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William L. Hoffman wrote (August 4, 2023):
When Bach assumed the Leipzig cantor and music director positions 300 years ago in 1723 to pursue his calling of a "well-regulated church music to the glory of God," he was fully prepared to begin composing five cycles of church pieces involving three cycles of church-year cantatas which he virtually accomplished in his first five years. While his noted colleagues were pursuing a plethora of homogeneous annual cantata cycles usually based upon one librettist with a variety of musical forms, Bach was content to fashion varieties of cantata mini-cycles. From his earliest Mühlhausen proto-cantatas onward, Bach sought to perfect templates of various structural forms, functional literary conventions, and conveyed messages, as well as selective groupings by particular dramatic librettists. He experienced the influence of Georg Philipp Telemann, Hamburg cantor and music director, who fashioned cantata cycles in various musical forms such as arias and recitatives only, adding choruses and chorales, French and Sicilian pastoral styles, cantatas without recitatives, solo works, and emblematic ornamentation in vocal works which Bach arranged/performed in Leipzig (see BCW: "Vocal Works arranged/performed by J. S. Bach"). Bach also presented in the mid-1730s one and possibly two complete double-cycles of Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel in Gotha (BCW).
Importance of Texts
From his earliest sacred compositions, the actual text was a significant, defining factor, supported by imaginatively idiomatic music. This caused Bach to give considerable thought to cantatas with the standard template of internal madrigalian poetry involving alternating arias and recitatives complementing the surrounding, often introductory biblical dictum chorus and ubiquitous closing chorale. Consequently, Bach continually explored old published cantata cycle texts while searching for convenient local poets, pastors, and students to provide new, appropriate lyrics. In particular, the pragmatic Leipzig cantor sought poetry, both rhymed and free-verse, that embodied Lutheran theology and biblical commentary as found in his personal library while expressing indigenous local interests, conventions, and practices. These enabled Bach to set appropriate music to inspiring texts particularly in his cantatas as musical sermons. The pragmatic Bach also observed local proscriptions requiring prior Town Council approval of texts and church venues, chafing under dogmatic oversight, while engaging in continual conversation with his personal pastor, Christian Weise (Weiss) Sr. (BCW), and in collaboration increasingly with the utilitarian local poet and emissary Christian Friedrich Henrici, pen name Picander (BCW). The result, particularly in his third and final full cycle, was a wide-ranging, contrasting, imaginative collection of distinctive mini-cycles. Among the distinguishing features of Bach's three cantata cycles are: textual, stylistic, and innovative elements in blending of ecclesiastical and operatic devices such as the Vox Christi/Domini and allegorical characters in duets, the troping of hymns with recitatives, and the use of pastorale dance forms in good shepherd works; the great biblical text choruses that open many of the cantatas from Cycle 1 as one of its defining features; the closing congregational plain chorale begun in Weimar as well as elaborate interludes and obbligato instruments as well as the blending of different chorales in one cantata; the internal alternating and combining of secular-influenced madrigalian texts (recitatives, arias, ariosi); the use of concerto style as well as arresting musical images in the arias; and the high incidence of dance rhythms. Particularly innovative was Bach's homogeneous second chorale cantata cycle using poetic paraphrases in the internal recitatives and arias, a tradition begun by his Leipzig predecessor Johann Schelle in proto-cantata vocal concertos (BCW) with biblical texts ad hymns only. Bach, as with various Leipzig musical traditions, kept and enhanced the chorale cantatas.
