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Bach's Musical Universe: The Composer and His Work
Discussions - Part 4

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Messiah (Christological) Cycle: Feast-Day Oratorios, etc.

William L. Hoffman wrote (July 1, 2020):
Feast Day Oratorios.

Bach's oratorio Passions were followed by "a parallel oratorio project" between 1734 and 1738, when Bach would produce unique, extended cantatas on the major feasts in the life of the biblical Jesus for Christmas, Easter and Ascension Day," says Christoph Wolff in his new Bach musical biography.¹ Together these six extant Passion and feast-day oratorios constitute a "Grand Liturgical Messiah Cycle," he says. While Bach scholarship in recent years has explored in-depth the once-neglected Christmas Oratorio, BWV 248, there have been no comparable studies of the three Passions according to John (1724), Matthew (1727), and Mark (1731) or the lesser Easter Oratorio, BWV 249, or Ascension Oratorio, BWV 11.² Bach was following a hallowed Historiae tradition which started in the mid-16th century in Lutheran Central Germany. "Ever since the time of the Reform, all the Passions in German belong to the liturgical genre of Historiae; in other words they were ‘Biblical tales,’ above all about the New Testament, set to music as readings of the Gospel and performed at suitable moments during the liturgical services of the Lutheran electoral court," says Wolfram Steude in the study of the music of Heinrich Schütz.³ The initial Passion settings used the gospel accounts of the four evangelists as translated by Martin Luther. The "Passione responsoriale, in which the account of the evangelists and the direct dialogue of the individual characters are sung by a single unaccompanied voice, while the beginning and end of the Passion (Exordium and Conclusio), [are sung by chorus voices] as also the direct discourse of the groups (‘the people’, ‘the High Priests’, ‘the Disciples’), are composed for several voices as Turbae." This tradition was established in 1524 by Luther's colleague, Johann Walther, as responsorial Passions (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passion_(music)).⁴

German Oratorio Genesis, Application

"There are also numerous Historiae by Schütz and other composers for the feasts of Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, St John Baptist and other religious festivities," says Steude (Ibid.). "All these liturgical genre Historiae in German were composed in Lutheran central Germany from the mid 16th century." By tradition which lasted until Bach's time, the high feasts of Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost were observed on three consecutive days during the de tempore portion of the first half of the church year on the ministry of Jesus Christ: Christmas on December 25-27 and the moveable feasts of Easter and Pentecost on the days of Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday.⁵ Usually, the lead organist or cantor was required to set the three-day festive music with chorales and in a figurative style. The observance of the designated three-day feasts and the single feast days is established in The Church Book and the Agenda of the Lutheran Church, and in Bach's time in Leipzig the governing Kirchen-Ordnung of 1712 by Elector August of Saxony, as described in Martin Petzoldt's "Liturgie und Musick in dein Leipziger Hauptkirchen," Eng. trans. Thomas Braatz (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Articles/Leipzig-Churches-Petzold.pdf: 5ff). The Saxony Lutheran Agenda and Church Orders also describe the "The Historical Accounts of the Painful Suffering, And the Joyful Resurrection of the Lord Christ," based on Johannes Bugenhagen's 1530 Passionsharmonie. These oratorios are considered sacred operas, especially the oratorio Passions "owing to their lengthy scriptural texts," says Wolff (Ibid.: 231f).

By Bach's time in Leipzig, the German historiae tradition had developed as extended cantatas, using direct gospel quotations, madrigalian poetry and chorales for the designated feast days, often supported by trumpets and drums. Most often were the settings for Christmas found in the works of Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel, Christoph Graupner, and Georg Philipp Telemann, the last who expanded the genre of oratorio to include two cycles of extended church year works in 1730-32 and secular occasional works. Bach's cantor predecessors had created special Christmas concertos or dialogues, beginning with Johann Hermann Schein, followed by Johann Schelle, and Johann Kuhnau, as well as Philipp Heinrich Erlebach at the Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt court and Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow at Halle (http://bach-cantatas.com/Topics/Oratorio-Pentecost.htm). Other Bach colleagues Reinhard Keiser and Johann Mattheson at Hamburg also composed oratorios for Christmas and Easter.

The oratorio model was Schütz's Weihnachtshistorie, composed in 1660, says Matteo Messori in the Schütz study (Ibid.: 8f), making "a musical setting of a collation of evangelical texts centered on the birth of Jesus (from Saints Luke and Matthew), mostly from his Dresden predecessor Rogier Michael (from whose Empfängnis unseres Herren Jesu Christi of 1602 much of Schütz’s text is drawn)." Another direct influence was Michael Praetorius' "c.1620 Christmas Mass setting of polychoral motets and chorales, leading to Schütz’s narrative story, Historia der Freuden- und Gnadenreichen Geburth Gites un Marien Sohnes, Jesu Cristi (History of the Joyously- and Richly-Merciful Birth of God’s and Mary’s Son, Jesus Christ) of 1660/64," according to Marcus Rathey's recent Christmas Oratorio study.⁶ The most immediate influences were Knupfer, Schelle, Kuhnau, and Stölzel.

Christological Oratorios

For the last half of the 1730s, Bach turned to previous, primarily profane compositions to create/compile through parody (new text underlay) three Christological oratorios celebrating key feast-day events in the life of Jesus Christ: his incarnation in the Christmas Oratorio, BWV 248; the resurrection in the Easter Oratorio, BWV 249; and the singular Ascension Oratorio, BWV 11. There "was no comparable trend involving musical settings of the biblical Christmas, Easter, and Ascension stories," says Wolff (Ibid.: 229). In contrast to the three oratorio Passion settings, these festive works used "the brilliant sonorities of orchestral brass" (trumpets and horns) with drums as the main music for the feast day observances of the main morning service and the afternoon vespers alternating between the St. Nicholas and St. Thomas Churches. During this period Bach composed and presented the Christmas Oratorio in six parts from Christmas Day 1734 to the Feast of the Epiphany, 6 January 1735, then took three years to compose the Ascension Oratorio for 15 May 1738, preceded by a revised Easter Oratorio on 6 April 1738 (https://www.bach-digital.de/receive/BachDigitalSource_source_00000852), says Peter Wollny in a recent study.⁷ They "continue the parody pattern of the mid-1730s that shaped the St. Mark Passion" and "emphasize their close connections and conceptual coherence as a complementary Liturgical addendum to the Good Friday Passions," observes Wolff (Ibid.: 229). These three feast-day oratorios also are a mini-sacred sacred opera trilogy, observes Wolff in another article.⁸ In particular, Wolff points out the exordium and applicatio rhetorical technique as well as the theatrical dialogue character and communal audience response as believers in the biblical narrative (Ibid.: 5, 9). During this period, Bach also composed the Clavier-Übung III, German Organ Mass and Catechism chorales, published at Michaelmas 1739, and the Lutheran Missae: Kyrie-Gloria, BWV 233-36. These Christological works were suitable particularly for performance during festive services at the two main Leipzig churches, most notably during the 1739 Reformation Jubilee bicentenary of the area's acceptance of the Lutheran confession. It also is possible that Bach a Pentecost Oratorio during this time (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Topics/Lost-Pentecost-Oratorio.htm).

Multi-Day Christmas Oratorio

Initially, beginning in late 1734, Bach composed an omnibus Christmas Oratorio, BWV 248 (https://www.bach-digital.de/receive/BachDigitalWork_work_00000314?lang=en), a parody drawn mostly from the collaboration with Picander in Cantatas 213-14, as well as BWV 215, and a lost 1734 Michaelmas Cantata, BWV 248VIa (https://www.bach-digital.de/receive/BachDigitalWork_work_00000315?lang=en), focusing their efforts on drammi per musica for the Dresden Court. This Christmas time work "may have prompted the subsequent major revisions of his Passions, all undertaken with the goal of contemplating and unifying his large-scale musical cycle relating the story of the biblical Jesus," says Wolff (Ibid.: 231). While the oratorio Passion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passion_(music) "had been firmly established in Lutheran Germany," the term "Oratorium" (from the Italian Oratorio) "was only rarely applied and long remained loosely defined." All Bach's extended, dramatic works for Christmas, Easter, and Ascension he labeled on the title page "Oratiorum festo" although "Bach by no means drew a strict line between historia, oratorio, and opera," he says (Ibid.: 232). While the Christmas and Ascension works were true oratorios with scriptural narrative and characters, including crowd choruses (turbae), the Easter Oratorio, began in 1725 as a virtual parody from a secular model such as a dramma per musica, was composed as an Italian-style oratorio lacking Biblical narrative and German chorales. Bach's drammi per musica provided much of the musical stock for his sacred operas as oratorios.

