Air on the G String

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Bach’s original#

Bach’s third Orchestral Suite in D major, composed in the first half of the 18th century, has an “Air” as second movement, following its French overture opening movement. The suite is composed for three trumpets, timpani, two oboes, strings (two violin parts and a viola part), and basso continuo. In the second movement of the suite however only the strings and the continuo play. This is the only movement of the suite where all other instruments are silent. The music of the “Air” is written on four staves, for first and second violins, viola(s), and continuo. The interweaving melody lines of the high strings contrast with the pronounced rhythmic drive in the bass.

Allein zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ, BWV 33

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and words#

Bach composed the cantata in his second year in Leipzig for the 13th Sunday after Trinity. That year, Bach composed a cycle of chorale cantatas that began on the first Sunday after Trinity of 1724. The prescribed readings for the Sunday were from the Epistle to the Galatians, Paul’s teaching on law and promise (), and from the Gospel of Luke, the parable of the Good Samaritan (). The cantata is based on the hymn by Konrad Hubert which was published in Nürnberg in 1540 with an added fourth stanza. Each of the stanzas consists of nine lines. For the cantata text, an unknown poet retained the words of stanzas 1 and 4 unchanged for movements 1 and 6, but paraphrased the ideas of the inner stanzas, each to a sequence of recitative and aria. Due to the splitting of each stanza in two movements, the paraphrasing is more independent from the original than for the previous cantatas of the cycle. The hymn, focused on a sinner asking Jesus for redemption, is only generally connected to the Gospel. The poet referenced the Gospel in movement 4, "" (Of your mercy grant me / the true Christian faith), addressing God as the true “Good Samaritan”, also in movement 5, "" (Grant that my purest impulse may be / to love my neighbour as myself"), citing the central line of the parable. The poet also referenced other Bible passages. In movement 2 he referred to , “If he will contend with him, he cannot answer him one of a thousand.”, and in movement 4 to both , “Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee.” and , “Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee.” The chorale melody “,” of unknown authorship, was documented in a 1541 Wittenberg publication. It was used extensively, for example, by Sethus Calvisius and Michael Praetorius. According to Klaus Hofmann, it was composed in 1512 for a secular song by Paul Hofhaimer. In the cantata, Bach used the complete melody in a chorale fantasia in movement 1 and in the closing chorale, while he alluded to it in movement 5, a duet. Bach first performed the cantata on 3 September 1724.

Alles mit Gott und nichts ohn' ihn, BWV 1127

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Context#

Wilhelm Ernst was born on (O.S.) 19 October 1662. In 1683 he became Duke of Saxe-Weimar, jointly with his younger brother Johann Ernst. The elder brother had chosen (everything with God and nothing without him) as his motto. In 1700, when the Gregorian calendar was adopted, Wilhelm Ernst decided that his birthday would henceforth be celebrated on 30 October. In 1703 Johann Sebastian Bach worked for some months at the ducal court in Weimar. In 1708, a year after the death of the younger duke, Bach came to work for the ducal court again, this time in the capacity of organist. At the time, Johann Samuel Drese and his son Johann Wilhelm were the court composers () at Weimar, and composition of new pieces was no part of Bach’s assignment as court organist. In 1713 Bach composed the Hunting Cantata (Was mir behagt, ist nur die muntre Jagd, BWV 208, first performed on 27 February in Weißenfels) and the Canon a 4 perpetuus, BWV 1073 (2 August). Also from around this time are several entries in the Orgelbüchlein, and likely the bulk of his Weimar concerto transcriptions. Johann Anton Mylius’s life is relatively well-documented: in 1751–52 one of his sons published an extended chronicle of the Mylius family, and the family was later also subject to detailed historical research. After studies in Erfurt and Leipzig in the 1680s, Johann Anton became a theologian working in Erfurt and Niederroßla, and, having become Superintendent in 1674, he was from 1697 stationed in Buttstädt, a town some 20 km mi north of Weimar. There, he initiated reforms of the liturgical music, and grand renovation works to the town church (St Michael’s), including its organ. Duke Wilhelm Ernst supported Mylius in these endeavours, and even organised a fund-raiser in his realm to finance the renovation works. Every year Duke Wilhelm Ernst would typically receive over a dozen of written congratulatory tributes. The copies of these tributes which were presented to the Duke were mostly bound in luxurious marbled paper, and conserved in the court library. One of these, published by Mumbachische Schrifften, was by the court preacher , and congratulated the duke on his 52nd sic birthday on 30 October 1713 (that date was in fact the Duke’s 51st birthday). Mylius and Bach convened to produce a tribute for the same occasion. The title page of that tribute, also printed by Mumbachische Schrifften, reads in part: The title page of Mylius’s ode contains the same miscalculation of the Duke’s age, which, according to Michael Maul, would not be down to any of the individual authors using the services of the Mumbachische Schrifften publishing house, but was likely a more widespread misapprehension. Several composers could have been Mylius’s choice for this collaboration: there were not only father and son Drese, but also the musicians with whom he collaborated in Büttstadt – whatsoever, the one with whom he embarked on the project was the 28-year old Bach. The theme of Mylius’s congratulatory poem is the Duke’s motto, announced thus on the tribute’s title page: Notwithstanding that the occasion, a birthday, was of a secular nature—usually Bach composed secular odes or cantatas for such occasions—, the result was a sacred work, not in the least because of the religious nature of the motto that became the topic of Mylius’s exegetic poem. Bach set it as a strophic aria, a genre that had been widely practised in Germany by the end of the 17th century, but was considered old-fashioned by the second decade of the 18th century. In 1713, Duke Wilhelm Ernst’s birthday was officially celebrated on Sunday 5 November, a day before he consecrated the newly finished . It is unlikely that “Alles mit Gott und nichts ohn’ ihn”, BWV 1127, was first performed on either of these days, a weekday service in the court chapel on Monday 30 October, the Duke’s actual birthday, seeming more likely for that first performance.

Alles nur nach Gottes Willen, BWV 72

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and text#

Bach composed in his third year as Thomaskantor (director of church music) in Leipzig for the Third Sunday after Epiphany. The prescribed readings for the Sunday were from the Epistle to the Romans, rules for living (), and from the Gospel of Matthew, the healing of a leper (). The cantata text was written by Salomon Franck, who was Bach’s librettist during their time at the ducal court in Weimar. Franck published it in in 1715, but Bach composed the music much later. Ulrich Leisinger, who edited the work for Carus, argues that if Bach had already composed it in Weimar, he might have used it in his first year in Leipzig, but he wrote a new cantata for the occasion then, Herr, wie du willt, so schicks mit mir, BWV 73. Bach had turned to older texts for the complete Christmas and Epiphany season of 1725/26, beginning with Unser Mund sei voll Lachens, BWV 110, for Christmas Day setting a text published by Georg Christian Lehms in 1711, and several more texts from the same collection. Ihr, die ihr euch von Christo nennet, BWV 164, is a comparable example of Bach turning to a text by Franck late. The closing chorale "" was written by Albert, Duke of Prussia in 1547. The chorale theme (Zahn 7568) by Claudin de Sermisy first appeared in print in the collection of secular songs Trente et quatre chansons in 1528. Bach had used the chorale before as the base for his chorale cantata , composed for the same occasion in 1725. Bach led the Thomanerchor in the cantata’s first performance on 27 January 1726. He later used the opening chorus for the Gloria of his Missa in G minor, BWV 235.

Alles, was von Gott geboren, BWV 80a

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and words#

Alphabet (Amanda Lear song)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Song information#

“Alphabet” is a mid-tempo disco song, arranged by Charly Ricanek and Anthony Monn, and is largely based on the melody from Johann Sebastian Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in C major, BWV 846. Autobiographical lyrics were written by Amanda Lear and include her personal associations with each letter of the alphabet recited over the music. In a 2013 interview, Lear stated that “Alphabet” was “the first song to be completely just spoken onto classical music”. The song carries a subtitle “Prelude in C by J. S. Bach” in the track listing of its parent album, and was also known as “My Alphabet” when released as the B-side on the single “Queen of Chinatown”. French- and Italian-language versions of the song were also recorded, entitled “Mon alphabet” and “Alfabeto”, respectively. “Mon alphabet” was the B-side on the single “Tomorrow”, released in France earlier that year. “Alphabet”, just like the previous single, “Blue Tango”, at that time was only released in the Netherlands. “Queen of Chinatown” made the B-side, however, it would become Lear’s next single the same year. “Alphabet” was not a commercial success and did not chart. In 2015, the track was used in a Louis Vuitton jewelry advert.

Also hat Gott die Welt geliebt, BWV 68

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and words#

Bach composed the cantata during his second year in Leipzig for Pentecost Monday. The prescribed readings for the feast day were taken from the Acts of the Apostles, the sermon of Saint Peter for Cornelius (), and the Gospel of John, “God so loved the world” from the meeting of Jesus and Nicodemus (). In his second year in Leipzig, Bach composed chorale cantatas between the first Sunday after Trinity and Palm Sunday, but for Easter returned to cantatas on more varied texts, possibly because he lost his librettist. Nine of his cantatas for the period between Easter and Pentecost are based on texts by Christiana Mariana von Ziegler, including this cantata. Bach had possibly commissioned the texts in 1724 with his first cantata cycle in mind, but he did not set music to them until 1725. He later inserted most of them in his third cantata cycle, but kept this one and , composed for the Feast of the Ascension, in his second cycle, possibly because they both begin with a chorale fantasia. The poet opened the cantata in an unusual way with the first stanza from Salomo Liscow’s hymn (1675). It is close to the beginning of the Gospel: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life”. In the final movement, she quoted verse 18 from the Gospel, set by Bach as an unusual choral movement. Bach led the Thomanerchor in the first performance of the cantata on 21 May 1725.

Am Abend aber desselbigen Sabbats, BWV 42

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

Bach was appointed (director of church music) in Leipzig in 1723, responsible for the music at four churches of the city, and for the training and education of the boys singing in the boys’ choir. He took office on 30 May 1723. In the new position, Bach decided to compose church cantatas for almost all liturgical events for the first twelve months; they became his first cantata cycle. The following year, Bach went on to write a second cantata cycle, now basing each on a Lutheran hymn. He kept the format until Palm Sunday 1725, when he performed Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern, BWV 1. He then returned to the former style of church cantatas for Easter and the following occasions, possibly because he lost his librettist.

American Tune

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Lyrics#

In an interview with Tom Moon in 2011, Paul Simon was asked about political references in his songs, and he said: “I don’t write overtly political songs, although ‘American Tune’ comes pretty close, as it was written just after Nixon was elected.”

Reception#

Billboard described it as a “discourse on inner security while being far from home”. Cash Box called it a “gorgeous, haunting, highly lyrical track” and said that the “soft vocal performance is heightened by sweet string section.” Record World said that it “should touch the hearts and ears of many Americans” with a “beautiful melody wrapped around meaningful lyrics.” It is ranked number 262 on Rolling Stones list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. Years after the song’s release, the Los Angeles Times wrote “It does not ring with the loud anger that runs through our time. It is mournful, as if unspooling in the candlelight of a day’s end”, and praised the song for its tender, timeless nature, noting it as a “visceral reminder of our history”. In June 2026, CBS News included the song in its list of the 250 essential American songs of the past 250 years.

Amore traditore, BWV 203

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

After an extended period at the court of Weimar, Bach was Kapellmeister at the court of Leopold, Prince of Anhalt-Köthen between 1717 and 1723, directing a qualified musical ensemble. As the court was Reformed, he had no obligations to compose church music, but focused on instrumental works. Although he had no choir at his disposition, he had several excellent singers who sometimes stayed for a short period. He later wrote about this period:

Angenehmes Wiederau, BWV 30a

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and text#

was composed in Leipzig in 1737 by which time most of Bach’s cantatas had already been completed. It was an homage to , who had acquired an estate at in Pegau near Leipzig. The work was performed on 28 September at Hennicke’s .

Scoring and structure#

The piece is scored for basso continuo, along with four vocal soloists (soprano as Zeit (Time), alto as Glück (Good Fortune), tenor as Elster (River Elster), bass as Schicksal (Fate)) and four-part choir. The cantata has thirteen movements: #Chorus: #Recitative (bass, soprano, alto, tenor): #Aria (bass): #Recitative (alto): #Aria (alto): #Recitative (bass): #Aria (bass): #Recitative (soprano): #Aria (soprano): #Recitative (tenor): #Aria (tenor): #Recitative (soprano, bass, alto): #Chorus:

Ärgre dich, o Seele, nicht, BWV 186

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Weimar#

The prescribed readings for the Third Sunday of Advent were from the First Epistle to the Corinthians, the ministry of faithful apostles (), and from the Gospel of Matthew, John the Baptist in prison (). The cantata is based on a cantata text written by Salomo Franck for the third Sunday of Advent, published in in 1717. His lyrics contained movements 1, 3, 5, 8, 10 of the later work and a different closing chorale of Ludwig Helmbold. Bach composed the music, BWV 186a, in 1716 in Weimar, where he first performed it on 13 December 1716. # Chorus: (movement 1 of BWV 186) # Aria 1: (3) # Aria 2: (5) # Aria 3: (8) # Aria 4: (10) # Chorale: A reconstruction of the cantata by Diethard Hellmann was published in 1963.

Auf Christi Himmelfahrt allein, BWV 128

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and words#

Bach composed the cantata in his second year in Leipzig for the feast of the Ascension. The prescribed readings for the feast day were an epistle reading from the Acts of the Apostles, Jesus telling his disciples to preach and baptize, and his Ascension (), and a Gospel reading from Mark (). In his second year in Leipzig, Bach had composed chorale cantatas between the first Sunday after Trinity and Palm Sunday, but for Easter returned to cantatas on more varied texts, possibly because he lost his librettist. Nine of his cantatas for the period between Easter and Pentecost are based on texts of Christiana Mariana von Ziegler, including this cantata. Bach later inserted most of them in his third annual cycle, but kept this one and BWV 68 for Pentecost in his second annual cycle, possibly because they both begin with a chorale fantasia like the chorale cantatas, whereas many of the others begin with a bass solo as the . The poet expressed a personal view, writing in the first person. She took the theme of the cantata from the first stanza of ’s chorale after (1636): once Jesus ascended to heaven, there is nothing left to keep me on earth, as I am promised to see him “from face to face”, a paraphrase of . In the second movement, she alludes to the Transfiguration of Jesus (), while the third movement sees the incomprehensible power of Jesus everywhere, not restricted to a certain location: He will lift me to his right hand, according to , and will judge me right, according to the closing chorale, the fourth stanza of Matthäus Avenarius’ “”. Ziegler’s text, printed in 1728 in the collection , and the cantata text differ, possibly changed by Bach himself. For example, an aria and recitative are combined to one movement by inserting "" (where my redeemer lives) as a connection. Bach led the Thomanerchor in the first performance of the cantata on 10 May 1725.

Auf, schmetternde Töne der muntern Trompeten, BWV 207a

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Composition#

This cantata was composed for the name day of the Elector of Saxony, King Augustus III of Poland which was celebrated on 3 August. The work was likely premiered in Leipzig in 1735. It is largely based on an earlier secular cantata Vereinigte Zwietracht der wechselnden Saiten, BWV 207.1, which was first performed in 1726. It is counted among the works Bach wrote for celebrations of the Leipzig University, Festmusiken zu Leipziger Universitätsfeiern.

Aus der Tiefen rufe ich, Herr, zu dir, BWV 131

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and words#

A note on the autograph score of the cantata indicates that the work was commissioned by Georg Christian Eilmar, minister of the Marienkirche (St. Mary’s church) in Mühlhausen. This allows the work to be dated to 1707–08, which is the period when Bach was living in Mühlhausen. Bach was employed as organist at the city’s other main church, Divi Blasii,. He was also involved to some extent with performances at the Marienkirche, where civic ceremonies were held. One service there which Bach would have attended was that for the city council’s inauguration in 1708 during which his cantata Gott ist mein Konig, BWV 71 had its premiere. He may have had a closer personal relationship with Eilmar than with the minister of his own church. Eilmar was godfather to his daughter Catharina Dorothea (born 1708). has been described as possibly Bach’s first surviving cantata. For it to be the first, it has to be assumed not only that it predates other cantatas written in Mühlhausen (we know that he wrote at least one other there), but also that there is not a surviving cantata from his previous post at Arnstadt. It seems likely that Bach was composing choral music at Arnstadt. Although Bach was only 22 when he took up the appointment at Mühlhausen, the performance of a work of his own composition appears to have been part of the selection process. Recent scholarship suggests that another surviving cantata Nach dir, Herr, verlanget mich, BWV 150 could have been composed at Arnstadt. The libretto is based on Psalm 130, one of the penitential psalms. The incipit of the psalm, “Aus der Tiefen rufe ich, Herr, zu dir”, gives the cantata its name. includes in two of the movements verses from “”, a Lutheran hymn by Bartholomäus Ringwaldt. The hymn is also penitential. Bach later used it as the basis for the cantata , where the words form a counterpart to the tax collector’s prayer in the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican, the gospel reading for the eleventh Sunday after Trinity. In his Bach Cantata Pilgrimage, Sir John Eliot Gardiner performed and recorded the work with cantatas for the Fifth Sunday after Trinity, but it is not known for sure when in the liturgical year Bach performed it, and there has been speculation that it was written for a special occasion.

Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir, BWV 38

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and text#

Bach composed this chorale cantata in Leipzig in 1724. Written for the 21st Sunday after Trinity, it was part of his second annual cycle of cantatas which was planned as a cycle of chorale cantatas, based on prominent Lutheran hymns, for all occasions of the liturgical year. The prescribed readings for the Sunday were from Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians, “take unto you the whole armour of God”, and from the Gospel of John, the healing of the nobleman’s son. It was in Bach’s time the “required hymn” for the Sunday. Luther wrote about the psalm that it was coming from a The text of the chorale is unchanged for the first and last movements. An unknown poet paraphrased the other three stanzas of the chorale for movements 2 to 5. Bach led the Thomanerchor in the first performance of the cantata on 29 October 1724.

Ave Maria (Bach/Gounod)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Gounod improvised the melody, and his future father-in-law Pierre-Joseph-Guillaume Zimmerman transcribed the improvisation and in 1853 made an arrangement for violin (or cello) with piano and harmonium. The same year it appeared with the words of Alphonse de Lamartine’s poem "" (“The Book of Life”). In 1859, Jacques-Léopold Heugel published a version with the familiar Latin text. The version of Bach’s prelude used by Gounod includes the “Schwencke measure” (m.23), a measure allegedly added by Christian Friedrich Gottlieb Schwencke in an attempt to correct what he or someone else erroneously deemed a “faulty” progression, even though this sort of progression was standard in Bach’s music. Alongside Schubert’s “Ave Maria”, the Bach/Gounod “Ave Maria” has become a fixture at funerals, weddings, and quinceañeras (girls’ 15th birthday). There are many different instrumental arrangements including for violin and guitar, string quartet, piano solo, cello, and trombone. Opera singers, such as Nellie Melba, Franco Corelli and Luciano Pavarotti, as well as choirs have recorded it hundreds of times during the twentieth century. Later in his career, Gounod composed an unrelated setting of Ave Maria for a four-part SATB choir.

Bach cantata

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Titles of the cantatas#

Although the German term (Bach cantata) became very familiar, Bach himself rarely used the title Cantata in his manuscripts. In , he wrote (Cantata for solo voice and instruments). Another cantata in which Bach used that term is . Typically, he began a heading with the abbreviation J.J. (, “Jesus, help”), followed by the name of the celebration, the beginning of the words and the instrumentation, for example in . Bach often signed his cantatas with SDG, short for (“glory to the only God” / “glory to God alone”). Bach often wrote a title page for the autograph score and copies of the original parts. For example, he titled the parts of , using a mix of languages to describe the occasion, the incipit, the precise scoring and his name: “Dominica 21. post Trinit / Aus tieffer Noth schrey ich zu dir. / â / 4. Voc. / 2. Hautbois. / 2. Violini. / Viola. / 4. Tromboni / e / Continuo. / di / Signore / J.S.Bach”. The occasion for which the piece was performed is given first, in Latin: "" (21st Sunday after Trinity Sunday, with Trinit short for Trinitatem). The title follows, given in German in the orthography of Bach’s time. The scoring and finally his name appear in a mix of French and Italian, the common languages among musicians at the time, partly abbreviated.

Bach cantatas (Koopman)

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Bach cantatas (Teldec)

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Format#

The initial releases were LPs. The first CD edition was a direct reissue of the LP edition, where each original 2-LP album was printed on a single or double CD. The collection is available as a boxed set of 60 CDs in the Warner Classics Das Alte Werk series. In 2000 it was included in a complete edition of Bach’s works.

Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis

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Alternative classifications#

The BWV classification is open to criticism, and the Bach scholar Christoph Wolff was involved in the design of an alternative, the Bach Compendium. Publication of the Bach Compendium began in 1985. The BWV, however, remains the standard reference, and Christoph Wolff has contributed to it as one of principal editors of the third edition. BWV numbers were assigned to 1,126 compositions in the 20th century, and more have been added to the catalogue in the 21st century. The Annex of the BWV (BWV Anh.) lists over 200 lost, doubtful and spurious compositions. Occasionally works that have no BWV number can be identified by their BC number, e.g. BC C 8 for “Der Gerechte kömmt um”, an arrangement attributed to Bach which was unmentioned in 20th-century editions of the BWV.

Bach: The Goldberg Variations (Glenn Gould album)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Recording process#

The recordings were made in 1955 at Columbia Records 30th Street studio in Manhattan over four days between June 10 and 16, a few weeks after Gould signed his contract. Columbia Masterworks Records, the company’s classical music division, released the album in 1956. Bach: The Goldberg Variations became Columbia’s bestselling classical album and earned Gould an international reputation. The record is now in the catalog of Sony Classical Records. At least one record-company executive questioned Gould’s choice of the then-obscure Goldberg Variations for his recorded debut. In a 1981 interview, Gould reflected on the studio’s situation: “I think the objections Columbia had, which were mild and expressed in a most friendly fashion, were quite logical. I was twenty-two years old and proposed doing my recording debut with the Goldberg Variations, which was supposed to be the private preserve, of, perhaps, Wanda Landowska or someone of that generation and stature. They thought that possibly some more modest undertaking was advisable.” Then aged 22, Gould was confident and assertive about his work, and prevailed in the decision as to what he would record for his debut—having also ensured that his contract granted him artistic freedom. Columbia recognized his talent and tolerated his eccentricities; on June 25 the company issued a good-natured press release describing Gould’s unique habits and accoutrements. He brought to the studio a special piano chair, bottles of pills, and unseasonable winter clothing; once there, he would soak his hands and arms in very hot water for twenty minutes before playing. The album gained attention for Gould’s unique pianistic method, which incorporated a finger technique involving great clarity of articulation (a “detached staccatissimo”), even at great speed, and little sustaining pedal. Gould’s piano teacher, Alberto Guerrero, had encouraged Gould to practice “finger tapping”, which required very slowly tapping the fingers of the playing hand with the free hand. According to Guerrero, tapping taught the pianist an economy of muscle movement that would enable precision at high speeds. Gould “tapped” each Goldberg variation before recording it, which took about 32 hours. The extreme tempi of the 1955 performance made for a short record, as did Gould’s decision not to play many of the repeats (each variation consists of two parts, traditionally played in an A–A–B–B format). The length of a performance of the Goldberg Variations can therefore vary drastically: Gould’s 1955 recording is 38 minutes 34 seconds long, while his reconsidered, slower 1981 version (see below) is 51:18. By way of contrast, fellow Canadian Angela Hewitt’s 1999 record is 78:32. The opportunity to perfect one’s work in the studio—what Gould called “take-twoness”—attracted him to the recording studio from the beginning, and separated him from a classical-music tradition which emphasized continuous live performance, even on record. He recorded at least 21 versions of the introductory aria before being satisfied. Over the course of his career, Gould became more and more interested in the creative possibilities of the studio. Gould wrote the liner notes to the recording. Concluding his back-cover essay on the Goldberg Variations, he wrote: “It is, in short, music which observes neither end nor beginning, music with neither real climax nor real resolution, music which, like Baudelaire’s lovers, ‘rests lightly on the wings of the unchecked wind.’ It has, then, unity through intuitive perception, unity born of craft and scrutiny, mellowed by mastery achieved, and revealed to us here, as so rarely in art, in the vision of subconscious design exulting upon a pinnacle of potency.”

Bach's church music in Latin

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Settings of (parts of) the Latin mass liturgy#

Bach composed five Kyrie–Gloria masses, the first of which was later expanded to the Mass in B minor. He also set the Sanctus part of the mass liturgy a few times, and copied and arranged mass-related compositions by other composers.

Around 1748–49 Bach completed his Mass in B minor, BWV 232, based on various earlier compositions including cantata movements and the early versions of Part I Missa in B minor for the Dresden court (Kyrie–Gloria mass composed in 1733), of the first movement of Part II and of the Sanctus (Part III). The Mass in B minor is Bach’s only setting of the complete ordinary of the mass.

Bach's early cantatas

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Models#

Bach’s early cantatas are "" (chorale concertos) in the style of the 17th century, different from the recitative and aria cantata format associated with Neumeister that Bach started to use for church cantatas in 1714. The Altbachisches Archiv, a collection of 17th-century vocal works, mostly by members of the Bach family, initiated by Bach’s father Johann Ambrosius, contained works in the older style. Bach also had some acquaintance with Johann Pachelbel’s works, although there is no evidence that Bach and Pachelbel met. Bach grew up in Thuringia while Pachelbel was based in the same region, and Bach’s elder brother and teacher Johann Christoph Bach studied with Pachelbel in Erfurt. There has been recent speculation that Bach wanted to pay tribute to Pachelbel after his death in 1706. Wolff points out the relation of Bach’s early cantatas to works by Dieterich Buxtehude, with whom Bach had studied in Lübeck.

Bach's first cantata cycle

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

1723#

Trinity I, : Die Elenden sollen essen, BWV 75 # Trinity II, : Die Himmel erzählen die Ehre Gottes, BWV 76 # Trinity III, : Weimar cantata Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis, BWV 21 restaged (third version in C minor) # Trinity IV, : Ein ungefärbt Gemüte, BWV 24, and Weimar cantata Barmherziges Herze der ewigen Liebe, BWV 185 restaged # Nativity of St. John the Baptist, : Ihr Menschen, rühmet Gottes Liebe, BWV 167 # Trinity V, : no extant cantata # Visitation, : Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben, BWV 147 (adaptation of BWV 147a, a Weimar cantata for Advent IV) and possibly Magnificat in E-flat major, BWV 243a (early version without Christmas interpolations) # Trinity VI, : no extant cantata # Trinity VII, : Ärgre dich, o Seele, nicht, BWV 186 (adapted from BWV 186a, a Weimar cantata for Advent III) # Trinity VIII, : Erforsche mich, Gott, und erfahre mein Herz, BWV 136 # Trinity IX, : Herr, gehe nicht ins Gericht mit deinem Knecht, BWV 105 # Trinity X, : Schauet doch und sehet, ob irgend ein Schmerz sei, BWV 46 # Trinity XI, : Siehe zu, daß deine Gottesfurcht nicht Heuchelei sei, BWV 179 and Weimar cantata Mein Herze schwimmt im Blut, BWV 199 restaged (Leipzig version in D minor) # Trinity XII, : Lobe den Herrn, meine Seele, BWV 69a # Trinity XIII, : Du sollt Gott, deinen Herren, lieben, BWV 77 # Trinity XIV, : Es ist nichts Gesundes an meinem Leibe, BWV 25 # (, Ratswechsel: not part of the liturgical year, see below) # Trinity XV, : Warum betrübst du dich, mein Herz, BWV 138 # Trinity XVI, : Christus, der ist mein Leben, BWV 95 # Trinity XVII, : Bringet dem Herrn Ehre seines Namens, BWV 148 # Trinity XVIII, : no extant cantata # St. Michael’s Day, : no extant cantata # Trinity XIX, : Ich elender Mensch, wer wird mich erlösen, BWV BWV 48 # Trinity XX, : Weimar cantata Ach! ich sehe, itzt, da ich zur Hochzeit gehe, BWV 162 restaged # Trinity XXI, : Ich glaube, lieber Herr, hilf meinem Unglauben, BWV 109 # Trinity XXII, : Was soll ich aus dir machen, Ephraim, BWV 89 # Reformation Day, (coinciding with Trinity XXIII): possibly Weimar cantata Nur jedem das Seine, BWV 163 restaged; Alternatively an early version of BWV 80/80b? # Trinity XXIV, : O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort, BWV 60 # Trinity XXV, : Es reißet euch ein schrecklich Ende, BWV 90 # Trinity XXVI, : Wachet! betet! betet! wachet! BWV 70 (adapted from a Weimar Advent II cantata) # Advent I, : Weimar cantata Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, BWV 61 restaged # Christmas, : Weimar cantata Christen, ätzet diesen Tag, BWV 63 restaged; Also Magnificat, BWV 243a (including Christmas interpolations) and Sanctus in D major, BWV 238 # Second Day of Christmas, : Darzu ist erschienen der Sohn Gottes, BWV 40 # Third Day of Christmas, : Sehet, welch eine Liebe hat uns der Vater erzeiget, BWV 64#

1724#

New Year, : Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied, BWV 190 (instrumental parts lost) # Sunday after New Year, : Schau, lieber Gott, wie meine Feind, BWV 153 # Epiphany, : Sie werden aus Saba alle kommen, BWV 65 # Epiphany I, : Mein liebster Jesus ist verloren, BWV 154 # Epiphany II, : Weimar cantata Mein Gott, wie lang, ach lange? BWV 155 restaged # Epiphany III, : Herr, wie du willt, so schicks mit mir, BWV 73 # Epiphany IV, : Jesus schläft, was soll ich hoffen? BWV 81 # Purification, : Erfreute Zeit im neuen Bunde, BWV 83 # Septuagesima, : Nimm, was dein ist, und gehe hin, BWV 144 # Sexagesima, : Leichtgesinnte Flattergeister, BWV 181 and Weimar cantata Gleichwie der Regen und Schnee vom Himmel fällt, BWV 18 restaged in its Leipzig version (A minor, ) # Estomihi, (Leipzig audition for the post as Thomaskantor) and (first cycle): Jesus nahm zu sich die Zwölfe, BWV 22 and Du wahrer Gott und Davids Sohn, BWV 23 restaged in its first Leipzig version (B minor, four movements) # Annunciation and Palm Sunday : Siehe eine Jungfrau ist schwanger, BWV 1135 (previously BWV Anh. 199; music lost) and Weimar cantata Himmelskönig, sei willkommen, BWV 182 restaged. # (Good Friday, : St John Passion, BWV 245, 1st version — Passion, not considered as a cantata part of the cycle) # Easter, : early cantata Christ lag in Todes Banden, BWV 4 restaged (Leipzig version); Weimar cantata Der Himmel lacht! Die Erde jubilieret, BWV 31 restaged (Leipzig version) # Easter Monday, : Erfreut euch, ihr Herzen, BWV 66 # Easter Tuesday, : Ein Herz, das seinen Jesum lebend weiß, BWV 134 # Quasimodogeniti, : Halt im Gedächtnis Jesum Christ, BWV 67 # Misericordias Domini, : Du Hirte Israel, höre, BWV 104 # Jubilate, : Weimar cantate Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen, BWV 12 restaged in a version with a slightly modified instrumentation # Cantate, : Wo gehest du hin? BWV 166 # Rogate, : Wahrlich, wahrlich, ich sage euch, BWV BWV 86 # Ascension, : Wer da gläubet und getauft wird, BWV 37 # Exaudi, : Sie werden euch in den Bann tun, BWV 44 # Pentecost, : Wer mich liebet, der wird mein Wort halten, BWV 59 and Weimar cantata Erschallet, ihr Lieder, erklinget, ihr Saiten! BWV 172 restaged in its first Leipzig version (D major) # Pentecost Monday, : no extant cantata # Pentecost Tuesday, : Erwünschtes Freudenlicht, BWV 184 # Trinity, : Höchsterwünschtes Freudenfest, BWV 194, originally a consecration cantata (), restaged in its first Leipzig version Not a part of the liturgical year: # New council (Ratswechsel), : Preise, Jerusalem, den Herrn, BWV 119#

Bach's Greatest Hits

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Track listing#

:All compositions by J. S. Bach Side 1: #“Fugue in D Minor”, Contrapunctus 9 from The Art of the Fugue – 2:14 #“Prelude for Organ Chorale No. 1” (Choral-Prelude BWV 645 “Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme”, from the Schübler Chorales) – 2:38 #“Aria” from Suite No 3 in D – 3:17 #“Prelude No 12 in F Minor” from The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II – 2:12 #“Bourrée II” from The English Suite No 2 – 1:44 #“Fugue No 2 in C Minor” from The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I – 1:16 #“Fugue No 5 in D” from The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I – 1:38 Side 2: #“Prelude No 9 in E” from The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II – 3:19 #“Sinfonia” from The Partita No 2 – 4:54 #“Prelude No 1 in C” from The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II – 1:56 #“Canon” (4-Part Canon BWV 1073) – 1:53 #“Two Part Invention No 1 in C” – 1:22 #“Fugue No 5 in D” from The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II – 3:15

Bach's Missa of 1733

Bleib bei uns, denn es will Abend werden, BWV 6

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and text#

In 1723, Bach was appointed as Thomaskantor (director of church music) in Leipzig, where he was responsible for the music at four churches and for the training and education of boys singing in the Thomanerchor. He took office in the middle of the liturgical year, on the first Sunday after Trinity. In his first twelve months in office, Bach decided to compose new works for almost all liturgical events, known as his first cantata cycle. The year after, he continued that effort, composing chorale cantatas based on Lutheran hymns. He kept the format of the chorale cantata cycle until Palm Sunday of 1725, but performed on Easter Sunday both the new Kommt, gehet und eilet, BWV 249, and the early chorale cantata Christ lag in Todes Banden, BWV 4. He wrote Bleib bei uns, denn es will Abend werden for Second Day of Easter as the first cantata in his second cantata cycle that was not a chorale cantata. The change was possibly due to the loss of a librettist. The prescribed readings for the feast day were from the Acts of the Apostles, the sermon of Peter (), and from the Gospel of Luke, the Road to Emmaus (). Bach used a text by an anonymous poet who had already supplied librettos for his first cycle. The poet took verse 29 from the Gospel of Luke as a starting point: the two disciples ask the stranger whom they met on their way to stay with them, as darkness is about to fall. The situation represents the position of the Christian in general. The librettist chose two stanzas from "" for the third movement, one written by Philipp Melanchthon as a German version of “”, and of similar content as the first movement, and the other the hymn’s second stanza which was added by Nikolaus Selnecker. The closing chorale is the second stanza of Martin Luther’s hymn "" (Maintain us, Lord, within thy word). The libretto, of rather dry and didactic quality, is focused on the contrast between light and dark, viewing Jesus as the light of a sinful world. The author was possibly a theologian, who alluded to the Book of Revelation in the last aria. Bach first performed the cantata on 2 April 1725. A subsequent performance is known for 13 April 1727, and later changes to instrumental parts are extant.

