Third Cantata Cycle: Librettists, Structures

Third Cantata Cycle: Librettists, Structures

William L. Hoffman wrote (December 30, 2020):
The year 1725 was Bach's watershed as a composer when he expanded his horizons beyond creating and presenting cycles of sacred cantatas for all 60 Sundays and feast days of the church year in Leipzig. Foremost were Bach's return to instrumental music that he had mastered in Cöthen while he took up the mantle of dramatic music to create drammi per musica for people of stature in Leipzig and Dresden, and the publication of Clavierübung (keyboard exercises). The record shows that he wrote two secular cantatas, BWV 205 (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/BWV205-D4.htm) and 1163=Anh. 196, and started the Anna Magdalena Clavier-Büchlein of 1725. Bach's focus on instrumental music commenced with the first Clavierübung of harpsichord partitas, BWV 825-30 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partitas_for_keyboard_(Bach). He also updated chorale organ works while plumbing existing sinfonias, suites, and concerti for later use in cantatas and with the Leipzig Collegium musicum. Bach in the fall of 1725 made two extended visits with family members to Dresden and Cöthen. He probably also searched for librettos and librettists for his church vocal works, especially for the heterogeneous third cantata cycle.¹ Sacred music was his calling to achieve as cantor and music director in Leipzig a "well-regulated church music to the glory of God." The core were the three sacred cantata cycles, the second being chorale-based works half-completed at the beginning of 1725 when Bach cast a wide net to encompass extended cantatas known as oratorios for special events for the annual Passion on Good Friday as well as his first feast-day oratorio for Easter 1725 which also yielded a mini-cycle of Johannine Christus Victor works based on the gospel of John. These became the backbone of a so-called fourth, Christological cycle of feast day oratorios and cantatas (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Topics/Christological-Cycle-1.htm), as well as Latin church music and chorale settings.

In the spring of 1725, Bach was content to shift gears when he ceased composing chorale cantatas for the Easter-Pentecost Season, instead shaping a second, chorale-driven St. John Passion, BWV 245.2,² which led to the Resurrection Sunday Easter Oratorio, BWV 249/1, with its Johannine emphasis in John, Chapter 20 (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%2020&version=KJV). This beginning of the third cantata cycle (https://d-nb.info/1117097358/04) was followed by a mini-cycle of two Easter feast-days (BWV 6, 158) and the first two Sundays after Easter (BWV 42, 85), succeeded on Jubilate Sunday by the nine Christus Victor cantatas with nine texts of Mariane von Ziegler (BWV 103, 108, 87, 128., 83, 74, 68, 175, 176) closing the de tempore first half of the church year on the Trinity Festival Sunday. These events observed John's descriptions of Jesus' Farewell Discourse to his Disciples and the witness of the Paraclete Holy Spirit, establishing the church of Jesus Christ and closing the Great Parabola (descent-ascent) which began with the Conception and Incarnation of Jesus. Other key librettists in the third cycle include the Rudolstadt cycle of cousin Johann Ludwig Bach (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Ludwig_Bach, https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Bach-Johann-Ludwig.htm) which Bach used in his own works (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Helm.htm), early Darmstadt court poet Georg Christian Lehms (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Lehms.htm), Bach student Christoph Birkmann (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Birkmann-Christoph.htm), and favored librettist Picander.

3rd Cycle begins Easter 1725

"From Easter 1725 onwards, Bach devotes himself to composing cantatas only in limited work phases and needs two years for his third year of cantatas," observes Konrad Klek.³ "The text sources change from phase to phase and show Bach's openness to different styles. The musical forms are correspondingly diverse, from large Bible word choirs to solo cantatas with organ concert movements (see http://www.bach-cantatas.com/BWV1045-D2.htm: "Sinfonias to Cantatas"). From 1728 — apart from the chorale cantatas dealt with in the first volume — only individual works have survived," involving six cantatas to Picander's libretto cycle 1728/29 and seven cantatas after 1730. "Konrad Klek discusses the cantatas again in the presumed order of their performance in Leipzig, making use of the latest findings based on the Nuremberg libretto (of Christoph Birkmann). He names the peculiarities of the libretti printed with and profiled Bach's accentuations in the setting. Separately handed down early works are recorded in an appendix (Pre-Leipzig cantatas in a separate tradition), so that this third volume of Klek's highly stimulating exposition covers all sacred cantatas, following the first (https://d-nb.info/1080779191/04) and second (https://d-nb.info/1062980883/04) cycles."