Bach's great, unique template of six cantatas involved the Christmas three-day festival of the Nativity, Annunciation, and Adoration of the Shepherds (December 25-27), followed by two single feast days, New Years Circumcision/Naming (January 1) and Epiphany, Magi Adoration (January 6) with the cantata BWV 248^V performed for the Sunday after New Years, 2 January 1735 (Magi Journey to Bethlehem).⁹ Most of the parodied material came from celebratory secular cantatas as drammi per musica composed during the previous decade to honor the Dresden Court and its Leipzig supporters and often used mythical, moral or allegorical figures (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_secular_cantatas_by_Johann_Sebastian_Bach).¹⁰ Bach thought it appropriate to parody this music for earthly royalty as liturgical works for sacred royalty. "Even though such associations would remain obscure to the oratorio listener unfamiliar with the secular models, they played a decisive role in the literary and musical process of parody," says Wolff (Ibid.: 233). "In each such case, both poet and composer meant to preserve, if not intensify, the original character along with the related functions of theatrical expression." The genesis of the Christmas Oratorio began in 1733, Wolff suggests (Ibid.: 234), with the Hercules Cantata, BWV 213 (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/BWV213-D3.htm), the first in a series of birthday and nameday drammi per musica celebrating the reign of Augustus III, the Saxon Elector and King of Poland, and his royal household. "The relatively quickly conversion of these compositions for the sacred context suggests a premeditated strategy for reusing both poetic and musical ideas, with the ultimate goal of creating a permanent repertoire piece." Six of the seven Hercules Cantata choruses and arias were incorporated into the Christmas Oratorio, each retaining a similar, joyous Affekt, he observes (Ibid.: 234f).

At the same time in the Christmas Oratorio, there is more material than borrowed, says Wolff (Ibid.: 236): the entire biblical narrative, the chorales, and the accompanied recitatives preceding arias (also found extensively in the St. Matthew Passion), as well as an original chorus and aria. "Combining existing and newly composed music toward a new end was far from a matter of mere convenience, let alone expediency." "It actually presented a considerable challenge, one that in the Christmas Oratorio actually went well beyond what the composer had faced in preparing the St. Mark Passion." Building on the stylistic and musical conventions that he had mastered in his three Passion oratorios, Bach took basic four-part chorale harmonizations of the 1720s and fashioned them into polyphonic textures that emphasized the contrapuntal inner (alto and tenor) parts, individual melodies and animated rhythmic profiles as direct response to the text, Wolff emphasizes (Ibid.: 238). The madrigalian choruses and arias in the Christmas Oratorio reveal stylistic adjustments in the 1730s that afforded the music more dance-like and other progressive galant features. At the same time, Bach also harkened back to older conventions such as the influences of Dietrich Buxtehude's Abendenmusiken oratorios he had experienced in Lübeck at Advent 1705: the great scale of hybrid music, use of varied instruments and allegorical figures, and congregational chorales. Another major element was the emphasis on love songs in the manner of the biblical Song of Solomon, between the allegorical figures of the Bride and Bridegroom (Faithful Soul and Jesus), observes Rathey in an earlier study of Bach's major works.¹¹ Bach also used the device of thematic repetition, as in the symbolic use of the "Passion Chorale," "O sacred head now wounded," as a plain setting in Part 1 and a chorale chorus closing the entire work, says Wolff (Ibid.: 240), a parody of music that closed the extant, fragmentary 1734 Michaelmas Cantata, BWV 248VIa, suggesting with its use of three borrowed secco recitatives that it was originally a Michaelmas oratorio.

Another major element in the Christmas Oratorio (CO) is theology, explored most in Rathey's recent CO study (Ibid.: 50ff). In the chapter, “Layers of Time: The Theology of the Christmas Oratorio,” examined is the “The Threefold Meaning of Christmas,” that is the three modes of Christ’s coming, into the flesh, into our hearts, and at the final judgement. These are found in the prayer books and libretti of Bach contemporary poets (and pastors) Neumeister (see above, “Anonymous Christmas Cantata 142,” and Benjamin Schmolck (Stölzel’s librettist; see above, “Stölzel, Mid-1730s Music”; source http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Vocal/BWV248-Gen8.htm: paragraph beginning "Rathey also conducts".) The oratorio libretto, possibly by Picander, “has three gravitational centers: the historical event of the birth of Jesus, the existential meaning on this coming expressed in the image of Christ’s indwelling in the believer’s heart, and the return of Christ at the end of Time” (the eschatology), says Rathey (Ibid.: 61). Strong parallels between the Christmas Oratorio and German Passions are discussed in Daniel R. Melamed's slim study of the CO and the B-Minor Mass, as well as the 19th and early 20th century reception history of the CO.¹²

Italianate Parody Easter Oratorio

Bach's first feast-day historia setting, the Easter Oratorio, owes its existence — as did the Christmas and Ascension works — to a profane celebratory work that was parodied wholesale immediately after its composition, the Shepherds' Cantata, ":Entflieht, verschwindet, entweichet, ihr Sorgen" (Fly, vanish, flee, O worries, by Richard Stokes), BWV 249, set to a Picander text, their first active collaboration. It was composed as a pastoral serenade, like similar such works, for the birthday of Weißenfels Prince Duke Christian on 23 February 1725. The model was another birthday tablmusic Hunting Cantata ,BWV 208, “Was mir behagt, ist nur die muntre Jagd!” (What pleases me is above all the lively hunt!), for the same duke, 12 years previously, Bach's first modern cantata to a text of Salomo Franck, Weimar court poet. In 1725, Bach simply did a straightforward parody adaptation of the two-part opening sinfonia and the madrigalian aria duet, three arias (soprano, tenor, alto), and closing quartet aria, probably relying again on librettist Picander. The original Easter cantata, later entitled by son Emmanuel Bach Oratorium Festo Paschali (https://www.bach-digital.de/receive/BachDigitalSource_source_00002556), was premiered on Easter Sunday, 1 April 1725, at the Nikolaikirche, with the Gospel setting of Mark 16:1-8. The 45-minute work in 10 movements, titled “Kommt, eilet und laufet” (Come, hasten and run), has a festive orchestra of trumpets and drums with winds and strings. The original two Arcadian shepherdesses, Doris and Sylvia, then represent the two Marys, Magdalene and the Mother of the Apostle James, both women who had witnessed the Crucifixion of Jesus and now come to anoint the body in the tomb. The two shepherds, Menaclas and Damoetas, then represent the apostles Peter, who denied Jesus at his trial, and John, who also witnessed the Crucifixion in the Gospel of John (see https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Vocal/BWV249-Gen5.htm). The names of these roles were erased when a fair copy was made of Bach’s full score manuscript in 1738, and the music came to assume more of the quality of ordinary church music, says Wolff (Ibid.: 243).

As a static, contemplative work, Bach’s Easter Oratorio (first of three versions)¹³ lacks the biblical narrative and chorales found in his other two oratorios and his three oratorio Passions. In lieu of the original four recitatives, Bach set the new paraphrase narrative as a poetic dialogue, similar to the Brockes Passion text, observes Wolff (Ibid.: 241), paraphrasing the Marcan (16:1-8) and Johannine (Jn. 20:1-18) accounts of the resurrection as well as harmonizing the other two, Matthew (28:1-15), and Luke (24:1-12). With its theological emphasis on John's Christus Victor, it was part of the 1725 Johannine trilogy that also included the St. John Passion and Jesus' Farewell Discourse to his disciples in the nine final Easter Season cantatas (Jubilate Sunday to the Trinity Festival) to set to text of Christiane Mariane von Ziegler (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christiana_Mariana_von_Ziegler).¹⁴ This 45-minute pastoral narrative is the embodiment of Jesus' divine nature, the watershed of Bach’s Christological cycle of major works, beginning with the conception and incarnation found in the Magnificat anima mea (My soul doth magnify the Lord), BWV 243, and the six-part descent in the Christmas Oratorio, BWV 248, through the major earthly events, and ending with the Johannine lifting up ascent in the Ascension Oratorio, BWV 11 – signifying and completing the sacred Great Parabola – to the entire summation and affirmation of Bach’s and the Christian’s faith found in the “Great” Mass in B Minor, BWV 233, completed at the end of Bach’s life.

