Hans-Joachim Schulze: Bach Cantatas, Essays, Poets, Parodies

William L. Hoffman wrote (May 13, 2024):
With the death of Alfred Dürr (Wikipedia) in 2011, Hans-Joachim Schulze (BCW) became the leading Bach authority. The magisterial Dürr had helped establish the dating of Bach's vocal works beginning in 1950, edited the Neue Bach Ausgabe (works catalogue) and the Bach-Jahrbuch annual essay publication (1953-74), and contributed numerous essays (see Bach Bibliography¹) the eclectic, versatile Schulze writes for both the scholar and general reader (see his Bach Bibliography²), while with "Schulze, text and music inherently belong together" in all Bach's vocal music, observes James A. Brokaw II in his "Translator's Note" to his selection of 36 Schulze essays just published,² (Amazon.com), a best-of Bach collection. All 225 Bach sacred and secular works will be found at Commentaries on the Cantatas of Johann Sebastian Bach:³ An Interactive Companion by Hans-Joachim Schulze and translated by James A. Brokaw II, IOPN Illinois Library, IOPN Illinois Library.

Dürr, Schulze Publications

Alfred Dürr⁴ published five editions of his studies of Bach's cantatas in German through 1984, which were translated (and updated) as The Cantatas of J. S. Bach and published in 2005 by Richard D. P. Jones,⁵ who is now best-known for his two volumes of The Creative Development of Johann Sebastian Bach. Schulze is best known for the Bach Compendium (BC) Analytisch-bibliographisch Repertorium der Werke Johann Sebastian Bach,⁶ co-authored with Christoph Wolff, a multi-volume Bach works chronological catalogue of the vocal works indexed by vocal type, liturgical year service, chronologically composed, and assigned new BC numbers (BCW). The four volumes begin with the sacred cantatas "A" (BCW), and end with "H,"" Vocal Chamber Music (BCW) and the two succeeding volumes not published, J, Free Organ Works, and K, Chorale-based Organ Works, with designated works BC assigned numbers (see BCW Bach Organ Works, category BC and Will2 [works catalogue BWV 2 pages], see BCW). The new BWV3 works catalogue (Breikopf) replaces the BC and converts the new BC numbers to BWV decimal, such as the five versions of the St. John Passion, BWV 245 to .1 through .5 (BBWVV3: 332).

Commentaries on the Cantatas of Bach

Brokaw in Commentaries on the Cantatas of Johann Sebastian Bach includes his translations of all the texts, interspersed with his commentary, especially the poetic free poetry, some of which is parody (new text underlay). He seeks to preserve the original German text layout while translating Schulze's extensive biblical quotations, "especially in order to make clear the relationship between cantata text and its biblical origin where it applies," says Brokaw (Ibid.: xiv). He cites his reliance on Dürr's The Cantatas of J. S. Bach and the Michael Marissen & Daniel Melamed website, Bach Cantata Texts. Brokaw's commentary is co-published with the Windsor & Downs Press and sponsored by the Ruth and Noel Monte Funds of the American Bach Society. Brokaw completed his dissertation, Techniques of Expansion in the Preludes and Fugues of J. S. Bach, in 1986 at the University of Chicago. An active member of the American Bach Society as well as the Neue Bach Gesellschaft, Dr. Brokaw is well known as a reviewer and translator and is the author of several articles on Bach's keyboard and organ works. << Schulze (b1934, Wikipedia) brings a half-century of Bach studies to the fore in his monograph of the cantatas in Die Bach-Kantaten: Einführung zu sämtlichen Kantaten Johann Sebastian Bachs. As an introduction to all Bach's extant cantatas, it covers in narrative style ( GBV|VZG) the following cantata categories: A. all the extant sacred cantatas for Sundays and feast days of the church year, including those without service designation (BWV 117, 192, 97, 100, 200, 1045, 50); B. scared special service occasions (town council elections, weddings, grief/memorial services, repentance, organ dedication); D. oratorios (extended cantatas); and G. worldly cantatas for courts, nobility, bourgeoise. These cantata categories are based on the Bach Compendium (BC, BCW) that Schulze and Christoph Wolff compiled and edited (1985-89), which is found in Die Bach-Kantaten Anhang (Appendix) with Anmerkungen (Remarks) on the 226 cantatas discussed (Ibid.: 739ff) of bibliographical notes citing the individual cantatas and references by BC number. This is followed by the Literature with abbreviations (Ibid.: 746), Personnel Names (Ibid.: 747ff), Cantata Titles (Alphabetical, Ibid.: 754ff), and a concluding Konkordanz cross-referenced from BWV to BC numbers (Ibid.; 759f; BWV 1-215, 248, 249, 1045, 1083; Anh. 10-12, 18)>> (source, BCW).