Trinity Time
“After Pentecost and Trinity, the second half of the church year is taken up entirely with the series of Sundays in (or after) Trinity, which may, exceptionally, extend to as many as twenty-seven and which can be considered to represent the era of the church that precedes it,” says Eric Chafe in Analyzing Bach Cantatas.1 Since it does not follow a chronological sequence ordered according to the principal events in Jesus’ life, the Trinity season was a whole takes up a wide range of themes, many of which center on Christian life, on the believer’s fear of judgment, on the antithesis of present life and eternity, and on faith and the necessity of undergoing tribulation in the world in preparation for the second coming and the Last Judgment. The character of the season, therefore, centers on questions of doctrine and faith in a varied mix, a significant number of the weekly gospel readings featuring parables and miracles stories that invite metaphoric interpretations of the world as a “hospital” for the spiritually sick, a “desert” in which the spiritually hungry are in need of manna, a testing ground for love and mercy towards one’s neighbor, and the like. In short, the Trinity season seems to explore the human condition, its weakness, wavering, sinfulness, and mortality, emphasizing these qualities so as to demonstrate the need for both fear of God’s judgment and trust in His mercy.” “Since the Trinity season centers on the concerns of Christian life, in the ordering of the Lutheran chorale collections according to the liturgical year, the catechism chorale collections, which represent the basic expression of the core doctrines of the faith, were often associated with the early weeks of the Trinity season,” says Chafe (Ibid.). Bach cantatas were rigorously analyzed as Chafe produced two extensive studies of Bach mini cycles oof the 1725 spring cantatas and the 1714 Weimar cantatas.2 “As it continues, the Trinity season is characterized by themes that involve antithesis, of which the most prominent are God’s judgment versus His mercy, and the qualities of tribulation versus consolation, fear versus hope, and faith versus doubt in the believer’s conscience,” says Chafe (Ibid.: 14). A running theme is the believer’s rejection of the world versus his anticipation of eternity. Those themes come ever more sharply into focus during the eschatologically oriented last weeks of the season as the believer’s longing to leave the world intensifies and his thoughts turn upward again: the sixteenth Sunday after trinity focuses on death and resurrection, the twentieth on anticipation of the Kingdom of God, the twenty-fourth on the fleeting character of human life and the fear of eternity, the twenty-fifth on the second coming of Christ and the end of the world, and the twenty-sixth on the Last Judgment and the coming of a “new heaven and new earth,” and the twenty-seventh on the final consummation.” The gospel for the final eight Sundays after Trinity focus on one of the three thematic patterns of parables, miracles and teachings: Trinity 20, Matthew 22:1-14, Parable of the marriage of the king’s son; Trinity 21, John 4:46-54, Miracle of the nobleman’s son healed; Trinity 22, Matthew 18:23-35 Parable of the unmerciful servant; Trinity 23, Matthew 22:15-22, Teaching: The Pharisees and the tribute to Caesar; Trinity 24, Matthew 9:18-26 Miracle of the Raising of Jairus’s daughter; Trinity 25, Matthew 24:15-28, Teaching: Christ’s prediction; Trinity 26, Matthew 25:31-46, Teaching: The Last Judgement; Trinity 27, Matthew 25:1-13 Teaching: The wise and foolish virgins.
To shape his compositions, Bach — The Learned Musias Christoph Wolff titled his Bach musical biography (Amazon.com) — pursued the three necessary ingredients: music, text, and performing conditions. Beginning with his instrumental preludes and fugues and sacred concertos, Bach in his 25 June 1708 resignation letter as organist at Mühlhausen, affirmed his Lutheran calling: "Now, God has brought it to pass that an unexpected change should offer itself to me, in which I see the possibility of a more adequate living [to support his family] and the achievement of my goal of a well-regulated church music without further vexation," (BD No. 1; NBR, No. 32). This was Bach's creative motive and method, Leipzig was his golden opportunity. A profoundly intentional, methodical, demanding composer, Bach without a university degree brought to bare all his talents, training and resources to achieve this goal while strengthening the conditions to accomplish this. Two new Bach publications cover the ground of Bach's compositional history3 with the latest documentation and research: William H. Scheide's impressive study of Bach's first Leipzig annual church-year cantata cycle, Bach Achieves his Goal: His first Year of Regular Church Music Following the Lutheran Calendar, and Michel Maul's Wie wunderbar sind deine Werke (How wonderful are your works), subtitled "a declaration of love to the [church] music of Thomaskantor Bach."