The model for Bach's Easter Oratorio was the resurrection Sunday account in Heinrich Schütz's three-part Historia der Auferstehung Jesu Christie of 1723 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aul212hOojQ). It is a summa or harmony of the four Gospel accounts of the three-day Easter Story: Resurrection Sunday, Walk to Emmaus Monday, and Disciple Gathering Tuesday. Bach's work (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYL3QvqtV_c) focuses only on Easter Sunday and is similar to the Italian theatrical oratorio style of Handel's La resurrezione, HWV 47, of 1708 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXCs4awAfZM). Four elements are common to Bach's and Handel's resurrection oratorios: a festive instrumental introduction, the use of da-capo style vocal movements, music using various dance forms of the gigue and gavotte, and primary characters signing arias and ensemble dialogue using poetic rather than biblical text. In Handel's case there are two distinct settings: the underworld exchanges between an Angel (soprano) and Lucifer (bass) and the earthly biblical setting of the mortal characters Mary Magdalene (soprano), Mary Jacobi (Cleophas, mezzo), and St. John the Evangelist (tenor) - the same three biblical characters in Bach's Easter Oratorio, plus Peter. In Bach's third version of c.1743 the opening duet is recast as an opening chorus and the closing four-voice aria also is rescored for chorus and this version was presented on Easter Sunday 1749, possibly Bach's last public performance.

Ascension Oratorio Three-Year Genesis

Bach's final, extant oratorio, Oratorium festo Christi, BWV 11, "Lobet Gott in seinen Reichen" (Praise God in his kingdoms, Rev. 19:1,11,15), took three years to complete, according to the recent research of Peter Wollny (Ibid.), premiering on Ascension Day, 15 May 1738, not three years earlier in 1735 as originally thought. The biblical text of the Ascension Oratorio, BWV 11,¹⁵ is taken from the "gospel harmony" by Luther's colleague Johannes Bugenhagen [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Bugenhagen], in a 1526 compilation of the biblical accounts in Luke, Acts and Mark which closes his Evangelien Harmonie. The structure of this work "loosely resembles the design of the individual parts of the Christmas Oratorio," says Wolff (Ibid. 245), and the "share of new composition in the Ascension Oratorio is proportionally just as substantial." Composed in three stages, Bach took breaks after the opening chorus and before recomposing the two arias (Nos. 4 and 10) as extensive parody, with original music for the four narrative recitatives (Nos. 2, 5, 7, 9), two accompanied recitatives (Nos. 3 and 8), and the pietist-flavored hymn settings in triple time of plain chorale and closing chorale chorus (Nos. 6 and 11).

Having used much of Cantatas BWV 213 and 214, Bach with the Ascension Oratorio turned to different works, originally composed for the Dresden Court or its Leipzig supporters but not extant: the Lombard-rhythm opening chorus is a parody of "Frohes Volk, Vergnügte Sachsen" (Happy folk, contented Saxon; Picander text), BWV 1158-Anh. 12 (https://www.bach-digital.de/receive/BachDigitalWork_work_00001320?lang=en), Nameday of August III, 3 August 1732); the arias are parodied from the lost serenade, BWV 1163-Anh. 1, "Auf! süß-entzückende Gewalt" (Up, sweet-enchanting force and pow'r), Hohmann-Mencke wedding in Leipzig, 27 November 1725. Ascension Oratorio aria No. 4, "Ach bleibe doch, mein liebstes Leben," much later was a parody contrafaction as the Agnus Dei aria in the B-Minor Mass. The closing figural chorale, to the melody "Von Gott will ich nicht laßen" (I will not abandon God), has only one model, the bi-modal closing of the Christmas Oratorio, set to the Passion chorale melody, "O sacred head now wounded, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBqhAelqVvs). This Ascension Oratorio closing appears to be a fair copy and may be part of the Michaelmas oratorio of 1734. "The parallel finale movements of the Christmas and Ascension Oratorios," says Wolff (Ibid.: 246f), "imply a carefully planned correspondence, and reveal an intention to provide an overarching device for connecting for connecting the first and last movements of a biblical story told in music. Bach in fact achieved a grand musical narration of the entire salvation story, the centerpiece of which is the Passion, framed and elevated by a trilogy of jubilant oratorios."

"Around 1738, athe time when Bach was making fair copies of the scores of the Easter and Ascension Oratorios, he was also preparing a thorough revision of the St. John Passion," says Wolff, "though he never completed it" (Ibid.: 247; https://www.bach-digital.de/receive/BachDigitalSource_source_00000846). In this work, he says, is found references to the Christus Victor (Lion or Hero of Judah, Lord our Ruler) as well as the other associations in the last line of the Easter Oratorio closing chorus, "Der Löwe von Juda kommt siegend gezogen!" (the Lion of Judah comes drawn in victory!), the opening chorus of the Ascension Oratorio, "Praise God in his kingdoms," and the last line of the opening chorus of the Christmas Oratorio, "Laßt uns den Namen des Herrschers verehren!" (let us honour the name of our ruler!). Bach "was expanding his musical perspectives," he says, creating " a remarkable network of textual and musical correspondences across these works," "a special and likely intentional affinity of the St. John Passion with the three oratorios," the oratorios librettist probably Picander. Bach finally succeeded in 1748/49, performing a cycle of the three oratorios and the St. John Passion, he says (247f). After acquiring the Calov bible commentary in 1733, among Bach's notations, he wrote: "With a devotional music, God is always in his presence of Grace" (New Bach Reader: 161), Wolff quotes (Ibid.: 248) and concludes: "This can certainly stand as a fitting motto for all of Bach's sacred music, but in particular for his imposing group of of large-scale works for the major Christological feasts of the church year, the composer's grand liturgical Messiah cycle."

Complete Christological Cycle

Besides the three-day major Christological feasts of Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost that frame the central Passion on Good Friday, the Lutheran Church Order Agenda (Ibid.: 5f) prescribes ten single-day Christological feast days: 1. January 1st, New Year [Neujahr]; 2. January 6th, Epiphany [Epiphanias]; 3. February 2nd, (40th day after Christmas) The Purification of Mary or Candlemas [Mariæ Reinigung or Mariä Lichtmess] Purificatio Mariæ; 4. March 25th Annunciation of Mary [Mariæ Verkündigung] In Annuntiatione Beatæ Mariæ Virginis; 5. Ascension (40 days after Easter Sunday) [Himmelfahrt]; 6. Trinity Sunday (1st Sunday after Pentecost) [Trinitatis] the beginning of the second half of the liturgical year; 7. June 24th Nativity of St. John the Baptist [Johannistag or Johanni]; 8. July 2nd The Visitation of Our Lady [Mariæ Heimsuchung]; 9. September 29th Michaelmas, St. Michael and All Angels [Michaelis or Michaelistag]; and 10. October 31st Reformation Feast Day [Reformationsfest]. Bach set all as part of his church-year cantata cycles, selectively, in the manner of oratorios as extended cantatas that can include gospel quotations and music for brass and drums. Thus there are two feast day celebrated in Bach's Christmas Oratorio, New Year and Epiphany, as well as cantatas involving the three Marian feasts of Purification (Presentation of Jesus, https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Read/Purification.htm), Annunciation (Conception, https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Read/Annunciation.htm), and Visitation (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Read/Visitation.htm) with the Latin Magnificat, BWV 243 (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Vocal/BWV243-Gen8.htm, and Luther's German settings, in addition to music for the saints days of John the Baptist (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Read/John-Baptist.htm) and Michael and all Angels (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Read/Michael.htm) as well as the Reformation (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Read/Reformation.htm), Christ's Ascension into Heaven (see above), and Trinity Sunday (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Read/Trinity.htm).

In addition, the Agenda (Ibid.: 11f) lists the observances in the church year of "Feast Days/Times": First Sunday in Advent (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Read/Advent1.htm), Sundays after Christmas (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Read/Christmas1.htm) and New Years (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Read/Sunday-After-New-Year.htm). There were four other significant Christological events: Jesus' Baptism (Martin Luther's hymn setting, http://www.bach-cantatas.com/BWV7-D4.htm), Wedding Feast at Cana (Jesus' first miracle; 2nd Sunday after Epiphany, http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Read/Epiphany2.htm), the Transfiguration of Jesus (anticipation of the resurrection, http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Topics/Christological-Cycle-Summary.htm: "Transfiguration"), and Palm Sunday (Jesus entry into Jerusalem, https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Read/Palm.htm). Other saints days that Bach set to music include St. Stephen (first Christian martyr), December 26, with Cantata 57 in 1725 (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/BWV57-D4.htm: "Lehms’ Biblical References"), and St. John the Evangelist and Apostle, December 27, with Cantata 64 in 1723 (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/BWV64-D4.htm).

