Johann Sebastian Bach
II LIFE
Early LifeArnstadt: 1703-1707Mühlhausen: 1707-1708Weimar: 1708-1717
Köthen: 1717-1723III WORKS
As a creative artist, Bach cultivated all the major forms of the late Baroque era except for opera (and even here a number of cantatas written for the Leipzig collegium musicum approach the progressive comic operas of Italian composer Giovanni Battista Pergolesi and others). Bach composed over 1,000 works. His output includes pieces for voices and instruments, organ, clavier (harpsichord or clavichord), solo instruments, and instrumental ensemble. His inexhaustible imagination and inventiveness resulted in an immense variety of forms. No two of his fugues follow precisely the same procedure; no two of his cantatas show exactly the same structure. Yet all his works share certain characteristics: convincing formal design, polyphonic texture in which each voice is given its due (see Polyphony), forceful harmonies, appealing melodies, compelling rhythms, and a high level of refinement.
Today Bach’s works are normally identified by numbers beginning with BWV or S, which stand for their listing in the German catalogue of Bach’s music first assembled in 1950 by Wolfgang Schmieder, the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis (“Catalogue of Bach’s Works”).
Cantatas
The church cantatas represent the bulk of Bach’s vocal music. The five annual sets that he assembled in Leipzig contained a total of about 300 works; of these, approximately 200 survive. The cantatas written in Mühlhausen follow the 17th-century pattern championed by Buxtehude and others. The text is drawn from the Bible or from chorales (Lutheran hymns); the music consists of numerous short sections that usually contrast with one another in melody, key, tempo, and forces (the instruments and singers involved). In addition, the meaning of significant words is often highlighted by musical means: the phrase “Christ’s pain,” for instance, might be accompanied by jarring dissonances. Excellent examples of this early style are offered by the funeral cantata Gottes Zeit ist die allerbest Zeit (“God’s time is the very best time”), BWV 106, or the Easter cantata Christ lag in Todesbanden (“Christ lay in the bonds of death”), BWV 4. In the second work the seven stanzas of Martin Luther’s hymn are presented as a series of variations.
In Weimar Bach adopted the new type of cantata introduced by the Lutheran pastor Erdmann Neumeister. In the Neumeister cantata the text consists entirely of poetry in the form of madrigals, paraphrasing stories told in the Bible and hymns, and the music consists of recitative (free, speech-like sections for solo voice) and aria. The result was “a piece out of the opera,” as Neumeister himself expressed it. Bach generally modified this plan by blending recitative and aria with choruses and chorales based on the quotations from the Bible and hymn texts in the traditional manner. With the Weimar cantatas Bach’s compositional style shifts from North German to Italian, though he retained for some time the French practice of using a five-part string band (two violins, two violas, and bass). Himmelskönig, sei willkommen (“King of heaven, welcome”), BWV 182, is an outstanding example of Bach’s Weimar writing.
In Leipzig Bach continued to use the modified Neumeister scheme. The works sometimes fall into two sections, one presented before the minister’s sermon, the other after; they commonly feature a large opening chorus followed by a series of recitative-aria pairs and a closing chorale. For the first annual cycle (1723 and 1724), Bach drew heavily on preexisting works from Weimar. For the second annual cycle (1724 and 1725), he composed a series of “chorale cantatas,” pieces whose texts and music are based on hymns from the Sunday worship service. For the third cycle (1725 to 1727), he experimented with cantatas for solo voice. These works often begin with a lengthy instrumental movement featuring organ solo. The nature of the fourth and fifth cycles is unclear, since most of the pieces are lost.
Particularly well-known of the surviving Leipzig cantatas are Sie werden aus Saba alle kommen ('From Sheba shall they all come'), BWV 65; the Reformation cantata Ein' feste Burg ist unser Gott (“A mighty fortress is our God”), BWV 80; and Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme (“Sleepers awake, a voice is calling”), BWV 140. Excellent illustrations of his solo writing are the exquisitely beautiful Ich habe genug (“I have now enough”), BWV 82, for bass voice, and the virtuosic Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen (“Praise God in every land”), BWV 51, possibly written for a Dresden opera castrato (a castrated male singing in the soprano range).
Bach’s secular cantatas were written for weddings, birthdays, and name days of important persons, for building inaugurations, and for other festive occasions. Less than two dozen examples have survived, most probably because Bach often rearranged the music for another use once the event for which the piece was written had passed. Tönet, ihr Pauken! Erschallet, Trompeten! (“Sound, you drums! Ring out, you trumpets!”), BWV 214, composed for the birthday of Saxon Electress Maria Josepha, was recycled with a new text in the Christmas Oratorio. The “Peasant Cantata,” Mer hahn en neue Oberkeet, (“I've got me a new overlord”), BWV 212, written for a local housewarming party, approaches the style of the contemporary comic opera.
MotetsOratorios and PassionsMagnificat and B-Minor MassOrgan Works
Clavier Works
Works for Solo Instruments
Works for Instrumental Ensemble
Musical Offering, Canonic Variations, Art of Fugue
Method of Composing
IV THE REVIVAL OF BACH’S MUSIC
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