Bach began his third cycle in the spring of 1725 with parodies and other arrangements for the Easter Festival (Sunday to Tuesday), involving the resurrection, walk to Emmaus, and disciples appearance. His composition during this time also involved the Passion oratorio at Good Friday vespers (St. John Passion, 1724, 1725), thus facilitating the use of previously-existing materials in lieu of a festive three-day treatment as found in Heinrich Schütz's three-day "Resurrection History" Oratorio (Dresden: 1623, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mY5AEolkKg8&t=7s, https://musc520-musical-styles-s14.fandom.com/wiki/Historia_der_Auferstehung_Jesu_Christi), with its Italianate characteristics which Bach utilized in his 1725 Easter Oratorio, BWV 249 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYL3QvqtV_c, http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Vocal/BWV249-Gen5.htm, parody of the Shepherds' Cantata serenade. Previously, Bach in 1724 for the three-day Easter Festival had recycled existing materials, Cantatas 31 (Weimar reperformance) and 4 (Mühlhausen), 66a, and 134a (Cöthen parody serenades). Bach originally in 1724 had commissioned Leipzig poetess Mariana von Ziegler (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christiana_Mariana_von_Ziegler) to produce nine cantatas for the Easter-Pentecost season, says Eric Chafe.⁴ These were designed to run from Jubilate (3rd Sunday after Easter) to Trinity Sunday festival, following cantatas from Easter Sunday to Misericordias Domini (2nd Sunday after Easter). Instead, Bach continued his original plan to utilize existing materials for Jubilate Sunday and the Pentecost and Trinity festivals (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/LCY/1724.htm: April 9 to June 6). For the 1725 Easter Monday to the Second Sunday after Easter (Misericordias Domini), Bach had available a series of cantata librettos commissioned in 1724, possibly from his pastor Christian Weise: Easter Monday BWV 6 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOtAvqH_A9k, http://www.bach-cantatas.com/BWV6-D5.htm), 1st Sunday after Easter (Quasimodogeniti) BWV42 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eocxzFBsuXs, http://www.bach-cantatas.com/BWV42-D5.htm), and 2nd Sunday after Easer BWV 85 — all with opening gospel injunction and internal chorale settings (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/LCY/1725.htm: April 1 to May 27). John's account (20:19-31, http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Read/Quasimodogeniti.htm) of Jesus' appearance before his disciples, involves the initial meeting followed eight days later with his second appearance that includes doubting disciple Thomas.

Easter Tuesday 1725 Missing Cantata

Missing from the early Easter season cantatas of 1725 is the cantata for the Easter Festival Tuesday, presumably BWV 158,⁵ a hybrid four-movement bass solo work (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeDD5Lpa_DM, http://www.bach-cantatas.com/BWV158-D4.htm), with the opening vox Christi dictum, “Der Friede sei mit dir” (Peace be with you, Luke 24:36c, http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Read/Easter-Tuesday.htm), the beginning of the day's Gospel, and the closing chorale, "Hier ist das rechte Osterlamm" (Here is the true Easter Lamb), the fifth stanza of the Easter chorale, "Christ lag in Todesbanden" (Christ lay in death's bonds). The two internal movements were most appropriate for the Feast of Purification, 2. Bass chorale aria with soprano chorale trope, Welt, ade, ich bin dein müde" (World, farewell, I am weary of you, https://www.bach-cantatas.com/CM/Welt-ade.htm#Composition), and 3. Bass recitative-arioso, "Nun, Herr, regiere meinen Sinn" (Now, Lord, govern my thoughts). The librettist of Cantata 158 is unknown, while the musical and textual parallels of the first two arias, the biblical dictum and the chorale arrangement, show distinct features of the third cantata cycle. All three Bach works for the Easter Tuesday feast day (BWV 134, 158, and 145) have hybrid or parodied materials allowing little textual comparisons. Three facts about the surviving Bach cantata materials for Easter Tuesday show that Bach had no primary chorale for the third day of the Easter Festival, that Bach omitted chorales from his first cycle 1724 Cantata BWV 134 and JLB-11 (1727) in the third cycle; and that it appears for the second cycle that Cantata BWV 158 could have been presented on a double bill, with a repeat of the Easter Season de tempore Cantata BWV 4, “Christ lag in Todesbanden,” on April 3, 1725. As John Eliot Gardiner observes above (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Performers/Gardiner-Rec4.htm#P23: "2. Programme": 16): “The ravishing, world-weary aria with high violin obbligato and a superimposed chorale (No.2) seems an entirely appropriate accompaniment to the distribution of the Eucharist, the function of Part II of all Bach’s double-decker cantatas."