Besides the six oratorios and 37 cantatas, as part of a Christological cycle are Bach's Latin Church Music and the 400 German chorales (http://bach-cantatas.com/Topics/Christological-Cycle-2.htm). Bach shaped Latin Church Music with its Christological emphasis, both in all the Mass ordinary movements (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei) and the incarnation in the Magnificat, while also setting Luther's vernacular hymns into the Deutsche Messe settings, as well was setting the de tempore and omne tempore Lutheran chorales as vocal liturgical settings and instrumental organ chorale preludes introducing the service hymns to the congregation. Bach's Obituary says that he composed five cycles of church pieces for all the Sundays and festival of the church year. Three cantata cycles are extant, as well as a Christological Cycle, and an extended cycle of occasional music of joy and sorrow involving some 84 cantatas, motets, and music for special sacred and profane occasions (http://bach-cantatas.com/Topics/Joy-Sorrow-Cycle.htm). These involve 12 annual Town Council sacred installation services (BWV 71, 1138.l, 1138.2, 119, ?137, 69a, 1139.1, 193, 120.1, 1140, 29, 1141), six special services of joy and thanksgiving (BWV 233a, 248a, 191, 190, 120.3, 1139.2), seven sacred and profane weddings (BWV 34.2, 120.2, 195.1, 197,2, 250-252; 202, 210, 216), four undesignated pure-hymn cantatas (BWV 97, 100, 117, 192), as well as the sorrowful music that includes motets (BWV226-230, 118, and Anh. 159) and five penitential (BWV 106, 131, 150, 196, 1083) and seven (BWV 106, 1143, BC D1, BWV 157, 1136, 198 and 1143) memorial/funeral cantatas.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

¹ Christoph Wolff, Chapter 6, "A Grand Liturgical Messiah Cycle: Three Passions and a Trilogy of Oratorios, in Bach's Musical Universe: The Composer and His Work (New York: W. W. Norton, 2020: 192), Amazon.com; Google Books. Wolff also is currently involved in preparation of the Neue Bach Ausgabe New Edition of the Complete Works - Revised Edition (NBArev) of studies of the 1725 and final 1739 versions of the St. John Passion (Bäreinreiter).
² Covering the similar ground of the six oratorios is Michael Marissen's Bach Oratorios: The Parallel German-English Texts with Annotations (Oxford University Press, 2008); Amazon.com: "Look inside"); a scholarly, philological examination of the linguistic and theological facets as found in the extensively annotated footnotes which constitutes a primer for anyone wishing to pursue Bach's still neglected oratorios, whether collectively or individually.
³ Wolfram Steude, "Passions, Resurrection History and Dialogues" in the Heinrich Schütz Edition (https://www.brilliantclassics.com/media/511841/94361-Downloadable-Booklet.pdf: 17).
⁴ Johann Walther's initial Passion settings of Matthew and John are described in Carl Schalk's "Johann Walther: First Cantor of the Lutheran Church" (St. Louis MO: Concordia, 1992: 10).
⁵ For the Bach contemporary definition of "oratorio" of Johann Gottfried Walther and Erdmann Neumeister, see Uri Golomb's 2007 BCW reprint article, "Bach's Oratorios," "The Term 'Oratorio'"; https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Articles/Bach-Oratorios-Golomb.pdf.
⁶ Marcus Rathey, Johann Sebastian Bach’s Christmas Oratorio: Music, Theology, Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016); see also http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Vocal/BWV248-Gen8.htm: "Christmas: Oratorio, Forerunners, Cantata 142, Rathey Book Review").
⁷ Peter Wollny, "6. Anonymous Vj (NBA IX/3, No. 200)," in "Neuerkenntisse zu einigen Kopisten der 1730er Jahre" (New Insight Into Some Copyists in the 1730s), in Bach Jahrbuch 2016, Vol. 102: 83ff), Eng. trans. Thomas Braatz.
⁸ Christoph Wolff, "Under the Spell of Opera? Bach's Oratorio Trilogy," in J. S. Bach and the Oratorio Tradition, ed. Daniel R. Melamed; Bach Perspectives Vol 8 (Urbana IL: University of Illinois Press, 2011: 1-12); in conjunction with the American Bach Society, https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/85anz5hb9780252035845.html, other essays relate to Bach's Christmas Oratorio are: Markus Rathey, "Drama and Discourse: The Form and Function of Chorale Tropes in Bach’s Oratorios," and Kerala J. Snyder, "Oratorio on Five Afternoons: From the Lübeck Abendmusicken to Bach’s Christmas Oratorio."
⁹ For the most recent BCML weekly discussion of the Christmas Oratorio, 24 December 2017 to 14 January 2018, see Systematic Discussions, Cantatas 1-6, http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Order-2017.htm.
¹⁰ See David Timm, "Leipzig University Choir Festival Music," in University of Leipzig: 600 Years, Google translate; Google Translate.
¹¹ Marcus Rather, Chapter 3, “From Love Song to Lullaby – The Christmas Oratorio, BWV 248” in Bach’s Major Vocal Works: Music, Drama, Liturgy (New Haven CN: Yale University Press, 2016).
¹² Daniel R. Melamed, Listening to Bach: The Mass in B Minor and The Christmas Oratorio (Oxford University Press, 2018), Amazon.com: "Look inside."
¹³ Bach Easter Oratorio versions: Bach Digital
¹⁴ See Eric Chafe, J. S. Bachs's Johannine Theology: The St. John Passion and the Cantatas for Spring 1725 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016); Amazon.com "Look inside"; also BCML Discussions, weeks of April 16 to June 11, 2016, http://bach-cantatas.com/Order-2017.htm).
¹⁵ Bach Ascension Oratorio: score, https://www.bach-cantatas.com/BGA/BWV011-BGA.pdf; recording, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1GtCYF8CoY; descriptions, https://www.bach-cantatas.com/BWV11-D4.htm, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobet_Gott_in_seinen_Reichen,_BWV_11.

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To Come: Wolff, Chapter 7, "In Critical Survey and Review Mode: Revisions, Transcriptions, Reworkings."

Kim Patrick Clow wrote (July 1, 2020):
William L. Hoffman wrote:
"The oratorio model was Schütz's Weihnachtshistorie, composed in 1660, Christmas Oratorio study.6 ....The most immediate influences were Knupfer, Schelle, Kuhnau, and Stölzel."
And I would say of those three names listed there "Schelle, Kuhnau, and Stölzel" -- the most influential was likely Stölzel, who composed a Christmas oratorio to celebrate his first Christmas as the court composer to the Duke of Gotha in 1719. Stölzel had been appointed in November and the Christmas oratorio he composed was likely a calling card for his skills as both a poet and composer (Stölzel authored the text). This Stölzel Christmas oratorio is NOT the CPO recording with the same name-- those are wonderful Stölzel Christmas cantatas CPO recorded and assembled together and did not originate as a single composition by Stölzel.

Late 1730s Survey/Review: Organ, Concerto, Miss, WTC II Collections

William L. Hoffman wrote (July 10, 2020):
Beginning in the 1730s, for the final two decades of his life, Bach completed his calling of a "well-regulated church music to the glory of God" while engaging in a "critical survey and review mode" of his compositional legacy, says Christoph Wolff in Chapter 7 of his new Bach musical biography. ¹ As was the tradition of other master composers before him dating back to the Renaissance, Bach reviewed his previous works while refining those he would utilize again, compiling opus collections and beginning to shape ultimate statements of his creative endeavors. At the same time, Bach compiled the Alt-Bachisches Archiv (Old Bach Archive) of music of his Bach Family in which he was the culmination of a five-generation dynasty in central Germany. Five collections occupied Bach in the 1730s and exhibited the potential to be compiled in a definitive form and published, although all remained in manuscript. Having completed the extensive parody St. Mark Passion in 1731 while the family quarters in the St. Thomas School were being remodeled, Bach systematically and intentionally examined his output and began to refashion five groups of music indicative of his accomplishments: 1. the "Great 18," BW651-668, extended, iconic chorale preludes for organ; 2. the Six Schübler Chorales, BWV 645-650, transcribed from chorale cantata trio arias; 3. the ground-breaking Harpsichord Concertos for one two, and three instruments, BWV 1052-65; 4. the four Missae: Kryie-Gloria, BWV 233-236, for major feast-day services; and 5. his second collection of keyboard preludes and fugues, The Well-Tempered Clavier (WTC), BWV 870-893. All five involved various phases of analysis, refinement, revision, reworking, and transcription.

