Leipzig Cantorat Influential Factors, Bach Preparation, Recent Research

William L. Hoffman wrote (May 3, 2023):
Among the varied and intriguing definitions of "history" is the French concept of mort main or "dead hand," meaning that "History is a trick which the dead play on the living," a symbolic perspective beyond the literal kind of protection of a group's hold on property or land (Britannica). In the great competition in 1722-23 for the governing Town Council to choose a new Leipzig cantor and music director, decisions and perspectives made up to almost a century earlier impacted on the 11 participants who ranged from musicians/teachers to members of the governing bodies who had responsibilities to oversee institutions such as the dualistic St. Thomas School, the opera house, and the performing Collegia musica, as well as the theological and political strains of Lutheran Orthodoxy. The central conflict involved two dominant factions on the council: the progressive Capellmeister (music director) group with allegiance to the governing Saxon Court in Dresden, and the cantor group of conservatives favoring academics, pietism and local, non-musical interests. Michael Maul's Bach's Famous Choir: The Saint Thomas School in Leipzig, 1211-1804 identifies "three parties."¹ The alternating, changing leadership on the council determined which faction gained the upper hand. Intensive research in this century has produced many new findings about the Leipzig Thomascantorat competition and other contextual matters such as the Leipzig political conditions, the status of the Thomas School, and the situations of the other candidates. Bach's cantor predecessors in Leipzig established various traditions that Bach fulfilled, such as setting cantatas as musical sermons, including cantata cycles such as chorale cantatas, printing cantata libretto books covering the main Sunday and feast day services, and composing profane music for special, celebratory occasional events.

21^st Century Studies: Religion, Leipzig, Authorship

In this century, several major monographs covering significant conditions in Leipzig impacting Bach have been published. The most welcome and impressive is Maul's Bach's Famous Choir. Related, companion works published before and after include Bach's Changing World: Voices in the Community, ed. Carol K. Baron (2006); Tanya Kavorkian's Baroque Piety: Religion, Society, and Music in Leipzig, 1650-1750) (2007); and Stephen Rose's Musical Authorship from Schütz to Bach (2019). Maul also has published three companion monographs on developments in Leipzig: 1. Dokumente Zur Geschichte Des Thomaskantorats, Vol. 1, Von Der Reformation Bis Zum Amtsantritt (Documents on the History of the Thomas Cantors, Vol. 1, From the Reformation until [Bach] taking office), 2020, has biographies of Bach's cantor predecessors (BCW), the workings of the music school, and the traditions and accomplishments that Bach carried forward; 2. Musikstadt Leipzig in Bildern, Vol.1, Von den anfangen bis ins 18. Jahrhundert (Leipzig, the City of Music, in pictures, Vol.1, from the beginning to the 18th century), 2014, on how the culture and music traditions throughout the community were shaped by the visionaries and patrons, both bourgeoise and university-educated; and 3. Barockoper in Leipzig (1693-1720), 2009, following the Hamburg Opera, the first bourgeois Central German opera house savored the patronage of Saxon King August the Strong, with a separate Maul essay on "New Evidence on Thomaskantor Kuhnau's. Operatic Activities, or: Could Bach have been allowed to compose an Opera?" (Bach Network).

Michael Maul: Thomas School in Crisis

In Maul's book on the St. Thomas School, the key part with important chapters is Part IV: 'Odd Authorities with Little Interest in Music': The St. Thomas School in Crisis,1701-1730; "Bach's Letter to Erdmann;" "Boarding school vs. charity school: The faculty splits in two;" "An ominous development: the long road to the revised school regulations of 1723;" "Charity school for the poor and music school by the grace of the overseer: the new regulations and the reaction of the of the faculty;" "Everything for 'the common weal': council politics in the context of the new school regulations;" "The Mayor and his counsellor: Abraham Christoph Platz, Johann Job and the reasons for seeking to change the character of the St. Thomas School;" "Johann Sebastian Bach: a masterpiece a week — and against the decline of music (1723-1727);" and "Fifty percent unmusical boys and no budget: Orpheus Bach at the cross-roads 1729/30." Bach's response to his first seven years is found in Part V, School for Scholars or 'Conservatory of Music' An ongoing conflict, 1730-1804: chapters on the positive rectorate of Johann Matthias Gesner (1730-34); endless conflict with Rector Johann August Ernesti (1734-59); "Standstill on all sides: the 1740s;" and "'A great musician, it is true, but not a school teacher': the end of the Bach era." The key milestone events impacting the St. Thomas School were: beginning in 1634 with the original governing regulations, which remained unchanged until 1723; 1675, the split faculty of the senior teachers of the premiere music boarding school and the junior (adjunct), chronically underpaid teachers of the town charity elementary school; 1701, school rector Johann Heinrich Ernesti rejects council proposed reforms (new regulations) emphasizing an elementary Latin academic school; 1709, cantor Johann Kuhnau seeks authority over New Church and increased music borders; 1715, council appoints a new school overseer Gottfried Conrad Lehmann and rejects Kuhnau request to be New Church music director; 1717, Ernesti begins to consider new school regulations while unable to get council funds for declining school building, an impasse until 1722 when modest, needed improvements were made in the cantor's decrepit building.

