Bach Cantatas
General Discussions - Part 2

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Cantata models, comparisons with other composers, specific features

William L. Hoffman wrote (November 17, 2020):
Where Bach's Leipzig in the 18th century was the crossroads of European trade and the center of the Lutheran Reformation in its various manifestations, the cantata as Bach knew, composed, and performed it was the serendipitous culmination of the vocal music in the Baroque era. This "singing" music usually for multiple voices in several movements with instrumental accompaniment (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantata), evolved from Italy at the beginning of the period in 1600, yielding various antecedents and models involving diverse influences and practices. These musical ingredients as they relate to Bach ranged from proto-cantatas of the North German school and Bach's middle-German cantor predecessors in Leipzig to the influences of Heinrich Schutz and the greater oratorical tradition. Then there are the early cantata and related motet practices of the Bach Family, most notably Johann Bach (1604-1673), Johann Christoph Bach (1642-1703), and Johann Michael Bach (1648-1694). Bach and the "modern" German cantata tradition of the 18th century developed within a common trajectory, which also embraced the profane tradition of the secular cantata and the celebratory fusion of the oratorio while nurturing growing elements of instrumental music. This was far beyond the cantata's earliest characterization in the multi-faceted Italian madrigal of voices singing free-monody poetry without musical accompaniment (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madrigal).

Cantata Genesis

As the cantata developed, it absorbed numerous contrasting, descriptive elements and came to be known, variously, as the Renaissance polyphonic motet of moving words, the aria-concerto or concerted work (concertato, sacred concerto), the church piece (Kirchenstück) embryonic cantata, or musical devotion (Musicalische Andacht), says Alfred Dürr.¹ Virtually every form of vocal writing was absorbed into the cantata by the early 18th century in Bach's time. The cantata genesis over a century began wth the melodic aria and the speech-like recitative, followed by the addition of the multi-voice chorus, the hymnic chorale, and the fusion arioso between aria and recitative, as well as the instrumental opening sinfonia. The settings of freely-invented texts involved strophic poems (odes, hymns) and madrigals. The "aspiration for deeper piety that spread" in northern Germany in the later 17th century, "in association with the rise of Pietism, led to a more widespread devotional poetry," says Dürr (Ibid.: 4). Late blossoming was the progressive Italian madrigal in a song for several voices in subjective free verse, "at first, mostly amatory content," he says (Ibid.: 5), common in the cantata-forerunner motets and concertos of the Bach Family (see below). This type of verse had various freedoms in the number of lines, concealed rhyme, unequal line lengths, changes of meter, and a closing punchline. Bach's Weimar librettist Salomo Franck also published madrigal collections.

Textually, the German sacred cantata developed from Bible reading via the dictum motet, beginning primarily with psalm and other biblical texts and chorale texts from liturgy, while selectively adding creative, Italianate madrigalian texts as da-capo arias and recitatives, alternating in the Italian chamber cantata with compact forces which Erdmann Neumeister (1671-1756, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erdmann_Neumeister) began developing in 1700 in his first cycle for the entire church year, observes Dürr (Ibid.: 6). Trained in orthodox theology and poetics at Leipzig University from 1689, Neumeister from the 1711 third cycle onwards added biblical word choruses and chorales. Only now being recognized is the Rudolstadt/Meinengen cantata cycle with chorus-aria/arioso-recitative-chorale, dating to 1703, set by cousin Johann Ludwig in 1714-15 with 18 performed by Bach in 1726, along with seven of his own cantatas ((BWV 17, 39, 43, 45, 88, 102 and 187) set to these texts (see http://www.bach-cantatas.com/BWV88-D3.htm: "J.L. Bach Cantatas"). The musical forms that evolved in the cantata are most notable in the motet style found in various Bach cantata chorale choruses BWV 2/1, 4/5, 14/1, 28/2, 38/1, 80/1, 121/1, 182/7) and biblical choruses (29/2, 64/1, 68/5, 71/3, 108/4, 144/1, and 179/1), as well as in Masses, the Magnificat, and Passion turbae (crowd) choruses, says Daniel R. Melamed.²

Cantata Musical Forms, Influences

Musical forms "unite virtually the entire [cantata] repertory of the time," Dürr observes (Ibid.: 6ff): motet with biblical Word, "increasingly influenced by the madrigal and rhetorical principals; the concerto, "the opposition of diverse sources of sound," he says (Ibid.: 8) in three different forms (several groups, St. Matthew Passion; full-textured group, instrumental concertos; two or more parts over continuo bass, trio sonata); hymn settings such as the chorale concerto (see Johann Hermann Schein, Michael Praetorius); and combined chorale verse with motet. Secular cantatas developed at the same time as sacred cantatas in two categories: intimate, amatory and serenata for festive events, replaced by dramma per musica, he relates (Ibid.: 9). Two events that most significantly impacted Bach in his cantata creation were the Bach Family annual gatherings yielding the Alt-Bachisches Archiv (Archive of the Elder Bachs, see below) and Sebastian's trips to Hamburg and Lübeck in 1700-03 and 1705-06 to attend the Buxtehude Abendmusiken (see http://bach-cantatas.com/Articles/HoffmanBachDramaII.htm#P1: "Northern Germany: Abendmusiken and Passion-Oratorio"), forerunner of the oratorio, says Dürr (Ibid.: 10).

