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William L. Hoffman wrote (February 10, 2023):
This year, 2023, is a banner time for Bach scholarship, marking the 300th anniversary of Bach's debut as music director and cantor in Leipzig as he began to fulfill his calling of a "well-regulated church music to the glory of God," begun when he resigned as organist at the Mühlhausen St. Blasius Church on 25 June 1708 to take the post of organist at Weimar. There, in 1714, he began as concert master to compose monthly, mostly Sunday church cantatas (see BCW) as he mastered the art of concerto writing. In his next post as Capellmeister in Köthen (1718-23), Bach composed mostly dramatic vocal serenades and mastered the art of composing dance music suites, improvised chorales, and polyphonic composition to enhance his mastery of the cantata and oratorio (great cantata). In Leipzig he was responsible for presenting annually 60 church cantatas on Sundays (except the closed period of Advent and Lent) and feast days, which were the heart of his calling),1 as well as the annual Passion at Good Friday vespers. He also presented feast day oratorios, Latin Church music and motets, as well as sacred cantatas for the annual installation of the town council and for weddings and funerals.2
Bachfest Leipzig 2023
Recent publications and new resources from noted Bach scholarly entities reveal both a new understanding of Bach's sacred cantatas and suggestions for further Bach studies in the extant lacunae. Two important entities are the coming Bachfest Leipzig 2023 and the Carus Verlag observance involving the beginning of the tricentenary of Bach's sacred cantata compositions in Leipzig.3 This year, 1723, marks the tricentenary of the beginning of Bach's creative span of cantata composition in Leipzig through the third cycle (1725-27) where most of the librettists have been identified. Says Bachfest Leipzig 2023: <<When the 38-year-old Johann Sebastian Bach became Thomaskantor in the early summer of 1723, the »real purpose« of his life as he expressed it once in Mühlhausen, that of being in charge of »well-regulated church music to the glory of God«, for the first time became the focal centre of his work. And Bach delivered: during his first year in Leipzig, from the 1st Sunday after Trinity 1723 to the Feast of the Trinity 1724 in his first church-year cycle (Wikipedia), he performed exclusively his own works in the services in the churches of St. Thomas and St. Nicholas. In numbers: 63 cantatas on a total of 55 Sundays and feast days for which music was required. Of these, he composed 38 from scratch and another four using the »parody« technique. In 21 cases he presented older cantatas from his Weimar period, rearranged to a greater or lesser extent – while at the same time quite incidentally composing musical »eight-thousanders« such as the Magnificat or the St. John Passion>> (Source, Bachfest Leipzig 2023: Brochure: "BACH 1723: »SOLI DEO GLORIA« AT LAST").
New NBA Revised Edition Early Cantatas, Carus-Verlag Urtexts
Further research in the NBA Rev., New Edition of the Complete Works - Revised Edition, includes a forthcoming Peter Wollny study of Pre Weimar Cantatas BWV 21, 106, 131, 150 (BA 5940-01), as well as an earlier published NBA Rev. study of Andreas Glöckner, Weimar Cantatas BWV 31, 132, 143 (BA 5936-01). It is possible that Cantatas 143 and 21 contain materials that were originally composed for the Mühlhausen 1709, 1710 Town Council Cantatas, BWV 1138.1 (Bach Digital) and 1138.2 (Bach Digital). Besides the Neue Bach Ausgabe revised edition, another major work edition is Carus Verlag: Johann Sebastian Bach: The Sacred Vocal Music. Complete Edition in 23 volumes (Leinfelden-Echterdingen: Carus Verlag) Just completed is the authoritative cantata Urtext of the Stuttgart Bach Edition, including alternate versions, featuring completed editions of noted Bach experts and interpreters such as Pieter Dirksen, BWV 188, 197.1; Andreas Glöckner, BWV 247.2; Klaus Hofmann, BWV 80.3, 139, 157.2; Reinhold Kubik, 50, 181, 13; Ulrich Leisinger, 249.4, 58.2, 23.3, 172.3, 184.2, 82.3; Thomas Riegler, 163.2; Detlev Schulten, 192.1; Masaaki Suzuki, 160.1, 190.2; Uwe Wolf, BWV 132.2, 147.1; and Peter Wollny, notably the final Carus cantata vol. 16, BWV 190-200 (Issuu: 6-7/8).
