Bach's Leipzig Calling Begins

William L. Hoffman wrote (June 14, 2023):
This year marks the 300^th anniversary of Bach's momentous accession to the challenging dual position of Leipzig cantor and music director, the beginning of the fulfillment of his Lutheran calling for a "well-regulated church music to the glory of God." Essential to this goal was the creation of three church-year cantata cycles of musical sermons for the some 60 service Sundays and feast days, which Bach would accomplish in his initial five years in Leipzig (1723-27). At the same time, Bach would begin to fashion two more cycles of church pieces for special, occasional services, one involving his first proto-cantatas of sacred concertos of joy and sorrow for 84 occasions (BCW) such as weddings, town council installations, funerals, and memorial services (BCW), as well as special sacred observances of praise and thanksgiving for the Reformation and civic events (BCW). Bach's fifth cycle is a Christological collection (BCW) of other sacred vocal music genres involving oratorios (great cantatas) for major feast days and the Good Friday Passion, motets, and Latin Church Music for the Mass, vespers, and other special services, as well as devotional, vernacular sacred songs.

Bach Christological Cycles

Meanwhile, two Bach scholars recently describe their versions of Bach Christological cycle. Christoph Wolff in his 2020 Bach's Musical Universe: The Composer and His Work (BCW) describes "A Grand Liturgical Messiah Cycle" of the three Oratorio Passions of John, Matthew and Mark (BCW: Wolff: Bach Oratorios as "A Grand Liturgical Messiah Cycle:" Passions) as well as the feast-day oratorio trilogy for Christmas, Easter, and Ascension (BCW). Wolff also analyzed the chorale cantata second cycle as "The Most Ambitious of All Projects" (BCW) and the Latin Church Music of the Kyrie-Gloria Masses for Feast Days, BWV 233-236 (BCW) and the B-Minor Mass (BCW: Mass in B Minor: Importance, Genesis, Legacy). Michael Maul, director of the Bachfest Leipzig, produced "Bach's Messiah" great concert cycle at Bachfest 2021 with two-dozen works for the de tempore first half of the church year on the life of Jesus Christ (Bachfest Leipzig: Newsletter October 31, 2021). Within these vocal music works Bach incorporated instrumental music, most notably orchestral sinfonias (BCW), concerto movements, and aria instrumental obbligati, as well as transformations of movements from profane dramatic music such as serenades and drammi per musica, most notably 20 works commissioned through the auspices of Leipzig University (Universtät Leipg: Festive Music).

Heterogeneous First Cantata Cycle

Bach's sacred cantata cycle compositions reveal an unparalleled, ambitious undertaking¹ best exemplified in his heterogenous first cycle are six two-part cantatas (BWV 75, 76, 21, 147, 186, and 70) and 11 cantata double-bills, often using cantatas from Weimar and Cöthen (BWV 22/23, 24/185, 179/199, 161/95, 80b/163, 143/190, 18/181, 182/1135=Anh. 199, 158/134, 172/59, and 165/194), presented before and after the main service sermon. These were first established in his Weimar Cantata compositions (BCW), beginning with Cantata 21.1, "Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis" (I had much affliction), for any time and the 3rd Sunday after Trinity, origin before December 1713 (BCW). Cantata 21.1 has various ingredients Bach subsequently exploited in Leipzig: motet-like prelude-fugue choruses (Nos. 2, 6, 9, 11; UVM), which may have originated in the 1709 Mühlhausen second town council Cantata 1138.1=Anh. 192, modern recitatives (nos. 4, 7) and arias (nos. 3, 8), a monologue of the soul (nos. 3-5) closely related to that of [soprano solo] Cantata 199 [Trinity 11, 8/12/1714]; a dialogue between Christ and the Soul (nos. 7-8), which might be viewed as a successor to Actus tragicus, BWV 106/6-7; and selected Psalm verses sung in motet-style choruses (nos. 2, 6, 9), as well as a chorale setting, versus 2 and 5 of Georg Neumark's "Wer nur den lieben Gott läßt walten" (Whoever lets only the dear God reign, YouTube). Beginning in Weimar and continuing in Cöthen, Bach began shaping his service cantatas with selective, published librettists using descriptive hymn, biblical verse, and poetry while experimenting in a variety of forms from full ensemble to chamber pieces from concerto and da capo aria to dialogue and prelude and fugue. He retained thus music for future use as well as adaptations in different services. He began his first Leipzig cycle for the second half of the church year, omnes tempore with its established gospel teaching patterns shaped into two-part and double bill cantatas, incorporating three structures of opening biblical text, alternating recitative and aria, with closing four-part chorale, and bolstering with an internal chorale.

