Bach Books
Bettina Hatwig: Rethinking Bach
Review - Part 3

Continue from Part 2

Rethinking Bach, Meanings, John Butt's "Bach's Works and the Listener's Viewpoint"

William L. Hoffman wrote (April 24, 2022):
The Part III. Meanings, in the new Bach essay collection, Rethinking Bach, ed. Bettina Varwig,¹ concludes with chapter 10, John Butt's through-composed, insightful "Bach's Works and the Listener's Viewpoint." It rounds out the exploration of Meanings involving major topics of theology, humor, and codes.² As book editor Varwig observes in her "Introduction: (Still) Talking about Bach" (Ibid.: 5): "One of the key developments that enabled Bach to become the celebrated 'Bach' of the Western canon was the absorption of his compositional output into the nineteenth century work concept and the classical concert culture it engendered." Musicologist Lydia Goehr's concept of musical works emerging around 1800, thus a "strategic deconstruction of Bach as a composer of musical works," is the lynch-pin for Butt's essay.³ "However, as Butt explores in his contribution, this was perhaps less the result of an act of retrospective imposition than a realization of particular qualities latent within Bach's compositional approach as well as current philosophical debates about hermeneutics." Butt, a distinguished Bach scholar and conductor,⁴ shows a "generosity of spirit" when he begins (Ibid.: 251) with the current, controversial, scholarly perspective of the "work-concept," which he describes as "work-hood," suggesting a "useful compromise" that "if a piece of music is treated as a musical work in its reception," such as the "significant" revival of the St. Matthew Passion in 1829, "this treatment might be a reasonable reflection of its status, regardless of the original circumstances of composition."⁵

Variable Viewpoint Continually Unfolding

Thus, the music's "work-like" "qualities" are subordinate to a consideration of "the various viewpoints of the listener or critical reception,"⁶ says Butt (Ibid.: 251). The "various viewpoints" Butt calls "the issue of variable viewpoint, since this very concept was itself being theorized during Bach's lifetime. I suggest that, of the several characteristics that were to create the culture of the musical work, flexibility of viewpoint is be of particular importance." Musical "works" "do not have a single, fixed meaning but continually unfold according to the developing viewpoint (or perhaps listener point) of the receiving culture," he emphasizes (Ibid.). "Might it be," he asks, "that something of the present-day status of Bach's music is wound into the ways in which the concept of variable viewpoint is engaged, accommodated, or even manipulated within the composition?" Butt proceeds to suggest that "Another solution to the 'work problem'" in Bach's music, the "high-art definition of musical works is past its sell-by date" and that all who are engaged in Western art music "need to rework their criteria for categorization and judgment and, in the process, become much more inclusive of pieces and entire areas of repertoire that have customarily been undervalued." "Perhaps something of this attitude is even evident within certain areas⁷ of Bach scholarship, by which a texted religious work is analyzed not for its canonic 'greatness,' but rather according to its original purpose, regarded as a vehicle for theology, persuasion, or the various power relations that pertained at the time," he says (Ibid.: 251f).⁸ Meanwhile, But suggests (Ibid.: 252) "that we synthesize something of the assumed historical reception . . . to become both a new element of our appreciation" while reconsidering "in some cases a reason for disapproval and even proposed demotion of the work within the cultural canon."⁹ Butt eschews that "the concept of prestigious musical works should be retained at all costs, but that we try to understand a little more about how it [the enshrinement of great works] arose" decades or even centuries ago. Meanwhile, he advocates the contextual understanding of "the systems of value and meaning that sustained their appreciation" and "the criteria by which such prestige has been gained, together with the criteria that must have provided something of the basis for the composition in the first place (even if the prestige later to be gained was not fully anticipated at the time. Only Ince we have gone through such a process, I suggest, can we begin to conceive how such as musical culture might continue to survive into the future, perhaps within parameters that are considerably altered."

Three Interlocking Areas of Musical Work Concept

To analyze "the status of Bach's compositions in relation to any emerging concept of musical works," Butt says (Ibid.: 252), there "are three interlocking areas that need to be explored": 1. A "clarification of exactly which concept of musical works is under discussion at any point and the way [context] in which this might fit into the history and culture of Wester art music"; 2. An "outline of certain Bach pieces might be seen as problematic in the face of the work concept," specifically the Christmas Oratorio (see below) "as a sequence of six cantatas largely borrowed from preexisting cantatas honoring royalty, and therefore, in a certain sense, second hand"; and 3. The "ways in which metaphysical and interpretive textual hermeneutic theory of Bach's age may reflect the ways in which a musical work of this kind could have been conceived at the time, and — more importantly — how such developments might themselves have functioned as part of the emerging narrative of a musical work concept in Western music." The "crucial issue" is the "accommodation" of viewpoint "into how music is heard and judged" and "might have been anticipated at the level of composition." While Butt cautions against what Bach "may have thought about any emergent work concept or theorization of viewpoint" and "and any consistent attention to the cutting edge of critical thought in his age," "the latter may function as evidence of what it was possible to think within Bach's environment," he says (Ibid.: 252f). Butt issues two caveats on the culture of the musical work (Ibid.: 253): 1. Any "conception of musical works is historically and culturally conditioned and should not be considered distinct from specifically human concerns — a musical work is not a geologic specimen, after all"; and 2. The "definition of a piece of music as a 'work' inevitably requires the collusion of the receiving culture, and therefore cannot be categorized as if it were entirely independent of its potential audience." Conversely, "it would be problematic to insist that the effects and appreciation of music can be reduced solely to its cultural origins and reception," he says (Ibid.). Any "piece of music might elicit some sort of response, reaction, or thought that could have been anticipated from a purely cultural analysis — that something of the power of any music therefore lies in its unexpected influence on our feelings and thoughts," a "sense of 'circulation' between objects and human culture," he says in Footnote 5 (Ibid.: 265).

Historicizing Concept of Musical Works

Butt acknowledges Goehr's musical work concept based on common musical practice that yields "a more solidly 'work-like' work from, say, the late eighteenth century onward" (Ibid.: 253), however emphasizing that music previously could "be valued for the degree to which it provided an important precursor for the 'fuller' work" in a "progressive narrative, each new work having to represent, for most traditional historians of music, a 'step further' (in some parameters at least). Butt considers this "strong work concept is clearly associated with early Romantic aesthetics of music." "Defining features include the notion of the unique, original composer; a distinction between art and craft; a definitive written score of the unique work; a sense of musical autonomy distinct from other aspects of the world (especially the everyday); a formalist move toward inner rather than outer significance; a co-option of religion; stronger copyright l; the construction of concert halls; and, most importantly perhaps, disinterested contemplation on the part of the listener."¹⁰ Butt in "historicizing the concept of musical works," finds that "in its more reified senses relates to the covering conditions of modernity,"¹¹ defining it from the beginnings in the era of the Renaissance and Reformation, and is fed by the scientific revolutions" of the 16th and 17th centuries, "reaching a peak and a crisis at the time of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, and thereafter forging ahead with the Industrial Revolution and the increasing dominance of capitalism." "The development of modernity shows several parallels with the strong work concept," he says (Ibid. 254f): "the scientific revolution and the notion of empirical experimentation (paralleled by increasing complexity of harmonic parameters); the development of a stronger sense if subjectivity and individuality (each 'work' becomes more distinct in its own right); separation and specialization in different spheres of human endeavor (the composer as specialist, sitting apart from other musicians); instrumental reason (e.g., some degree of formalist coherence in an extended composition); and a division of labor (where the composer is 'served' by the performer, who in turn undertakes a specific task)." "The great musical 'work' in this context represented a further level of order, separated from immediate worldly concerns, and served by ancillary musical activities," he says (Ibid.: 254).