Schulze also was the most significant contributor to the collection, Bach Dokumente, vols. 1-3, 5 (Bärereiter). In the field of Bach cantatas,⁷ the most studied and written-about Bach genre, Schulze ranks with other German Bach scholars (3. Cantata Monographs) Werner Neumann (3.2), Christoph Wolff (3.7), Konrad Küster (3.8), and Alfred Dürr (3.9). Schulze is probably one of the most traditional of Bach scholars, grounded in source-based studies, critical commentary, and science-based conclusions while avoiding overt speculation. <<Various still-controversial topics were outlined in Schulze's 2004 essay, "Bach in the Early Twenty-first Century,"⁸ a cautionary assessment of Bach scholarship and challenges in the future. Schulze seems skeptical of the OVPP (one-voice-per-part) concept, the "current vogue for 'updating' and reinterpreting" works, the failure to use both the "why" and "how" (motive and method) questions in studies, the search for hidden meanings such as "abstract numerical relationships," the reconstruction of lost works such as the St. Mark Passion, BWV 247, and equal temperament. Instead, Schulze advocates "a close collaboration of scholarship and practice.">> Some Bach scholars have long denigrated the translations of Bach's leading librettist, Picander, (Wikipedia), citing his lack of scholarly experience and theological training, and his emphasis, particularly in sacred music of sorrow, with graphic pietistic images, and in celebratory secular drammi per musica, with obsequious praises of their subjects (BCW). While some scholars also denigrate Picander's parody (new text underlay) of Bach works, Schulze finds the parody versions meaningful "when it is useful to understand the libretto," the latest listed in BWV 3 such as BWV 1158, 1162 (Ibid.: 231; see BCW), (Ibid.: xiv).

Bach-Facetten Essays

Schulze impressive credentials include a 2017 published collection of 60 essays in seven topical chapters, Bach-Facetten.⁹ <<While Schulze has been quite conservative in his overall approach to scholarship, one topical area in which he particularly has furthered Bach studies is parody or new-text underlay in Bach-Facetten, Section 4, Texts and Parodies, Chapter A, "Bachs Parodieverfahren" (Bach's Parody Proceedings), which "is an overview of the different types of parodies in Bach's vocal compositions," says reviewer Markus Rathey,¹⁰ and "The text is one of the standard resources for every student of Bach's parody technique." A most recent of Schulze's writings on parody is "Parody and Text Quality in the Vocal Works of J. S. Bach."¹¹ Parody challenges faced Bach scholarship in the 19th century, notably the Romantics Bernhard Max (1828), and Albert Schweitzer (1908), says Schulze (Ibid.; 167). While the "extensive application of the parody procedure is characteristic" of Bach, this extensive application is "a problem because the relationship between text and music is often significantly damaged."¹² "This problem is exacerbated by the unparalleled inferiority of the texts, which is widely observed, and by the degree of incompetence of Bach's librettists." "Future generations should not be burdened with these 'heinous German sacred texts (in the words of Carl Friedrich Zelter [Wikipedia]), and certainly not with such texts that resulted from the parody procedure" which in self-borrowing can be considered merely a lazy person's self-plagiarism."