Cantata Cycle Master Plan

In his essay, "Bach 300: The Year 1723 and its repercussions," "a new epic in his creative life" (Carus-Verlag Blog) Wolff outlines various factors in Bach's musical development which yield "his single most productive phase" where each cantata cycle can be dated with new compositions produced with "ceaseless industry" for the years 1723 with 39, 1724 with 56, 1724 with 40, and 1726-27 with 44. In his first year and first cantata cycle, Bach was able while setting the some 60 Sunday and feast day services to utilize some 19 Weimar Cantatas (BWV 21.1, 185.1, 147.1, ?186.1, 199.1, 162.1, 80.1, 70.1, 61, 63, 155, 18.1, 182, 31.1, 12, 172.1, 165, 161, 152) and five from Cöthen (BWV 66.1, 134.1, 184.1, 194.1, 173.1), as well as single movements composed in Cöthen (BWV 59, 32, 69a, 75, 97, 119, 193). "The Leipzig cantatas are all of uniformly high standard," says Wolff. The first cycle shows" the diversity of musical form and marvelous expressive depth of Bach's vocal works," he says. The homogeneous second cycle of chorale cantatas ended abruptly in 1725 when Bach ceased composing new works every week and focused instead, says Wolff, on "creating a solid repertoire of pieces." This was in contrast to the two leading cantor candidates, Georg Philipp Telemann of Hamburg and Christoph Graupner of Darmstadt who respectively composed 26 extant cycles of some 1,750 cantatas for the full church year and Graupner some 1,400, with the same poet for each cycle. In the third, heterogeneous cycle, Bach focused on topical and structural mini-cycles by mostly commissioned or published librettists and took two years to complete, using such innovations as concertante movements with organ obbligato and selective aria obbligato instruments such as the violoncello piccolo. Subsequently, Bach selectively composed mostly pure-hymn chorale cantatas, made scoring revisions in certain works, and composed in the extended cantata form of the feast-day oratorio in the second half of the 1730s. He may have repeated the choralecantata cycle in 1732-33 and 1744-45, possibly his most popular cycle with the Thomas School where the parts sets resided. Bach also composed in an innovative variety of vocal works genres, notably the motet, the extensive use of chorale tropes in arias and choruses, pasticcio Passion oratorios, and extensive transcriptions of previous works. "Bach was truly pioneering in his efforts to shape the still young genre, developing it into the singular artwork we still cherish today," says Wolff. "In this respect, the corpus of cantatas he created may be easily considered to eclipse all similar bodies of work."² Early in Leipzig, Bach also began composing extended vocal works such as his Magnificat, BWV 243.1, the St. John Passion, BWV 245.1, and the Easter Oratorio, BWV 249.1.

Leipzig Cantorat Competition, 1722-23

A chronological summary accounting of the Leipzig cantorat competition 1722-23 is found at Celebrating 300 Years of Bach in Leipzig, Jaubalslyre.com: Join the Eternal Song. The key auditions of Telemann, Graupner, and Bach are recorded, as well as Bach securing the position and Bach's Pentecost beginning, "May 16 – On Pentecost Sunday Bach officially begins his duties at St. Paul’s Church (the church of the University of Leipzig). Traditionally the Leipzig Cantor assumed duties there four times a year: the first days of Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, and the Feast of the Reformation. On this Sunday he may have led Cantata 59 “Wer mich liebet, der wird mein Wort halten” (“Whoever Loves Me Will Keep My Word”)." Bach officially began his cantorat duties on the First Sunday after Trinity, May 30, 1723, with Cantata 75 “Die Elenden sollen essen” (“The Afflicted Shall Eat and Be Satisfied”) at the Nikolaikirche. It was the beginning of the Thomas School year and the omnes tempore (ordinary, common time) second half of the church year on the gospel teachings of the church through parables, miracles, and specific teaching such as the Great Commandment (Jesus' hortatory discourses). This year's Bachfest Leipzig begins with a three day musicological conference, "Conference on the replacement of the Thomaskantorat in 1723 and the history of the Protestant church cantata around 1720," announcement from the American Bach Society (The American Bach Society: Mailchimp) frames two issues: <<1. The processes of filling the vacancy have been repeatedly analyzed and interpreted from different perspectives. Nevertheless, many questions remain unanswered. 2. Sebastian Bach decided at the beginning of his activities to perform almost exclusively his own newly composed works; the compositions of his predecessor [Johann Kuhnau were thus marginalized. Similar decisions were made by>> Georg Philip Telemann in Hamburg, Johann Friedrich Fasch in Zerbst, and Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel in Gotha to forgo their predecessors, creating original cantatas. The Bachfest Leipzig conference agenda is found at Bach Archiv Leipzig with a concert and 21 related papers, including six embracing Telemann, whose connections with and influences on Bach are still being revealed.

