First Leipzig Cantata Cycle, Other Compositional Activities

William L. Hoffman wrote (July 11, 2023):
Nearing the age of 40 with a growing family, Sebastian Bach in the late spring of 1723 settled into the roles of Leipzig cantor and music director, following a one-year search odyssey in which the favored candidates Georg Philipp Telemann at Hamburg (BCW), Johann Friedrich Fasch at Anhalt-Zerbst (BCW), and Christoph Graupner at Darmstadt (BCW) declined the appointment, remaining at their current posts. This opened the way for Bach to pursue his calling of a "well-regulated church music to the Glory of God." A profoundly intentional, methodical, demanding composer, Bach brought to bare all his talents, training and resources to achieve this goal while strengthening the conditions to accomplish this. With almost no record of performing previously in Leipzig, Bach assessed the conditions, requirements, and challenges facing him. He sought to exploit every opportunity to create three annual church-year cantata cycles of musical sermons (1723-27) while composing large-scale sacred works, both instrumental and vocal and gaining commissions as additional salary. To do this, Bach surveyed the great terrain and forged lasting partnerships with Christian Weiß Sr. (BCW) Pastor of St. Thomas where Bach prepared his music and performing forces, Christian Friedrich Henrici (Picander, BCW), his primary librettist who as a local postmaster also was well-acquainted with the key governing officials of the Town Council's progressive Saxon-oriented kapellmeister faction, the clergy, Leipzig University officials, prominent community members, and Telemann, whose situation in Hamburg was a model for Bach.

Key Figures: Christian Weiß Sr., Picander, Telemann

Three key figures influencing Bach were Christian Weiß Sr. (short biography at BCW), who was Bach's cantorat sponsor and introduced him to the local clergy, Picander, who found various opportunities for Bach to accept commissions for sacred and profane music, and Telemann in Hamburg, who also held the dual posts of cantor at the Johanneum school and city music director and shared his Hamburg challenges and Leipzig insights with Bach. Telemann's first year in Hamburg was a cautionary experience that showed the challenges of working for a governing town council and potential Leipzig pitfalls which Telemann saw during his Leipzig probe. "Whatever his expectations were for the new position, Telemann first year in Hamburg [1721-22] did not quite go according to plan," says Telemann authority Steven Zohn.¹ The council reprimanded him in July 2022 for doing a public concert and charging admission as he had done in Frankfurt; Telemann clashed with the city printer over rights to print librettos for his annual liturgical passions; "his overall compensation [salary and benefits] was lower than expected" with restrictions on weddings and funeral music"; and he found his teaching duties onerous and the church choirs needing improvement. Bach faced similar restrictions in Leipzig. The Leipzig cantorate competitors (BCW) were well aware of each's working conditions, job requirements, and changing governing situations, while Telemann during his August 1722 Leipzig probe may have visited Bach in Cöthen on his return to Hamburg and appraised him of the Leipzig conditions and challenges. The Hamburg council relented and Telemann "was to be retained at all costs." Besides a strong working relationship with Telemann, Bach also presented certain Telemann cantatas and Passions at various times in Leipzig and some Telemann cantatas originally were attributed to Bach (BCW).

During his successful Leipzig probe in February1723 with the St. Thomas Boys Choir, Bach resided for a week of preparation and learning about Leipzig, probably staying with Christian Weiß Sr., his sponsor who would become his father confessor (Beichvater) and preach the sermons for the church year services for which Bach composed cantatas, alternating with Superintendent Salomon Deyling at the Nikolaikirche. As Bach waited to take the Leipzig post, he began researching textual sources for his cantatas and oratorios as musical sermons, in particular focusing on noted orthodox Lutheran pastors who wrote theological studies of sermons in the manner of Martin Luther, such as Heinrich Muller's Evangelisches Praeservative wider den Schaden Josephs (Evangelical preservative against the grief's of Joseph) that would influence Picander's recitative and aria texts of the St. Matthew Passion, a Passion oratorio setting for the required Leipzig annual Good Friday Vespers. Bach's monumental work of 1727 for the Thomaskirche was an intense collaboration of Bach, Weiß, and Picander which took two years to complete. Other important documents were Gottfried Vopelius' Das Neu Leipziger Gesangbuch (Leipzig, 1682; Wikipedia), a compendium of the prescribed Lutheran hymns for the local churches, and Saxony's "Duke Heinrich's Agenda" of 1539 which defined the ingredients, scope, and the emphasis of the public services in the Leipzig churches (source, BCW).