Watershed Periods

Successive watershed periods in Bach's creation of cantatas begin in Mühlhausen, 1707-08, joy and sorrow early cantatas for mostly special services (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bach%27s_early_cantatas); then Weimar, 1709-18, some 24 cantatas for the church year (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weimar_cantata_(Bach)); and in Cöthen, 1718-23, profane serenades, https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Articles/HoffmanBachDramaII.htm#P3). In Leipzig, 1723-50, came the completion of five cycles of church pieces (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_cantata_(Bach)#Leipzig). The first milestone was the chorale cantata cycle (1724-25), particularly the Lenten period of 1725 when Bach ceased composing service cantatas (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Topics/Parodies-5.htm), composed the St. John Passion second version, BWV 245.2 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBhALSvlujU), as well as the sacred wedding Cantata BWV 1144=Anh.14 which may have provided as many as four parody arias in the Mass in B Minor, his first oratorio and virtual parody, Easter Oratorio, BWV 249, and congratulatory Cantata BWV 36c. Gradually, Bach diminished his sacred cantata composition while beginning to fashion profane cantatas, also known as Drammi per musica, beginning with BWV 205 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKTe4au1ggk, https://www.bach-cantatas.com/BWV205-D4.htm) for a Leipzig University professor's nameday, garnering as the town music director commissions primarily from people wiconnections to the Dresden Court.

In 1733 Bach began composing annual celebrations for court nameday and birthday observances, performed by the Collegiuum musicum, which he had directed since 1729, outdoors in serenade-style evenings at the town square or at Zimmermann's coffeehouse or gardens. Bach recycled many of these works for similar occasions and some as feast-day oratorios in the second half of the 1730s and composed contrafaction parodies of arias and choruses, mostly from sacred works, as the Missae Kyrie-Gloria, BWV 233-36 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_Sct7RroG0&list=PLDW8WaD7m17tp1HKx_kkzcNa2gph4snpu). Meanwhile, Bach in the mid-1730s turned to the works of his Gotha colleague, Stölzel, for a poetic oratorio Passion, "Ein Lämmlein geht und trägt die Schuld" (A Lambkin goes and bears the guilt) in 1734 and then presented one and possibly two Stölzel church cantata cycles. Bach in the 1740s continued annually to compose sacred works in two forms: the Town Council installation cantata and Good Friday Passion/oratorio, mixing on two occasions Passion pasticcios of Handel/Keiser and Carl Heinrich Graun, etc. (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Vocal/BWV1088-Gen.htm: "Discussions in the Week of March 31, 2013), while finishing definitive versions of his three gospel Passions according to John, Matthew, and Mark. Bach also experimented with progressive works such as the Coffee (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nifUBDgPhl4) and Peasant Cantatas, forerunners of Singspiel, and a strophic adaptation of Pergolesi's galant Stabat Mater, with a German contrafaction of penitential Psalm 51, BWV 1083 (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Vocal/BWV1083-Gen2.htm). Little-known are Bach's three extended cantatas for funerals of royalty: “Was ist, das wir Leben nennen?” (What is this that we call life?), BWV 1142, for Weimar Prince Johann Ernst in 1716 (music lost); the Funeral Ode, BWV 198 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfgcgaakZyg), for Saxon Princess Queen Christiane Eberhardine in 1727; and Cöthen funeral music, BWV 1143=244a, for Prince Leopold in 1729 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miuGs6GeWjk).

Cantata Determinant Conditions

Determinant conditions in the creation of Bach cantatas,³ most significant in Leipzig and more important than any other composition type, involved the following (most often determined through correspondence or research): major supportive institutions (courts, churches, municipalities, and universities); training and performing ensembles (Thomas School for choir singers, municipal Stadtpfeifer musicians guild, and Collegiium musicum professional ensembles); performing venues (main churches with organs, the secular town square, Ziimmermann's, or his home or those of others); textual materials (libretti, theological and biblical sources); documentation (collection, publication, transmission); manuscript study (evidence, notation, chronology, copyist, performance implication, pedagogical use); print edition sources (hymn books, sacred commentary, libretto books, chronicles, compendia); supportive household venues (residences, work sites, production places); schools (Lutheran instruction, academics, music); churches (worship, clergy, governance); court (residence, governance, conditions); other composers influences musical libraries); and genres and forms contributing to cantatas (keyboard, instrumental, chorales, counterpoint).

