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William L. Hoffman wrote (June 12, 2024):
The Bachfest Leipzig 1724 (Bach News: May 2024)
runs from June 7 to 16 ( Bachfest 2024: Concerts) with three-hundred anniversaries of Bach's 2nd annual chorale cantata cycle of 66 cantatas in 16 concerts (Bachfest Leipzig: Chorale Cycle, 16 Concerts:), and the tricentennial of his first Passion oratorio, St. John Passion, BWV 245.1, as well as other special events such as s special exhibit, Voices of Women from the Bach Family at the Leipzig Museum (Bach Museum Leipzig: Women Voices Bach Family), and a premiere of a stage production of the Nederlandse Bachvereniging, "J. S. Bach –The Apocalypse: The opera Bach Never Wrote" (Bachfest Leipzig: J.S. Bach Apocalypse), on June 11 (Bachfest Leipzig: No. 72 Apocalypse), concludes special commissions of new Bach works (see BCW) from 2023. A roundup of the 2024 Bachfest Leipzig is provided by Prof. Dr. Michael Maul, artistic director (Bachfest Leipzig: Bach Triegel Dialogue). A special event is the Bach Network presentation at the Leipzig Bachfest, 15 June 2024, "Bach Network in Dialogue, details at Bachest Leipzig: No. 130 Nach Network Dialogue. Hopefully, this event will be available soon on-line as Discussing Bach 7. The Bach Network biannual Dialogue Meeting will be held July 7-10 at Madingley Hall, Cambridge.
Bachfest Leipzig 2024: Chorale Cantata Cycle, Etc.
A special overview of 2024 Bachfest Leipzig is found in "Bach 300: The chorale cantata year-cycle and the St. John Passion," by Dr. Uwe Wolf, Carus-Verlag chief editor (Blog Carus-Verlag). Also available is the Carus-Verlag Bach 1724/25 chorale cantata cycle calendar (Carus Verlag) with the 40 chorale cantatas from the 1st Sunday after Trinity (BWV 20), 11 June 1724, to the Feast of the Annunciation of Mary on 25 March 1725 (BWV 1). This cycle includes the 2nd version of the St. John Passion, BWV 245.2, on Good Friday, 30 March 1725. "It is not known wether the second version of the St. John Passion, BWV 245.2 with its large-scale chorale choruses was already planned or wether it was a fallback solution," says the unsigned commentary. Perhaps it was both, see Eric Chafe''s J. S. Bach's Johannine Theology: The St. John Passion and the Cantatas for Spring 1725 (Oxford: Oxford University Press: 2014, Amazon.com). Another non-cantata presentation is the earliest version of the Easter Oratorio, BW 249.3, on Easter Sunday, 1 March 1725, on a double bill with chorale Cantata BWV 4.2, "Christ lag in Todesbanden. The notes mistakenly say, "The [second] cantata cycle continued from Easter Monday to Misericordias Domini [2nd Sunday after Easter] with three cantatas on texts of unknown origin [BWV 6, 42, 85]. From Jubilate to Trinity Sunday is a series of nine cantatas by the Leipzig poet Christiane Mariane von Ziegler (BCW). None of these dozen works is a chorale cantata or is part of the 2nd cycle but instead is part of the succeeding 3rd cantata cycle of 1725-27, based on the musical manuscript division to Bach's family in 1750 (see BCW: scroll down to "Event, Date, Title, Type, Librettist, Distrib. CPEB WFB/JCB [S=Score, P=Parts, ?=Lost]"). Two recent collections of the Bach sacred cantatas1 also place these works in the third cycle.
First Two Cantata Cycles
A comparison and contrast involving Bach's first two cantata cycles, primarily involving the musical structure and text librettists is found at the Bach Cantatas Website discussion Bach Mailing List, BCW. Essentially, the first cycle is a homogeneous collection of some 30 recycled sacred cantatas from Weimar (primarily Salomo Franck texts, BCW) and Cöthen (primarily Hunold-Menantes texts, BCW), with the leading candidate for the 30 new works composed in Leipzig was Christian Weiss Sr. (BCW). Also in the realm of librettist speculation but with some collateral evidence are Cycle 1 Cantata libretti of varied structures influenced by or involving Picander (Christian Friedrich Henrici, 1700-64): influences, BWV 25 (Trinity 14) and 138 (Trinity 15, chorale fantasia), 148 (Trinity 17, after Picander); and parodies from Cöthen: Easter and Pentecost Mondays and Tuesdays as well as the Trinityfest (BWV 66, 134, 173, 184, 194).
The three structures of mini-cycles for these new primarily chorus cantatas was compiled by Alfred Dürr with the basic ingredients of opening biblical text and closing plain chorale with two each alternating internal arias and recitatives while two structures have an internal plain chorale in different internal positioning of recitatives and arias. Bach also performed a selective offering of "double works with six two-part cantatas ((BWV 75, Tr. 1; BWV 76, Tr. 2; BWV 21, Xmas; BWV 147, Visit. Feast; BWV 186, Tr. 7; and BWV 70, Tr. 26) and nine twin-bill cantatas ((BWV 24+185, Tr. 4;179+199, Tr. 11; 63+238 (Xmas); 181+18, Sex.; 22+23, Eas.; 1135=Anh. 199+182, Palm; 31+4, Eas.; 172+59, Pen. and 194+165, Tr. Feast.). Bach's Estomihi 1723 probe piece, BWV 22 and 23, was a two-part cantata, subsequently divided into two cantatas and reperformed, probably individually). The fixed-structure chorale cantata cycle had only one two-part cantata, BWV 20, which opened the cycle on the 1st Sunday after Trinity. In the heterogeneous third cycle (1725-27) Bach selectively presented a mini-cycle of eight two-part cantatas: BWV 43, Ascension; BWV 39, Trinity 1; BWV 88, Trinity 5; BWV 187, Trinity 7; BWV 45, Trinity 8; BWV 102, Trinity 10; BWV 35, Trinity 12; and BWV 17, Trinity 14. In the later 1730s he introduced feast-day oratorios (great cantatas) with additional movements as well as a selective two-part cantatas for John's Day (BWV 30). Among the last of the Bach Gesellschaft publications are several two-part cantatas: BWV 194 for Trinity Sunday 1724, BWV 195 and 197 for weddings, and BWV 198 for a funeral.