First Cantata Cycle Preparation

Besides extensive studies of textual sources in the spring of 1723, Bach systematically began to shape his first Leipzig mini-cycle of cantatas. On 5 May 1723, Bach signed his contract with the Leipzig Town Council (Dok I: 177-179) and submitted to the required theological exam. On May 8, Bach presented to the consistory court by Superintendent Deyling, who adds a testimonial by J. Schmidt, Doctor of Divinity in the university, approving the candidate after the statutory theological confessional text which on May 13 the Consistory court signed. On May 15, Bach received his first salary payment. It is assumed that the progressive town council music director faction approved his first performance for Pentecost Sunday and Bach prepared cantatas for the four final feast days of Pentecost and Trinity Sunday as a warm-up for the First Cantata Cycle, as well as an introduction to the Leipzig University community and the resources of the Collegium musicum. Bach was scheduled "to take up his duties" in Leipzig on Pentecost Sunday, 16 May at the Paulinerkirche with Cantata 59, "Wer mich liebet, der wird mein Wort halten I" (He who loves me will keep my commandments, Jn. 14:23), based on the Erdmann Neumeister III 1714 text which Bach may have planned in Weimar for Pentecost Sunday 1714 (replaced by Cantata 172) and may have composed the first version of Cantata 59 for Pentecost Sunday, May 31, 1716, in Weimar. Subsequently, according to scholarly sources, Bach may have presented another version of Cantata 59 in Carlsbad on 5 June 1718 (Bach Digital), and still another version on Pentecost Sunday, May 16, 1723 (Bach Digital), in the Leipzig University Paulinerkirche. The official inauguration was postponed two weeks, possibly at the insistence of the conservative town council cantor faction, since the Thomas School new school year officially began on the 1st Sunday after Trinity, May 30, the start of the omnes tempore second half of the church year. On Tuesday, June 1, Cantor Bach was formally introduced to the school. Earlier, Bach had parodied two other Cöthen works for the second and third days of the Pentecost Feast,BWV 173, "Erhöhtes Fleisch und Blut" (Exalted flesh and blood, trans. Z. Philip Ambrose), and BWV 184, "Erwünschtes Freudenlicht" (O welcome light of joy, trans. Z. Philip Ambrose). "Given the time pressures, all were parodies of vocal works from the Cöthen period," says Christoph Wolff. ² "It remains to be seen whether this cantata [BWV 59], in its four-movement form [UVM], was performed on Whitsunday, May 16, 1723, at the 'Old Service' in St. Paul's, the university church. In any case, Bach postponed the completion of the three Pentecostal cantatas to the following year, when they were performed at the Leipzig main churches." Another Cöthen parody, Cantata 194, "Höchsterwünschtes Freudenfest" (O most lovely feast of joy, trans. Z. Philip Ambrose; BCW) had a checkered career, beginning as a church organ dedication at Störmthal on November 2, 1723, and entered the first-cycle canon on Trinity Sunday, June 4, 1724, closing the first cycle.

Occasional University, Wedding Commissions; Latin Church Music

While he was prepared to commence his first church-year cantata cycle with series of mini-cycles, Bach also cast wide his compositional net in search of Leipzig librettists and venues for cantatas and major vocal works as well as occasional sacred and profane pieces, including as music director, cantatas for weddings and funerals in special commissions. The most likely candidate for the authorship of the 30 entirely new cantatas in the first cycle is Bach's pastor Christian Weiss Sr., who also may have had a hand assisting in the new recitative and chorale texts of the early cantatas as well as parody new text underlay in the five Cöthen borrowings (BWV 66a, 134a, 175a, 184a, 194a) for the feasts of Easter, Pentecost, and the Trinity fest in 1724. Singling out the six Easter Season cantatas (67, 104, 166, 86, 37, 44), Alfred Dürr cites scholarship ³ that shows Weiss's theological learning and close connections to the Bach family, as well as his resumption of regular preaching at later Easter Season 1724 after several years of voice problems. In addition, the chorus cantata form texts for the early part of 1724 Easter Season (Easter Monday to the 2nd Sunday after Easter), were delayed a year to 1725, possibly in deference to Weiss, involving BWV 6, 42, and 85, with Cantata 79 performed later at Reformationfest 1725, says Dürr.