Each group of works implied a wider range of rich music as well as the potential for other collections. The "Great 18" was the ultimate statement of a life-long interest in chorale preludes for various services found in the earliest Neumeister Chorales, BWV 1090–1120, and the miscellaneous "Kirnberger Collection," BWV 690–713; the incomplete Weimar Orgelbüchlein (Little Organ Book, BWV 599–644; and the 1739 Clavier-Übung III German Organ Mass, Catechism (BWV 669–689. The other category of "free" organ works was his virtuoso recital repertoire of preludes, fugues, toccatas and fantasias (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_compositions_by_Johann_Sebastian_Bach#BWV_Chapter_7), Wolff suggests (Ibid.: 257f). The Six Schübler Chorales were the final statement of transcriptions that had occupied Bach since Weimar, initially as learning devices and subsequently as demonstrations of his performing abilities. The autograph manuscript of solo Harpsichord Concertos, BWV 1052-59, suggests two planned volumes of six each entered as fair copies, possibly transcribed from concertos for other instruments, but left incomplete and unpublished, suggests Wolff (Ibid.: 264f). The four Missae were in part a para-template for the complete Missa tota, the Mass in B-Minor completed in 1749. Book II of the WTC offers an extended perspective of Bach's keyboard collections as pedagogical and compositional applied musical treatises and is still being studied.²

"There is no question that in the early 1730s, Bach developed an evolving consciousness regarding his family's and his own musical legacy," observes Wolff (Ibid.: 251). Central to this awakening is Bach's gathering of his Alt-Bachisches Archiv (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altbachisches_Archiv) of Bach Family musical manuscripts and his compilation of the Ursprung Der musicalisches-Bachischen Familie (Origin of the Bach Family of Musicians), family tree and genealogy of 1735. These probably were Bach's most significant source-critical musical research, showing his investment in the family, his care and rigor to research and collect their music, and to gift it to his son Emanuel, who named it.³ "At the same time, he occupied himself with defining his own place in history, not merely within the family but in a broader sense, paying increased attention to considerations of posthumous reputation," Wolff says (Ibid.). Bach showed "relentless self-criticism, leading to rejection of inadequate work," and "a consistent quest for improvement, a constant pursuit of revision and the ultimate aim of true 'musical perfection'." Abetting Bach's compositional efforts, the key being "hard work," were the "recurring performances of a very large number if his own extant compositions" (says Wolff, Ibid.: 252), such as his sacred music repertory as cantor, the Leipzig Collegium musicum (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collegium_Musicum), "and the teaching of private keyboard and composition students" (see https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Other/Pupil-List.htm, especially private pupils and copyists lists).⁴

Since taking the posts of Leipzig church cantor and music director in 1723, Bach had experienced major shifts in musical endeavors and related activities in 1725, 1731, and 1735, all associated with new compositional directions, pursuits and interests. By 1731 when he initiated the St. Mark Passion and published the Clavier-Übung I, Opus 1, six partitas, he had virtually finished his composing of oratorio Passions and keyboard suites while turning from church year cantatas to instrumental works and "further reworkings of larger secular settings," says Wolff (Ibid.: 252), primarily drammi per musica, https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://unichor.uni-leipzig.de/index.php%3Fpage%3Dfestmusiken&prev=search), "in a manner that would greatly expand his sacred repertoire" of oratorios and Mass movements. Initially, Bach composed some eight pure-hymn chorale cantatas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chorale_cantata_(Bach)#Later_additions_to_the_chorale_cantata_cycle and "Chorale cantatas with unknown liturgical function"), began performing multiple Harpsichord Concertos and other instrumental works with the Collegiuum musicum, and turned to the Dresden Court for special occasional music. During the decade of the 1730s, Bach also began "the review, assembly, revision, and reuse of extant compositions" from a vast reservoir in three categories: "assembling extant works in revised versions, transcribing or arranging existing pieces, and integrating both extant material and new compositions into larger units," Wolff says (Ibid.: 253). No longer involved in the initial rigor producing three cycles of sacred cantatas for weekly services, Bach was free to pick and choose a wide range of works, setting some aside for further consideration, beginning major projects, and responding to family needs such as the careers of his two oldest sons, Friedemann and Emanuel. Bach now cast a wide net of compositional motive, method, and opportunity.

"Great 18" Organ Chorales Revisited

Under the general compositional rubric of "assembling extant works in revised versions," Bach in the 1730s initially reviewed and reshaped his first "collection" of large-scale chorale preludes for church services, the "Great Eighteen Chorale Preludes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Eighteen_Chorale_Preludes), which had been selectively composed throughout most of his Weimar tenure from 1708 to 1716). Bach often had begun with the template of the incomplete Orgelbüchlein concise, varied hymn settings to create an elaboration of larger, more ambitious versions of iconic Lutheran hymns in the North German tradition. He set multiple versions of the Pentecost "Komm heiliger Geist, Herre Gott" (Come, Holy Spirit, Lord God," BWV 651, 652; the Advent "Nun komm der Heiden Heiland" (Now comes the heathen's savior), BWV 659-661; the German Mass "Gloria," "Allein Got in der Höh sei Ehr" (Alone to God on high be glory), BWV 662-664; and the Communion "Jesus Christus unser Heiland" (Jesus, Christ, our Savior). In his study of the chronology and authenticity of the "Great 18" extended chorales, Russel Stinson,⁵ while examining various recent articles on this music, dates the original extended chorale settings to as early as Mühlhausen (1708-08) with the chorale motet form and chorale partita, followed by the later ornamental chorale, cantus firmus, and trio forms. In 1739, Bach "decided to revise the works and assemble them into a collection, perhaps for the purpose of publication," says Stinson (Ibid.: 45), following the publication of the Clavier-Übung III, German Mass and Catechism extended chorales. Bach entered the first fifteen (Nos. 1-13, c.1739-42; Nos 14-15, c.1746-47). His student and son-in-law Johann Christoph Altnikol entered the 16th and 17th chorales from between August 1750 (Bach's death) to April 1751, while an anonymous copyist entered the 18th, the incomplete "Vor deinen Thron," BWV 668, between April aJuly 1750 (https://www.bach-digital.de/receive/BachDigitalSource_source_00001203).

A case study of revisioning is found in the penitential, Passion hymn, "An Wasserflüssen Babylon" (At the rivers of Babylon),⁶ Wolff shows (Ibid.: 257), "to typify the process of selecting and revising." The earliest version, probably pre-Weimar, "is in a five-part score of exceptional harmonic density," which in Weimar became "a more transparent four-part setting," and the "thoroughly revised Leipzig version" became "a still more transparent and differentiated polyphonic score." One of the best-known stories about Bach is his half-hour improvisation on the melody before famed Johann Adam Reinken (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Adam_Reincken), c. 23 November 1719 in Hamburg. "Bach certainly devoted much care to the 'legacy project' of the Great Eighteen," Wolff says (Ibid.: 258). During the mid 1740s, "his mind increasingly turned to major reexaminations, improvements, and revisions of his extant opus collections," most notably the WTC II and the set of six sonatas for obbligato harpsichord and violin, BWV 1014-19.

Six Published "Schübler" Chorales for Organ

Bach took a composer's holiday of sorts in mid 1747 when he joined the Mizler Society of learned composers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorenz_Christoph_Mizler), had his portrait done with his "calling card," Canon triplex a 6, BWV 1076 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pN7EuiE7SgI), and presented his Canonic Variations on "Vom Himmel hoch," BWV 769, which he entered into his manuscript of the "Great 18," a work still in progress. At the same time, Bach compiled for publication the Sechs Choräle von verschiedener Art (Six Chorales of Various Sorts), straightforward transcriptions of chorale fantasia arias from his chorale cantatas: two pairs of trios, BWV 645-646 and 649-650, framing two four-voice settings at the center, BWV 647-648 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-FFEvqYh3I, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schübler_Chorales).