Bourrée in E minor

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

In classical music#

Robert Schumann quotes the first 14 notes of this memorable theme (transposed to G minor) in #3 of the Op. 60, 6 Fugues on B–A–C–H, where he neatly combines it with the B A C B motif. There also appears to be an echo of this reference in the next fugue, #4.

Jethro Tull version#

Jethro Tull used the first eight bars of the piece as the basis for the song “Bourée”, from their 1969 album Stand Up. Like many Jethro Tull songs, it prominently features Ian Anderson’s flute playing. The song also includes a bass guitar solo, played by Glenn Cornick on the original recording. Alternate studio recordings appear on The Jethro Tull Christmas Album and the 25th Anniversary Box Set. It is a staple of the band’s concerts, and appears on the live albums Bursting Out, A Little Light Music, Nothing Is Easy: Live at the Isle of Wight 1970, and Live at Montreux 2003, as well as the concert DVD Living with the Past. In April 2011, Anderson played a duet version of the song with NASA astronaut Cady Coleman, who was on board the International Space Station at the time, as a celebration of 50 years of human spaceflight.

Brandenburg (ballet)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Choreography#

Brandenburg is set to excerpts of Brandenburg Concertos, including the entirety of No. 3, and the second movement of No. 2, fourth movement of No. 1 and the third movement of No. 6. The ballet is danced by four principal dancers and a corps de ballet of sixteen. Jean-Pierre Frohlich, Robbins’ ballet master, described the ballet as “a plotless piece in which the steps create the mood.”

Development#

After Robbins used Bach’s music for his 1971 ballet The Goldberg Variations, he did not use the composer’s works again until his later life, when three of his last four ballets were set to Bach. The other two ballets were A Suite of Dances and 2 and 3 Part Inventions. Robbins began working on Brandenburg in 1995. shown symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, and had issues with balancing as a result of a fall. While working on the ballet, Robbins declared, “I feel I have one more big ballet in me.” Robbins began developing the ballet as a pas de deux for two New York City Ballet principal dancers, Lourdes Lopez and Nikolaj Hübbe. Though Robbins usually inform the dancers the synopsis of the ballet from the outset, he did not tell the pair whether the pas de deux was an experiment or part of a bigger piece. He then brought in another pair of principal dancers, Wendy Whelan and Peter Boal, along with the corps de ballet. Robbins described working with the young cast, “I can’t show them what I want them to do so they all move around with stiff-legged movements imitating me and not my intentions… The kids realize I’m not my old self and are trying to be helpful. They are a lovely bunch. I don’t know how they remember all the changes I make all the time.” Benjamin Millepied, a member of the corps de ballet, recalled that there were months when Robbins would show the ballet to different people, which Millepied believed stemmed from the practice of workshopping on Broadway theatre. Whelan believed that Robbins knew this could be his last work and “wanted everything to be perfect and masterful.” Boal believed that Robbins choreographed 90 minutes of material but only 40 minutes are used in the ballet. According to Boal, towards the end of the creation process, Robbins was struggling to complete the finale. Peter Martins, the leader of the company, told Robbins, “You did it, you have a ballet! We could give you another year, but it’s been two already.” Frohlich felt that Robbins still completed the ballet quickly, and believed it was because Robbins was unable to demonstrate the steps to the dancers then reconsider it. Instead, he had to come up with a series of movements completely before giving them to the dancers. The costumes are designed by Holly Hynes, with the dancers in peasant attires. Robbins gave many directions to her, such as “green with a little bit of yellow and not too close to blue”, resulting in her re-dyeing the fabrics many times. Jennifer Tipton designed the lighting. The ballet was funded by New York City Ballet’s New Combination Fund, which was founded six years prior to the premiere to support new choreography. Brandenburg premiered on January 22, 1997, at the New York State Theater. The premiere was on the late New York City Ballet co-founder George Balanchine’s birthday, and was part of the first in an annual series on his birthday. With Robbins’ death in 1998, Brandenburg became his last work.

Brandenburg Concerto No. 5

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

In his Weimar period (1708–1717) Bach was involved in the concerto genre, mainly through copying and transcribing. The earliest extant sources of Bach’s own concerto compositions date from his Köthen period (1717–1723), where the 1721 autograph of the six Brandenburg Concertos takes a central place. Nonetheless, around half a dozen of Bach’s extant concertos, including some of the Brandenburg Concertos and lost models of his later harpsichord concertos, seem to have had their roots in his Weimar period. Most of what Bach may have left with his employer in Weimar perished in a fire destroying Schloss Weimar in the 1770s. In 1719 a new large two-manual harpsichord arrived in the residence of Bach’s then-time employer at Köthen. BWV 1050a, an extant early version of the fifth Brandenburg Concerto, may have been conceived for this instrument, but that seems unlikely as that version of the concerto was probably intended for a limited single-manual keyboard instrument. This puts the origin of the concerto’s earliest version at least before Bach’s third year in Köthen. Further, the presence of a traverso as one of the instruments needed for the performance of the concerto seems to indicate that it was not written for the group of performers Bach had at his disposal at Weimar or during his early years in Köthen: the traverso was a relatively new instrument at the time with probably no performers in either orchestra. By the time when Bach added the concerto to the set of Brandenburg Concertos in 1721 he had reworked it for a two-manual harpsichord, expanding the accompaniment with an additional cello part. Because of the limited input of the violin and flute solo parts, as compared with that of the harpsichord, the concerto can be seen as a harpsichord concerto, moreover, the first harpsichord concerto ever written. Nonetheless, the structure of the concerto and the soloist material of the harpsichordist are greatly indebted to violin concertos such as Vivaldi’s Grosso mogul (which Bach had transcribed for organ, BWV 594) and Johann Ernst of Saxe-Weimar’s G major concerto, which Bach had transcribed twice (for organ, BWV 592, and for harpsichord, BWV 592a).

Brandenburg Concertos

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

It is uncertain when most of the material for the Brandenburg Concertos was written. It is clear that the first movement of Concerto No. 1 (BWV 1046) was based on an introduction to Bach’s 1713 cantata Was mir behagt, and the second and last may have been as well. It also seems likely that Concerto No. 5 was the last to be written; it features a prominent harpsichord part, which is presumed to be for a new instrument ordered for Prince Leopold from the instrument-maker Michael Mietke and paid for by Bach in Berlin in 1719. Speculation regarding the composition dates of the other concertos varies, taking into account the styles of the pieces as well as the instrumentation Bach would have had available during his years prior to the date of the compiled manuscript. In 1721, Bach compiled the six concertos, writing them almost entirely in his own hand instead of leaving the work to a copyist. He presented the collection to Christian Ludwig, Margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt, under the title Six Concerts avec plusieurs instruments (Six Concertos for several instruments) with a dedication dated 24 March. Translated from the original French, the first sentence of Bach’s dedication reads: As I had the good fortune a few years ago to be heard by Your Royal Highness, at Your Highness’s commands, and as I noticed then that Your Highness took some pleasure in the little talents which Heaven has given me for Music, and as in taking Leave of Your Royal Highness, Your Highness deigned to honour me with the command to send Your Highness some pieces of my Composition: I have in accordance with Your Highness’s most gracious orders taken the liberty of rendering my most humble duty to Your Royal Highness with the present Concertos, which I have adapted to several instruments; begging Your Highness most humbly not to judge their imperfection with the rigour of that discriminating and sensitive taste, which everyone knows Him to have for musical works, but rather to take into benign Consideration the profound respect and the most humble obedience which I thus attempt to show Him. It is likely that the performance this excerpt mentions happened during the trip Bach took to Berlin in 1719, to pay for the new Mietke harpsichord. Bach’s titular reference to scoring the concertos for “several instruments” has drawn commentary. Christoph Wolff treats it as an understatement, observing that Bach used the “widest imaginable spectrum of orchestral instruments. The modest title does not begin to suggest the degree of innovation exhibited in the daring combinations … Every one of the six concertos set a precedent in its scoring, and every one was to remain without parallel.” Boyd (1993) interprets it as an indication that the concertos are written in a Venetian style, “with its greater opportunities for soloistic display … ‘Concerti a quattro’, ‘Concerti a cinque’ etc.”, and also perhaps that Bach was indicating the number of different instruments, or that the sound was intended to evoke a larger orchestra even with only one player to a part. Heinrich Besseler has noted that the overall forces required (leaving aside the first concerto, which was rewritten for a special occasion) tallies exactly with the 17 players Bach had at his disposal in Köthen, although Wolff contradicts this: “contrary to conventional wisdom, the collection does not reflect specific structure of ensembles available either to the margrave of Brandenburg or to the prince of Anhalt-Cöthen.”

Brich dem Hungrigen dein Brot, BWV 39

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

Bach composed the cantata for the First Sunday after Trinity on 23 June 1726. This dating of the autograph manuscript was only determined late by authorities on Bach, particularly Alfred Dürr, Christoph Wolff and Klaus Hofmann who were involved in preparing Urtext editions for the Neue Bach-Ausgabe and establishing the Bach Archive in Leipzig. The circumstances surrounding the composition were clarified by other Bach scholars, notably William H. Scheide and Konrad Küster. Before the dating was known, several commentators had given 1732 as the date of composition, dubbing it the “Refugee Cantata”, supposedly composed in response to the arrival of Protestants banished from Salzburg; it is unknown whether there was a repeat performance of the cantata to commemorate that event. The scholar Whittaker left a typed draft of a chronology of Bach’s cantatas when he died, which appeared in a corrected appendix to the paperback reprint of 1978. In his foreword to a 1999 critical edition, Ulrich Leisinger points out that Leipzig had to avoid conflict with the Catholic court in Dresden and probably just granted humanitarian aid to the Protestants in transit. The first Sunday after Trinity marks the beginning of the second half of the liturgical year, “in which core issues of faith and doctrine are explored”. The order of service used in Leipzig at Bach’s time called for an extended cantata in two parts for the occasion. It also had particular significance for Bach since it was on that day in 1723 that he assumed office as in Leipzig. His duties there included the education of the Thomanerchor and performances in the regular services in four churches in Leipzig, including the main churches and the . The most skilled church musicians—including SATB soloists and others doubling as choristers and instrumentalists—were based at the Thomaskirche where cantatas were performed each Sunday and on feast days. The other instrumentalists were either professional string players (Kunstgeiger), members of the Leipzig Stadtpfeifer, an ancient band of brass and wind players, or travelling musicians. Remaining gaps in the orchestra were filled by pupils from the Thomasschule and university students. Bach’s orchestra would have had 12-20 players in addition to himself and an organist. In the Thomaskirche, the musicians performed from two galleries above and around the principal organ loft in the centre. Sometimes two cantatas would be performed during a service; and when a cantata was written in two parts, a sermon would be preached between the two parts or the second part would accompany communion. As Thomaskantor, Bach instituted several changes in performance practise in Leipzig: he introduced more frequent and regular rehearsals for choristers, including individual lessons; he installed former students as organists and directors of music in the churches for which he was responsible; and—going beyond his church duties—he helped select and train municipal musicians.

Bringet dem Herrn Ehre seines Namens, BWV 148

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and words#

Bach wrote the cantata for the 17th Sunday after Trinity. The prescribed readings for the Sunday were from the Epistle to the Ephesians, the admonition to keep the unity of the Spirit (), and from the Gospel of Luke, healing a man with dropsy on the Sabbath (). The cantata text refers not to the healing, but to the honour due to God on the Sabbath. The words for the opening chorus are from Psalm 29 (). The lyrics of the cantata are based on a poem in six verses of Picander, “”, published in 1725 in his first spiritual book . The Bach scholar Alfred Dürr has nevertheless reason to date the cantata in 1723 already, suggesting that the cantata text may have preceded the poem, but there is no certain evidence that the cantata was not composed some years later. The first recitative describes the desire for God as expressed in Psalm 42 (), “As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.” Only the melody of the closing chorale "" (Lübeck, 1603) is known. Some musicologists including Werner Neumann suggested the words of the fifth verse of that chorale, others such as Philipp Spitta and the edition of the Bach Gesellschaft preferred the final verse of Johann Heermann’s hymn "" (1630) which was sung to the same melody in Leipzig.

BWV Anh.

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

First edition of the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis (1950)#

In 1950 the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis was published, allocating a unique number to every known composition by Bach. Wolfgang Schmieder, the editor of that catalogue, grouped the compositions by genre, largely following the 19th-century (BG) edition for the collation (e.g. BG cantata number = BWV number of the cantata): # Kantaten (Cantatas), BWV 1–224 # Motetten (Motets), BWV 225–231 # Messen, Messensätze, Magnificat (Masses, Mass movements, Magnificat), BWV 232–243 # Passionen, Oratorien (Passions, Oratorios), BWV 244–249 # Vierstimmige Choräle (Four-part chorales), BWV 250–438 # Lieder, Arien, Quodlibet (Songs, Arias and Quodlibet), BWV 439–524 # Werke für Orgel (Works for organ), BWV 525–771 # Werke für Klavier (Keyboard compositions), BWV 772–994 # Werke für Laute (Lute compositions), BWV 995–1000 # Kammermusik (Chamber music), BWV 1001–1040 # Orchesterwerke (Works for orchestra), BWV 1041–1071, originally in two separate chapters: Concertos (BWV 1041–1065) and Overtures (BWV 1066–1071) # Kanons (Canons), BWV 1072–1078 # Musikalisches Opfer, Kunst der Fuge (Musical Offering, Art of the Fugue), BWV 1079–1080 The of the BWV listed works that were not suitable for the main catalogue, in three sections: * I – lost works, or works of which only a tiny fraction had survived (BWV Anh. 1–23) * II – works of dubious authenticity (BWV Anh. 24–155) * III – works that were once attributed to Bach, but for which it had been established they were not composed by him (BWV Anh. 156–189) Within each section of the the works are sorted by genre, following the same sequence of genres as the main catalogue.

Canonic Trio Sonata in F major, BWV 1040

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Canonic Variations on "Vom Himmel hoch da komm' ich her"

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Movements#

The title page of the printed version BWV 769 reads In English translation this reads There are five variations: :1. Canone all’ ottava (Canon at the Octave) :: :2. Alio Modo in Canone alla Quinta (Canon at the Fifth) :: :3. Canone alla Settima, cantabile (Canon at the Seventh) :: :4. Canon per augmentationem (Augmentation Canon) :: :5. L’altra Sorte del’Canone all’rovercio, 1) alla Sesta, 2) alla Terza, 3) alla Seconda è 4) alla Nona (Canon with Inversions) :: In BWV 769a, the variations occur in the modified order 1, 2, 5, 3, 4.

Cello Suites (Bach)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

An exact chronology of the suites (regarding both the order in which the suites were composed and whether they were composed before or after the solo violin sonatas) cannot be completely established. Scholars generally believe that—based on a comparative analysis of the styles of the sets of works—the cello suites arose first, effectively dating the suites earlier than 1720, the year on the title page of Bach’s autograph of the violin sonatas. The suites were not widely known before the early 20th century. It was Pablo Casals who first began to popularize the suites, after discovering an edition by Friedrich Grützmacher (who was the first cellist to perform an entire Bach suite) in a thrift shop in Barcelona in 1889 when he was 13. Although Casals performed the suites publicly, it was not until 1936, when he was 60 years old, that he agreed to record them, beginning with Suites Nos. 2 and 3, at Abbey Road Studios in London. The other four were recorded in Paris: 1 and 6 in June 1938, and 4 and 5 in June 1939. Casals became the first to record all six suites; his recordings are still available and respected today. In 2019, the Casals recording was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry as “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”. The suites have since been performed and recorded by many cellists. Yo-Yo Ma won the 1985 Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance for his album Six Unaccompanied Cello Suites. János Starker won the 1998 Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance for his fifth recording of Six Unaccompanied Cello Suites.

Chorale cantata (Bach)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Context#

Martin Luther advocated the use of vernacular hymns during services. He wrote several himself, also worked on their tunes, and helped publish the first Lutheran hymnal, the , containing four of his hymns, in 1524. Leipzig had a strong tradition of sacred hymns. In 1690, the minister of the , Johann Benedikt Carpzov, had announced that he would preach not only on the Gospel but also on a related “good, beautiful, old, evangelical and Lutheran hymn”, and that Johann Schelle, then the director of music, would perform the hymn before the sermon. Bach’s duties as an organist included accompanying congregational singing, and he was familiar with the Lutheran hymns. Some of Bach’s earliest church cantatas include chorale settings, although he usually incorporates them into just one or two movements. Hymn stanzas are most typically included in his cantatas as the closing four-part chorale. In his passions, Bach used chorale settings to complete a scene. Before Bach chorale cantatas, that is, cantatas entirely based on both the text and the melody of a single Lutheran hymn, had been composed by among others Samuel Scheidt, Johann Erasmus Kindermann, Johann Pachelbel and Dieterich Buxtehude. Sebastian Knüpfer, Johann Schelle and Johann Kuhnau, Bach’s predecessors as Thomaskantor, had composed them. Contemporary to Bach, Christoph Graupner and Georg Philipp Telemann were composers of chorale cantatas. From his appointment as Thomaskantor in Leipzig end of May 1723 to Trinity Sunday a year later Bach had been presenting the church cantatas for each Sunday and holiday of the liturgical year, his first annual cycle of cantatas. His ensuing second cycle started with a stretch of at least 40 new chorale cantatas, up to Palm Sunday of 1725. A week later, for Easter, he presented a revised version of the early Christ lag in Todes Banden chorale cantata.

Chorale cantata cycle

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Development of the second cantata cycle and the chorale cantata cycle#

Possibly the idea for writing a series of chorale cantatas was inspired by the bicentennial anniversary of the first publications of Lutheran hymnals (1524). The first of these early hymnals is the Achtliederbuch, containing eight hymns and five melodies. Four chorale cantatas use text and/or melody of a hymn in that early publication (BWV 2, 9, 38 and 117). Another 1524 hymnal is the Erfurt Enchiridion: BWV 62, 91, 96, 114, 121 and 178 are based on hymns from that publication. BWV 14 and 125 were based on hymns from Eyn geystlich Gesangk Buchleyn, also published in 1524. Apart from some cantatas composed after Palm Sunday 1725, the chorale cantata cycle and the second cantata cycle overlap, and the two designations are often used interchangeably in scholarly literature. Otherwise the cycle is described as breaking off after Palm Sunday or Easter 1725. There are some cantatas that belong to one of both cycles, but not to the other, for instance the chorale cantata for Trinity 1727 replaces the Trinity cantata of the second cycle composed in 1725. Also, some cantatas traditionally seen as belonging to the chorale cantata cycle are not chorale cantatas in a strict sense, for instance the cantata for the Sunday between New Year and Epiphany added to the chorale cantata cycle in 1727. Neither the second cantata cycle, nor the chorale cantata cycle are complete annual cycles as extant. Even a merging of both cycles into one, with some occasions having two cantatas, which hardly can be seen as an intention of the composer, would still be missing a few cantatas (e.g. for Easter 3 and Trinity XXVI).

Christ lag in Todes Banden, BWV 4

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

Bach is believed to have written in 1707. He was a professional organist aged 22, employed from 1703 in Arnstadt as the organist of the New Church (which replaced the burned Bonifatiuskirche, and is today known as the Bach Church). At age 18, he had inspected the new organ built by Johann Friedrich Wender, was invited to play one Sunday, and was hired. The organ was built on the third tier of a theatre-like church. Bach’s duties as a church musician involved some responsibility for choral music, but the exact year he began composing cantatas is unknown. is one of a small group of cantatas that survive from his early years. According to the musicologist Martin Geck, many details of the score reflect “organistic practice”. In Arnstadt, the Kantor (church musician) Heindorff was responsible for church music in the Upper Church and the New Church where Bach was the organist. He typically conducted music in the Upper Church and would appoint a choir prefect for vocal music in the New Church. Musicologist Christoph Wolff notes that “subjecting his works to the questionable leadership of a prefect” was not what Bach would have done. Therefore, most cantatas of the period are not for Sunday occasions, but restricted to special occasions such as weddings and funerals. is the only exception, but was most likely composed not for Arnstadt but for an application to a more important post at the church of Divi Blasii in Mühlhausen.

Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam, BWV 7

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and words#

Bach composed for St. John’s Day, 24 June 1724, in Leipzig, as the third cantata of his second annual cycle, the chorale cantata cycle, which had begun about two weeks earlier on the first Sunday after Trinity. The cycle was devoted to Lutheran hymns, in the format of his chorale cantatas rendered by retaining their text of the first and last stanza, while a contemporary poet reworded the inner stanzas. Bach led the first performance on 24 June 1724.

Christen, ätzet diesen Tag, BWV 63

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and words#

The cantata is Bach’s earliest extant cantata for Christmas Day, possibly composed in Weimar as early as 1713. The text of the cantata, which echoes theologians in Halle, suggests that it was composed with Halle’s in mind, in 1713, when Bach applied to be organist of this church, or in 1716, when he was involved in rebuilding its organ. The text is possibly by that church’s Johann Michael Heineccius, who also wrote the libretti for other Bach cantatas definitely written for Halle and had favoured Bach’s application for organist at the church as a successor to Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow. Musicologist Christoph Wolff deduces from the “lavish forces” of four trumpets, timpani and three oboes on top of the strings, an unprecedented scoring in Bach’s cantatas, that the work was not composed for the intimate in Weimar. He dates it as 1714 or 1715. According to John Eliot Gardiner, the first performance may have taken place in Weimar in the church of St. Peter und Paul, performed by the combined musicians of the ducal Capelle and the town musicians. The prescribed readings for the feast day were from the Epistle to Titus, “God’s mercy appeared” () or from Isaiah, “Unto us a child is born” (), and from the Gospel of Luke, the Nativity, Annunciation to the shepherds and the angels’ song (). The poet wrote a text centred in symmetry around a recitative, framed by two duets, two more recitatives and two equal chorus movements. The lack of a closing chorale, which closes most of Bach’s later cantatas, has raised the question if the work is based on a secular cantata. According to Gardiner, the cantata was performed again to celebrate the bicentennial of the Reformation in Halle in 1717. The musicologist Philipp Spitta assumed that the cantata was written for a 1723 premiere in Leipzig, because Bach performed it on the first day of Christmas in his first year as Thomaskantor, turning to new compositions that year only for the second and third days of Christmas, , and . The musicologist Julian Mincham assumes that Bach chose this cantata for his first Christmas as because “an inspired piece that commenced and concluded with impressive choruses, was exactly the right work for the occasion and nothing new was likely to eclipse it.” It demanded the largest group of performers since Bach had begun his post half a year before, asking for four trumpets, timpani and three oboes in addition to the regular four voice parts and strings. Bach performed the cantata in Leipzig at least one more time, possibly in 1729.

Christmas Oratorio

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

In the liturgical calendar of the German reformation era in Saxony, the Christmas season started on 25 December (Christmas Day) and ended on 6 January (Epiphany). It was preceded by Advent, and followed by the period of the Sundays after Epiphany. It included at least three feast days that called for festive music during religious services: apart from Christmas (Nativity of Christ) and Epiphany (Visit of the Magi) the period also included New Year’s Day (1 January), in Bach’s time still often referred to as the Feast of the Circumcision of Christ. Also 26 and 27 December (second and third day of Christmas) were commonly considered feast days, with festive music in church. If a Sunday fell between 27 December and 1 January, also on this first Sunday after Christmas a church service with music was held, and similar for a Sunday between 1 and 6 January (second Sunday after Christmas, or: first Sunday after New Year).

Christum wir sollen loben schon, BWV 121

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History, hymn and words#

Bach composed the cantata in his second year in Leipzig for the Second Day of Christmas as part of his second cantata cycle. The prescribed readings for the feast day were from the Epistle to Titus (), and the Gospel of Luke (), of the shepherds at the manger. The hymn’s first stanza and eighth stanza are retained unchanged for an opening chorus and a closing chorale. The inner stanzas were freely adapted as madrigalian recitatives and arias by an unknown poet, one stanza for each of the two arias, movements 2 and 4, and two stanzas for each of the two recitatives, movements 3 and 5. The librettist created a sermon in versed poetry, devoting the first three free movements to the miracle of the birth of Jesus and the other three to the believer’s reaction to it. The hymn tune that Bach used goes back to the “A solis ortus cardine” hymn from the 5th century. Bach’s version was first published in Strasbourg in 1537. Bach led the first performance in the service on 26 December 1724.

Christus, der ist mein Leben, BWV 95

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and text#

Bach wrote the cantata in his first year at Leipzig for the 16th Sunday after Trinity and first performed it on 12 September 1723. The prescribed readings for the Sunday were from the Epistle to the Ephesians, praying for the strengthening of faith in the congregation of Ephesus (), and from the Gospel of Luke, the raising from the dead of the Young man from Nain (). In Bach’s time the story pointed immediately at the resurrection of the dead, expressed as a desire to die soon. As Salomon Franck expressed in his text for cantata , composed in Weimar in 1715, the unknown poet concentrates on a desire to die, in hope to be raised like the young man from Nain. The poet includes four stanzas from four different chorales. Two chorale stanzas are already presented in the first movement, "" (Jena 1609) and Martin Luther’s "" (1524), a paraphrase of the canticle . Movement 3 is Valerius Herberger’s “Valet will ich dir geben”, and the closing chorale is the fourth stanza of Nikolaus Herman’s “”.

Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue, BWV 903

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Sources and versions#

The surviving sources of the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue do not preserve a single fixed version of the fantasia. Hans David attempted to arrange the manuscripts and early prints then known in a source stemma. George B. Stauffer argues that the larger number of known sources makes such a complete reconstruction uncertain. The manuscript dates are also difficult to use as evidence for the work’s chronology, since a later copy may preserve an earlier version. Stauffer notes that only a small number of surviving manuscripts appear to have originated during Bach’s lifetime, and that the only precisely dated early manuscript of the mature version is the anonymous P 421, dated 6 December 1730. Stauffer and Uwe Wolf both describe three versions of the fantasia. The first is the early version, BWV 903a; the second is an intermediate version preserved in copies associated with Johann Tobias Krebs the Elder and Samuel Gottlieb Heder; and the third is the main version, first represented by an anonymous manuscript dated 1730. In the third edition of the , these versions are numbered BWV 903.1, BWV 903.2, and BWV 903.3, respectively. The fugue has a simpler source history than the fantasia: it appears to have been largely complete from the beginning, apart from later changes in detail, and differs only slightly among the surviving sources.

Church cantata (Bach)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and context#

Bach’s Nekrolog mentions five cantata cycles: “Fünf Jahrgänge von Kirchenstücken, auf alle Sonn- und Festtage” (Five year-cycles of pieces for the church, for all Sundays and feast days), which would amount to at least 275 cantatas, or over 320 if all cycles would have been ideal cycles. The extant cantatas are around two-thirds of that number, with limited additional information on the ones that went missing or survived as fragments. The listing below contains cycle information as available in scholarship, and may include cantatas that are or were associated with Bach (e.g., listed in the BWV catalogue), but were not actually composed by him.

Church cantatas of Bach's third to fifth year in Leipzig

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Annually returning services#

After Trinity of 1725 Johann Sebastian Bach began a third annual cycle, but with less consistency than the previous two. The oldest extant cantata of the third cycle was composed for the ninth Sunday after Trinity 1725. The third cycle cantata for the first Sunday after Trinity was only composed in 1726. The cycle extends over several years. The cantatas from 1727 have however also been termed as “between the third and the fourth cycles”. There are 35 extant cantatas of the third cantata cycle, for a period with around 170 occasions. For about half of the other occasions a few new chorale cantatas by Bach (retrospectively added to the chorale cantata cycle), restagings of older compositions or presentations of works by other composers are known. Bach had acquired a cycle of cantatas by his second cousin Johann Ludwig Bach of Meiningen. Together with his assistants he provided performance material for at least 18 of these cantatas, for which the Leipzig premieres are known, from Purification (2 February) to Trinity XIII (15 September) 1726. Johann Sebastian Bach’s compositions have a number according to the BWV catalogue, while Johann Ludwig Bach’s have a JLB number. Through an erroneous attribution to the former the cantata Denn du wirst meine Seele nicht in der Hölle lassen, JLB 21, is also known by a BWV number. The version of the St Mark Passion attributed to Keiser which Bach presented on Good Friday 1726, including the chorale harmonisations BWV 500a and 1084, is indicated by a Bach Compendium (BC) number. Known works staged under Bach’s directorate can in most cases also be indicated by a Bach Digital Work (BDW) number provided by the Bach-digital website. Historians of music studying the cycle have noted a greater use of solo organ parts, speculated to have been played by Bach or his son WHICH ONE? , a wide range of texts and movements apparently borrowed from previous instrumental works. Very little is known about the cantatas for recurring occasions in the year preceding the fourth cantata cycle, at least there is no new composition extant that with certainty can be attributed to the period from Trinity I 1727 to the start of that next cycle. Notes

Clavier-Übung II

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The French Overture had previously been written down in C minor; for the publication of 1735 Bach transposed it to B minor and made slight changes to the musical text, for example in the rhythms of the first movement. The reason for the transposition is not known: one speculation is that the aim was to increase the contrast between the two works. F major is a “flat” key and B minor is a “sharp” key, and the keynotes are related by a tritone, which is the most distant modulation. Another possible motivation is that out of the eight German note names A, B (B), C, D, E, F, G, H (B), six had already been used as keynotes in the Partitas, thus only F and H remained. The keys of the Partitas (B-flat major, C minor, A minor, D major, G major, E minor) may seem like an irregular sequence, but in fact they form a sequence of intervals going up and then down by increasing amounts: a second up (B-flat to C), a third down (C to A), a fourth up (A to D), a fifth down (D to G), and finally a sixth up (G to E). The sequence continues into Clavier-Übung II with the Italian Concerto, a seventh down (E to F), and the French Ouverture, an augmented fourth up (F to B-natural). Thus the sequence of customary tonalities for 18th-century keyboard compositions is complete, extending from the first letter of his name (Bach’s “home” key, B, in German is B) to the last letter of his name (B in German is H).