Among the other textual, stylistic, and innovative elements are the blending of ecclesiastical and operatic devices such as the Vox Christi/Domini and allegorical characters in duets, the troping of hymns with recitatives, and the use of pastorale dance forms in good shepherd works; the “great biblical text choruses that open many of the cantatas from Cycle 1 are one of its defining features,” says Richard D. P. Jones;2 the closing congregational plain chorale begun in Weimar as well as elaborate interludes and obbligato instruments (violoncello piccolo and flute) as well as the blending of different chorales in one cantata; the internal alternating and combining of secular-influence madrigalian texts (recitatives, arias, ariosi); the use of concerto style as as arresting musical images in the arias; and “the high incidence of dance rhythms” (Ibid.: 129).
Chorale-Based Cantatas
The concept of a German chorale-based cantata reached "back well into the seventeenth century" as a vocal concerto, "and whose adherents are still found in the middle of the 18th, says Hans-Joachim Schulze 3 in his essay on Easter Cantata 4, "Christ lag in Todes Banden" (IOPN Illinois Library) It began in northern Germany, spread to central Germany, "as well as the Leipzig cantors of St. Thomas Knüpfer, Schelle, and Kuhnau," says Schulze (Ibid.: 11) where it became a tradition of verse settings for chorus, aria, and recitative. Most notable as Bach's first essay dating to 1707, Cantata BWV 4.1 (see Mel Unger details, was structured as a chorale partita with the following movements: 1. instrumental sinfonia with five-part line-quote, 2. chorale chorus as a motet with fugal treatment, 3. chorale adaptation as soprano-alto duet in ostinato variation, 4. chorale adaptation as tenor aria in trio texture, 5. chorale chorus as motet with fugal treatment of individual chorale lines, 6. chorale adaptation as free contrapuntal bass aria, 7. chorale adaptation in canon as soprano-tenor duet. The closing four-part chorale (No. 8) found in the Leipzig version (BWV 4.2) suggests "a completely different concluding movement, of which no trace remains, says Schulze (Ibid.: 12). An optional alternative is a repeat of the first stanza (No. 2) using the final verse 7 (BCW). "This performance in early 1725 was the conclusion —earlier than planned — of the annual cycle begn in the summer of the previous year, says Schulze. "Cantatas performed after Easter 1725 do not belong to the chorale cantata type." "The quality of the result is shown simply by the fat that the composer himself, after nearly two decades, felt it appropriate to include the work almost without change in the ambitious project of the chorale cantata annual cycle," Schulze concludes (Ibid.: 13).
Chorale Cantata Studies
The significance of Bach's chorale cantata cycle is explored in the essay, "Chorale Cantata Cycle" (BCW: scroll down, May 18, 2014), which begins with the development of the Lutheran chorale and the chorale cantata cycle. The other sections examine "Chorale Cantata Overview," "Anatomy of a Chorale Cantata," Lutheran Chorale Tradition," "Chorale Cantata Cycle," "Genesis of Chorale Cantata Cycle" (cycle 1 proto-chorale cantatas BWV 43, 95, and 73 plus BWV 138), "Chorale Cantata Elements," "Innovation & Balancing Act," "Compositional Challenges," "Cantata Cycle Incomplete," "Chorale Cantata Obstacles," and "Chorale Cantata Librettist(s)" which probes the great enigma of the identity of the cycle librettist(s) and the reasons for Bach's cycle cessation at Easter 1725. A more recent article, "Leipzig Sacred Cantata Cycles 1 and 2: Structures, Librettists" (BCW) examines the sections "Chorale Cantata Cycle: Unique, Partial, ?Librettist(s)," and "Cycle Cessation, Librettists." An addendum follows, "Michael Hochgartz wrote (December 14, 2020): Stubel-Theory without Stubel?
Addendum: The cessation of the chorale cantata cycle probably was due to a variety of factors: loss of the librettist, compositional fatigue, and lack of substantial chorales during Easter season (Wikipedia). Another important resource is "Chorale cantata cycle" at wikipedia, Wikipedia.
ENDNOTES
1 Bach sacred cantatas: Konrad Klek, Ab Ostern 1725 (After Easter 1725), Vol. 3, Dein ist allein die Ehre : Johann Sebastian Bachs geistliche Kantaten erklärt (Your only honor: Johann Sebastian Bach's sacred cantatas explained); Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2017), Amazon.com; Christine Blanken, Der Sogenennte "Dritte Jahrgang," in Bachs Kantaten: Das Handbuch, Teilband 2 (Augsburg, Laaber-Verlag: 60-72, 76-78), Laabar-Verlag.
2 Richard D. P. Jones, The Creative Development of Johann Sebastian Bach, Vol. 2, , “Music to Delight the Spirit," 1717-1750 “ (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015: 123f); Amazon.com: "Look inside").
3 Hans-Joachim Schulze, Commentaries on the Cantatas of Johann Sebastian Bach: A Selective Guide, trans. James A. Brokaw II (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2024: xii); Amazon.com; Brokaw translates all 225 cantatas in An Interactive Companion by Hans-Joachim Schulze, IOPN Illinois Library, IOPN Illinois Library.
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To Come: Chorale Cantata Cycle Begins |