The set is named after its publisher, Johann Georg Schübler of Zella, published in 1747 or before August 1748. It is a "serviceable collection of popular Lutheran hymn tunes," says Wolff (Ibid.: 260), which "also requires considerable technical facility on the part of the player." They are a "practical, homogeneous, and marketable spin-off product, one that would further elevate his status as an unrivaled composer of organ works," he says (Ibid.). Bach apparently did not closely proofread the printer's plates but a recent discovery shows 125 changes and additions "in Bach's hand, considerably altering the text of the works and the way they are performed," says publisher Leupold Editions in a new publication (https://www.wayneleupold.com/the-complete-organ-works-seriesi-volume-9-standard-html.html). Bach's situation in the later 1740s "may well reflect his concurrent preoccupation with elaborate compositional projects to which he assigned great priority — namely the Musical Offering, the Canonic Variations, the Art of Fugue, and the B-Minor Mass, Wolff suggests (Ibid.: 260). The set of six aria transcriptions includes the popular tenor aria, "Zion hört die Wächter singen" (Zion hears the watchmen sing, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jskK0evQuCI), composed in 1731, six years after the incomplete second cycle was composed. Also during the 1740s, "Bach reperformed most if not all of his chorale cantatas, and also made numerous revisions to earlier works," Wolff suggests (Ibid.: 258f), esteemed music, the parts sets from which would be housed at the Thomas School and performed, beginning in 1755 by prefect Christian Friedrich Penzel and Oelsnitz cantor J. G. Nache.

Harpsichord Concerto Volumes

Besides being a world-renown organist, Bach was an unparalleled keyboard performer and pedagogue, compiling besides the four published Clavier-Übung keyboard exercises numerous manuscript collections, compilations and transcriptions (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_keyboard_and_lute_compositions_by_Johann_Sebastian_Bach). It is the third largest category of Bach music, following the vocal music and organ works, BWV 776-1000 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_compositions_by_Johann_Sebastian_Bach#BWV_Chapter_8, http://bach-cantatas.com/NVD/Keyboard-Music-Intro.htm). Around 1738, Bach compiled the portfolio of seven solo harpsichord concertos, "the last known major orchestral score prepared by Bach," "none of them newly composed and all of them unnumbered," and "without a title page," says Wolff (Ibid.: 261). The concerto collection was assembled at the same time that Bach began to reexamined the "Great 18" organ chorale preludes, compose the four Missae: Kyrie-Gloria, complete the feast-day oratorios, and prepared to publish the Clavier-Übung III German Organ Mass and Catechism chorales. It was the first part of a projected two-part collection of six each keyboard concertos, the first six solo essays, BWV 1052-57, the second embracing two more solo works as well as two each double and triple concertos, BWV 1058-60 and 1062-64, Wolff suggests (details, https://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV1052-1065.htm). Bach may have been motivate by Handel's Opus 4, six organ concertos, published in 1738 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_concertos,_Op._4_(Handel)).

Bach's sources included previously-composed concertos such as works for solo keyboard dating as early as 1715 in Weimar and pursuing a path to the first autonomous keyboard alternative genre to the Italian violin concerto. Wolff's thesis, still not fully ratified, is that Bach initially composed the first two harpsichord concertos, BWV 1052 and 1053, originating in Weimar as early as 1715 as organ concertos not as violin concertos composed in Cöthen as previously thought. These two proto-concertos utilize “specific violin manners like bariolage [string crossings with double stops] as points of departure for the development of virtuoso keyboard figuration,” he says.⁷ Bach carefully shaped the keyboard right-hand treble part while playing close attention the left as an independent voice, Wolff observes in his new Bach musical biography (Ibid.: 266). "Throughout the 1730s, the keyboard concerto and keyboard music in general appear to have been areas of primary importance to Bach in the instrumental realm, clearly at the expense of chamber and orchestral music," he says (Ibid.: 268), compared to "the remarkable productivity during the same period" of colleague and friend Georg Philipp Telemann in Hamburg. Beginning about 1730 with his Leipzig Collegum musicum, Bach fashioned multiple harpsichord concertos as a family affair, showcasing his sons Friedemann and Emanuel, proceeding on to solo works, many originating as concerto movements for other melody instruments, notably violin. (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/Concerto-Gen1.htm). Bach's keyboard concertos exerted an immediate influence in Leipzig and Berlin with sons Emanuel and Johann Christian and long-term as a preferred genre in the Classical Era, where just "as Bach had learned from Vivaldi, thus did Mozart learn fra son of Bach" (Christian, says Wolff (Ibid.: 268).

Kyrie-Gloria Masses for Feast Days

In the vocal music sphere in the late 1730s, Bach was working simultaneously on adaptations (self-borrowings) of secular ceremonial oratorio works to be parodied as feast-day Mass Proper sacred oratorios, as well as so-called parody contrafactions from sacred church cantatas in German to the liturgical repertory of the Mass Ordinary Kyrie-Gloria (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZP688-BDAU). These "offers a fascinating parallel," says Wolf (Ibid.: 269), where Bach's "objective was once again to augment the repertorial choices available for the major church holidays." Thus the oratorios and Missae: Kyrie-Gloria — enhanced, extended figural music — could be presented together during the festival main morning service as well as the afternoon vespers service of the word. The origins of Bach's Missae Breve (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missa_brevis) Lutheran Masses dated to the spring of 1733 with the death of Saxon Elector Augustus "the Strong" and the secession of his son, Friedrich August II, with a visiting regional, festival Erbhuldigung (fealty service)⁸ in the Leipzig St. Nicholas Church on April 2, including a sermon by Leipzig Superintendent Salomon Deyling and music of cantor Bach, with a Missa: Kyrie-Gloria common to both Roman Catholic Dresden and Lutheran Leipzig. In late July 1733, Bach traveled to Dresden with a complete set of parts for his Kyrie-Gloria Mass in B minor, BWV 232¹ (https://www.bach-digital.de/receive/BachDigitalSource_source_00002721). At this time, Bach began composing or revising extended sacred music, including the definitive version of the Magnificat in D Major, BWV 243, for the Feast of the Visitation on 2 July 1733. Bach later in 1738 or 1739 composed for feast days the Cantata BWV 30 for John the Baptist (June 24) and completed hybrid chorale Cantata 80 for the Reformation Festival (October 31), Wolff points out (Ibid.: 272).

Before the Saxon Court change, Bach had presented special occasional profane music for two court visits in 1727 which may have provided parodied contrafactions for the Kyrie-Gloria Mass: Cantata BWV 1156=Anh. 9 “Entfernet euch, ihr heitern Sterne” (Disperse yourselves, ye stars serenely, Z. Phillip Ambrose, http://www.bach-cantatas.com/BWVAnh9-D.htm)⁹ on May 12 and Cantata BWV 193a, "Ihr Häuser des Himmels, ihr scheinenden Lichter" (Ye houses of heaven, ye radiant torches)¹⁰ on August 3 and again on 3 August 1732 with Cantata BWV 1157=Anh. 11, “Es lebe der König, der Vater im Lande” (Long life to the King now, the nation's true father). With the Kyrie-Gloria Mass in 1733, Bach sought the honorary title of Saxon Court composer and preceded to compose drammi per musica for court visits almost annually until 1742. Meanwhile, the hour-long Kyrie-Gloria Mass of three Kyrie tri-partite movements and nine Gloria mivements "stimulated the composer's general interest in the genre of Mass, inspired him to study Masses by various (mostly Italian) composers, and finally resulted in the composition of several more serviceable and compact half-hour Kyrie-Gloria Masses," says Wolff (Ibid.: 272). "All of these were scored modestly, and each encompassed no more than six movements" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_Sct7RroG0), with an opening Kyrie chorus as well as a Gloria with opening chorus and closing "Cum Sancto Spiritu chorus, interspersed with three aria settings condensing the internal texts, from "Domine Deus" to "Quoniam to solus sanctus" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyrie–Gloria_masses,_BWV_233–236).¹¹

"The four Kyrie—Gloria Masses had emerged as part of a cluster of major projects that kept Bach particularly busy in the late 1730," says Wolff (Ibid.: 272). They are "the beginnings of work on the Great Eighteen Chorales, part II of the Well-Tempered Clavier, and the Art of Fugue." The four Lutheran Masses "would have been performed several times in the late 1730s and throughout the 1740s" Wolff calculates (Ibid.: 273). They "exhibit tonal closure schemes that resemble the compact key organization of the six parts of the Christmas Oratorio," he says (Ibid.: 274). Although they were published beginning during the early 19th century, like the Christmas work they were considered inferior because of problematic parody and questionable application, most notably by Philipp Spitta and especially Albert Schweitzer,¹² and only have been accepted beginning in the mid 20th century. Bach skillfully relied on key movements from sacred cantatas from the first and third church year cycles with similar Affekt and "compatible biblical texts, mostly from Psalms," says Wolff (Ibid.: 275), to create the four virtual Mass parodies. From the autograph scores of Masses BWV 234 and 236, c.1738, Bach used six movements from Cantatas 79 and 179, and from Masses BWV 233 and 235 he borrowed seven movements from Cantatas BWV 102 and 187, "from which he selected movements of particular quality and refinement," says Wolff (Ibid,: 274) The extant chorus adaptations are found in three Kyrie and three Gloria movements, and all four closing "Cum sancto spiritu" (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Scores/BWV233-236-Sco.htm).