Clavier-Übung III

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and origins#

25 November 1736 saw the consecration of a new organ, built by Gottfried Silbermann, in a central and symbolic position in the Frauenkirche, Dresden. The following week, on the afternoon of 1 December, Bach gave a two-hour organ recital there, which received “great applause”. Bach was used to playing on church organs in Dresden, where since 1733 his son, Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, had been organist at the Sophienkirche. It is considered likely that for the December recital Bach performed for the first time parts of his as yet unpublished Clavier-Übung III, the composition of which, according to Gregory Butler’s dating of the engraving, started as early as 1735. This inference has been drawn from the special indication on the title page that it was “prepared for music-lovers and particularly connoisseurs” of music; from contemporary reports of Bach’s custom of giving organ recitals for devotees after services; and from the subsequent tradition among music lovers in Dresden of attending Sunday afternoon organ recitals in the Frauenkirche given by Bach’s student Gottfried August Homilius, whose programme was usually made up of chorale preludes and a fugue. Bach was later to complain that the temperament on Silbermann organs was not well suited to “today’s practice”. Clavier-Übung III is the third of four books of Bach’s Clavier-Übung. It was the only portion of music meant for the organ, the other three parts being for harpsichord. The title, meaning “keyboard practice”, was a conscious reference to a long tradition of similarly titled treatises: Johann Kuhnau (Leipzig, 1689, 1692), Johann Philipp Krieger (Nuremberg, 1698), Vincent Lübeck (Hamburg, 1728), Georg Andreas Sorge (Nuremberg, 1739) and Johann Sigismund Scholze (Leipzig 1736–1746). Bach started composing after finishing Clavier-Übung II—the Italian Concerto, BWV 971 and the Overture in the French style, BWV 831—in 1735. Bach used two groups of engravers because of delays in preparation: 43 pages by three engravers from the workshop of Johann Gottfried Krügner in Leipzig and 35 pages by Balthasar Schmid in Nuremberg. The final 78-page manuscript was published in Leipzig in Michaelmas (late September) 1739 at the relatively high price of 3 Reichsthaler. Bach’s Lutheran theme was in keeping with the times, since already that year there had been three bicentenary Reformation festivals in Leipzig. In translation, the title page reads “Third Part of Keyboard Practice, consisting of various preludes on the Catechism and other hymns for the organ. Prepared for music-lovers and particularly for connoisseurs of such work, for the recreation of the spirit, by Johann Sebastian Bach, Royal Polish and Electoral Saxon Court Composer, Capellmeister and director of the chorus musicus, Leipzig. Published by the author”. Examination of the original manuscript suggests that the Kyrie-Gloria and larger catechism chorale preludes were the first to be composed, followed by the “St Anne” prelude and fugue and the manualiter chorale preludes in 1738 and finally the four duets in 1739. Apart from BWV 676, all the material was newly composed. The scheme of the work and its publication were probably motivated by Georg Friedrich Kauffmann’s Harmonische Seelenlust (1733–1736), Conrad Friedrich Hurlebusch’s Compositioni Musicali (1734–1735) and chorale preludes by Hieronymus Florentinus Quehl, Johann Gottfried Walther and Johann Caspar Vogler published between 1734 and 1737, as well as the older Livres d’orgue, the French Organ Masses of Nicolas de Grigny (1700), Pierre Dumage (1707) and others. Bach’s formulation of the title page follows some of these earlier works in describing the particular form of the compositions and appealing to “connoisseurs”, his only departure from the title page of Clavier-Übung II. Although Clavier-Übung III is acknowledged to be not merely a miscellaneous collection of pieces, there has been no agreement on whether it forms a cycle or is just a set of closely related pieces. As with previous organ works of this type by composers such as François Couperin, Johann Caspar Kerll and Dieterich Buxtehude, it was in part a response to musical requirements in church services. Bach’s references to Italian, French and German music place Clavier-Übung III directly in the tradition of the Tabulaturbuch, a similar but much earlier collection by Elias Ammerbach, one of Bach’s predecessors at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig. Bach’s complex musical style had been criticized by some of his contemporaries. The composer, organist and musicologist Johann Mattheson remarked in “Die kanonische Anatomie” (1722): Until 1731, apart from his celebrated ridiculing in 1725 of Bach’s declamatory writing in the cantata Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis, BWV 21, Mattheson’s commentary on Bach had been positive. In 1730, however, he heard by chance that Gottfried Benjamin Hancke had been commenting unfavourably on his own keyboard technique: “Bach will play Mattheson into a sack and out again.” From 1731 onwards, his vanity pricked, Mattheson’s writing became critical of Bach, whom he referred to as “der künstliche Bach”. Over the same period Bach’s former pupil Johann Adolf Scheibe had been making stinging criticisms of Bach: in 1737 he wrote that Bach “deprived his pieces of all that was natural by giving them a bombastic and confused character, and eclipsed their beauty by too much art”. Scheibe and Mattheson were employing practically the same lines of attack on Bach; and indeed Mattheson involved himself directly in Scheibe’s campaign against Bach. Bach did not comment directly at the time: his case was argued with some discreet prompting from Bach by Johann Abraham Birnbaum, professor of rhetoric at the University of Leipzig, a music lover and friend of Bach and Lorenz Christoph Mizler. In March 1738 Scheibe launched a further attack on Bach for his “not inconsiderable errors”: In the advertisement in 1738 for his forthcoming treatise, Der vollkommene Capellmeister (1739), Mattheson included a letter by Scheibe, resulting from his exchanges with Birnbaum, in which Scheibe expressed strong preference for Mattheson’s “natural” melody over Bach’s “artful” counterpoint. Through his friend Mizler and his Leipzig printers Krügner and Breitkopf, also printers for Mattheson, like others Bach would have had advance knowledge of the content of Mattheson’s treatise. Concerning counterpoint, Mattheson wrote: Whatever Bach’s personal reaction, the contrapuntal writing of Clavier-Übung III provided a musical response to Scheibe’s criticisms and Mattheson’s call to organists. Mizler’s statement, cited above, that the qualities of Clavier-Übung III provided a “powerful refutation of those who have ventured to criticize the music of the Court Composer” was a verbal response to their criticisms. Nevertheless, most commentators agree that the main inspiration for Bach’s monumental opus was musical, namely musical works like the Fiori musicali of Girolamo Frescobaldi, for which Bach had a special fondness, having acquired his own personal copy in Weimar in 1714.

Concerto Barocco

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Choreography#

Concerto Barocco is plotless, and is danced by two principal women, a principal man, and a corps de ballet of eight women. Each of the principal woman dances to one of the violin lines, while the corps dances to the orchestra. The only preparation possible for this ballet is a knowledge of its music, for Concerto Barocco has no “subject matter” beyond the score which it is danced and the particular dancers who execute it. Set to Bach’s Concerto in D minor for Two Violins, the ballet tries to interest the audience only by its dancing, its treatment of the ballet, just as Baroque art and architecture interested people not because of their subject but because of the decorative treatment that embellished those subjects. In the original choreography, Balanchine incorporated elements of jazz dance. Marie-Jeanne, the lead ballerina in the original cast, wrote in 1991, " Balanchine changed Barocco musically, making it fit the beat. Today’s dancers do it slower; they do two beats what we did on one beat. So it’s much easier today. It doesn’t have the sharpness, and it doesn’t have the flow of the adagio." The jazziness in the original choreography was also gone. Taras commented: “Barocco has become rather a tepid, bland classical work now … And now it’s rather romantic, and lyrical. It became diluted.”

Concerto for two harpsichords in C minor, BWV 1060

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

While the extant 18th-century manuscripts present the concerto in a form for two harpsichords and strings, the assumption that it originated as concerto for violin and oboe has become widely accepted since the late 19th century. The precise date for this earlier concerto is unknown, but it is believed to have been in existence from the early 1720s. The version for two harpsichords likely originated in or around 1736. A broader estimate for the time of origin of the version for two harpsichords is 1735–1740.

Concerto for Two Violins (Bach)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Bach composed his Concerto for Two Violins in D minor, BWV 1043, around 1730, as part of a concert series he ran as the Director of the Collegium Musicum in Leipzig. The concerto was later arranged as a concerto for two harpsichords by Bach himself as BWV 1062.

Structure#

The concerto is characterized by a subtle yet expressive relationship between the violins throughout the work. In addition to the two soloists, the concerto is scored for strings (first violin, second violin and viola parts), the solo violin and basso continuo. The musical structure of this piece uses fugal imitation and much counterpoint. The concerto comprises three movements: Performance time of the concerto ranges from less than 13 minutes to over 18 minutes.

Concerto, BWV 525a

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Darzu ist erschienen der Sohn Gottes, BWV 40

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Bach composed the cantata in his first year in Leipzig, for the Second Day of Christmas. On this day Leipzig celebrated Christmas and Saint Stephen’s Day in alternating years, with different readings. In 1723, Saint Stephen’s Day was remembered, with the prescribed readings for the feast day from the Acts of the Apostles, the Martyrdom of Stephen (, ), and from the Gospel of Matthew, Jerusalem killing her prophets (). The cantata text by an unknown author is not related to the martyrdom, but generally reflects Jesus as the conqueror of sin and the works of the devil. The text quotes the Bible in movement 1, a verse from the First Epistle of John (). The contemporary poetry alludes to the Bible several times. Movement 2 is based on the Gospel of John (). Movement 5 reflects the creation narrative (); the image of the serpent is also used in movements 4 and 6. Movement 7 finally picks up a line from the day’s Gospel, verse 37, “how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings”. No fewer than three chorale stanzas from three different hymns are part of the structure: movement 3 is stanza 3 from Kaspar Füger’s "" (1592); movement 6 is stanza 2 from Paul Gerhardt’s “Schwing dich auf zu deinem Gott” (1648); and the closing chorale is the fourth (final) stanza from Christian Keymann’s "" (1646). This is unusual; many of Bach’s cantatas include only one chorale stanza for a conclusion, and the cantata performed a day before, , an early work composed in Weimar, contained no chorale at all. During the 1723 Christmas season, Bach used the structural device of three chorale stanzas, otherwise rare in his cantatas, twice more, in , and in . He used the structuring of major works in scenes which are closed by chorale later in his Passions and in his Christmas Oratorio. In this cantata, the first insertion is from a hymn that Bach would later use at the end of Part III of his Christmas Oratorio, sung to the earlier melody (1589) by an anonymous composer. The second insertion is not from a Christmas hymn, but its addressing the “alte Schlange” (old serpent) matches the context. It is sung to a melody possibly composed by Friedrich Funcke. The closing chorale is sung to a melody by Andreas Hammerschmidt, published in his collection (Fourth part of musical meditations) in Freiberg, Saxony (1646). The cantata was the first Christmas cantata composed for Leipzig. Bach first performed it on 26 December 1723, and once more, in either 1746 or 1747. For the Christmas season of 1723, from the First Day of Christmas to Epiphany, Bach had performed a program of six cantatas, five of them new compositions, and two major other choral works: * 25 December ** Main service: and a new Sanctus in D major, BWV 238 ** vespers service, BWV 63 and the Magnificat in E-flat major, BWV 243a * 26 December: this cantata * 27 December: * 1 January: * 2 January: * 6 January: The cantatas were performed twice on the principal feast days, in the main service, alternating in one of the two major churches of Leipzig Thomaskirche and Nikolaikirche, and in the vespers service in the other. Bach parodied the first movement of this cantata for the fugue in his 1738 Missa in F major, BWV 233.

Das ist je gewißlich wahr

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and text#

The cantata was composed for Gaudete Sunday (third Sunday of Advent) in 1719 or 1720. The libretto is based on a reading of 1 Timothy 1:15 (opening chorus), and a text by Johann Friedrich Helbig (movements 2–4).

Scoring and structure#

This piece is scored for three vocal soloists (alto, tenor, and bass), a four-part choir, two oboes, two violins, viola, and basso continuo. The cantata has four movements: #Chorus #Tenor aria #Alto recitative #Bass aria

Das neugeborne Kindelein, BWV 122

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History, hymn and text#

Bach composed the cantata in his second year as in Leipzig for the Sunday after Christmas. The prescribed readings for the Sunday were from the Epistle to the Galatians, “through Christ we are free from the law” (), and from the Gospel of Luke, Simeon and Anna talking to Mary (). This hymn is extremely short, with three stanzas of only four lines each, and reflects the turn of the year more prominently than the birth of Jesus mentioned in the first line. This was suitable as the Sunday after Christmas fell on the last day of the calendar year in 1724. The unknown librettist made no effort to connect to the Gospel reading. Bach first performed the cantata on 31 December 1724.

Dem Gerechten muß das Licht, BWV 195

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and text#

Bach composed this cantata in Leipzig around 1727 for a wedding. The earliest version of the work is lost; an incomplete second version from 1742 and a complete revision from the late 1740s survive. These dates correspond with repeat performances of the work. The closing chorale is the first stanza of Paul Gerhardt’s hymn “Nun danket all und bringet Ehr”, with the melody of “Lobt Gott, ihr Christen alle gleich”. The opening movement is based on ; the rest of the text is anonymous. Alfred Dürr derives from allusions in the text that the work was intended for the wedding of a lawyer.

Denn du wirst meine Seele nicht in der Hölle lassen

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and text#

The piece was initially thought to be an early work of Johann Sebastian Bach. However, Bach scholars reattributed the piece to his cousin, Johann Ludwig Bach. The piece was likely composed in Meiningen in 1704 for the first day of Eastertide, known as Easter Sunday. There is some evidence that it may have been performed again under the aegis of Johann Sebastian Bach on 21 April 1726 in Leipzig. The prescribed readings for the day are 1 Corinthians 5:6–8 and Mark 16:1–8.

Der Friede sei mit dir, BWV 158

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and text#

The surviving source is a copy by Penzel, identified on the title page as being for the Purification (the Lutheran feast Mariae Reinigung), which was celebrated on 2 February, but with an alternate designation for Easter Tuesday in the parts. Bach composed several cantatas for the Purification and the texts are related to Simeon’s canticle Nunc dimittis, part of the prescribed readings. Because of the references to the “Nunc dimittis” in Der Friede sei mit dir and because of the alternate title page designation, it is widely assumed that at least the two central movements were originally part of a longer cantata for the Purification, with a different introductory recitative not evoking Christ’s Easter reappearance to the disciples. The obbligato writing in the aria, which appears better suited to flute than the “violino” specified in Penzel’s copy, is cited in support of the hypothesis that it was originally written for a different occasion. Joshua Rifkin has proposed the dates 15 April 1727 or 30 March 1728 for the premiere of the surviving Easter version. The prescribed readings for this day were from the Acts of the Apostles, the sermon of Paul in Antiochia (), and from the Gospel of Luke, the appearance of Jesus to the Apostles in Jerusalem ().

Der Geist hilft unser Schwachheit auf, BWV 226

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

For , the autograph score survives. Bach himself noted on its title: “.” ( – Motet for two choirs for the funeral for the blessed Rector, Professor Ernesti, by J. S. Bach). Ernesti was professor of poetry at Leipzig University and director of the Thomasschule. The first performance took place in the Paulinerkirche, the university church). Scholars debate if the performance was 24 October, or rather 21 October, as indicated by the title page of the sermon. As well as being part of a series of works connected with the university, Der Geist hilft unser Schwachheit auf as a funeral motet is one of a series of Bach motets.

Der Herr denket an uns, BWV 196

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and words#

The precise date of composition for this cantata is unknown, but it is generally considered to be an early work. The English Bach scholar Richard Jones notes that “although it survives only in a later manuscript copy”, its stylistic features are evidence of an earlier date: its text comprises “selected psalm verses only, without any free madrigalian verse”, it has no recitative, and the compositional approach “still breathes the air of the seventeenth century”. The Bach scholar Alfred Dürr and others suggest that the cantata may have been written for the wedding of the minister Johann Lorenz Stauber, who had conducted the wedding ceremony for Bach, and Regina Wedemann, an aunt of Maria Barbara, in Dornheim on 5 June 1708. However, the wedding hypothesis is not proven, and the general text could fit other occasions. It was published in the Neue Bach-Ausgabe in 1958, edited by Frederick Hudson.

Der Herr ist mein getreuer Hirt, BWV 112

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and words#

In his second year as Thomaskantor in Leipzig, Bach composed chorale cantatas between the first Sunday after Trinity of 1724 and Palm Sunday of 1725, but for Easter he returned to cantatas on more varied texts. He had not composed a chorale cantata yet for the occasion , the second Sunday after Easter. The prescribed readings for that Sunday were from the First Epistle of Peter (Christ as a model – ), and from the Gospel of John, (the Good Shepherd – ). During the cycle of 1724/25, the text of the inner stanzas of a hymn was paraphrased by a contemporary poet with whom Bach collaborated. In this cantata however, Bach used the hymn text unchanged, a 1530 hymn in five stanzas written by Wolfgang Meuslin as a paraphrase of Psalm 23. The hymn is sung to the melody of “”, the German Gloria, by Nikolaus Decius (1522). Meusin’s hymn is different from the one with the same opening line by Cornelius Becker, but sung to the same melody, which Bach had used in his other two cantatas for the same occasion, and . The hymn’s topic, the Lord as the Good Shepherd, has traditionally been used for Jesus and is thus related to the gospel. Bach first performed the cantata at the on 8 April 1731.

Der Himmel dacht auf Anhalts Ruhm und Glück, BWV 66a

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Bach composed the secular cantata, or serenata, Bach and Hunold collaborated on other cantatas, including one for the same birthday, . Hunold’s text was included in a collection, (Selected and partly never printed poems), which he published the following year, and has thus survived. Bach’s music has been lost apart from a fragment, but there is scope for its reconstruction as he recycled some of it in at least one sacred work. Bach adapted several movements for his 1724 cantata for Easter Monday, . While the structure of the sacred cantata is different (it is closed with a chorale, and it opens with music from the closing movement of the secular cantata), Bach preserved the original dialogue form in which two allegorical figures appear. For (Fortune of Anhalt) and (Fame), he substituted the alto “Fear” in place of Fortune and the tenor “Hope” in place of Fame. John Eliot Gardiner has suggested that instrumental music from the lost cantata survives in another cantata from the composer’s Leipzig years. The music in question, a sinfonia for strings and woodwind, is the first movement of , which was first performed in 1725.

Der Himmel lacht! Die Erde jubilieret, BWV 31

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and words#

Die Elenden sollen essen, BWV 75

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

External links#

Flute Sonata in E minor, BWV 1034: performance by the Netherlands Bach Society (video and background information) *

Flute Sonata in E-flat major, BWV 1031

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

External links#

- Sonata for flute & keyboard in E major, BWV 1031 : Allmusic description

French Suites (Bach)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Style#

The suites were later given the name ‘French’ (first recorded usage by Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg in 1762). Likewise, the English Suites received a later appellation. The name was popularised by Bach’s biographer Johann Nikolaus Forkel, who wrote in his 1802 biography of Bach, “One usually calls them French Suites because they are written in the French manner.” There is no surviving definitive manuscript of these suites, and ornamentation varies both in type and in degree across manuscripts. Some manuscripts have movements not found in other copies. These movements are probably spurious.

Freue dich, erlöste Schar, BWV 30

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Context#

Bach composed , a cantata for St. John’s Day (24 June), in Leipzig, where the traditional readings from scripture for the feast day were, from the Book of Isaiah: “the voice of a preacher in the desert” (), and from the Gospel of Luke: the birth of John the Baptist and the Benedictus of Zechariah (). Bach based the cantata on a secular cantata, , BWV 30.1 (previously BWV 30a), which he had composed in 1737 to celebrate ’s acquisition of Wiederau manor. It is assumed that the sacred parody was realised the next year, and first performed on St. John’s Day of that year. belongs to the period of Bach’s late church cantata production, an era when he composed, as far as known, mostly isolated cantatas that were either an addition to one of his earlier cycles, or a recasting of earlier work. In the 1730s, parody texts for vocal music which Bach had previously composed for another occasion were often delivered by Christian Friedrich Henrici, known under the pen name Picander, as seems to have been the case for BWV 30.2 too. Possibly the cantata was a late addition to the third cycle: in the third cycle year 1726 Bach had performed Siehe, ich will meinen Engel senden, JLB 17, a St. John’s Day cantata by his cousin Johann Ludwig, so he may have wished to complement that cycle with one of his own compositions. The third stanza of Johann Olearius’s 1671 hymn “Tröstet, tröstet meine Lieben” is the text of the chorale movement which closes the first part of the cantata, using “”, Zahn No. 6543, as hymn tune. This melody, based on an older tune, first appeared in its chorale form as a setting of Psalm 42 by Louis Bourgeois, in the 1551 edition of the Genevan Psalter (). The sixth movement of BWV 30.2 is, as far as known, the eighth and last time Bach adopted this chorale melody in one of his compositions: he used it, with various hymn texts, in seven four-part harmonizations and as a cantus firmus by the alto in the third movement of Meine Seufzer, meine Tränen, BWV 13.

Froher Tag, verlangte Stunden, BWV Anh. 18

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Libretto and structure#

Winckler was a colleague of Bach at the Thomasschule. He was a versatile scholar whose interests included experimental physics, and he was later elected Fellow of the Royal Society. The cantata has 10 movements. In the middle of the work there was a pause for speeches, rather as some church cantatas were performed before and after the sermon. The movements are as follows: # # # # # # # # # #

Fugue in G minor, BWV 131a

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Publication#

The piece was published in 1891 in the Bach-Gesellschaft Ausgabe, the first complete edition of the composer’s works. It was edited by Ernst Naumann.

Relationship with the cantata#

The key of G minor, sometimes associated with sadness, is used extensively in the cantata, which sets Psalm 130, one of the penitential psalms.

Scoring of the cantata#

In the cantata the fugue (a permutation fugue) is sung by the choir. The score of the cantata does not feature an organ part as such. However, the scoring for the instrumental ensemble includes a basso continuo part (for which a figured bass is provided), and Bach may well have intended this to be played on the organ. Ton Koopman, for example, in his recording of this cantata uses organ continuo.

Fugue in G minor, BWV 578

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Score#

The fugue’s four-and-a-half measure subject in G minor is one of Bach’s most recognizable tunes. The fugue is in four voices. During the episodes, Bach uses one of Arcangelo Corelli’s most famous techniques: imitation between two voices on an eighth note upbeat figure that first leaps up a fourth and then falls back down one step at a time.

In other music#

Swedish heavy metal band Sabaton uses the beginning of the piece in the song “The Red Baron” from their album The Great War. The piece is transposed to C minor, and the first voice is lowered an octave relative to the second voice. The Carolina Crown Drum and Bugle Corps also included sections of the piece in the opener of their 2017 program “It Is”. Dennis DeYoung of the American progressive rock band Styx in 1973 transposed the essential melody into the key of D minor (hence the use of quotation marks around “G minor” in the title) as an introduction to the following song on the album (Father) which is in D major.

Fürchte dich nicht, BWV 228

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Bach composed the work for a funeral. His motets were written in the tradition of the Evangelienmotetten (motets on gospel text) of the 17th century by composers such as Melchior Franck, Melchior Vulpius and Heinrich Schütz. When he composed his motets, works without contemporary poetry and without an independent orchestra, the genre was already out of fashion. However, there was evidently a demand for such works at funerals, a ceremony for which at least some of Bach’s other motets were written. As the original score has not survived, the work can not be dated with certainty. Traditionally, scholars believed that Bach composed for a funeral in Leipzig in 1726. Stylistic comparison with other works such as , suggests that Bach wrote it already in his Weimar period (1708–1717).

Geist und Seele wird verwirret, BWV 35

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

Bach composed his first solo cantata on a text by Georg Christian Lehms, , during his tenure in Weimar. In the new position, Bach decided to compose church cantatas for almost all liturgical events for the first twelve months; they became his first cantata cycle. In 1725, his third year in the post, Bach slowed down his composing and began to perform cantatas by other composers. Bach rarely chose older librettos for his cantatas in his first years in Leipzig; the conductor Craig Smith even suggested that parts of may have been composed earlier than the first recorded Leipzig performance. Bach composed in 1726, his fourth year in the position, for the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity. It is regarded as part of his third cantata cycle. Bach had earlier composed two other cantatas for the twelfth Sunday after Trinity, in his first year in Leipzig Lobe den Herrn, meine Seele, BWV 69a, first performed on 15 August 1723, and in his third year Lobe den Herren, den mächtigen König der Ehren, BWV 137, first performed on 19 August 1725, as an added part of his cycle of chorale cantatas. Both works focus on praise (Lob) and use an orchestra including festive trumpets.

Gelobet sei der Herr, mein Gott, BWV 129

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and words#

The cantata was apparently composed for Trinity Sunday. The text of the cantata is a general praise of the Trinity, without a reference to a specific gospel reading. Addressing God the Creator, the Saviour and the Comforter, it could be used for other occasions such as Reformation Day. In his second year at Leipzig Bach had composed chorale cantatas between the first Sunday after Trinity of 1724 and Palm Sunday 1725, but for Easter that year he had returned to cantatas on more varied texts, possibly because he lost his librettist. Later Bach returned to composing chorale cantatas, possibly with the intention of completing his second annual cycle. This cantata is one of these later chorale cantatas, and it was thought that it was performed in 1726. Rediscovery of the printed libretto of the cantata in the first decade of the 21st century led to a re-appraisal of prior assumptions regarding the first performance of this cantata: it was performed on Trinity Sunday 8 June 1727. The work was revived during the composer´s lifetime and in the 1750s after the composer´s death. The cantata is based entirely on the unchanged words on the hymn (1665) by Johann Olearius and celebrates the Trinity in five stanzas. The prescribed readings for Trinity Sunday were from the Epistle to the Romans, reflecting “depth of wisdom” (), and from the Gospel of John, the meeting of Jesus and Nicodemus (). Unlike most chorale cantatas of 1724/25, but similar to the early , and , also composed after the second cantata cycle, Bach left the chorale text unchanged, thus without a reference to the readings.

Gelobet seist du, Jesu Christ, BWV 91

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and words#

from Bach’s chorale cantata cycle is based on the main chorale for Christmas Day, Luther’s “”. This song was published in 1524, thus was 200 years old when Bach composed his work. Its beginning summarizes Christmas in two lines: "" (Praise be to You, Jesus Christ, since You were born a man). All seven stanzas end with the acclamation . The cantata was Bach’s first composed for Christmas Day in Leipzig; in his first year in Leipzig 1723 he had chosen to perform again, written for the occasion earlier in Weimar. The prescribed readings for the feast day were from the Epistle to Titus, “God’s mercy appeared” () alternating with Isaiah, “Unto us a child is born” (), and from the Gospel of Luke, the Nativity, Annunciation to the shepherds and the angels’ song (). Typical for Bach’s chorale cantata cycle, an unknown librettist retained the first and the last stanza unchanged, but paraphrased the ideas of the inner stanzas into alternating recitatives and arias. In this cantata, the complete text of the second stanza was also retained for the first recitative but expanded there line by line with new text. Bach led the Thomanerchor in the first performance of the cantata on 25 December 1724. He performed the cantata again four more times on 25 December, in 1731, in 1732 or 1733, and twice in the 1740s, even after his Christmas Oratorio had been first performed in 1734 for which he also used two stanzas of the same chorale.

Geschwinde, geschwinde, ihr wirbelnden Winde, BWV 201

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

was likely composed for Leipzig’s autumn fair of 1729, or, in that year, for a weekly concert outside the periods of Leipzig’s fairs. Its oldest extant separately printed libretto, which can not be dated exactly, was published around this time, its full title being (The Contest between Phoebus and Pan performed as a drama by J. S. Bach). Likely the work was first performed in Zimmermann’s coffeehouse or coffee garden by the Collegium Musicum that had come under Bach’s direction in March 1729. According to Philipp Spitta, the cantata is part of the early stages of the controversy between Bach and Johann Adolph Scheibe. That controversy, best known for the polemic that followed Scheibe’s publication of a criticism of J. S. Bach in 1737, would have had its origin in Scheibe’s failed attempt to become an organist at one of Leipzig’s churches in 1729, where Bach had been one of the judges who preferred another candidate above Scheibe. In that version of the events, Phoebus would have been a character representing Bach, while Midas represented Scheibe. This interpretation by Spitta was later doubted: an analysis published by Arnold Schering in 1941 showed that Spitta had some of the facts wrong. For instance, Scheibe was competing for a different position than the one described by Spitta. More importantly, in 1731 Bach wrote a very favourable letter of recommendation to help Scheibe get an assignment, so it seems unlikely he would have been mocking Scheibe in his 1729 cantata. Picander included a print of the cantata’s libretto in the 1732 third volume of his . In the publication, the text incipit reads Geschwinde, ihr wirbelnden Winde (Swift, you swirling winds). The work appears to have been performed again in Leipzig in the 1730s. Bach’s sons Johann Christian and Johann Christoph Friedrich produced a handwritten copy of the cantata’s libretto in 1749, which indicates a repeat performance of the work in that year. This version of the libretto contains a few text adaptations which seem to indicate that Bach made the cantata applicable to a controversy which his student (and later successor) Johann Friedrich Doles, then living in Freiberg, was subjected to by his superior, .

Gleichwie der Regen und Schnee vom Himmel fällt, BWV 18

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and words#

Bach worked for the court in Weimar from 1708. As part of his work at previous posts, he had composed cantatas, but at Weimar he was at first mainly occupied with other projects. In 1713 he was offered a post at the Marktkirche, a church in Halle, but was offered inducements to stay on at Weimar. He received a promotion on 2 March 1714 which resulted in him composing cantatas on a monthly schedule. BWV 18 is believed to be one of a small number of cantatas which Bach composed at Weimar prior to 1714. Like the later Weimar cantatas, it would have been performed at the Schlosskirche, the chapel of his employers the co-reigning dukes. Bach composed this cantata for the second Sunday before Lent, called Sexagesima. The prescribed readings for the Sunday were taken from the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, “God’s power is mighty in the weak” (), and from the Gospel of Luke, the parable of the Sower (). The cantata is based on a text by Erdmann Neumeister, a pioneer of the use of a format using recitative and aria, which was new in religious music. This text was written for the Eisenach court and published in Gotha in 1711 in the collection (Sacred singing and playing), which had been set to music by Georg Philipp Telemann. It is one of few texts set to music in Weimar which were not written not by the court poet Salomon Franck. The text cites Isaiah in the second movement, “For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, … So shall my word be …” (), related to the Gospel about God’s word compared to seed. In the third movement, the poet combines warnings of the dangers to God’s word in the style of a sermon with four lines of prayer from a litany by Martin Luther. The closing chorale is the eighth stanza of Lazarus Spengler’s hymn "" (1524). The cantata falls relatively early in Bach’s chronology of cantata compositions. It was possibly composed for 24 February 1715, but more likely a year or two earlier. The Bach scholar Christoph Wolff states: “The original performing material has survived and allows us to date the work to 1713”. Bach performed the cantata again when he was Thomaskantor in Leipzig in 1724, with an expanded scoring in a different key. It was then probably performed in the same service as the newly composed .

Gloria in excelsis Deo, BWV 191

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

was written in Leipzig for Christmas Day, as indicated by the heading on the manuscript in Bach’s own handwriting, " – Celebration for the birth of Christ), to be sung around the sermon. Recent archival and manuscript evidence suggest the cantata was probably first performed in 1742, for a regular Christmas celebration by the university of Leipzig at the Paulinerkirche, rather than in 1743, or 1745 at a special Christmas Day service to celebrate the Peace of Dresden, which brought to an end the hardships imposed on the region by the Second Silesian War, Unlike Bach’s other church cantatas, the words are not in German, taken from the Bible, a chorale or contemporary poetry, but in Latin, taken from the Gloria and the Doxology. This late work is the only Latin cantata among around 200 surviving sacred cantatas in German. It is based on an earlier composition, Bach’s 1733 Mass for the Dresden court, which would, in 1748, become the first part of his monumental Mass in B minor. The first movement (Gloria) is an almost identical copy of the first two movements of the Gloria of the earlier work, while the second and third movements are close parodies of the earlier Gloria’s fifth and ninth movements. Parts, for instance, of the fugal section of , taken from the of the 1733 setting, are moved from a purely vocal to an instrumentally accompanied setting. The modifications Bach made to the last two movements of BWV 191, however, were not carried over into the final manuscript compilation of the Mass in B minor, leaving it a matter of speculation whether or not these constitute “improvements” to Bach’s original score.

Goldberg Variations

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Composition#

The story of how the variations came to be composed comes from an early biography of Bach by Johann Nikolaus Forkel: Forkel wrote his biography in 1802, more than 60 years after the events related, and its accuracy has been questioned. The lack of dedication on the title page also makes the tale of the commission unlikely. Goldberg’s age at the time of publication (14 years) has also been cited as grounds for doubting Forkel’s tale, although it must be said that he was known to be an accomplished keyboardist and sight-reader. contends that the Forkel story is entirely spurious. Arnold Schering has suggested that the aria on which the variations are based was not written by Bach. More recent scholarly literature (such as the edition by Christoph Wolff) suggests that there is no basis for such doubts.

Gott der Herr ist Sonn und Schild, BWV 79

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

In 1723, Bach was appointed (director of church music) in Leipzig, where he was responsible for the music at four churches and the training and education of boys singing in the . He took office in the middle of the liturgical year, on the first Sunday after Trinity, 30 May 1723. In the new position, Bach decided to compose church cantatas for almost all liturgical events for the first twelve months; they became his first cantata cycle. The occasions were Sundays, except for the silent times of Advent (before Christmas) and Lent (before Easter), and additional feast days; several feasts of saints were observed in Leipzig, and each of the high holidays (Christmas, Easter and Pentecost), was celebrated three days in a row. The following year, Bach went on to write a second cantata cycle, now basing each on a Lutheran hymn. Christoph Wolff described the endeavour, in his book Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician, as “a most promising project of great homogeneity, whose scope he was able to define himself”. Bach slowed down in his third year on the post, beginning to perform cantatas also by other composers. During this year, he composed for Reformation Day.

Gott fähret auf mit Jauchzen, BWV 43

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

Bach was appointed (director of church music) in Leipzig in 1723, making him responsible for the music at four Lutheran churches and for the training and education of the boys singing in the boys’ choir. He took office on 30 May 1723, performing his church cantata , for the first Sunday after Trinity. Leipzig had a liturgy of the same prescribed readings from the Bible every year for Sundays and feast days of the liturgical year, including feasts of saints, of Mary, and three days of celebrating the high holidays of Christmas, Easter and Pentecost; cantata music was expected to match the readings for all occasions except during the “silent times” of Advent (before Christmas) and Lent (before Easter). In the new position, Bach decided, instead of using existing music, to compose new church cantatas for almost all liturgical events for the first twelve months; they became his first cantata cycle. The following year, Bach went on to write a second cantata cycle, now basing each cantata on a Lutheran hymn. In his book Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician, Christoph Wolff described the endeavour as “a most promising project of great homogeneity, whose scope he was able to define himself”. In 1725, his third year in the post, Bach slowed down his composing and began to perform cantatas by others, especially by his cousin Johann Ludwig Bach, who was court musician in Saxe-Meiningen. The texts for these cantatas were published during the 1704/05 church year in Rudolstadt in 1725, without naming an author; they could have been written by Ernst Ludwig, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen. The texts followed a specific format: Old Testament quotation, recitative, aria, New Testament quotation, poem, concluded by a chorale, differing from Bach’s earlier cantata texts by the inclusion of a poem. Bach composed few cantatas during his third year in Leipzig. For the Christmas season, he wrote several cantatas to older librettos, especially by Georg Christian Lehms. Bach composed the Ascension cantata after three months of performing his cousin’s works. He used his cousin’s text format for this cantata and six others to follow. It is unclear if he possessed his cousin’s cycle only partly and had to supply substitutes for missing works, or if he regarded some as unfit for the Leipzig audience.

Gott ist mein König, BWV 71

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and words#

From 1707 to 1708, Bach was the organist at one of Mühlhausen’s principal churches, Divi Blasii, dedicated to St Blaise, where he composed some of his earliest surviving cantatas. One or two early cantatas, for example Nach dir, Herr, verlanget mich, BWV 150, may have been written at Arnstadt, his previous residence, for a performance at Mühlhausen. He composed Gott ist mein König for a church service that was held annually to celebrate the inauguration of a new town council. There is no evidence either way to indicate the authorship of the cantata’s text. Along with other early cantatas, Gott ist mein König is of a pre-Neumeister character, not featuring the combination of recitative and arias found in later cantatas. The service was held on 4 February 1708 in the Marienkirche, the town’s largest church. The score indicates that Bach deployed his musicians in different locations in the building.