In recent on-line and in-person presentations, leaders of the Bach Archiv-Leipzig (Wollny, Michael Maul, Christine Blanken), recently involved in BWV 3, have suggested that further research will be added electronically, such as the identification of further copyists and source materials, in addition to thematic approaches to the BachFest in Leipzig and the creation of special compositions that complement previous scholarly findings. A new feature of the Bachfest is the commissioning of contemporary works that strengthen the understanding of Bach's compositions. "But »BACH for Future« also means that we will not only be reverently looking back over 300 years of Bach’s music in its original venues, but also presenting it in new contexts, with a host of fantastic Bachfest debutants, diverse fresh new formats and many a surprising adaptation and reinterpretation of well-known works. For example, there’ll be a kind of Judas oratorio [Pasticcio, June 17] and a requiem by Bach," says Michael Maul, Bachfest director (Bach Fest Leipzig 2023: Brochure: The 2023 Festival Edition: Talk with the Artistic Director of the Bachfest Prof. Dr. Michael Maul). For example, Bachfest 2023 on 8 June will begin with Bach’s inaugural piece, the cantata »Die Elenden sollen essen« (»The poor shall eat«), BWV 75. The concert will include "a world premiere: Jörg Widmann’s reflection, composed specially for the anniversary, on the subject of BWV 75, the parable of poor Lazarus and the rich man: in other words, about the right relationship between rich and poor," says Michael Maul, Bachfest artistic director (see Bachfest Leipzig 2023: Brochoure: "Talk with the Artistic Director of the Bachfest Prof. Dr. Michael Maul"). Widmann, Eine Kantate für Soli, Chor und Orchester (Uraufführung eines Auftragswerkes), Verleihung der Bach-Medaille der Stadt Leipzig (A cantata for soloists, choir and orchestra (world premiere of a commissioned work) Awarded the Bach Medal by the City of Leipzig). The 8 June concert features the Thomanerchor Leipzig, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, diirector: Thomaskantor Andreas Reize. Also, "The Munich Bach Orchestra conducted by Hansjörg Albrecht has compiled six ›new Brandenburg Concertos‹, the instrumentation of which follows that of the original pieces," in concert on June 18. The new Bach Requiem on June 11 "using the parody technique to compile a modern requiem from individual movements from Bach cantatas" (Ibid.: 49) is called Requiem für Vokalquartett und Kammerorchester: J. S. Bach: Et Lux (Pasticcio aus Kantatensätzen von J. S. Bach), Text: Thomas Kunst, Konzept und Adaption: Julia Sophie Wagner und Jakob Lehmann.4
Current Bach Works Projects
"Well, I think that the 150 or more events over eleven days [at Bachfest 2023] will show us all one thing first and foremost: Bach’s 300-year-old music has truly not aged, the history of its reception is ›in flux‹. Where it comes from, what it can tell us today and how it can also shape our future – all these things will be explored at the 2023 Bachfest. Hopefully once again with numerous visitorfrom near and far. Welcome to the Bach city of Leipzig!," says Maul(Ibid.: 9). The commissioning follows in the spirit of various previous undertakings, such as the Orgelbüchlein Project to complete Bach's unfinished chorale preludes for the church year (Orgelbüchlein.co.uk). Other speculations about Bach's compositions include Morimur (EMI Records), a code realization of the implied chorales in Bach's Chaconne in the Violin Partita in D Minor, BWV 1004 (YouTube), Joseph James' Requiem After J. S. Bach framed by the Chromatic Fantasy in D Minor (YouTube), and Andre Isoir's Johann Sebastian Bach Te Deum and other chorales (Musicweb International). Another major effort has been the reconstruction of presumed original instrumental concertos, based upon extant manuscripts, most notably Bach's Harpsichord Concertos, BWV 1052-59. Best known among the second- and third-generation reconstructions is Bach's Double Concerto for Oboe and Violin, BWV 1060R (YouTube), based upon the Concerto for Two Harpsichords (YouTube), which still is not accepted