North German Proto Cantatas

The 17th century was a "fertile period" in which "fusion of old and new emerged an independent, austerely beautiful musical language that was eventually to pave the way for the art of Johann Sebastian Bach," says Peter Wollny.⁴ Hundreds of miles separated the Northern German city of Hamburg and its Italian sister city of Venice to the south where the former was known as the "Venice of the North," and where music-making flourished in both cities involviing public opera, churches, and people of prestige. In the north, Hamburg and its neighboring Hanseatic towns of Lübeck and Lüneberg offered fine churches with equivalent organs played by talented performer-composers as organists. It was to these places that the young Bach came at the beginning of the 18th century when German musical style emerged into its own, absorbing the national influences of Italian polyphony, opera, and oratorio; French dance and keyboard music; Burgundian fusion; and English melody to achieve an amalgamation of prelude and fugue, dance style, improvisation, and courtly-community ceremony as the common practice period of pre-Classical music moved out of Italy north to Vienna, Dresden, Leipzig, and Berlin with a decidedly Teutonic sense and sensibility. Bach found himself in the right place at the right time as his formative musical abilities were shaped, to be perfected in Middle German Thuringia. The North German tradition began with Franz Tunder (1614-67) in Lübeck at the Marienkirche, predecessor and father-in-law to Dietrich Buxtehude. Tunder and his generation "enriched the contrapuntal techniques," "expressive harmonic texture," and "concertato technique learnt from their Italian models," says Wollny. Bach's German sacred works show both the "style of Schütz's vocal concertos, while other are dominated by the chorale," says George J. Buelow.⁵ Tunder's chorale settings involve chorale variations with "diverse force and textures" in the various verses giving "the formal concept" "some insight into the origins of the German cantata," notably Bach's chorale Cantata 4, Christ lag in Todesbanden (Christ lay in death's bonds), he says (Ibiid.: 201). Buxtehude (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Buxtehude-Dietrich.htm) is best known as the great bridge between Heinrich Schütz and Bach.

Middle German Early Cantatas

The other German city that takes pride of pace in the development of the cantata is Dresden, where the court trained prominent musicians such as Johann Hermann Schein (1586-1630, https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Schein.htm). "He was one of the first to import the early Italian stylistic innovations into German music, and was one of the most polished composers of the period," says Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Hermann_Schein). An early predecessor of Bach as cantor at the Thomas School (1616-30), Schein utilized Italian Baroque monody, concertato style, and figured bass in the Italian madrigal, fashioning his own adaptations of German text as well as composing chorales (music and text) for sacred concertos for the Lutheran service with instrumental string accompaniment, similar to his contemporaries, Michael Praetorius (1571-1621), Heinrich Schütz (1585-1666) at the Dresden Court and Samuel Scheidt (1587-1654) in Halle. Two of Schein's many chorale settings, also set by Bach, are the memorial "Machs mit mir, Gott, nach deiner Güt" (Deal with me, God, according to your kindness), with its personal devotional text, and the German "Gloria," "Allein Gott in der Höh sei Her" (To God alone on high be glory, NLGB 145). Two of Schein's best-known sacred concertatos (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDO8q5sa4fM) are Christ, unser Herr, zum Jordan kam (Christ our Lord came to the Jordan), and O Jesu Christe, Gottes Sohn (O Jesus Christ, God's Son). Schein also did a chorale setting of the Seven Words of Christ on the Cross, "Da Jndesus an dem Kreuze stund" (When Jesus stood by the Cross, NLGB 61) in nine stanzas while better known is Schütz's Die sieben Worte Jesu Christi am Kreuz (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_sieben_Worte_Jesu_Christi_am_Kreuz). Schein was equally adept at writing secular songs for social gatherings. Schütz (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Schutz-Heinrich.htm) also composed three Passion settings, and the Christmas (Weihnachtshistorie) and Easter Oratorios. Praetorius and various colleagues celebrated with special music the centenary of the Lutheran Reformation in 1617 (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/BWV149-D4.htm: "Reformation Centennial Celebration, 1617"). Bach's three immediate Leipzig predecessors laid the foundation for Bach's cantatas and oratorios (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Topics/Oratorio-Pentecost.htm: "Leipzig Cantors Knüpfer, Schelle, Kuhnau"): Sebastian Knüpfer (1657-1676, https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Knupfer-Sebastian.htm), Johann Schelle (1677-1701, https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Schelle-Johann.htm), and Johann Kuhnau (1701-1722, https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Kuhnau-Johann.htm), who all had connections to the Saxon Court.⁶

Alt-Bachisches Archiv: Bach Family Motets, Cantatas

Perhaps the richest vein and clearest direct cantata influences on Bach were the Bach Family, primarily through the vocal music extant as the Alt-Bachisches Archiv (ABA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altbachisches_Archiv), some 19 motets/arias and nine cantatas as well as later findings of 14 motets, three lamenti, and a sacred concerto. Among the best-known are works of Johann Bach (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Bach), Johann Christoph Bach (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Bach-Johann-Christoph.htm), and Johann Michael Bach (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Bach-Johann-Michael.htm). Many of the motets for double choir involve the opening polyphonic music often set to biblical texts and the closing Lutheran chorale in homophonic style. Instrumental accompaniment could involve the organ as a continuo and the doubling of vocal lines where appropriate for wind/brass instruments, says Jerome Lejeune.⁷ As with Sebastian, most of these motets are for funerals, while some are for Passiontide or Christmas. Christoph and Michael also composed cantatas while the earliest family member to compose this vocal music with string instruments in an important role was Heinrich Bach (1615-92) with "Ich Danke dir, Gott," for the 17th Sunday after Trinity. One of the best known settings is Christoph's festive, "Es erhub sich ein Streit im Himmel" (There was a war in heaven) for the feast of Michael and All-Angels (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SgfxQ8YcBg, http://www.bach-cantatas.com/BWV149-D4.htm: "Christoph Bach's Michaelmas Cantata"). Sebastian composed his version of the Epistle (Rev. 12:7-012) based on a Picander text, as Cantata 19 in 1726 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXg66t_K-QI, https://www.bach-cantatas.com/BWV19-D4.htm). Bach's second youngest son, Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach (known as the Bückeburg Bach) also did a setting of the Michaelmas Epistle (see http://www.bach-cantatas.com/BWV149-D4.htm: "Christoph Fredrich’s Cantata"), "Michaels Sieg (Michael's Victory) and in 1785 collaborated with half-brother Emanuel on a St. Michael's pasticcio, "Michaelis-Cantata," SW XIV/6 [Sü II/9]. Emanuel in Hamburg in 1776 presented his father's Cantata 19 with Emanuel's "Heilig" (Sanctus) while he also inherited the Alt-Bachisches Archiv with Christoph's 22-part "Es erhub sich ein Streit," ABA deest. Recent research suggests that the final cantata in Bach's Christmas Oratorio, BWV 248 VI, was a parody of a Michaelmas 1734 cantata (music only, no text), BWV 248 VIa or 248a (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herr,_wenn_die_stolzen_Feinde_schnauben,_BWV_248_VI#Cantata_fragment_BWV_248_VI_a).