First Cantata Cycle Analysis
Scheide's book as a product of a life-time of Bach research includes a Preface by Peter Wollny (Ibid.: 9), director of the Bach Archiv Leipzig, bringing Scheide's great undertaking to print, "a precise chronology" for "reconstructing Bach's artistic choices, his dramatic plan, and stylistic development" (Ibid.: 9). This is followed with Christoph Wolff's essay, "A Tribute to William H. Scheide: Musician, Philanthropist" (Ibid.: 11), in which he describes Scheide's monograph as "a comprehensive examination" and the "magnum opus" of one of the leading Bach scholars (see Bach Bibliography of writings, Bach-Bibliographie. Scheide studies "an objectively defined selection of cantatas and scrutinized them from all possible sides: from biographical issues to musical analysis, from the study of primary sources to liturgical and poetic concerns as well as performance considerations," says Wolff (Ibid.: 12f). Scheide's book is organized into four parts:
Part I, Background (Ibid.: 23-40), Bach's purpose, Leipzig church duties, and first cycle overview of 37 new cantatas, 13 reperformances from Weimar and Cöthen works, four enlarged, four revised, and five extant works for a total of 63;
Part II, Cantata Texts (Ibid.: 41-141). Scheide finds that the printed cantata text books for the main services number seven in the four successive Trinity Sunday groups (1-7, 8-14, 15-20, 21-Advent Sunday) and Christas Day to the 1st Sunday after Epiphany. The 37 anonymous new texts are found in four principal text forms, 26 beginning with Bible texts: Text Form 1, two-part (OT-R-A-R-A-R-Cl/S-R-A-R-A-R-Cl) in BWV 75, 76 (Tr. 1 and 2); Text Form 2 (A-R-A-R-Cl) in BWV 167, 190 (John, Tr. 25); Text Form 3=Dürr Music Form4 A (Bib-R-A-R-A-Cl) in BWV 136, 105, 46, 179, 69a, 77, 25, 109, 89, 104); Text Form 4=Dürr Music Form C (Bib[NT]-A-Cl-R-A-Cl) in BWV 144, 166, 86, 37, 44); Text Form 4 (Ibid.: 47-49) finds BWV 44 for the Sunday after Ascension shows the influence of Salomo Franck5 libretto cycle, Evangelisches Andachts-Opfer, which "therefore may have exercised an influence in the choice of Form 3 and other texts," says Scheide (Ibid.: 49); internal chorale settings6 Bach uses systematically beginning with four-part choral and followed recitative, starting with Cantata 138, "Warum betrübst du dich, mein Herz?" (Why art thou troubled, O my heart?) on the 15th Sunday after Trinity, first and third movements (YouTube) followed by Cantata 48 for the 16th Sunday after Trinity. There is a "correlation in the concentration of the unique forms and the cantatas with more than one chorale text," says Scheide (Ibid.). This began with the two-part cantatas for the 1st and 2nd Sundays after Trinity, BWV 75 and 76, which opened the first cycle. The grouping of heavy concentration of chorales in the non-biblical texts begins "quite suddenly" in Cantatas 138 and 95 for the 15th and 16th Sundays after Trinity in September 1723. The stability of form "was reestablished" at Septuagesimae Sunday in early February 1724 with Cantata 144, Text Form 4=Music Form C (see above). The complex form of BWV "138-45" involves a chorale with recitative and an internal chorale. Scheide's Table 4 with 37 new anonymous texts shows "a very striking inner contradiction" (Ibid.: 51f). Some 31 "contain direct Bible quotations" with 34 containing two or more arias while the Scheide-Dürr Text Form-Music Form 3=A and 4=C "show unquivocally that a desire for regular recurring design was present in the mid-Trinity and post-Easter seasons" while "no less than twenty-two different are found among the thirty-seven texts endows the total group with a singularly heterogeneous complexion." The resulting contradiction showing Bach's desire to create uniform patterns of cantata architecture nevertheless created so many different forms. The answer must surely be sought in a study of both texts and music."
Part II: Cantata Texts is divided into the following topics: 1. Textbooks and Published Texts (41-44); 2. Anonymous New Texts: A. Principal Forms (44-52), B. Epistles and Gospels (52-57), C. Audition Cantatas 22 & 23 (58-60); D. Changes in Bible & Madrigal Texts (60-68); E. Choice & Notation of Chorale Texts (68-73), F. Text Form 3 (i. Bible Openings — Optimism & Pessimism, ii. Non-Biblical Sections — Types of Continuity, 73-88), G. Other Text Forms (89-93); 3. Weimar Cantatas (93-101), A. BWV 72a — A lost 1715 Cantata? (102-117), B. Lost works for Trinity Season 1714? (117-119), C. Availability for Leipzig (119-128); 4. Cöthen Cantatas (129-132), A. Availability for Leipzig (132-140), 5. Summary (140-141).
