Chorale cantata cycle
Bach's second cantata cycle is commonly used as a synonym for his
Around the start of the
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).
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).
Chorale cantatas composed as part of the second annual cycle (Trinity I 1724 to Palm Sunday 1725)
All extant church cantatas Bach composed for occasions from 11 June 1724 (Trinity I) to 25 March 1725 (Palm Sunday) are chorale cantatas. As such these cantatas have consecutive "K" numbers in the chronological Zwang catalogue for Bach's cantatas published in 1982. In the Zwang catalogue the cantata for Reformation Day Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott, BWV 80, is inserted between the cantatas for Trinity XXI and XII, as a cantata premiered in 1724.[2] More recently, this cantata is, however, no longer considered to have been composed in 1724.[3]
Bach's last newly composed chorale cantata in his second year in Leipzig was Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern, BWV 1, for the feast of the Annunciation on 25 March, which fell on Palm Sunday in 1725. Of the chorale cantatas composed up to Palm Sunday 1725 only K 77, 84, 89, 95, 96 and 109 (BWV 135, 113, 130, 80, 115 and 111) were not included in the chorale cantata cycle that was still extant in Leipzig in 1830.[4]
Sundays after Trinity
In 1724 the period of the
- K 74).
- K 75).
- K 76).
- K 77).
- K 78).
- K 79).
- Trinity VI (no extant Bach cantata for this Sunday in 1724)
- K 80).
- K 81).
- K 82).
- K 83).
- K 84).
- Trinity XII (no extant Bach cantata for this Sunday in 1724)
- Council election (no extant Bach cantata for this Monday in 1724)
- K 85).
- K 86).
- K 87).
- K 88).
- K 89).
- K 90).
- K 91).
- K 92).
- K 93).
- K 94).
- K 95) – there is however uncertainty whether an early version of this cantata was composed for, or even performed at, 31 October 1724.
- K 96).
- K 97).
- K 98).
- K 99).
Advent 1724 to Epiphany 1725
Occasion | Second cantata cycle |
Chorale cantata cycle | |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Advent I | BWV 62 | |
2 | Christmas | BWV 91
| |
3 | Christmas 2 | BWV 121
| |
4 | Christmas 3 | BWV 133
| |
5 | Christmas I | BWV 122
| |
6 | New Year | BWV 41
| |
7 | New Year I | — | ( BWV 58 )
|
8 | Epiphany | BWV 123
| |
9 | Epiphany I | BWV 124
| |
10 | Epiphany II | BWV 3
| |
11 | Epiphany III | BWV 111
| |
12 | Epiphany IV | — | BWV 14
|
13 | Epiphany V | — | |
14 | Epiphany VI | — | |
15 | Septuagesima | BWV 92
| |
16 | Purification | BWV 125
| |
17 | Sexagesima | BWV 126
| |
18 | Estomihi | BWV 127
| |
19 | Annunciation Palm Sunday |
BWV 1
| |
20 | Easter | ( BWV 249 )
|
BWV 4
|
21 | Easter 2 | BWV 6
|
— |
22 | Easter 3 | ( BWV 158 ?)