Another Christoph Bach work that Sebastian may have performed is the wedding cantata, "Meine Freundin, du bist schön" (My love, your are fair), ABA II 9, based on the Song of Solomon (BCML “Dialogue Cantatas, Discussions (April 10, 2014, http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Topics/Dialogue-Cantatas.htm), one of three early dialogue cantatas (see http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Vocal/BWV524-Gen2.htm: "Bach Family Dialogue Concerti"), the other two being the Johann Michael Bach (1648-1694) 1676 “Liebster Jesu, hör mein Flehen” (Dearest Jesus, hear my supplication), ABA II 6, a Dialogue for the Second Sunday in Lent (Reminiscere), and Christoph Bach's undesignated 1676 Dialogue, “Herr, wende dich und sei mir Gnädig” (Lord, turn and be merciful to me, Job 11:16), ABA Deest.⁸ Johann Michael Bach also composed four other church cantatas (unknown occasions), ABA II 3, 5, 7, while Christoph now has the attribution for a town council cantata, "Die Furcht des Herren" (The Lord's Fear), ABA II 8. Another genre of cantata is the solo lamento involving two of Christoph Bach, "Ach, dass ich Wassers genug hätte" (Oh, that I had enough water, after Jer. 9), ABA deest, and "Wie bist du denn, o Gott, in Zorn auf mich entbrannt" (How are you, O God, angry with me?, penitential psalm paraphrases), JCB 1,⁹ and one of Johann Michael Bach, "Ach, wie sehnlich wart' ich der Zeit" (Oh, how longingly I wait for the time), ABA II 4 (see Johan van Veen, musica Dei Dominum CD Reviews, http://www.musica-dei-donum.org/cd_reviews/Alpha_626.html, paragraph beginning "Ach, wie sehnlich wart ich der Zeit . . .", https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0PQpE684n0. The lamento also impacted Bach in his cantatas (BWV 170, 200), and other composers as well as his sons.¹⁰

END NOTES

¹ Alfred Dürr, Introduction: "History of the Cantata Before Bach," in The Cantatas of J. S. Bach, English Edition. revised & trans, Richard D. P. Jones (New York: Oxford University Press. 2005: 4f), https://www.amazon.com/Cantatas-J-Bach-Librettos-German-English/dp/0199297762: "Look inside," especially Introduction: 1-10; Bibliography: 928-948, Index of terms and glossary, 952-959).
² Daniel R. Melamed, "motet style," in Oxford Composer Companions: J. S. Bach, ed. Malcolm Boyd (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999: 301; Melamed also is author of J. S. Bach and the German Motet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), https://www.amazon.com/J-S-Bach-German-Motet/dp/0521619769: "Look inside."
³ These conditions are best described in The Routledge Research Companion to Johann Sebastian Bach, ed. Robin A. Leaver (London: Routledge, 2017); https://www.amazon.com/Routledge-Research-Companion-Johann-Sebastian-ebook/dp/B01MTSUZAF: "Look inside, Contents, v).
⁴ Peter Wollny, liner notes "Sacred cantatas before Bach," trans. Derek Yeld, in Deutsche Kantaten Before Bach, Philippe Herreweghe (Aerles: Harmonia Mundi, 1999: 9); details, http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=18060&album_group=14.
⁵ George J. Buelow, "Lübeck Church Music," "Protestant North Germany," in The Early Baroque Era: From the late 16th century to the 1660s, Music and Society, ed. Curtis Price (Englewood Cliffs NJ: Prentice Hall, 1993: 201).
⁶ The most comprehensive account of early German Baroque cantatas are the recordings of the Ricercar Consort (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricercar_Consort; also, Google Seasrch Raesults.
⁷ Jerome Lejejune, "Motets by the Ancestors of Johann Sebastian Bach," trans. Peter Lockwood, liner notes to Bach Motetten, Vox Luminis (Brussels: Outhere, 2015), (33 motets).
⁸ Other sources of materials on the Bach Family in recordings are the following liner notes: Klaus Hofmann, "The Bach Family," trans. Roger Clement (Nordhausen: Hänssler-Verlag, 2010), http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=492592; further reading, Johann Sebastian Bach and the Bach-Family in Editions by Hanssler (Nordhausen: Hänssler-Verlag, 1981), https://www.amazon.com/Johann-Sebastian-Bach-Family-Editions-Hanssler/dp/B000E44PJO. Other materials, Steffen Voss, liner notes "Cantatas by Members of the Bach Family," trans. Stewart Spencer (Hamburg: Deutsche Grammophon, 2003), https://www.amazon.com/J-M-Bach-G-C-J-C-Cantatas/dp/B0018O89YQ.
⁹ Edward van Hangel, "Johann Christoph Bach, "Wie bist du denn," trans. Ria van Hengel Google Translate.
¹⁰ See "Lamento," Magdalena Kozena and Reinhard Goebel with Musica Antique Köln (Hamburg: Deutsche Grammophon, 2005), https://www.amazon.com/Lamento-J-C-Bach/dp/B0006M4RMY.