Beginnings of Modernity, Toward Autonomy

Butt finds (Ibid.: 254) in the Early Modern movement (Wikipedia) in "art and literature, the beginnings of modernity are marked by a rejection of the traditional veneration of models from the past (covered by the notion of imitatio), as encapsulated in general education, and a move toward the notion that creators should be original and actually depart from the past." "The increased emphasis on subjectivity and originality" in the 16th and 17th centuries "— and by extension the development of some notions of nineteenth-century work-hood —" is "a compensation for the increasing uncertainty of the natural order" and "a growing sense of individuality in musical composition does indeed parallel a stronger conception of human individuality and subjective presence." For music valued for its "natural" qualities by "humanist reformers" at the end of the 16th century "(together with many music critics well into the eighteenth century) . . . what was becoming increasingly effective was precisely its independent aspects, its deviation from and modification of supposed natural principles. Artifice, "viewed with less suspicion," became "a way of increasing human reach and deepening the qualities that made each piece more of an individual world." "With this potential for autonomy came the sense that musical compositions were actually like living individuals, following their own implications and potentials, and thus almost of a piece with the individuality of those who created them, and potentially those who were listening with the greatest attention."¹²

19th Century Perspective: "Secondhand Music."

The 19th century concept of the musical work (as formulated by Goehr), could view the concept of transcription and arrangement as seeming "at odds with the stronger work concept, for which uniqueness [originality] and individuality are at such a premium," says Butt (Ibid.: 255). "A transcription — perfectly acceptable in a world where everything should be derived from respected models — now brings the connotations of secondhand material, breaking with the imperative for originality." Further, considering Bach's Christmas Oratorio, where "virtually all the substantive movements are harvested from recently composed cantatas in honor of the local royal family," this "music that performs a function of homage and veneration does not easily fit into the nineteenth century concept of the musical work insofar as this stresses the independence and autonomy of each work." To render the six cantatas more "work-like" in modern performance, Butt suggests performing all as a "substantial 'concert'" "to accentuate unifying factors (such as matching scales, design and contrasting moods, tonalities, and instrumentations across the cantatas) that would probably have been far less of a concern to the original listeners." The "secondhand" "problem" "is further complicated by some of the contrasts of text between the two versions, which go far beyond the expected matching of affect or sense."

Two Christas Oratorio Aria Parodies

By comparison, Butt examines two arias from the original profane Cantata 213, "Laßt uns sorgen, lasst uns wachen" (Let us take care, let us keep watch; Eng. trans. Francis Browne), composed a year before the Christmas Oratorio as a birthday dramma per musica for "the story of Hercules at the crossroads as an allegory for the young [Saxon] prince, who is also choosing the path of virtue over that of worldly pleasure." One parodied alto aria (no. 9, text Picander) is Hercules' rejection of Wollust (Pleasure), "Ich will dich nicht hören, ich will dich nicht wissen" (I will not listen to you, I will not know you; Butt Eng. trans. Butt), "a defiant aria in triple time, marked staccato (YouTube). Bach transforms it into the first (alto) aria (no. 4, text presumably Picander) in Part 1, Christmas Day the Nativity, of the Christmas Oratorio, "Bereite dich, Zion, mit zärtlichen Trieben" (Prepare yourself Zion, with tender desire; Eng. trans. Butt), "a tender, sensual affect, given the direct allusion to the Song of Songs [3;11] in the text" incipit, with the addition of the oboe d'amore and slurred articulation (YouTube). "The sense of the two arias is almost contradictory — the first defying sensuality and the second cultivating it — yet the music molds itself almost shockingly effortlessly," says Butt (Ibid: 256). As "high art," "one might point to a more absolutist conception of music as something transcending its original texts and music. The multiple signification could be testament to a type of music that facilitates multiple contexts." An even more surprising aria in Part 2, December 26, the Annunciation, is the alto aria (no. 19), which begins with the same line as its original, "Schlafe, mein Liebster, genieße der Ruh" (Sleep, my most beloved, enjoy the rest, Eng. trans. Butt), is a lullaby to the infant Jesus, while in congratulatory Cantata 213, no. 3, soprano aria "Schlafe, mein Liebster, und pflege der Ruh" (Sleep, my most beloved, and take tour rest; Eng. trans. Butt) where Pleasure "tempts the young Hercules," observes Butt (Ibid.: 256f). While the "change of meaning is almost laughable," says Butt (Ibid.: 257), "the music seems conceived to be equally affective in both cases, in the first version bringing a sense of elicit temptation to the fore, and in the second encapsulating both the action of rocking an infant to sleep and our own feelings of tenderness." The resulting "relationship between words and music" can "be interpreted as an act of blasphemy on Bach's part, since a musical evocation of wanton sexual license has become associated with the infant Jesus," as happened in the 19th century.¹³ Some "revisions of older materials were motivated by text," others as "continuous improvements of his compositions," as well as "motivic connections" reflecting "the theological landscape of Bach's time" and providing "pathways for understanding Bach."

Melamed: Interpretive Generic Expectations, Genetic Fallacy

To better relate to Bach's borrowings, Butt suggests (Ibid.: 257) a better understanding of the genre and style of each work involved, based on the approach of Daniel R. Melamed, through connections between two different pieces: "Parody here represents more than a reuse of notes; the liturgical and secular words overlap," such as "parallels and resonances."¹⁴ Butt finds "Melamed draws a common-sense sort of conclusion that perhaps rare in Bach scholarship: the parody origin of various well-known piece by Bach is interesting enough but of 'little consequence compared with what a piece tells you by its musical style and construction' and a movement's origins do not necessarily explain 'what is interesting about it" (Melamed, Ibid.: 126). Melamed, says Butt, "sees a commonality between historical and modern listeners" with how the music "accords with one's exposure to the ruling generic expectations," not "dependent on knowledge of its genesis." Melamed says (Ibid.: 24): "The whole argument clearly hinges on questions of viewpoint" (perspective) where "original meaning" derives from the viewpoint of the "genetic fallacy" of interpretation that affects music , , , , the idea that we can discern a work's meaning by knowing the process by which it was created."¹⁵ Butt traces the purpose of music beginning with the premodern Lutheran view of "music to delight the heart" (Ibid.: 258), to "the way music relates to texts, human affects, and their regulation," from the "musical figure or harmony, to a more complex network of allusions and sedimented practices, as implied by Melamed's approach, which involves analyzing generic traditions." "There is no shortage of writings, from Joachim Burmeister to Johann Kuhnau, and Johann Mattheson, that give us a whole range of ways in which composers could rhetorically manipulate musical figures to influence the presentation of a text." Lutheran writings of Bachs time, notably involving the "foretaste of eternity," citing Eric Chafe's conclusion,¹⁶ "the relation of the affective power of music to spirituality was actually something that had strong resonances with the Romantic era , when the religious element of music was essentially incorporated into a work-oriented aesthetic of music." Thus Butt suggests that musical reception "within traditional Lutheranism of Bach's time was actually closer to that associated with the nineteenth-century work concept than music's supposed articulation of specific theological concepts and levels of spiritual meaning . . . ." After reviewing traditional views of Mattheson, Butt finds the Christmas Oratorio (Ibid.: 259) is acceptable because of transcription. "Perhaps the very durability of the same piece of music in different contexts is actually evidence of a form of autonomy (over and above it original purposes) that could somehow become recognizable within the later culture.¹⁷ Such autonomy might lie in obvious features of cohesion, development, and balance, together with the way specific configurations of notes evoke a range of emotions."

Autonomy, Individuality, Uniqueness

"How does such a form of self-standing musical material relate to concepts of autonomy, individuality, and uniqueness that are specific to its early eighteenth-century context?," asks Butt (Ibid.: 259). The starting point is the metaphysics of polymath Gottfried Wilhlem Leibnitz (1664-1716, Wikipedia) and his disciple Christian Wolff (1679-1754, Wikipedia). Leibnitz flourished in a period of "increasing individuation" (Ibid.: 259) and a sense of progress, (260), yet "the growing separation of spheres and knowledge" (261). Following optimist Leibnitz came another Leipziger, the philosopher and historian Martin Chaldenius (1710-59, Wikipedia), who developed a universal theory of language beyond the interpretation of traditional interpretive texts. Finally is philosopher and aesthetician Georg Friedrich Meier (1718-77, Wikipedia) with "a system of signs beyond language" (263). Leibnitz and Caldenius Butt discusses within the context of the Christmas Oratorio. The Leibnitz-Wolffian method of knowledge achieved the great German encyclopedia while "Leibnitz, like Bach in music, seems to combine in almost equal proportion a grounding in archaic conceptions of the cosmos with the ideas of the most immediate modernity, pointing toward modern mathematics and physics," says Butt (Ibid.: 259). In the development of a strong musical work concept is Leibnitz's "principle of discernibles," from the Medieval nominalist tradition" where "no two portions of matter are alike, at any level," which is the basis for "his theory of monads, by which the soul is an individual entity."