|
— |
23 | Easter I | BWV 42
|
— |
24 | Easter II | BWV 85
|
BWV 112
|
25 | Easter III | BWV 103
|
— |
26 | Easter IV | BWV 108
|
— |
27 | Easter V | BWV 87
|
— |
28 | Ascension | BWV 128
|
( BWV 128 )
|
29 | Ascension I | BWV 183
|
— |
30 | Pentecost | BWV 74
|
— |
31 | Pentecost 2 | BWV 68
|
( BWV 68 )
|
32 | Pentecost 3 | BWV 175
|
— |
33 | Trinity | BWV 176
|
BWV 129
|
34 | Trinity I | BWV 20
| |
35 | Trinity II | BWV 2
| |
36 | St. John's D. | BWV 7
| |
37 | Trinity III | BWV 135
| |
38 | Trinity IV | — | BWV 177
|
39 | Visitation | BWV 10
| |
40 | Trinity V | BWV 93
| |
41 | Trinity VI | — | BWV 9
|
42 | Trinity VII | BWV 107
| |
43 | Trinity VIII | BWV 178
| |
44 | Trinity IX | BWV 94
| |
45 | Trinity X | BWV 101
| |
46 | Trinity XI | BWV 113
| |
47 | Trinity XII | — | BWV 137
|
48 | Trinity XIII | BWV 33
| |
49 | Trinity XIV | BWV 78
| |
50 | Trinity XV | BWV 99
| |
51 | Trinity XVI | BWV 8
| |
52 | St. Michael's D. | BWV 130
| |
53 | Trinity XVII | BWV 114
| |
54 | Trinity XVIII | BWV 96
| |
55 | Trinity XIX | BWV 5
| |
56 | Trinity XX | BWV 180
| |
57 | Trinity XXI | BWV 38
| |
58 | Reformation D. | ( BWV 80b )
|
BWV 80
|
59 | Trinity XXII | BWV 115
| |
60 | Trinity XXIII | BWV 139
| |
61 | Trinity XXIV | BWV 26
| |
62 | Trinity XXV | BWV 116
| |
63 | Trinity XXVI | — | |
64 | Trinity XXVII | — | BWV 140
|
A new liturgical year starts with the first Sunday of Advent: when a cantata cycle is listed without taking the chronology of composition into account, this is where the list starts.[4] The period from Advent 1724 to Epiphany 1725 included Christmas (25 December), New Year (1 January) and Epiphany (6 January):[3]
- K 100).
In Leipzig concerted music was not allowed for the second to fourth Sunday of Advent (silent time), so the next cantatas in the cycle are those for Christmas:[3]
- K 101).
- K 102).
- K 103).
- K 104).
- K 105).
In 1725 the next occasion was Epiphany, while there was no Sunday between New Year and Epiphany:[3]
- K 106).
Sundays after Epiphany
There were six Sundays between Epiphany and Lent in 1725:[3]
- K 107).
- K 108).
- K 109).
The three last Sundays before
- K 110).
- K 111).
- K 112).
- K 113).
Lent up to Palm Sunday
In Leipzig there was no music during Lent (starting on Ash Wednesday), except for Annunciation (25 March) and the Passion music on Good Friday. In 1725 Annunciation coincided with Palm Sunday:[3]
- K 114).
After this cantata the consecutive set of chorale cantatas breaks off.[3]
Continuation of the second annual cycle
Newly composed cantatas, to make the year cycle complete up to Trinity Sunday, were no longer in the chorale cantata format, possibly because Bach lost his librettist, likely Andreas Stübel, who died on 31 January 1725. [1]
Only three cantatas staged between Good Friday and Trinity of 1725 became associated with the chorale cantata cycle. Bach's second year cycle of cantatas is complete apart from the cantatas for Christmas II, Epiphany IV–VI, and Trinity IV, VI, XII and XXVI–XXVII. For most of the occasions that lack a cantata in the second cycle there are however extant chorale cantatas.
Good Friday and Easter
Bach did not present much newly composed music for the Good Friday and
- For Good Friday 30 March 1725 Bach presented the second version of his St John Passion, the only version of that Passion opening with a chorale fantasia (BWV 244/29, based on Sebald Heyden's "O Mensch, bewein dein Sünde groß").
On Easter, 1 April 1725, Bach had two cantatas performed:
- A revised version of the per omnes versus chorale cantata Christ lag in Todes Banden, the first version of which had likely been composed 18 years earlier.
- Kommt, fliehet und eilet, in 1725 indicated as a cantata, is what in later versions would become Bach's Shepherd Cantata, possibly his first collaboration with Picander. Probably Picander was also the librettist who provided the parody text for the 1725 Easter cantata.