Part III: Vocal Forms (143): 1. Introduction (143), A. Prevision of Bach's Performance Calendar (143-147), B. Vocal Forms & Ensembles (147-152); 2. Choruses & Passages in Chorus Styles (152), A. Chorales (152-166), B. The Solo-Tutti Principle (166-172), C. Non-Chorale Choruses (172-178), D. Variations in Choral Emphasis (178-180), i. Around the Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity (180-189), E. Conclusions (189-193); 3. Vocal Soloists (193), A. Introduction (193); B. (193-202), C. Recitatives (203-204), D. Arias (204-216), E. Systems of Vocal Distribution (216-227).
Part IV: Instrumental Forms (229): 1. Sinfonias (229-242), A. Changes in Pre-Leipzig Scores (242-248), B. Unisons & Octaves (248): i. Pre-Leipzig and Jahrgang I Unisons (248-252), ii Unson Forms (252-257), iii. Conclusions for Works with Lacking Parts (257-263), iv. Summary (263-271); C. Accompanied Recitatives (271-273); 3. String Orchestra (273-276), A. Unison & Divided Strings (277-288), 4. Solo Strings (288-294); 5. Oboes: A. Oboe Ordinaria (294-303), B. Oboe d'Amore (303-313), i. Possible Jahrgang I Origin of BWV 107 (313-320); C. Oboe da Caccia & Taille (320-328), 6. Recorder (328-336), 7. Flute (336-345); 8. Brass (345): A. Use (345-359), B. Names of Instruments (359-362), C. Distribution during Jahrgang I (362-370), D. Tympany (370-371); 9. Contnuo (361), A. Works without Continuo (371-376), Continuo Instrumentsn(376-386), C. Recitatives (386-388), D. Figured Bass (389-394): E. Obbligatti for Continuo Only (394-396), Conclusions (396-399).
Part V: Back at the End of Jahrgang I (399-401).
Michael Maul: Bach Vocal Music
Michel Maul's Wie wunderbar sind deine Werke (How wonderful are your works, ) is a welcome addition to studies of Bach's vocal music in Leipzig. It is a concisestudy with extensive commentary and illustrations (manuscripts, portraits, art work). It begins with the search for a "supercantor," followed by the first cantata cycle, the St. John Passion, second (chorale) cantata cycle, third cantata cycle, St. Matthew Passion, his 1730s conflicts with authority, and his "Mona Lisa," the B-Minor Mass, and a concluding overview of the Leipzig sacred cantatas. Here is a description (Google translation, JPC): <<Johann Sebastian Bach's 300-year-old church music inspires music lovers all over the world today. The well-known Bach researcher Michael Maul, director of the Leipzig Bach Festival, offers with his new book a well-founded and at the same time easily understandable 'instruction manual' for the music of the famous Leipzig Thomaskantor. He marvels vividly at breathtaking moments in Bach's cantatas, passions or the B minor Mass, and in his very personal monologues with Bach he brings to life the context in which the works were created and the often amazing connections between text and music - and sometimes also biography. At the same time, Maul reveals why Bach soon despaired of his "freakish authority", he almost completely lost his initially irrepressible desire to compose church music after five years in the Thomaskantorate and more and more withdrew into inner emigration. In short: Maul's new book is a glowing and touching declaration of love to his composer-God. Above all, it pursues one goal: to make the readers want to listen to Bach's works. Numerous illustrations and a playlist available on Spotify complement the volume and make it a gift book for all music lovers.>>
Cantata Determinant Conditions
Determinant conditions in the creation of Bach cantatas,7 most significant in Leipzig and more important than any other composition type, involved the following (most often determined through correspondence or research): major supportive institutions (courts, churches, municipalities, and universities); training and performing ensembles (Thomas School for choir singers, municipal Stadtpfeifer musicians guild, and Collegiium musicum professional ensembles); performing venues (main churches with organs, the secular town square, Ziimmermann's, or his home or those of others); textual materials (libretti, theological and biblical sources); documentation (collection, publication, transmission); manuscript study (evidence, notation, chronology, copyist, performance implication, pedagogical use); print edition sources (hymn books, sacred commentary, libretto books, chronicles, compendia); supportive household venues (residences, work sites, production places); schools (Lutheran instruction, academics, music); churches (worship, clergy, governance); court (residence, governance, conditions); other composers influences musical libraries); and genres and forms contributing to cantatas (keyboard, instrumental, chorales, counterpoint).