Increasing Individuation, Critical Turn

This "increasing individuation suggests that it was possible to conceive of artificial entities, such as musical pieces," Butt says (Ibid.; 259f), as being both unique while having universal significance in reflecting the broader world in which they inhere." This also applies to the human individual. "Individuation, reception, and viewpoint are built into both entities [individual and artificial] simultaneously," says Butt (Ibid.: 260). Leibnitz's view of "the world as the best of all possible worlds and as representing God's pre[-]established harmony suggests a direct correspondence between spiritual and physical substances." The analogy with music suggests both specific sounds as well as the impact on "human consciousness in subtle ways." Adding the dimension of time, "through the notion of soul-memory, brings with it a sense of progress" within "the universe as a whole toward beauty and perfection," which is a sense of animism seems both archaic and "points toward some of the foundations of modern science" (as empiricism). Simultaneous is a Deistic "distributed divinity," a "re-grounding of divinity in the human world — a secularization of a sort — that would later account for part of the nineteenth-century strong concept of musical works." While public education developed, so did different languages among various authorities, a "growing separation of knowledge and expertise in the early modern era," says Butt (Ibid.: 261), involving concepts of "natural theology" and the "little divinity" of the individual. "Leibnitz comes surprisingly close to the so-called critical turn" of the late 18th century, "by which perceptions and awareness of the outside world [?extrinsic] are entirely mediated by human subjectivity, so that nothing is known 'in itself'." (Other concepts such as "pre-destined," "self-sufficient," and "harmony of the spheres" also existed.) "The critical turn is surely a significant element in both the production and reception of musical works in the nineteenth century," says Butt (Ibid.: 261). The "universalist particular of the individual monad, constantly unfolding, remains seductive, and the notion of internal autonomy was hardly to be discarded in the future, least of all in the thickening concept of musical works."¹⁸ Possibly, the Christmas Oratorio is reminiscent of one of Leibnitz's complex organisms, which is constituted out of individual monadic movements that themselves preserve their own sense of independence, over and above the text, and regardless of the context in which we find them," says Butt (Ibid.: 261f).

Development of Universal Hermeneutic Thought

"An aspect of Leibnitz's thought that had a particular resonance with the next generation specifically relates to the development of hermeneutic thought," says Butt (Ibid.: 262). Whether a tangible object seen from varied perspectives or "as many different universes as they are the points of view of a single monad," the concept of "point of view" "Leipzig philosopher Martin Chalednius inaugurated in his 1742 book on hermeneutics." Beyond the hermeneutic interpretation of "traditional biblical, legal, or classical texts," Chaldenius attempts "to develop a universal approach, which can be tailored to the genre of the text concerned." Thus, "we gain glimpses of an enormous semiotic system, not unlike Leibnitz's preestablished harmony," says Butt (Ibid.). "Chaldenius, drawing on traditional rhetoric, also devotes considerable attention to the role of performance in spoken texts, since this can have a significant effect on an audience's inference of meaning." To "all the meanings" that an author's text might evoke, he sketches the beginning of a theory of reception" involving "the continual changes of time and place" in language, particularly "allusive or oblique language, multiple meaning, and ambiguity, all of which could be easily adapted to an understanding of music." He observes "that what an author presents is itself an interpretation and, further, that readers or listeners being in a further unfolding of meaning through their own acts if interpretation." From pre-critical thought, these points, "like so much thought of this time, are on the edge of a much more modern conception of meaning — one that is traditionally attributed to the post-Kantian approach of Friedrich Schleiermacher at the end of the [18th] century — and one that creates a particularly rich environment for the strong concept of the musical work." Beyond the conception of "pieces of music merely relating directly to a text" based on a particular, preestablished emotion or concept," a piece of music has the potential "to contain sedimented emotions and illusions, all of which relate to a universal sense of 'feeling,' and which are therefore set into flux by a listener's own disposition," says Butt (Ibid.: 262f). Chaldenius finds multiple interpretations of a single event such as were possible on a battlefield, from an actual physical position to a personal, interpretive perspective, says Butt (Ibid.: 263). "Seemingly total contradictions are possible — just like those between the secular and sacred texts in Bach's Christmas Oratorio arias — but these could all be explained by consideration of point of view, performance, and occasion." Finally, "the extension of hermeneutics to the world as a whole" is found in Meier's 1757 writing, applying "the notion of a system of signs beyond language." Beyond arbitrary significance such as Augustine's "referential function of smoke as a sign of fire, Meier "evoke Leibnitz's belief that "everything can be a sign for everything else and everything contains an inbuilt intention to signify." Related to "Leibnitz's ultra-logical concept of sufficient cause," antecedents "would form an infinite chain of causation," thus "to hear something much more than a simple signification in a piece of music, and indeed to liberate music from its subservient function to verbal meaning." From a spiritual perspective "the music conjures up a depth of feeling that supplements the theological meanings and purposes (something that is not so distant from the Lutheran vies of music); or a specialized one — where music attaches to ideas, feelings, and complexes beyond those of the original purpose."

Conclusion: Christmas Oratorio Strong Work Concept, Beyond

Can Bach's Christmas Oratorio represent "the strong concept of the musical work, both as this stood in Bach's time and as it became fully developed in the next century?," asks Butt (Ibid.; 263f). In its time, the music could involve a more developed, "most traditionally Lutheran" view, "a vehicle for emotion, appropriate for text but concretized only by the specifics of each text," says Butt (Ibid.: 264). "Here, then, it might act like an emotional chameleon, mirroring and molding itself to the text." Thus, it could "mimic the insinuating strokes of a seducer, but equally well the tender rocking of a baby." "This adaptability might fit in well with the Lutheran view of music as adiaphora" (Wikipedia).¹⁹ Moving "toward music's evoking and actualizing a sort of world in its own right, is perhaps not as distant as commonly thought." That the Christmas Oratorio seems so successfully to defy its petty monarchial origins may well have been one of the factors that earned it a degree of work-hood in a later age." Butt suggests the "combination of features that struck such resonance with later generations:" "a marked religious intensity" in "a supercharged sense of compositional coherence," and, "the focus of the present study — a depth of potential unfolding meaning that is often capable of resonating and reinforcing the different viewpoints a listener might bring, particularly in the light of the changing circumstances of performance, text, and context," Butt concludes (Ibid.: 264f). "This notion of semantic and emotional flexibility, coupled with the increasing individual coherence of musical works, is a challenge within cultures that demand absolute distinctions," he says (Ibid.; 265). "But that may well be precisely where their value resides, particularly in environments inflected by modernity in its multiple guises."

Postscript

In this century several new studies of Bach's Christmas Oratorio have opened a whole new world of understanding: Ignace Bossuyt's Johann Sebastian Bach: Christmas Oratorio, trans. Stratton Bull (Leuven, Belgium: Leuven Univ. Press, 2004; Amazon.com) with its many layers of meaning; Marcus Rathey's Johann Sebastian Bach’s Christmas Oratorio: Music, Theology, Culture (see Footnote 13), with Bach’s compositional practice and within the religious and social landscape of 18th century Germany; Daniel R. Melamed, Listening to Bach: The Mass in B Minor and The Christmas Oratorio (See Footnote 14 and above, "Melamed: Interpretive Generic Expectations, Genetic Fallacy"; and John Butt, Bach Christmas Oratorio liner notes, BCW. scroll down to V-4, Liner Notes + : 10-12.