The third cycle chronologically continues during the 1725 Trinity Time interim (https://groups.io/g/Bach/topic/79070891) with selective settings of BWV 168 (Tr. 9, Salomo Franck), BWV 164 (Tr. 13, Franck), BWV 161 (Tr. 16, Erdmann Neumeister), BWV 148 (Tr. 17, Picander), and BWV 79 (Reformation, ?Christian Weise), and Bach's use of earlier librettists as well as his favored collaborator Picander. In this period Bach plans for the remainder of the heterogeneous third cycle utilizing early published cantata libretti of Georg Christian Lehms (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Lehms.htm), the Rudsolstadt texts (https://dhb.thulb.uni-jena.de/rsc/viewer/ufb_derivate_00014889/Cant-spir-8-01225_00001.tif) attributed to Thuringian theologian Christoph Helm (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Helm.htm) or Saxe-Meiningen Duke Ernst Ludwig. Bach also solicited sacred cantata texts from Picander (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Picander.htm) and student Christoph Birkmann (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Birkmann-Christoph.htm. Aware of the great wealth and diversity of the sacred cantata cycles of colleague Georg Philipp Telemann who held similar posts in Hamburg, Bach sought intimate solo and dialogue texts from Lehms and new ones from Birkmann, as well as chorus texts modeled after the Rudolstadt two-part form with chorus settings of Old and New Testament dicta, and solo cantatas in Telemann's Harmonischer Gottesdienst at nearly the same time. Bach also selectively introduced previously-composed music, both instrumental and vocal for individual movements in cantatas, many with organ obbligato. He would compose this cycle selectively from 1725 to 1727, allowing himself time to fashion his "great" double-ensemble St. Matthew Passion, BWV 244.1 (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Articles/SMPGenesisWH.pdf, https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Articles/SMP-Biblio-Hoffman.htm), which suggests possible earlier materials from Weimar, and which took five years (1725-29) to complete.

3rd Cycle Commences Advent 1725

Bach systematically began composing the actual third cycle at Advent 1725, possibly beginning with the earliest version of parody chorus Cantata 36.4 (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/BWV36-D4.htm. Then Bach set Christmas-Epiphany cantatas of Lehms in two forms from his 1711 published cycle for chorus* or soloists: BWV 110,* 57 and 151 for the three-day Christmas Festival (Dec. 25-27), followed by BWV 16* for New Year's Day 1726, BWV 32 and 13 for the 1st and 2nd Sundays after Epiphany. Meanwhile, Bach began to intermingle cantatas of Neumeister (BWV 28,. Sundays after Xmas), Birkmann (BWV 58, Sunday after New Year's), Franck (BWV 72 for Epiphany 3), and cousin Johann Ludwig Bach (rarely heard Epiphany 4 and 5, JLB 1 and 2). There is no cantata extant for the Feast of Epiphany (26 Jan. 1726) although possibilities include Telemann's "Ich freue mich im Herren" (I rejoice in the Lord, Isaiah 61:10), TVWV 1:826, originally for the 20th Sunday After Trinity, or another solo work for Epiphany, "Hier ist mein geliebster Jesu" (Here is my beloved Jesus, Johann Friedrich Helbig Sicilianischer Jahrgang cycle 1719-20), TVWV 1:795, according to Stephen Daw;⁶ Birkmann, dialogue (Soul, vox Christi) cantata "Verschmähe nicht das schlechte Lied" (Do not disdain the bad song), says Christine Blanken;⁷ Johann Ludwig Bach,⁸ "Es wird ein Stern aus Jacob Aufgehen" (A star will rise from Jacob, Num. 24:17), in the Rudolstadt text, says Konrad Kuster;⁹ and Lehms, "Ich freue mich in Herzen." Also from the Helbig cycle is the chorus Cantata 47 for the 17th Sunday after Trinity in 1726 (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/BWV47-D4.htm), probably inspired by Telemann's setting, TVWV 1:1603 from the Helbig cycle.

