5/14/1724
37
Wer da gläubet und getauft wird
Ascension Day
5/18/1724
44
Sie werden euch in den Bann tun (I)
Exaudi
5/21/1724
172 *
Erschallet, ihr Lieder
Whitsunday
5/28/1724
59 *
Wer mich liebet, der wird mein Wort halten
Whitsunday
173 ‡
Erhöhtes Fleisch und Blut
2nd day of Pentecost
5/29/1724
184 ‡
Erwünschtes Freudenlicht
3rd day of Pentecost
5/30/1724
194 *
Höchsterwünschtes Freudenfest
Trinity Sunday
6/4/1724
165 *
O heilges Geistund Wasserbad
Trinity Sunday
Despite their heterogeneous nature, the cantatas from the first cycle establish some characteristic features that remain constant for the entire Leipzig cantata repertoire, such as the grand style choral opening (only rarely do solo pieces appear right at the start) and the closing four-part chorales that are simple but expressive. The newly composed choral and instrumental ensembles are larger than those of the Weimar cantatas, as are those of Weimar cantatas re-performed in Leipzig (for example, two recorders are added to BWV 18 and the string complement is enlarged in BWV 182). The instrumentation is more refined yet also more standardized (all the cantatas call for a full four-part string ensemble usually with fixed wind groups, such as three trumpets and timpani or double oboes and recorders). While the overall scoring patterns may seem less capricious and colorful than in the Weimar cantatas (compare Table 6.3), Bach’s unbowed spirit of discovery continued to spur his exploration of new instrumental sonorities and combinations. From the start, he regularly made use of the new lower-register oboe types not available to him before, in particular the oboe d’amore and oboe da caccia, and from the spring of 1724 he began using the transverse flute. Instrumental virtuosity is heightened, and the technical demands on the vocal ensemble and soloists are no less striking.
Bach’s compositional goals remained unchanged: not one to write aria after aria, chorus after chorus, and cantata after cantata, he expanded the cantata genre by broadening the scope of the conventional types of choruses, arias, recitatives, and chorales. The development of his opening cantata choruses—a major focus in the first cantata cycle—is breathtaking. In these expansive movements, the orchestral and choral sections become fully integrated (as opposed to the traditional separation of instrumental introduction and choral complex), and in addition, the entire vocal-instrumental apparatus engages in an intensive, multilayered musical interpretation of the text. In the impressive initial series of newly composed cantatas, BWV 75, 76, 24, 167, 136, 105, and 46, the last two mark a new plateau of artistic accomplishment in the church cantata genre, both in the intricacy of their compositional design and in the vigorous musical expression and striking rhetorical power of their opening choruses: “Herr, gehe nicht ins Gericht mit deinem Knecht” (Lord, enter not into judgment with thy servant), BWV 105/1, for four-part choir and a compact ensemble of horn, 2 oboes, doubling strings, and continuo—an eight-part score extending over 128 measures; and “Schauet doch und sehet, ob irgendein Schmerz sei” (Behold, and see if there be any sorrow), BWV 46/1, for four-part choir and trumpet, 2 recorders, 2 oboi da caccia, strings, and continuo—a thirteen-part score 142 measures long. By comparison, Bach’s largest pre-Leipzig cantata chorus, “Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis,” BWV 21/1, is a nine-part score of 58 measures, with a 20-measure instrumental sinfonia. Bach incorporated the music of BWV 46/1 ten years later into the Gloria section of the B-minor Mass, a clear testimony of the value he attached to the quality of this movement.
The development of interpretive imagery in Bach’s musical language also took a new turn in the first months at Leipzig. For example, an aria like “Wie zittern und wanken / der Sünder Gedanken, / indem sie sich untereinander verklagen” (How tremble and waver / the sinners’ thoughts / in that they accuse one another), of cantata BWV 105, translates the poetic text precisely into a fitting musical idea (see Ex. 8.1). First of all, the rhyme structure of the initial lines of the poem (wanken / Gedanken) determines Bach’s symmetric phrasing of the corresponding vocal declamation. Then, the texture of the setting is fashioned to represent the image of “trembling and wavering” simultaneously by a two-layered score: the motive of wavering thoughts in the floundering and halting melodic gestures that alternate between soprano and oboe in an overlapping manner, and the trembling thoughts in a string accompaniment based on a tremolo figure that proceeds, for purposes of intensification, at two different speeds. The word-generated texture thus created in this passage provides a strong unifying device that helps structure the instrumental ritornello and the movement as a whole, so that other, similarly word-generated musical ideas, like the long melisma on “verklagen” from the next line, can blend in without compromising their identity (Ex. 8.2). Incidentally, the melodic-rhythmic shape of that melisma shows the demanding vocal technique Bach now required of his singers—a tribute to the effectiveness of his vocal lessons over a span of barely two months.
