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Bach Books
Bach's Musical Universe: The Composer and His Work
Discussions - Part 2 |
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Schulenberg's Bach: Cöthen Transition, Instrumental, Vocal Music |
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William L. Hoffman wrote (September 10, 2020):
Bach's just over five-year tenure as Capellmeister at Anhalt-Cöthen (1718-23) continued his courtly service and advanced his musical career, with increasing emphases on both teaching students, including his three oldest sons born in Weimar, and learned composition collections. Bach made a very favorable impression on this small, rural community and retained his title for a decade until the death of his beloved patron, Prince Leopold, in late 1728 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold,_Prince_of_Anhalt-Köthen).
During his court tenure, Bach was a frequent traveler, including large communities of Berlin and Hamburg, as well as various neighboring communities and two summer vacations with courtly visits to Carlsbad in Bohemia in 1718 and 1720. The second sojourn ended with his return to find his wife Maria Barbara dead and buried. Also in 1720, the financially unstable court was forced to reduce its musical support and Bach began searching for other positions at Hamburg, Zerbst, and Leipzig. Meanwhile, his tenure in Cöthen saw the production of instrumental music, primarily keyboard collections of dance suites and counterpoint as well as string (violin and cello) solo collections, and ensemble music such as concertos and orchestral overtures, observes David Schulenberg in his new Bach biography.1
Bach Trips While at Cöthen
Unlike his famous colleagues Handel and Telemann, "Bach might have regretted never traveling to Venice, Rome, Paris, or London," says Schulenberg (Ibid.: 135), "but he was as well traveled within Germany as anyone." Bach's trips in Germany during his Cöthen time helped to stimulate major works such as his Brandenburg Concertos in Berlin in March 1720 (https://www.bach-digital.de/receive/BachDigitalSource_source_00000448), test Cantata 21 in Hamburg in November 1720 (https://www.bach-digital.de/receive/BachDigitalWork_work_00000025?lang=en), and possibly Cantata 172 at Pentecost 1721 in Leipzig (https://www.bach-digital.de/receive/BachDigitalSource_source_00003414). In Carlsbad in 1718 and 1720, the "highest ranking visitor during the two years when Bach came was Christiane Eberhardine, Saxon Electress and Queen of Poland," he says (Ibid.: 139), for whom Bach composed the Funeral Ode, BWV 198, in later 1727. Also in Carlsbad, Bach possibly encountered two Bohemian nobles (who may have had connections to his B-Minor Mass), counts Johann Adam of Questenberg and Franz Anton of Sporck, suggests Schulenberg (Ibid.: 140), as well as (possibly) the Weissenfels Court where in 1718 Johann Kaspar Wilcke, father of Anna Magdalena, had become court trumpeter following the disillusion of the duchy court at the neighboring court of Zeitz. Bach also may have known Wilcke's son, also named Johann Caspar, trumpeter at the court of Zerbst beginning in 1717, Schulenberg suggests (Ibid.: 142). In the summers of 1721 and 1722, Bach may have been involved in festive cantata presentations at neighboring principalities: a homage cantata for Friedrich II of Saxe-Gotha, 2 August 1721; a church performance at the Schleiz Court of Heinrich XI Count von Reuss, around 10 August 1721; and a birthday serenade, O vergnügte Stunden, BWV Anh. 194=1154 (https://www.bach-digital.de/receive/BachDigitalWork_work_00001505?lang=en), for Johann August, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst, on 9 August 1722.
Instrumental Music Emphasis
Having achieved the title of Capellmeister at Cöthen, Bach was expected to compose instrumental music for the Capelle and he brought with him music that he had begun to compose in Weimar for the court orchestra where he had been concertmaster. Prince Leopold "may have referred to his ensemble as a collegium musicum and Bach as "director of our chamber music," "performed in his personal quarters," says Schulenberg in Chapter 9, "Bach the Capellmeister: Suites, Serenades, and Related Works (Ibid.: 150). In particular, the prince was a skilled player of violin and viola da gamba, notably "in connection with the Brandenburg Concertos, which are likely to have been played in his presence, possibly with his participation," he says. Leopold also was a singer and enjoyed Italian cantatas in the Neapolitan style with obbligato winds, sometimes in dance style, which Bach had learned in Weimar. "In his Cöthen compositions Bach now wrote with a lighter touch than in his major Weimar works," says Schulenberg (Ibid.: 152). "He also turned sharply towards writing music for stringed keyboard instruments [clavier, harpsichord] and for instrumental ensembles," as well as the solo sonatas and partitas for violin and cello.
Cöthen was still a compositional transition time for Bach where significant music either was completed or originated there, Schulenberg observes. In the former category were the six solo Cello Suites, the keyboard English Suites, and the harpsichord preludes and fugues of the Well-Tempered Clavier; in the latter, early versions of concertos and "orchestral" suites, trio sonatas for organ and accompanied obbligato sonatas for violin, flute and viola da gamba with harpsichord. In the vocal realm (see below), Bach reperformed certain Weimar church cantatas, composed courtly serenades, parodying some in Leipzig as sacred cantatas (see https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Articles/HoffmanBachDramaII.htm#P3: "Royal Court at Köthen: Serenades"), and returned to the court almost annually in 1724-1726, 1728, and 1729 for Prince Leopold's funeral, often with second wife Anna Magdalena singing soprano in new serenades. Composed entirely in Cöthen were the six sonatas and partitas for unaccompanied violin, the French Suites, the 15 each harpsichord Inventions and Sinfonias, and the six Brandenburg Concertos, some with earlier versions, as with certain concertos and orchestral suites. Most of the Leipzig solo Harpsichord Concertos originated for other instruments such as violin or oboe,2 while the "only surviving traces of concertos for other instruments are a few instrumental movement (sinfonias) in the cantatas," Schulenberg says (Ibid.: 181), as well as Leipzig cantata sinfonia transcriptions of earlier concerto (i.e. BWV 1059/1,3=35/1, 5) and suite movements. "Bach did initially compose most of his concertos for players other than himself. He must have led first performances of many such works at Cöthen, with different members of the ensemble serving as soloists," he says (Ibid.: 181f).