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To Come: Bach cantata contexts and importance to Bach.

Cantata Contexts, Importance to Bach

William L. Hoffman wrote (November 24, 2020):
The contexts in which Bach composed cantatas and their importance to him are many and quite varied. As the culmination of the Baroque cantata form and influenced greatly in the Alt-Bachisches Archiv (Archive of the Elder Bachs, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altbachisches_Archiv), these sacred musical sermons or secular tributes were composed under various circumstances and for various purposes. Bach contextual studies in the 20th century have produced a plethora of findings, ranging from the cantata texts and liturgical readings to the spiritual pursuits of the historical, liturgical, theological, hymnodical, and hermeneutical traditions, to four areas of research involving the theological, analytical, self-modeling, and reception, the last two — parody and transmission — becoming significant in the 20th century. Another contextual field is rhetoric, from the five speech elements of the sermon to the musical rhetoric and mimesis in musical expression (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_expression) such as the use of chiasm (cross-like) structures (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Topics/Chiasm.htm) and number symbolism (compositional proportion) to the rhetorical fundamentals of symmetry, contrast, and repetition. The historical reception in Bach theological and cultural realms involves a range of performance conditions and stakeholders from Bach's time to the present, with increasing use of the musicological terms "historically informed" and "performance practice," trying to re-create the conditions under which the music was conceived and presented. A significant portion of Bach's Christological music in Leipzig was systematically transformed from dramatic profane music to sacred oratorios and cantatas for feast days.

At the heart of the sacred cantatas are the texts that reflect the liturgical readings for the services for which they were composed, especially quotations or paraphrases of the primary Gospel texts (http://bach-cantatas.com/Read/index.htm). These readings involve numerous libretto biblical references, such as Ulrich Meyer's Biblical Quotation and Allusion in the Cantata Libretti of Johann Sebastian Bach, 1997; https://books.google.com/books/about/Biblical_quotation_and_allusion_in_the_c.html?id=4Ltfbx6rNrMC), as well as theological meaning in the texts in Martin Petzoldt's Bach-Kommentar, Theologisch-musikalische Kommentierung der geistlichen Vokalwerke (Bach Commentary, Theological and Musical Commentary on the Sacred Vocal Works, Vols. 1 and 2, cantatas https://www.bachakademie.de/en/schriftenreihe.html; cited in https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Topics/Religion-8.htm: "Bach's Sacred Music Theology: Martin Petzold"). Another textual context is the madrigalian poetry of the cantata librettists found in the cantata choruses, arias, recitatives, and ariosi, as well as chorale tropes and dialogue.

Vocal Works :Historical, Liturgical, Theological, Hymnodical, Hermeneutical Traditions

Bach works today "are usually heard within contexts that are very different from what the composer had in mind when creating them," says Robin A. Leaver. ³ "Today they are heard as independent concert music whereas they originated as dependent worship music, the product of specific historical, liturgical, theological, hymnodical and hermeneutical traditions." The Bach cantatas also are the realization of these five primary backgrounds and contextual functions as he composed and presented them during an extended period from the earliest Arnstadt and Mühlhausen periods beginning c.1706 to his death in Leipzig in 1750. The historical tradition of the German cantata and Bach's contribution are studied in the previous BCML discussion, "Cantata models, comparisons with other composers, specific features" https://groups.io/g/Bach/topic/78304362, Nov. 16. The second contextual liturgical function of the Bach cantatas ranged across the Lutheran main and special services during Bach's time: the cantatas for the Sunday main and feast-day observances; the oratorios (great cantatas) for the feast days with musical settings of the day's gospel; and the special cantatas of sorrow and joy for liturgical occasions such as the Good Friday vespers for the Passions (both biblical and poetic), funerals and memorials for particular individuals or communal events, and the joyous wedding masses and town council annual installations, as well as unique observances involving Reformation jubilee (1517 establishment, 1530 Augsburg Confession, 1539 acceptance of Lutheran Confession) or thanksgiving services (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Topics/Praise.htm). The third theological function was based on traditions began with Martin Luther's Reformation principles such as the "Theology of the Cross" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theology_of_the_Cross) and related "Justification Theology" (https://www.crossway.org/articles/a-systematic-theology-of-justification/), "and later Lutheran theologians, especially the sermons and Bible commentaries that Bach has access to in his library," says Leaver (Ibid.; see also https://www-jstor-org.libproxy.unm.edu/stable/41640050?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents: listing 29f). These include the Calov bible commentary (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calov_Bible) and Luther's Gospel commentaries (https://www.christianity.com/bible/commentary.php?com=luth), which made available materials that could impact the poetic verses of Bach's librettists. Bach's marginal notes in the Calov bible emphasize the importance of music in the Bible and worship as well as the role of the musician. The fourth hymnodical function involves the great Lutheran tradition of the chorale (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lutheran_chorale) which includes the multi-stanza hymns for important events in the church year that serve as part of the liturgy, particularly as Bach set them to music to conclude his sacred cantatas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chorale_harmonisations_by_Johann_Sebastian_Bach).² The fifth hermeneutical tradition relates to the application of a biblical interpretation technique to musicological application. Laurence "Dreyfus' book³ is a "brilliant example of hermeneutic criticism," says Yearsley in his essay,"Keyboard Music."⁴ Usually applied to biblical interpretation, hermeneutics here becomes part of the musicologist's lexicon, with Dreyfus using a new critical methodology, "based in part on eighteenth century ways of thinking" says Yearsley (Ibid.). An effective use of theological hermeneutics is found in the rhetorical device of the five elements of a sermon (speech) as it can be applied to Bach's oratorio Passions, says Robin A. Leaver,⁶ in Bach's most extensive original genre: exordium (introduction), proposito (key statement), tractatio (investigation of proposito), applicatio; and conclusio. This concept also can apply to Bach's sacred cantatas as musical sermons and by implication to complex Bach fugues like the one in E-Flat, BWV 552/2 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMKl0VFKIFg), that closes the German Organ Mass and Catechism with its trinitarian allusions. At the same time, Bach's music explores in depth the three essential rhetorical devices of symmetry, contrast, and repetition.

