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William L. Hoffman wrote (June 26, 2024):
As Bach prepared for his ultimate compositional challenge in the late spring of 1724 in Leipzig, a church year homogeneous cycle of unique chorale cantatas, he encountered various other challenges. As cantor at St. Thomas School he was also responsible for teaching students musical performance, both vocal and instrumental, and composition while he also had created a body of instrumental collections and sought further pursuits. He also was responsible for all bridal Mass settings and funeral works, as well as for major works such as the annual oratorio Passion. As Leipzig music director, Bach was provided profane congratulatory works for Leipzig University functions, which he had neglected (see Universitättt Leipzig), as well as other Leipzig patrons and leaders. Thus Bach was engaged in a balancing act. Beyond the almost weekly requirement for a new cantata with a new text whose actual chorale and movement choices he also dictated in advance, Bach also had to seek a librettist for his annual Passion as well as plans for other major works such as a feast day oratorio for Easter and a suitable librettist for secular drammi per musica. Meanwhile, he increasingly brokered plans for further compositions, both sacred and profane which he was often unable to complete or are lost, as found in the new Bach Werke Verzeichnis, BWV 3, works catalogue (BCW). Consequently, Bach was mastering certain principles and templates to further his ambitious agenda. One was the concept of compositional unity through diversity and the underlying, supportive activity of recycling previously-composed works to help fill the void, an activity still questioned by some Bach scholars who consider self-parody (new-text underlay) to be little more than self-plagiarism. In order to advance the concept of the church-year cantata (and its extended oratorio) as a musical sermon, Bach found published theological commentaries on various subjects and incorporated them into his cantatas, along with (one assumes) working collaboration with his librettists and the primary pastors whose sermons on the service's liturgy followed the cantata before communion.
Trinity Time Teachings
Bach faced a special challenge with the chorale cantata. Here, the musical theme and substance were dictated by the textual poetic stanzas and the underlying message of the hymn's author. The internal stanzas of the hymn were paraphrased as recitatives and arias to Bach's accompanying music, rather than madrigalian settings reflecting the service's liturgical teachings, a particular requirement in the services of the first half of the church year, de tempore (proper time) on the ministry of Jesus Christ, especially during Christmas and Easter, in contrast to the other half, omnes tempore (usual time), Trinity Time, on the teachings of the church, Martin Luther's New Testament teachings in his Catechism and general Christian themes, such as “Christian Life and Conduct” and “Trusting in God, Cross and Consolation.” For this half which Bach undertook for the some 26 services beginning with the 1st Sunday after Trinity, now known as the 2nd Sunday after Pentecost, Bach had a special template, "Trinity Time Thematic Patterns in the Gospels." Instead of dramatic gospel narrative, the Trinity Time services focus on three literary patterns or genres: Parables - short moralized allegories within the larger narratives of events in the life of Christ; Miracles - short self-contained narratives of miraculous healings; and Teachings excerpts from longer hortatory discourses by Christ. There is also a series of groupings which would have been part of the critical apparatus of both theologians and musicians such as Bach who had such a finely-tuned ear for the literary shape of scriptural passages.
A brief outline of the half season: 1) Sundays after Trinity 1-4 is a four-week sequence of parables; 2) Trinity 5-8 has a series of paired miracles and teachings; 3) Trinity 9-19 generally alternates a parable with a teaching or miracle (source, BCW). "The character of the [Trinity] season, therefore, centers on questions of doctrine and faith in a varied mix, a significant number of the weekly gospel readings featuring parables and miracles stories that invite metaphoric interpretations of the world as a “hospital” for the spiritually sick, a “desert” in which the spiritually hungry are in need of manna, a testing ground for love and mercy towards one’s neighbor, and the like," says Eric Chafe in Analyzing Bach Cantatas.1 In short, the Trinity season seems to explore the human condition, its weakness, wavering, sinfulness, and mortality, emphasizing these qualities so as to demonstrate the need for both fear of God’s judgment and trust in His mercy.” The first third (1-8) emphasizes Lutheran fundamental teachings, the second third (9-19) on the theological underpinnings, while the final third is the eschatological (Last Time) themes of “Last Days, Resurrection of the Dead, and Eternal Life" found in the last pages of Bach’s hymnbook, Das neu Leipziger Gesangbuch (NLGB Nos. 836-992. Wikipedia).
