Salomo Franck (Librettist)

Born: March 6 (or March 3), 1659 ? - Weimar, Thuringia, Germany
Died: June 14 (or July 11), 1725 - Weimar, Thuringia, Germany

The poet and author of cantata texts, Salomo Franck, came from a family with old traditions linking its members to the ducal court at Weimar. He studied at the University of Jena.

After his studies he occupied a government post as consistorial secretary, librarian, and head of the numismatic collection - a post held by members of his family for generations.

Franck was a typical court poet of the German High Baroque. His main output consisted of sacred strophic texts and congratulatory poems, which were of a sufficiently high standard to earn him membership of the illustrious Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft. His sacred texts were at first confined to the types of church concerto typical of the 17^th century, combining strophic verses with biblical passages (e.g. in his Evangelische Seelen-Lust, 1694). It is notable that in his mid-50’s Franck was ready to adopt new poetical principles for his cantata texts, integrating da capo arias and recitatives into his poetry. With these texts a fruitful collaboration between J.S. Bach and Franck was established in 1714. As far as is known, all Bach's cantatas written for the Weimar church use texts by Franck except two (by Erdmann Neumeister and Georg Christian Lehms). Even during his Leipzig years Bach continued to work with Franck's texts, partly by enlarging existing cantatas (e.g. BWV 70 and BWV 80) and partly by composing new ones (BWV 72 and BWV 168).

Source: Oxford Composer Companion - J.S. Bach, edited by Malcolm Boyd (1999)
Contributed by Aryeh Oron (May 2003)

Texts of Bach Cantatas & Other Vocal Works

BWV 12 (?), BWV 21 (?), BWV 31, BWV 67 (?), BWV 70 (adapted), BWV 70a, BWV 72, BWV 80, BWV 80a, BWV 132, BWV 147, BWV 147a, BWV 152, BWV 155, BWV 158 (?), BWV 161, BWV 162, BWV 163, BWV 164, BWV 165, BWV 168, BWV 172 (?), BWV 182 (?), BWV 185, BWV 186 (adapted), BWV 186a, BWV 208

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