Vocal Music Gaining Attention
Bach's musical and personal life in Cöthen are "equally opaque to historians," says Andrew Talle in his study of Bach's service to various royal courts.3 As well as his production of significant instrumental music, Bach's position also required the composition of vocal music, now beginning to receive attention from scholars, as does his preceding decade of service in Weimar (1708-17).4 Almost nothing was known of Bach's cantatas for the Cöthen court, called "serenades," until Friedrich Smend's 1951 classic study of Bach in Köthen,5 showing new concerted music and cantata reperformances, as well as instrumental masterpieces and the "lost" funeral music for Prince Leopold, BWV 1143=244a.6 Smend's study was a revelatory musicological gold mine in which he discovered and explored the philological sources of printed music, texts and other critical sources such as archiv. While a few of his fundings were later questioned, Smend also helped recover various congratulatory serenades with only the texts extant, BWV Anh. 5-8, now entering the BWV3 Catalogue in 2020 as BWV 1147, 1151-53 respectively. Four original Cöthen court homage works became the parodied sources for Leipzig sacred cantatas for second and third Sundays of the Christological Easter and Pentecost festivals of 1724: BWV 66, 134, 173 and 184, as well as the Trinity Festival, BWV 194 (see http://www.bach-cantatas.com/LCY/1724.htm).
Recent research shows that Bach was required to compose cantata serenades for Prince Leopold's birthday on December 10 and the traditional community's New Year's celebration, which have concurrent religious overtones, according to Marcus Rathey.7 Besides the profane works for the two annual observances, Smend suggests (Ibid.: 44) that "Two cantatas were heard on each occasion, one religious and one secular." As part of Bach's Bach's Cöthen performance calendar now being reconstructed (http://bach-cantatas.com/BWV36-D5.htm), the secular serenades as Abendmusik were performed at the castle great hall in the evening, and the sacred works at the Calvinist Reformed Church, St. Jacob's, main service in the morning (see http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Topics/Kothen-Serenades.htm). Two cantatas during Bach's tenure are dated to 10 December 1718, based upon the printed texts of court poet Hunold/Menantes (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Hunold.htm): profane BWV 66a, "Der Himmel dacht’ auf Anhalts Ruhm und Glück" (Heaven considered Anhalt’s glory and fortune, https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Texts/BWV66a-Eng10.htm, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pE9YBSYS-E), and sacred BWV 1147=Anh. 5, "Lobet den Herrn, alle seine Heerschaaren" (Praise ye the Lord, all ye of his great armies, Ps. 119:175; http://www.uvm.edu/~classics/faculty/bach/XIII.html).8
Earliest, Sacred Cöthen Works Explored
While all the succeeding profane serenades have been dated during Bach's tenure, the earliest works as well as the other sacred works are still being identified. Bach had begun his Cöthen position on 5 August 1717 while still employed at Weimar and was paid retroactively at the end of the year, possibly his first Cöthen work performed on 1 January 1718, BWV 1150=Anh. 197, "Ihr wallenden Wolken" (Ye billowing cloud banks), says Gregory Butler,9 citing dating proposed by Peter Wollny. Research still debated suggests that Bach between his leaving Weimar and taking the Cöthen Capellmeister post at the end of 1717 may have made a special trip to Dresden between December 2 and 15, then on to Leipzig to examine an organ on December 16 at the St. Paul Luthern Church, before "arriving in Köthen by December 29," says Butler. In Dresden Bach may have composed the earliest version of the Fifth Brandenburg Concerto, BWV 1050a (https://www.bach-digital.de/receive/BachDigitalWork_work_00001234), which Butler believes also may have served as the opening sinfonia to Cantata BWV 1150.10 That version of the concerto "was composed in Dresden during Bach's sojourn in the Saxon Capital during the fall of 1717," says Butler (Ibid: 211). "I would submit that the most logical time for the composition of Ihr wallenden Wolken," says Butler (Ibid.), "was during the period Bach was under house arrest in November 1717" in Weimar (6 November to 2 December).11 Cantata 66a also may have been composed at that time for Prince Leopold's birthday on 10 December 1717, suggests Butler (Ibid.), but was postponed a year to 2018 since Bach was unavailable in Cöthen until as late as 29 December 1717. The opening sinfonia and the aria (no.6), "Beglücktes Land von süßer Ruh und Stille!" (Fortunate land of sweet peace and quiet!), omitted from the parody Cantata 66 for Easter Monday 1724, were parodied a year later in 1725 in Cantata 42, "Am Abend aber desselbigen Sabbatas" (Am Abend aber desselbigen Sabbatas, John 20:19, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eocxzFBsuXs), for Quasimodogeniti (1st Sunday after Easter) as the sinfonia and aria (no.3), "Wo zwei und drei versammlet sind" (Where two or three are gathered together), says Butler, citing Joshua Rifkin.12
Cöthen Sacred Repertory
Extant Cöthen serenades are BWV 134a and 173a (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Performers/Rilling-Rec6.htm#L9); recent reconstructions of BWV 66a and 36a are by Alexander Grychtolik (new recitatives).13 Among Leipzig cantatas that may have materials that originated in Cöthen are sacred Cantatas BWV 42/1/3, 97/1, 119/1, 145/1,3, 190/3-7, 193, and 194. Weimar works which have been reperformed at the Lutheran St. Agnes Church which the Bach family attended include BWV 172 Pentecost Sunday, 5 June 1718, says Martin Petzoldt,14 since the parts in a C-Major version survive, says Smend (Ibid.: 219, https://www.bach-digital.de/receive/BachDigitalWork_work_00000207?lang=en), where quite possibly Cantata 172 also was Bach’s Hamburg Probe, 17 May 1719 on the day before Ascension Thursday.15 Other performances in Cöthen of "sacred vocal works of Bach (among others BWV 21 and 199 [Smend Ibid.: 217f, 220]) have been verified as having taken place in Köthen in 1717-23, even though in what context they took place remains unclear," says Christoph Wolff.16
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
1 David Schulenberg, Chapter 8, "Cothen (1717-1723)," in Bach, The Master Musicians Series, ed. R. Larry Todd (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020), Amazon.com: "Look inside."