ENDNOTES

¹ Rethinking Bach, ed. Bettina Varwig (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2021: 193-225), Amazon.com: "Look inside."
² Part III. Meanings: Chapter 7, Jeremy Begbie, "Bach and Theology"; then Chapter 8, David Yearsley, "Bach the Humorist"; and Chapter 9, Daniel R. Melamed, "Rethinking Bach Codes."
³ See Lydia Goehr's The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works: An Essay in the Philosophy of Music, rev. edn. (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2000: 128-152), Amazon.com; this "strategic deconstruction" is the response of Irish musicologist Harry White, Evangelists of the Postmodern: Reconfigurations of Bach Since 1985, Understanding Bach, 12, 85–107 (Bach Network UK 2017: 87), Bach Network UK, cited at "New Bach Studies: Evangelists of the Modern," in "Encountering Bach Today: Historical, Listening, Post-Modern," BCW.
⁴ John Butt, biography, Wikipedia, Bach Bibliography, Bach-Bibliography, discography instrumental BCW,vocal BCW.
⁵ In his Footnote 2 (Ibid.: 265), Butt cites two of his own sources in the "initial sections of this chapter quote freely . . . on historicizing the concept of musical works:" 1. "The Seventeenth-Century Musical 'Work," in the Cambridge History of Seventeenth Century Music (2005), Cambridge University Press, and 2. "What Is a 'Musical Work?,'" in Concepts of Music and Copyright (2015), Elgar Online.
⁶ Two current aof musical studies involve the listener's experience "of changing listener expectations" (see "Historically-Informed Performance," Wikipedia) and musical reception history (Wikipedia).
⁷ I would suggest that "certain areas" might also be called "certain silos" involving a rigid traditionalist, dualistic, anachronistic perspective.
⁸ Butt in Footnote 3 (Ibid.: 265), cites two progressive, thoughtful Bach authors on Bach and spirituality, Eric Chafe in Tears into Wine: J. S. Bach's Cantata 21 in its Musical and Theological Contexts (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), Amazon.com), and Michael Marissen in The Social and Religious Designs of J. S. Bach's Brandenburg Concertos (Princeton NJ: Princeton Univ.Press, 1995), Amazon.com, and Bach and God (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2016), Amazon.com. for a study of the progressive and traditional currents of Bach scholarship, see "New Bach Studies: Evangelists of the Modern," BCW, as well as the initial material, "Encountering Bach Today: Historical, Listening."
⁹ Butt in Footnote 4 (Ibid.: 265) suggests that Bach's St. John Passion be reconsidered since "it has become something of a lightning rod for this sort of issue, owing to its historical environment of Lutheran anti-Judaic thinking and its relation to later waves of anti-semitism." "The historical nuances around the time of composition are explored" in Marissen's Lutheranism, Anti-Judaism, and Bach's St. John Passion (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1998), Amazon.com, and Jeremy Begbie, "Bach and Theology," see BCW, especially "Anti-Judaism and John's Gospel."
¹⁰ To which I would add "program music" or "extra musical" works (Wikipedia).
¹¹ In Footnote 6 (Ibid.: 253), Butt cites two of his writings on modernity: 1. Bach's Dialogue with Modernity: Perspectives on the Passions (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2010: 17), Amazon.com; Butt's book "holds in apposition a dual conception of modernity that obtains from the sixteenth to the mid-twentieth century," says Harry White (Ibid.: 99, citing Butt: 17), provides a "close reading of the Passions which argues a perspective on Bach that is oriented against the ordinances of post-modern discourse," and "re-inscribes Bach in history through the agency of musical works which are 'firmly grounded in the experience of the past' and yet 'somehow oriented toward the future'" (BCW: paragraph beginning "Near the end of his article . . . .); and 2. "Classical Music and the Subject of Modernity," in Proceedings of the British Academy 154 (2008: 425-448), The British Academy.
¹² In Footnote 7 (Ibid.: 266), Butt cites "for a more detailed study of the rehabilitation of artifice as a means of molding individuals" in his Bach's Dialogue with Modernity (Ibid.: 22-25, 47-52).
¹³ The first complete performance of the Christmas Oratorio (Berlin: 1857), with many cuts, focused "on the biblical narrative and eliminated most of the interpretive elements," says Markus Rathey in his definitive study of the work, Johann Sebastian Bach's Christmas Oratorio: Music, Theology and Culture (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2016: 385; Amazon.com). Thus "it has been converted into an un-theological work; an expression of joy, sympathy, and family values," says Rathey (Ibid.: 387). "This simplicity, combined with its esthetic blemish of being largely constructed from parodies, contributed to the lack of scholarly interest in the Christmas Oratorio during the twentieth century even though it became one of the most popular works by the composer." "The oratorio was the result of meticulous planning as well as major revisions during the composition phase," Rathey says (Ibid.). "We have been able to see how musical ideas took shape and how Bach transformed parody movements to fit the context of the oratorio," he says (Ibid.: 388).
¹⁴ Daniel R. Melamed, Listening to Bach: The Mass in B Minor and The Christmas Oratorio (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2018: 79; Amazon.com.
¹⁵ See "B-Minor Mass: Contemporary Perspective," Mass in B minor BWV 232, General Discussions - Part 19, BCW.
¹⁶ Eric Chafe, Tears into Wine: J. S. Bach's Cantata 21 in its Musical and Theological Contexts (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2015: 251ff; Amazon.com).
¹⁷ For an understanding of the concept of autonomy, see discussion of Harry White, The Musical Discourse of Servitude: Authority, Autonomy, and the Work-Concept in Fux, Bach and Handel (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2020), BCW.
¹⁸ In Footnote 23 (Ibid.: 266), Butt cites Gilles Deleuze's The Fold: Leibnitz, and the Baroque, trans. Tom Conley (London: Continuum, 1993: 3), Amazon.com: "Look inside"; for details see "The Vital Fold of Musical Affect," in "Varwig's Rethinking Bach, Chapter 6, van Elferen's "Rethinking Affect," BCW.
¹⁹ In his final Footnote 31 (Ibid.: 267), Butt says: <<For an excellent study of adiaphora and its relation to the development of spiritual listening to music in its own right during the eighteenth century, see Bettina Varwig, "Music in the Margin of Indifference" [Semantic Scholar], in The Sound of Freedom: Music's Witness to the Theological Struggles of Modernity, ed. Jeremy S. Begbie et al (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021: 129-146),>> Amazon.com.

Rethinking Bach, Part IV Currents, Chapter 11 Derek Remeš, "Bach's Chorale Pedagogy"

William L. Hoffman wrote (May 5, 2022):
The final section, Part IV, Currents, in the new essay collection, Rethinking Bach,¹ begins with Chapter 11, Derek Remeš, "Bach's Chorale Pedagogy," which relates to one of the most significant subjects in Bach studies, the Lutheranhymn, which Bach championed and taught in all its manifestations, including his masterly vocal four-part settings, as well as treatments of the canto in instrumental preludes and tropes. Remeš "opens up another path towards such a re-evaluation of Bach's place within current musical practices, by considering the composer's own chorale-based pedagogy as a way to revitalize the function of the 'Bach chorale' in present day music curricula," says collection editor Bettina Varwig in her "Introduction: (Still) Talking About Bach" (Ibid.: 4). Since Bach's students and family, notably second son Emanuel, began studying and collecting Bach's chorales to learn four-part harmonization, music students have studied them. Remeš reviews Bach historical chorale pedagogy, examining and comparing the two types, the traditional vocal four-part (CATB) Choralgsänge style (ornamented), polyphonic method and the now emerging keyboard two-part (CB) Choralbuch (homophonic) method, many with multiple basslines for a variety of improvisations and strophe settings during services "for an infinite variety of creative responses," says Remeš (Ibid.: 283).