Beginning with the Feast of Purification (Mariä Reinigung) on 2 February 1726, Bach presented six consecutive Ludwig Bach Cantatas (JLB 9, 1-5) through Estomihi Sunday and the beginning of Lent (http://bach-cantatas.com/LCY/1726.htm). Ludwig composed a cantata for the Feast of the (25 March, Mariä Verkündigung, text https://dhb.thulb.uni-jena.de/rsc/viewer/ufb_derivate_00014889/Cant-spir-8-01225_00070.tif) but no score has been found. As Bach had done in previous years in Leipzig, he spent Lent composing music for the Good Friday Passion but would need another year to complete the St. Matthew Passion and instead presented the so-called Keiser St. Mark Passion, now attributed to Friedrich Nicolaus Brauns (http://bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Brauns-Friedrich-Nicolaus.htm). Since in the previous year 1725 Bach had composed music for all 15 services during the Easter-Pentecost Season, he continued with Ludwig's cantatas from Easter Sunday to Cantate Sunday (JLB 21=BWV 15, JLB 10, 11, 6, 12, 8, 14), the exceptions being BWV 146 for Jubilate (Picander text) and BWV 43 (Rudolstadt) for Ascension, and possibly Ludwig's "Der Herr ist nahe allen," for Rogate Sunday. No cantata performance is recorded for Exaudi Sunday and three three-day Pentecost Festival¹⁰ while BWV 194 was reperformed on Trinity Sunday, closing the St. Thomas School year. Bach then turned in Trinity Time 1726 to Rudolstadt texts for five more original cantatas: BWV 39 Tr. 1, BWV 88 Tr. 5, BWV 187 Tr. 7, BWV 102 Tr. 10, and BWV 17 Tr. 14. In between, Bach presented BWV 170 (Lehms) Tr. 6, BWV 45 (?Weise) Tr. 8, BWV 35 (Lehms) Tr. 12, as well as Ludwig's JLB 17 John the Baptist (6/24), JLB 13 Visit. (7/2), and JLB 16 Tr. 13. There is no record for Rudolstadt “Und der Herr Zabaoth wird allen Völkern” Tr. 2, “Wo such aber der Gottlose behekret” Tr. 3, and “Ich tue Barherzigkeit an vielen Tausenden” Tr. 4, possibly on a double bill with BWV 24 (Neumeister) reperformance. Bach also presented BWV 19 (after Picander) on the Feast of St. Michael (9/29). Other Bach works in the third cycle but performed at other times are Franck-texted BWV 168 Tr. 9 (1725) and BWV 164 Tr. 13 (1725), BWV 161 (Neumeister) Tr. 16 (1725), BWV 30 (Picander) John the Baptist (1738), and BWV 51 (Anonymus) Tr. 15 (1730). In late Trinity Time (16-23), Bach set Birkmann solo texts to BWV 27, 169, 56, 49, 98, 55, and 52 while presenting BWV 79 for Reformation (?Weise). In early 1727, Bach composed three solo works to fill gaps in the third cycle: BWV 58 (Birkmann) Sun. After New Year's, BWV 82 (anon.) Mariä Reinigung, and BWV 84 (Birkmann) Septuagesimae. Bach also presented BWV 34 (?Picander) on Pentecost Sunday 1727 and BWV 157 (Picander) on Mariä Reinigung 1728. Other Bach works which may have been part of the third cycle distribution are: BWV 18 Sexagesiae (Neumeister, 1724), BWV 22 (? Weise), Quinquagesimae Estomiihi (1724), and BWV 1135=Anh. 199 (anon.) Annunciation (1725).