2 Bach concertos table: Google Books.
3 Andrew Talle, Chapter 8, "Courts," in The Routledge Research Companion to Johann Sebastian Bach, ed. Robin A. Leaver (London: Routledge, 2017: 191ff), Google Books.
4 For Bach's service in Weimar, see also Michael Maul and Peter Wollny, Bach Schriftenreiche des Bach-Archivs Leipzig, Google Books.
5 Friedrich Smend, Bach in Köthen, trans. John Pages, ed. & rev. with annotations, Stephen Daw (St. Louis MO: Concordia, 1985), Amazon.com; orig. pub. Berlin: Zeitschriftenverlag, 1951: 229 pp; other articles, Bach in Köthen, Bach Bibliographie.
6 Cöthen FuneMusic, BWV 1143=244a: Bach Digital, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klagt,_Kinder,_klagt_es_aller_Welt,_BWV_244a, https://www.bach-cantatas.com/BWV244a.htm, https://www.bach-cantatas.com/BWV244a.htm.
7 Marcus Rathey, "The 'Theology' of Bach’s Cöthen Cantatas: Rethinking the Dichotomy of Sacred versus Secular," Journal of Musicological Research, Volume 35, 2016/4: 275-298, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01411896.2016.1228358.
8 Bach's sole extant Cöthen sacred serenade, BWV 1147=Anh. 5 (music lost), also has been linked by Bach scholars (not accepted) to sacred New Year's Cantatas 190 and 143, as well as possibly the "Gloria in excelsis Deo," of the B-Minor Mass.
9 Gregory Butler, "J. S. Bach's Dresden Trip and His Earliest Serenatas for Köthen," Part III, "Bach Self-Modeling: Parody as Compositional Impetus," in Compositional Choices and Meaning in the Vocal Music of J. S. Bach, essays ed. Mark A. Peters and Reginald Sanders; Contextual Bach Studies No. 8, ed. Robin A. Leaver; Festschrift Don O. Franklin (Lanham MD: Lexington, 2018: 209ff), citing Peter Wollny, unpublished "Überlegungen zu einigen Kantaten aus J. S. Bachs Köthener Zeit" (Reflections on some cantatas from Bach's Köthen Time), colloquium honoring Hans-Joachim Schulze 80th birthday, Bach Archiv-Leipzig, 3 December 2014; see also http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Topics/Self-Modeling.htm.
10 Serenade 1150=Anh. 197, Bach Digital, http://www.uvm.edu/~classics/faculty/bach/XVIII.html.
11 Bach house arrest date verified in Robin A. Leaver, chronology, "Life and Works 1685-1750," in The Routledge Research Companion to Johann Sebastian Bach, ed. Leaver (Ibid.: 497, Dok 2: 84, NBR 68).
12 Joshua Rifkin, “Verlorene Quellen, verlorene Werke” in Bachs’s Orchesterwerke: Bericht über das 1. Dortmunder Bach-Symposium, ed. Martin Geck, 65-67 (Witten: Klangfarben Musikverlag 1997); parody also cited in Schulenberg (Ibid.: 400, Google Books; discussion, BCW Cantata 42, http://www.bach-cantatas.com/BWV42-D5.htm: "?Cöthen Serenata Source").
13 Alexander Grychtolik reconstructions: Bach Bibliographie; discography, https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Performers/Grychtolik-A.htm.
14 Martin Petzoldt, Bach-Kommentar: Theologisch Musikwissenschaftlicke Kommentierung der Geistlichen Vokalwerke Johann Sebastian Bachs; Vol. 2, Die Geistlichen Kantaten vom 1.Advent bis zum Trinitatisfest; Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2007: 965; see also https://www.bach-cantatas.com/BWV172-D5.htm: "Cantata 172 History").
15 Schulenberg (Ibid.: 143) cites the work of scholars Andreas Glöckner and Tatjana Schabalina that Bach may have sent the Cöthen parts of Cantata 172 (first identified by Smend, Ibid.: 219) as a "pre-audition" for the post of ailing cantor Johann Kuhnau, "documented by a printed libretto for Pentecost 1721," says Schulenberg (Ibid.).
16 Christoph Wolff & Marcus Zepf, The Organs of J. S. Bach: A Handbook, trans. Lynn Edwards Butler (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2012: 41); Wolff also says Bach may have been involved in the presentation of a sacred cantata in May 1719 at the dedication festival of the Lutheran Agneskirchke, based on a church bill, in The New Grove Bach Family (New York: W. W. Norton, 1983: 70).
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To Come: Schulenberg's Bach, Leipzig first years and music. |
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Schulenberg's "Bach": Leipzig First Years, Cantata |
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William L. Hoffman wrote (September 18, 2020):
Bach's transition from Cöthen Capellmeister to Leipzig Cantor and Music Director in 1723 was a multi-month period of planning, based upon his experiences in Cöthen, which became an incubator for his Lutheran calling of a "well-regulated church music" to be realized and completed in his final, 27-year tenure, which ended with his death at age 65 on 28 July 1750. Recent research has revealed that Bach faced various institutional obstacles in Leipzig, particularly in his post as cantor at St. Thomas School and his relationship with the Town Council, his employer, while spending considerable time and effort preparing to, shaping, and achieving his calling.
While Bach possessed great skill as a keyboard performer, composer, and organ repairer, as well as a teacher and learned musician, he held no university degree, as had his Leipzig predecessors, and eventually found "differing opinions among the Leipzig elite about the desired level of complexity and sophistication of the music in the two main churches," says David Schulenberg in his new Bach biography. There also were differing opinions among the divided members of the Town Council whether the new rules and regulations governing the school meant that a learned capellmeister position was more appropriate than a teaching cantor and subservient music director. Meanwhile, Bach's "eventual decision was swayed by the presence of the famous St. Thomas School2 as well as the university, for his sons 'seemed inclined towards studies'," he says (Ibid.: 145). Bach had less experience in Leipzig and elsewhere than the two leading candidates, Georg Philipp Telemann at Hamburg (BCW) and Christoph Graupner at Darmstadt (BCW), who remained in their posts.