ENDNOTES
1 Eric Chafe, Analyzing Bach Cantatas (New York Oxford Univ. Press, 2000: 12), Amazon.com.
2 Chafe, Bach mini-cycles: J. S. Bach's Johannine Theology: The St. John Passion and the Cantatas for Spring 1725 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), Amazon.com; and Tears into Wine: J. S. Bach's Cantata 21 in its Musical and Theological Contexts with the Weimar cantatas of 1714 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), Amazon.com.
3 Bach compositional history: William H. Scheide: Bach Achieves his Goal: His first Year of Regular Church Music Following the Lutheran Calendar, ed. Berndt Koska (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 2022: 23), American Bach Society; and Michael Maul's Wie wunderbar sind deine Werke (Berlin: Insel, 2023), JPC.
4 Dürr Music Form: There are three basic Leipzig Cycle 1 music forms in cantatas and services, according to Alfred Dürr.* They involve beginning biblical text and closing plain chorale with alternating arias and recitatives while two also have internal plain chorales. They are: Music Form A (6 movements Bib-R-A-R-A-Cl) involving 10 cantatas (BWV 136, 105, 46, 179, 69a, 77, 25, 109, 89, and 104) for the services of the Eighth to the 14th Sundays after Trinity, 21st and 22nd Sundays after Trinity and Second Sunday after Easter (Misericordias Domini); Music Form B (7 movements Bib-R-Cl-A-R-A-Cl) involving BWV 48, 40, 64, 153, 65 and 67; Trinity 19, for the services of Christmas 2 and 3, Sunday after New Years, Epiphany, and First Sunday after Easter (Qusimodogeniti); and Music Form C (usually 6 movements, Bib-A-Cl-R-A-Cl) involving five cantatas (BWV 144, 166, 86, 37, 44) for the services of Septuagesima, Cantate Sunday (Easter 4), Rogate Sunday (Easter 5), Ascension, Exaudi (Easter 6). *Alfred Dürr, Cantatas of J. S. Bach, revised and translated by Richard D. P. Jones (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005: 26-28), Amazon.com.
5 Salomo Franck (BCW) settings by Bach: Evangelisches Andachts-Opfer (Weimar 1715): BWV 31, 72, 80.1(a), 132, 152, 155, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 168, 185, Anh. 191 (music lost, Bach Digital); Evagelisches Sonn- und Fest-Tages-Andachten (Weimar, Jena 1717): BWV 70.1(a), 147.1(a), 186.1(a); Geist und Weltlicher Poesien, Zweyter Theil (Jena 1716): 208; allegedly by Franck (unpublished): BWV 12, 21 (partially), 172, 182.
6 Internal chorale settings: Bach began using internal chorale settings in Mühlhusen with Easter Sunday pure-hymn Cantata 4, Christ lag in Todesbanden (Christ lies in death's bondage), then in Cantata 106 melody trope chorales (English translations Z.Philip Ambrose) with biblical texts, 2d, soprano arioso, "Ja, komm, Herr Jesu, komm!" (Yes, come Lord Jesus, come; Rev. 22:20), with flute chorale, "Ich hab mein Sach Gott heimgestellt" ("I have put my life in God's hands"), Johann Leon (YouTube: 8:11 Es ist der alte Bund), and 3b, bass arioso "Heute wirst du mit mir im Paradies sein" (This day shalt thou with me in paradise be, Luke 23:43) and alto arioso, "Mit Fried und Freud ich fahr dahin" (In peace and joy do I depart), Martin Luther Nunc Dimittis ("Simeon's Song of Praise"), YouTube: 14:19 Heute wirst du mit mir im Paradies sein"); in Weimar, there is only one trope in 1715 Sexagesimae Cantata 18, "Gleichwie der Regen und Schnee vom Himmel fällt" (Just as the showers and snow from heaven fall, Isaiah 55:10-11), No. 3 tenor recitative, "Mein Gott, hier wird mein Herze sein" (My God, here shall my heart abide), interspersed with SATB chorus four petitions of Martin Luther's 1528 Litany, "Du wollest deinen Geist und Kraft zum Worte geben" (That thou might to the word thy Spirit add with power), YouTube: "4:16 Mein Gott").
7 These conditions are best described in The Routledge Research Companion to Johann Sebastian Bach, ed. Robin A. Leaver (London: Routledge, 2017); Amazon.com: "Look inside, Contents, v).
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To Come: Initial heterogenous minicycle: 1st to 7th Sundays after Trinity. |