Easter Monday to the second Sunday after Easter
There are three extant Bach cantatas premiered in the period from Easter Monday to the second Sunday after Easter 1725. A shared characteristic of these cantatas is their structure: they start with a passage from the bible (vox Christi in the last of these cantatas), followed by an Aria, then a chorale for one or two voices, Recitative, Aria, and a concluding four-part chorale. The librettist of these cantatas is unknown, but is likely the same for all three.[5]
The first Sunday after Easter,
- Philipp Melanchthon and Nikolaus Selnecker respectively, as text. The closing chorale is a harmonisation of the second stanza of Luther's "Erhalt uns, Herr, bei deinem Wort".
- Easter Tuesday (Easter 3), 3 April 1725: no extant cantata for this occasion in Bach's second cantata cycle. There's a small chance Der Friede sei mit dir, BWV 158 may have been intended for this occasion in 1725: the time of origin of that possibly incomplete cantata is however very uncertain.
- Johann Michael Altenburg). The closing four-part chorale consists of two stanzas added to Martin Luther's "Erhalt uns, Herr, bei deinem Wort": "Verleih uns Frieden gnädiglich", Luther's German version of Da pacem Domine (Give peace, Lord, 1531), and "Gib unsern Fürsten und all'r Obrigkeit" (Give our rulers and all lawgivers), a stanza by Johann Walter paraphrasing 1 Timothy 2:2(1566), concluded with a final amen.
- Misericordias Domini (Easter II), 15 April 1725: Ich bin ein guter Hirt, BWV 85. The chorale for the third movement (soprano soloist) is the first stanza of Cornelius Becker's hymn "Der Herr ist mein getreuer Hirt" (1598), a paraphrase of Psalm 23. The closing chorale is "Ist Gott mein Schutz und treuer Hirt", the fourth stanza of Ernst Christoph Homberg's hymn "Ist Gott mein Schild und Helfersmann"
None of these cantatas were included in the chorale cantata cycle remaining at St. Thomas in 1830: the Easter II cantata retained in that incomplete cycle was a later composition.
Cantatas with a libretto by C. M. von Ziegler: third Sunday after Easter to Trinity 1725
All further second cycle cantatas had
- Jubilate Sunday (Easter III), 22 April 1725: Ihr werdet weinen und heulen, BWV 103
- Cantate Sunday (Easter IV), 29 April 1725: Es ist euch gut, daß ich hingehe, BWV 108
- Rogate Sunday (Easter V), 6 May 1725: Bisher habt ihr nichts gebeten in meinem Namen, BWV 87
- Ascension, 10 May 1725: Auf Christi Himmelfahrt allein, BWV 128
- Exaudi (Ascension I), 13 May 1725: Sie werden euch in den Bann tun, BWV 183
- Pentecost, 20 May 1725: Wer mich liebet, der wird mein Wort halten, BWV 74
- Pentecost Monday (Pentecost 2), 21 May 1725: Also hat Gott die Welt geliebt, BWV 68
- Pentecost Tuesday (Pentecost 3), 22 May 1725: Er rufet seinen Schafen mit Namen, BWV 175
- Trinity, 27 May 1725: Es ist ein trotzig und verzagt Ding, BWV 176
None of the von Ziegler cantatas are chorale cantatas in the strict sense, although the Ascension cantata and the Pentecost Monday cantata open with a chorale fantasia. These two cantatas (BWV 128 and 68) are sometimes associated with the chorale cantata cycle,[3] especially the second one while it was included in the chorale cantata cycle that remained at St. Thomas until the 19th century.[4]
Chorale cantatas composed after Trinity 1725
Bach continued to compose chorale cantatas after his second year in Leipzig, at least up to 1735. However, the chorale cantata cycle that survived the 18th century remains an incomplete cycle, primarily missing a few cantatas for the Easter to Trinity period.