Gott ist unsre Zuversicht, BWV 197

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and text#

In 1728 in Leipzig, Bach composed a Christmas cantata, (Glory be to God in the Highest), which he revised in 1736–37 into this wedding cantata. Movement 5 is a chorale stanza by Martin Luther, the final movement is by Georg Neumark; the rest of the poetry is anonymous.

Scoring and structure#

The cantata is scored for three vocal soloists (soprano, alto, and bass), a four-part choir, three trumpets, timpani, two oboes, two oboes d’amore, bassoon, two violins, viola, and basso continuo. The work’s ten movements are divided into two parts of five movements each, to be performed before and after the wedding sermon. ;Part 1 #Chorus: #Recitative (bass): #Aria (alto): #Recitative (bass): #Chorale: ;Part 2 # Aria (bass): #Recitative (soprano): #Aria (soprano): #Recitative (bass): #Chorale:

Gott soll allein mein Herze haben, BWV 169

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and words#

Bach wrote the cantata during his fourth year in Leipzig, for the 18th Sunday after Trinity. The prescribed readings for the Sunday were from the First Epistle to the Corinthians, Paul’s thanks for grace of God in Ephesus (), and from the Gospel of Matthew, the Great Commandment (). The unknown author of the text concentrated on the love of God in movements 2 to 5 and added one movement about the love of your neighbour in movement 6, continued in the concluding chorale, the third stanza of Martin Luther’s “”. The poet connected the first recitative to the following aria by starting the two thoughts in the recitative by a related line from the aria as a motto, and ending both with the a recapitulation of the first line. The second recitative is a paraphrase of , Elijah lifted to heaven. The second aria is a paraphrase of , which sets the love of God apart from the love of the world. The only other extant cantata for the Sunday is the chorale cantata , composed in 1724. Like three other cantatas, the early (1714), and the 1726 works , and , Bach wrote for a single alto soloist, but unlike those works a choir sings the chorale. The three later cantatas, written within a few months, employ the organ as an obbligato instrument, possibly because Bach liked the combination of alto voice and organ registrations. A week later, Bach composed the famous cantata for bass solo, , also concluded by a chorale. It is not known if Bach looked for texts suitable for a solo voice, or if texts were “clerically imposed on him”, which stressed individual piety and therefore suggested to be treated as solo cantatas. Bach first performed the cantata on 20 October 1726. It is regarded as part of his third annual cycle of cantatas.

Gott, man lobet dich in der Stille, BWV 120

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Bach composed the cantata in Leipzig for the inauguration of the newly elected town council, which took place in a festive service at the Nikolaikirche on the Monday following St. Bartholomew’s Day (24 August). A first performance in 1728 or 1729 is regarded as likely. The cantata was performed again around 1742; the autograph score of that revision is preserved, with the heading “J. J. Concerto à 4 Voci. due Hautb. due Violini, Viola, 3 Trombe, Tamburi è Continuo”. Parts of the cantata appear in the wedding cantata , BWV 120.2, and the cantata , BWV 120.3, for the 200th anniversary of the Augsburg Confession in 1730. The latter work’s music is lost, only parts of the former cantata are extant. Bach reworked the first part of the second movement for the Et expecto resurrectionem mortuorum in the Symbolum Nicenum (Credo) of his Mass in B minor.

Gott, wie dein Name, so ist auch dein Ruhm, BWV 171

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background and words#

Bach had taken up his tenure as Thomaskantor in Leipzig in 1723. During his first year there he composed a first cantata cycle for almost all occasions of the liturgical year. The second year he composed a cycle of mostly chorale cantatas, based on Lutheran hymns. The third year, Bach began a third cycle but wrote the works more irregularly. was from a later incomplete cycle, which the Bach scholar Christoph Wolff calls the Picander cycle, after the librettist Picander with whom Bach had collaborated already for the St Matthew Passion, and worked together for several years. The preface of Picander’s 1728 collection of cantata texts written for Bach said that “lack of poetic elegance would be compensated for by the sweetness of the incomparable Kapellmeister Bach”.

Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit, BWV 106

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Although Bach’s manuscript is lost, the work is agreed to be one of the earliest Bach cantatas, probably composed during the year he spent in Mühlhausen 1707/1708 as organist of the Divi Blasii church, at the age of 22. Various funerals known to have taken place at this time have been proposed as the occasion for the composition, for example that of his uncle Tobias Lämmerhirt from his mother’s family, who died in Erfurt on 10 August 1707, and that of Adolph Strecker, a former mayor of Mühlhausen, whose funeral was 16 September 1708. The earliest surviving manuscript, in the hand of Christian Friedrich Penzel, was copied in 1768 after Bach’s death. It introduced the title Actus tragicus. The cantata was published in 1876 as part of the first complete edition of Bach’s works: the Bach-Gesellschaft-Ausgabe, edited by Wilhelm Rust.

Gottlob! nun geht das Jahr zu Ende, BWV 28

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and text#

Bach composed the cantata in his third year as in Leipzig for the Sunday after Christmas. The prescribed readings for the Sunday were from the Epistle to the Galatians, through Christ we are free from the law (), and from the Gospel of Luke, Simeon and Anna talking to Mary (). The cantata text is by Erdmann Neumeister: he included in the second movement the first stanza of Johann Gramann’s hymn "" (1530), The chorale theme "" (Zahn 5267) is of unknown authorship. The poet did not refer to the Bible readings for the day but portrayed thanks for the past year and prayers for preservation in the new year. Bach led the first performance of the cantata in the church service on 30 December 1725.

Great Eighteen Chorale Preludes

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Early versions of almost all the chorale preludes are thought to date back to 1710–1714, during the period 1708–1717 when Bach served as court organist and Konzertmeister (director of music) in Weimar, at the court of Wilhelm Ernst, Duke of Saxe-Weimar. As a result of encouragement from the Duke, a devout Lutheran and music lover, Bach developed secular and liturgical organ works in all forms, in what was to be his most productive period for organ composition. As his son Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach mentions in his obituary or nekrolog: “His grace’s delight in his playing fired him to attempt everything possible in the art of how to treat the organ. Here he also wrote most of his organ works.” During Bach’s time at Weimar, the chapel organ there was extensively improved and enlarged; occupying a loft at the east end of the chapel just below the roof, it had two manual keyboards, a pedalboard and about a dozen stops, including at Bach’s request a row of tuned bells. It is probable that the longer chorale preludes composed then served some ceremonial function during the services in the court chapel, such as accompanying communion. When Bach moved to his later positions as Kapellmeister in Köthen in 1717 and cantor at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig in 1723, his obligations did not specifically include compositions for the organ. The autograph manuscript of the Great Eighteen, currently preserved as P 271 in the Berlin State Library, documents that Bach began to prepare the collection around 1740, after having completed Part III of the Clavier-Übung in 1739. The manuscript is made up of three parts: the six trio sonatas for organ BWV 525–530 (1727–1732); the Canonic Variations on “Vom Himmel hoch da komm’ ich her” BWV 769 added at the same time as the chorale preludes (1739–1750); and an early version of Nun komm’ der heiden Heiland (1714–1717), appended after Bach’s death. The first thirteen chorale preludes BWV 651–663 were added by Bach himself between 1739 and 1742, supplemented by BWV 664 and 665 in 1746–7. In 1750 when Bach began to suffer from blindness before his death in July, BWV 666 and 667 were dictated to his student and son-in-law Johann Christoph Altnikol and copied posthumously into the manuscript. Only the first page of the last choral prelude BWV 668, the so-called “deathbed chorale”, has survived, recorded by an unknown copyist. The piece was posthumously published in 1751 as an appendix to the Art of the Fugue, with the title “Wenn wir in höchsten Nöthen sein” (BWV 668a), instead of the original title “Vor deinen Thron tret ich hiermit” (“Before your throne I now appear”). There have been various accounts of the circumstances surrounding the composition of this chorale. The biographical account from 1802 of Johann Nicolaus Forkel that Altnikol was copying the work at the composer’s deathbed has since been discounted: in the second half of the eighteenth century, it had become an apocryphal legend, encouraged by Bach’s heirs, Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach and Wilhelm Friedmann Bach. The piece, however, is now accepted as a planned reworking of the shorter chorale prelude Wenn wir in höchsten Nöthen sein (BWV 641) from the Orgelbüchlein (c 1715).

Great Fantasia and Fugue in G minor, BWV 542

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Manuscript#

No autograph manuscript of either the Fantasia or the Fugue survives, and no manuscript of the Fantasia survives from the composer’s lifetime. It is not clear whether the practice of coupling the Fantasia with the Fugue derives from the composer himself. William H. Bates writes: There are many variant textual readings in the manuscripts, perhaps most prominently in the final chord of the Fantasia, which is recorded as both G major and G minor. Some manuscripts preserve the fugue in the key of F minor rather than G minor; this transposition was probably performed in order to make the fugue playable on an organ whose pedals lacked a high D, and may well have been approved or even carried out by the composer himself.

Halt im Gedächtnis Jesum Christ, BWV 67

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and words#

Bach composed the cantata in his first year as Thomaskantor in Leipzig, shortly after he first performed his St John Passion, for the First Sunday after Easter, called . The prescribed readings for that Sunday were from the First Epistle of John, “our faith is the victory” (), and from the Gospel of John, the appearance of Jesus to the Disciples, first without then with Thomas, in Jerusalem (). The unknown poet begins with a verse from the Second Epistle to Timothy, “Remember that Jesus Christ … was raised from the dead” (). The poet sees Thomas as similar to the doubtful Christian in general, whose heart is not at peace. The center of the cantata is the Easter hymn "" (The glorious day has appeared) by Nikolaus Herman (1560), praising the day of the resurrection. In contrast, movement 5 recalls the danger by the enemies, until in movement 6 Jesus appears, as he did to his disciples in Jerusalem, finally bringing peace. The line "" (Peace be with you) is repeated four times, framing three stanzas of a poem. The closing chorale is the first stanza of "" (Thou Prince of Peace, Lord Jesus Christ) by Jakob Ebert (1601). Bach led the first performance on 16 April 1724.

Harpsichord Concerto in A major, BWV 1055

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Unlike Bach’s other harpsichord concertos, BWV 1055 has no known precursors, either as an instrumental concerto or as a movement with obbligato organ in a cantata. It has generally been accepted that it is a reworking of a lost instrumental concerto, since Donald Francis Tovey first made the suggestion in 1935, when he proposed the oboe d’amore as the melody instrument. Additional reasons for the oboe d’amore have been given by Ulrich Siegele in 1957, Wilfried Fischer in 1970, Hans-Joachim Schulze in 1981 and Werner Breig in 1993; Schulze has dated the original concerto to 1721; and a reconstruction as a concerto for oboe d’amore and strings was prepared by Wilfried Fischer in 1970 for Volume VII/7 of the Neue Bach-Ausgabe edition. Another proposed instrument has been the viola d’amore, first suggested by Wilhelm Mohr in 1972; additional reasons for choosing the viola d’amore as a possible melody instrument were later given by Hans Schoop in 1985 and Kai Köpp in 2000, but in 2008 Pieter Dirksen gave reasons why he considered it unlikely to have been the original melody instrument.

Harpsichord Concerto in D minor, BWV 1052

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Historical context#

The earliest surviving manuscript of the concerto can be dated to 1734; it was made by Bach’s son Carl Philipp Emanuel and contained only the orchestral parts, the harpsichord part being added later. This version is known as BWV 1052a. The definitive version BWV 1052 was recorded by Bach himself in the autograph manuscript of all eight harpsichord concertos BWV 1052–1058, made around 1738. In the second half of the 1720s, Bach had already written versions of all three movements of the concerto for two of his cantatas with obbligato organ as solo instrument: the first two movements for the sinfonia and first choral movement of Wir müssen durch viel Trübsal in das Reich Gottes eingehen, BWV 146 (1726); and the last movement for the opening sinfonia of Ich habe meine Zuversicht, BWV 188 (1728). In these cantata versions the orchestra was expanded by the addition of oboes. Like the other harpsichord concertos, BWV 1052 has been widely believed to be a transcription of a lost concerto for another instrument. Beginning with Wilhelm Rust and Philipp Spitta, many scholars suggested that the original melody instrument was the violin, because of the many violinistic figurations in the solo part—string-crossing, open string techniques—all highly virtuosic. has speculated that the copies of the orchestral parts made in 1734 (BWV 1052a) might have been used for a performance of the concerto with Carl Philipp Emanuel as soloist. There have been several reconstructions of the putative violin concerto; Ferdinand David made one in 1873; Robert Reitz in 1917; and Wilfried Fischer prepared one for Volume VII/7 of the Neue Bach Ausgabe in 1970 based on BWV 1052. In 1976, in order to resolve playability problems in Fischer’s reconstruction, Werner Breig suggested amendments based on the obbligato organ part in the cantatas and BWV 1052a. In the twenty-first century, however, Bach scholarship has moved away from any consensus regarding a violin original. In 2016, for example, two leading Bach scholars, Christoph Wolff and Gregory Butler, published independently conducted research that led each to conclude that the original form of BWV 1052 was an organ concerto composed within the first few years of Bach’s tenure in Leipzig. (Previous scholarship often held that Bach composed the original in Weimar or Cöthen.) Both relate the work to performances by Bach of concerted movements for organ and orchestra in Dresden and Leipzig. Wolff also details why the violinistic figuration in the harpsichord part does not demonstrate that it is a transcription from a previous violin part; for one thing, the “extended and extreme passagework” in the solo part “cannot be found in any of Bach’s violin concertos”; for another, he points to other relevant Bach keyboard works that “display direct translations of characteristic violin figuration into idiomatic passagework for the keyboard.” Peter Wollny also disagrees with the hypothesis that the works might have originally been a violin concerto. According to Bach Digital,

Harpsichord Concerto in E major, BWV 1053

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Historical context#

Like the other harpsichord concertos, BWV 1053 is generally agreed to be a transcription of a lost instrumental concerto. As with the harpsichord concerto BWV 1052, all the movements had previous incarnations in Leipzig cantatas written ten or more years prior to the 1738 or 1739 autograph manuscript, with the part of the melody instrument written for obbligato organ. The first and second movements of BWV 1053 corresponds to the opening Sinfonia (in D major) and alto aria “Stirb in mir, Welt” (in B minor) in Gott soll allein mein Herze haben, BWV 169; and the finale to the opening Sinfonia (in E major) in Ich geh und suche mit Verlangen, BWV 49. The cantatas, part of a series where Bach developed the obbligato organ as a chamber or orchestral instrument, were first performed in October and November 1726 in the Thomaskirche, within two weeks of each other. The scoring in BWV 169 includes two oboes and a taille as ripieno instruments in the sinfonia and an oboe d’amore in the aria. In the aria, the lines of the alto soloist and organ weave around each in what Alfred Dürr has described as “undoubtedly one of the most inspired vocal pieces that Bach ever wrote … a passionate submersion in heavenly love.” As comments, this shows the subtleties in Bach’s process of arrangement. In this case the superposition of the additional vocal line over the keyboard part “aims at the exploration, enrichment and perfection of the original compositional material.” An oboe d’amore was also added as a ripieno instrument in the sinfonia of BWV 49. Since Ulrich Siegele’s 1957 dissertation, where he suggested that BWV 1053 originated in either a flute concerto in F major or oboe concerto in E major, a number of reconstructions for different melody instruments have been proposed, all discussed in : Hermann Töttcher & Gottfried Müller (in F major for oboe, 1955); by Wilfried Fischer (in E major for oboe, 1966, and viola, 1996); by Joshua Rifkin (in E major for oboe, 1983); by Arnold Mehl (in D major for oboe d’amore. 1983): and by Bruce Haynes (in D major for oboe d’amore, 1998). Further discussions concerning the possible original form of the concerto can be found in , , and . In , problems with all the reconstructions are mentioned: for woodwind instruments, breathing problems created by long uninterrupted passages of semiquaver triplets in the third movement; and for the viola, the complete absence of string-like figurations in the whole concerto. Given the occurrence of all three movements in 1726 cantatas, he has suggested that the concerto might originally have been composed for an unspecified keyboard instrument—interchangeably a harpsichord or an organ depending on the venue—and that it might have been one of the pieces played during Bach’s recital on the Silbermann organ in the Sophienkirche, Dresden in September 1725. The harpsichord part in the first movement of BWV 1053 differs from the 1726 organ part in several ways in the solo passages: in the right hand the melody line became far more elaborate and ornamental; and in the left hand the figured bass line was replaced by a denser texture of fully worked out figures and chords—the left hand was “emancipated” in the words of . At the same time in the orchestral parts, Bach reduced the contributions of the lower strings and adjusted the contributions from upper strings to create a proper balance with the harpsichord, with none of the string parts doubled except for the bass instruments. The lighter scoring permitted counterpoint between the first violin and the harpsichord in solo episodes. This method of adaptation—in the style of Bach’s full maturity—was a departure from that used for BWV 1052 and was employed in the subsequent concertos BWV 1054–1057.

Herr Christ, der einge Gottessohn, BWV 96

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and text#

Bach wrote the cantata in 1724 for the 18th Sunday after Trinity as part of his second annual cycle of mostly chorale cantatas. The prescribed readings for the Sunday were from the First Epistle to the Corinthians, Paul’s thanks for grace of God in Ephesus (), and from the Gospel of Matthew, the Great Commandment (), also mentioning that the byname “Son of David” was discussed in a “theological dispute” of Jesus and the pharisees. The cantata text of an unknown author is based exclusively on the hymn "" in five stanzas by Elisabeth Cruciger (1524). The hymn is based on a Latin Christmas hymn, “Corde natus ex parentis”, by Aurelius Prudentius. It is the first hymn by a Lutheran reformer which continues late medieval mysticism. Martin Luther appreciated the hymn so much that he placed it at the beginning of an early hymnal, . The chorale was originally associated with Epiphany, but also with the 18th Sunday after Trinity. The hymn’s first and last stanza in their original wording became the outer movements, as usual in Bach’s chorale cantatas. The unknown librettist paraphrased stanzas 2 and 3 to the cantata’s respective movements, and stanza 4 to movements 4 and 5. The Gospel asks how Jesus, of David’s descent as said in , can also be David’s Lord, as claimed in . The hymn tries to answer this question, comparing Jesus to the Morning star, an image also used in the hymn “”, the base for Bach’s cantata . Bach performed the cantata at least three times, first on 8 October 1724, a second time probably on 24 October 1734 when the sopranino was replaced by a violino piccolo, and a third time probably on 1 October 1740. The Bach scholar Christoph Wolff suggested performances in 1744/47, Klaus Hofmann in 1747, when the corno part was given to a trombone.

Herr Gott, Beherrscher aller Dinge, BWV 120a

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and text#

Bach composed the cantata for a wedding in Leipzig probably in 1729, “in great haste”, according to Klaus Hofmann, looking at Bach’s handwriting and mistakes made by the copiers. The music is generally agreed to be of high quality. Bach adapted the opening chorus for the Et expecto resurrectionem mortuorum section of the Mass in B minor, a composition which is widely hailed as one of the greatest in musical history. The music survives in an incomplete state. There is a fragmentary autograph score and some parts written by various scribes: only the vocal parts, a viola part and three continuo parts are extant. As the cantata shares music with other compositions, particularly BWV 120.1, but also BWV 1006 and BWV 137 (two earlier works), it can be reconstructed. On this basis, the instruments can be assumed to be those specified in the other works including oboes d’amore, trumpets and timpani. The names of bride and groom are not known. He has been assumed to be a minister of religion, deducted from the text "" (Lord, begin and pronounce your blessing / on this, your servant’s house). The text was written by an anonymous poet. It is in two parts, the second one marked (after the wedding ceremony). The closing chorale is by Joachim Neander, stanzas 4 and 5 of his hymn “”.

Herr Gott, dich loben alle wir, BWV 130

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Bach composed the cantata in his second year in Leipzig for St. Michael’s Day. That year, Bach composed a cycle of chorale cantatas, begun on the first Sunday after Trinity of 1724. The feast celebrated the Archangel Michael and all the angels each year on 29 September. In Leipzig, the day coincided with a trade fair. The prescribed readings for St Michael’s Day were from the Book of Revelation, Michael fighting the dragon (), and from the Gospel of Matthew, heaven belongs to the children, the angels see the face of God (). The cantata is based on a 1554 hymn in twelve stanzas by Paul Eber, a paraphrase of Philipp Melanchthon’s Latin “”. Each stanza has four lines. The melody was first printed in the Geneva Psalter in 1551. It is attributed to Loys Bourgeois and is known as the famous tune of the Doxology “Praise God, from whom all blessings flow”. The theme of the song, praise and thanks for the creation of the angels is only distantly related to the readings. An unknown librettist retained the first and 11th stanzas as the outer movements of the cantata. He derived movement 2, a recitative, from stanzas 2 and 3, movement 3, an aria, from stanzas 4 to 6, movement 4, a recitative, from stanzas 7 to 9, and movement 5, an aria, from stanza 10. In movement 3, a connection can be drawn from the mentioning of Satan as the "" (old dragon), to Michael’s fight. Movement 4 mentions examples of angelic protection in the Bible, of Daniel (), and of the three men in the fiery furnace (). Prayer for protection by angels, such as Elijah being taken to heaven (), continues the text, concluded with general praise, thanks and the request for future protection. Bach first performed the cantata on 29 September 1724.

Herr Gott, dich loben wir, BWV 16

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and words#

Bach composed the cantata in 1726, his third year as in Leipzig, for New Year’s Day, which is also the feast of the circumcision and naming of Jesus. He had composed few new church cantatas in his third year in office, but began a sequence of five cantatas for the 1725/26 Christmas season with . For most of them, he set texts by Georg Christian Lehms that had been published in a collection of (devotions) for the occasions of the liturgical year in 1711, entitled (Church offering pleasing to God). Lehms had written the texts originally for Christoph Graupner, then music director at the Darmstadt court. Bach, then working in Weimar, had set two of them in 1713 as solo cantatas. It is unclear what motivated him to set more of them in 1725. Four of the five cantatas used texts from this collection. The prescribed readings for the feast day were taken from the Epistle to the Galatians, “Through faith we are heirs by promise” (), and from the Gospel of Luke, the Circumcision and naming of Jesus (). The cantata text by Lehms is focused on praise and thanksgiving without being related to the readings. The poet began with four lines from Martin Luther’s German Te Deum, "" (Lord God, we praise you). The following pair of recitative and aria deal with thanks for past gifts, while a further pair deals with a prayer for further blessings. The poet did not supply a closing chorale, but Bach chose the final stanza of Paul Eber’s "" (Help me to praise God’s goodness) (c. 1580). Bach first performed the cantata on 1 January 1726.

Herr Jesu Christ, du höchstes Gut, BWV 113

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History, hymn and words#

Bach composed the cantata in Leipzig for the Eleventh Sunday after Trinity as part of his chorale cantata cycle. The prescribed readings for the Sunday were from the First Epistle to the Corinthians, on the gospel of Christ and his (Paul’s) duty as an apostle (), and from the Gospel of Luke, the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector (). The text of the cantata is based on the eight stanzas of Bartholomäus Ringwaldt’s 1588 hymn of the same name, a song of penitence related to the tax collector’s prayer "" (God be merciful to me a sinner). While some attributed the melody also to Ringwaldt, Sven Hiemke says in his foreword to the Carus edition that the composer is unknown but it dates to the same period. An unknown librettist retained more text unchanged than in most works of the chorale cantata cycle which usually feature original poetry only in the outer movements. The poet used stanzas 1, 2, 4 and 8 unchanged, inserting recitative for the fourth movement. He paraphrased the ideas of the remaining stanzas to arias and a recitative, retaining the beginning of stanzas 3 and 7. Stanzas 5 and 6 were treated most freely, including ideas from the epistle, such as the promise of mercy which is only asked but not promised in the chorale. The poet referred to several verses from different gospels to underscore that thought, in both 5 and 6, (parallel ) in 5, and in 6, paraphrased as "" (He calls: come here to Me, you who are weary and burdened). The last verse also appears in Handel’s Messiah, turned in the third person: “Come unto Him, all ye that labour”, in the soprano section of He shall feed His flock like a shepherd. Bach led the Thomanerchor in the first performance on 20 August 1724.

Herr Jesu Christ, wahr' Mensch und Gott, BWV 127

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History, hymn and words#

Bach held the position of (director of church music) in Leipzig from 1723. During his first year, beginning with the first Sunday after Trinity, he wrote a cycle of cantatas for the occasions of the liturgical year. In his second year he composed a second annual cycle of cantatas, which was planned to consist exclusively of chorale cantatas, each based on one Lutheran hymn. Bach composed the chorale cantata for Estomihi (Quinquagesima), the last Sunday before Lent, a period when Leipzig observed tempus clausum and no cantatas were performed. In 1723, Bach had probably performed two cantatas in Leipzig for the same occasion, , composed earlier in Köthen, and , both audition pieces to apply for the post of in Leipzig. The prescribed readings for the Sunday were taken from the First Epistle to the Corinthians, “praise of love” (), and from the Gospel of Luke, healing the blind near Jericho (). The Gospel also announces the Passion. The text is based on the funeral song "" in eight stanzas by Paul Eber (1562). The hymn suites the Gospel, stressing the Passion as well as the request of the blind man in the final line of the first stanza: "" (Be merciful to me, a sinner). The song further sees Jesus’ path to Jerusalem as a model for the believer’s path to his end in salvation. An unknown librettist retained the first and the last stanza unchanged and paraphrased the inner stanzas in a sequence of recitatives and arias. Stanzas 2 and 3 were transformed to a recitative, stanza 4 to an aria, and stanzas 5 to 7 to recitative and aria in one movement. Bach led the Thomanerchor in the first performance of the cantata on 11 February 1725. It is the second to last chorale cantata of his second annual cycle, the only later one being Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern, BWV 1, for the feast of Annunciation which was celebrated even if it fell in the time of Lent. No later performance of the cantata is documented during Bach’s lifetime, but the first movement became, slightly changed, part of a Passion pasticcio performed by Johann Christoph Altnickol, Bach’s son-in-law, in Naumburg around 1756.

Herr, deine Augen sehen nach dem Glauben, BWV 102

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and text#

The cantata of Bach’s third annual cycle in Leipzig was written for the Tenth Sunday after Trinity. The prescribed readings for the Sunday were from the First Epistle to the Corinthians, different gifts, but one spirit (), and from the Gospel of Luke, Jesus announcing the destruction of Jerusalem and cleansing of the Temple (). The words of the cantata are only generally connected to the readings, asking the soul to return immediately to God’s ways. Two movements are based on Bible words, the opening chorus on , movement 4 on . The cantata is closed by verses 6 and 7 of the hymn "" by Johann Heermann (1630), sung on the melody of Martin Luther’s "" based on the Lord’s Prayer. The words of the free poetry have been attributed to different authors: C. S. Terry suggests Christian Weiss Sr, Werner Neumann suggests Christiana Mariana von Ziegler, and Walther Blankenburg suggests Christoph Helm. Bach first performed the cantata on 25 August 1726.

Herr, gehe nicht ins Gericht mit deinem Knecht, BWV 105

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and text#

Bach composed the cantata in 1723 in his first year in Leipzig for the Ninth Sunday after Trinity. It is likely that the anonymous librettist was a theologian from the city; the text begins with the second verse of Psalm 143, “And enter not into judgment with thy servant: for in thy sight shall no man living be justified” (). The psalm is one of Martin Luther’s Bußpsalmen, his German translations of the seven penitential psalms, first published in Wittenberg in early 1517, half a year before the Ninety-five Theses. After being reprinted and even pirated all over Germany, there was a revised edition in 1525. The prescribed readings for the Sunday were from the First Epistle to the Corinthians, a warning of false gods and consolation in temptation (), and from the Gospel of Luke, the parable of the Unjust Steward (). The theme of the cantata is derived from the Gospel: since mankind cannot survive before God’s judgement, he should forswear earthly pleasures, “the mammon of unrighteousness,” for the friendship of Jesus alone; for by His death mankind’s guilt was absolved, opening up “the everlasting habitations.” That part of the libretto covers the fourth and fifth movements (the second recitatives and arias). The alto recitative draws from biblical allusions in —“Cast me not away from thy presence”— and —“I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers.” The text of the soprano aria is borrowed from —“while accusing or else excusing one another.” There is a reference to Paul’s epistles in the second recitative, —“Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us” and “nailing it to his cross.” The closing chorale is the eleventh verse of the hymn Jesu, der du meine Seele, written by Johann Rist in 1641.

Herr, wenn die stolzen Feinde schnauben, BWV 248 VI

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Bach was Thomaskantor, responsible for church music at four churches in Leipzig, a position he had assumed in 1723. Bach had presented church cantatas for the Christmas season in the Thomaskirche and Nikolaikirche, including two cantatas for Epiphany: * As part of his first cantata cycle: Sie werden aus Saba alle kommen, BWV 65, first performed in 1724. * As part of his second cantata cycle: Liebster Immanuel, Herzog der Frommen, BWV 123, first performed in 1725. For the oratorio, the libretto by an unknown author followed the Nativity of Jesus from the Gospel of Matthew, interspersed with reflective texts for recitatives and arias, and stanzas from two Lutheran hymns. Bach led the first performances with the Thomanerchor at the two main churches of Leipzig on 6 January 1735.

Herr, wie du willt, so schicks mit mir, BWV 73

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and words#

Bach arrived in Leipzig in 1723. He set about composing a series of cantatas for performance in the city’s principal churches through the liturgical year. This one was written for the Third Sunday after Epiphany. The prescribed readings for the Sunday were taken from the Epistle to the Romans, rules for life (), and from the Gospel of Matthew, the healing of a leper (). The unknown poet takes the words of the leper, “Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean”, as a starting point and recommends his attitude of trust for the situation of facing death. In the first movement he contrasts lines of Kaspar Bienemann’s chorale "" with three sections of recitative. Movement 3 paraphrases . The words of movement 4 are the leper’s words from the Gospel. The closing chorale is the final stanza of Ludwig Helmbold’s hymn “”. Bach first performed the cantata on 23 January 1724, and performed it again in a revised version on 21 January 1748 or 26 January 1749. The music was published in 1870 as part of the Bach-Gesellschaft-Ausgabe, an edition of the composer’s complete works. The editor was Wilhelm Rust.

Herrscher des Himmels, erhöre das Lallen, BWV 248 III

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

In 18th-century Leipzig, the three Christian high holidays Christmas, Easter and Pentecost were each celebrated on three consecutive days, with different prescribed readings and related music each day. Christmas was celebrated from 25 to 27 December. For the principal churches, Thomaskirche and Nikolaikirche, the director musices (Thomaskantor) determined which music was to be performed during the services on Sundays and feast days. The prescribed readings for the third day of Christmas were from the Epistle to the Hebrews, Christ is higher than the angels, (), and from the prologue of the Gospel of John, also called the Hymn to the Word (). Bach had been presenting church cantatas for the Christmas season in the Thomaskirche and Nikolaikirche since his appointment as director musices in Leipzig in 1723, including cantatas for the third day of Christmas: * In 1723, as part of his first cantata cycle: Sehet, welch eine Liebe hat uns der Vater erzeiget, BWV 64 * In 1724, as part of his second cantata cycle: Ich freue mich in dir, BWV 133 * In 1725, as part of his third cantata cycle: Süßer Trost, mein Jesus kömmt, BWV 151 In 1733, Augustus III of Poland succeeded his father, Augustus the Strong, as Elector of Saxony and took residence in Dresden. Bach hoped to become court composer for the Catholic Elector, and dedicated the Latin Missa in B minor, BWV 232 I, to him. Several of Bach’s secular cantatas celebrating the Saxonian prince-electoral family were performed in Leipzig, including two cantatas first performed in 1733: * , also known as (Hercules at the Crossroads), on a libretto by Picander, was performed on , the 11th birthday of the son of the elector; * (Resound, ye drums! Ring out, ye trumpets!), a cantata for the elector’s wife, Maria Josepha, to honour her 34th birthday on 8 December. The cantata is also known as "" (Congratulation cantata for the Queen’s birthday), although Maria Josepha was not crowned Queen of Poland until January 1734. Bach drew on these two cantatas for choral movements, arias and duets of the oratorio’s parts I to IV. The Bach scholar Christoph Wolff noted that Bach reused music with similar affect, “rescuing it for more durable purpose”. Bach composed for part III the recitatives of the Evangelist, the chorus of the shepherds, the reflecting bass recitative, the chorales, and the alto aria “Schließe, mein Herze”, as the only aria in the oratorio.

Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben, BWV 147

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and words#

Bach took office as , the music director in Leipzig, at the end of May 1723. It was part of his duties to supply music for the Sundays and feast days of the liturgical year at four churches of the town, and he decided to compose new cantatas for these occasions. He began with a cantata for the first Sunday after Trinity in 1723, performed on 30 May, and wrote a series of church cantatas until Trinity of the next year, which became known as his first cantata cycle. Some cantatas of that cycle were based on music he had composed before, including , presented as the sixth cantata of the cycle. The Visitation was among the Marian feasts celebrated in Lutheran Germany (additional cantatas for the occasion survive, from both Bach and other composers), and was the setting for which Bach composed . The prescribed readings for the feast day were , the prophecy of the Messiah, and from the Gospel of Luke, , Mary’s visit to Elizabeth, including her song of praise, the Magnificat. Bach used as a basis for the music a cantata in six movements that he had written in Weimar for the fourth Sunday in Advent 1716, . As Leipzig observed (time of silence) during Advent, allowing cantata music only on the first Sunday, Bach could not perform the cantata for the same occasion in Leipzig, but adapted it for the feast of the Visitation. The Advent cantata text was written by the Weimar court poet, librarian and numismatist, Salomo Franck, who published it in his 1717 collection . He wrote four arias in a row, focused on the Advent message of “repentance, faith, preparation and conversion”, in the words of John Eliot Gardiner who conducted the Bach Cantata Pilgrimage in 2000. The text for Advent was also suitable for a feast celebrating Mary in general. An anonymous librettist adapted the text for the different occasion, mainly by adding three recitatives that clarify the relation to Visitation. He made references to the gospel reading, for example mentioning in the fourth movement, as in verse 52 of the gospel, that “the arm of the Most High thrusts the mighty from their seat and exalts the lowly,” and in the eighth movement, as in verse 41, that the unborn child leaps in its mother’s womb. The order of the arias was changed, and their texts were altered or (in the case of the last aria) completely rewritten; and the closing chorale was replaced by the 1661 hymn "" (Jesus, my soul’s delight) by Martin Janus (or Jahn). Its stanzas 6 and 17 were selected to conclude the two parts of the new cantata which were performed before and after the sermon. They express a commitment of the believer, speaking in the first person, to hold Jesus as a high treasure.

Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben, BWV 147a

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Published as six VHS tapes, and three DVD volumes. The music was published as two CDs.

Series content#

The films are: DVD Volume 1 - Suite #1- The Music Garden, directed by Kevin McMahon. After explaining how the first Cello Suite always conjures up images of nature, Yo-Yo Ma recruits architect Julie Moir Messervy to help him try and design a garden based on the suite. The Music Garden is pitched to Boston City Hall, showing interest in the project for City Hall Plaza as a way to beautifully meet the demands for security. But the demands the film places on the completion of the project turn out to unreasonable for Boston and they pull out of the project. The city of Toronto expresses interest in the project once Boston steps out and over the remainder of the film Yo-Yo and Julie work to get the project to the point where actual construction of the Garden can begin. DVD Volume 1 - Suite #2- The Sound of the Carceri, directed by François Girard. Yo-Yo Ma brings the music of the Second Suite together with the etchings of the 18th century Italian architect Giovanni Battista Piranesi in this film. Working out of the church that Piranesi built, Yo-Yo with his sound engineer constructs a reverberant rendition of the Second Suite to fit the computer designed three-dimensional version of Piranesi’s Carceri d’invenzione (Prisons of the Imagination) that Girard constructs to have Yo-Yo play in over the course of the film. The film explores the connection that music and architecture share as architects and a music historian contribute to the discussion between the performances of the movements. DVD Volume 2 - Suite #3- Falling Down Stairs, directed by Barbara Willis Sweete. Yo-Yo Ma collaborates with Mark Morris to create a dance for the Third Suite. The film opens with Morris expressing reservation about interpreting the work as choreographer, which he feels is less than the interpretation of a musical performer like Yo-Yo. Yo-Yo assures Morris that his interpretation is valid. Over the course the film Morris works with his troupe and then with Yo-Yo to create a dance. The title, as Morris explains, comes from a dream he had where he saw one of his dancers falling down a flight of stairs in time with the opening scale of the Suite. DVD Volume 2 - Suite #4- Sarabande, directed by Atom Egoyan. A drama movie featuring Yo-Yo Ma, Egoyan’s wife Arsinée Khanjian and Fame star Lori Singer. Perhaps the most enigmatic of the films in the series, Sarabande, as Egoyan explains in his interview for the series, came out of his meeting Yo-Yo to begin working on the film. Egoyan came to realize the relation that he and Yo-Yo had as listener and performer when Yo-Yo played for him. The film explores the relationships that a limousine driver, a cellist-turned-doctor, and a real estate agent have amongst each other and with Yo-Yo as he travels to Canada to perform the Suites. DVD Volume 3 - Suite #5- Struggle for Hope, directed by Niv Fichman. Yo-Yo travels to Japan to work with “his favorite Kabuki actor” Bandō Tamasaburō to choreograph a dance for the Fifth Suite. The process is not always easy as Bandō finds himself struggling to express emotion while keeping up with the tempo of the suite, especially in the Allemande movement. However, with guidance from Yo-Yo, the completed piece is an exquisite work that takes the viewer through a range of emotions from lamenting to denial and dreaming all through the movements and gestures of a master Kabuki actor and the playing of Yo-Yo Ma. DVD Volume 3 - Suite #6- Six Gestures, directed by Patricia Rozema. Rozema and Yo-Yo explore the life of Bach when he wrote the Cello Suites with the help of ice dancers Jane Torvill and Christopher Dean as well as Tom McCamus, who plays Bach. Each of the movements of the Suite is equated to a gesture. The movements begin with McCamus as Bach narrating events in his life, setting the stage for Torvill and Dean to portray the particular gesture involved on ice. Over the course of the film we see Bach encounter joy at having the freedom to do “music for music’s sake”, question whether he is growing more isolated from the world-at-large, suffer the waning attentions of his patron, and grieve the loss of a wife.

Inventions and Sinfonias

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

External links#

Bach’s Inventions and Sinfonias, Mutopia Project
Graphical motif extraction of the Inventions and Sinfonias

Italian Concerto (Bach)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Context#

An Italian concerto relies upon the contrasting roles of different groups of instruments in an ensemble; Bach imitates this effect by creating contrasts using the forte and piano manuals of a two-manual harpsichord throughout the piece.

Along with the French Overture and some of the Goldberg Variations, this is one of the few works by Bach which specifically require a 2-manual harpsichord. However, it is not unusual in being a solo keyboard work based on Italian concertos. Long before the publication of the Italian Concerto, Bach produced a number of concerto transcriptions while working at Weimar. These are of music by Vivaldi and others, reflecting the court’s interest in Italian music. They are for harpsichord (BWV 972–987), and for organ or pedal harpsichord (BWV 592–596).

J.S. Bach: Goldberg Variations (Keith Jarrett recording)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Reception#

The AllMusic review by Richard S. Ginell awarded the album 3 stars states: Keith Jarrett is up against an imposing legacy as he tackles what has become the most famous set of variations in Western music…. He’s not in any hurry, not tempted to showboat or flaunt his considerable technique—and in no way does this jazz pianist try to make the variations swing à la Jacques Loussier. The added ornamentation seems to be random and so are his observance of the repeats; he only does so in ten of the variations. As a result, we are left with a technically adept, sometimes aimless, intelligently conceived, ultimately not very moving or exhilarating rendition of the music—a confirmation of Jarrett’s keyboard prowess for his fans, but not much in the way of competition for the brass ring among Goldbergs.

Jauchzet dem Herrn alle Welt (motet)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The scribe of one of the extant manuscripts of the work, a manuscript that attributes the work to Bach, was formerly believed to be Johann Christoph Altnickol, Thanks to the researches of Peter Wollny, Farlau has been identified as copyist of a number of works by Bach, notably an early version of the St Matthew Passion. Farlau is believed to have studied with Altnickol in the 1750s. His interest in Bach’s music continued after Altnickol’s death. His copy of Jauchzet dem Herrn alle Welt is dated to the second half of the 18th century (1760–1789).

Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen, BWV 51

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and words#

Bach used the cantata in Leipzig for the 15th Sunday after Trinity on 17 September 1730. The prescribed readings for the Sunday came from the Epistle to the Galatians, Paul’s admonition to “walk in the Spirit” (), and from the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew, which exhorts the faithful not to worry about material needs, but to seek God’s kingdom first (). The author is unknown. Without any reference to the prescribed readings, The trumpet part was probably written for Gottfried Reiche, Bach’s principal trumpeter at the time. The scoring is unique in Bach’s cantatas, but was frequently used by Italian composers such as Alessandro Scarlatti. Bach’s son Friedemann Bach arranged the work by adding a second trumpet and timpani.

Jauchzet, frohlocket! Auf, preiset die Tage, BWV 248 I

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

Since his appointment as director musices in Leipzig in 1723, Bach had been presenting church cantatas for the Christmas season in the Thomaskirche (St. Thomas Church) and Nikolaikirche (St. Nicholas Church), including the following Christmas Day cantatas: * 1723: , originally composed in 1714 as part of Bach’s Weimar cantata cycle and adopted in his first cantata cycle after its presentation in Leipzig during the 1723–24 Christmas season; * 1724: (early version), part of the chorale cantata cycle; * 1725: , part of Bach’s third cantata cycle; * 1728 (or 1729): , a partly lost cantata of the Picander cycle of 1728–29. Church music in Latin was not uncommon for Christmas Day in Leipzig: Bach’s compositions of this genre include, for Christmas Day of 1723, the Christmas version of his Magnificat, BWV 243a, and the Sanctus in D major, BWV 238. Another Sanctus, the Sanctus for six vocal parts, BWV 232 III (early version), was composed for Christmas Day of 1724.

Jazz Sebastian Bach

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Track listing#

All compositions by J.S. Bach #“Fugue in D Minor” from The Art of the Fugue – 2:14 #“Prelude for Organ Chorale No 1” – 2:38 #“Aria” from Suite No 3 in D – 3:17 #“Prelude No 12 in F Minor” from The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II (WTC II)" – 2:12 #“Bourrée II” from The English Suite No 2" – 1:44 #“Fugue No 2 in C Minor” (WTC I) – 1:16 #“Fugue No 5 in D” (WTC I) – 1:38 #“Prelude No 9 in E” (WTC II) – 3:19 #“Sinfonia” from The Partita No 2 – 4:54 #“Prelude No 1 in C” (WTC II) – 1:56 #“Canon” – 1:53 #“Two Part Invention No 1 in C” – 1:22 #“Fugue No 5 in D” (WTC II) – 3:15 #“Vivace” from Concerto for 2 violins, strings & continuo in D minor (“Double”), BWV 1043 – 3:19 #“Prelude and Fugue, for keyboard No. 10 in E minor” (WTC I), BWV 855 (BC L89) – 3:01 #“Choral” from Cantata No. 147, “Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben,” BWV 147 (BC A174) – 3:28 #“Gavotte” from Partita for solo violin No. 3 in E major, BWV 1006 – 2:30 #“Prelude and Fugue, for keyboard No. 1 in C major” (WTC I), BWV 846 (BC L80) – 3:22 #“Fugue” from Prelude and Fugue, for organ in G major, BWV 541 (BC J22) – 3:19 #“Adagio” from Sonata for violin & keyboard No. 3 in E major, BWV 1016 – 3:56 #“Prelude and Fugue, for keyboard No. 3 in C sharp major” (WTC I), BWV 848 (BC L82) – 3:18 #“Prelude” from “Nun komm der Heiden Heiland” (II), chorale prelude for organ (Achtzehn Choräle No. 8), BWV 659 (BC K82) – 3:30 #“Fugue” for keyboard No. 21 in B flat major" (WTC I), BWV 866 (BC L100) – 1:24

Jesu, der du meine Seele, BWV 78

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and words#

Bach composed in his second year in Leipzig when he wrote an annual cycle of chorale cantatas. For the 14th Sunday after Trinity, 10 September 1724, he chose the chorale of Johann Rist, “”, in 12 stanzas, published in 1641. Rist wrote the text and probably also the melody. The prescribed readings for the Sunday were from the Epistle to the Galatians, Paul’s teaching on “works of the flesh” and “fruit of the Spirit” (), and from the Gospel of Luke, Cleansing ten lepers (). The chorale seems only distantly related, dealing with the Passion of Jesus, which cleanses the believer. An unknown librettist wrote the poetry for seven movements, retaining the first and last stanza for choral movements unchanged, and paraphrased the inner stanzas into a sequence of recitatives and arias, retaining some original lines. The second movement 2 corresponds to stanza 2 of the chorale, the third to stanzas 3–5, the fourth to stanzas 6–7, the fifth to stanzas 8–10, and the sixth to stanza 11. The poet referred to sickness and healing in a few lines, more than the chorale does, such as "" (you search for the sick). Bach led the Thomanerchor in the first performance on 10 September 1724. An additional autograph flauto traverso part indicates at another performance between 1736–1740, an autograph violone part a performance after 1745. The cantata was performed again around 1755 when C. F. Barth and C. F. Penzel were interim music directors.

Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

Bach composed a four-part setting with independent orchestral accompaniment of two stanzas of the hymn Jesu, meiner Seelen Wonne, which had been written by Martin Janus in 1661 and was commonly sung to a Johann Schop melody, Werde munter, mein Gemüthe.

Structure and scoring#

Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben has ten movements and is in two parts, with the chorale concluding each part. Bach scored it for choir, trumpet, violin, and basso continuo, with optional parts for oboe and viola.

Jesu, meine Freude, BWV 227

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

In late 17th-century Protestant Thuringia, members of the Bach family from the generations before Johann Sebastian Bach wrote motets, of which several are preserved in the (ABA). In this context, motets are choral compositions, mostly with a number of independent voices exceeding that of a standard SATB choir, and with German text from the Luther Bible and Lutheran hymns, sometimes in combination. When a hymn was used, usually its chorale tune was integrated into the composition. Instrumental accompaniment was often limited to basso continuo and/or instruments playing . By the time Bach started to compose his motets in the 1710s or 1720s along the principles of these older compositions, the genre was already regarded as antiquated. According to Philipp Spitta, Bach’s 19th-century biographer, Johann Michael Bach’s motet , ABA I, 10, which contains a setting of the "" chorale, may have been on Johann Sebastian’s mind when he composed his motet named after the chorale, in E minor like his relative’s. In Bach’s time, the Lutheran liturgical calendar of the place where he lived indicated the occasions for which music was required in church services. The bulk of the composer’s sacred music, including most of his church cantatas, was written for such occasions. His other church music, such as sacred cantatas for weddings and funerals, and most of his motets, was not tied to the liturgical calendar. Around 15 extant compositions came to be recognised as Bach motets by musicologists at some time. Jesu, meine Freude is one of only five core works (BWV 225–229) which have always been considered to be Bach motets. In eleven movements, is the longest and most musically complex of Bach’s motets. It is scored for up to five vocal parts, which is rare among his works. Most of his vocal church music is to be performed with a four-part SATB choir, while most of his other motets are for double SATB choir. Exceptional compositions with five-part movements can be found in the Magnificat, written in 1723 at the beginning of Bach’s tenure in Leipzig, and the Mass in B minor, compiled towards the end of his life. Like for most of his other motets, no continuo or other instrumental accompaniment has survived for BWV 227, but it is surmised there was one in Bach’s time.

Jesu, nun sei gepreiset, BWV 41

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History, hymn and words#

Bach wrote in 1724, his second year as in Leipzig, for New Year’s Day. The feast also celebrated the naming and circumcision of Jesus. The prescribed readings for the feast day were from the Epistle to the Galatians, by faith we inherit (), and from the Gospel of Luke, the Circumcision and naming of Jesus (). In 1724, Bach composed his ; he began on the first Sunday after Trinity to write for each occasion of the liturgical year a cantata that was based on one Lutheran hymn. Thus cantata is based on a 1593 hymn for New Year’s Day in three long stanzas of 14 lines each by Johannes Hermann, a theologian born in Silesia who had also been a . Its melody was composed by Melchior Vulpius, who first published it in his , printed in Jena in 1609. The hymn calls Jesus by name first, fitting for the celebration of the naming. Otherwise it is more concerned with the beginning of another new year. The hymn was popular in Leipzig and was used in two more of Bach’s cantatas for the occasion, , the previous year and , in 1729. In the style of Bach’s chorale cantata cycle, an unknown poet retained the outer stanzas for framing choral movements 1 and 6, and paraphrased the middle stanza into a sequence of alternating arias and recitatives. He expanded the 14 lines by additional ideas but without specific references to the Gospel reading. He used exact quotes from the hymn in all these movements. Bach led the Thomanerchor in the first performance of the cantata on 1 January 1725, and reprised it at least once, between 1732 and 1735.

Jesus nahm zu sich die Zwölfe, BWV 22

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background, Mühlhausen, Weimar and Köthen#

The earliest known cantatas of Johann Sebastian Bach were performed in Mühlhausen from 1706 to 1708. He was employed as an organist there, but he occasionally composed cantatas, mostly for special occasions. The cantatas were based mainly on biblical texts and hymns, such as (a psalm setting), and the Easter chorale cantata . Bach was next appointed organist and chamber musician in Weimar on 25 June 1708 at the court of the co-reigning dukes in Saxe-Weimar, Wilhelm Ernst and his nephew Ernst August. He initially concentrated on the organ, composing major works for the instrument, including the , the Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565, and the Prelude and Fugue in E major, BWV 566. He was promoted to on 2 March 1714, an honour that entailed performing a church cantata monthly in the . The first cantatas he composed in the new position were , for Palm Sunday, for Jubilate Sunday, and , for Pentecost. Mostly inspired by texts by the court poet, Salomo Franck, they contain recitatives and arias. When Johann Samuel Drese, the (director of music), died in 1716, Bach hoped in vain to become his successor. Bach looked for a better position and found it as at the court of Leopold, Prince of Anhalt-Köthen. However, the duke in Weimar did not dismiss him and arrested him for disobedience. He was released on 2 December 1717. In Köthen, Bach found an employer who was an enthusiastic musician himself. The court was Calvinist, therefore Bach’s work from this period was mostly secular, including the orchestral suites, the cello suites, the sonatas and partitas for solo violin, and the Brandenburg Concertos. He composed secular cantatas for the court for occasions such as New Year’s Day and the prince’s birthday, including . He later parodied some of them as church cantatas without major changes, for example .

Jesus schläft, was soll ich hoffen? BWV 81

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and words#

Bach wrote the cantata in his first year in Leipzig for the Fourth Sunday after Epiphany. A fourth Sunday after Epiphany is rare and occurs only in years with a late date of Easter. The poet refers to the Gospel and expands on the contrast of Jesus hidden (sleeping) and appearing (acting), similar to , written in 1716 and performed three weeks earlier on the First Sunday after Epiphany. The words of movement 4 are a quote from the Gospel, the question of Jesus: "" (Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?). The closing chorale is the second stanza of Johann Franck’s hymn “”. Bach first performed the cantata on 30 January 1724.

Joh. Seb. Bach's Werke

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Volumes#

The year (Yr.) in the second column refers to the volume’s date of publication, that is the date of the editor’s (‘Preface’) if different from the date on the title page.

Reception#

Gustav Mahler owned 59 of the 61 volumes of the Bach-Gesamtausgabe, and used them for his arrangements of some of Bach’s compositions.

Keyboard concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The concertos for one harpsichord, BWV 1052–1059, survive in an autograph score, now held in the Berlin State Library. Based on the paper’s watermarks and the handwriting, it has been attributed to 1738 or 1739. As Peter Williams records, these concertos are almost all considered to be arrangements by Bach of previously existing works. Establishing the history or purpose of any of the harpsichord concertos, however, is not a straightforward task. At present, attempts to reconstruct the compositional history can only be at the level of plausible suggestions or conjectures, mainly because very little of Bach’s instrumental music has survived and, even when it has, sources are patchy. In particular this makes it hard not only to determine the place, time and purpose of the original compositions but even to determine the original key and intended instrument. The harpsichord part in the autograph manuscript is not a “fair copy” but a composing score with numerous corrections. The orchestral parts on the other hand were executed as a fair copy. Peter Wollny, however, considers it unlikely that The Collegium Musicum would have required orchestral parts that were so neatly draughted; he considers it more plausible that the manuscript was prepared for a visit that Bach made to Dresden in 1738 when he would almost certainly have given private concerts in court (or to the nobility) and the ripieno parts would have been played by the resident orchestra. Peter Williams has also suggested that the collection would have been a useful addition to the repertoire of his two elder sons, Wilhelm Friedemann and Carl Philipp Emanuel, both employed as professional keyboard-players at the time of writing. Williams has also speculated that it might not be mere coincidence that the timing matched the publication of the first ever collection of keyboard concertos, the widely acclaimed and well-selling Organ concertos, Op. 4 of George Frideric Handel published in London and Paris in 1738. The concertos for two or more harpsichords date from a slightly earlier period. The parts from the concerto for four harpsichords BWV 1065 (Bach’s arrangement of the Concerto for Four Violins, RV 580, by Antonio Vivaldi), have been dated to around 1730. The harpsichord concertos were composed in a manner completely idiomatic to the keyboard (this was equally true for those written for two or more harpsichords). They were almost certainly originally conceived for a small chamber group, with one instrument per desk, even if performed on one of the newly developed fortepianos, which only gradually acquired the potential for producing a louder dynamic. The keyboard writing also conforms to a practice that lasted until the early nineteenth century, namely the soloist played along with the orchestra in tutti sections, only coming into prominence in solo passages. The question “Did J.S. Bach write organ concertos?” has led Christoph Wolff and Gregory Butler to propose that Bach originally wrote the concertos BWV 1052 and BWV 1053 for solo organ and orchestra. Among other evidence, they note that both concertos consist of movements that Bach had previously used as instrumental sinfonias in 1726 cantatas with obbligato organ providing the melody instrument (BWV 146, BWV 169 and BWV 188). A Hamburg newspaper reported on a recital by Bach in 1725 on the Silbermann organ in the Sophienkirche, Dresden, mentioning in particular that he had played concertos interspersed with sweet instrumental music (“diversen Concerten mit unterlauffender Doucen Instrumental-Music”). , , Gregory Butler and Matthew Dirst have suggested that this report might refer to versions of the cantata movements or similar works. describes the newspaper article as “tantalising” but considers it possible that in the hour-long recital Bach played pieces from his standard organ repertoire (preludes, chorale preludes) and that the reporter was using musical terms in a “garbled” way. In another direction Williams has listed reasons why, unlike Handel, Bach may not have composed concertos for organ and a larger orchestra: firstly, although occasionally used in his cantatas, the Italian concerto style of Vivaldi was quite distant from that of Lutheran church music; secondly, the tuning of the baroque pipe organ would jar with that of a full orchestra, particularly when playing chords; and lastly, the size of the organ loft limited that of the orchestra. Wolff, however, notes that Bach’s congregation did not object to his use of the organ obliggato in the sinfonia movements in the aforementioned cantatas.

Klagt, Kinder, klagt es aller Welt, BWV 244a

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and words#

The choice of Bach for the funeral music was not surprising. He had worked full-time at Leopold’s court between 1717 and 1723. When he moved to Leipzig, he retained his role as Köthen court composer. His commissions in the period 1723–29 included the 1726 secular cantata Steigt freudig in die Luft, BWV 36a, to celebrate the birthday of Princess Charlotte, Leopold’s wife, who was to survive the deaths of her husband and two children from smallpox. Although the prince’s death took place in 1728, his funeral was delayed until March of the following year. Presumably the delay in burying the prince gave Bach a reasonable amount of time to compose the (funeral music). However, he chose to adapt material he had already composed, rather than create something completely new. While no score survives for the cantata as such, there is evidence of how Bach set the text, which was by Picander, a librettist Bach had been working with since his move to Leipzig. It has been demonstrated that Bach used music from an earlier funeral ode (to a text by Johann Christoph Gottsched) and music from the St Matthew Passion (to a text by Picander), which “fit” the words of the funeral text. (see Reconstructions section below) Picander’s text for the funeral music exists in three different versions.

Klavierbüchlein für Wilhelm Friedemann Bach

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Contents#

The book begins with a preface that contains an explanation of clefs and a guide to playing ornaments. The pieces of the collection are arranged by complexity, beginning with the most simple works. Of these, Applicatio in C major BWV 994 and Prelude in G minor BWV 930 are particularly notable because they are the only surviving works that feature the fingering in Bach’s own hand (the only other Bach piece with fingering marks is the C major Prelude BWV 870a, however, the marks are not in Bach’s hand). They were probably added by Johann Caspar Vogler, Bach’s pupil and successor at Weimar. Here is a complete list of pieces, in order of appearance in the manuscript, with the numbering as in most score editions: # BWV 994, Applicatio in C major # BWV 924, Prelude in C major # BWV 691, Wer nur den lieben Gott lässt walten (4), chorale prelude for organ # BWV 926, Prelude in D minor # BWV 753, Jesu, meine Freude (2), chorale prelude for organ (incomplete) # BWV 836, Allemande in G minor (1). Possibly composed by Wilhelm Friedemann Bach # BWV 837, Allemande in G minor (2), incomplete. Possibly composed by Wilhelm Friedemann Bach # BWV 927, Prelude in F major # BWV 930, Prelude in G minor # BWV 928, Prelude in F major # BWV 841, Minuet in G major. Probably not by Johann Sebastian Bach. This piece was also included in the 1722 Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach # BWV 842, Minuet in G minor # BWV 843, Minuet in G major # BWV 846a, Praeludium 1 in C major. Alternative version of the prelude from Prelude and Fugue in C major from the first book of The Well-Tempered Clavier. # BWV 847/1, Praeludium 2 in C minor (Prelude in C minor from the first book of The Well-Tempered Clavier) # BWV 851/1, Praeludium 3 in D minor (Prelude in D minor from the first book of The Well-Tempered Clavier) # BWV 850/1, Praeludium 4 in D major (Prelude in D major from the first book of The Well-Tempered Clavier, incomplete) # BWV 855a, Praeludium 5 in E minor. Alternative version of the prelude from Prelude and Fugue in E minor from the first book of The Well-Tempered Clavier. This was later arranged for pianoforte by Alexander Siloti and transposed into a Prelude in B minor. # BWV 854/1, Praeludium 6 in E major (Prelude in E major from the first book of The Well-Tempered Clavier) # BWV 856/1, Praeludium 7 in F major (Prelude in F major from the first book of The Well-Tempered Clavier) # BWV 848/1, Praeludium 8 in C major (Prelude in C major from the first book of The Well-Tempered Clavier) # BWV 849/1, Praeludium 9 in C minor (Prelude in C minor from the first book of The Well-Tempered Clavier) # BWV 853/1, Praeludium 10 in E minor (Prelude in E minor from the first book of The Well-Tempered Clavier) # BWV 857/1, Praeludium 11 in F minor (Prelude in F minor from the first book of The Well-Tempered Clavier) # Piéce pour le Clavecin, harpsichord suite by . Two movements: I. Allemande; II. Courante. # BWV 924a, Prelude in C major (alternative version of BWV 924) # BWV 925, Prelude in D major # BWV 932, Prelude in E minor # BWV 931, Prelude in A minor # Baß-Skizze in G minor. Not included in the BWV catalogue. # BWV 953, Fuga a 3 in C major. # BWV 772, Praeambulum 1 in C major (Invention No. 1) # BWV 775, Praeambulum 2 in D minor (Invention No. 4) # BWV 778, Praeambulum 3 in E minor (Invention No. 7) # BWV 779, Praeambulum 4 in F major (Invention No. 8) # BWV 781, Praeambulum 5 in G major (Invention No. 10) # BWV 784, Praeambulum 6 in A minor (Invention No. 13) # BWV 786, Praeambulum 7 in B minor (Invention No. 15) # BWV 785, Praeambulum 8 in B major (Invention No. 14) # BWV 783, Praeambulum 9 in A major (Invention No. 12) # BWV 782, Praeambulum 10 in G minor (Invention No. 11) # BWV 780, Praeambulum 11 in F minor (Invention No. 9) # BWV 777, Praeambulum 12 in E major (Invention No. 6) # BWV 776, Praeambulum 13 in E major (Invention No. 5) # BWV 774, Praeambulum 14 in D major (Invention No. 3) # BWV 773, Praeambulum 15 in C minor (Invention No. 2) # BWV 824, Suite in A major by Georg Philipp Telemann. Three parts: Allemande, Courante and Gigue, TWV 32:14 # Partita di Signore Steltzeln, harpsichord suite by Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel. Four movements: I. Ouverture; II. Air Italien; III. Bourrée; IV. Minuet; With an additional movement composed by Bach: V. Menuet – Trio, BWV 929 # BWV 787, Fantasia 1 in C major (Sinfonia No. 1) # BWV 790, Fantasia 2 in D minor (Sinfonia No. 4) # BWV 793, Fantasia 3 in E minor (Sinfonia No. 7) # BWV 794, Fantasia 4 in F major (Sinfonia No. 8) # BWV 796, Fantasia 5 in G major (Sinfonia No. 10) # BWV 799, Fantasia 6 in A minor (Sinfonia No. 13) # BWV 801, Fantasia 7 in B minor (Sinfonia No. 15) # BWV 800, Fantasia 8 in B major (Sinfonia No. 14) # BWV 798, Fantasia 9 in A major (Sinfonia No. 12) # BWV 797, Fantasia 10 in G minor (Sinfonia No. 11) # BWV 795, Fantasia 11 in F minor (Sinfonia No. 9) # BWV 792, Fantasia 12 in E major (Sinfonia No. 6) # BWV 791, Fantasia 13 in E major (Sinfonia No. 5) # BWV 789, Fantasia 14 in D major (Sinfonia No. 3), incomplete.

Komm, du süße Todesstunde, BWV 161

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

Born in 1685, Bach established his reputation as an outstanding organist while in his teens. He moved to Weimar in 1708 to take up a position as court organist to the co-reigning dukes Wilhelm Ernst and Ernst August of Saxe-Weimar. He had already begun to compose cantatas at his previous posts at Arnstadt and Mühlhausen, and his reasons for moving included disappointment with the standard of singing at the churches where he had worked. He was appointed concertmaster of the Weimar court capelle on 2 March 1714. In that position, he assumed principal responsibility for composing new works. Specifically, he was tasked with providing cantatas for the Schlosskirche (palace church) on a monthly schedule, which would result in a complete annual cycle for the liturgical year within four years. While Bach had composed vocal music only for special occasions until his promotion, the chance to regularly compose and perform a new work resulted in a program into which Bach “threw himself wholeheartedly”, as the Bach scholar Christoph Wolff notes.

Komm, Jesu, komm, BWV 229

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Very little is known about the circumstances surrounding the composition and performance of this work. It is commonly accepted that this is a funeral motet. The musicologist Gilles Cantagrel emphasizes that the work contains elements commonly present in funeral motets, such as the theme of farewell to the world, and the formula "" (Good night) which is often found in poetry about death, as in another motet by Bach, , which is known to be a funeral motet. The text of the motet is the first and eleventh stanza of a poem by Paul Thymich, professor at the Thomasschule of Leipzig where Bach was Thomaskantor. Johann Schelle, a predecessor of Bach at this post, set this text for the funeral of a university professor, the philosopher and jurist Jakob Thomasius who died in 1684. His aria was published in 1697 in Leipzig in a collection of more than five thousand hymns, the Gesangbuch by Paul Wagner (1617–1697), of which Bach had a copy in his library. It is thought that Bach took the text for similar circumstances, and one hypothesis is that he composed the motet for the burial of , an eminent theologian who died in 1731. Bach knew Schelle’s music, which was a five-part homophonic strophic setting. Bach took a different path, setting the text in two different parts for two four-part choirs. The melody of the second part, an aria, for the last lines shows similarities to Schelle’s work. The autograph manuscript is lost, but a copy is kept at the Berlin State Library, from the hand of the scribe Christoph Nichelmann, a student of Bach who left the Thomasschule in 1731–1732, thus giving the latest possible date for this work.

Komm, süßer Tod, komm selge Ruh

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Music#

\header tagline = ##f arranger = “BC realisation: Frej Wedlund” \paper #(set-paper-size “a4”) \layout indent = 0 \set Score.tempoHideNote = ##t \context \Score \remove “Bar_number_engraver” \context \Voice \remove “Dynamic_engraver” global = \key c \minor \time 3/4 sopranoVoice = \relative c \global c4 bes as8 (g) g2.\fermata es'4 d c8 (b) b2.\fermata c4 d es as, (g8 f) g4 f2 es4\fermata g4 a b c (d8 es ) d (c) bes4 (a) g\fermata bes des c8 (bes) as4 g4. (as16 bes) as2.\fermata f'8 (d) bes4 as g (es'8 d) es4 d2.\fermata es4 g8 ( f ) es (d) c ( es d c ) b (c) g2.\fermata as8 (g) es4 d8 (c) c2.\fermata \bar " ." verse = \lyricmode Komm, sü – ßer Tod, komm sel – ge Ruh! Komm füh – re mich in Frie – de, weil ich der Welt bin mü – de, ach komm! ich wart auf dich, komm bald und füh – re mich, drück mir die Au – gen zu. Komm, sel – ge Ruh! tf = \tempo 4 = 36 tt = \tempo 4 = 66 bcMusic = \relative c \global c4\p d2 es2. c4 f2 g2. es4 b c~ c d es as, bes \tf es,\fermata \tt es'2 d4 es fis, g d2 \tf g4 \tt g’ f e f bes, c \tf f, \tt f'8 g f es d4. c8 d bes es4 c f \tf bes, \tt bes'8 c bes as g4 es g as8 g f es f4~ \tf f \tt es8 d es c \tempo 4 = 60 f4 g g, c2. \bar " ." bcFigures = \figuremode \global \set figuredBassAlterationDirection = #RIGHT \set figuredBassPlusDirection = #RIGHT s4 s2. s4 2. 4 s4 s4 s2 s4 s4 2 4 s4 s2. 4 s4 s2. 4 s4 8 s4 s4 s2. \bar " ." cembaloRightTop = \relative es’ \global \voiceOne es4\pp f f~ f es\fermata es8 f g bes as g as4 g2. g4. f8 es4 es f es~ es8 d16 c d4 es g a b c~ c8 bes16 a bes4~ bes a g g8 bes4 as8~ as g~ g f4.~ f8 e f2. c'4 bes f g8 as bes4. a8 bes2. bes4bes8 as g bes as4. g8 f es d4 es2 f8 es es4 d8 c c2. \bar " ." cembaloRightBot = \relative es’ \global \voiceTwo c4\pp bes bes bes2. es4 f es8 d d2. c4 d c c bes bes c bes8 as 4 es f f es a g~ g8 fis16 e fis4 d e f! c~ c des c c2. f4 f d bes es es d2. es4 g es8 d c4 d b~ b c8 b c es d4 c8 b16 a b4 g2. \bar " ." cembaloLeftTop = \relative es \global \voiceThree g4\pp bes as g2. c4 d c8 b b2. g2 g4 as2 g4 f2 es4 bes’ c d c d bes8 a d4.c8 bes4 bes2 bes4~ bes8 as4 g8~ g4 as2. as4 bes as g c c bes2. bes4 bes bes as as g~ g g es as g g es2. \bar " ." cembaloLeftBot = \relative es \global \voiceFour c4\pp d2 es2. c4 d2 g2. es4 b c~ c d es as, bes es, es'2 d4 es fis, g d2 g4 g’ f e f bes, c f,\fermata f'8 g f es d4. c8 d bes es4 c f bes,\fermata bes'8 c bes as g4 es g as8 g f es f4~ f\fermata es8 d es c f4 g g, c2. \bar " ." VoicePart = \new ChoirStaff > cembaloPart = \new PianoStaff > \new Staff \with \magnifyStaff #2/3 midiInstrument = “harpsichord” > » \score > \layout \midi \tt

Kyrie–Gloria Mass for double choir, BWV Anh. 167

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The Kyrie–Gloria Mass for double choir, BWV Anh. 167, BNB I/An/3, was likely composed in the last quarter of the 17th century. The oldest extant source of its music is a manuscript score dating from the 1730s, which was partially written by Johann Sebastian Bach.