Bach's Secular Cantatas for Courts, Institutions, Individuals

Many of Bach's some 50 secular cantatas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_secular_cantatas_by_Johann_Sebastian_Bach) honor noted individuals at courts in Cöthen, Dresden, Saxe-Weimar and Saxe-Weissenfels with birthdays, namedays, and New Year's and other congratulatory events, weddings and funerals, academic events at Leipzig University (https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=https://www.uni-leipzig.de/unichor/index.php%3Fpage%3Dfestmusiken&prev=search&pto=aue), the Thomas School (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Topics/Homage-Thomas-Rector.htm) and other institutions, and various works (BWV 201, 203, 204, 211, 212). This genre is best-observed in the cantatas of the Bach Family, most notably Johann Christoph and Johann Michael in works of love (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Vocal/BWV524-Gen2.htm: "Bach Family Dialogue Concerti"). Some Bach cantatas have a fusion of secular and sacred texts such as the three extended cantatas for royalty funerals: Weimar Prince Johann Ernst, BWV 1142; Saxon Queen Christiane Eberhardine, BWV 198; and Cöthen Prince Leopold, BWV 1143. The Cöthen congratulatory works also display this fusion, says Marcus Rathey,⁷ while the Leipzig drammi per musica with mythological and allegorical characters often addressed governing, character, and moral responsibilities.

Theological, Analytical, Self-Modeling, Reception

Contextual Bach Studies is a new field of Bach research publications (https://rowman.com/Action/SERIES/_/CBA/Contextual-Bach-Studies, edited by Leaver.⁸ Increasingly, music studies of Bach take into account the perspectives of his predecessors, contemporaries, and successors "to view a more rounded picture of Bach's genius," he says (Ibid.: ii). "German culture at the time had more general religious dimensions that permeated 'secular' society" and contextual Bach pursuit beyond liturgical and theological contexts "includes explorations of social, political, and cultural contexts." Beginning in 2006 are eight published contextual Bach studies: 1. Jasmin Melissa Cameron's The Crucifixion in Music: An Analytical Survey of Settings of the Crucifixus between 1680 and 1800; 2. Isabella van Elferen's Mystical Love in the German Baroque: Theology, Poetry, Music; 3. Anne Leahy's J. S. Bach's 'Leipzig' Chorale Preludes: Music, Text, Theology; 4. Zoltán Göncz's Bach's Testament: On the Philosophical and Theological Background of The Art of Fugue; 5. Johann Mattheson's Foretastes of Heaven in Lutheran Church Music Tradition and Christoph Raupach on Music in Time and Eternity; 6. Szymon Paczkowski's Polish Style in the Music of Johann Sebastian Bach; 7. Andreas Werckmeister’s Musicalische Paradoxal-Discourse: A Well-Tempered Universe; and 8. essays of Compositional Choices and Meaning in the Vocal Music of J.S. Bach. The last study on compositional choices (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Books/B0219.htm) deals with the circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea involving 17 essays covering four basic topics: theological context, analytical perspectives, self-modeling: parody as compositional impetus, and reception. The last two topics, parody and reception, are two 20th century studies involving reception history becoming an embedded pursuit of musicology while some Bach scholars still question whether parody is overrated in current Bach studies. In Part III on Bach's self-modeling (Ibid.: 167ff), five scholars consider certain aspects. Leaver's pending publication, Bach Studies: Liturgy, Hymnology and Theology (March 2021) involves 15 essays on sacred music (https://www.routledge.com/Bach-Studies-Liturgy-Hymnology-and-Theology/Leaver-Zager/p/book/9780367242718) in three core themes, liturgy, hymnology, and theology, exploring a variety of contextual interests: cantatas, liturgical context, Agnus Dei compositions, parody process in cantatas and Missae, cantata controversy in the early 18th century, theologian Johann Christoph Oleariius, Cantata 4 hymnology and chronology, Orgelbüchlein, hymnic aria, Schemelli Gesangbuch, Pietism, Thomas School rectors Gesner and Johann August Ernesti, Erdmann Neumeister, Clavierübung III, and Reformation anniversaries.