Occasional Music Commissions

Meanwhile, Bach began to secure special commissions as nominal Leipzig kapellmeister. Most important were the some 30 for Leipzig University mostly drammi per musica (BCW) for festive occasions (Univerität Leipzig). Initially, for "a funeral service for the Postmaster's widow, Johanna Maria Keese (18 July 1723), it was probably for this occasion that he wrote the motet Jesu Meine Freude BWV 227" (Wikipedia) says Christoph Wolff.⁴ By August 9, "Bach had taken up his duties as musical director to the university, an office traditionally held by the Thomaskantor: On this occasion, he performed the Latin Ode, BWV Anh. 20 now lost), at festivities on the birthday of Duke Friedrich II of Saxe-Gotha," says Wolff (New Grove: Ibid.: 86).⁵ This quarterly Latin oration in the university auditorium, now catalogued as BWV 1155 (Bach Digital), may have premiered on 2 August 1721, when an untitled homage cantata was presented for Friedrich II of Saxe-Gotha. Bach's first university commission was BWV Anh.195, "Murmelt nur ihr heitern Bäche" (Just murmur, cheerfully streams (BCW; congratulations on the installation of Johann Florens Rivinus to the Professor of Law on 9 June 1723; text, BCW, UVM. The homage serenade was probably presented in a torchlight ceremony in front of the family home. The music, performed by the Collegium musicum on a student commission with students attending, is lost and all that survives is the text by an unknown poet, probably a university colleague (text in Acta Lipsiensium Academica, 1723, Bach Digital. The Rivinius family also was honored with another congratulatory cantata (BWV 36b, "Die Freude reget sich" in 1735), source BCW.

Aiding in these commissions was the poet Picander. The groundwork for the two Saxon 1727 celebrations involve an earlier relationship between Picander and the court's most trusted Leipzig representative, Count Joachim Friedrich von Flemming (source, BCW). The impetus for the King’s visit and Bach’s music probably was from Count von Flemming, the court-appointed Leipzig governor and a leader of the Town Council progressive faction that has chosen Bach in 1723. In 1724, Flemming had assumed his position and moved into the Pleissenburg castle governor’s residence not far from the Thomas Church. On July 31, 1724, Flemming had assumed his official duties with a dramma per musica to a Picander libretto, composer unknown.⁶ Picander also wrote the text to a solo Evening Music for Flemming on January 1, 1725. Although both originally were attributed to Johann Gottlieb Görner, director and organist at the progressive St. Paul University Church, Bach scholars have developed a still-unsubstantiated hypothesis that Bach was the composer. In 1727, the Leipzig spring fair began on May 4 and the festivities were held on Monday, May 12. Special note was made in the C. F. Haupt libretto of Cantata BWV Anh. 9/5 citing Flemming as the court’s “most trusted” who had been present at this “mighty feast one year ago” in 1726. That year the Elector’s birthday had fallen exactly on Jubilate Sunday, May 12, when Bach probably had presented festive church Cantata BWV 146 with its opening two movements a sinfonia and chorus, ostensibly borrowed from the Clavier Concerto No. 1 in D Minor, BWV 1052.