Bach Posthumous Four-Part Chorale Publication

Remeš' essay begins with a brief accounting of the Bach four-part chorale posthumous publication led by Emanuel, with the advocacy of theorist Johann Philipp Kirnberger.² It was to be a retrospective of Bach's achievement in four-part harmony that became the standard of compositional pedagogy. The first edition of the two-stave textless Choralgesänge was published by Birnsteil (Berlin, Leipzig) in two volumes (1765, 1769), edited by Emanuel, with two hundred chorales each. Emanuel in 1769 was highly critical of the incomplete, error-ridden first edition while theorist Kirnberger in 1777 urged Leipzig publisher Breitkopf to publish a second, complete edition estimated at about 400 chorales. The Breitkopf edition in four volumes was published annually (1784-87) with a volume 1 forward from Emanuel. Kirnberger's "primary motivation," says Remeš (Ibid.: 271), had been his view that the Choralgesänge were "idealized microcosms of Baroque composition and pedagogy, being the "ultimate paradigm" of "pure four-part composition." "This 'privilege status'" "has survived largely unchallenged for over two centuries, as evidenced by the pride of place these works still enjoy in music instruction today," he says (Ibid.). "Yet recent archival discoveries from the Bach circle have begun to problematize this hallowed pedagogical patrimony by suggesting that there was another genre of Bachian chorale harmonization that has long eluded historians' gaze." Newly discovered or reassessed, these settings show "a genre of keyboard-based chorale harmonization distinct from Bach's vocal Choralgesänge," many now "involving the composition of multiple figured basses to a given chorale melody," Remeš observes (Ibid.: 271f), in "a more flexible and creative genre than is often assumed." This implies that traditional chorale pedagogy should be "broadened to include the keyboard- and thorough-bass-centered, improvisatory, multiple-bass Choralbuch genre," he says (Ibid.: 272).

Bach Chorale Pedagogy

Remeš describe the Choralgesänge cantional (songbook) style (also found in most of today's hymnbooks, see Issuue: Breitkopff: pages 10-11), particularly found in two staves (soprano and bass) with quarter note pulse in "a high degree of ornamentation in the accompanying voices" which in Emanuel's keyboard reduction, without texts, is awkward to play, lacking individual vocal phrasing but with wide chord spacings. Concerning Sebastian's chorale pedagogy, Emanuel in his original 1765 forward observes the "natural flow of the inner voices and the bass" (Remeš translating Emanuel, Ibid.: 273), how useful to "learn the art of composition," "instead of stiff and pedantic counterpoint, one begins with chorales." This last comment "most likely describes the 'species' approach to counterpoint espoused in Johann Joseph Fux's Gradus ad Parnassum (Vienna, 1725), says Remeš (Ibid.). This "pedagogical function in Bach's teaching is further confirmed by a letter from Emanuel Bach to Johann Nikolaus Forkel [Bach's first biographer, 1803] in 1775." Bach's teaching method involved the chorale canto and Bach's own added basses, with the students inventing the middle alto and tenor lines to which Bach then "taught them to devise the basses themselves" (Remeš translating Emanuel). Remeš finds that Kirnberger's description of Bach chorales as reiner Satz (pure composition) but questions whether Kirnberger was an active Bach student (Ibid.: 273f). Kirnberger was "a central figure in establishing the Choralgesänge as paradigms of Bachian pedagogy, a tradition that has extended to the present day," what Remeš (Ibid.: 274) now calls "the default position." "In contrast, I would suggest that the newly surfaced body of sources from Bach's circle is best understood by using theoretical perspectives that Bach and his contemporaries could have known."

Bach Circle Chorale Pedagogy Discoveries

Recent chorale pedagogy reception history discoveries involve two Bach scholars, says Remeš (Ibid.: 274ff). Susan McCormick's 2015 dissertation, Johann Christian Kittel and the long overlooked multiple bass chorale tradition (Queen's University Belfast), "traces the provenance of a number of eighteenth-century chorale sources." Robin A. Leaver's "reassessment of the so-called Sibley Chorale Book"³ finds that it "stems from one of Bach's three pupils active in Dresden around 1730-40," C. H. Gräbner, Friedemann Bach, and G. A. Homililus.⁴ "Taken together, the Tomita-Kittel and Sibley Chorale Books suggest that a reassessment of Bach's pedagogy is in order, since the sources' contents offer a picture of Bach's pedagogy that differs substantially from that of the received Kirnbergian picture,"⁵ says Remeš (Ibid.: 275). He provides a description (Ibid.: 276ff) of Kittel multiple figured basslines (Figure 11.2, Ibid.: 275) and McCormick, Leaver, and Remeš findings, as well as sources of multiple bass chorale collections (McCormick, Footnote 5: 73) and David Kellner, True Instruction in Thoroughbass (Remeš, Footnote 5, Realizing Thoroughbass, vol. 1: 76, Remeš translation), in Remeš' "Bach's Chorale Pedagogy" (Ibid.: 277). While "the practice of composing multiple basses was actually quite common . . . , in Bach's circle in particular," says Remeš (Ibid.: 277), a link to Bach has just been published in the third edition of the Bach Werke Verzeichnis, catalogued as BWV 1134, Generalbassregeln II⁶ (Vorschriften und Grundsätze zum vierstimmigen Spielen des General-Bass oder Accompagnement) (Figured Bass Rules II, rules and principles for four-part playing of figured bass or accompaniment). Remeš then discusses in detail (Ibid.: 278f) the thorough bass chorales of Bach student Kittel (BCW) and Kittel's student, Johann Christian Heinrich Rinck (BCW). To show "the longevity of the multiple-bass pedagogy," Remeš cites a Carl Ferdinand Becker c.1738 publication of 50 basses to the chorale "Christ, der du bist der helle Tag."

Chorale-Based Teaching Methods

Remeš cites three of his recent articles to show "the pedagogical potential of the multiple-bass Choralebuch genre (Ibid.: 280f; see Bach Bibliography, Bach-Bibliography): 1. Emanuel Bach's description of his father's four-voice chorale teaching (see above, "Bach Chorale Pedagogy"; Bach Bibliography No. 8); 2. Emanuel's thorough bass conventions (Bach Bibliography, No. 6); and 3. Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel's method of chorale harmonization (MTO). Remeš finds "two false impressions" in the Choralgesänge method (Ibid.: 281f): Bachian ideal harmonizations lack simplicity because their complexity is inappropriate for beginning students, just as Bach had a wide range of able students (see BCW), and that there is no "one ideal harmonization of a given melody" (282),⁷ while the Choralbuch method offers a multiplicity of realizations. Remeš cites (Ibid.: 282) Kirnberger and Kittel discussions of "a high degree of creative flexibility inherent" in the chorale genre. The student "learns how to associate certain musical figures with different strophes of the chorale (or, more precisely, different lines within a strophe). Such a sensitivity to textual matters was apparently central to Bach's own teaching." The multiple-bass perspective challenges "the student's creative abilities" as well as the inherent "stylistic boundaries." "The improvisation of varied chorale harmonizations remains a valuable goal for today's more advances students." Remeš concludes (Ibid." 283): "Yet in the revised approach outlined here, grounded in the keyboard- and thorough-bass-centered Choralbuch model, the "Bach chorale" emerges not as a fixed object of contemplation but rather as a cantus firmus that did and still can prompt an infinite variety of creative responses."