Previously, Schulze points out, he had shown that these sacred texts "usually involve a well-balanced interplay of theological content, linguistic quality, and suitability for musical setting," often showing "extensive knowledge of the Bible and hymnal." Bach's parody is explored in the process of "en-block" wholesale re-texting from Köthen profane serenades to Leipzig first cycle feast-day cantatas (BWV 66, 134, 174, 185, 194), while preserving much of the original text, possibly by Bach himself, thus causing him to abandon "the carelessly entered terrain of the en-block parodies," says Schulze (Ibid.: 175). "With other approaches, higher-quality standards could be recognized," Schulze acknowledges>> (source, BCW: section "Parody Process, Criticism"). Schuze has two essays in English in the periodical BACH, Journal of the Riemenschneider Bach Institute: "The Parody Process in Bach's Music: An Old Problem Reconsidered," is an historical and topical study of Bach's motive, method and opportunity, and "Bach's Secular Cantatas: A New Look at the Sources," examines the challenges of converting profane works to sacred pieces (see BCW, sections "Parody Challenges" and "Secular Cantatas Parodied as Church Works"). These two monographs put Schulze in league with Dürr and the other leading Bach scholar, Christoph Wolff (BCW, Bach Bibliography.¹³

Other Schulze Essays

In his monograph, Die Bach-Kantaten, Schulze cites only those works where an extant secular to sacred Bach realization is found: BWV 30a, 36 (a-c), 173a, 184a, 198, 213-215, 208, 249. Thus, the various versions of BWV 249 are discussed while there is no mention of the parodied movements of BWV 198 realized as the core movements in BWV 247 since, presumably, no source-critical materials are extant. Also lacking in Die Bach-Kantaten is any citation of the pages where the works are discussed, including no mention either in the Anmerkungen (Remarks, 739ff) or the Konkordanz (759f). Two other cantata articles in English are "Bach the Composer" and "Poetry and Poets," in The World of the Bach Cantatas: Early Sacred Cantatas, from Arnstadt to Cöthen, ed. Christoph Wolff (New York: W. W. Norton, 1995: 93ff, 101ff; Amazon.com). The other two volumes of this anthology are unavailable in English where Schulze has four articles: Vol. 2, the Leipzig church cantatas, "Texte und Textdichter" (Text and Text Poet" and "Bachs Aufführungsapparat — Zusammensetzung und Organisation" (Bach's Performance Apparatus — Composition and Organization), and Vol. 3, the secular cantatas, "Adeliges and Bürgerliches Mazenatentum im Leipzig" (Noble and Bourgeois Patronage in Leipzig) and "Dichter und Dichtungen der Weltlichen Kantaten Bachs" (Poets and Poems from Bach's Secular Cantatas), see ZVAB.

ENDNOTES

¹ Alfred Dürr, Bach Bibliography, Bach-Bibliographie.
² Schulze Bach Bibliography, Bach-Bibliographie.
³ Hans-Joachim Schulze, Commentaries on the Cantatas of Johann Sebastian Bach: A Selective Guide, trans. James A. Brokaw II (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2024: xii); Amazon.com.
⁴ Alfred Dürr, The Cantatas of J. S. Bach with their librettos in German-English Parallel Texts, rev. and trans. Richard D. P. Jones (Oxford GB: Oxford University Press, 2005); Amazon.com, Amazon.com; Dürr's Bach Bibliography is found at Bach-Bibliographie.
⁵ Richard D. P. Jones, The Creative Development of Johann Sebastian Bach: Music to Delight the Spirit; Volume I: 1695-1717 (Oxford University Press, 2013, OUP); Volume II, Volume II: 1717-1750 (Oxford University Press, 2015 (OUP).
⁶ Hans-Joachim Schulze, Christoph Wolff, Bach Compendium (BC) Analytisch-bibliographisch Repertorium der Werke Johann Sebastian Bach (Leipzig: Edition Peters, 1985-1989); Amazon.com.
⁷ Bach Cantatas, see "Bach Cantatas, A Selected, Annotated Bibliography, Part 1," BACH CANTATAS: SELECTED, ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY; BCW, updated.
⁸ Hans- Joachim Schulze, Afterword: "Bach in the Early Twenty-first Century," in The Worlds of Johann Sebastian Bach, ed. Raymond Erickson, Aston Magna Academy Book (New York: Amadeus Press, 2009: 291ff); trans. and footnotes, Raymond Erickson, from "Bach at the turn of the twenty-first century," in Bach Studies from Dublin. eds. Anne Leahy, Yo Tomita (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2004: 247ff); cited in "Compositional Choices: Reception History," "21st Century Perspectives," BCW. A select few of Schulze's writings are found only in English