In the Trinity Time ending in the final themes of the Last Time, and Life Eternal is the reward of Catechism “Justification” through grace alone (sola fide) principle of Lutheran Theology (Wikipedia). Other non-liturgical Catechism personal themes are found in the hymns for Morning and Evening prayers, Grace at Meals, and Prayer for Good Weather. The gospels for the final eight Sundays after Trinity focuses on one of the three thematic patterns of parables, miracles and teachings: Trinity 20, Matthew 22:1-14, Parable of the marriage of the king’s son; Trinity 21, John 4:46-54, Miracle of the nobleman’s son healed; Trinity 22, Matthew 18:23-35 Parable of the unmerciful servant; Trinity 23, Matthew 22:15-22, Teaching: The Pharisees and the tribute to Caesar; Trinity 24, Matthew 9:18-26 Miracle of the Raising of Jairus’s daughter; Trinity 25, Matthew 24:15-28, Teaching: Christ’s prediction; Trinity 26, Matthew 25:31-46, Teaching: The Last Judgement; Trinity 27, Matthew 25:1-13 Teaching: The wise and foolish virgins. It is documented that Friedemann received both the score and parts for the final seven cantatas presented in late Trinity Time 1723 in the first cycle, presumably because these were most appropriate for his use as music director in Halle in 1750 (source, BCW: scroll down to "Trinity Time Last Sundays").
Cycle Template: Musical style
Another template that Bach utilized at the beginning of the chorale cantata cycle, was the compositional genre or musical style. The opportunity to compose a set of chorale cantatas enabled Bach to begin with four distinct and representative works observing the first Sundays in Trinity Time. Each of the works is introduced with a chorus using a striking hymn tune in different voice and musical style: BWV 20, O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort I (Trinity +1), soprano voice, French Overture; BWV 2, Ach Gott, vom Himmel sieh darein (Trinity +2), alto voice, motet; BWV 7, Christ, unser Herr, zum Jordan kam (John the Baptist); tenor voice Italianate concertante; and BWV 135, Ach Herr, mich armen Sünde (Trinity +3), bass voice, chorale fantasia. Bach's mastery of chorale composition came early. <<An organ transcription of his early Cantata 4 (YouTube, Free-Scores.com), shows Bach's mastery of the chorale prelude forms for each of the seven-verse movements with an instsinfonia (1), chorale motet fantasia (2), 1-voice chorale trio (3), basso unison trio chorale (4), 4-part fughetta continuo chorale (5); chorale aria (6), figured duet continuo chorale (7), 4-part harmonization (8, added 1723). While the young Bach explored various compositional settings, he retained the original, unaltered hymn text, per omnes versus, in the vocal concerto manner of his Leipzig cantor predecessors Johann Kuhnau and Johann Schelle, before the later Erdmann Neumeister-type poetic internal cantatas which Bach would commission to set in the internal movements in his Leipzig chorale cantatas with paraphrased internal stanzas (see Wikipedia), source: BCW: scroll down to "Youthful Apprentice Period." At the same time, Bach had a range of chorales he could utilize during Trinity Time, see "Musical Context of Bach Cantatas: Motets & Chorales for Events in the Lutheran Church Year / Chorales by Theme" (BCW: scroll down to "1st Sunday after Trinity [Trinity 1]: Motets & Chorales for 1st Sunday after Trinity"), with a list of 19 essays on "Chorales by Theme," from "Passion Chorale" to "Christological Cycle Summary: Oratorios, Related Cantatas, Latin Church Music; Chorales." Complementing this is the list of "Lutheran Church Year - Readings, Main Page," "World of the Bach Chorale Settings," BCW: scroll down to "1st Sunday after Trinity."
Lutheran Chorale Tradition
"Bach adheres to early Reformation tradition in the selection of the specific chorale poet in the 52 extant chorale cantatas. The emphasis is on the initial Reformation hymns of Luther and his cohorts (1524-1550) as well as the choice of melodies, observes Alfred Dürr in “Bach’s Chorale Cantatas.”2 Of the 52 chorale cantatas, 17 chorales are from the original Reformation period (11 texts by Luther), using 25 Reformation melodies. The next largest number are the most recent, established personal chorales from the period of 1651-1697), led by Paul Eber with two and the best-known “representative poet of these decades, Paul Gerhardt” in Cantata 92, says Dürr (Ibid.: 182). Bach also uses two each chorales by Justus Jonas, Martin Moller, Cyriacus Schneegas, Philip Niccolai. Johann Heermann, Johann Rist, and Samuel Rodigast. “All other poets are represented by one text,” says Dürr. While Bach in the 1730 increasingly turned to chorales of his time, says Dürr (Ibid.), he used no chorales in his chorale cantatas from the Freylinghausen pietist hymnal or from poets of the Orthodox movement, Erdmann Neumeister, Salomo Fanck or Benjamin Schmolk. Bach made up for this by presenting two Gottfried Heinrich Stözel chorale cantata double cycles in 1734-35, "Saitenspiele testeddes Hertzens" (Music Playing of the Heart), and c. 1737, "Das Namenbuch Christi," (Book of Names of Christ), using Schmolck texts. Schmolck, a noted pietist theologian, writer, and poet in Gotha, set familiar chorale melodies to original texts, a practice that became commonplace in the 1730s, especially in hymnals of home devotional sacred songs such as the Geistliches Lieder Bach contributed to the Schemelli Gesangbuch of 1736.