Postscript: 4- and 2-Part Chorales

Bach composed and his students copied chorales in both the four-part Choralgesänge and two-stave Choralbuch formats, the latter usually without texts. Bach began composing four-part chorales to close sacred cantatas with BWV 18, "“Gleichwie der Regen und Schnee vom Himmel fällt” (Just as the rain and snow fall from heaven, Isaiah 55:10-11), in 1713 (one of his earliest "modern" Neumeister-texted cantatas), for Pre-lenten Sexagesimae Sunday. His original chorale model.⁷ was the 1715 Gotha hymnal, Christian Witt's Psalmodia sacra in two-voice settings, known as the New Cantional with General Bass (Orgelbüchlein. In Leipzig Bach produced from 1723 to 1727 three virtually complete church year cantata cycles of 60 each, his chorale model and guide being the Neu Leipziger Gesangbuch (NLGB) of 1682.⁸ Bolstering the format of two-part melody and bass in simplified harmonization found in various communal hymnbooks, were publication chorale collections, most notably of Christoph Graupner and Georg Philipp Telemann. Graupner published his Darmstadt textless Choral-Buch in 1728 with 146 simple, engraved settings in alphabetical order for churches and schools (Technische Universtät Darmstadt). In 1730 in Hamburg Georg Philipp Telemann published his settings of Fast allgemeines Evangelisch-Musicalisches Lieder-Buch, 433 chorales handwritten in church-year order with melody and figured bass but with no text (Google Books, scroll). Two other, similar two-part choralbücher from this same period are the publications of Cornelius Heinrich Dretzel (Nuremburg, 1731) and Johann Balthazar König (Frankfurt 1738). In early 1735, Bach's student and main copyist Johann Ludwig Dietel (1713-1773, BCW, Bach Digital) compiled a collection of 149 plain-chorale settings without texts as he completed his studies as a cantor. This collection first surfaced in the Leipzig Breitkopf publisher's 1761 Fall Catalogue under the category "Hymnen, Lieder, Gesänge" of "150 chorales in four-parts" on loan from Dietel for copying at a fee (see University of Minnesota Deluth: "149 Choralsätze der Sammlung Dietel"). A listing shows chorales from cantatas, oratorios, motets, and 45 free-standing settings (BWV 253-436) as well as four previously unknown Bach settings now catalogued c.2000 as BWV 1122-1125, added to the Bach Work's Catalogue (BWV 1950; YouTube), as part of 20 chorales that did not appear in Breitfkopf (1784-87) or Riemenschneider (1941). Bach also was involved in the omnibus Schemelli Gesangbuch with Breitkopf in 1736 of Georg Christian Schemelli (Wikipedia and Wikipedia, BCW), including a group of 69 engraved two-part devotional songs set to newer melodies with a personal, pietist perspective, BWV 439-507 (Wikipedia). The omnibus Breitkopf 1736 songbook involved 954 spiritual songs and arias for the church year, having well-known chorales as well as recent pietist sacred songs in the style of Freylinghausen, usually set to well-known melodies. The 1736 publication promised that a second edition would contain about 200 engraved harmonized melodies in 302 settings to chorale incipits whose key is listed in the first edition next to the incipit and number, Robin A. Leaver observes,⁹ but were never published probably due to the lack of sales of the first edition. A complete repertory of Schemelli proposed settings that Bach edited "can be compiled" "with reasonable certainty," says Leaver (Ibid.: 371), even though the actual harmonization is unknown "since Bach's manuscript collection of these melodies is no longer extant."¹⁰

The "later activities of some of his significant pupils may well shed some light on how Bach approached the realization of figured bass chorales," says Leaver. A comparison of 29 "Four–part Realizations of Two–part Schemelli Gesangbuch Chorales," may have originated as Bach teaching materials, says Luke Dahn Bach-Chorales), including 11 found in the Penzel collection.¹¹ In the 50 years following Bach's death in 1750, Bach's students spawned a cottage industry of chorale copies and arrangements. One of Bach's last cantor students and an important copyist, Friedrich Christian Penzel (1737-1801, BCW, Bach Digital), began about 1780 as cantor at Merseberg to compile a collection of 226, of which 30 sacred songs were published in the NBA III/3¹² and are the final Nos. 195 to 226 in the Penzel collection. This group includes 18 from Bach student sources which have not been authenticated by Bach scholars and bear the designation BWV deest, while of the other 12, eight were copied from Schemelli, five from the NLGB as Leipzig sources, and three from other sources.¹³ Extant are the 30 "Dreißsig Choral- und Liedsätze aus der Sammlung von Christian Friedrich Penzel".¹⁴ Another two-part source is from a contemporary of Penzel and another final Bach student, Johann Christian Kittel (1732-1809), whose Choralbuch collection of 189 chorale melodies with figured bass may have originated when the chorale basses and figures were created, possibly as early as 1756, when he became organist at the Barfußerkirche in Erfurt, says Leaver (Ibid.: 368; also see Bach Network). Recently discovered is the 1762 collection of 167 Bach chorales in the hand of Carl Friedrich Fasch (1736-1800, Wikipedia), deputy at the Prussian Court to harpsichordist Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach. Its "significance lies in the fact that it not only predates other collections of Bach chorales such as the Birnstiel and editions, but it appears to have possibly been used as a source for such subsequent collections," says Luke Dahn (Bach Chorales).¹⁵

ENDNOTES

¹ Rethinking Bach, ed. Bettina Varwig (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2021: 193-225), Amazon.com), abstract, Oxford University Press.
² See also, Thomas Braatz, "The History of the Breitkopf Collection of J. S. Bach’s Four-Part Chorales" (Bach Cantatas Website Article, 2006), BCW; also "Chorale Melodies used in Bach's Vocal Works, 371 Four-Part Chorales, Sorted by Breitkopf Number, BCW, and Bach's free-standing chorales, BWV 253-438, Wikipedia.
³ Robin A. Leaver, "Bach’s Choral-Buch? The Significance of a Manuscript in the Sibley Library," in Bach and the Organ, ed. Matthew Dirst, Bach Perspectives 10 (Urbana-Champaign: Univ. of Illinois Press, 2016: 16-30), Illionis University Press.
⁴ See Derek Remeš, "J. S. Bach’s Chorales: Reconstructing Eighteenth-Century German Figured-Bass Pedagogy in Light of a New Source," in Theory and Practice 42 (2017: 32, Example 1; Derek Remes ; copy, Google paste), with his abstract preface that concludes, "The present article attempts to reconstruct this pedagogical process using contemporaneous German sources" (see "Postscript: 4- and 2-Part Chorales" above).
⁵ See Derek Remeš, 2020 PhD dissertation, "Thoroughbass, Chorale, and Fugue: Teaching the Craft of Composition in J. S. Bach's Circle (Hochschule für Musik. Freiberg, Germany), FDocuments; samples of manuscripts of Johann Christian Kittel and the Sibley Chorale Book can be found at Susan McCormick, "The Significance of the Newly Rediscovered Kittel Choralbuch," in Understanding Bach 8 (2013: 80, Bach Network), and Derek Remeš, Realizing Thoroughbass Chorales in the Circle of J. S. Bach (2 vols.) (Colfax NC: Wayne Leupold Editions, 2019; scroll down to Illustration 1, iv), and related papers.
⁶ Generalbassregeln II, Bach Digital, textbook Bach Digital, Amazon.com.
⁷ No one ideal harmonization: For example, Bach set in various harmonizations the famous "Passion Chorale," "O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden," best known as "O sacred head now wounded," many times in the St. Matthew and St. Mark Passions, depending upon Picander's text stanza, while in his instrumental "Great 18" chorale preludes, Bach set certain stanzas to his treatment of the melodies, as found in Anne Leahy's J. S. Bach's "Leipzig" Chorale Preludes: Music, Text, Theology, ed. Robin A. Leaver, Contextual Bach Studies No. 3 (Lanham MD: Scarecrow Press, 2011), Amazon.com.
⁷ Source, Chorale-Song Collections, BWV 439-524, Student Work; BCW.
⁸ Neu Leipziger Gesangbuch in four-parts (CATB), MDZ: 80, scan to 74, Christmas; description, New Leipzig Hymnal (Wikipedia Translate).
⁹ Robin A. Leaver, Chapter 14, "Chorales," The Routledge Research Companion to J. S. Bach, ed. Leaver (London & New York: Routledge, 2017: 370f).
¹⁰ Schemelli bibliography Bach-Bibliography; Schemelli Gesangbuch facsimile, Amazon.com.
¹¹ A possible connection between the 240 Sibley Choralbuch two-part realizations and the proposed 200 harmonizations in a planed second edition of the Schemelli Gesangbuch is only a slight possibility.
¹² Bach, Choräle und Geistliche Lieder, NBA KB 3.1 (Frieder Rempp 1991; Bärenreiter, details University of Minnesota Duluth; 149 Choralsätze der Sammlung Dietel (Bach Digital) about 1735; Dreißsig Choral- und Liedsätze aus der Sammlung von Christian Friedrich Penzel (Monarchieliga, translation: Google Translate).
¹³ See Wolfgang Wiemer, "Ein Bach-Doppelfund: verschollene Gerber-Abschrift (BWV 914 und 996) und unbekannte Choralsammlung Christian Friedrich Penzels, Bach-Jahrbuch 73 (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1987: 72f).
¹⁴ See Wolfgang Wiemer, Johann Sebastian Bach und seine Schule: neu entdeckte Choral- und Liedsätze aus der Bach-Choral-Sammlung (1780) von Christian Friedrich Penzel, Wiemer ed. (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1985), music, contents (2 sacred songs, 12 Schemelli-Gesange, 18 chorales Bach students), Stretta Music.
¹⁵ See also, Luke Dahn, "Timeline of Events Related to the Transmission of Bach Chorales," Bach-Chorales; "QUICK KEY TO THE EARLY CHORALE COLLECTIONS," Bach-Chorales; "Resources & Databases," Bach-Chorales; "Articles & Research," including "Chorale Scholarship Bibliography," Bach Chorales.