Wedding Music Commissions

Bach in Leipzig began looking for opportunities to present wedding works, both sacred (full, half or quarter) in churches and profane in private ceremonies. Originally, he had begun with the Quodlibet, BWV 524, for a Bach Family occasion, probably in 1707 in Erfurt (BCW). As early as Bach’s Mühlhausen tenure 1707-08, his wedding Cantata BWV 196,“Der Herr denket an uns und segnet uns” (The Lord thinks of us and blesses us), was preformed as a concise setting of Psalm 115, Non nobis, Domine (Not unto us, O Lord). As such, it was the first of five extant sacred wedding cantatas for full bridal Masses (BWV 34a, 120a, 197, and 195), later composed in Leipzig and involving parody or new-text underlay. Like the Quodlibet, BWV 524, of 1707, for secular weddings, Bach later composed profane wedding Cantatas BWV 202, 1163=Anh. 196, 216, and 210 for Saxon Court nobility in Leipzig. In addition Bach composed three wedding chorale settings, BWV 250-252, for half-mass wedding services; four pure-hymn chorale cantatas (BWV 117, 192, 100, and 97), possibly for the Weißenfels Court (c.1730); and three profane wor, BWV 1144=Anh. 14, 1145=Anh. 211, and 1146=212, which survive with texts only, for Leipzig bourgeoise between 1725 and 1730, recently accepted in the BWV³ catalogue In addition, Bach is presumed to have presented some 31 "ganzte Brautmeße" (full bridal masses) recorded at St. Thomas Church between 1723 and 1747.⁷ While the wedding date, couple, and officiating pastor are identified from the St. Thomas archives, no music is extant, while it is possible that Bach repeated previous wedding cantatas with only minor changes in the texts.

Latin Church Music.

In Leipzig at the beginning of the 18th century, there was an "ever growing intensification of liturgical life in a way that was scarcely evident elsewhere in Germany at the same time," says Günther Stiller.⁸ He cites the significant growth in churches and attendance as well as private confession and communion attendance, "catechizations during the worship service," weekly prayers and vesper services, and "the inauguration of Passion oratorios." Bach found that the Leipzig liturgy included established Latin Church Music for the main services, as "the Latin Ordinary continued to play a substantial role in the Leipzig worship service in Bach's day, even though it had long since been replaced by German equivalents in most Lutheran congregations," says George B. Stauffer.⁹ Notable were the single movement Kyrie and Sanctus, the Missa: Kyrie-Gloria (short mass) during major feasts (Christmas, Easter, Pentecost), as well as secondary feast days for Marien Saints observances when the Magnificat was appropriate (the first and second days of Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost, as well as New Year's Day, Epiphany (January 6), Ascension, Trinity, St. John (June 24), St.Michael (September 29) and the three Marian Feasts - Purification (February 2), Annunciation (March 25), and Visitation (July 2). Bach's interest in Latin Church Music began in Mühlhausen in 1708 was the bilingual Kyrie in F, BWV 233a. Bach's use of the bilingual setting opening Latin Kyrie and closing German Agnus Dei in his Kyrie, BWV 233a, "is an interesting intertwining of the first and last texts of the Ordinary of the Mass," says Robin A. Leaver,¹⁰ as liturgical prayers with similar petitions of mercy in the next section, "Agnus Dei combined with Kyrie." The music interpolates in motet style (five-part texture [SSATB] with three-voice fugal Kyrie) the sung canto of the German Agnus Dei, "Christe, du Lamm Gottes” (Christ, thou Lamb of God, score BCW), dating as early as 6 April 1708¹¹ in a Good Friday service of confession and general absolution in Mühlhausen, displaying Bach's early compositional versatility and imagination as musica sub communione, says Leaver (Ibid.: 60). The Kyrie from the Litany in the vocal bass and continuo has the Latin text "Kyrie-Christe-Kyrie eleison" (Lord, Christ, Lord have mercy on us) "from Luther's Deutsche Messe (1526) and Luther's Deutsche Litanie (1529)." During his Weimar early period (1708-1718), Bach turned to Latin Church Music in the form of the so-called Missa Brevis (Kyrie-Gloria). It was part of his goal of a "well-ordered church music to the Glory of God," as well as a study of compositional styles and techniques. He studied the music found in the Weißenfels Court Library, notably copies of single and multiple Mass movements of Marco Gioseppe Peranda, Francesco Durante, Johann Christoph Pez, Johann Hugo von Wilderer, Giovanni Battista Bassani, Antonio Caldara, Antonio Lotti, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (source, BCW). Bach's first Leipzig setting of Latin Church Music was the Sanctus in C, BWV 237 (Bach Digital) composed in 1723 for a feast day setting, either Pentecost Sunday, May 15; Trinity Sunday, May 24; or John the Baptist Feast, June 24. Bach's first major vocal work, a setting of the Magnificat in E-Flat, BWV 243.1, was first performed on the Feast of the Visitation, July 2 (Bach Digital, Wikipedia), as well as the Sanctus in C, BWV 237. Beyond the single movement Mass settings of his and other composers that Bach preformed, in the 1730s he created five Missa Breve, BWV 232.1-236, and finally a complete Mass Ordinary, BWV 232, in 1749 (BCW). Bach's Latin Church Music became part of his fifth cycle of church pieces for Christological observances (BCW) while the wedding works formed the fourth, joy cycle (BCW).

