A Bach Harvest: About the Program
By Dr. C. Matthew Balensulea
Bach and the Cantata
The cantata was a malleable genre that began as secular vocal work with instrumental accompaniment around the advent of opera at the turn of the 17th century. Over time the term was applied to both secular and sacred works with a variety of musical forces which could include an orchestra and chorus. By the 18th century a cantata could be used for just about any occasion where music was needed: to celebrate a wedding, as a coffee house entertainment, or as part of a church service.
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) composed a wide variety of cantatas throughout his life. After holding positions in both churches and secular courts in such cities as Arnstadt and Weimar, he secured one of the most prestigious jobs in Germany—Kantor of the Thomaskirche in Leipzig in 1723. Upon his arrival, he set out to modernize the church music of the city by writing new cantatas for the entire church year. Bach’s church cantatas were usually based around a chorale appropriate to the day of the liturgical year, supplemented by new poetry for recitative, aria, and ensembles which reflected on the chorale text and liturgical calendar. With 52 Sundays in a year plus additional cantatas for those feasts that don’t always fall on Sundays, Bach had to write about 60 new works for each year. With a rough estimate of 20 minutes for each work, Bach set out to create 20 hours of music for a yearly cycle of cantatas. According to his obituary, he composed five cantata cycles, but only the first three survive—still, a prodigious amount of sacred music.
Program Notes
The cantata Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme (“Wake up,” the voice of the watchmen calls to us, BWV 140, 1731) was written for 27th Sunday after Pentecost, a feast that is not always needed given the flexible date of Easter (and subsequently, Pentecost). It calls for a large orchestra including horn, oboes, piccolo violin, strings, basso continuo, and voices. The work’s seven movements form an arch: the outer movements are both based on the chorale melody: the first verse of the cantata is the most elaborate with the tune set as a chorale fantasy in a ritornello structure (the voices acting as the soloists) in the style of a French overture (with excessive dotted rhythms) while the closing movement sets the chorale in a simple, homophonic setting. The next portions of the arch form are recitative and aria pairs. The first pair (movements 2 and 3) begins with secco recitative with only the basso continuo sung by the tenor followed by a duet for the bride (soprano) who awaits the coming of Christ the Bridegroom (bass); it features the piccolo violin in sweeping passage work setting the second verse in the chorale. The later of the pair (movements 5 and 6) is a love duet between the Church and Christ (again sung by soprano and bass) beginning with accompanied recitative of the full orchestra. The central movement of the work (4) is one of Bach’s most famous creations. He sets the third verse of the chorale in a simple declamation by the tenors, framed by a peacefully flowing melody in the orchestra.
The origins of Bach’s first Orchestral Suite (BWV 1066) is a bit of a mystery. The extant manuscript dates from around 1724 but may be a copy or revision of an earlier work composed when Bach was at the court of Anhalt-Köthen (1717–1723). In composing or revising an orchestral work in Leipzig, Bach may have been extending his activities outside of the church to include the city’s collegium musicum—a group of professional musicians and university students that played weekly concerts; he would become the leader of the group in 1729. The work is scored for oboes, bassoon, strings, and basso continuo. The Suite begins with an extensive French overture beginning (and ending) with stately running scales and dotted rhythms. In the faster, B section the winds are used as soloists, reminiscent of a concerto grosso. There follows a series of dances in binary form, mostly of French origin (courante, gavotte, bourrée, passepied, and minuet) but also including the north Italian forlane.
Nun danket alle Gott (Now let everyone thank God, BWV 192) was most likely composed between 1729-31, for a wedding celebration. It is one of the shortest cantatas Bach ever wrote consisting of just three movements, each of which sets one verse of a chorale by Martin Rinckart, an earlier German theologian (1586-1649). It is scored for flutes, oboes, strings, continuo, and voices. The opening movement is a joyous ritornello with the voices acting as the soloists and the soprano stating the choral melody in longer note values. The middle movement is a duet for soprano and bass in a stately duple meter with regular phrasing—like a dance—in which the couple ask God for his grace and to preserve them from suffering. In his church cantatas, Bach often set the chorale tune in the simplest way in the final movement, to prepare the congregation for the following sermon. Here, Bach sets the final verse of the choral, a joyous praise to God, as a sprightly gigue with the sopranos again holding the chorale tune in long notes above the other moving voices. In using a dance, Bach may also be celebrating the earthly happiness of the newly married couple.