BWV 80
The chorale cantata for Reformation Day (31 October)
- The chorale cantata apparently retained most, if not all, movements of the
- BWV 80b, a.k.a. the first Leipzig version of the Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott chorale cantata for Reformation Day, is the only version of the cantata of which autograph pages survive: these autograph fragments, which are also the only evidence of this version, ended up in three libraries in two continents, and give a very incomplete picture of the version.[8]Its first performance date is the object of scholarly informed guesses (31 October implied for the below dates):
- 1723: according to BWV 163).[10]
- 1724: The 1982 Zwang catalogue places the first performance of BWV 80's early chorale cantata version in 1724.[2] In that case there would be 41 extant chorale cantatas with a first performance in Leipzig between Trinity Sunday 1724 and Easter 1725 (not included). Nonetheless, the chorale cantata qualifier is not entirely correct for the BWV 80 and 80b versions of the cantata, due to the inner movements of these versions largely deriving from a pre-existing libretto elaborating on other topics beside the Lutheran hymn.[6][11]
- The are usually not seen as possible dates for the first performance of the BWV 80b version.
- In 1728 Reformation Day again coincided with Trinity XXIII: a
- 1723: according to
- Bach's ultimate BWV 80 version originated some time after the 80b version, and was completed before it was copied in the 1740s. As such, this version of the cantata is seen as a later addition to the chorale cantata cycle.[3][6][11]
- Two movements of the BWV 80 version known from the BGA edition have an orchestration which the composer's son Wilhelm Friedemann extended with trumpets after his father's death.[6][11]
Occasions without an extant second cycle cantata
Bach composed more cantatas for his chorale cantata cycle after Trinity 1725, apparently in an effort to have a complete standard year cycle consisting exclusively of such cantatas:[3]
- Bach-Gesellschaft in their volume Vol. 122, p. 133 ff.There had not been a Sunday between New Year and Epiphany in 1725: although the cantata is not completely consistent with the chorale cantata format it was intended as the chorale cantata cycle's New Year I cantata.
- Wär Gott nicht mit uns diese Zeit, BWV 14, composed for Epiphany IV 1735 (there hadn't been an Epiphany IV Sunday in 1725). This is the only chorale cantata of the chorale cantata cycle that was ostensibly composed after 1734, in contrast to Philipp Spitta's assumption in the 19th century that almost all chorale cantatas had been composed after 1734. It is however true that Bach revised some of his chorale cantatas in the last years of his life, and that these are the versions usually published.
- Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ, BWV 177, composed for Trinity IV 1732 (in 1724 Trinity IV had coincided with Visitation)
- Es ist das Heil uns kommen her, BWV 9, an Achtliederbuch chorale cantata, composed for Trinity VI 1732. There is no extant cantata composed for Trinity VI 1724.
- Lobe den Herren, den mächtigen König der Ehren, BWV 137, a per omnes versus chorale cantata, composed for Trinity XII 1725. There is no extant cantata composed for Trinity XII 1724.
- Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, BWV 140, composed for Trinity XXVII 1731: there had not been a Trinity XXVII Sunday in 1724.
All six of these chorale cantatas remained in the chorale cantata cycle kept at St. Thomas.[4]
Replacing second cycle cantatas
Two chorale cantatas replacing other cantatas composed for occasions between Easter and Trinity 1725 also remained in the St. Thomas collection:[3][4]
- Der Herr ist mein getreuer Hirt, BWV 112: chorale cantata for Easter II (Misericordias Domini) 1731.
- Gelobet sei der Herr, mein Gott, BWV 129: chorale cantata for Trinity Sunday 1727.
Other chorale cantatas
There is uncertainty regarding four additional extant chorale cantatas as to time of origin (narrowed down to late 1720s–early 1730s) and occasion, all of them using hymn text without modification, but none of them included in the chorale cantata cycle kept at St. Thomas:[3][4]
- Sei Lob und Ehr dem höchsten Gut, BWV 117
- Nun danket alle Gott, BWV 192 (incomplete)
- Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan, BWV 100
- In allen meinen Taten, BWV 97
Some of these may have been intended for a wedding ceremony and/or as a generic cantata that could be used for any occasion.