There are four Missa movements whose sources are unknown and original music not extant (BWV 1139.1, 1163, 1162): the Gloria chorus and Domine Deus aria of BWV 233 and the opening Kyrie chorus and Domine Deus aria in BWV 234. In Missa BWV 233, the fugal Gloria to the "Gratias agimus tibi in 6/8 passepied style (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-T17219z2io) may have originated in the lost 1725 Town Council Cantata BWV 1139.1=Anh. 4, “Wünschet Jerusalem Glück” (Wished-for Jerusalem fortune, Psalm 122:6f, text only extant), as the mood, phrasing and line length of the two movements are quite similar (see https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Topics/Latin-Church-Music.htm: "Possible Sources, 'Gloria,' Two 'Domine Deus,' 'Kyrie'"). The succeeding, extended "Domine Deus, Rex coelestis" syncopated bass trio aria with violin solo in BWV 233/3 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boB7XibpZf4) may be the da capo aria “Herrscher aller Seraphinen” from the fourth movement of BWV 1139.1, with the text (see http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Texts/BWVAnh4-Ger5.htm) similar in structure. The opening pastorale "Kyrie" of BWV 234/1 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Pw8cZy1vos) may have originated as the closing Chorus Nymphs on the Pleisse River, “Lebe, neues Paar, vergnügt!” (Live, ye newly-weds, content!), of wedding Cantata BWV 1163=Anh. 196, “Auf! süß-entzückende Gewalt” (Up! Sweet charming authority), for the incipit refrain, repeated in the middle and the end of the aria, matches the phrase “Kyrie eleison.” Further, this 13-movement work (text, http://www.uvm.edu/~classics/faculty/bach/I.html), has progressive arcadian images of librettist Johann Christoph Gottsched for Saxon court nobility, later providing two parody/contrafaction arias (BWV 1163/3 and 5) in the 1738 Ascension Oratorio, one for soprano and the other for alto later reused as the “Agnus Dei” in the B-Minor Mass. Following the BWV 233/2 Gloria," the bass bi-partite aria with strings (no. 3), “Domine Deus,” in 3/8, beginning in C Major (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQW5gRButaw), is a possible parody contrafaction of the da-capo aria (no. 6), “Geist und Herze begierig” (Heart and spirit are most eager), of festive secular Cantata BWV 1162=Anh. 18, “Froher Tag, verlangte Stunden” (Happy day, long hoped-for hours [by Z. Philip Ambrose]), for the dedication of the renovation of the Thomas School, 5 June 1732 (German and English texts, http://www.uvm.edu/~classics/faculty/bach/III.html.¹³

Several of the parody movements in the Kyrie-Gloria Masses involve "the affinity of character and expression," says Wolff (Ibid.: 275). For example, the Gloria movement BWV 235/2 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HVzgXRUr5E) is similar in prosody to the Salomo Franck text of the fugal opening Cantata 72, "Alles nur nach Gottes Willen" (Everything according to God's will, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hk1gXvHBUo, without opening ritornello), for the 3rd Sunday after Epiphany in 1726, and "fits perfectly with its emphatic 'laudamus, benedicimus, adoramus, glorificamus te'," he says (Ibid.: 275). Meanwhile, Bach "more often than not had to make carefully coordinated adjustments to the prosody and the musical scorings." "Bach must have derived particular satisfaction from the opportunity to undertake a second pass at a perfectly fine older piece which he did in numerous other instances of revision and arrangement in the 1730s," he says (Ibid.: 276). Rather than composing new music, as some critics of Bach's parody (new text underlay) have suggested, Bach would undertake great revision of the original source, such as the sixth movement scena with bass and SAT (No. 6) in Cantata 67, "Halt im Gedächtnis Jesu Christ," (Keep in memory Jesus Christ) for the 1st Sunday after Easter in 1724, "Friede sei mit euch!" (Peace be with you!, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKF9ogayiGA), which relates to the phrase "et in terra pax" (and on earth peace) in the Gloria of BWV 234, adapted for SATB and alto solo (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srFDdJaiuUs), the result being "a highly effective further evolution of the earlier vocal setting." Other movements with substantial revisions include the closing "Cum sancto spiritu" of Mass BWV 234 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gh5xf_TdB1A) from the opening chorus of Cantata 136, "Erforsche mich, Gott, und erfahre mein Herz" (Search me, God, and know my heart, Ps. 139:23, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HX8ci2HHz-U&vl=de), for the 8th Sunday after Trinity in 1723. All three aria movements in BWV 235 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9ZS5WltoYM — 3. Gratias agimus tibi 9:42, 4. Domine Fili 13:03, 5. Qui tollis) — are parodies from Cantata 187, "Es wartet alles auf dich" (Everything depends on you, Ps. 104:27f;), for the 7th Sunday after Trinity in 1726, respectively, No. 4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pOlaV2P1kI), No. 3 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uVeSqQolOA&list=PLRRtmRcSdkp_z2K_NpQEIVKELKhXaazk2&index=215), and No. 5 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzN7HVgFx-4) — score (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/BGA/BWV187-BGA.pdf).

The genesis of the four short Masses, 19^th century responses and contrasting, contemporary views are discussed in Uri Golomb’s BCW article, “Bach’s Four Missae,” December 2008, BCW, http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Articles/Missae-Golomb.pdf. << Bach’s four settings of the Kyrie and Gloria, BWV 233-236 – usually referred to as Missae Breves or “Lutheran” Masses (with or without the scare-quotes) – are probably his most underrated works. Until recently, many of Bach’s most ardent admirers considered them unworthy of their creator; if they spoke of them at all, it was often with dismissive frustration or bemusement. Similarly, many musicians who have otherwise tackled large swathes of Bach’s sacred music tended to avoid the Missae (at least as far as recordings were concerned). Over the past two decades, however, there have been several superb performances – both of the complete set and of individual works; and scholars are increasingly taking them seriously>> (discography, http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Vocal/BWV233-242-Rec1.htm). The four Masses as "refined parodies of selected sacred cantata movements," says Wolff (Ibid.: 278), "further validate the superb quality of their musical origins and stand as evidence of the unconventional, truly creative, and highly advanced nature of Bach's borrowing practice" and are comparable to his settings of sacred oratorios.

Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II Reprise

Two decades separate Bach's first and second volumes of the Well-Tempered Clavier which represent Bach's only foray into the realm of recomposition of collective musical material, "an absolute anomaly in the composer's oeuvre," observes Wolff (Ibid.: 279). The first volume of preludes and fugues, BWV 646-869, composed in Cöthen between 1720 and 1722, was unique in several respects, showing Bach's mastery of the instrumental keyboard form at a time when he was able to focus almost entirely on instrumental music. As a foundational text for his teaching and performing, it "sustained his enduring fascination with the first volume's three constituent essentials: improvisatory fantasy, learned imitative counterpoint, and tonal diversity. After almost two decades, these factors gave rise to a new companion volume of [24] preludes and fugues in all keys," BWV 870-893. Bach's motive to renew this mature compositional pursuit and the method of exacting work were paramount while the opportunity also was significant.

