 
Latest update: 1999-10-26 |
Around 1700 in Protestant central Germany the then new form of the church cantata, which combined
biblical words, free poetry, and verses from hymns, finally claimed its place as the principal musical element
of church services. The primary virtue of this new form of cantata was seen to be the possibility which it
presented of integrating a biblical reading with sermon-like exhortation (in the recitatives and arias) and
reflection (in verses from hymns) within a single work. The words of a cantata were generally related to the
readings for a particular Sunday. Thus numerous annual cycles of cantata texts were written. Each cycle
provided for all the Sundays and feast days of the church year. Most of the 190 surviving sacred cantatas
by Johann Sebastian Bach, with the exception of a few early works and compositions written for particular
occasions, can be shown by study of the source material and of stylistic features to belong to three annual
cycles. If the statement quoted in Bach’s obituary is to be taken literally, it appears that two fifths of the
church cantatas which he composed have been lost. Owing to the fact that over the course of the years
different individuals copied performance parts and different kinds of paper were used, in the case of most of
these works the date of the first performance can be ascertained with a high degree of probability.
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At Arnstadt and Mühlhausen Bach had no regular responsibility
to compose cantatas. The impressive compositions which the
young church musician wrote for particular occasions during
that period – one thinks of the Psalm Cantata Aus der Tiefen
rufe ich BWV 131 or the Actus tragicus BWV 106 – still belong,
rightfully, among the best loved of the master’s works. It was
during his time at Weimar, after he had been promoted to the
position of concert master on the 2nd March 1714, that – in order
to reduce the pressure of work burdening the unwell Kapellmeister
Samuel Drese – Bach was instructed to perform new pieces every
month. As Kapellmeister at Cöthen from December 1717 onwards
Bach’s production of cantatas was restricted to supplying New
Year cantatas and homage music to mark the Prince’s birthday,
because at that Calvinist Court elaborate church music was not
required. It was with the two Cantatas BWV 22 and 23, on the
last Sunday before Lent in 1723, that Bach passed his examination
for the position of Cantor in Leipzig.
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Having become Thomascantor in Leipzig, Bach was faced by an entirely different situation, because it was expected
of the new director of church music that he should provide music which was all, or at least predominantly, of his own
composition. Therefore, between May 1723 and February 1727 he wrote in rapid succession almost 150 cantatas for
the Sundays and feast days of the church year. Bach’s responsibility did not end with the composition of the works:
he had to supervise the copying of the parts, to make the necessary corrections and prepare for the performance, all
before he could even begin to think about the first rehearsal. While it was customary elsewhere to print the texts in
advance for an entire annual cycle of cantatas which the cantor would set to music during the course of the year, it is
evident that at Leipzig cantata performances were planned only a few weeks in advance. The cantor had the right to
participate in the choice of cantata texts, which enabled Bach to integrate into his first annual cycle many of the works
which he had composed before moving to Leipzig, either unaltered or with minor textual and musical alterations. During
his second year in office at Leipzig (1724–25), with the production of his so-called chorale-cantata cycle, Bach embarked
upon what was perhaps the most ambitious project of his entire career. Within a short space of time these cantatas
came to follow a pattern in which the first and last verses of a hymn provided the basis of the text unaltered, while the
inner verses of the hymn were freely paraphrased so that they could be set as recitatives and arias. This project was
abandoned at Easter 1725, possibly on account of the death of the librettist. The annual cycle was then completed,
principally by cantatas to words by the occasional poetess from Leipzig Mariane von Ziegler. Work on Bach’s third
Leipzig cycle continued from the summer of 1725 until February 1727, as can be seen from the surviving works. Gaps in
the succession of newly-composed cantatas were partly a result of the fact that during the first half of 1726 Bach
presented a number of works by his older cousin Johann Ludwig Bach. The existence of nine cantatas dating from 1727
to 1729 to words by Christian Friedrich Henrici, who called himself Picander, and whose writings Bach valued highly, has
led to speculation whether Bach set an entire annual cycle to words by this poet. The question must remain open, like
that of the accuracy of the statement in Bach’s obituary that he composed five annual cycles of cantatas. In addition to
his cantatas for the Sundays and feast days of the church year Bach wrote numerous works for particular occasions –
cantatas for the annual celebration following the election of the Municipal Council, homage music for members of the
royal family of Saxony-Poland, compositions for weddings and funerals. Unfortunately the majority of these works have been lost.
Ulrich Leisinger
© 1999 by Carus-Verlag
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