Genesis of Lost Pentecost Oratorio

William L. Hoffman wrote (May 16, 2025):
1739 Leipzig Reformation Jubilee: Major Christological Works
Part 2, Genesis of Lost Pentecost Oratorio

The genesis of Bach's Lost Pentecost Oratorio continued in 1735 with the beginning of the Clavierübung III German Organ Mass and Catechism, as part of a distinctive, parallel pattern of pathways in the development of the Christological constellation of works to observe the 200th anniversary of the introduction of the Reformation in Leipzig. Besides the pathways involving the creation of Kyrie-Gloria Masses, BWV 233-236, the genesis of feast day oratorios for Christmas, Easter, Ascension, and Pentecost, the Reformation chorale Cantata 80 premiere in 1739, and the St. John Passion, BWV 245.4, unfinished revision planned for Good Friday vespers, 27 March 1739. Bach's significant interest in chorales from the omnes tempore (Ordinary Time) turned to the Deutsche Messe and Catechism settings, culminating in their publication in the Clavier-Übung III in 1739 when Leipzig staged a year-long celebration of the bicentennial of the Protestant Reformation in Saxony.

Clavier-Übung III Genesis

About Jubilate, on May 1, 1735, Bach's Clavier-Übung II: Italian Concerto, BWV 971, and French Overture, BWV 831, was published in Leipzig for the annual Easter Fair, which was a traditional time for publications to be offered for sale by Leipzig publishers. Bach previously had published his Clavier-Übung I: six partitas, BWV 825-30 separately, 1726–1730, then grouped in one volume in 1731. Soon after the second set of keyboard studies in 1735, Bach started the most ambitious, Clavier-Übung III: the German Organ Mass and Catechism Chorales, BWV 552, 678-689, 802-805. “There is sufficient cause to speculate that Bach started working on this collection not long after the publication of Clavier-Übung II in 1735, says Yo Tomita in his 2000 liner notes to the Masaaki Suzuki recording (BCW: 4f, BCW). “While his involvement with the Schemellisches Gesangbuch, published at Easter 1736, may have brought to his mind closely such compositions exclusively dealing with chorale tunes, it is highly conceivable that the Kyrie and Gloria from this collection were part of the programme he performed on the new Silbermann organ at the Frauenkirche in Dresden from 2 to 4 on Saturday, 1 December 1736, an occasion marking his conferment of the title of Royal Court Composer that he had received less than a fortnight ago.”

"Gregory Butler⁹ reconstructs the prepublication history of Bach’s compositional activity in three layers," says Tomita (Ibid.). "It emerged that an earlier version of the collection contained the entire Missa settings and the pedaliter catechism chorales only (Layer 1). The scope of the work was then expanded sometime prior to the beginning of work on the engraving around late 1738 (Layer 2). This included the prelude and fugue that frame the collection and manualiter catechism settings. And finally, in the summer 1739, the four duets were added (Layer 3).”

1739 Reformation Bicentennial

The German Organ/Catechism Mass was published in Leipzig for the Michaelmas Fall Fair 1739, while the city observed three celebrations of the Bicentenary of the establishment of the Reformation in Leipzig. Besides Reformation Day, 30 October, Bach may have performed the music as a “dedicatory piece in commemoration” of the observances, during a special service, says Martin Petzoldt in “Bach as Thomascantor.”¹⁰ A special service was held on Wednesday, August 12, for the 200^th anniversary of the acceptance of Reformation theology and practice by Leipzig University.¹¹ Previously, on Pentecost Sunday, 17 May 1739, a bicentenary commemoration was held for Martin Luther’s sermon preached on 24 May 1539 at the early main service of the Thomas Church, using the Saxony Agenda, das ist Kirchenordnung (Leipzig 1539).¹² At the Gradualied (Hymn of the Day) was sung "Komm, Heiliger Geist, Herre Gott" (Come, Holy Spirit, Lord God), followed by the Gospel, John 14:23-31 (The Promise of the Holy Spirit). At the afternoon vesper service, which Johannes Bugenhagen, superintendent of the Lutheran Church in Saxony, preached to the Epistle Acts 2: 1-13 (The descent of the Holy Spirit, BCW, Source: Google Books). Luther's Pentecost chorale "Nun bitten wir den heiligen Geist," (We now beg the holy spirit), was sung with the sermon (Pulpit Hymn). These hymns were presumably sung from the new hymnal published by Valentin Schumann following the Wittenberg model, published in 1539 in Leipzig and updated by Valentin Bapst to the liturgical order as Geystliche Lieder . . . [und] Psalmen . . . (Leipzig 1545), with a new preface written by Luther.