About 1739, now as before, Bach was free of his primary responsibilities to compose new vocal music, having amassed his calling of a "well-regulated church music to the glory of God," except for the completion of his Missa tota, the B-Minor Mass. In the instrumental field, he had composed bridging collections of mastered, extended keyboard music and organ works, both sacred chorales and secular preludes and fugues, with one remaining Clavier-Übung publication, the unique Goldberg Variations (1742). On the personal side, his two oldest sons, Friedemann and Emanuel, buoyed by the clavier concertos and other works performed at Café Zimmermann
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Café_Zimmermann), found their callings after university education, something their father had lacked. Bach took a hiatus from Zimmerman's, returning briefly in 1741 until Zimmermann's death. Now an honorary composing member of the Dresden Capelle, Bach was free of "almost continual vexation, envy, and persecution" (NBR No. 152) oversight from his employer, the Leipzig Town Council. Meanwhile he continued to fulfilled his annual Leipzig responsibilities of presenting Passions at Good Friday vespers and the Council's annual inauguration in late August with sacred celebratory cantatas,¹⁴ as well as selectively presenting, particularly on feast days, reperformances from his three annual cycles of church music.

As Bach in his final decade began to complete his pursuit of stile antico composition in its many and varied manifestations, the joys of the first keyboard volume returned (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPHIZw7HZq4) and inspired him to continue to perfect the constituent essentials with "the modernity of the new pieces relative to the more traditional styles of thfirst set," says Wolff (Ibid.: 279), creating unified preludes and fugues with even more rhetorical and cantabile expression. The new preludes reveal "full-fledge binary structures" "toward the sonata format favored by his composing sons and students," "ritornello-style format" and "galant melodic gestures" with "subtle strains of counterpoint and small-scale motivic elements," he observes (Ibid.: 280). In the fugues, 15 of the 24 are scored for three parts and nine in four parts, the introduction of double fugues, being "unmistakably related to the more systematic exploration of multiple-theme fugues in the Art of Fugue, a compositional project that overlapped in time with part II" of the WTC, he says (ibid.: 281). The "most notable distinction" is "the greater length of both preludes and fugues" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hms_PF_CKV4). The compositional history is obscured, says Wolff (Ibid.), with incomplete initial sketches and no "incomplete autograph fair copy of an intermediate version (1739-42)." The genesis "as a haphazard assemblage" overlapped with Bach corrections of part I of the WTC in 1732, 1736, and 1740, "leading to the conclusion that part II was not intended to replace but rather to continue and supplement part 1."¹⁵ The prehistory of Part II also involves smaller keyboard preludes and fughettas, BWV 899-902, in which the genesis "fits well into Bach's numerous wide-ranging projects of then 1730s, all conceived under the rubric of a review and critical assessment of his earlier compositions, as he sought appropriate homes for these he did not wish to fall between the cracks," he concludes (Ibid.: 282). Thus Bach in the 1730s was composing in "his principal domains: demanding keyboard music and intricate vocal composition" while his creative productivity began to ease, replaced by his pursuit of his legacy," Wolff emphasizes (Ibid.: 283).

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

¹ Christoph Wolff, Chapter 7, "In Critical Survey and Review Mode: Revisions, Transcriptions, Reworkings."in Bach's Musical Universe: The Composer and His Work (New York: W. W. Norton, 2020: 192), Amazon.com.
² See Bach Cantatas Website discussions, "Organ Music Introduction," https://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/Organ-Music-Intro.htm: "Individual Organ Works are classified as follows"; and "Concertos BWV 1041-1045, 1052-1065, General Discussions - Part 1," http://bach-cantatas.com/NVD/Concerto-Gen1.htm); and "Keyboard Music Intro.: Repertory, Development, Reception," http://bach-cantatas.com/NVD/Keyboard-Music-Intro.htm.
³ Bach Family studies: The New Grove Bach Family, Christoph Wolff et al, essays (New York: W. W. Norton, 1983, Contents https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_New_Grove_Bach_Family/ywcAtmEreWQC?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover); and the Bach Family, Wolff et al, Grove Music on Line, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000040023. Karl Geiringer, The Bach Family: Seven Generations of Creative Genius (New York: Oxford University Press, 1954 (https://online.ucpress.edu/jams/article/11/1/56/48048/Review-The-Bach-Family-Seven-Generations-of, Google Books). Percy M. Young, The Bachs, 1500-1850 (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1970 (https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Bachs_1500_1850.html?id=9Ie0AAAAIAAJ). Other sources: Bach family, Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bach_family), and Bach family, Bach Bibliographie Online Bach-Bibliographie.
⁴ See The Routledge Research Companion to Johann Sebastian Bach, ed. Robin A. Leaver (London Routledge, 2017), Part VI, Chronology, Google Books.
⁵ Russell Stinson, "Compositional History of Bach's Orgelbüchlein Reconsidered," in Bach Perspectives 1, ed. Russell Stinson (Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 1995: 44-47); also Stinson J. S. Bach's Great Eighteen Organ Chorales (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), Amazon.com: "Look inside, CONTENTS xi). The purpose, textual focus and application of the Great Eighteen is studied in the late Anne Leahy's monograph, J. S Bach's Leipzig Chorale Preludes, ed. Robin A. Leaver, Contextual Bach Studies No. 3, ed. Robin A, Leaver: Music, Text Theology (Lanham MD: Scarecrow Press Inc, 2011), Amazon.com: "Look inside, Contents, v."
⁶ "An Wasserflüssen Babylon": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXoxDwcSmbo, http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Texts/Chorale267-1-Eng3.htm, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Wasserflüssen_Babylon; Bach's 1700 tablature of Reinken's setting is found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dw2lfN_Knn4.
⁷ Christoph Wolff, “Did J. S. Bach Write Organ Concertos?,” in Bach and the Organ, ed. Matthew Dirst, Bach Perspective 10, American Bach Society (Urbana Ill: University of Illinois Press, 2016: 66).
⁸ For details of special services of praise and thanksgiving, see http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Topics/Praise.htm.
⁹ Cantata BWV 1156=Anh. 9 “Entfernet euch, ihr heitern Sterne”: Bach Digital.
¹⁰ Cantata BWV 193a, "Ihr Häuser des Himmels, ihr scheinenden Lichter": Bach Digital.
¹¹ Missae: Kyrie-Gloria, BWV 233-236 bibliography: Bach-Bibliographie.
¹² Albert Schweitzer, J. S. Bach, Eng. trans. Ernest Newman (New York: Dover reprint, 1911: 302ff, 326ff).
¹³ Suggested by Alberto Basso in Frau Musika: La vita e le opere di J. S. Bach, Volume 2: Lipsia e le opere de la maturità (1723–1750), (Turin, 1983: 518). The supposition is “little proven” (wenig begründet), says Werner Neumann, Handbuch der Kantaten Joh. Seb. Bachs, 5th ed. (Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1984: 253).
¹⁴ Bach Town Council Cantatas discussions: BCW: Search Results.
¹⁵ Two new studies of the WTC Book II of Yo Tomita and Richard Rastall, to be released after 1 January 2021, are: The Genesis and Early History of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II: Volume I: Genesis, Compilation, Revisions (Amazon.com); and The Genesis and Early History of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II: Volume II: Aspects of Afterlife (Amazon.com). Beginning in 1990, Tomita has made the study of the WTC II his primary research endeavor which is still yielding new findings, see BCW discussions, "Well-Tempered Clavier Book II, Yo Tomita Insights" (http://bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV870-893-Gen1.htm), and "Late Keyboard Works, Yo Tomita Insights, Spirituality" (http://bach-cantatas.com/Order-2019.htm). "Tomita's three-decade pursuit of the WTC II suggests that no source (primary, secondary, oblique) preserves a definitive version and that Bach may have left the work incomplete or subject to further changes" (see Bach Notes, No. 31 (Fall 2019, Newsletter of the American Bach Society), "A Report on the Bach Network Dialogue Meeting 2019, William L. Hoffman (Bach Cantatas Website)," https://www.americanbachsociety.org/Newsletters/BachNotes31.pdf: 15).

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To Come: Wolff Chapter 8, "Instrumental and Vocal Polyphony at Its Peak: Art of Fugue and B-Minor Mass.

Continue on Part 5

Christoph Wolff: Short Biography
Piano Transcriptions: Works | Recordings
Books: The Bach Reader / The New Bach Reader | The World of the Bach Cantatas | Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician | Bach's Musical Universe: The Composer and His Work: Details & Discussions Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5