Leipzig Conflicts, Allies, Opportunities
Bach was stepping into a hornets nest at the school, involving two conflicting historical perspectives as a community Latin school and prestigious music school, and a new set of rules approved by the governing Leipzig Town Council just before his appointment in 1723, downgrading the importance of music and Bach's salary. Bach had a successful audition on 2 February 1723 (pre-Lenten Estomihi Sunday) with Cantatas 22 and 23 and spent "more than a week," says Christoph Wolff,3 learning about the leading trade center and finding ally sponsors such as Gottfried Lange, Burgomaster and head of the Town Council, and Christian Weise Sr., St. Thomas Church pastor. Lange (1672-1748; writer, lawyer, philosopher, theologian) may have written the libretto for Bach's probe, "as well as for some future works by Bach," suggests Schulenberg (Ibid.: 146). These are possibly other cantatas early in the first cycle such as Town Council Cantata 119 on 30 August 1723 (BCW and YouTube), and assisting in the libretto of the St. John Passion, 7 April 1724. The annual cantata for the installation of the Town Council and the Passion for Good Friday vespers were the two traditional events for which Bach consistently and intentionally presented his own works throughout his Leipzig tenure.
"Bach, perhaps through Lange, ingratiated himself into the city's ruling class," Schulenberg says (Ibid.: 198). Later, beginning in 1725, the poet Christian Friedrich Henrici (Picander) as Bach's principlibrettist probably introduced Bach to influential citizens and wrote librettos for some special, occasional commissions (see BCW: "Saxon Court Count Flemming Connection"). Bach made three more trips to Leipzig in May 1723: his theological exam on 8 May, signing his contract on 13 May, and probably presenting Pentecost Cantata 59 on 16 May at the University Church of St. Paul (see BCW and YouTube), before settling with his family on 22 May. With only meager choral resources and limited rehearsal time, Bach in Cantata 59 set an existing (1714) Erdmann Neumeister orthodox libretto with intimate poetry and two chorales quite appropriate for the Feast of Pentecost. Then, Bach "began to acquaint himself with the Leipzig University resources such as patrons and potential librettists and the church where he could present his cantatas on feasts days with the talented university and civic musicians of the Leipzig Collegium musicum." "Subsequent changes in the school personnel and curriculum would eventually poison the working environment for Bach," says Schulenberg (Ibid.: 200).
Music Director, Cantor Responsibilities
As Leipzig church music director, Bach's responsibilities included the concerted music at the two main churches (St. Nicholas and St. Thomas), the four Christological festivals at St. Paul's, as well as the hymns and motets at St. Peter's and the progressive New Church, where the organist Georg Balthasar Schott (BCW) also was director of Telemann's student Collegium musicum (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Articles/Collegium-Musicum[Braatz].htm, copy and browser paste), providing Bach with supplementing performing resources. As cantor, he also was responsible for composing wedding and funeral pieces, auditioning and teaching music scholarship students outside Leipzig, and "oversight of the harpsichords in the two main churches," says Schulenberg (Ibid.: 202). Bach also called on family members and pupils as parts copyists, as eventually "three fellow pupils, Nichelmann, Kirnberger, and Agricola, would join [son] Emanuel in royal appointments in Berlin," he says (Ibid.: 203).
Bach maintained contacts with the courts at Weissenfels and Cöthen through travel and commissions and presented an organ recital in Dresden in September 1725, as well as testing/repairing organs in various communities. Following two intense, unrelenting years of composing and performing cantata cycles, Bach took a break during the omne tempore second half of the church year in 1725, resuming keyboard, instrumental and family music books while working at a relaxed pace on his St. Matthew Passion and composing his third cantata cycle over a two-year span. Bach also began composing profane commissions, often as festive drammi per musica, (Wikipedia), utilizing the performing resources of the Collegium musicum, which he officially directed beginning in 1729. "It might have been more effect than cause of a drastic reduction in his output of sacred music for the churches, which had already been reduced to a trickle," says Schulenberg (Ibid.: 212). "He would never return to the composition of sacred music on a regular basis that characterized his first years in Leipzig — if only because by now he had a sufficient repertory of existing compositions on which to draw."
Sacred Cantatas as Core Vocal Music
The sacred cantatas as musical sermons formed the core of Bach's "well regulated church music" in annual cycles of 60 for the main services of the Sundays and festivals of the church year (see Wikipedia). "Those works, considered as a group, constituted the single greatest sustained creative effort of his life, and as such they constitute the chief subject of our next chapter," (11, "Bach the Music Director: Church and Concert Pieces"), says Schulenberg (Ibid.: 214ff). Since their systematic publication by the Bach-Gesellschaft Ausgabe beginning in 1850 (Version of May 27, 2006 from Internert Archive), the sacred cantatas have become the most studied, performed and recorded of all Bach's music (see BCW). Bach created the most challenging, effective, imaginative, and varied of German church cantatas, beginning in 1714 when he became Weimar Capelle concertmaster, composing one every four weeks for a total of some 21 extant, varied works which were integrated with some changes into his heterogeneous first annual cycle in Leipzig, 1723-24. The church year event dictated the cantata content, including an appropriate seasonal chorale as well as the performing forces, with feast days involving full ensembles including trumpets and drums, sometimes including the related category of oratorio as an expanded cantata.