Bach 1730: Major Shift from Sacred to Profane

Moving ahead, the crisis involving Bach came to a head in 1730 when he made a major shift from being cantor starting in 1723, composing and presenting some 200 weekly church service cantatas as well as music for church weddings and funerals, moving on to the music director conducting the professional Collegium musicum ensemble in special, occasional profane drammi per musica for supporters of the Saxon Court, as well as published keyboard exercises (Clavierübungen). In his first seven years in the cantorate, Bach had perfected the tradition of his predecessors, composing sacred cantatas as musical sermons while seeking to improve the quality of the musicianship. In 1730, he produced a major document: Kurtzer, jedoch höchstnöthiger Entwurff einer wohlbestallten Kirchen Music, nebst einigem unvorgreiflichen Bedencken vom Dem Verfall serselben (Short but Most Necessary Plan for a Well-Organized Church Music, with Certain Modest Reflections on the Decline of the Same)" (see In Their Own Words: How Many Musicians Did Bach Think Necessary to Perform His Church Music? (1730) (Cengage)). Bach was well aware that the council had little interest in improving musical conditions; he was essentially stating the needs to be made public record. An "ominous long-term development had reached its culmination, one that put the future of the St. Thomas School as an exceptional musical institution seriously in doubt," says Maul (Ibid.: 144). "But in order to trace this development, we have to start a few decades earlier, and examine the underlying relationships within the school and between the town hall and the school." Beginning in 1675 when the distribution of incidental fees was altered to the detriment of the junior faculty as second-class teachers "the rift within the faculty increased continuously," says Maul (Ibid.: 145), so that in 1701, open warfare prevailed while rector Johann Heinrich Ernesti "apsystematically shut his eyes to the problem" (Ibid: 146).

Finally, in December 1722, Christoph Graupner was considered for the cantor post with the probe Magnificat anima mea, GWV 1172/22, for Christmas Day (IMSLP, YouTube), but eventually was unable to gain release from his Darmstadt post. The school overseer told the council of plans to reduce the cantor's exceeding salary in the new regulations "in favor of the junior faculty," says Maul (Ibid.: 164). On April 9, 1723, the elders' council apparently decided "to compel Bach to consent to the still unpublished school regulations in a special contract to be executed prior to his formal election (on April 22): Bach would have no way of knowing that he was agreeing to a significant reduction in his fees." On April 19, Bach signed the contract in which he promises "to conduct myself in accord with the school regulations as are now in effect or may subsequently be instituted." Finally, the new regulations were published in November 1723, although they "were never officially accepted by the school faculty" or "approved by the [Lutheran governing] consistory either," Maul observes (Ibid.: 165). In a footnote, Bach in 1737 in a dispute over his authority to appoint his choir prefect, cited in a petition to the consistory the original statutes of 1634, since the new regulations of 1723 had never been ratified and were not valid. The council rejected Bach's position. Although Bach's plan to improve the music program was rejected, Rector Ernesti died in 1729 and was replaced by an enlightened scholastic and music lover, Saxony-supported Johann Matthias Gesner, who remodeled the school and affirmed Bach's authority. Meanwhile, Bach was composing more music for two institutions, Leipzig University and the St. Thomas School. Leipzig University this century celebrated its 600th anniversary with a collection of some 30 essays, overseen by three Bach scholars, Michael Maul, Andreas Glöckner, and Winfred Schrammer.² Bach provided at least 20 occasional festive congratulatory works for events connected to the university (Uni-Leipzig: Google Translate, Bärenreiter). Bach also composed six similar profane homage works for the St. Thomas School (BCW).

Three Monographs of Bach's Leipzig

Three other monographs have been produced in this century examining Bach's Leipzig. 1. Conditions in Leipzig were first explored significantly in Bach's Changing World: Voices in the Community, ed. Carol K. Baron (University of Rochester Press, 2006), Contents: Baron, "Transitions, Transformations, Reversals: Rethinking Bach's World"; Baron, "Tumultuous Philosophers, Pious Rebels, Revolutionary Teachers, Pedantic Clerics, Vengeful Bureaucrats, Threatened Tyrants, Worldly Mystics: The Religious World Bach Inherited"; John Van Cleve, Family Values and Dysfunctional Families: Home Life in the Moral Weeklies and Comedies of Bach's Leipzig"; Joyce Irwin, Bach in the Midst of Religious Transition; Ulrich Siegele, "Bach's Situation in the Cultural Politics of Contemporary Leipzig"; Tanya Kavorkian, "The Reception of the Cantata during Leipzig Church Services; Katherine Goodman, "From Salon to Koffeekranz: Gender Wars and the Coffee Cantata in Bach's Leipzig"; Johann Kuhnau, "A Treatise on Liturgical Text Settings" (trans. Ruben Weltsch); and Gottfried Ephraim Scheibel, "Random Thoughts About Church Music in Our Day (1721, trans. Joyce Irwin). 2. Tanya Kavorkian contributes a study of Baroque Piety: Religion, Society, and Music in Leipzig, 1650-1750 (London, Routledge, 2016 paperback; orig. pub. Ashgate, 2007), contents: I. Congregants' everyday practices: 1. Experiencing the service, 2, Seating the religious public: church pews and society; II. The producers: 3. The clergy, the city council, and Leipzig inhabitants; 4. Elites in and beyond Leipzig, the Dresden court and the consistories, 5. Leipzig's cantors: status, politics and the adiaphora; III. The Pietist alternative: 6. Sociability and religious protest: the collegia pietatis of 1689-1690, 7. The Pietist shadow network; and IV. The [church] construction boom and beyond: 8. Social change and religious life. 3. Stephen Rose has recently produced Musical Authorship from Schütz to Bach, Musical Performance and Reception (Cambridge University Press, 2019; Amazon.com), especially Chapter 2, "Between Imitatio and Plagiarism" in Bach's "Sanctus," BWV 241: 78-80); Houston Bach Society, Bach Society Houston; "Musical Creativity, Originality, and Ownership in Early Modern Germany," interview with Stephen Rose, Musical Authorship from Schütz to Bach (Cambridge University Press, 2019), Bach Society Houston, Hwcdn.Libsyn; review, Daniel R. Melamed, Jstor.