ENDNOTES

¹ Steven Zohn, "Biography," The Telemann Compendium (Woodbridge UK: Boydell Press, 2020: 9), Amazon.com.
² Christoph Wolff, "Preface to the Updated Edition," in Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician (New York: W. W. Norton, 2013: xxiiif), W.W. Norton.
³ Alfred Dürr, Cantatas of J. S. Bach, trans. & ed. Richard D. P. Jones (New York: Oxford Univ. Press: 2005: 27f); Amazon.com); source BCW.
⁴ Christoph Wolff, "Johann Sebastian Bach biography, in The New Grove Bach Family (New York, W. W. Norton, 1983: 86), Amazon.com).
⁵ BWV 1155=Anh. 20 [Latin Birthday Ode] (no title), BCW; birthday music for Duke Frederick II of Saxony-Gotha on 9 August 1723; no text extant. Most of the university's "larger academic ceremonies took place" in the main auditorium, "including the quarterly orations," says Christoph Wolff.^* The oration was "accompanied by an exquisite music" of Bach, says a press account (BD II: 156). The text and music are lost but "the evidence suggests that Bach tended to be called on for particular important and ceremonial occasions," says Wolff. A report cites Bach as "summus artifex" and that the odes "fit the occasions so perfectly" that "everyone admired them." BCW. *Christoph Wolff, see two sections, "Music Director at the University" (311-19), and "Professional Colleagues and University Students" (319-331), Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician, Updated Ed. (New York: W. W. Norton, 2013: 314).
⁶ Source, Szymon Paczkowski, “Bach and the Story of an ‘Aria Tempo di Polonaise’ for Joachim Friedrich Flemming, BACH, Riemenschneider Bach Institute, Vol. XXXVIII/2 (2007), 64.
⁷ Ganzte Brautmeße, see JSB, Neue Ausgabe Sämtlicher Werke, I/33, critical commentary Frederick Hudson (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1958: 12-16), Bärenreiter; also listed in Robin A. Leaver, "20 Life and Works 1685-1750," in The Routledge Research Companion to Johann Sebastian Bach (London: Routedge, 2017: 501-537), Amazon.com.
⁸ Günther Stiller, Johann Sebastian Bach and Liturgical Life in Leipzig, ed. Robin A. Leaver, Eng. trans. various (St. Louis, Concordia, 1984: 39-47), Concordia Publishing House.
⁹ See George B. Stauffer, Bach: The Mass in B Minor, the Great Catholic Mass (New Haven CN: Yale University Press, 2003: 16), Amazon.com.
¹⁰ Robin A. Leaver, Bach Studies: Liturgy, Hymnology, and Theology (Abingdon UK: Routledge, 2021: 59); Amazon.com; discussions, BCW.
¹¹ 1708 dating of BWV 233a, see Marcus Rathey, “Zur Datierung einger Vokalwerke Bachs in den Jahren 1707 and 1708,” in Bach Jahrbuch 2006: 65ff); Bach-Jahrbuch; BWV 233a details, Kyrie/Christe, du Lamm Gottes: music, YouTube; Bach Digital score, Bach Digital; parts, Bach Digital; discussion, BCW: "Discussions in the Week of June 5, 2016 (4th round)."

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To Come: 300 years ago Bach began his quest in Leipzig for a "well-regulated church music to the glory of God" with cycles of church-year cantatas as musical sermons and other sacred vocal works, some involving mini-cycles.