Considering the many adjustments and complications he faced during his first year in office, it is remarkable that Bach, despite some unavoidable (though not haphazard) scrambling for suitable cantata texts, was able to create an annual cycle that established new compositional standards not just for himself but for the cantata genre itself. At the same time, the first Jahrgang in toto possessed neither literary conformity nor overall musical consistency. For his second annual cycle of 1724–25, however, Bach could, with his increased preparation time, turn to the proven concept of a cantata cycle based on a uniform libretto type. While entire cycles had been set by a number of his colleagues, most notably Georg Philipp Telemann (beginning with his Eisenach cycle of 1711) but also Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel in Gotha and Johann Friedrich Fasch in Zerbst, Bach himself had never been in a position to compose a full Jahrgang—his Weimar settings of Salomo Franck’s Evangelisches Andachts-Opffer of 1715 had to pursue a monthly rather than weekly schedule. But on the first Sunday after Trinity 1724, Bach could begin with a most promising cantata project of great homogeneity, whose scope he was able to define himself (Table 8.8). Every cantata was to be based on a seasonal church hymn of the ecclesiastical year; the first and last stanza of the hymn were to serve as the opening and final movements of the cantata, and the internal hymn stanzas were to be variously paraphrased, condensed, and reconfigured to accommodate the metric structure of the madrigal verses for recitatives and arias.66
TABLE 8.8. Second Annual Cycle ( JahrgangII)—Performance Schedule, 1724–25
BWV
Cantata
Liturgical Date
Performance
Chorale cantatas:
20
O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort, II (2 parts)
1st Sunday after Trinity
6/11/1724
2
Ach Gott, vom Himmel sieh darein
2nd Sunday after Trinity
6/18/1724
7
Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam
St. John’s Day
6/24/1724
135
Ach Herr, mich armen Sünder
3rd Sunday after Trinity
6/25/1724
10
Meine Seel erhebt den Herren
Visitation
7/2/1724
93
Wer nur den lieben Gott läßt walten
5th Sunday after Trinity
7/9/1724
107
Was willst du dich betrüben
7th Sunday after Trinity
178
Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns hält
8th Sunday after Trinity
7/30/17
24
94
Was frag ich nach der Welt
9th Sunday after Trinity
8/6/1724
101
Nimm von uns, Herr, du treuer Gott
10th Sunday after Trinity
8/13/1724
113
Herr Jesu Christ, du höchstes Gut
11th Sunday after Trinity
8/20/1724
33
Allein zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ
13th Sunday after
Trinity 9/3/1724
78
Jesu, der du meine Seele
14th Sunday after Trinity
9/10/1724
99
Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan, I
15th Sunday after Trinity
9/17/1724
8
Liebster Gott, wenn werd ich sterben?
16th Sunday after Trinity
9/24/1724
130
Herr Gott, dich loben alle wir
St. Michael’s Day
9/29/1724
114
Ach lieben Christen, seid getrost
17th Sunday after Trinity
10/1/1724
96
Herr Christ, der einge Gottessohn 1
8th Sunday after Trinity
10/8/1724
5
Wo soll ich fliehen hin
19th Sunday after Trinity
10/15/1724
180
Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele
20th Sunday after Trinity
10/22/1724
38
Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir
21st Sunday after Trinity
10/29/1724
115
Mache dich, mein Geist, bereit
22nd Sunday after Trinity
11/5/1724
139
Wohl dem, der sich auf seinen Gott
23rd Sunday after Trinity
11/12/1724
26
Ach wie flüchtig, ach wie nichtig
11/19/1724
116
Du Friedefürst, Herr Jesu Christ
25th Sunday after Trinity
11/26/1724
Start of ecclesiastical year
62
Nun komm der Heiden Heiland, II
1st Sunday in Advent
12/3/1724
91
Gelobet seist du, Jesu
Christ Christmas Day
12/25/1724
121
Christum wir sollen loben schon
2nd day of Christmas
12/26/1724
133
Ich freue mich in dir
3rd day of Christmas
12/27/1724
122
Das neugeborne Kindelein
Sunday after Christmas
12/31/1724
41
Jesu, nun sei gepreiset
New Year’s Day
1/1/1725
123
Liebster Immanuel, Herzog der Frommen
Epiphany
1/6/1725
124
Meinen Jesum laß ich nicht
1st Sunday after Epiphany
1/7/1725
3
Ach Gott, wie manches Herzeleid, I
2nd Sunday after Epiphany
1/14/1725
111
Was mein Gott will, das g’scheh allzeit
3rd Sunday after Epiphany
1/21/1725
92
Ich hab in Gottes Herz und Sinn
Septuagesimae
1/28/1725
125
Mit Fried und Freud ich fahr dahin
Purification
2/2/1725
126
Erhalt uns, Herr, bei deinem Wort
Sexagesimae
2/4/1725
127
Herr Jesu Christ, wahr’ Mensch und Gott
Estomihi
2/11/1725
1
Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern
Annunciation
3/25/1725
[245
St. John Passion (2nd version)
Good Friday (Vespers)
3/30/1725]
(End of chorale cantata cycle; for later additions, see Table 8.9.)