Reception
Although we have no account of the reception of Bach's chorale cantatas by the congregation in Leipzig, we know that some of these cantatas were the only works that the city of Leipzig was interested in keeping alive after Bach's death: his successors performed several of them.[1] After Doles, who was Thomaskantor until 1789, the practice of performing Bach cantatas in Leipzig was interrupted until Kantor Müller started to revive some of them from 1803.[4]
Bach's early
Far from seeing a chorale cantata cycle tied to Bach's second year in Leipzig, Philipp Spitta, in the 1880 second volume of his Bach-biography, described the chorale cantata as a genre Bach only converged to in his later years.[13] Like Spitta, Reginald Lane Poole (1882) and Charles Sanford Terry (1920) saw the chorale cantata as a development of the composer's later years, and failed to list more than a handful, let alone a cycle, of such cantatas premiered between Trinity 1724 and Easter 1725 in their chronological lists of Bach's cantatas.[14][15] Questionable chronologies and minor differences aside, they followed in Spitta's footsteps praising Bach's so-called "later" chorale cantatas as an epitome of the composer's art.[13][16][17]
The three editions of the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis (BWV) that appeared in the second half of the 20th century gave little attention to the cycles of Bach's cantatas: the principles for assigning BWV numbers, as laid down by Wolfgang Schmieder for the catalogue's first edition in 1950, did not result in the chorale cantatas being identifiable as a group or cycle in the catalogue.[18] In the New Bach Edition cantatas were grouped by liturgical function (occasion), so also in that edition the chorale cantatas did not come out as a group or cycle.[19]
In the 21st century Klaus Hofmann has termed the cycle "the largest musical project that the composer ever undertook: the 'chorale cantata year'".[20][1] The bach-digital.de website, managed by, among others, the Bach Archive, provided the "chorale cantata" qualification for all compositions belonging to this group (all other church cantatas at that website being indicated as sacred cantatas). It is the only cycle of Bach cantatas that is recognisable as a group on that website.[21]
References
- ^ a b c d Hofmann, Klaus (2002). "O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort, BWV 20 / O eternity, thou thunderous word" (PDF). bach-cantatas.com. p. 5. Retrieved 5 June 2012.
- ^
- ^ ISBN 9783842357259, p. 32–37
- ^ Bach-Gesellschaft Ausgabe Volume 27: Thematisches Verzeichniss der Kirchencantaten No. 1–120. Breitkopf & Härtel, 1878. Introduction, pp. V–IX
- ^ John Eliot Gardiner (2004). "Cantatas for the First Sunday after Trinity / St Giles Cripplegate, London" (PDF). bach-cantatas.com. p. 2. Retrieved 5 June 2012.
- ^ ISBN 0199297762
- ^ Work 00100 at Bach Digital website (09/03/2017)
- ^ a b c Work 00101 (17/6/2017), and subsequent manuscript pages F-Ppo A. Mickiewicz Rkp. 973 (23/6/2017), RUS-SPsc BWV 80b (26/7/2017) and US-PRscheide BWV 80b (19/7/2017), at Bach Digital website
- ISBN 0674059263
- ^ Work 00198 at Bach Digital website (10/03/2017)
- ^ a b c Work 00099 at Bach Digital website (19/07/2017)
- ^ Work 00098 at Bach Digital website (18/07/2017)
- ^ Novello & Co. 1884–1885.
- ^ Reginald Lane Poole. Sebastian Bach. London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington. 1882, p. 133
- ^ Johann Nikolaus Forkel translated with notes and appendices by Charles Sanford Terry. Johann Sebastian Bach: His Life, Art, and Work New York: Harcourt, Brace and Howe; London: Constable. 1920, pp. 198–199
- ^ Poole, o.c. p. 88ff.
- ^ Forkel/Terry, o.c. p. 174ff.
- ^ Wolfgang Schmieder, editor. "Introduction" of Thematisch-systematisches Verzeichnis der musikalischen Werke von Johann Sebastian Bach. Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1950.
- ^ The New Bach Edition – Series I: Cantatas Archived 2016-03-04 at the Wayback Machine at the Bärenreiter website
- ^
ISBN 978-0-19-517067-2.
- ^ "Choralkantate"[permanent dead link] at www
.bach-digital .de
Further reading
- ISBN 9780393651799.