Chorale Cantata Cycle Schedule
An accounting of the actual performances of the chorale cantatas shows that from the period of the First Sunday after Trinity with Cantata BWV 20 (11 June 1724), Bach composed 40 chorale cantatas until the Feast of the Annunciation (25 March 1725) with Cantata BWV 1, “Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern.” During that nine-month period, Bach systematically produced chorale cantatas for virtually every Sunday and all the feasts days. At that time he did not compose and present three chorale cantatas for the following services: the 4th Sunday after Trinity since it coincided with the Feast of John the Baptist (24 June 1724, BWV 7); the 6th Sunday after Trinity (16 July 1724), when no work was presented but a chorale cantata text completed and later set as BWV 9; the 12th Sunday after Trinity 27 August 1724), when no work was presented. Interestingly, Bach subsequently filled these three gaps with chorale cantatas composed individually and added to the cycle until 1735: Cantata BWV 177 for Trinity +4 in 1731, Cantata BWV 9 for Trinity +6 in 1735, and Cantata BWV 137 for Trinity +12 in 1725). In addition, for the period of Trinity Time through the Feast of the Annunciation during Lent, Bach composed two additional chorale cantatas on Sundays that did not occur in 1724-25: Cantata BWV 140 was composed in 1731 for the last Sunday in Trinity Time (+27), and Cantata BWV 14 for the 4th Sunday after Epiphany that did not occur in 1725. During the Easter-Pentecost Season of 1725, Bach composed no chorale cantatas for the 12 services, ending with the Trinity Sunday Festival. Bach did repeat chorale Cantata BWV 4 for Easter Sunday (1 April 1725) and in 1730 completed Cantata BWV 80 for the Reformation Festival. For the three-month Easter-Pentecost period, Bach did compose Cantata BWV 129 in 1726-27 for the Trinity Sunday Festival and Cantata BWV 112 for Misericordias Domini (2nd Sunday after Easter), c.1731. Thus Bach added seven chorale cantatas to the cycle and included Cantata 4 and Cantata 80 in this cycle for a total of 49. In addition, between 1730 and 1735 Bach composed four undesignated, pure-hymn chorale cantatas that are appropriate for weddings or for anytime: BWV 97, 100, 117, and 192 – for a grand total of 53. Virtually all the chorale cantatas composed from 1725 onwards are set to original, pure-hymn texts, also known as per omnes versus.
Chorale Cantata Structures
The most used category of chorale cantatas is the standard model: opening chorus (Stanza 1), alternating recitatives and arias (stanzas paraphrased), and closing plain chorale (final stanza). In all, 27 cantatas follow this pattern and are primarily found in the de tempore first-half of the church year of seasons in the life of Jesus Christ. They are: 1, 2, 7, 8, 10, 14, 20, 26, 33, 41, 62, 78, 96, 99, 111, 114, 115, 116, 121, 123, 124, 127, 130, 133, 135, 138, 139. Within this model form Bach composed BWV 127 with three chorales, BWV 135 with a closing chorale chorus, and BWV 138 with three chorale choruses: one opening fantasia, one closing chorale chorus, and a troped chorale chorus within a recitative. Cantata BWV 114 has a chorale aria, set to one stanza and first found in Cantata BWV 4. The next category were chorale cantatas with interpolated chorale and poetic recitative materials in the chorale paraphrased inner movements, treated in various ways and usually found during the omnes tempore Trinity Time having lesser-known chorales. The most common insertions are the chorale trope in the recitative found in seven cantatas: BWV 3, 38, 91, 94 (2 tropes), 122, 125, and 126. In eight cantatas Bach used multiple insertions, with as many as two troped recitatives and a separate chorale aria in BWV 92, 93, 101, 113, 122, 125, 126, and 178. Cantata 180 has a troped recitative and chorale aria. In all, Bach composed 11 pure-hymn cantatas (per ones versus). Six are written for church year services: BWV 4 (Easter Sunday), 107 (Tr. +7), 112 (Easter +2), 129 (Trinity Fest), 137 (Tr.+12), and 177 (Tr.+4). Two of Bach’s most popular chorale cantatas use all the stanzas and insert additional poetic material. Cantata BWV 80, “Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott,” for the Reformation Fest, has all four stanzas including an opening chorale fantasia, an internal chorale chorus, a closing plain chorale, and a chorale duet, plus two recitatives and two arias in original Salomo Franck poetry. Cantata BWV 140, “Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme,” for the last Sunday in Trinity Time, uses all three stanzas as a chorus fantasia, chorale trio aria, and closing plain chorale, plus a recitative and two dialogues for soprano-Soul and bass-Jesus.