Weimar#

Peter Wollny assumes that a copy of the work may have been brought back from the Spanish Netherlands by Ernest Augustus of Saxe-Weimar in 1707. A year later, he employed Bach for his court in Weimar. The Mass may have been performed under Bach’s direction at the inauguration of on 6 November 1713. When Bach left the duchy of Saxe-Weimar in 1717, he may have taken performance parts of the Mass with him, leaving the score from which he had derived these in Weimar.

Kyrie–Gloria Masses, BWV 233–236

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Kyrie–Gloria Mass in F major, BWV 233#

For the in F major, BWV 233, scored for horns, oboes, bassoon, strings, SATB, and basso continuo, Bach derived most of the six movements from earlier cantatas as parodies. The first movement derives from Kyrie “Christe, du Lamm Gottes” in F major, BWV 233a, which may have been performed for the first time on Good Friday, 6 April 1708.

Kyrie–Gloria Mass in A major, BWV 234#

For the in A major, BWV 234, scored for flute, strings, SATB, and basso continuo, Bach parodied music from at least four earlier cantatas.

Laß, Fürstin, laß noch einen Strahl, BWV 198

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and text#

Bach wrote several works for celebrations of the Leipzig University, Festmusiken zu Leipziger Universitätsfeiern. He composed this cantata at the request of the university as a funeral ode for Christiane Eberhardine, wife of August II the Strong, the Elector of Saxony and King of Poland. The cantata was first performed on 17 October 1727 in the University Church in Leipzig. Bach himself directed from the harpsichord. The text was written by Johann Christoph Gottsched, professor of philosophy and poetry. The text is purely secular, proclaiming how the kingdom is in shock over the princess’ death, how magnificent she was, and how sadly she will be missed. Sacred elements pertaining to salvation and the afterlife are absent. Bach, however, as was his custom, included a cryptic reference to salvation in the music. The first movement of the second section Der Ewigkeit saphirnes Haus (“Eternity’s sapphiric house”), which was performed following the oration, contains underlying elements of the first movement of the cantata BWV 56, Ich will den Kreuzstab gerne tragen (“I want to bear the cross”) which Bach had composed one year earlier. The measures 70–75 contain a direct quote (played by the oboe) of the bass solo voice in measures 91–98 from BWV 56 where the text is Der führet mich nach meinen Plagen zu Gott, in das gelobte Land (“which leads me to God in the promised land after all my tribulation”). In the introduction to the opening chorus, Bach expresses the reluctance to bid the final farewell to the Queen by prolonging the harmonies in a manner unusual even for him. After the opening chord he avoids resolving back to the finality of the tonic for ten bars, employing deceptive cadences, Neapolitan chord, and other furtive resolutions. This mirrors and enhances the intended longing of the opening text “Princess, let one more beam of light shine”. The word “Strahl” (“beam of light “) is sung in straight rising notes, while “Tränen” (“tears”) is sung in falling, cascading notes, similar to “Tränen” in the closing chorus of the St Matthew Passion, BWV 244: Wir setzen uns mit Tränen nieder (“We sit down in tears”). The word “Fürstin” (“princess”, also generic for “royal lady”) is always sung isolated from the rest of the text, surrounded by rests. Bach later borrowed from the cantata for his St Mark Passion and for Klagt, Kinder, klagt es aller Welt, BWV 244a, another funeral ode written in 1729.

Laßt uns sorgen, laßt uns wachen, BWV 213

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and text#

The work is a dramma per musica describing the story of “Hercules at the crossroads”. Bach composed the cantata for the 11th birthday of Crown Prince Friedrich Christian of Saxony, to a text by Picander. It was first performed in Leipzig on 5 September 1733 at Zimmermann’s coffeehouse, where Bach’s Coffee Cantata was also first performed. Bach used the aria "" in a revised form in Und es waren Hirten in derselben Gegend, Part II of his Christmas Oratorio. Bach also reused the aria "" to form the aria Ich will nur dir zu Ehren leben in Part 4 of his Christmas Oratorio. A duet of the cantata and the duet "" from his Mass in B minor share a common lost base. The cantata is counted among the works for celebrations of the Leipzig University, Festmusiken zu Leipziger Universitätsfeiern.

Late church cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Occasions of the liturgical year#

Several groups can be discerned in Bach’s cantata production after the Picander cycle: ** BWV 30 (Feast of St. John the Baptist 1738): parody of the BWV 30a (secular cantata, 1737) ** BWV 191 (Christmas 1742?): based on the otherwise probably unperformed Gloria of the Mass for the Dresden court, BWV 232 I (1733) Bach’s three extant oratorios also date from this period: the Christmas Oratorio (a set of six cantatas presented in the Christmas season of 1734–35), the Ascension Oratorio (1738?, with the dimensions of a single cantata) and the Easter Oratorio (an Easter cantata of 1725 with slight alterations reworked into an Oratorio 1738). * Around 1745–46 Bach helped copy out performance parts of a cantata by Johann Gottlieb Goldberg * BWV 217 was possibly composed by Altnickol.

Le jeune homme et la mort

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Original cast#

Nathalie Philippart
Jean Babilée

La Scala Ballet, Teatro degli Arcimboldi, Milan, March 2006#

Darcey Bussell
Roberto Bolle

Sadler’s Wells, November 2006#

Darcey Bussell
Igor Zelensky

External links#

March 2006 review by Susy in Ballet.co Magazine
November 30, 2006, review by Ruth Leon for Bloomberg News
November 29, 2006, review by John Percival in The Stage
Le Jeune Homme et la Mort – 1966 film with Rudolf Nureyev and Zizi Jeanmaire
Le Jeune Homme et la Mort – performance by Baryshnikov in the movie White Nights (1985)

History and parody#

The Mass was Bach’s last major artistic undertaking. The reason for the composition is unknown. Scholars have found no plausible occasion for which the work may have been intended. The Bach scholar Joshua Rifkin noted: … likely, Bach sought to create a paradigmatic example of vocal composition while at the same time contributing to the venerable musical genre of the Mass, still the most demanding and prestigious apart from opera. Conductor Robert King summarised that “the composer seems to have occupied part of his last years writing a work that was intended to be a summation of his art, a document for future generations, and a supreme personal opportunity to unite his faith in God with his life’s work as a musician”. Bach first composed a setting of the Kyrie and Gloria in 1733 for the Catholic royal court in Dresden. He presented that composition to Frederick Augustus II, Elector of Saxony (later, as Augustus III, also king of Poland), accompanied by a letter: In deepest Devotion I present to your Royal Highness this small product of that science which I have attained in Musique, with the most humble request that you will deign to regard it not according to the imperfection of its Composition, but with a most gracious eye … and thus take me into your most mighty Protection. He arranged the text in diverse movements for a five-part choir and solo voices, according to the taste in Dresden where sacred music “borrowed” from Italian opera with a focus on choral movements, as musicologist Arthur Wenk notes. Bach expanded the Missa of 1733 to a from 1748 to 1749, near the end of his life. In these last years, he added three choral movements for the : its opening , and . The Sanctus was originally an individual movement composed for Christmas 1724 in Leipzig. Most other movements of the mass are parodies of music from earlier cantatas, dating back as far as 1714. Wenk points out that Bach often used parody to “bring a composition to a higher level of perfection”. The original musical sources of several movements are known, for others they are lost but the score shows that they are copied and reworked. Bach selected movements that carried a similar expression and affekt. For example, (We give you thanks) is based on (We thank you, God, we thank you) and the (Crucified) is based on the general lamenting about the situation of the faithful Christian, (Weeping, lamenting, worrying, fearing) which Bach had composed already in 1714 as one of his first cantatas for the court of Weimar. Bach quoted Gregorian chant in two of the newly composed movements, in the as a theme of a 7-part fugue, and in the as a cantus firmus embedded in complex polyphony, once as a canon. Bach achieved a symmetry of the parts, with the profession of faith () in the center and the movement in its center. Markus Rathey, Professor of Music History at the Institute of Sacred Music at the Yale School of Music, sees a similarity to architecture of the period, such as the Palace of Versailles. Bach knew buildings in that style, for example Schloss Friedrichsthal in Gotha, built in 1710. Rathey continues: The symmetry on earth mirrors the symmetric perfection of heaven. The purpose of art at this time—in architecture, the visual arts, and music—was not to create something entirely new, but to reflect this divine perfection, and in this way to praise God. We find such a symmetric outline in many pieces by Johann Sebastian Bach,19 but only in a few cases is this outline as consequent as in the B Minor Mass. The parts Kyrie, Gloria and Credo are all designed with choral sections as the outer movements, framing an intimate center of theological significance. According to Christoph Wolff, the Mass can be seen as a “kind of specimen book of his finest compositions in every kind of style, from the stile antico of Palestrina in the ‘Credo’ and ‘Confiteor’ and the expressively free writing of the ‘Crucifixus’ and ‘Agnus Dei’, to the supreme counterpoint of the opening Kyrie as well as so many other choruses, right up to the most modern style in galant solos like ‘Christe eleison’ and ‘Domine Deus’”. Bach made “a conscious effort to incorporate all styles that were available to him, to encompass all music history as far as it was accessible”. The Mass is a compendium of vocal sacred music, similar to other collections that Bach compiled during the last decade of his life, such as the Clavier-Übung III, The Art of Fugue, the Goldberg Variations, the Great Eighteen Chorale Preludes and The Musical Offering.

Mein Gott, wie lang, ach lange? BWV 155

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The text and melody were composed by Luther in the spring of 1524. Later in the same year, it was published in Wittenberg in Johann Walter’s (Wittenberg hymnal), but was not included in the Erfurt Enchiridion. Originally a song for Purification, it has been used for funerals. Luther included it in 1542 in (Christian chants … for funeral) as one of six hymns. Luther, a former monk, was familiar with the Latin from the daily night prayer (compline). The hymn was dedicated to the celebration of the Purification on 2 February, which was kept by the Lutherans as a feast day. It became also one of the most important songs for the dying () and for funerals. It is listed among those in the Protestant hymnal as No. 519.

Mit Fried und Freud ich fahr dahin, BWV 125

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Bach composed a cantata with the same name, , for the First Sunday of Advent in 1714 when he worked for the court of Weimar. The libretto by Erdmann Neumeister included for the first movement the first stanza of Martin Luther’s Advent hymn of the same name, the number one hymn to begin the Liturgical year with Advent in all Lutheran hymnals at the time. In 1723, Bach was appointed (director of church music) in Leipzig, where he was responsible for the music at four churches, and for the training and education of boys singing in the Thomanerchor. He took office in the middle of the liturgical year, on the first Sunday after Trinity, 30 May 1723. Bach wrote , BWV 62, in 1724, his second year as , for the First Sunday of Advent, as part of his chorale cantata cycle. The prescribed readings for the Sunday were from the Epistle to the Romans, night is advanced, day will come (), and from the Gospel of Matthew, the Entry into Jerusalem (). The cantata is based on Martin Luther’s hymn “”. For the hymn, Luther had paraphrased the Latin hymn for Advent “Veni redemptor gentium”. In the format of the chorale cantata cycle, an unknown poet who collaborated with Bach retained the first and last stanza, and paraphrased the inner stanzas (2 to 7). He shaped the content of stanzas 2 and 3 to an aria, stanzas 4 and 5 to a recitative, and the remaining stanzas to an aria and a duet recitative. While Luther, influenced by the Latin model, phrased succinctly and sometimes in allusions, Bach’s collaborator in Leipzig texted often freely and with poetic ambition. Bach led the Thomanerchor in the first performance of the cantata on 3 December 1724. Another performance is documented between 1732 and 1735. It was performed again in 1736, with an added part for violone in all movements, after the had bought an instrument at an auction in 1735. Bach’s score contains a detailed list of the liturgy of the service on the Advent Sunday. Hans-Joachim Schulze argues that Bach may have written it as instruction for a substitute while he was absent from Leipzig that day; he had to travel to Dresden to receive the title Hofcompositeur (Court composer) from the Elector of Saxony, Frederick Augustus II, on Saturday 1 December 1736, giving an organ concert at the Hofkirche’s new Silbermann organ. Bach’s successor Johann Friedrich Doles performed the cantata after Bach’s death.

Nur jedem das Seine, BWV 163

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Structure#

Except for the ciaccona, the movements are dance types of the time, and they are frequently listed by their French names: Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, Gigue, and Chaconne. The final movement is written in the form of variations, and lasts approximately as long as the first four movements combined. The performance time of the whole partita varies between 26 and 32 minutes, depending on the approach and style of the performer.

Partita for Violin No. 3 (Bach)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

External links#

Manuscript (fair copy) in Bach’s hand of the Partita at the Bach Digital project
Performance by violinist Karen Gomyo from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in MP3 format
, Arthur Grumiaux

Partita in A minor for solo flute (Bach)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The discoverer of the sole surviving manuscript, Karl Straube, believed it to be an autograph and this view was accepted by Alfred Einstein. However, more recently it has been shown that it was made by two copyists. Although their names are unknown, one appears to be identical with the principal scribe of another manuscript, P 267 (containing the violin sonatas and partitas, BWV 1001–1006), which places this part of the copy of the Partita in the first half of the 1720s. The other scribe is the one now known as “Anonymous 5”, an employee of Bach who must have accompanied him when Bach moved from Köthen to Leipzig in 1723. This scribe is known from authentically dated copies of the Cantatas BWV 186 (11 July 1723) and BWV 154 (9 January 1724). On the basis of watermarks and textual criticism, the greater part of the manuscript was probably copied in Leipzig in 1723–1724, while the copyist of the first five lines of the Partita suggest it may have been begun slightly earlier, between 1722 and 1723 in Köthen.

Partitas for keyboard (Bach)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The six partitas for keyboard form the last set of suites that Bach composed and are the most technically demanding of the three. They were composed between 1725 and 1730 or 1731. As with the French and English Suites, the autograph manuscript of the Partitas is no longer extant. In keeping with a 19th-century naming tradition that labelled Bach’s first set of Suites English and the second French, the Partitas are sometimes referred to as the German Suites. This title, however, is a publishing convenience; there is nothing particularly German about the Partitas. In comparison with the two earlier sets of suites, the Partitas are by far the most free-ranging in terms of structure. Unlike the English Suites, for example, wherein each opens with a strict prelude, the Partitas feature a number of different opening styles including an ornamental Overture and a Toccata. Although each of the Partitas was published separately under the name Clavier-Übung (Keyboard Practice), they were subsequently collected into a single volume in 1731 with the same name, which Bach himself chose to label his Opus 1. Unlike the earlier sets of suites, Bach originally intended to publish seven Partitas, advertising in the spring of 1730 upon the publication of the fifth Partita that the promised collected volume would contain two more such pieces. The plan was then revised to include a total of eight works: six Partitas in Part I (1731) and two larger works in Part II (1735), the Italian Concerto, BWV 971, and the Overture in the French style, BWV 831. The second of these is an eight-movement partita, the largest such keyboard work Bach ever composed, and may in fact be the elusive “seventh partita” mentioned in 1730. The Overture in the French style was originally written in C minor, but was transposed a half step down for publication to complete the tonal scheme of Parts I and II as described below.

Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor, BWV 582

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The autograph manuscript of BWV 582 is currently considered lost; the work, as is typical for pieces by Bach and his contemporaries, is known only through a number of copies. There is some evidence that the original was notated in organ tablature. It is not known precisely when Bach composed the work, but the available sources point to the period between 1706 and 1713. It is possible that BWV 582 was composed in Arnstadt soon after Bach’s return from Lübeck (where he may have studied Buxtehude’s ostinato works). The first half of the passacaglia’s ostinato, which also serves as the fugue’s main subject, was most probably taken from a short work by the French composer André Raison, Christe: Trio en passacaille from Messe du deuxieme ton of the Premier livre d’orgue. It is possible that the second half of the ostinato was also taken from Raison, the bass line of Christe: Trio en chaconne of Messe du sixieme ton of the same publication is very similar.

Passions (Bach)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Passions composed and/or staged by Bach#

According to his “”, the 1754 obituary written by Johann Friedrich Agricola and the composer’s son Carl Philipp Emanuel, Bach wrote “five Passions, of which one is for double chorus”. The double chorus one is easily identified as the St Matthew Passion. The St John Passion is the only extant other one that is certainly composed by Bach. The libretto of the St Mark Passion was published in Bach’s time, allowing reconstruction based on the pieces Bach is known to have parodied for its composition, while the extant St Luke Passion likely contains little or no music composed by Bach. Which Bach compositions, apart from the known ones, may have been meant in the obituary remains uncertain. The St John Passion is shorter and has simpler orchestration than the St Matthew Passion. The St John Passion has been described as more realistic, faster paced and more anguished than the reflective and resigned St. Matthew Passion.

Picander cycle of 1728–29

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Picander’s librettos#

A few questions regarding the collaboration between Bach and Picander regularly return in the scholarly literature on the subject. A first question is when they started to collaborate actively: that may have been as early as 1723 or as late as 1729. Another one is how many Picander texts were set by Bach: apparently as good as nothing from Picander’s 1724–25 cycle, and from all other settings, including the St Matthew Passion, no more than around a dozen settings are extant. Finally: how did Bach and Picander get along? Picander was primarily a satirist producing lighthearted poetry, how come that his spiritual poetry, deemed without particular intrinsic qualities, led, when set by Bach, to sacred masterpieces? The collaboration seems unlikely: the serious Bach and the jocular librettist. According to Bach’s biographer Spitta, the composer chose Picander among other poets producing sacred poetry, such as Erdmann Neumeister and Salomon Franck, because Picander had few talents apart from having a swift pen and some affinity with music, that is, he could develop almost anything into lyrics, and so was amenable to producing texts tailored to the composer’s expectations. A supposedly cordial relationship between the poet and the composer is illustrated by the fact that Picander’s wife became a sponsor to Bach’s daughter Johanna Carolina, born in 1737. Besides, Bach may have been grave in religious matters, he had a humorous side too, for instance illustrated by the quodlibets on popular tunes he produced early in his career (BWV 524) as well as later on (BWV 988/31, 1741). When producing secular cantatas such as Hercules auf dem Scheidewege (1731), the Coffee Cantata, and the 1742 Peasant Cantata, the composer and satirist seem to have been likeminded.

Preise dein Glücke, gesegnetes Sachsen, BWV 215

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and words#

Bach wrote several works for celebrations of the Leipzig University, Festmusiken zu Leipziger Universitätsfeiern. The Neue Bach-Ausgabe has detailed background information about the events around the composition and first performance of this cantata, collected by Werner Neumann. August III, Elector of Saxony and of Poland, had announced his presence in Leipzig from 2 to 6 October 1734, on short notice. As the anniversary of his election as king on 5 October fell during this time, students of the University of Leipzig planned to perform a procession with torches and evening music on that day. The cantata text was written by Johann Christoph Clauder. He refers to the events of the last months. While other congratulatory cantatas often use allegorical figures, this work concentrates on the king and his qualities. When Augustus II the Strong died, August III followed him as both elector and king, but had to secure the throne against partisans of Stanisław I Leszczyński. Bach composed the music, probably in no more than three days. He used the first movement of his 1732 cantata Es lebe der König, der Vater im Lande, BWV Anh 11, set for two four part choirs, as a basis for the opening chorus. The former work, whose music has not survived, had been composed in 1732 for the (name day) of the previous elector August II. It seems likely that Bach also used other earlier music, but no specific pieces have been identified. A chronicle of Leipzig written by Johann Salomon Riemer reports the performance of the cantata on 5 October, in front of the Apel House, the Elector’s palace in Leipzig, after a torch-light procession of six hundred students. The Elector and his family remained at the window as long as the music lasted and were pleased (“herzlich wohlgefallen”). 700 copies of the text were printed. The following day, the chronicle reports the death from a stroke of the trumpeter Gottfried Reiche, “Senior der Mus. Stadt Compagnie” (senior of the town music company), who had played first trumpet in the cantata. Possibly “over-exertion and/or the inhalation of smoke from the torches” played a role. Bach used the seventh movement, the soprano aria , as the basis for a bass aria in his Christmas Oratorio, Part V, . He used the first movement as the basis for the "" of his Mass in B minor.

Preise, Jerusalem, den Herrn, BWV 119

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and words#

As Thomaskantor, Bach served as music director of Leipzig and had to compose not only for music in the four major churches but also for public municipal functions. The Ratswechsel was celebrated with an annual church service at the Nikolaikirche on the Monday after St. Bartholomew, August 24. It was not a democratic election, but a “ceremonial transfer of office” of council members who were appointed. Early in his career he had written at least one cantata for the equivalent service at Mühlhausen. There are five surviving cantatas for the Ratswechsel at Leipzig, and librettos of three more, BWV Anh. I 3, 4 and 193. The other four extant cantatas are Ihr Tore zu Zion, BWV 193, composed for the occasion in 1727 but partly lost, Wir danken dir, Gott, wir danken dir, BWV 29, composed for the occasion in 1731, Gott, man lobet dich in der Stille, BWV 120, adapted from earlier cantatas for wedding and homage probably in 1742, and Lobe den Herrn, meine Seele, BWV 69, adapted from Lobe den Herrn, meine Seele, BWV 69a, for the occasion in 1748. The text was written by an unknown librettist who included psalm verses (from Psalms 147, 85 and 126) and lines from Martin Luther’s German Te Deum “Herr Gott, dich loben wir”. To suit the event for which it was written, these are all turned into hymns of thanking and praising God for Leipzig’s prosperity and asking him to protect the city in the future. Bach led the Thomanerchor in the performance on 30 August 1723.

Prelude (Toccata) and Fugue in E major, BWV 566

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

External links#

Prelude (Toccata) and fugue in C major BWV 566a
Free download of BWV 566 recorded by James Kibbie on the 1736 Erasmus Bielfeldt organ in St. Wilhadi, Stade, Germany

Prelude and Fugue in A minor, BWV 543

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Versions and sources#

According to David Schulenberg, the main sources for BWV 543 can be traced to the Berlin circle around Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach and Johann Kirnberger. The copyist associated with C. P. E. Bach has only been identified as “Anonymous 303”; the manuscript is now housed in the Berlin State Library. Although less prolific than copyists like Johann Friedrich Agricola, from the many hand-copies circulated for purchase by Anon 303, including those from the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin recovered from Kyiv in 2001, commentators agree that the professional copyist must have enjoyed a close relationship with C. P. E. Bach. The other secondary source for BWV 543 came through the copyist Johann Gottfried Siebe and Kirnberger. The manuscript became part of the Amalienbibliothek, the music library of Princess Anna Amalia of Prussia; it is now in the Berlin State Library. There is an additional source from the copyist Joachim Andreas Dröbs whose score for BWV 543 formed part of a collection by Johann Christian Kittel, now in the Leipzig University Library. The sources for BWV 543a, which is presumed to be an earlier version of BWV 543 differing markedly from the prelude but identical to the fugue, originate in Leipzig. The main source was an unidentified copyist associated with Bach’s pupil Johann Ludwig Krebs; the manuscript is now in the Berlin State Library. A secondary source is from the copyist Johann Peter Kellner, written around 1725 and also now in the Berlin State Library. An additional source is the score made by the copyist Michael Gotthardt Fischer; it is now stored in the Irving S. Gilmore Music Library of Yale University.

Prelude and Fugue in B minor, BWV 544

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The autograph manuscript shares the same watermark and style of handwriting as the Prelude and Fugue in E minor, BWV 548, which points to a composition period of 1727-1731. Contemporary accounts of the funeral note that there was an organ prelude and postlude played. In 1998, Gilles Cantagrel was the first to propose that BWV 544 was that organ work, pointing to the shared B minor affekt, stylistic similarities, and noting the tuning of the Scheibe organ at the church. For nearly one hundred years the work circulated in manuscript copy form. In 1812 an anonymous editor for the Vienna firm Kunst- Und Industrie Comptoir published BWV 544 for the first time in the first printed collection of Bach’s free organ works Six Preludes and Six Fugues for Organ or Piano with Pedal by Johann Sebastian Bach. The rights and plates for this work were sold around 1817 to Johann Riedl who continued to print the work. In the 1820s the rights were transferred to Steiner Verlag and then to Tobias Haslinger, both of whom re-engraved and printed new editions. The work is central in Felix Mendelssohn’s Bach revival; he learned BWV 544 from the leading early 19th century organist Johann Gottlob Schneider, the son of a pupil of Bach, and later owned the Riedl edition and edited his own publication in the 1850s. Schneider is recorded having played the work from a “shabby old book” for Henry Chorley in 1840, also likely the Riedl edition. The existence of the manuscript was first mentioned in F. K. Griepenkerl’s 1844 publication of the 2nd volume of Bach’s Organ Works. This edition was later revised by F. A. Roitzsch at Peters Edition in Leipzig, and is the likely path the manuscript took to having been purchased in 1850 by a principal manager at Peters. The manuscript’s provenance is: * Until 1750: in Johann Sebastian Bach’s possession until his death * 1750 to unknown: inherited by Johann Christian Bach * Prior to 1850: unknown, although likely owned by Peters who published a first edition in 1844 * 1850 - 1860: owned by C. G. S. Boehme, principal manager of Peters (publisher of the work 6 years earlier), who acquired it with Professor S. H. Dehn as intermediary * 1860 to 1903: owned by Scottish organist Herbert Stanley Oakeley * 1860 to 1903: owned by Edward Murray Oakeley, a Master of Clifton College, to whom it was bequeathed by his brother Herbert. Shortly before his death, Edward Oakeley arranged for a photographic copy of the manuscript to be given to the Fitzwilliam Museum. This copy would later form the source for Otto Erich Deutsch’s 1943 replica publication. * 1978 to unknown: Albi Rosenthal, music collector in Oxford. Selden-Goth had promised to donate the manuscript to the Library of Congress along with the rest of her collection after her death. After her death, however, her estate sold the manuscript to Rosenthal. The manuscript held special significance for Rosenthal, who was inspired to become a music manuscript collector after having first seen it when visiting Selden-Goth in Florence. * Unknown: Sold by Rosenthal to Robin Lehman. * Current: In the Morgan Library’s Robert Owen Lehman Collection.

Prelude and Fugue in B-flat major, BWV 866

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Prelude#

The prelude is in common time ( time) and is composed of 20 bars, which are split into 2 periods of 10 bars each. The first period has a toccata-style melody which uses demisemiquaver (32nd note) broken chords and scale passages. In the first two bars, it uses a four-note sequence which drops by a third every half-bar. This period ends with a perfect cadence in dominant key of F major. The second period uses a fantasia style and alternates between chords and scale progressions. The coda in bar 20 uses an extended arpeggio in the tonic that confirms the key of B major. One copy of the prelude by a Bach pupil has the word adagio to the big chords in bar 11, which suggests that the second period should have a more improvisatory rhythm. Below are the opening bars of the prelude: \language “english” > » The Czerny edition has an extra bar added accommodating a cadence after the 20th and final bar of the prelude, described by Tovey as “perhaps the most Philistine single printed chord in the whole history of music”.

Prelude and Fugue in C major, BWV 531

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Composition#

Unlike most of his other organ preludes and fugues, the Prelude and Fugue in C major was written when Bach was in Arnstadt. Once he arrived there in 1703, he immediately fell in love with the Neue Kirche (now renamed in commemoration to Bach the Bachkirche.) He would secure his job as church organist at the Neue Kirche a few weeks after playing in the church. It is here where he met his future first wife, Maria Barbara Bach.

Prelude and Fugue in C minor, BWV 546

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Prelude#

The prelude is believed to be the more mature of the two movements which was performed on 13 October 1726 in Leipzig. After the stately initial dialogue, the piece is soon flanked with a flurry of running triplets, intertwined with a looming second theme, with the original one reoccurring only in fragments until its final statement.

Fugue#

The alla breve fugue is believed to have been written during Bach’s time in Weimar, and was added to the prelude during his time in Leipzig. Some believe the movement may have been partially or fully composed by Kellner.

Prelude and Fugue in D major, BWV 532

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The Fugue in D major, BWV 532a, was composed around 1708. It is an earlier version of fugue of BWV 532. Not much is known about this fugue, other than that it was composed around 2 years before the Prelude and Fugue in D major, and was written and premiered in Weimar. Also BWV 532 was written during Bach’s tenure in Weimar: it was composed between 1709 and 1717. Many of his greatest and most well known organ works were written during this period, including, for example, the Prelude and Fugue in E major, BWV 566. The composer was residing in Weimar after being hired by the ruling duke of Weimar, Wilhelm Ernst, in 1709 as an organist and member of the court orchestra; he was particularly encouraged to make use of his unique talents with the organ by the duke. Indeed, his fame on the instrument grew and he was visited by many students of the organ to hear him play and to try to learn from his technique. The Prelude and Fugue in D major was probably composed in 1710, although this is not certain. What we do know is that BWV 532 features a lengthy, complex, self-contained fugue preceded by a multisectional prelude.

Prelude and Fugue in D major, BWV 874

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Prelude#

The prelude consists of 56 bars and uses a double time signature of cut time and time, which gives rise to two performance issues: if the dotted quaver and semiquaver pairs should be played at the same time as the triplet quavers (such as in bar 10); where most commentators think they should be, and if the quavers in bar 2 should be played as triplets; where most commentators think they should not be. The prelude’s structure follows that of sonata form, having a 16-bar exposition, a 24-bar development, and a 16-bar recapitulation. Below are the first 2 bars of the prelude:

Prelude and Fugue in E minor, BWV 548

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The autograph manuscript, along with that of the Prelude and Fugue in B minor, BWV 544, which is believed to have been written around the same time, share the same watermark and style of handwriting, which points to a composition period of 1727-1731.

Prelude#

The prelude’s massive structure is considered to be one of the most intricate in the genre. with the homophonic opening theme reoccurring between various polyphonic, episodic sequences.

Prelude in C minor, BWV 999

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

According to the Bach Digital website, the time of origin of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Prelude in C minor, BWV 999, is unknown. Based on , the 1998 edition of the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis indicates that the piece likely originated in Bach’s Köthen period, that is, between 1717 and 1723. Christoph Wolff and Walter Emery estimated that the composition may have originated from Bach’s Köthen period to the early years of his Leipzig period, which began in 1723, based on similarities with the Preludes and Fugues in The Well-Tempered Clavier. According to Kohlhase, Johann Peter Kellner’s copy of the Prelude dates from around the middle of the 1720s. A more comprehensive research into the time of origin of all 57 fascicles of the Berlin State Library’s Mus.ms. Bach P 804 convolute, by Russell Stinson, showed that its 19th fascicle, Kellner’s copy of the BWV 999 Prelude, originated after 1727. All fascicles of the P 804 manuscript were written before Bach’s death in 1750. Kellner’s manuscript is the only source for the composition. The title page of Kellner’s copy of BWV 999, page 101 in the D-B Mus.ms. Bach P 804 convolute, reads: The composition is written on the next two pages, on systems of two staffs, with a soprano clef for the upper staff, and a bass clef for the lower staff. Although, in the first half of the 18th century, a tablature notation was common for lute compositions, Kellner thus wrote the Prelude down in a notation which at the time was customary for keyboard compositions. The Prelude can be performed as well on a keyboard instrument as on a lute. Kellner is known as an organist and keyboard performer: his copy of BWV 999 is the only extant instance of him taking an interest in a composition for lute. A concluding section, which could follow after the Prelude as written down by Kellner, seems to be missing. The Prelude opens in C minor but instead of returning to that key (i.e., the tonic), it ends on the dominant, in fact the parallel key of the dominant, G major, while the closing chord contains a Picardy third. compares this to the Prelude BWV 872a/1: after a section with arpeggios ending on the dominant, it continues with a fugato returning to the tonic. Also, the last bar of the piece only has the duration of a quarter note: it is uncommon for a piece in to end on a bar with a different duration than three quarter notes. Whether Bach never composed such continuation of the piece, or whether Kellner didn’t copy it, is not known.

Prelude, Fugue and Allegro in E-flat major, BWV 998

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Prelude#

The Prelude is similar to many in The Well-Tempered Clavier (the second book of which dates from around the same time as this work), in that it is composed of many arpeggios. There is a pause in the motion when, just before the coda, there is a fermata over a third-inversion seventh chord with a rich suspension. There is a rare example of explicit consecutive fifths in the left-hand of bar 46.