A major challenge was finding competent cantata librettists, where in Weimar he primarily utilized court poet Salomo Franck, with a select few from Erdmann Neumeister and Georg Christian Lehms. In Leipzig, the varied cantatas of the first cycle used a few additional published texts of Franck, Neumeister, and Lehms, as well as Johann Oswald Knauer, while most of the libretto poets, like the second, homogeneous cycle of chorale cantatas (unfinished), remain unknown. Bach probably relied on pastor-theologians or talented students as his cantor predecessors Kuhnau and Schelle had done to project emblematic sermons as poetic, madrigalian musical sermons with biblical and theological commentary as well as verbatim verses from the Bible. Most likely candidate was Bach's confessor, Christian Weise Sr. Instead of creating entire cycles such as those of Telemann, based on different genres such as solo, dialogue, chamber ensemble, national styles, without recitatives, or oratorios, Bach crafted mini-cycles using some of these genre from Telemann. Bach's first cycle cantata structures usually involve opening chorus, alternating arias and recitatives, and a closing chorale, sometimes with a second, internal plain chorale, occasionally with solo flute, oboe, or violoncello piccolo when a talented performed was available. Bach also favored bi-partite cantatas4 or double-bills of two shorter cantatas, to be performed before the actual sermon and after the sermon during communion. Beginning in the first cycle, Bach began experimenting with chorale settings such as fantasia choruses and chorale arias, chorale tropes (both instrumental and vocal), and multiple chorales in the same movement.
From Sacred to Secular Cantatas
In his second, unfinished cycle of chorale cantatas, the unique structure involved opening chorus and closing plain chorale with verbatim first and last stanza, and alternating recitatives and arias based on textual paraphrases of the internal stanzas, poet(s) unknown. For the third cycle, Bach returned to the varied, eclectic format of structure, ensemble, and poet, now drawing on collections from Rudostadt/Meinengen, student Christoph Birkmann, Lehms, Leipzig poetess Mariane von Ziegler, and Picander. Increasingly, Bach found opportunities to present cantatas of colleagues Telemann (1725), Johann Ludwig Bach of Meinengen (integrated into the third cycle, 1726), and two cycles of Gotha cantor Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel in the mid 1730s. In Leipzig, Bach also presented cantatas of joy and sorrow for special sacred occasions such as thanksgivings, weddings, and funerals. Since no Capellmeister title was appropriate in Leipzig, Bach generally preferred the bilingual title of director musices, which was "an accurate description of his role in the community," says Schulenberg in Chapter 11 (Ibid.: 214ff). "Bach's chief model for how a city music director might function must have been his father at Eisenach," copyingand composing, "as well as some degree of professional oversight over other musicians in the city."
This oversight of community musicians Bach took seriously when he ceased as cantor composing church music on a regular basis, instead as town music director taking the leadership of the Collegium musicum, the city's unofficial Capelle. He threw down the gauntlet to the City Council when on 23 August 1730 he wrote his famous Entwurff (draft) "for a well-appointed church music, with certain modest reflections on the decline of the same" (NBR 151:145=BD I:22, Wikipedia), urging the return to a competent choir increasingly council malnourished since the Kuhnau tenure began in 1702. Instrumentally, Bach pointed to the Dresden Capelle as the model of a modern major orchestra, and made suggestions for further improvements which solicited no response but enabled Bach to drastically curtail original composition presentations, something not required in his contract. Bach at that time had marshaled his forces for the three-day Augsburg Confession Bicentenary, 25-25 June, with parody Cantatas 190a, 120b, and 1139.2=Anh. 4a, as well as the annual Town Council installation with BWV 1140=Anh. 3 on 25 August. Increasingly, Bach had to rely on university instead of school students while composing secular congratulatory pieces, says David Timm,5 some which were parodied as expansive sacred feast day oratorios (Christmas, BWV 248; Ascension, BWV 11; and Pentecost, BWV deest). This process enabled Bach to use the Collegium musicum to learn a new piece that would become sacred music, "to instruct and edify, and to praise an overlord, even if also imparting delight in the process," observes Schulenberg (Ibid.: 220). Bach performing is described by Johann Mathias Gesner, St. Thomas rector (1730-34) and Bach supporter.6
Bach's Leipzig Vocal Music
"The extent and chronology of Bach's Leipzig vocal music are better understood than for any other part of his output," says Schulenberg (Ibid.: 229).7 "Gaps remain in our knowledge" but one source-critical element are the printed librettos for Leipzig church performances, initiated by Schelle and still being discovered, which were sold to congregants and "could have been one way to finance the larger ensembles needed during the Christmas season and other holiday periods," he says (Ibid.). Each cantata cycle has certain distinct features (Ibid: 238f): No. 1, opening choral movements with psalm verses in the form of prelude and fugue; No. 2, initial chorale choruses "even more impressive and ingenious"; and No. 3, one or two soloists with obbligato organ. Among general Bach cantata features, according to Schulenberg, are the use of parody (new text underlay) in the first and third cycles, overall sentiment moving from negative to positive in the Luther manner of stern law to affirmative gospel, and distinctive and innovative use of chorales. The chorale cantata cycle special features, he shows (Ibid: 244ff), include varied genre in the opening chorale fantasia (French overture, chorale motet, concerto, passacaglia), diverse textures, pictorial associations, and simple verbatim stanzas (without paraphrase), called per omnes versus (through all versus), in the traditional concerto manner of Schelle, says Markus Rathey.8
Special characteristics of the third cycle as Bach moved toward dramatic music, Schulenberg says (Ibid.: 247f), include the unique 1725 miniseries of nine Easter-Pentecost Johannine cantatas of Ziegler, explored by Eric Chafe,9 the solo cantatas without choral movements, and the "re-use of music originally written for instruments alone, now incorporated into vocal compositions such as Cantatas 110/1 (YoyTube) and 146/2=1052/2 (YouTube: 2: 7:22). Beyond the third cycle, cantatas of note, Schulenberg says (Ibid.: 249f), include the few but varied Picander-texted pieces, from intimate solo (BWV 156, YouTube), to large scale BWV 149 (YouTube. In the secular cantata category, beyond the parodied congratulatory drammi per musica, are the satirical profane pieces, he says (Ibid.: 253ff): the Coffee Cantata 211 (YouTube), Peasant Cantata 212 (YouTube), and Cantata 201, "The Contest of Apollo and Pan" (YouTube). Most of Bach's motets are dated from Leipzig for funerals, BWV 225-229 (YouTube), "great works, revealing diverse approaches to what by the 1720s was an outmoded genre," says Schulenberg (Ibid.: 238).