Luther preached that Pentecost 1539 evening in the Pleissenberg Castle chapel to the day's Gospel, John 14:23-31. Following heavy damage in 1547 it was remodeled and became an administrative building and in Bach's time was the residence of the Saxon Governor, Count Joachim Friedrich von Flemming. Peter Williams speculates (Organ Music of JSB, 2003: 388) that Bach may have performed the Clavier-Übung III “on his visit to the new organ at [St. George’s Church in] Altenburg Castle in September 1739.” Details of Bach’s visit and possible performance of the Credo chorale, BWV 580, on September 6, the 15^th Sunday after Trinity, are found in the Marshalls’ recent Exploring the Worlds of J. S. Bach.¹³

The 1739 Pentecost Sunday celebration could have included Bach’s lost Pentecost Oratorio, which would have been repeated in the afternoon vesper service. The Leipzig University event on 25 August 25 was observed at the University Paulinerkircke with a speech by Professor Friedrich Christian Börand a Latin ode by Johann Gottlieb Görner. It is possible that Bach could have presented a work such as the motet BWV 226, “Der Geist hilft unsrer Schwachheit auf,” premiered by Bach on 21 October 1729, at the same church for Johann Ernesti, Thomas School rector and Leipzig University Professor. The Reformation celebration on 31 October could have included Bach’s final version of Cantata 80, “Ein feste burg ist unser Gott” (YouTube), as well as Reformation Cantatas BWV 79, 192, or 76.

Literature Review

In late 1734 Bach probably conceived a Christological "cycle of oratorios for the high feast days of the church year," says Peter Wollny in a recent study.¹⁴ No longer composing and presenting church-year cantata cycles, Bach now was "carefully deliberating and thinking about things in a large context" where "we see for the first time a method/procedure which characterizes Bach's late period of creativity," he says (Ibid.: 91). "Obviously, this ambitious plan could not be completed within the liturgical year (1734/35), but rather the conception of this grand cycle had to mature ovseveral years and be completed in stages."

Bach during the 1735 tempus clausum began to compose the Ascension Oratorio which scholars originally had dated to 1735, says Wollny. An extended compositional process or genesis unfolded in several distinct stages over three years as the Ascension Oratorio became the first movement in the score clean copy to the modified da capo, then movements 2-7, followed by another parodied movement (8), and finally the closing chorale chorus. In 1738, Bach transformed the 1725 Easter cantata into the Easter Oratorio, BWV 249.4, "the first performance of this revised version probably on April 6, 1738," Wollny says (Ibid.: 91), followed by the Ascension Oratorio, BWV 11, "first performance on May 15, 1738."

Source-critical evidence suggests that a Pentecost oratorio could have begun concurrently during the tempus clausum in 1735, since Bach had on hand prospective parody materials for an opening chorus and two arias, as well as plain chorale settings for a Pentecost observance. As with the composition of the Ascension Oratorio, the single, day, two-part model for a Pentecost Oratorio, based on Wollny's research, Bach could have taken several years to complete a Pentecost oratorio in stages. The most likely first performance could have been on 17 May 1739 when Leipzig celebrated the momentous Reformation Jubilee of the 200th anniversary of Saxony's acceptance of the Lutheran confession. In 1539, Luther and Johannes Bugenhagen (1485-1555), newly-appointed Superintendent of Saxony, had preached on Pentecost Sunday and the community had published its first hymnbook. Another concurrent Bach creative endeavor was the composition of the Lutheran Organ Mass and Catechism chorale settings, published as the Clavierübung III, also in 1739, which was begun in 1736 and also was composed in three stages. As to the disposition of a putative lost Pentecost oratorio, it is possible that it was inherited by son Friedemann in Halle, which had a tradition of Pentecost cantatas and oratorios most notably by Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow, but was lost along with the St. Mark Passion, BW 247, and a portion of the chorale cantata cycle scores.