Reconstruction of music by Johann Sebastian Bach

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Vocal music#

Reconstructions of Bach’s vocal music are often based on surviving lyrics, such as librettos, which show similarities with those of extant music, so that the variant text can be combined with the known music. In vocal music, recitatives are often a particularly difficult challenge for reconstruction: when Bach parodied his own vocal music, he reused music of arias, duets and choruses for the new work, but recitatives with different lyrics were less suitable for such transcriptions. For example, when he adapted Vereinigte Zwietracht der wechselnden Saiten, BWV 207, one of his secular cantatas, into Auf, schmetternde Töne der muntern Trompeten, BWV 207a, for a different occasion, he reused the music of all movements except the music of the recitative movements 2, 4 and 6: he composed new music for the recitatives of the later work. An exception appears to have been when he parodied the Michaelmas cantata BWV 248a, recitatives and all, into the sixth part of his Christmas Oratorio: how exactly he proceeded with this adaptation can however not be ascertained while the text of the BWV 248a cantata went lost. Reconstruction of recitatives may depend on borrowing music of recitatives with somewhat similar lyrics (e.g. Simon Heighes 1995), or re-composing recitatives in the style of Bach (e.g. Ton Koopman 2000). Reconstruction of chorale movements of lost church music is helped by the fact that hundreds of Bach’s four-part chorales survive, including separate chorales such as BWV 253–438 and 1122–1126, which are most likely nearly exclusively chorale settings from otherwise lost larger vocal works. With some educated guesswork Bach scholars such as Friedrich Smend and Klaus Häfner have coupled extant chorale settings with hymn verses in librettos of otherwise lost works.

Schau, lieber Gott, wie meine Feind, BWV 153

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and words#

Bach wrote the cantata in his first year in Leipzig for the Sunday after New Year’s Day and first performed it on 2 January 1724. The prescribed readings for the day are from the First Epistle of Peter, the suffering of Christians (), and from the Gospel of Matthew, the Flight into Egypt (). The unknown poet took Herod’s Massacre of the Innocents and the Flight into Egypt as a starting point to reflect in general the situation of the Christians confronted with enemies. The poet is possibly the same person as the author of the two Christmas cantatas , and , performed shortly before, because three hymn stanzas are featured in all three works. The cantata opens with a chorale, the first stanza of David Denicke’s "" (1646). Movement 5 is stanza 5 of Paul Gerhardt’s "" (1656), known as movement 44 of the St Matthew Passion. The words speak of the utmost enemies: "" (And even if all devils). The cantata ends with stanzas 16 to 18 of the chorale "" (1587), attributed to Martin Moller. Bach would later write a chorale cantata on this chorale, and use its first stanza in Ach Gott, wie manches Herzeleid, BWV 58.

Schauet doch und sehet, ob irgend ein Schmerz sei, BWV 46

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and words#

Bach composed the cantata in his first year as in Leipzig for the Tenth Sunday after Trinity, the eleventh cantata of his first cantata cycle. The prescribed readings for the Sunday were from the First Epistle to the Corinthians, different gifts, but one spirit (), and from the gospel of Luke, Jesus announcing the destruction of Jerusalem and cleansing of the Temple (). As with other cantatas Bach composed in his first years in Leipzig, we do not know the identity of the librettist. It is the third in a group of ten cantatas following the same structure of biblical text (in this case from the Old Testament) – recitative – aria – recitative – aria – chorale. The ten cantatas were dedicated to the 8th to 14th and 21st to 22nd Sunday after Trinity and the second Sunday after Easter. The words for the first movement are taken from the Book of Lamentations (), a lament about the historic destruction of Jerusalem. The text, suitable in connection with the announcement by Jesus, is among the prescribed readings for Good Friday and has been set to music often. The text for the inner movements 2 to 5 were written by the unknown poet, who dedicated a pair of recitative and aria to the memory of the historic event, another pair to the warning that the contemporary Christian is threatened in a similar way. The final chorale is the ninth stanza of "" by Johann Matthäus Meyfart. Bach led the Thomanerchor and instrumentalists in the first performance on 1 August 1723.

Schlage doch, gewünschte Stunde, BWV 53

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and attribution#

The cantata has often been attributed to Johann Sebastian Bach. However, Alfred Dürr did not include it in his 1971 book Die Kantaten von Johann Sebastian Bach, based on the Bach-Jahrbuch 1955. In the Appendix of the subsequent English version of the 2006 book on Bach’s cantatas with Richard D. P. Jones, BWV 53 appears amongst the spurious cantatas. In that Appendix, the entry for ‘composer’ is listed as Melchior Hoffmann, accompanied by a question mark. According to Johann Nikolaus Forkel, the aria was composed by a young Bach, which would mean around the first decade of the 18th century. Philipp Spitta, in his multi-volume Bach biography in the second half of the 19th century, thought that Bach wrote the aria in his middle Leipzig period, that is around the middle of the 1723–1750 period, when he would also have written other chamber cantatas for private performance, most of them solo cantatas. According to Charles Sanford Terry, Bach composed the aria between 1723 and 1734. and Schweitzer. In 1950, Wolfgang Schmieder listed the aria as No. 53 in the first edition of the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis (BWV). In 1761, Johann Gottlob Immanuel Breitkopf offered manuscript copies of the aria in a catalogue printed for the Michaelmas fair in Leipzig. This catalogue does not name the composer. Johann Kirnberger added this copy to the – the library of his employer Princess Anna Amalia of Prussia. Wilhelm Rust’s edition of Schlage doch, gewünschte Stunde, as Cantata No. 53 in Vol. 12.2 of the Bach-Gesellschaft Ausgabe (BGA), published in 1863, was based on the copy. The date of the first performance is unknown. The cantata was performed in the Gewandhaus in Leipzig in 1867 and 1873. Martin Elste’s history of Bach performances notes that between 1904 and 1907 in Germany, the most performed work was the St Matthew Passion (49 times), with second place taken by BWV 53 (20 times). The Bach-Jahrbuch of 1906 lists 20 public performances of Schlage doch, gewünschte Stunde, in various European cities, in the period from late 1904 to early 1907, which makes it, among the cantatas listed for that period, the most often performed; by the 1930s, Actus tragicus (BWV 106) became the most often performed cantata. Albert Schweitzer in 1935 called Schlage doch, gewünschte Stunde " t he best known of the solo cantatas for alto". In 1994 the musicologist Peter Wollny conjectured that the aria BWV 53 might have been part of the funeral music by Hoffmann, commissioned for the memorial service at Halle on 1 May 1713, to mark the death of Frederick I of Prussia in February 1713. In the 1998 revision of the BWV, by Dürr and , Schlage doch, gewünschte Stunde was moved to the second Anhang, that is the Anhang of works doubtfully attributed to Bach, naming Hoffmann as its possible composer. Many modern full scores or vocal scores, such as the editions of Breitkopf & Härtel and Eulenburg, name the composer of “Schlage doch, gewünschte Stunde” as “M. Hoffmann” or “Melchior Hoffmann”.

Schleicht, spielende Wellen, BWV 206

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and text#

Bach composed this cantata for the birthday of Augustus III of Poland and Elector of Saxony. It was first performed in Leipzig, Saxony, on 7 October 1736. A second performance took place on 3 August 1740. The librettist of the work is unknown, but was likely Picander.

Scoring and structure#

The cantata features four solo vocal parts, representing rivers: (soprano), (alto), (tenor), and (bass). The cantata is also scored for four-part choir, three flutes, two oboes, two oboes d’amore, three trumpets, timpani, 1st and 2nd violins, violas, and basso continuo. It has eleven movements: #Chorus: #Recitative (bass): #Aria (bass): #Recitative (tenor): #Aria (tenor): #Recitative (alto): #Aria (alto): #Recitative (soprano): #Aria (soprano): #Recitative (SATB): #Chorus:

Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele, BWV 180

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and words#

Bach wrote the cantata in his second year in Leipzig as part of his chorale cantata cycle for the 20th Sunday after Trinity. The prescribed readings for the Sunday were from the Epistle to the Ephesians—“walk circumspectly, … filled with the Spirit”—(), and from the Gospel of Matthew, the Parable of the Great Banquet (). The German term used in the Luther’s Bible translation is , literally “wedding meal”. The cantata text is based on the Eucharistic hymn in nine stanzas "" (1649), with a text by Johann Franck and a melody by Johann Crüger, thus connecting the “great banquet” from the gospel to the (Eucharist). The hymn is sung during a service in preparation for the holy communion, and imagines a bride getting ready for her wedding. An unknown author kept the text of the first, middle and last stanzas (1, 4, and 9), and paraphrased the other stanzas to arias and recitatives: stanzas 2 and 7 to arias; stanzas 3, 5–6 and 8 to recitatives. He stayed close to the original and did not seek closer relation to the readings than given by the general context. Bach composed the cantata subsequent to his chorale prelude of the same name, BWV 654, part of his Great Eighteen Chorale Preludes. He led the first performance of the cantata on 22 October 1724. He led the Thomanerchor in the first performance on 22 October 1724.

Schübler Chorales

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Context and content#

The hymn tunes of the Lutheran hymns on which the chorale settings included in the Schübler Chorales are based can be identified by their Zahn number. The fourth chorale of the set is however based on a German variant of the Ninth psalm tone. Five of the Schübler Chorales are transcriptions of movements of extant church cantatas by Bach. These cantatas belong to the chorale cantata or second year cycle. Bach began to present the cantatas of this cycle from the first Sunday after Trinity 11 June 1724, which was the start of his second year in Leipzig. He continued to present 40 new chorale cantatas until Easter of the next year, 1 April 1725, from which day the chorale cantata cycle and the second year cycle no longer coincide: for the remainder of his second year in Leipzig his newly composed church cantatas were no longer in the chorale cantata format, while on the other hand he added chorale cantatas to the cycle which were composed outside the period of his second year in Leipzig. Listed according to the sequence of the liturgical year: * BWV 6 is a cantata for Easter Monday: it was first presented in Bach’s second year in Leipzig, on 2 April 1725, shortly after Bach had discontinued chorale cantatas in that year. Its third movement is the model for BWV 649. * BWV 10 is a cantata for Visitation: this chorale cantata was presented during Bach’s second year in Leipzig, on the Feast of the Visitation, 2 July 1724. Its fifth movement is the model for BWV 648. * BWV 93 is a cantata for the fifth Sunday after Trinity: first presented one week after BWV 10, on 9 July 1724, it also belongs to both the chorale cantata cycle and the second year cycle. Its fourth movement is the model for BWV 647. * BWV 137 is a cantata for the twelfth Sunday after Trinity: first performed on 19 August 1725 it is a later addition to the chorale cantata cycle. Its second movement is the model for BWV 650. * BWV 140 is a cantata for the 27th Sunday after Trinity (or: the last Sunday before Advent): first performed on 25 November 1731 it is a later addition to the chorale cantata cycle. Its fourth movement is the model for BWV 645. For BWV 646 there is no extant model from which the chorale prelude may have transcribed. Apart from some original manuscripts of the preceding cantata models there are no extant manuscripts of the Schübler Chorales older than their 1747–1748 printed version: Bach’s only extant autograph regarding the organ versions consists of the corrections and improvements he wrote, before August 1748, in his copy of the first edition. All six Schübler Chorales are in the chorale fantasia format: this means that one of the melody lines in the setting is the relatively unadorned chorale tune, which is called cantus firmus. The two central preludes of the set (BWV 647 and 648) are four-part settings, while the others are three-part settings (trios).

Schweigt stille, plaudert nicht, BWV 211

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and text#

Bach regularly directed a musical ensemble based at Zimmermann’s coffee house called a collegium musicum, founded by Georg Philipp Telemann in 1702. The libretto suggests that some people in eighteenth-century Germany viewed coffee drinking as a bad habit. However, the work is likely to have been first performed at the coffee house in Leipzig. The cantata’s libretto (written by Christian Friedrich Henrici, known as Picander), features lines like “If I couldn’t, three times a day, be allowed to drink my little cup of coffee, in my anguish I will turn into a shriveled-up roast goat”. Bach wrote no operas: the cantata was written for concert performance, but is frequently performed today fully staged with costumes.

Schwingt freudig euch empor, BWV 36

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and words#

Bach composed the cantata in 1731 in Leipzig, for the First Sunday of Advent, the beginning of the Lutheran church year. In Leipzig this was the only Sunday in Advent when a cantata was performed, whereas tempus clausum (quiet time) was observed on the other three Sundays. The prescribed readings for the Sunday were from the Epistle to the Romans, “night is advanced, day will come” (), and from the Gospel of Matthew, the Entry into Jerusalem (). Bach based parts of the music on a homage cantata of the same name, , which he had composed for the birthday of a Leipzig University teacher and first performed in spring 1725. The text was probably written by Picander, who modified it to a congratulatory cantata for Countess Charlotte Friederike Wilhelmine of Anhalt-Köthen, , first performed on 30 November 1726. Another version was a congratulatory cantata for a member of the Rivinius family from Leipzig, , probably in 1735. Bach transformed the secular music to a cantata for the first Sunday in Advent, first by combining four movements and simply adding a chorale, the final stanza of “”. The librettist of this adaptation, who stayed close to the secular cantata without reference to the readings, is unknown. Klaus Hofmann notes that the jubilant opening matches the Gospel of the entry into Jerusalem “with the people’s jubilant shouts of Hosanna”. The date of the adaptation is not certain, because the version is extant only in a copy by Bach’s student Christoph Nichelmann. Finally in 1731, Bach reworked the cantata considerably and wrote a new score. He interpolated the arias not with recitatives, but with three stanzas from Luther’s hymn for Advent, “”. This main hymn for the first Sunday in Advent had already opened his cantata for the same occasion in 1714, , and he had used it as the base for his chorale cantata , in 1724. The hymn stanzas “serve to anchor the cantata to some extent in the Advent story, and to give it liturgical purpose and a clear focus”. John Eliot Gardiner terms it “structurally unusual”. Bach divided the cantata in two parts to be performed before and after the sermon, closing part I with a stanza from Nicolai’s hymn. For context, he replaced stanza 7, which had closed the whole cantata, by stanza 6, and closed part II by the final stanza of Luther’s hymn. Bach first performed the cantata on 2 December 1731, one week after .

Schwingt freudig euch empor, BWV 36c

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and text#

Bach wrote several works for celebrations of the Leipzig University, Festmusiken zu Leipziger Universitätsfeiern. This cantata was originally probably composed as a homage to one of the composer’s academic colleagues, but it is not known which. ** () * Sacred cantata , in two versions: ** BWV 36.4 () ** BWV 36.5 (2 December 1731) The libretto is likely by Christian Friedrich Henrici (Picander), who published the version of the text in 1727, as a cantata for the birthday of the duchess of Anhalt-Köthen, which fell on 30 November. The duchess’s birthday cantata was set by Bach (in 1726 or earlier), but the music is lost.

Sehet, welch eine Liebe hat uns der Vater erzeiget, BWV 64

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and text#

Bach wrote the cantata in his first year as Thomaskantor in Leipzig, as part of his first cantata cycle, for the Third Day of Christmas. The prescribed readings for the day are from the Epistle to the Hebrews, Christ is higher than the angels, () and the prologue of the Gospel of John, also called Hymn to the Word (). The unknown poet referred only in a general way to the readings and stressed the aspect that being loved by God in the way which Christmas shows, the believer does not have to be concerned about the “world” any more. Three chorales are included in the text, rarely found in Bach’s cantatas, but also in , Bach’s first cantata composed for Christmas in Leipzig and performed the day before, and in , written for 2 January 1724, only a few days later. Possibly these works were written by the same author. The first movement is based on . The only Christmas chorale is verse 7 of Luther’s "" as movement 2. Movement 4 is the first verse of Balthasar Kindermann’s “”. The cantata is concluded by “”, verse 5 of Johann Franck’s “”. Bach first performed the cantata on 27 December 1723.

Sehet, wir gehn hinauf gen Jerusalem, BWV 159

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and words#

Bach wrote in Leipzig for Estomihi (Quinquagesima), the last Sunday before Lent. During Lent, Leipzig observed , and no was permitted. In 1723, Bach had performed two cantatas for the occasion, Du wahrer Gott und Davids Sohn, BWV 23, composed earlier in Köthen, and Jesus nahm zu sich die Zwölfe, BWV 22, both as audition pieces to apply for the post of in Leipzig. In 1729 the cantata was the last cantata performance in a Sunday service. The next music for voices and orchestra that year would be his St Matthew Passion on Good Friday. is regarded as part of Bach’s fourth cantata cycle, also called Picander cycle. The prescribed readings for the Sunday were taken from the First Epistle to the Corinthians, “praise of love” (), and from the Gospel of Luke, healing the blind near Jericho (). The gospel reading includes Jesus announcing his suffering in Jerusalem. While Bach’s earlier cantatas for the occasion also reflected the healing, this work is focused on reflecting the Passion. The text was produced by Picander, who also wrote the text for the St Matthew Passion. He published it in his collection Cantaten auf die Sonn- und Fest-Tage (Cantatas for the Sundays and feast days) of 1728. The poet focused on the announcement of suffering, which is regarded as tremendous (movement 1), as an example to follow (2), as a reason to say farewell to earthly pleasures (3), finally as a reason to give thanks (4, 5). In movement 2 the poet juxtaposed his recitative by stanza 6 of Paul Gerhardt’s “”, a hymn that appears in the St Matthew Passion in this and four other stanzas. The beginning of movement 4, "" (“It is accomplished”, ), appears literally in the Gospel of John as one of the Sayings of Jesus on the cross, and is announced in the Sunday’s gospel reading: “… all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of man shall be accomplished” (). Bach’s St John Passion contains an alto aria beginning with this line, as a summary immediately after the death of Jesus. The closing chorale of the cantata is the last of 33 stanzas of Paul Stockmann’s "" (1633). Bach probably first performed the cantata on 27 February 1729, or possibly earlier.

Sei gegrüßet, Jesu gütig, BWV 768

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The work consists of a chorale and eleven short variations written on it. This is one of Bach’s earlier works, dating from around 1705, when the young composer was influenced by the style of the variations of Georg Böhm, organist of St. John’s Church in Lüneburg, where Bach was a student. Dieterich Buxtehude is another probable source of inspiration. Of Bach’s chorale partitas for organ, this is the longest. Bach composed the initial chorale by taking the old traditional melody of “Sei gegrüßet, Jesu gütig”, then presented a series of variations according to different styles. Five of the eleven variations require an organ with pedals. The melody of the original hymn is usually present in the soprano part. Each variation is developed based on a rhythmic motif or theme. Greater descriptions of the widely varying styles of these variations are written by Philipp Spitta Both commentators posit that some of the variations were written at a later date, based on the greater adherence to Böhm’s style in the earlier variations and the increased compositional freedom exhibited in the later ones. Peter Williams provides a more detailed musicological analysis of each variation, and argues that the text of the chorale “O Jesu, du edle Gabe,” a Communion hymn, corresponds with Bach’s music more closely than the text of “Sei gegrüßet, Jesu gütig.”

Sei Lob und Ehr dem höchsten Gut, BWV 117

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and text#

Bach composed the chorale cantata in Leipzig between 1728 and 1731 for no specific occasion, based on the hymn by Johann Jakob Schütz. Musicologist Julian Mincham suggests two possibilities: it may have been intended as a “general-purpose” cantata, able to be used for almost any occasion with only minimal changes; or it may have been written for a ceremony of some kind, likely a wedding.

Scoring and structure#

The work is scored for three vocal soloists (alto, tenor, and bass), a four-part choir, two flutes, two oboes, two oboes d’amore, two violins, viola, and basso continuo. Despite being only twenty minutes long, the cantata includes nine movements. #Chorale: #Recitative (bass): #Aria (tenor): #Chorale: #Recitative (alto): #Aria (bass): #Aria (alto): #Recitative (tenor): #Chorale:

Selig ist der Mann, BWV 57

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and text#

Bach wrote the cantata in his third year in Leipzig for the Second Day of Christmas. That year, as every other year in Leipzig, the day was the feast of the martyr Saint Stephanus (Stephen). The prescribed readings for the day are from the Acts, the Martyrdom of Stephen (, ), and from the Gospel of Matthew, Jerusalem killing her prophets (). The cantata text was written by Georg Christian Lehms, who drew on all the readings and connected them to more biblical allusions. The first line is taken from , the crown mentioned is in Greek “stephanos”. Lehms set the development as a dialogue of “Jesus” and the Soul (“Anima”). He intended to use as a closing chorale a verse from Johann Heermann’s “”, but Bach instead chose the 6th verse of Ahasverus Fritsch’s “”, called (Talk of the soul with Christ), in order to continue the dialogue. Bach first performed the cantata on 26 December 1725.

Sheep may safely graze

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Instrumentation#

Bach had a Baroque instrumental ensemble at his disposal including two horns, an instrument associated with the hunt. For this number (movement 9 of the complete work), the singer is not accompanied by the full ensemble used elsewhere in the cantata, but by two recorders and continuo. The use of flute-like instruments is typical of pastoral music. Since the revival of Bach’s music in the 19th century, “Sheep may safely graze” has been arranged for other instruments.

Sie werden aus Saba alle kommen, BWV 65

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and words#

Bach wrote the cantata in 1724, in his first year as Thomaskantor (director of church music) in Leipzig, to conclude his first Christmas season on the Feast of Epiphany. For the celebrations on three days of Christmas, New Year’s Day and the following Sunday, he had performed five cantatas, four of them new compositions, the Magnificat and a new Sanctus in D major: * : Sanctus in D major, BWV 238 : Magnificat in E-flat major, BWV 243a * * * * . The prescribed readings for the feast day were taken from the Book of Isaiah, the heathen will convert (), and from the Gospel of Matthew, the Wise Men from the East bringing gifts of gold, myrrh and frankincense to the newborn Jesus (). The unknown poet of the cantata text may be the same as for BWV 40 and BWV 64 for the Second and Third Day of Christmas, a person “theologically competent and poetically skilfull (sic)”, as the Bach scholar Klaus Hofmann writes. The librettist begins with the final verse of the epistle reading, Isaiah’s prophecy “all they from Sheba shall come: they shall bring gold and incense”. The poet juxtaposes the prediction by a chorale, stanza 4 of the old anonymous Christmas carol "" ("", “A babe is born in Bethlehem”, 1543), which describes the arrival of the "" (Kings from Sheba), related to the epistle. The first recitative proclaims that the gospel is the fulfillment of the prophecy and concludes that it is the Christian’s duty to bring his heart as a gift to Jesus. This idea is the theme of the following aria. The second recitative equates the gifts of the contemporary Christian to those of the kings: Faith to the gold, Prayer to the incense, and Patience to the myrrh. The last aria expresses that the devoted Christian offers his heart as a present. The cantata ends with a chorale. The text is not extant, but it is assumed to be stanza 10 of Paul Gerhardt’s hymn “”. Bach first performed the cantata for Epiphany on 6 January 1724. In his Christmas Oratorio of 1734, Bach dedicated Part VI, , to the topic and the occasion and first performed it on 6 January 1735.

Sie werden euch in den Bann tun, BWV 183

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and words#

Bach wrote the cantata in his second year in Leipzig for the Sunday Exaudi, the Sunday after Ascension. The prescribed readings for the feast day were from the First Epistle of Peter, “serve each other” (), and from the second Farewell Discourse in the Gospel of John, the promise of the Paraclete, the “Spirit of Truth”, and the announcement of prosecution (). Some of the cantatas composed by Bach in his second year were chorale cantatas, a format he chose for services between the first Sunday after Trinity and Palm Sunday. For Easter he had returned to cantatas on more varied texts. Nine of the cantatas for the period between Easter and Pentecost are based on texts of Christiana Mariana von Ziegler, including this cantata. Bach later assigned it to his third annual cycle. Ziegler begins the cantata with the same quotation from the Gospel as an unknown poet one year earlier in , the prediction of persecution of Christians. “They will put you under banishment, but the time will come, when, whoever kills you will think that he does God a service by it” (). She continues stressing the lack of fear possible for a follower who relies on "" (the protective arm of Jesus). In movements 3 and 4 she refers to the beginning of the Gospel, the spirit who will assist. The closing chorale is the fifth stanza of Paul Gerhardt’s “”. Bach first performed the cantata on 13 May 1725.

Sie werden euch in den Bann tun, BWV 44

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and words#

Bach wrote the cantata in his first year in Leipzig for the Sunday Exaudi, the Sunday after Ascension. The prescribed readings for the Sunday were from the First Epistle of Peter, “serve each other” (), and from the second Farewell Discourse in the Gospel of John, the promise of the Paraclete, the “Spirit of Truth”, and the announcement of persecution (). The unknown poet began with a quotation from the Gospel. One year later, poet Christiana Mariana von Ziegler would begin her cantata text for the same occasion, , with the same quotation, but other than that, the two works have little in common. The poet reflected the persecution of the Christians, confirmed by a chorale as movement 4, the first stanza of Martin Moller’s “”. In movement 5 the poet gave a reason, the Antichrist even thinking to work for God by fighting the Christians and their teaching. In movement 6, the suffering ones are promised God’s help. The closing chorale is the final stanza of Paul Fleming’s “”. Bach first performed the cantata on 21 May 1724. It is the last original cantata composition of his first annual cycle, followed by reworkings of older music until the beginning of the second annual cycle of chorale cantatas on the first Sunday after Trinity. A performance Wilhelm Friedemann Bach in Halle after 1750 is documented by revisions of the original parts.

Siehe zu, daß deine Gottesfurcht nicht Heuchelei sei, BWV 179

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and words#

Bach composed the cantata in his first year in Leipzig, which he had started after Trinity of 1723, for the Eleventh Sunday after Trinity. The prescribed readings for the Sunday were from the First Epistle to the Corinthians, on the gospel of Christ and Paul’s duty as an apostle (), and from the Gospel of Luke, the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector (). The unknown poet stayed close to the gospel and alluded to several Bible passages. The cantata is opened by a line from . the closing chorale is the first stanza of Christoph Tietze’s hymn “Ich armer Mensch, ich armer Sünder” (1663). Bach first performed the cantata on 8 August 1723. Alfred Dürr assumes that Mein Herze schwimmt im Blut, BWV 199, composed for the same occasion in Weimar, was also performed at the service.

Siehe, ich will viel Fischer aussenden, BWV 88

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and words#

Bach composed the cantata in Leipzig for the Fifth Sunday after Trinity. The prescribed readings for the Sunday were from the First Epistle of Peter, “Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts”, and from the Gospel of Luke, , Peter’s great catch of fish. The text of this cantata and six others is similar in structure and content to cantatas texts set by Johann Ludwig Bach, his second cousin. The theme is derived from the gospel. A related verse of Jeremiah () opens the cantata. The prophecy referred originally to the return from the captivity in Babylon. The central movement, opening the second part to be performed after the sermon, is the quotation of verse 10 from the gospel. The cantata is closed by the final stanza of Georg Neumark’s hymn "" (1641). This chorale had served as the base for Bach’s chorale cantata for the same occasion in 1724, , part of his second annual cycle. Bach led the first performance of the cantata on 21 July 1726.

Sinfonia in D major, BWV 1045

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

External links#

Sinfonia in D major, BWV 1045: performance by the Netherlands Bach Society (video and background information) * *

Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied, BWV 190

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and words#

Bach wrote the cantata in 1723, his first year as Thomaskantor in Leipzig, for New Year’s Day, which is also the Feast of the Circumcision of Christ. The prescribed readings for the feast day were from the Epistle to the Galatians, by faith we inherit (), and from the Gospel of Luke, the circumcision and naming of Jesus eight days after his birth (). The unknown poet, possibly Picander, refers only in a general way to the readings: he mentions the naming at the end of movement 4, "" (name of Jesus), and he starts every line in the following aria with “Jesus”. Otherwise the text stresses praise and thanks for the gifts of the past and prayer for further blessings. The poet compiled for the opening chorus a verse from Psalm 149 (), three verses from Psalm 150 (), and in between the first two lines of Martin Luther’s "" (German Te Deum) "" (Lord God, Thee we praise). The words from the “Te Deum” appear again in the second movement, interspersed by recitative. The closing chorale is the second stanza of Johannes Hermann’s "" (1591). Bach first performed the cantata on 1 January 1724. He performed it again in the second half of the 1730s. Probably in Bach’s revision process, parts of the original music got lost: for the first two movements only the vocal parts and the violin parts survived. Reconstruction of the missing parts was attempted by Bernhard Todt (1904), Walther Reinhart (1948), Olivier Alain (1971), Diethard Hellmann (1995), Ton Koopman and Levente Gyöngyösi, Masaaki Suzuki and Masato Suzuki. In his Christmas Oratorio of 1734, Bach dedicated the complete Part IV for New Year’s Day to the naming of Jesus, told in the one verse from the Gospel of Luke, first performed on 1 January 1735.

Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied, BWV 190a

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and text#

Bach adapted this cantata from , for the 200th anniversary of the Augsburg Confession. It uses a text by Picander, published in 1732 in part 3, in Leipzig. The first movement adapts words from Psalms 149 and 150. The second movement is based on the beginning of Martin Luther’s German Te Deum, “”. The closing chorale was the third stanza of Luther’s "" (1523). The cantata’s music is lost. Diethard Hellmann wrote a reconstruction in 1972.

Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied, BWV 225

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Publication#

The motet was included in the first edition of Bach motets, printed by Breitkopf & Härtel in two volumes in 1802/1803. The editor of both volumes is believed to have been Johann Gottfried Schicht, Thomaskantor from 1810.

External links#

Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied, BWV 225: performance by the Netherlands Bach Society (video and background information)
Information on the work on www.bach-cantatas.com
English and German texts at Emmanuel Music

Six Little Preludes (Bach)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Little Prelude in C major, BWV 933#

The C major prelude consists of two brief sections, repeated as a pair, followed by a variation on each section, again repeated as a pair. The first segment demands complete independence of the right and left hands, with the left hand providing a busy accompaniment. The bass material becomes more rudimentary in the second segment, as the treble adopts f of this prelude makes minimal changes to the basic material, mainly brightening it by lifting the slightly altered melody into a higher register.

Six Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord, BWV 1014–1019

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origins and compositional history#

Bach’s sonatas for violin and obbligato harpsichord were composed in trio sonata form, i.e. three independent parts consisting of two equally matched upper voices above a bass line. Instead of playing the role of a continuo instrument, filling in the harmonies of a figured bass, the harpsichord took one of the upper melodic lines on equal terms with the violin, whilst also providing the bass line (which could be reinforced if desired by the addition of a viola da gamba). In the totality of Bach’s musical output, the instrumental sonatas written in trio sonata form are small in number. Apart from the BWV 1014–1019, there are the six organ sonatas, BWV 525–530, the three sonatas for viola da gamba and harpsichord, BWV 1027–1029, and the three sonatas for flute and harpsichord, BWV 1030, BWV 1031 and BWV 1032. In each case the trio sonata texture derives from the compositional form and not the particular combination of instruments, which was partly a function of the musicians at Bach’s disposal. This is well illustrated by the first movement of the organ sonata BWV 528 which originated as the sinfonia starting the second part of the cantata, BWV 76, with oboe d’amore and viola da gamba as solo instruments; and likewise by the trio sonata for two flutes and continuo BWV 1039 and its alternative version for viola da gamba and obbligato harpsichord, BWV 1027. Although it had been believed for some time—and advanced as a theory by —that the sonatas BWV 1014–1019 must have originated in lost trio sonatas for two instruments and continuo, no prior versions have been discovered and it is accepted that only a few movements could have such an origin. The first known source from 1725, in the handwriting of Bach’s nephew Johann Heinrich Bach, explicitly specifies an obbligato harpsichord; and, despite the fact that a later version in the hand of Bach’s pupil Johann Friedrich Agricola has a marginal “Violin I” at the start of BWV 1014, the scoring of the upper part in the keyboard, especially in the adagio movements BWV 1016/i, BWV 1017/iii and BWV 1018/iii, uses figures that are idiomatic to a keyboard instrument but unsuited to other instruments. Although this compositional style became widespread in the late eighteenth century, in Bach’s day it was unusual and innovative. Although all the sonatas are written in trio sonata form, each has its own distinct character—the third is an example of the Sonate auf Concertenart, a sonata written in the style of a concerto. Throughout his life Bach returned to the sonatas to refine and perfect the score, particularly in the last sonata, which survives in three different versions. When Wolfgang Schmieder created the chronology for the BWV catalogue of Bach’s works in the 1950s, the assumption was that Bach’s musical output matched his responsibilities in each of the three distinct phases in his career: the period 1700–1717 when he was organist at Lüneburg, Arnstadt, Mühlhausen and Weimar; the period 1717–1723 when he was Capellmeister at Cöthen; and the period from 1723 onwards when he served as Thomaskantor in Leipzig. Accordingly, the chamber music works by Bach were automatically assigned to the Cöthen period. Later generations of Bach scholars have recognized that Bach’s involvement with chamber and orchestral music continued in Leipzig, especially through the Collegium Musicum; and accordingly Schmieder’s rigid chronology is no longer generally accepted. Nevertheless, even though there is no direct confirmation for the dating of BWV 1014–1019, Bach scholars agree that the circumstances surrounding the 1725 source probably point to the first versions of these sonatas being composed between 1720 and 1723 during Bach’s last years in Cöthen. In the 1958 Neue Bach-Ausgabe edition, the editor and musicologist Rudolf Gerber was unaware that the 1725 manuscript had been largely copied by Bach’s nephew, who was only a pupil at the Thomasschule at the time. In addition two of the three last movements in the sixth sonata copied by Bach himself were borrowed from the sixth keyboard partita BWV 830, movements also included in the 1725 Notenbüchlein for Bach’s wife Anna Magdalena Bach. This suggests that the initial collection of sonatas, assembled for an unknown purpose, was probably copied from pre-existing compositions and hastily completed. This hypothesis is not only compatible with Bach’s heavy compositional duties as Thomaskantor at the start of his period in Leipzig; but also agrees with the dating of the sonatas to Cöthen by Bach’s biographer Johann Nikolaus Forkel: a letter to him in 1774 from Bach’s son Carl Philipp Emanuel describes the sonatas as being 50 years old. The history of the sixth sonata BWV 1019 is distinct from that of the five others. The three different versions of the sonata and its successive comprehensive modifications in Leipzig indicate that its role in the collection evolved only gradually. The two first movements, a large scale concerto allegro and a short largo, remained largely unaltered throughout these revisions and were copied by Bach’s nephew Johann Heinrich into the earliest surviving manuscript from 1725. The originals, assumed to date from Cöthen, are lost; but it is probable that these were the first two movements of a three-movement Sonate auf Concertenart. In the 1725 manuscript the remaining movements were entered by Bach himself. The sonata took the following form: The solo movements provide a contrast with the other movements, which are duos for violin and obbligato harpsichord; moreover as dance movements they add variety and lightness to the set, making it more like a dance suite. The harpsichord solo was later published in Bach’s Clavier-Übung I as the Corrente in BWV 830, the sixth of the keyboard partitas; before that it had already been entered into Anna Magdalena’s Notebook. The violin solo, with the harpsichord providing a simple figured bass accompaniment, was an early version of the Tempo di Gavotta from the same partita. Only the harpsichord part survives, but the violin solo for the fifth movement has been reconstructed without difficulty from the score of BWV 830; the missing violin part for the short Adagio has been recovered from the second version of the sonata. After the publication of Clavier-Übung I, probably in the late 1720s, Bach revised the sixth sonata by excising the two published movements from BWV 830. He replaced the harpsichord solo by a lengthy Cantabile for violin and obbligato harpsichord: The third movement is considered to be an arrangement of an aria from a lost secular cantata, probably dating from Bach’s period in Cöthen. There is no longer any indication that the opening Vivace should be repeated in performance; the lack of a fast finale returning to the original key has been taken as an indication of the unfinished or intermediate status of this version. The sonata attained its final form some time between 1729 and 1741 and survives in a copy made by Bach’s pupil Johann Friedrich Agricola. Now with five movements and matching more closely the earlier five sonatas, it retained the first two movements (with some minor modifications, including “Vivace” changed to “Allegro”) but had three newly composed movements after that: a dance-like harpsichord solo in E minor in binary form; an Adagio in B minor, modulating to D major; and a gigue-like final Allegro in G major.

