BACH CANTATAS: A LEGACY OF BEAUTY

The cantata started small and grew. It was originally a piece of music for one or two voices and as many instruments, based on a secular story or poem. Around 1700, Lutheran composers began writing cantatas based on religious texts. They also added a chorale behind the soloists, and the instrumental accompaniment swelled to become a small orchestra.

It was Johann Sebastian Bach who brought this musical form to its full glory. More than 200 of his cantatas survive. They offer an incredible variety of dramatic choruses, gentle duets, expressive recitatives and stimulating orchestral interludes. He wrote the majority of them during his years as cantor of the St. Thomas Church in Leipzig, from 1723 until his death in 1750.

In addition to writing, rehearsing and performing the cantatas, Bach composed a great deal of other music at St. Thomas, including works for the organ and various keyboard instruments. He also conducted an orchestra, with which he gave weekly performances. If you throw in his repeated clashes with other musicians and the Leipzig town council, his workload was unimaginable by today's standards.

There were many cantatas written before Bach's time, particularly by Handel and Scarlatti, and also a few in the centuries that followed him, by composers such as Debussy and Prokofiev. But none came close to the utter perfection of Bach's compelling masterpieces.... a legacy of beauty for all time.

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