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
1 David Schulenberg, Chapter 10, "Leipzig First Years (1723-1730)" in Bach, The Master Musicians Series, ed. R. Larry Todd (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020: 144), Amazon.com: "Look inside."
2 See New Bach-Related Studies: Thomas School, Leipzig After Bach, BCW: "Thomas School History Themes."
3 Christoph Wolff, Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician, updated ed. (New York: W. W. Norton, 2013: 222), Amazon.com: "Look inside").
4 See Bruce Simonson, "Bach's Performances of his Explicitly Bi-Partite Vocal Works," BCW.
5 See David Timm, "Festival music for Leipzig university celebrations," Google Translate; BWV3 catalogue, Wikipedia.
6 Johann Mathias Gesner, Theory of Music: JS Bach performing by JM Gesner (1738); biography, Wikipedia; Bach's music, BCW.
7 Schulenberg's Table 11.1, Bach's Leipzig Vocal Works (Ibid.: 230), lists the categories: cantatas (150 main service, about 12 for special services); serenatas, drammi, secular cantatas, more than 40 (see Footnote, David Timm. ); passion, feast-day oratorios (6), motets (5 certain), Latin church music (Masses, Sanctus settings, Magnificat), and Songs (lieder and chorales).
8 Markus Rathey, "The Chorale Cantata in Leipzig: The Collaboration between Schelle and Carpzov in 1689-1690 and Bach's Chorale Cantata Cycle," in BACH Journal 43/2: 46-92), Jstor; see also Rathey, Bach's Major Vocal Works: Music, Drama, Liturgy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016), Amazon.com: "Look inside"), and review-summary BCW.
9 See Eric Chafe, J. S. Bach's Johannine Theology: The St. John Passion and the Cantatas for Spring 1725 (Oxford University Press, 2014), Amazon.com: "Look inside"), and BCW.
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To Come: Schulenberg's Bach, Chapter 12, "Leipzig: Later Years (1731-1750)"; Chapter 13, "Bach the Teacher: Publications and Pedagogy" (and oratorios and Masses); and Chapter 14, "Legacy." |
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Schulenberg's "Bach": Leipzig Last Years (1730-1750) |
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William L. Hoffman wrote (September 25, 2020):
Bach's final two decades in Leipzig commenced with two major compositional shifts. He began compiling his artistic legacy when he initially turned to significant use of new text underlay, called parody1 or contrafaction, to create substantial vocal music reworkings, beginning with his St. Mark Passion in 1731 (BCW). The musical legacy also involved compiling collections of works, a number to be published.2 Meanwhile, his composition of church year sacred cantatas virtually ceased, instead favoring instrumental works and extended collections, also involving the use of existing materials in new compositions. These final two decades are explored historically and musically in the final three chapters of David Schulenberg's new Bach biography:3 Chapter 12, "Leipzig: Later Years (1731-1750)"; Chapter 13, "Bach the Teacher: Publications and Pedagogy" (and oratorios and Masses); and Chapter 14, "Legacy." The sections of these chapters involve the following: Chapter 12, "Leipzig, Later Years" covers the important last four months of 1730 which was a pivotal time, followed by the "Missa" of 1732, "Family Matters," "Scheibe, Prefects, and the Collgium Musicum," "Turning toward Berlin," and "The Final Months"; Chapter 13, "Bach the Teacher: Publications and Pedagogy," deals with "Bach and His Pupils," "Bach as Editor and Collector of His Own Works," "The Musical Offering," "The Art of Fugue," "Songs and Chorale Harmonizations," "Passions and Oratorios," "Works with Latin Texts," and "The B-Minor Mass"; and the final Chapter 14, "Legacy," summarizes Bach's personal impact on posterity.
Musical Legacy: Parodies, Collections
Bach initiated his compilation of a musical legacy following a tradition dating to the Medieval time as he used the technique of parody, another tradition, to preserve works with some of the best borrowed materials for significant, definitive compositions in a trajectory of transformation and revision. His third and final Passion oratorio according to the gospel of Mark in 1731 is a virtual parody extant in madrigalian movements of choruses and arias as well as 16 chorale settings. Bach further revised and compiled definitive versions of each of his Passions: Matthew in 1736, Mark in 1744, and John in 1749. Another major category of parody was the Latin church music of 1733, the Missa: Kyrie-Gloria, BWV 233a, the beginning of his Missa tota completed in 1749, accompanied with his request for an honorary title of Capellmeister at the Saxon Court in Dresden, finally granted in 1736. Then Bach's drammi per musica, BWV 213-215, for the visiting court became the core music for his Christmas Oratorio of 1734-35, followed by the Easter and Ascension Oratorios in 1738 and a possible Pentecost Oratorio in 1739 during the Reformation Jubilee Bicentenary of the area's acceptance of the Lutheran Confession. Bach in the late 1730s also arranged the four Missa: Kyrie Gloria, BWV 233-236, as parody from mostly sacred cantatas, to celebrate feast days and Reformation observances. Another work most appropriate for the Reformation celebration in 1739 is hybrid chorale Cantata 80 (BCW), its final version presented at the Reformational festival, 31 October 1739, says Christoph Wolff in his new musical biography.4 Also available in 1739 was the just-published ClavierÜbung III, German Organ Mass and Catechism Chorales (BCW), appropriate during the liturgy and communion.