in the new BWV 3rd edition (Breitkpof: Google Translatef: XXVIIII) but which will be performed at the Leipzig Bachfest on 10 June 1723. In the vocal works category are the reconstructions of Alexander Grychtolik, the St. Mark Passion, BWV 247; Köthen Funeral Music, BWV 1143=244a; and secular cantatas BWV 36a and 66a, 216a and 210a, and 205a and 249a (BCW). Diethard Hellmann (BCW) published reconstructions of Bach's Ärgre dich, o Seele, nicht, BWV 186a for the 3rd Sunday in Advent, Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied, BWV 190a and the Markus-Passion (BWV 247). Hellmann's reconstruction of Markus-Passion (BWV 247) has been recorded by several conductors (see: BWV 247 Markus Passion - Recordings). One of the first anthologies of Bach's works was conductor Hans Grischkat's Cantate: Vom Reiche Gottes (From the Kingdom of God), oratorio-style excerpts from 18 cantatas arranged from sorrow to joy (BWV 146 to 137).5 More recent is Richard T. Gore's Advent oratorio arrangement, J. S. Bach: Good Tidings of Great Joy (St. Louis MO: Concordia, 1970), from appropriate, Advent-related cantata movements (Amazon.com): BWV 101/5,7; 147/3/6; 30/1-3,6; 62/1,2; 36/7; 70/10-3,11; 151/1' 104/1; 132/5; 22/5; 63/5, 148/1, 29/8.6
Cantata Cycles 1, 2 Librettists
The most challenging research is to find the librettists of Bach's first and second church-year cantata cycles in Leipzig.7 The key may involve the structure of mini-cycles in the first cycle (1723-24), and the poetic devices of particular librettists in the second (1724-25) chorale cantata cycle, whose principal librettist is identified by Michael Hochgartz as Hamburg theologian and poet Johann Christoph Jauch.8 In all likelihood, Bach, as his predecessor cantors had done, relied for librettists on a Leipzig mixture of theologians such as pastors Christian Weiße Sr (1671-1736) and Salomon Deyling, local poets such as Picander and Christiane Mariane von Ziegler, students such as Christoph Birkmann (in the third cycle), and possibly professors at Leipzig University. Surprisingly, there has been only one study of Bach's librettists in English, with significant studies only of Christiane Mariane von Ziegler (BCW, 3rd cycle, 1725 Easter season: BWV 103, 108, 87, 128, 183, 74, 68, 175, 176).9 Another major gap in the understanding of Bach's creative endeavors are the min-cycles of works by other composers that Bach presented in Leipzig: Johann Ludwig Bach (substitute 1726, BCW, JLB 1-19), prolific Neumeister texts associated with Bach (BCW) set mostly in Weimar while several were misattributed to Bach instead of Telemann and possibly performed between 1725 and 1734 (BWV 142=Anh. II 23, 160=TVWV 1:877, 218=TVWV 1:634, 219=TVWV 1:1328, BWV Anh. 1=TVWV 1:617, BWV Anh. 156=TVWV 1:732), and in the mid-1730s, Bach presented one church cycle of cantatas by Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel, "Saiten-Spiel des Herzens" (String Music of the Heart), 1734-35 (BCW), verified in the new BWV3 catalogue (651) from Bach's Music Library. Bach later may also have performed another Stölzel cycle, "Namen-Buch Christi und der Christen" (Namebook of Christ and Christians), but its is still being considered (BCW: 5f).
Anatomy of Bach's Three Cantata Cycles
Another cantata area that needs clarification is the assigning of cantatas to Bach's three extant church-year cycles, as well as gaps in all three and alternate performances of cantatas by other composers. Various scholarly editions on the cantatas, mostly in German, have been published recently: 1. the 2015-17 three volumes of sacred cantatas in Konrad Klek's Dein ist allein die Ehre (Thine Alone Are the Glory), 2. the Laaber-Verlag Bach-Handbuch of Bachs Kantaten: Das Handbuch (2012) in two volumes of topical essays by noted Bach German scholars, 3. Hans-Joachim Schulze 2006 Die Bach-Kantaten: Einfuhrungen Zu Samtlichen Kantaten Johann Sebastian Bachs (The Bach Cantatas: Introductions to Bach's 226 extant sacred and secular cantatas, oratorios Amazon.de), and 4. the final two volumes of Martin Petzoldt's Bach-Kommentar (see BCW: "Cantata-Type Vocal Music Studies, see footnotes 2-4).