__________

To come: recent chorale studies and chorale resources.

Joshua Rifkin, "Rethinking Editions: Mass, Missa, and Monumental Culture"

William L. Hoffman wrote (May 26, 2022):
The final Part IV, Currents, takes up in Chapter 12, Joshua Rifkin's "Rethinking Editions: Mass, Missa, and Monumental Culture," in Rethinking Bach.¹ Observes Bettina Varwig, the essay collection editor (Ibid.: 5): "Such challenges to certain long-standing tropes in Bach recmay well bring about gradual shifts in what 'Bach' can and does stand for in Western cultural imagination. Ideally, these shifts will work in tandem with hearing, performing, and appreciating his musical legacy afresh: not least by encouraging performers to interrogate critically the assumed authority of editors as purveyors of the true Bach, as Joshua Rifkin does here in his critical investigation of editorial practices in the Mass in B Minor." Rifkin's essay involves the following sections; "On the Plinth, on the Page" (Ibid.: 289-92), the basic making of a monumental, definitive score; "From Missa to Mass" (Ibid.: 292-95), genesis of the Missa tota; "From Mass to Missa" (Ibid.: 295-98), versions and editions; "Pushing Back" (Ibid.: 298-304), textual issues such as instrumentation, tempo indications, and articulation; and "Philosophy and Practice" (Ibid.: 304-06), challenges to editors and performers.

Rifkin Career, Scholarly Findings

Before proceeding with Rifkin's essay, it is helpful to establish his career and highlight some of his other scholarly pursuits. Known previously for several significant Bachian findings, Rifkin has impressive credentials as both a scholar and performer, as found in his biography and Bach Bibliography.² Prior to his current interest in definitive editions, Rifkin in 1975 dated the first performance of Bach's St. Matthew Passion to 1727 instead of 1729, now almost universally accepted.³ Beginning in 1982, he advocated the still-controversial concept of OVPP, one voice per part (Wikipedia, Jstor) in Bach's choral music.⁴ Also in 1982 in his recording of the Mass in B Minor using OVPP (BCW: scroll down to V-1), and his liner notes trace the music's possible parody sources, an important systematic study.⁵

New Mass Editions This Century, Controversy

The most significant development in this century has been the publication of two competing "Urtext" (original text) publications of the Mass in B Minor by the two rival Bach publishers, Bärenreiter with its monopoly in the Neue Bach Ausgabe and Breitkopf & Härtel, the historic Leipzig firm. Rifkin provides a new plateau of investigation into the manner in which these musical text publications have sought a definitive version of this complex masterpiece which involves how this text is established, interpreted, and realized. Reinforcing Rifkin's discussion are his 2006 edition,⁶ with its closest competitor in the 2010 edition (new revised version) from Bärenreiter, Uwe Wolf editor.⁷ Also published are new editions of the early versions of individual movements, the 1733 Missa: Kyrie-Gloria, the Credo, and the 1724 Sanctus from Bärenreiter,⁸ as well as a 2014 Carus "Urtext" complete edition.⁹ Claiming a “definitive version," "inasmuch as it can be determined," Rifkin as a more progressive Bach scholar began debate with traditional scholar Wolf over the real "Urtext" version. At the 2007 International Symposium: Understanding Bach's B-minor Mass, Wolf presented a paper, "Many problems, different solutions: Editing Bach’s Mass in B minor" (program, Yumpu: Session 6), Mass published in 2010 (Footnote 7).¹⁰ In his Notes to "Rethinking Editions: Mass, Missa, and Monumental Culture" (Ibid.: 306) Rifkin says:

This text has grown out of one written in response to an invitation from Yo Tomita to the international symposium, "Understanding Bach's B-minor Mass," held at Queen's University Belfast, November 2-4, 2007. Although I sent it for distribution to the participants, I decided against its publication in the proceedings, Exploring Bach's B-minor Mass, ed. Yo Tomita, Robin A. Leaver, and Jan Smaczny (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013). I owe its reworked and considerably expanded publication here to Bettina Varwig.

The exemplary symposium covered a wide-range of topics (see Footnote 10) in 31 published proceedings papers, 14 later published in Exploring Bach's B-minor Mass (2013), including Wolf's updated article (Ibid.: 165-185), which the monograph editors cite in their Preface.¹¹ Interestingly, the symposium focused on editions and historical contexts but rarely on the musical sources, which are still being debated.¹² While OVPP has been debated for the past four decades (since I began my Bach studies), the initial enthusiasm and controversy seem to have waned while Rifkin's last previous article appears to have been in the Bach-Jahrbuch in 2012, Chorliste und Chorgröße bei Johann Sebastian Bach: neue Überlegungen zu einem alten Thema (Choral list and choral size in Johann Sebastian Bach: new reflections on an old theme).¹³

Rifkin: "On the Plinth, on the Page," Mass Restoration

Rifkin's new essay, "Rethinking Editions: Mass, Missa, and Monumental Culture," begins with the titled section, "On the Plinth, on the Page" (Ibid.: 289-92): "When we think of Bach, we think of monuments," says Rifkin (Ibid.: 289), involving Bachian statues, portraits, memorials, and bust on plinth, as well as the recent statue of Bach as a young man on the Rethinking Bach cover (Amazon.com). The Bach-Gesellschaft (BG) edition of Bach's complete works (1851-1900) "effectively ushered in the age of what we still call monument editions,"¹⁴ says Rifkin (Ibid.: 289), with the BG providing "articulation, dynamics, and ornamentation." Unfortunately, the BG "transmission did not readily coalesce into a unified whole," he finds (Ibid.: 290). The second edition of Bach collected works a century later, the Neue Bach-Ausgabe, lacks variant readings and conflates sources, that also "often marked the BG," Rifkin observes (Ibid.: 291).¹⁵ Meanwhile "roughly half of the original independent music of what would eventually become the Mass in B Minor (MBM) remained unpublished until the clean-up phase of the edition in 2005," Early Versions of the Mass in B minor (FN 8), to replace earlier, "synthesized versions of the BG or NBA." In an effort to restore the music to "historic" performance, Rifkin as both editor and performer "explores more concretely how this and related issues play out in one of the most venerated of all Bach monuments," he says (Ibid.: 292). One issue is the relationship between articulation and editing and the more challenging of the relationship between notation, editor, and performer.

Missa, Mass Genesis, Reworkings, Editions, Challenges

In the next two sections of his essay, "From Missa to Mass" (Ibid.: 292-95) and "From Mass to Missa" (Ibid.: 295-98), Rifkin examines the genesis of the entire Missa tota and the various versions and Mass Ordinary sections in contradictory score and parts with Bach's reworkings in the 1745 contrafaction, Cantata 191, three-part "Gloria in excelsis," involving Domine Deus into "Gloria Patri" Lesser Doxology and the Cum Sancto Spiritu into the concluding "Sicut erat in principio." Besides examining the various versions of the earlier music and 1745 contrafactions, Rifkin cleans up the Dresden parts to the 1733 Missa: Kyrie-Gloria, as well as the 1749 Mass score to which inheritor son Emmanuel made changes, corrected in Rifkin's 2006 edition (Ibid.: FN 6 below). In the next section, "Pushing Back" (Ibid.: 298-304), Rifkin explores textual issues in MBM manuscripts and editions, such as instrumentation (bassoon use), varied tempo indications, and additional articulation. Rifkin acknowledges that "Bach's music abounds in multiple versions, citing Cantata 36 (Idid.: 308), in five versions,¹⁶ while citing various Bach manuscripts and editors' editions, especially slur articulation. Rifkin's efforts are both an odyssey and a conundrum as shown in recent studies.¹⁷ In his final section, "Philosophy and Practice" (Ibid.: 304-06), Rifkin explores dialectichallenges to editors and performers, citing John Butt's "a nominalist view" or "are not 'universals' . . ." along a continuum from editions to performance (Ibid.: 304). Rifkin concludes: "So editors may find it harder and harder to act as gatekeepers; circumstances alone will likely force them increasingly into the role of knowledgeable facilitator."