Parody (Borrowing), Reception History (Works Transmission)

Two of the most challenging areas of Bach research are the studies of Bach borrowings, often called parody, and the field of reception history (https://guides.zsr.wfu.edu/c.php?g=34352&p=220665). Both were first studied in Germany between the World Wars and began to come to fruition beginning in mid-century with the precise dating of Bach's vocal works. The field of historical musicology (athe early music movement) was established in the 1930s, most notably at Columbia University (https://music.columbia.edu/graduate-study/programs/graduate-study-in-historical-musicology), with an interdisciplinary, humanistic approach. "Music is studied through primary sources, the analysis and development of style, and in wider historical, cultural, and social contexts," says the prospectus, under the banner of musicology (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musicology#Historical_musicology). Besides significant self-modeling, the music of Bach was nurtured in a stimulating theological and cultural environment, which is now being rigorously and pervasively studied, with the historical reception involving a range of performance conditions and stakeholders from Bach's time to the present, becoming more accessible to more people.

Bach's methods of self-borrowing, both parody of vocal music with new text underlay and transcription/adaptation of instrumental music into new instrumentation, were intentional, systematic, pervasive, and fruitful. As part of his compositional process, Bach relied almost exclusively on self-borrowings rather than the music of other composers, as was legion in the works of Handel, who utilized the music of Italian composers, as well as his own instrumental music, in his operas and oratorios.⁹ The criticism of such practices can entail the pejorative use of the term "parody" as imitation for comic effect rather than parody (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parody_music) or self-borrowing with new text underlay which usually seeks to emphasize the music in a similar affect but with new text. In one instance Bach in the 1740s borrowed music of another composer, Giovanni Pergolesi's popular Stabat Mater music, which was transformed into a Lenten penitential motet through contrafaction as "Tilge, Höchester, meine Sünden" (Blot out, Highest, my transgressions, Ps. 51; trans. Z. Philip Abrose, http://www.uvm.edu/~classics/faculty/bach/TilgeHochster.html), BWV 1083 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukxAM-spo8M, https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Vocal/BWV1083-Gen2.htm). Another area of criticism was the suggestion that the music was self-plagiarism and laziness on the part of the "composer." Instead proof shows that a significant portion of Bach's Christological music was systematically transformed from dramatic profane music (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Topics/Parodies-6.htm: "Parody: Obsession or Transformation"): Cöthen congratulatory serenades became feast day cantatas in 1724 for Easter, Pentecost, and Trinityfest; music of mourning, BWV 198, became the core music for a virtual parody in the 1731 St. Mark PassionBWV 247; in 1733, Bach through contrafaction of sacred cantatas and profane congratulatory works created the Missa: Kyrie-Gloria, BWV 232¹ ; in 1735-39, Bach shaped three and possibly four feast-day oratorios from serenades or drammi per musica for Christmas, BWV 248 (1734-35); Easter, BWV 249.4 (c.1738), Ascension, BWV 11 (1738), and possibly a lost Pentecost Oratorio, BWV deest 1739); during the later 1730s, Bach created the Short Mass Missae: Kyrie-Gloria, BWV 233-36, as contrafaction mostly from sacred cantata movements; and finally, Bach completed his Missa tota Hohe Messe, BWV 232 at the end of his life (8/1748-10/1749).

In the instrumental modeling arena Bach began in Weimar with transcriptions for organ (BWV 592-96) or keyboard (BWV 972-87) of mostly string concerti of Vivaldi (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_concertos_by_Johann_Sebastian_Bach) while in Cöthen he transcribed his earlier movements into his Brandenburg Concertos and composed violin concertos (BWV 1041-43) later transcribed in Leipzig into harpsichord concerts (BWV 1052-65) in the late 1730s, a fruitful time for creating transcriptions (https://www.brilliantclassics.com/articles/b/bach-transcriptions/), many of which later were transcribed Ito other instruments by various arrangers into reimagining Bach (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Topics/Parodies-7.htm).

Reception History, New Studies

The field of Bach Reception History (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Books/B0219.htm: "Compositional Choices: Reception History") is quite extensive during the 20th century with musicological transmission studies of Gerhard Herz, Carl Dahlhaus, Heinrich Schenker, and Theodore Adorno while in the Bach Revival harpsichordist Wanda Landowska, organist Albert Schweitzer, cellist Pablo Casals and — yes — conductor Leopold Stokowski — brought Bach's music into the home through recordings. Various publications have proliferated with studies and essays. A particularly fruitful reception area of study are the communities that were involved in and embraced Bach beyond the traditional Bach circles in Leipzig, Berlin, Dresden, Bohemia, and Hamburg to include Vienna, France, Belgium, Poland, Italy, England, and Russia, as well as more recently in Japan, Australia, and the United States.

In the field of contextual Bach Studies, the topics of social, cultural, and political influences have proliferated. Some of the pioneering, modeling work was done in the Music and Society Series (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_and_Music_Series), 1989-93, ands more recently in George Stauffer's 2006 The World of Baroque Music: New Perspectives (https://www.amazon.com/World-Baroque-Music-New-Perspectives/dp/025334798X; contents, http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip0610/2006008084.html.