Postscript: The Tricentenary of Bach's Leipzig service is discussed in the following recent postings:
Feb 10, 2023: 2023: Tricentenary of Bach Leipzig Service: Bachfest Leipzig 1723, Carus Verlag
Feb 17, 2023: Bach Leipzig Tercentenary: Calling Pursued
Feb 26, 2023: Bach's Cöthen Apprenticeship: Instrumental Music
Mar 29, 2023: An accounting of Bach's vocal music composition in Cöthen (1717-1723).
Apr 21, 2023: Leipzig Competition: Appointment Procedure, "Historical Capriccio" musings.
May 3, 2023: Leipzig Cantorat Influential Factors, Bach Preparation, Recent Research
May 24, 2023: Bach's Cantata Compositional Genesis

ENDNOTES

¹ Wolff's accounting of Bach's vocal works is found in his three-volume "The World of the Bach Cantatas" Christoph Wolff ed., Die Welt der Bach-Kantaten, 3 vols. (BCW), only the first series of essays was published in English, The World of the Bach Cantatas: Early Sacred Cantatas, from Arnstadt to Cöthen time (New York: W. W. Norton, 1995; Amazon.com: "Look inside," "CONTENTS"); the last two only in German and Dutch: vol. 2, worldly cantatas; vol. 3, Leipzig church cantatas. The essays by noted Bach scholars are divided into two sections: "The Composer in His World" and "The Works and Their World" (Bärenreiter: Inhalt). The publication accompanied Ton Koopman's Erato recordings of the sacred and secular cantatas in chronological order (BCW) with the three-volume Forewords by Koopman and Prefatory Notes of Wolff. Wolff's other major vocal music contribution is the 2021 Bach-Vocal: Ein Handbuch (BCW).
² For commentary on Bach's cantatas, see the Bach Cantatas Website (BCW), Bach Mailing List Order of Discussion, Part 22: Year 2020, BCW: scroll down beginning "Oct 6, 2020: Bach Cantatas, A Selected, Annotated Bibliography, Part 1 and Oct. 16, 2020, Cantata Bibliography, Part 2: Studies, Spirituality, Texts, Recordings. Oct 28, 2020: Cantata Favorites: Discussion, Food for Thought and Nov 8, 2020: Cantata Question: role and development in overall output; Nov 17, 2020: Cantata models, comparisons with other composers, specific features and Nov 24, 2020: Cantata Contexts, Importance to Bach; Dec 8, 2020: Bach Cantata Texts: Structure, Function, Message, Part 1; Dec 14, 2020: Leipzig Sacred Cantata Cycles 1 and 2: Structures, Librettists; Dec 18, 2020: Leipzig Sacred Cantatas: 1725 Interim (Trinity Time); Dec 30, 2020: Third Cantata Cycle: Librettists, Structures; and Jan 9, 2021: Bach Texts as Cantata Mini-Cycles. Recent cantata essays involve: Jul 6: 2022: Noelle M. Haber's Bach's Material and Spiritual Treasures: A Theological Perspective and Sep 4, 2022: Cantata Odyssey: Print, On-Line Sources From Bach's Musical World and Sept. 17, 2022, Cantata Odyssey: BaWerke Verzeichnis (Works Catalogue) New 3rd edition, and Oct. 2, 2022, New Works Catalogue BWV 3rd edition, Exploring Bach's Sources, Genres.

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To come: The anatomy and genesis of Bach's first Leipzig cantata cycle and other compositional activities.