Addendum
This 300th anniversary odyssey of Bach's tenure in Leipzig will cover a range of topics as they occur chronologically and topically. For example, prior to his official service beginning in late May 1723, Bach presented his successful test piece on February 7, Quinquagesima Estomihi Sunday, the two-part cantata, BWV 22, "Jesus nahm zu sich die Zwölfe" (Jesus took the twelve to himself), and BWV 23, "Du wahrer Gott und Davids Sohn" (You true God and son of David). The competition and test dates involved the leading German composers, Georg Philipp Telemann at Hamburg (9 August 1722) and Johann Christoph Graupner at Darmstadt (17 January 1723), as well as local candidates Georg Friedrich Kauffmann at Merseburg (29 November 1722) and Johann Friedrich Fasch of Zerbst (who declined) and two others who had been heard (no dates), Georg Balthazar Schott at the Leipzig Neukirche and Christian Friedrich Rolle of Magdeburg. While Bach was Capellmeister at Köthen, he had begun compiling instrumental and vocal compositions for his Leipzig test and once chosen te enterprising Bach had come to Leipzig in May 1723 to explore possiconnections and opportunities involving the formative institutions of church-school, town council, and university.
ENDNOTES
1 See William L. Hoffman, Cantata Odyssey: Print, On-Line Sources From Bach's Musical World, BCW; see also Bach Cantatas, A Selected, Annotated Bibliography, BCW; Cantata Favorites: Discussion, Food for Thought, BCW; Leipzig Sacred Cantata Cycles 1 and 2: Structures, Librettists, BCW; Leipzig Sacred Cantatas: 1725 Interim (Trinity Time), BCW; Third Cantata Cycle: Librettists, Structures, BCW; and Bach Texts as Cantata Mini-Cycles, BCW.
2 See Martin Petzoldt, Bach-Kommentar: Theologisch-musikalische Kommentierung der geistlichen Vokalwerke Johann Sebastian Bachs (Theological-Musical Commentary on the Sacred Vocal Works of Johann Sebastian Bach): Vol. 1 (2004), Trinity Sunday Cantatas; Vol. 2, (2007), Advent to Trinityfest Cantatas; Vol. 3 2018), Fest- und Kasualkantaten, Passionen (Festive and Occasional Cantatas, Passions), and Vol. 4 (2019), Latin Church Music (Masses, Magnificat), Motets (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2018, 2019).
3 Carus Verlag offers two new documents: 1. a calendar of Bach's first church-year cycle (Carus-Verlag) with the original 1723-24 dates and the current 2023-24 dates, beginning with the First Sunday after Trinity, and 2. the Carus Blog, Christoph Wolff, Bach "300: The year 1723 and its repercussions: 'a new epoch in his creative life'" (Carus Verlag Blog). "The numbers of vocal works written in the first calendar years speak for themselves: 39 (1723), 56 (1724), 40 (1725) and 44 (1726–1727)," says Wolff, who also authors the new Bach Vocal: Ein Handbuch from Carus (BCW).
4 Bach Requiem details: Bachfest Leipzig, MDR Klassik Radio).
5 Hans Grischkat, Vom Reiche Gottes (From the Kingdom of God) (Stuttgart: Hänssler, 1950), Bach Bibliography, Bach-Bibliographie; score, Carus Media; details, recording, KUK Art.
6 Other Bachfest Topical Studies: Beyond the various recent scholarly studies of the cantatas and related works are music cycles and special studies (see BCW: "Special Cantata-Type Studies"), such as Bach's "Messiah" cycle from Christoph Wolf (2020, <<Wolff: Bach Oratorios as "A Grand Liturgical Messiah Cycle:" Passions>> (BCW) and Michael Maul's Bachfest 2021 "Messiah" Cycle (Bachfest Leipzig), also known at Bach's Christological Cycle (see BCW), as well as Maul 2022 "Bach — We are Family" (Bachfest Leipzig: "Talk with the Artistic Director of the Bachfest Prof. Dr. Michael Maul") and the Bachfest 2020 complete chorale cantata cycle (Netherlands Bach Society).
7 Bach librettists: James Day, The Literary Background to Bach's Cantatas [Historical & Critical Studies] (London: Dobson,1961; New York, Dover, 1966), Amazon.com.
8 Michael Hochgartz, Bachforschung, Bachforschung, Github; Johann Christoph Jauch biography, Wikipedia, the text of Georg Böhm's lost St. Luke Passion is attributed to Jauch while Böhm composed a funeral ode for Jauch, who died on 21 January 1725 as Bach curtailed his chorale cantata cycle.
9 Christiane Mariane von Ziegler studies: 1. Eric Chafe, J. S. Bach's Johannine Theology: The St. John Passion and the Cantatas for Spring 1725 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014: 433-583), Amazon.com; 2. Mark A. Peters, A Woman's Voice in Baroque Music: Mariane von Ziegler and J. S. Bach (London, Routledge, 2016), Amazon.com.
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To come: The Leipzig composer competition and the musings of an "Historical Capriccio." |