Compositional Challenges
The opening of the chorale cantata reveals (source: BCW) << The challenges Bach faced in the initial chorale fantasia chorus were dictated by the nature of the rigid text. First, the instrumental ritornelli passages often treat the opening as an introductory sinfonia, the length of the initial chorale line helping determine the length of the sinfonia, with the emphasis on a solo oboe voice in the character of the text, supported by strings. The length of the chorale determined the number and extent of each ritornello passage with different motives, while the character of the text helps determine how Bach developed the instrumental materials. The initial entry of the lead voice followed by the unadorned, strict cantus firmus, usually in the traditional canto or soprano voice, dictates the permutations and combinations of the individual vocal phrases and the manner in which they enter following the succeeding ritornelli.
<<The rare Bar form repeat of the chorale (about one in twenty) influenced Bach’s sense of repetition and balance, in contrast to the ABA strict tripartite repeat form of the poetic da-capo aria. In the Stollen/Abegesang AAB tradition of the Meistersinger with a repeat of the first line Stollen (A) to the same melody set to a different text, followed by the lengthier Abgesang (B) text, Bach had the opportunity to exploit the cantus firmus phrase as a varied motto in the four voices. Two variants are the reprise of the initial Stollen melody, the so-called Reprisenbar, or AABA scheme, and the so-called Gegenbar, in which the Stollen is sung once and the Abgesang twice (ABB).
<<Bach internally in the chorale cantatas uses a variety of settings of the troped chorale within the explanatory recitative. Bach also uses poetic recitatives alone without extraneous material in all his chorale cantatas. He often paraphrases two or more stanzas in one recitative in a chorale than has more than the usual six stanzas, in order to accommodate chorales with more stanzas. The arias usually are much more concise and straightforward, paraphrasing one stanza, predominately set in da-capo (ABA) or reprise from (ABA1), or a variant thereof. As in the opening chorale fantasia, Bach in the arias emphasizes particular verbatim images in the chorale text with occasional word-painting or solo instrumental support or a combination. As Bach quite often does in his other cantatas, the instrumental support varies in each aria, utilizing flute, oboe, strings, or continuo, or a combination.
<<The closing plain chorale, the last stanza of the hymn text, summarizes the poet’s message. Bach’s harmonization emphasizes particularly words. Some chorales also have unifying repeated motto lines in each stanza, or have phrases such as “Allelujah” or “Kyrie-leis.” Bach supports each of the four voices with colla parte instruments also found in the opening chorus fantasia. Of particular note are instruments such as the horn sounding the cantus firmus, particularly in the four traditional wedding chorales: “Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan,” “Sei Lobb und Ehr’ dem Höchsetn Gut,” “Nun danket alle Gott,” and “In allen meinen Taten.”>>
Postscript: After various sacred cantatas in the first church-year cycle 1723-24 providing a variety of chorale citations and usages such as tropes, multi-hymn melodies, wordless hymns, and closing chorale choruses, Bach was fully prepared to begin his chorale cantata odyssey with his first four works in a variety of genres, voice treatments, and hymn-types. He also brought to bare various optional treatments as he anticipated major challenges and potential obstacles. The result was an incomplete but astonishing accomplishment.
ENDNOTES
1 Eric Chafe, Analyzing Bach Cantatas (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2000: 12), Amazon.com, Academia.edu.
2 Alfred Dürr, in Bach essays, edited by Yo Tomita (Burlington, VT : Ashgate Pub., 2011: 182ff), originally published in 1967. German version as “Gedanken zu Bachs Choralkantaten” in W. Blankenburg, ed.; Johann Sebastia Bach (Darmstadt 1970: 507-17); source BCW. |