Cantatas on texts of unknown origin:
249 ‡
Kommt, gehet und eilet
Easter Sunday
4/1/1725
4 *
Christ lag in Todes Banden
Easter Sunday
6
Bleib bei uns, denn es will Abend werden
2nd day of Easter
4/2/1725
42
Am Abend aber desselbigen Sabbats
Quasimodogeniti
4/8/1725
85
Ich bin ein guter Hirt
Misericordias Domini
4/15/1725
Cantatas on texts by Mariane von Ziegler:
103
Ihr werdet weinen und heulen
Jubilate
4/22/1725
108
Es ist euch gut, daß ich hingehe
Cantate
4/29/1725
87
Bisher habt ihr nichts gebeten in meinem Namen
Rogate
5/6/1725
128
Auf Christi Himmelfahrt allein
Ascension Day
5/10/1725
183
Sie werden euch in den Bann tun, II
Exaudi
5/13/1725
74
Wer mich liebet, der wird mein Wort halten, II
Whitsunday
5/20/1725
68
Also hat Gott die Welt geliebt
2nd day of Pentecost
5/21/1725
175
Er rufet seinen Schafen mit Namen
3rd day of Pentecost
5/22/1725
176
Es ist ein trotzig und verzagt Ding
Trinity Sunday
5/27/1725
It is hard to imagine that this fascinating, unprecedented project of chorale cantatas was initiated by anyone but Bach himself, and it is most likely that he also had a hand in the choice of hymns if only because of the direct musical implications for the chorale melodies.67 The way in which the project proceeded and eventually ended strongly suggests that Bach’s anonymous librettist was a close collaborator who resided in Leipzig. According to the most likely among various hypotheses, the author of the chorale cantata texts was Andreas Stübel, conrector emeritus of the St. Thomas School, a man of solid theological background (if somewhat nonconformist views) and ample poetic experience.68 Stübel’s death on January 27, 1725, after only three days of illness and after he had received from the printer texts for the booklet of cantatas to be performed from Septuagesimae Sunday (January 28) to Annunciation (March 25) 1725, would explain the abrupt ending of the chorale cantata cycle with “Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern,” BWV 1, on the feast of Annunciation in that year. Not anticipating any such fateful turn, Bach had started the Jahrgang with energy and imagination, and the period from before June 11, 1724, to March 25, 1725, ended up as his most productive cantata year ever: forty cantatas were newly composed in almost as many weeks. On average, that comes to more than one cantata per week, and considering that certain celebrations—St. John’s, St. Michael’s, and the Marian feasts—and the great cluster of holidays at Christmastide required the performance of two or three pieces within a week, Bach’s artistic productivity borders on the incredible.
That Bach went about his grand project systematically becomes immediately evident from the musical planning of the opening movements, especially at the beginning of the chorale cantata Jahrgang (II). Thus, the first cantata of the cycle, BWV 20, is designed in the manner of a French overture—an emphatic and most felicitous prelude to the cantata sequence in its enti
rety. After opening the cycle with a piece of such a modern sort, the second work, BWV 2, stresses the weight of tradition. Its Reformation-period chorale tune (in the Phrygian mode) is treated in a retrospective motet style, a dense five-part setting of imitative polyphony with a cantus firmus in long notes in the alto voice and without the accompaniment of obbligato instruments. In the cantatas for the following weeks, Bach explores further applications of cantus firmus technique, beginning with the opening movements of BWV 7 and 135, in which the chorale melodies appear in the tenor and bass voices, respectively, and of BWV 10, which presents the melody in both soprano and alto. Subsequent cantatas offer a broad array of cantus firmus treatments that develop thematic-motivic elements derived from chorales. Bach allows these musical materials to determine the vocal and instrumental profile of the chorale-based settings, giving each its own character and distinctive format.69 According to the prevailing pattern, the final movements of the chorale cantatas present straightforward four-part chorale harmonizations in Bach’s usual unadorned style. But there are surprises in store. In cantata BWV 38, for example, Bach harmonizes the very first tone of the hymn “Aus tiefer Not” with a daring dissonance, a third-inversion dominant-seventh chord. Moreover, in the same work, as in some other chorale cantatas, he subjects the internal movements to cantus firmus treatment, by either using embellished portions of the chorale melody for the development of an aria theme (BWV 38/3), building a free recitative over a strict cantus firmus bass line (BWV 38/4), or constructing a vocal tercet in fugato manner (BWV 38/5), all movements again based on materials drawn from the cantata’s chorale.
In the spring of 1725, when the delivery of chorale cantata texts came to a sudden halt, Bach had to come up with an emergency solution for the rest of the year. On Easter Sunday, he re-performed an old work, “Christ lag in Todes Banden,” BWV 4, which fit in well despite its traditional outlook; consisting of unaltered chorale stanzas only, it represented the peromnes versus (pure hymn text) type of chorale cantata. Works of mixed origin and structure followed until Bach turned, for the remaining weeks until Trinity Sunday, to nine cantata texts by the young Leipzig poet Christiane Mariane von Ziegler,70 daughter of the former burgomaster Franz Conrad Romanus. However, he chose to make some substantial changes to her words, and although she published her cantata texts later in the form of a complete annual cycle,71 Bach did not return to her sacred poetry.