Conclusion

The fragmentary source evidence available and the more substantial external and internal evidence presents the opportunity for a well-informed hypothesis. The source-critical remnant of a lost Pentecost Oratorio would bea church libretto book of its text, similar to the 1744 lost St. Mark Passion. A Pentecost work could survive in other collections of libretto books in the Russian National Library in St. Petersburg, various sources in Warsaw, and the Biblioteka Jagiellońska in Kraków or elsewhere, as found in recent discoveries of Tatiana Shabalina, Szymon Paczkowski, and Christine Blanken. In addition, the Leipzig church or municipal archives may have materials about its 1739 celebration of the Bicentennial of the Lutheran Reformation, as well as the Sächsiche Landesbibliothek in Dresden. Such a find would show, like the St. Mark Passion, the recovery through parody of lost madrigalian music and chorales while the narrative music is lost except for the gospel text. And like the recovery of the St. Mark Passion, it would be a significant addition to Bach's calling of a "well-regulated church music to the glory of God."

ENDNOTES

⁹ Gregory Butler, Bach's Clavier-Übung III: the making of a print (Raleigh NC: Duke University Press, 1990: 65ff). See also Christoph Wolff (1991), “The Clavier-Übung Series” in Bach, essays on his life and music (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1991: 205-208).
¹⁰ Martin Petzoldt, “Bach as Cantor of St. Thomas in Leipzig , 1723-50” ed. Robin A. Leaver (original address 1997; Bach, Journal of the Riemenschneider Bach Institute, Volume XLVI, No. 2, 2015: 7-21, with a Leaver introduction, “The Historical Context of Martin Petzoldt’s Paper in Bach’s Cantorate in Leipzig” (Ibid.: 1-6).
¹¹ Cited in Robin A. Leaver, Chapter 20, “Life and Works,” The Routledge Research Companion to Johann Sebastian B, ed. Leaver (Abingdon GB: Routledge, 2017: 530).
¹² Martin Petzoldt’s “Liturgy and Music in Leipzig’s Main Churches” (1999) BCW, 2013 trans. Thomas Braatz.
¹³ Robert L. and Traute M. Marshall, Exploring the Worlds of J. S. Bach (University of Illinois Press, 2016: 99f), published in cooperation of American Bach Society, BCW^..
14 Peter Wollny, "6. Anonymous Vj (NBA IX/3, No. 200)," in "Neuerkenntisse zu einigen Kopisten der 1730er Jahre" (New Insight Into Some Copyists in the 1730s), in Bach Jahrbuch 2016, Vol. 102: 83ff), Eng. trans. Thomas Braatz.

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Addenda:
Friedemann's Loss
Pentecost Oratorio Compositional Proportionality
Original Source Parody Text
Pentecost Oratorio Parody Text
Pentecost Oratorio Tradition
Ultimate Goal: Pentecost Oratorio Monograph.

This is the draft of W.L. Hoffman's paper for the 2025 International Conference of Baroque Music, Birmingham Conservatory. His paper should begin with the Abstract and run about 20 pages, lasting 20 minutes when read.

Paper presentation
ICBM Abstract: Bach's Lost Pentecost Oratorio Fulfills 1739 Leipzig Reformation Jubilee

Bach's lost Pentecost Oratorio for the third principle Lutheran feast day completed a constellation of transformative Christological works forged in the later 1730s. New-text underlay enhanced liturgical and theological underpinnings while supporting cantatas as musical sermons and communal chorales in a major service. Recent studies reveal that these works were created in stages in response to the 1739 bicentennial celebration. This also was the culmination of Bach's service as composer to the Saxon Court throughout the decade enhancing his calling of "a well-ordered church music." This study will reveal that Bach possessed the motive, method, and opportunity through the use of source-critical, collateral, and circumstantial evidence to realize the Pentecost tradition of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ and the founding birthday of the Christian Church. This penultimate decade in Bach's compositional tenure enabled him in the final decade to pursue polyphonic instrumental collections while completing what has been called the "Great Catholic Mass in B Minor." The Pentecost Oratorio celebrated the preaching of Martin Luther and Johannes Bugenhagen in services on Pentecost Sunday, 24 May 1539, in Leipzig's main churches. This oratorio involves biblical narration, chorales, interpretive arias, a Vox Christi arioso, and accompagnato scena. This project complements current Bach scholarship and practice engaged in reconstructing through parody presumptive, extensive works such as the Bachfest Leipzig Cöthen Funeral Music, BWV 1143=244a, and Passion Oratorio sketch, BWV Anh. 169a, and Bachfest Leipzig commissions for the 2025 theme of "Transformation."

To Come: The genesis of Bach's Lost Pentecost Oratorio continues in 1735 with the beginning of the Clavierübung III German Organ Mass and Catechism.