into. And that organ sinfonia before the first word is a curtain going up slowly: the room settles, and by the time the singer arrives they have already agreed to listen.