1730: Most Decisive Time
The year 1730 had been the most decisive time in Bach's life. Having completed the premiere of the Picander 1728-29 cantatas and taken the direction of the Collegium musicum in the spring of 1729, he wrote his "Short But Most Necessary Draft for a Well-Appointed Church Music" to the Leipzig town council on 23 August 1730 (Dok 1: 22; NBR 151) and his only biographical letter five weeks later on 1 October to former schoolmate Georg Erdmann in Danzig, seeking other employment (Dok 1: 23; NBR 152). Meanwhile, the town council had censured him for not doing his duties at the Thomas school while appointing a new rector, Johann Matthias Gesner on 30 June, who, fortunately, would support Bach and approve the long-needed renovation of the school, including expansion of the family quarters where several Bach children had died in infancy due to poor health conditions. In 1731, Bach returned to a series of reperformances on his sacred cantatas for the Easter-Pentecost season (http://bach-cantatas.com/LCY/1731.htm), preceded by the premiere on the St. Mark Passion as renovation began in April and the family found temporary lodging elsewhere for a year. Bach's first publication, the ClavierÜbung I, Opus 1, six partitas for harpsichord, appeared in 1731 (Wikipedia). It launched the three successive keyboard exercise collections, published in 1735, 1739, and 1742, followed in the later 1740s by the published keyboard studies, Canonic Variations, Musical Offering, Schübler Chorales, and The Art of Fugue, published posthumously in 1751 (BCW).
In 1732, Bach selectively focus on a few important works: the third version of the St. John Passion on Good Friday; the dedication of the renewed and expanded Thomas School (BWV 1162=Anh. 18, BCW); premiere of pure-hymn chorale Cantata 177 for the 4th Sunday after Trinity to fill a gap in the 1724-25 cycle; congratulatory Cantata BWV 1157=Anh. 11 on 3 August for the name day of Saxon King-Elector Augustus "The Great"; Town Council cantata (unknown) on 25 August, and a reperformance of chorale Cantata 92 for Christmas Day. This was the typical, selective pattern of Bach's performance calendar through the rest of his life when he assigned prefects possibly to perform works such as the Stölzel cycles in the later 1730s and for an extended period in the 1740s, as well as revivals of the chorale cantata cycle, possibly in 1732-33, and 1745-46. Meanwhile Bach in the 1730s with the Collegium musicum presented his various drammi per musica, harpsichord concertos for multiple instruments with his sons, orchestral suites, and possibly the Brandenburg Concertos, as well as Italianate instrumental and vocal works of other composers. In addition, Bach in the 1730s acquired two very influential collections: the "Calov Bible" commentary (Wikipedia) with "numerous hand-written additions," says Schulenberg (Ibid., 264f), to support "his view of music as a form of divine service," and the Alt-Bachisches Archiv (Wikipedia) of Bach Family compositions (Ibid. 258), some of which he performed. Other significants events in the 1730s included the Scheibe controversy (Wikipedia) and the "Battle of the Prefects" with Johann August Ernesti, who replaced Gesner in 1734 (Logia). Bach "Turning toward Berlin" emphasizes his abandoning drammi per musica for the Dresden Court in 1742 with two trips to Berlin5 where Emanuel had become court accompanist in 1738, Schulenberg observes (Ibid. 272f). Bach's "Final Months" involve his illness and death as well as "during the preceding years he seems to have withdrawn from many of his duties, even leaving the direction of the main 'musical' performancein the churches to two prefects named [Johann Nathanael] Bammler6 and [Gottfried] Fleckeisen.7
Bach: Composer as Teacher
Consider that "no major contemporary approached Bach in the degree to which teaching shaped his output as a composer," observes Schulenberg in his final chapter on Bach's later music, Chapter 13, "Bach the Teacher: Publications and Pedagogy" (Ibid.: 284ff). This is because "much of Bach's output seem[s] to have been meant to comprise examples of good composition," whether for students to learn styles and playing techniques beginning in Weimar, as in the keyboard collections composed beginning in Cöthen and taught in Leipzig, or as studies in counterpoint in the final decade. In particular, according to son Emanuel as cited in Schulenberg (Ibid. 288), are the "improvised figured bass realization and chorale harmonization," as well as "training in the fugue." As Bach had learned as a youth, he also had pupils such as subsidized student Philipp David Kraüter (BCW) in Weimar copying music, in this case the motet, BWV 1164=Anh. 159, or talented Heinrich Nicholas Gerber (BCW) involving Bach playing and Gerber making copies of the keyboard collections in Leipzig, as well as the four-part chorale settings such as those by Johann Ludwig Dietel (BCW). As he strove for compositional perfection, it was "impossible to separate Bach's teaching from his work as editor and compiler of his own music," Schulenberg says (Ibid.; 290f), particularly when he "frequently revised [his] older compositions," notably the "Great Eighteen" organ chorales (BCW: "Bach's Last Organ Chorale Versions"). The history of the ClavierÜbung publications as well as the final Musical Offering and Art of Fugue are examined in Schulenberg (Ibid.: 292-304) and the vocal music from chorale settings to the passion and feast-day oratorios, as well as the Latin church music. Published collections show a "combination of archaic and modern features," such as the ClavierÜbung III, liturgical chorales (BCW) and the Goldberg Variations (Wikipedia) with its aria variations and canons.