ENDNOTES

¹ Robin A. Leaver, Understanding Bach's Passions; proposed "ghost" publication only (https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Bachs-Passions-Robin-Leaver/dp/0754663884/ref=sr_1_16?dchild=1&qid=1605646269&refinements=p_27:Leaver&s=books&sr=1-16, says Leaver in personal email, November 17, 2021; "some of the work I had done on the projected Passions book I was able to use in creating the liner notes for recordings of the two Passions that the Bach Collegium Japan issued this year (BIS)," https://www.amazon.com/St-Matthew-Passion-Bwv-244/dp/B000046S1M.
² Bach's favorite hymn book, Das Neu Leipziger Gesangbuch of 1682 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottfried_Vopelius), provided a compendium of chorales within the blueprint of the church year, beginning with Advent and concluding with Gregorian chant.
³ Laurence Dreyfus, Bach and the Patterns of Invention (Cambridge MS: Harvard University Press, 1996); http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674013568.
⁴ Yearsley, "Keyboard Music," Part IV, Genres and forms, in The Routledge Research Companion to Johann Sebastian Bach (Ibid., Footnote 1: 311; https://www.amazon.com/Routledge-Research-Companion-Johann-Sebastian-ebook/dp/B01MTSUZAF: "Look insi."
⁶ See Robin A. Leaver, J. S. Bach as Preacher: His Passions and Music in Worship (St. Louis MO: Concordia, 1978: 27ff); https://www.amazon.com/J-S-Bach-As-Preacher-Passions/dp/0570013321.
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. Also addrressing. thisissue is Leo Schrade's "Bach: The Conflict between the Sacred and the Secular," in Journal of the History of Ideas Vol. 7, No. 2 (Apr., 1946), pp. 151-194), https://www-jstor-org.libproxy.unm.edu/stable/2707070?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents.
⁸ Robin A. Leaver, ed. "Contextual Bach Studies," Compositional Choices and Meaning in the Vocal Music of J. S. Bach, ed. Mark A. Peters & Reginald L. Sanders (Lanham MD: Lexington Books, 2018), 17 essays, http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Books/B0219.htm, https://www.amazon.com/Compositional-Choices-Meaning-Contextual-Studies/dp/1498554970: "Look inside." Self-modeling Part IIII involves five authors: Hans-Joachim Schulze on parody and text quality, Leaver on parody as conservation and intensification; Gregory Butler on Bach's earliest Cöthen serenades, Steven Saunders on major revisions of the Christmas Oratorio aria, BWV 248/4, and Yo Tomita on the Passions as sources of inspiration in the Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II (see http://bach-cantatas.com/NVD/Keyboard-Music-Late-Tomita.htm).
⁹ Handel parody is explored in George J. Beulow's "The Case for Handel's Borrowings: the Judgment of Three Centuries," and John H. Roberts' "Why did Handel Borrow," in Handel Tercentenary Collection, 16 essays, ed. Stanley Sadie & Anthony Hicks, Royal Music Assn. (London: MacMillan Press, 1987: 61-82, 83-92); https://books.google.com/books?id=h5avCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA78&lpg=PA78&dq=Handel+parody&source=bl&ots=l3QYjfTzH-&sig=ACfU3U2ERkjlILrKOkYxKT54yqX2d1D4ng&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjz7sS015TtAhWJK80KHdmlAn0Q6AEwB3oECAcQAg#v=onepage&q=Handel%20parody&f=false. Roberts in 1986 produced a nine -volume compendium of Handel borrowings (https://www-jstor-org.libproxy.unm.edu/stable/941365?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents). Similar studies of Bach's borrowing have yet to be realized.

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To come: Cantata text structures, functions, messages.

Animated Polyphony: Cantata choruses - New Year and Epiphanytide

Jan Huizinga wrote (January 24, 2021):
Today, I'd like to share some new additions to my Bach animation project with you, four opening choruses and one duet:

New Year's Day:
· 1724: BWV 190/1: "Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied"
A euphoric chorus with lots of melismatic passages and a fugue in the centre. Based on a selection of verses from Psalm 149 and 150 and the Lutheran Te Deum.

· 1726: BWV 16/1: "Herr Gott, dich loben wir"
A short opening chorus, again based on the German translation of the Te Deum by Martin Luther.

Sunday after New Year:
· 1727: BWV 58/5: "Ich hab vor mir ein schwere Reis - Nur getrost, ihr Herzen!"
A duet: while the soprano sings the cantus firmus chorale text about the difficult journey towards Heaven, the bass (Vox Christi) responds with a triumphant aria, encouraging her with words of comfort.

Third Sunday after Epiphany (which is today):
· 1724: BWV 73/1: "Herr, wie du willt, so schick's mit mir"
The newest animation: this chorus begins as a richly orchestrated chorale, but after just two lines a soloist voice suddenly interrupts with a recitative, commenting on the chorale text. This “Coro e recitativo” style is present throughout the entire opening chorus, with tenor, bass and soprano soloists each adding their own perspectives. Even a few orchestra instruments join in, by playing the motif “Herr, wie du willt” and/or fragments of the chorale melody (also animated).

· 1726: BWV 72/1: "Alles nur nach Gottes Willen"
An older animation (I made this one last year), but composed for the same Sunday. Bach later used this chorus for the Gloria of his Lutheran Mass in G Minor, BWV 235.

Legend: blue = soprano, purple = alto, green = tenor, red = bass.

I hope you enjoy them!