Sonata in G major for two flutes and basso continuo, BWV 1039

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Historical context#

This sonata, scored for two transverse flutes and continuo, is one of the few trio sonatas that can genuinely be attributed to Bach. Although traditionally thought to have been composed during Bach’s period in Weimar or Cöthen, Bach scholars have revised that dating based on an analysis of the extant manuscripts and on stylistic considerations. According to , the trio sonata was composed between 1736 and 1741 in Leipzig, where, since 1729, Bach had been director of the Collegium Musicum, a chamber music society performing weekly at the Café Zimmermann. The version for viola da gamba and harpsichord, BWV 1027, as well as the other two sonatas for this ensemble, are dated by Laurence Dreyfus, Christoph Wolff and others to the same period.

Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin (Bach)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History of composition#

The surviving autograph manuscript of the sonatas and partitas was made by Bach in 1720 in Köthen, where he was Kapellmeister. As Christoph Wolff comments, the paucity of sources for instrumental compositions prior to Bach’s period in Leipzig makes it difficult to establish a precise chronology; The goal of producing a polyphonic texture governed by the rules of counterpoint also indicates the influence of the first surviving works of this kind for solo violin, Westhoff’s partitas for solo violin composed in 1696. The virtuoso violinist Westhoff served as court musician in Dresden from 1674 to 1697 and in Weimar from 1699 until his death in 1705, so Bach would have known him for two years. The repertoire for solo violin was actively growing at the time: Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber’s celebrated solo passacaglia appeared c.1676; Westhoff’s collections of solo violin music were published in 1682 and 1696; Johann Joseph Vilsmayr’s Artificiosus Concentus pro Camera in 1715, and Johann Georg Pisendel’s solo violin sonata was composed around 1716; and finally, Georg Philipp Telemann published 12 Fantasias for solo violin in 1735.

Sonatas for viola da gamba and harpsichord (Bach)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origins#

Although the dating of Bach’s three sonatas for viola da gamba and cembalo has presented problems for musicologists, because only an autograph score of the first sonata BWV 1027 survives, there is now general consensus that the works were written in Leipzig at some time in the late 1730s and early 1740s. Prior to that commentators had suggested that they dated from an earlier period when Bach was in Köthen or even beforehand: the viola da gamba player Christian Ferdinand Abel was one of the court musicians of Prince Leopold at Cöthen. Bach moved to Leipzig as Thomaskantor in 1723 and in 1729 was appointed director of the Collegium Musicum, a chamber music society that put on weekly concerts at the Café Zimmermann. Other versions of BWV 1027 exist: there is a trio sonata for two transverse flutes and continuo (BWV 1039); as well as a trio sonata for organ in three movements. Russell Stinson has determined that the organ work, with the first two movements transcribed from BWV 1039/i and BWV 1039/ii and the last from BWV 1027/iv, is not by Bach but most probably by Johann Peter Kellner. In the late 1980s four new editions of the sonatas appeared, including the Urtext edition of Laurence Dreyfus for C.F. Peters; in a long accompanying text Dreyfus presented detailed arguments for the works to be dated to Bach’s period in Leipzig. In a subsequent study of Bach’s chamber music, came to the same conclusion and gave provisional dates for many of Bach’s chamber music and concertos in his Leipzig period. The dating of BWV 1027–1028 is explained in detail by in his analysis of Bach’s instrumental works, including his flute sonata in E major (BWV 1035), the triple concerto in A minor for flute, violin and harpsichord (BWV 1044) and the trio sonata for flute, violin and continuo from The Musical Offering (BWV 1079).

St John Passion

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

First performance#

The St John Passion was intended for the vesper service on Good Friday of 1724, shortly after Bach’s 39th birthday. It was originally planned to be held at St. Thomas in Leipzig, but due to a last-minute change by the music council, it was to be first performed at St. Nicholas. Bach quickly agreed to the move, but pointed out that the booklet was already printed, that there was no room available and that the harpsichord needed some repair, all of which, however, could be attended to at little cost; but he requested that a little additional room be provided in the choir loft of St. Nicholas Church, where he planned to place the musicians needed to perform the music. He also asked that the harpsichord be repaired. The council agreed and sent a flyer announcing the new location to all the people around Leipzig. The council made the arrangements requested by Bach regarding the harpsichord and space needed for the choir.

St John Passion structure

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Gospel#

The gospel account by John narrates the story in five “scenes”. The corresponding movement numbers are given from the (NBA). Part I # Arrest (1–5), Kidron Valley () # Denial (6–14), palace of the high priest Kaiphas () Part II # Court hearing with Pontius Pilate (15–26) ( and ) # Crucifixion and death (27–37), Golgotha () # Burial (38–40), burial site () Some musicologists regard movement 24 as the conclusion of scene 3, the aria "" which locates the action from the courthouse to Golgotha, the calvary. Others, including Alfred Dürr, regard the scene as ending with the last comment by Pilate. Bach incorporated two short interpolations from the Gospel of Matthew (in Version I, one from Matthew and one from the Gospel of Mark), after John 18:27, describing the weeping of Peter, and after John 19:30, describing the tearing of the temple curtain (in Version I, this was replaced by ). The narrator is the Evangelist, a tenor. Jesus and all other male characters are sung by a bass (including Peter and Pilate) or tenor (servant); female characters (such as the Maid) are sung by a soprano, while the people who are often summarily called (the Jews), the servants of the High Priest, and the soldiers are sung by a four-part chorus (SATB) in dramatic movements. The “immediate, dramatic quality” of the “kind of musical equivalent of the Passion Play” relies on the setting of the interaction between the historical persons (Jesus, Pilate, Peter, Maid, Servant) and the crowd (“soldiers, priests, and populace”).

St Luke Passion, BWV 246

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

A surviving manuscript of the St Luke Passion from about 1730 is partly in Bach’s hand, though scholars believe that the music is certainly not his own. The music was later thought to have been composed by Johann Melchior Molter, but that was proven false because if Molter composed the music, then the manuscript would date to later than 1730. Presumably Bach performed it, or intended to perform it, in Leipzig. C. P. E. Bach and Agricola may have mistaken it for a work of Bach’s and thus included it in their census. Of course, given his delight in exhaustive cycles, Bach should have composed a St Luke Passion. Apparently J. S. Bach took the anonymous St Luke Passion and arranged it for four voices, chorus, orchestra, and continuo to meet an urgent deadline for Good Friday in 1730.

St Mark Passion (attributed to Keiser)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The passion was probably composed around 1705 by Gottfried Keiser, by his son Reinhard, or by Friedrich Nicolaus Bruhns. The 18th-century scores of the composition don’t always indicate a composer, but the name of Reinhard Keiser or “Kaiser” is found there. The music of this passion is known from Bach’s three versions, from an anonymous manuscript score that originated in or around Hamburg, and from another anonymous manuscript score that is conserved in the county of Hohenstein, Thuringia. No libretto author for the original work is known. Also for the later arrangements text authors are largely unknown, except for the pasticcio parts by Handel based on the Brockes Passion by Barthold Heinrich Brockes.

St Mark Passion, BWV 247

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Unlike Bach’s earlier existing passions (St John Passion and St Matthew Passion), the Markus-Passion is probably a parody—it recycles previous works. The St Mark Passion seems to reuse virtually the whole of the Trauer Ode Laß, Fürstin, laß noch einen Strahl, BWV 198, along with the two arias from Widerstehe doch der Sünde, BWV 54. In addition, two choruses from the St Mark Passion may have been reused in the Christmas Oratorio. This leaves only a couple of missing arias, which are taken from other Bach works when reconstructions are attempted. However, since Bach’s recitative is lost, most reconstructions use the recitatives composed for a Markus-Passion attributed to Reinhard Keiser, a work which Bach himself performed on at least two occasions, which gives a certain authenticity to things, although it could be viewed as somewhat disrespectful to Keiser’s work. However, Keiser’s setting starts slightly later than Bach’s, which requires a small amount of composition on the part of the reconstructor. Bach’s St. Mark Passion was first performed in Leipzig on Good Friday, 23 March 1731. Written under the pseudonym Picander, Christian Friedrich Henrici’s libretto survives in a 1732 poetry collection. The Markus-Passion is a modest setting, adding to Mark chapters 14 and 15 only eight free verse arias and 16 hymn stanzas. The chorales assume greater weight owing to their higher proportional use: 16 of the 46 movements are chorales in the St Mark Passion, whereas only 13 of 68 numbers are chorales in the St Matthew Passion. Five of the Markus-Passion texts appear to match the 1727 Trauer Ode, other likely parodies include BWV 54 and BWV 120a. However, no musical material remains for the Gospel texts or choruses. Further, we have no knowledge of the keys and orchestration which Bach used. While the libretto specifies which chorale melodies were used, Bach’s harmonizations remain uncertain.

St Matthew Passion

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The St Matthew Passion is the second of two Passion settings by Bach that have survived in their entirety, the first being the St John Passion, first performed in 1724.

Versions and contemporaneous performances#

Little is known with certainty about the creation process of the St Matthew Passion. The available information derives from extant early manuscripts, contemporary publications of the libretto, and circumstantial data, for instance in documents archived by the Town Council of Leipzig. The St Matthew Passion was probably first performed on 11 April (Good Friday) 1727 in the St. Thomas Church, and again on 15 April 1729, 30 March 1736, and 23 March 1742. Bach then revised it again between 1743 and 1746.

St Matthew Passion structure

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Numbering of the movements#

Bach did not number the sections of the St Matthew Passion but twentieth-century scholars have done so. The Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis (BWV, Bach Works Catalog) divides the work into 78 numbers (vocal movements), while the Neue Bach-Ausgabe (NBA, New Bach Edition) divides the piece into 68 movements. Both use lettered subsections in some cases. Movement numbers in this article follow the NBA scheme, except for the table with the movements that cross-references both numbering systems.

Steigt freudig in die Luft, BWV 36a

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and text#

Bach composed the cantata while living in Leipzig. He retained a role as court composer to Leopold, Prince of Anhalt-Köthen, for whom he had worked full-time in the period 1717–1723. The cantata was written for the 24th birthday of the prince’s second wife, Princess Charlotte Friederike Amalie of Nassau-Siegen on 30 November 1726, the date of the work’s premiere. The text, divided into nine movements, is by Christian Friedrich Henrici (Picander), who published it in his Ernst-Schertzhaffte und Satyrische Gedichte, Teil I of 1727. The text is adapted from an earlier congratulatory cantata, presumably authored by Picander, for which Bach’s music survives. #Aria: #Recitative: #Aria: #Recitative: #Aria: #Recitative: #Aria: #Recitative: #Aria:

Süßer Trost, mein Jesus kömmt, BWV 151

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and text#

Bach composed this solo cantata in late 1725 in Leipzig, in his third year as Thomaskantor in Leipzig, as part of his third cantata cycle. He wrote it for the church service for the feast day of John the Evangelist, celebrated on the Third Day of Christmas. The prescribed readings for the feast day were from the Epistle to the Hebrews () and the prologue of the Gospel of John, also called Hymn to the Word (). The final movement is a setting of the final stanza of “Lobt Gott, ihr Christen alle gleich”, a Christmas carol with words and melody by Nikolaus Herman published in 1560. The autograph score and parts are now held by the Kunstsammlungen der Veste Coburg in Germany.

Switched-On Bach

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

Around 1967, Wendy Carlos asked Rachel Elkind to listen to her electronic compositions. They included compositions written ten years earlier, as well as some from 1964 co-written with her friend Benjamin Folkman at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center in New York City. One recording was a rendition of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Two-Part Invention in F major for Moog synthesizer, which Carlos described as “charming”. Elkind was impressed with Carlos’ recording of the Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G major and became the album’s producer. Elkind contacted producer and conductor Ettore Stratta of Columbia Records, who “generously spread his enthusiasm throughout the rest of the company” and assisted in the album’s production. Paul Myers of Columbia Masterworks granted Carlos, Folkman, and Elkind artistic freedom.

The Art of Fugue

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Mus. ms. autogr. P 200#

The earliest extant source of the work is an autograph manuscript possibly written from 1740 to 1746, usually referred to by its call number as Mus. ms. autogr. P 200 in the Berlin State Library. Bearing the title Die / Kunst der Fuga / di Sig nore Joh. Seb. Bach, which was written by Bach’s son-in-law Johann Christoph Altnickol, followed by (in eigenhändiger Partitur) written by , the autograph contains twelve untitled fugues and two canons arranged in a different order than in the first printed edition, with the absence of Contrapunctus 4, Fuga a 2 clav (two-keyboard version of Contrapunctus 13), Canon alla decima, and Canon alla duodecima. The autograph manuscript presents the then-untitled Contrapuncti and canons in the following order: Contrapunctus 1 , Contrapunctus 3 , Contrapunctus 2 , Contrapunctus 5 , Contrapunctus 9 , an early version of Contrapunctus 10 , Contrapunctus 6 , Contrapunctus 7 , Canon in Hypodiapason with its two-stave solution Resolutio Canonis (entitled Canon alla Ottava in the first printed edition), Contrapunctus 8 , Contrapunctus 11 , Canon in Hypodiatesseron, al roversio e per augmentationem, perpetuus presented in two staves and then on one, Contrapunctus 12 with the inversus form of the fugue written directly below the rectus form, Contrapunctus 13 with the same rectus–inversus format, and a two-stave Canon al roverscio et per augmentationem—a second version of Canon in Hypodiatesseron.

The Goldberg Variations (ballet)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Choreography#

The ballet starts with the Theme, with two dancers in Baroque costumes. It is followed by the variations that are divided in two parts, with two sets of dancers. The variations consist of solos, duets, trios, quartets, quintets, sextets and group numbers. Author Deborah Jowitt wrote this part is “more playful and experimental” It features dancers in jewel tone practice clothes. Jowitt described Part II as “more formal, classical and mature.” In Part II, the dancers add bits to their costumes, at first shirts for men, and breeches and short skirts for women, and later tutus and jackets. In the final variation, when dancers in both parts of the ballet appear in full period costumes. At the end of the ballet, the couple who danced the Theme reappears in leotards and repeat the Theme. Robbins attempted to avoid all narrative implications outside of the designs. However, Jowitt noted that he nevertheless incorporates qualities he found in the score, such as “pensive”, “playful”, “tentative” and “intimate”. As intended in the score, Robbins included every repeat of the variations, even the ones that concert pianists sometimes skip. As a result, the ballet is about 1.5 hours long.

The Musical Offering

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The collection has its roots in a meeting between Bach and Frederick II on May 7, 1747. The meeting, taking place at the king’s residence in Potsdam, came about because Bach’s son Carl Philipp Emanuel was employed there as court musician. Frederick wanted to show the elder Bach a novelty, the fortepiano, which had been invented 47 years earlier but had not yet gained wide acceptance (Bach did not encounter them until around 1736 ). The king, however, owned several of the experimental instruments being developed by Gottfried Silbermann. During his anticipated visit to Frederick’s palace in Potsdam, Bach, who was well known for his skill at improvising, received from Frederick a long and complex musical theme on which to improvise a three-voice fugue. He did so, but Frederick then challenged him to improvise a six-voice fugue on the same theme. Bach answered that he would need to work the score and send it to the king afterwards. Bach instead chose a different theme and, again, completely extempore, executed a six-voice fugue on it with the same virtuosity as he had done the three-voice fugue, greatly impressing all in attendance. \relative c’ \clef treble \key c \minor \time 2/2 \set Staff.midiInstrument = “harpsichord” c'2 ees % 1 g aes % 2 b, r4 g’ % 3 fis2 f % 4 e ees~ % 5 ees4 d des c % 6 b a8 g c4 f % 7 ees2 d \bar " " % 8 c4 Four months after the meeting, Bach published a set of pieces based on this theme that are now known as The Musical Offering. Bach inscribed the piece “Regis Iussu Cantio Et Reliqua Canonica Arte Resoluta” (the theme given by the king, with additions, resolved in the canonic style), the first letters of which spell out the word ricercar, a well-known genre at the time.

The Wise Virgins

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The music of the ballet was the first to be decided. Some years before, at an evening gathering in Cambridge with Boris Ord and Constant Lambert (musical director of the Sadler’s Wells Ballet), those two musicians played some Bach at the piano. One of the pieces was “Sheep may safely graze” which comes from a secular cantata about hunting, Was mir behagt, ist nur die muntre Jagd, BWV 208. Ashton, wanting to use this music and believing it to be a religious subject, chose the parable of the wise and foolish virgins from Matthew 25. According to Michael Somes, it was a later meeting with Patrick Hadley where Hadley and Lambert played Bach’s music which settled the sequence of musical numbers for the ballet. Walton was chosen by Ashton as the orchestrator in 1940. The movements were selected from Bach’s cantatas and chorale preludes and orchestrated from piano transcriptions. Designer Rex Whistler was chosen for his sympathy with Baroque art, from his studies in Rome. Ashton was also inspired by 18th century sculpture and architecture, and tried to depict with the dancers’ bodies “the swirling, rich, elaborate contortions of the baroque.” The Wise Virgins was first performed on 24 April 1940 by the Vic Wells Company (The Royal Ballet) at Sadler’s Wells Theatre, with Margot Fonteyn (the Bride), Michael Somes (the Bridegroom), Claude Newman (the Father), and Annabel Farjeon (the Mother) in the leading roles. It continued in the company’s repertoire until 1944.

They (song)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Music videos#

Jem released two music videos for “They”. The UK version, directed by Laurent Briet, features Jem stripping herself in a spaceship in the style of Jane Fonda in the opening scene of Barbarella (although she remains covered by strategically placed light based holograms of planetary orbital paths); this is actually a boy dreaming about her as he constructs a model of the same spaceship back on Earth. The US version features Jem walking at a park while being accompanied by a number of children. She then encounters several signs and decides to disobey them. Some intercut scenes show her at a roundabout being spun by children.

Tilge, Höchster, meine Sünden, BWV 1083

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and text#

Tilge, Höchster, meine Sünden is a musical parody of the Stabat Mater which Pergolesi had composed in 1736. This setting was successful from the beginning, performed all over Europe and arranged frequently, for example by Johann Adam Hiller as a Passion cantata in 1774 to a translation of the original text by Klopstock. Bach used a different text, a German paraphrase of the penitential Psalm 51 by an unknown author. The incipit translates as “Cancel, Highest, my sins”. Bach wrote his version in the 1740s, slightly expanding the orchestral material. He named it a (motet) in the header of his manuscript. It is a psalm cantata without assignment to a specific liturgical occasion.

Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 538

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

External links#

Free download of BWV 538 recorded by James Kibbie on the 1736 organ in the church in Stade, Germany
, (audio only) played by French organist Nariné Simonian on an organ constructed by Aloys Mooser (1770–1839) in the church St.-Pierre-aux-Liens church in Bulle, Switzerland.

Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The only extant near-contemporary source for BWV 565 is an undated copy by Johannes Ringk. According to the description provided by the Berlin State Library, where the manuscript is kept, and similar bibliographic descriptions, e.g. in the RISM catalogue, Ringk created his copy between 1740 and 1760. As far as is known, Ringk produced his first copy of a Bach score in 1730 when he was 12. The title page of Ringk’s manuscript writes the title of the work in Italian as Toccata con Fuga, names Johann Sebastian Bach as the composer of the piece, and indicates its tonality as “ex. d. #.”, which is usually seen as the key signature being D minor. However, in Ringk’s manuscript the staves have no symbol at the key (which would later become the standard way to write down a piece in D minor). Most modern score editions of BWV 565 use the D minor key signature, unlike Ringk’s manuscript. Another piece listed as Bach’s was also known as Toccata and Fugue in D minor, which received the “Dorian” nickname, that qualifier being effectively used to distinguish it from BWV 565. Ringk’s manuscript does not use a separate staff for the pedal part, which was common in the 18th century (notes to be played on the pedal were indicated by “p.” being written at the start of the sequence). Printed editions of the BWV 565 organ score invariably write the pedal line on a separate staff. In Ringk’s manuscript the upper staff is written down using the soprano clef (as was common in the time when the manuscript originated), where printed editions use the treble clef. Ringk’s copy abounds in Italian tempo markings, fermatas (a characteristic feature of Ringk’s copies) and staccato dots, all very unusual features for pre-1740 German music. German organ schools are distinguished into north German (e.g. Dieterich Buxtehude) and south German (e.g. Johann Pachelbel). The composition has stylistic characteristics from both schools: the stylus phantasticus, and other north German characteristics are most apparent. However, the numerous recitative stretches are rarely found in the works of northern composers and may have been inspired by Johann Heinrich Buttstett, a pupil of Pachelbel, whose few surviving free works, particularly his Prelude and Capriccio in D minor, exhibit similar features. A passage in the fugue of BWV 565 is an exact copy of a phrase in one of Johann Pachelbel’s D minor fantasias, and the first half of the subject is based on this Pachelbel passage as well. At the time it was however common practice to create fugues on other composers’ themes.

Toccata and Fugue in F major, BWV 540

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

No firm date can be established for the composition, and it has even been conjectured that the 2 parts were composed separately, with the toccata being a potentially more mature piece. Williams however describes that the differing Affekt of the two parts does not pose any problem to the hypothesis that the whole work was composed at the same period. This conception of “complementary movements” was even a favourite of Bach’s, and the dramatic nature of the toccata as contrasted to the counterpoint of the fugue should, as Peter Williams writes, “not be misunderstood as mere discrepancy”. Because of the range of the pedal parts, the toccata may have been written for a performance, around 1713, at the Weißenfels organ, with its pedal going up to F.

Toccata in E minor, BWV 914

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The Toccata#

Keyboard music was originally intended to accompany choral songs such as motets or madrigals in 5 parts, and later polyphonic in three or more parts. The toccata is first mentioned in the publication of a collection of lute music in 1536, Bach wrote the Toccata in E minor alongside six other keyboard toccatas, BWV 910–916, between 1707 and 1710 or 1711, before the age of 30. The Toccata in E minor was likely composed in 1710.

Toccata, Adagio and Fugue in C major, BWV 564

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Toccata#

The work begins with an updated and extended form of the old prelude-type, manual passaggio followed by a pedal solo, and a motivic-contrapuntal section. Bach’s extended passaggio which opens BWV 564 may have been inspired by Buttstett’s preludes; both the rhetorical rests followed by returns to the tonic and the single pedal notes are part of the older tradition as well. The following pedal solo, however, is unique in organ literature: it is the longest known pedal introduction, reaching far beyond the scope of Bach’s models (Buxtehude, Böhm, and others) or his own earlier works (e.g. the pedal solo in BWV 549). The full-voiced section that follows elaborates on motives first introduced in the pedal solo. Various scholars have noted how the construction of this first movement is reminiscent of that of a concerto, if the opening manual and pedal passages are taken as “solos” and the closing contrapuntal section as a “tutti”.

Toccatas for Keyboard (Bach)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The toccatas represent Bach’s earliest keyboard compositions known under a collective title. an important collection of keyboard and organ manuscripts of various composers compiled by Bach’s oldest brother, Johann Christoph Bach between 1707 and 1713. An early version of the BWV 912 (known as the BWV 912a) also exists in another collection compiled by Johann Christoph Bach known as the “Möller manuscript”, from around 1703 to 1707. This indicates that most of these works originated no later than Bach’s early Weimar years, though the early northern-German style indicates possible Arnstadt origin.

Tönet, ihr Pauken! Erschallet, Trompeten! BWV 214

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background and text#

Bach composed in 1733, ten years after he became Thomaskantor in Leipzig, director of music in major churches in the town in the Electorate of Saxony. That year, Augustus succeeded his father as Elector of Saxony. Bach had hopes of being appointed composer to his court which was based in Dresden. He dedicated his Kyrie–Gloria Mass in B minor to the elector, a work which was to become the Kyrie and Gloria of his Mass in B minor. Bach also composed cantatas in honour of the elector’s family, , performed on 5 September 1733, the eleventh birthday of the son of the elector, and another for his wife, Maria Josepha. Bach composed to honour the 34th birthday of Maria Josepha on 8 December. It is also known by the description (Congratulation cantata for the Queen’s birthday), although Maria Josepha was not crowned Queen of Poland until January 1734. The librettist of the text is unknown. The action in the cantata is between four allegorical figures for goddesses from Roman and Greek mythology: Bellona, a Roman goddess of war, Pallas, a Greek goddess of wisdom and warfare, Irene, a Greek goddess of peace, and Fama, a Roman goddess of fame and rumor.

Triple Concerto, BWV 1044

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Bach based the Triple Concerto on two earlier compositions. The outer movements of BWV 1044 are based on a lost model which was also a model for the Prelude and Fugue in A minor for solo harpsichord, BWV 894. However, BWV 894 is listed as the model for the outer movements of BWV 1044. The middle movement of BWV 1044 is based on the middle movement of the Trio Sonata for Organ in D minor, BWV 527, or on an earlier model for the middle movements of the concerto and the organ sonata. Regarding the origin of the models for BWV 1044, BWV 894 was copied by Johann Bernhard Bach the Younger between 1707 and 1715 and by Johann Tobias Krebs from 1710 to 1717. Although their copies of the composition survive, neither is its earliest known version; an earlier reading of BWV 894 is found in copies by Johann Peter Kellner (1725) and Johann Nikolaus Mempell (mid-18th century). In 1970 Hans Eppstein argued that the lost model for BWV 894 may have been a keyboard concerto, but this cannot be demonstrated conclusively.

Tritt auf die Glaubensbahn, BWV 152

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The number assigned to Verjaget, zerstreuet, zerrüttet, ihr Sterne in the BWV catalogue indicates that some twentieth-century scholars thought the work was related to the Easter Oratorio, BWV 249, which was first performed in 1725 at Easter. The case for this linkage is based on Bach’s habit of recycling music for “one-off” occasions in a process called parody. The Easter Oratorio is an example of parody, being based on a lost work, Entfliehet, verschwindet, entweichet, ihr Sorgen, BWV 249a, premiered in February 1725. BWV 249a, like BWV 249b, was a birthday cantata with a text by Picander. It has been possible to reconstruct the music of BWV 249a, matching the score of the Easter Oratorio to Picander’s secular text. Alexander Grychtolik is the author of the first known reconstruction of Verjaget, zerstreuet, zerrüttet, ihr Sterne that was first performed in June 2021 in Stuttgart.

Violin Concerto in A minor (Bach)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Structure and analysis#

The piece has three movements: A typical performance of the concerto takes around 15 minutes.

Publication#

The concerto was published for the first time in 1852. In the 1870s Wilhelm Rust edited it for publication in the first complete edition of Bach’s works.

Instrumentations and transcriptions#

The Keyboard Concerto in G minor, BWV 1058 is an arrangement of this concerto with harpsichord.

External links#

Violin Concerto in A minor: performance by the Netherlands Bach Society (video and background information)
de:Violinkonzerte (Bach)#Violinkonzert a-Moll BWV 1041

Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, BWV 140

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History, hymn and text#

Bach composed the cantata in Leipzig for the 27th Sunday after Trinity. This Sunday occurs only when Easter is early. The prescribed readings for the Sunday were from the First Epistle to the Thessalonians, be prepared for the day of the Lord (), and from the Gospel of Matthew, the parable of the Ten Virgins (). Bach composed this cantata to complete his second annual cycle of cantatas of 1724/25, a cycle planned to be of chorale cantatas. It is based on Philipp Nicolai’s Lutheran hymn in three stanzas, “”, which is based on the Gospel. Published in Nicolai’s (Mirror of Joy of the Life Everlasting) in 1599, its text was introduced: "" (Another call of the voice at midnight and of the wise maidens who meet their celestial Bridegroom / Matthew 25 / D. Philippus Nicolai). The text of the three stanzas appears unchanged and with the melody in the outer movements and the central movements (1, 4 and 7), while an unknown author supplied poetry for the other movements, twice a sequence of recitative and duet. He refers to the love poetry of the Song of Songs, showing Jesus as the bridegroom of the Soul. According to the Bach scholar Christoph Wolff, the text was already available when Bach composed his cycle of chorale cantatas.

Wachet! betet! betet! wachet! BWV 70

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Recordings#

Leipziger Universitätschor / Pauliner Barockensemble, David Timm. J. S. Bach: Festmusiken zu Leipziger Universitätsfeiern. Querstand, 2009.

Zerreißet, zersprenget, zertrümmert die Gruft, BWV 205

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and text#

The cantata was commissioned by the students of Leipzig University for the popular professor August Friedrich Müller and premiered on his name day on 3 August 1725 as a dramma per musica under the title Der zufriedengestellte Aeolus (The contented Aeolus). Its libretto was written by Christian Friedrich Henrici and begins with Pallas Athene (sung by a soprano) setting up a celebration in honour of Müller. However, she fears that Aeolus (bass) could ruin the celebrations with heavy storms in August. With the help of Zephyrus (tenor), the god of mild winds, and Pomona, the goddess of fruitfulness (alto), Pallas manages to appease Aeolus, and those present grant a in unison for the professor. Bach wrote other works for university occasions: the cantata is one of twelve surviving Festmusiken zu Leipziger Universitätsfeiern (Music for festivities of the Leipzig University). He used music from the work for an aria of his cantata Gott, wie dein Name, so ist auch dein Ruhm, BWV 171, composed for New Year’s Day 1729.

Johann Sebastian Bach on Music Theory Print

18th-century prints of Bach's four-part chorales

History#

A Lover's Concerto

History#

A Suite of Dances

Production#

Ach Gott, vom Himmel sieh darein, BWV 2

History and words#

Ach Gott, wie manches Herzeleid, BWV 3

History, hymn and words#

Ach Gott, wie manches Herzeleid, BWV 58

History and text#

Ach Herr, mich armen Sünder, BWV 135

History and words#

Ach wie flüchtig, ach wie nichtig, BWV 26

History and words#

Ach, lieben Christen, seid getrost, BWV 114

History and words#

Ach! ich sehe, itzt, da ich zur Hochzeit gehe, BWV 162

History and words#

Air on the G String

Bach’s original#

Allein zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ, BWV 33

History and words#

Alles mit Gott und nichts ohn' ihn, BWV 1127

Context#

Alles nur nach Gottes Willen, BWV 72

History and text#

Alles, was von Gott geboren, BWV 80a

History and words#

Alphabet (Amanda Lear song)

Song information#

Also hat Gott die Welt geliebt, BWV 68

History and words#

Am Abend aber desselbigen Sabbats, BWV 42

Background#

American Tune

Lyrics#

Reception#

Amore traditore, BWV 203

Background#

Angenehmes Wiederau, BWV 30a

History and text#

Scoring and structure#

Ärgre dich, o Seele, nicht, BWV 186

Weimar#

Auf Christi Himmelfahrt allein, BWV 128

History and words#

Auf, schmetternde Töne der muntern Trompeten, BWV 207a

Composition#

Aus der Tiefen rufe ich, Herr, zu dir, BWV 131

History and words#

Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir, BWV 38

History and text#

Ave Maria (Bach/Gounod)

History#

Bach cantata

Titles of the cantatas#

Bach cantatas (Koopman)

Bach cantatas (Teldec)

Format#

See also#

Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis

Alternative classifications#

Bach: The Goldberg Variations (Glenn Gould album)

Recording process#

Bach's church music in Latin

Settings of (parts of) the Latin mass liturgy#

Mass in B minor, BWV 232, and related earlier compositions#

Bach's early cantatas

Models#

Bach's first cantata cycle

1723#

1724#

Bach's Greatest Hits

Track listing#

Bach's Missa of 1733

History#

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