Following the third cycle in 1727, Bach selectively composed cantatas from the Picander annual cycle 1728/29 and after 1730 only a few more works to fill gaps in his cycles or for special events such as the annual installation of Leipzig Town Council. In the 1730s, Bach may have repeated the chorale cantata cycle about 1732-33 while filling the gaps and composing four pure-hymn undesignated cantatas (BWV 97, 100, 117, 192). Bach greatly diminished his overall presentation of service cantatas following the presentation of the presumed two cycles of Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel in the mid-1730s, with selective Bach reperformances and a few new works only for special occasions, the commitment being the annual presentations of the town council installation and the Good Friday vesper service Passion oratorio.

ENDNOTES

¹ Cantata Cycle 3: http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Topics/Cycle-3-P02.htm; JLB https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Ludwig_Bach, https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Bach-Johann-Ludwig.htm; and Telemann (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/BWV15-D.htm: "Discussions in the Week of June 20, 2010."
² St. John Passion, BWV 245.2, Bach Digital.
³ Konrad Klek, Ab Ostern 1725 (After Easter 1725), Vol. 3, Dein ist allein die Ehre : Johann Sebastian Bachs geistliche Kantaten erklärt (Your only honor: Johann Sebastian Bach's sacred cantatas explained); Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2017); Google Translate; read Amazon.com.
⁴ Eric Chafe: J. S.Bach's Johannine Theology: The St. John Passion and the Cantatas for Spring 1725, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014: 7); Amazon.com: "Look inside."
⁵ Cantata BWV 158, Bach Digital, Wikipedia, http://www.bach-cantatas.com/BWV158-D4.htm.
⁶ Stephen Daw, The Music of Johann Sebastian Bach: The Choral Works (Rutherford NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1981: 228); Telemann "Ich freue mich im Herren," recording https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Performers/Jung-M.htm#P1.
⁷ Christine Banken, "A Cantata-Text Cycle of 1728 from Nuremberg: A preliminary report on a discovery relating to J. S. Bach’s so-called ‘Third Annual Cycle’," in Understanding Bach, 10 (Bach Network, 2015: 24); https://bachnetwork.org/ub10/ub10-blanken.pdf; "Could it be more than a coincidence that Georg Philipp Telemann published the first art of his cycle of solo-cantatas in his Harmonischer Gottesdienst [Hamburg: 1725] at nearly the same time?," she asks (Ibid. ).
⁸ Johann Ludwig Bach, "Es wird ein Stern aus Jacob Aufgehen"; Rudsolstadt text, Sonn- und Fest-Tags-Andachten über die ordentlichen Evangelia: Aus gewissen Biblischen Texten Alt- und Neuen Testaments, Für die Hoch-Fürstl. Schwartzb. Hof-Capelle zu Rudolstadt, Zur Ehre Gottes aufs neue aufgelegt, https://dhb.thulb.uni-jena.de/rsc/viewer/ufb_derivate_00014889/Cant-spir-8-01225_00032.tif: 30.
⁹ Konrad Kuster, "Meininger Kantatentexte um Johann Ludwig Bach," in Bach Jahrbuch, vol. 73 (1987, Leipzig: Bärenreiter: 160); https://journals.qucosa.de/bjb/article/view/1829; Google Translatre: 9).
¹⁰ 1726 Pentecost Festival: Rudolstadt texts extant: https://dhb.thulb.uni-jena.de/rsc/viewer/ufb_derivate_00014889/Cant-spir-8-01225_00110.tif.

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To Come: Various Bach cantata mini-cycles.