ENDNOTES

¹ Rethinking Bach, ed. Bettina Varwig (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2021: 193-225), Amazon.com), Amazon.com; Rifkin article, Oxford University Press.
² Joshua Rifkin: biography, (BCW, Wikipedia)) and Bach Bibliography Bach-Bibliography/), with numerous articles, references, debates and reviews.
³ See Joshua Rifkin, “The Chronology of Bach’s Saint Matthew Passion,” in Musical Quarterly 61/3 (Jul., 1975: 360-87, Jstor). In a scholarly, source-critical article with extensive footnotes, Rifkin lays out his argument for a first performance in 1727 [source, BCW: No. 14]. He cites a fragmentary instrumental part (1 ½ bars) of a first-violin line of the final SMP aria, “Mache dich, mein Herze rein,” BWV 244/65, on the back bottom of the verso of the viola part for the Bach Sanctus in D, BWV 232III, (Bach Digital), dated from late 1726 to early 1727, for a reperformance on Easter Sunday, 13 April, 1727. The Bach Digital description of the fragment is "Regarding the fragment BWV 244/65 for the viola part: below on p. 2, upside down, one and a half bars of the violin I part (bar 6f., 23f. or 34f., ZZ 3 to ZZ 1 of the following bar) , according to Critical Report NBA II/1a, p. 97, possibly originating from the simultaneous production of the (lost) performance material for the EA (first performance) of the Matthew Passion (1727?), Google Translate. Rifkin also argues persuasively that Bach’s parody of the SMP, the Köthen Funeral Music, BWV 244a, begun in late 1728, shows that Bach must have had a complete early version of the SMP in hand. Rifkin, repeats his earlier argument (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Articles/SMP[Rifkin].htm: scan, Google paste), showing Bach had full opportunity to compose and present the SMP in 1727, almost two years after he had ceased to compose weekly church cantatas in the summer of 1725.
⁴ OVPP, one voice per part, most significant, favorable study: Andrew Parrott, The Essential Bach Choir (Woodbridge UK: Boydell Press, 2000), Amazon.com; further articles: 1. Eric van Tassel, "The Case for Minimal Bach: One Singer to a Part," in The New York Times (26 April 1998), NYTimes; 2. James Fenton, "One for all," in The Guardian (25 April 2003), The Guardian; 3. Haggai Hitron, "Authentic at heart: Visiting American conductor Joshua Rifkin, in Israel to lead the Camerata orchestra, is known for having caused a stir in the musical world," in Ha'aretz (5 December 2006, Ha'aretz from Web Archive); 4. Uri Golomb, "Interview with Joshua Rifkin," in Goldberg Early Music Magazine 51 (June 2008: 56–67), BCW); and 5. Thomas Braatz, Bach Cantatas Website 2010 article "The OVPP (One Vocalist Per Part) Controversy," (BCW: Search Results).
⁵ Parody sources in the Mass in B Minor: Joshua Rifkin, "The B-minor Mass and its Performance," in liner notes, CD republication of Nonesuch LP79036 1982 (BCW: scroll to V-1; Amazon.com); also see Alfred Dürr: "Zur Parodiefrage in Bachs h-moll-Messe; Eine Bestandsaufnahme," in Die Musikforschung 45 (Kassel: Bärenreiter, April-June 1992: 117-138); reprint, Google Books; and see Wikipedia, "Mass in B minor structure," Wikipedia, especially Eduard van Hengel, Kees van Houten: "Et incarnatus": An Afterthought? / Against the "Revisionist" View of Bach's B-Minor Mass, Journal of Musicological Research, 2004, Eduard van Hengel.
⁶ Joshua Rifkin 2006 edition Breitkopf & Härtel PB 5303, while his Preface to the 2006 piano-vocal score (Breitkopff) provides both an historical and text-critical overview of this "Urtext" (original) edition, his Preface to the score PB5365 (Breitkopf: 12-15) gives an in-depth perspective; see John Butt recording, Outhere Music; recording booklet (3-10) Butt 2010, Dunedin Consort.
⁷ Uwe Wolf ed., Bärenreiter BA 5935, Bärenriter 2010 "Urtext" Edition, edited by Uwe Wolff, an official Neue Bach-Ausgabe, NBA II/1a, in German/English, "Notes on the Revised Edition" (VII) and Preface (XVII), Bärenriter, Bärenreiter: Extras, Preface, PDF.
⁸ Bärenreiter 2005 Early Versions of the Mass in B minor, BWV 232, ed. Uwe Wolf [Missa BWV 232^I (version of 1733). Credo in unum Deum BVW 232^II/1 (early version in G major). Sanctus BWV 232^III (version of 1724)], supplement to NBA II/1a, (Bärenriter), with a Preface (vii-ix) of editor Wolf, Eng. trans. Howard Weiner Bärenriter: Extras, Preface, PDF.
⁹ Carus 31.232 20(Carus-Verlag), ed. Ulrich Leisinger with Preface (IV), Eng. trans. J. Bradford Robinson; edition which I sang with the University of New Mexico Chorus, conductor Juan Hernandez, 16 April 2016, Albuquerque NM.
¹⁰ Symposium Discussion Book, Volume 1, Full Papers by the Speakers at the Symposium on 2, 3 and 4 November 2007, Research Gate: 225-33), published in Exploring Bach's B-minor Mass, Yo Tomita, Robin A. Leaver, Jan Smaczny eds. (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2013: 165-185, Amazon.com.
¹¹ Exploring Bach's B-minor Mass, Preface (xx), Google Books.
¹² The most recent discussion of B-minor Mass sources is in Marcus Rathey's Bach’s Major Vocal Works: Music, Drama Liturgy (New Haven CT: Yale University Press, 2016), see BCW), see Chapter 7, "Between Opera and Architecture: The B Minor Mass, BWV 232 (166-196), with an Appendix of B3, Parody Models (210-13); see also BCW.
¹³ Rifkin Bach-Jahrbuch article, Bach-Jahrbuch, full text notes (Google translate): "The text counters some of the author's incorrect interpretations of original documents on Bach's performance practice, especially on the size and scoring of his choirs. In the following, a selection of such documents (school and service regulations, choir formations) and the respective interpretations will be discussed in detail, which will be examined for their informative value. The result of the evaluation is the assertion that theses on the size of the choir in Bach's performances, which are made unilaterally on the basis of these texts, are devoid of any viable justification."
¹⁴ At the same time as the BG editions came the German term Denkmähler (monuments) historical series, usually collections of German regional music, "the first of which were established by German musicologists in the latter half of the nineteenth century, representing both scholarly excellence and nationalistic spirit," says Jane Gottlieb in Music Library and Research Skills, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford Univ Press, 2017: 214; Amazon.com).
¹⁵ Rifkin in his FN 6 (Ibid.: 289, 307), suggests a comparison of the BG Bach Cantata 1, 1851 Score Vocal and Piano (BCW) with it NBA counterpart, 1/28.2 1995 (Bärenriter).
¹⁶ See Wikipedia (Wikipedia: scroll to List of compositions by BWV number"), with five versions in BWV 3rd edition (2022), now numbered 36.1 to 36.5, instead of 36(a-c); further, Carus Verlag under senior editor Uwe Wolf is publishing completed versions of Cantatas 190-197 and others by noted Bach scholars, almost all previously recorded, except BWV 197.1, editor Pieter Dirksen, publication date 15 September 2022; also Bärenreiter, following its original publication of the Neue Bach-Ausgabe, has the New Edition of the Complete Works - Revised Edition, with 14 publications beginning in 2010, Bärenriter.
¹⁷ See Daniel F. Boomhower, The Manuscript Transmission of J.S. Bach's Mass in B Minor (BWV 232) and the Development of the Concept of Textual Authority, PhD diss. (Case Western Reserve Univ.: 2017; Electronic Theses & Dissertations Center.

Miguel Prohaska wrote (May 26, 2022):
[To William L. Hoffman] Thank you very much for this email. Having attended a digital performance of the B-Minor Mass three weeks ago I found this article very interesting to further understand the complexity involved in the work's performance.

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