Oratorios, Latin Church Music
In contrast to Handel with oratorios from the Old Testament, all Bach's oratorio librettos "explicitly recount episodes from the New Testament," Schulenberg points out (Ibid.: 306), and "descended from seventeenth-century historiae." Bach's oratorio passions "are much more ambitious than other liturgical passions of the period," he says (Ibid.: 308). His "inventiveness is, if anything, more astounding in the St. John Passion" (Ibid.: 310). "For here the composer effectively reinvented the oratorio passion, radically surpassing anything by his contemporaries [Reinhard Keiser, Georg Böhm, Georg Philipp Telemann], just as he had previously done in his church cantatas." Bach also borrowed elements from the so-called progressive, popular Brockes Passion poetic passion oratorio (Wikipdia), notes Schulenberg (Ibid.: 315), particularly the allegorical characters of the "Daughter of Zion" and "Believers" in the St. Matthew Passion, as well as aria poetry in the St. John Passion. Having completed three passions and performing a passion oratorio of Stölzel in 1734 (Wikipedia), Bach turned to Christological oratorios for Christmas, Easter and Ascension, and possibly Pentecost, in the last half of the 1730s, based on extensive parody of the choruses and arias. "It is the Christmas Oratorio that is famous today and which makes the deepest impression in performance," says Schulenberg (Ibid.: 320), "although this may be simply due to its greater length and diversity of content." Bach's interest in Latin church music, which still survived in Lutheran practice, dates to Mühlhausen in 1707, while his first major work, the Magnificat, BWV 243a (YouTube, Wikipedia), was presented at the Feast of the Purification on 2 July 1723 in a double bill with Cantata 147 (YouTube). In these Marian feasts "their focus shifted from veneration of Mary to contemplation of some aspect of Jesus," he says (Ibid.: 323), in a Christological perspective. In the later 1730s, Bach turned to parody again for the four Mssae: Kyrie, Gloria, BWV 233-236.8 "Bach's use of parody no longer scandalizes commentators, as it did in the nineteenth century," Schulenberg says (Ibid.: 326), "but it still raises questions about how the music relates to the text — in both the original and parody versions." Another virtual parody is Bach's B-Minor Mass (BCW). "The work's origin as part of a petition to the Saxon Court made it reasonable to appropriate music from now-lost works that had honored the ruler," he says (Ibid.; 327). The motive for the Missa tota is "more as an ideal than a practical compilation," he says (Ibid.), "resembling the late keyboard collections rather than the passions, which were single items for actual liturgical use." Yet the "Great Catholic Mass" is still "an integral whole" with it key sequences and complementary movement pairs in overall palindrome (mirror) form.
Bach's Personal Legacy
Bach's personal legacy resides in various factors, according to Schulenberg's final Chapter 14, "Legacy." "Bach's legacy — to family, students, and the wider world — was not limited to his music, nor, of course, to his material possession," he emphasizes (Ibid.: 332), which show "a prosperous German middle-class professional of the time." His estate was divided among his family, including household furnishings, music instruments and theological books, "but there is no account of music books, scores and parts," he observes. Bach's extant musical estate of cantor's vocal music was divided between Friedemann and Emanuel with Anna Magdalena receiving the 42 scores of the incomplete chorale cantata cycle which she donated to the Thomas School to enable the family to stay in the cantor's family quarters until the end of 1750. Youngest sons Johann Christoph Friedrich ("Bückeburg Bach) and Johann Christian apparently received a few non-vocal manuscripts later acquired by Emanuel. Of these four surviving musical sons, Friedemann became destitute living out his days in Berlin, Emanuel succeeded his godfather Telemann as music director and cantor in Hamburg, Christian evolved the pre-classical style that impacted Mozart, and Friedrich, who likewise adapted the more progressive style (Wikipedia). One myth that is challenged today is that Sebastian's widow, Anna Magdalena," was destitute,9 given that eventually all four surviving daughters — Johanna Carolina, Regina Susanna, and Elisabeth Juliana Friederica as well as step-daughter Catharina Dorothea — lived out their days in Leipzig, as Schulenberg chronicles (Ibid.: 334). In terms of reception history, the "large number of Bach's pupils (see BCW) assured that at least the keyboard music continued to be used during the half century after his death, albeit more for study than public recitals," he says (Ibid.: 335), while Emanuel preserving his share of his father's estate "adapted portions of his father's vocal music." Bach's second successor, Johann Friedrich Doles (1755-1790), championed Bach's motets as well as, possibly, a few cantatas and a passion. The Well-Tempered Cspread far and wide, teaching Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven and the Bach Revival of the 19th century began with the Forkel biography and musical publications (BCW: "Reception History Publications"). "Clearly, many factors came together to help a lucky member of an artist family rise to the highest level that a musician might attain," says Schulenberg (Ibid.: 338). Besides the Bach Family traits of persistence, "diligent training and mastery of musical craftsmanship" was his region of central Germany which also nurtured Telemann, Handel, and Quantz, yielding a "culture, an economic and social system," in addition to "respect for tradition as well as for the innovations of his contemporaries." "Bach's music was a unique product of the time, place and society in which he lived," he concludes (Ibid.: 339).
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
1 Parody: see BCW discussions “Secular to Sacred Parody, Contrafaction (1725-27)" and "Parody": Obsession or Transformation," BCW; also, "Beyond Analytical Musicology: Bach's Self-Modeling," BCW: "Parody as Conservation, Intensification."
2 Bach's musical legacy collections, BCW discussions, Christoph Wolff: Bach's Musical Universe: The Composer and His Work, BCW.
3 David Schulenberg, Bach, The Master Musicians Series, ed. R. Larry Todd (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020: 144), Amazon.com: "Look inside."
4 Christoph Wolff, Bach's Musical Universe: The Composer and His Work (New York: W. W. Norton, 2020: 125), Amazon.com; Chapter 4, "The Most Ambitious of All Projects: Chorale Cantatas throughout the Year," text Google Books.
5 See the historical novel, James R. Gaines, Evening in the Palace of Reason: Bach meets Frederick the Great in the Age of Enlightenment (New York: Harper Collins, 2005); review, The Guardian.
6 Johann Nathanael Bammler, Bach Digital, BCW
7 See Michael Maul, "'Having To Perform and Direct the Music in the Capellmeister’s Stead for Two Whole Years’: Observations on How Bach Understood His Post during the 1740s," trans. Barbara M. Reul from Bach-Jahrbuch 101 (2015): 75–97, in Understanding Bach 12, 2017: 37-58), Bach Network; also BCW.
8 For the sources of the "lost" four movements of BWV 233 and 234, see "Latin Church Music Discussions: Five Missae, 232-236 Contrafaction; Missa in F Intro," BCW: Possible Sources, “Gloria,” Two "Domine Deus,” "Kyrie")
9 See BCW "Book Review, "Sex Death, and Minuets: Anna Magdalena Bach and Her Musical Notebooks" (BCW, especially the last two paragraphs beginning, "It is only since the 300th anniversary of Anna Magdalena's birth in 2001 . . . ").
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To Come: Bach Cantatas, A Selected, Annotated Bibliography. |
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