Maul Monographs: Cantors, Leipzig, Opera

Maul's Dokumente Zur Geschichte Des Thomaskantorats covers the following: <<In 2012, the Leipzig Bach Archive used the occasion of the Thomana anniversary to index and edit the decisive documents on the history of the Thomaskantorat in a systematic review of the archives and libraries. Structured according to the individual Thomaskantors from the Reformation to the end of the 18th century, the two volumes that have been created trace the development of the Thomasschule using original sources. The collected letters and biographies portray the outstanding musicians from Sethus Calvisius to August Eberhard Müller; Historical sheet music inventories, choir lists, lists of instruments, school laws and memoirs testify to the unique musical standards of the institution, and the numerous notes on the discussion about the appointment of offices and the development of the Thomasschule provide lively insights into the eventful and at the same time continuous musical success story of the Thomana. The first volume focuses on the struggle to shape the school's musical profile. The history of the two important school regulations (1634 and 1723) are documented. The cantors [Johann Hermann] Schein and [Tobias] Michael provide moving insights into the hardships during the Thirty Years' War, the diary of [Jacob] Thomasius, rector of the Thomas School, offers unique inside views of the school and the Thomaskantor [Johann] Kuhnau laments the consequences of what he sees as a misguided school policy and with vehemence the "wild opera nature". which had been developing at the Neukirche since 1704.>> Source: Beck-Shop.de.

Maul's Musikstadt Leipzig in Bildern focuses on << Whether "muse seat", "musical university" or "merry Pleiss Athens" - Leipzig has been considered a unique music metropolis in Europe since the 17th century. The volume shows how the city earned this reputation by means of numerous images from the first 700 years of Leipzig music history, some of which have been published for the first time. Michael Maul portrays the key musicians of this period, presents their works and living conditions, takes a look at the local music care and pays tribute to the visionaries and patrons of the music city. This makes it cleawhy a Goethe had to praise his Leipzig, a Bach wrote his main works here and why the muses in the gallant bourgeois and university town sang, danced and made music more happily than elsewhere since the early Baroque: in the Thomaskirche, the opera house and the Collegia musica, but also on the market square, the alleys and the dance floors.>> Source: Buch Café.

Maul's Barockoper in Leipzig (1693-1720) covers << According to contemporaries, the baroque Leipzig opera house, the first bourgeois Central German opera house, was played at the level of the famous Hamburg Gänsemarkt opera. On the basis of extensive research, an attempt is made to trace this little-lit chapter of early German opera history, from a musical as well as literary, economic and socio-cultural point of view. This creates the image of what is in fact a »special musical seminary in our country« (August der Starke), whose traditional sources only reveal their origin at second glance, whose company history shows features of an intriguing opera libretto, and for which Nikolaus Adam Strungk, Johann Kuhnau, Johann David Heinichen, Melchior Hoffmann and Georg Philipp Telemann some of the most famous composers of their time worked. In addition, however, the "women" were also given space for artistic development. The catalog of the Leipzig baroque operas in the appendix gives an overview of the collected findings. The work was approved in 2007 by the philosophical faculty of the Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg i.Br. awarded the Gerhart Baumann Prize for interdisciplinary literary studies.>> Source: Buch Café. A summary of Maul's monograph is found in his "New Evidence on Thomaskantor Kuhnau's. Operatic Activities, or: Could Bach have been allowed to compose an Opera?," in Understanding Bach, 4: 9-20 (Bach Network UK 2009), Bach Network.

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On 5 May 1723, Bach signed his contract with the Leipzig Town Council (Dok I: 177-179), see "Bach's Duties and Obligations at Leipzig," Dr. Jones's Music Classes. The contract for Johann Kuhnau as cantor in 1701, "nuances aside, was identical with Bach's in 1723," observes Maul (Bach's Famous Choir, Ibid.: 132), including that "the students would obey him," and, says Maul (Ibid.), "would have to see to it that the church music was 'not too long' and 'not so digressive'."

Postscript

One of the most recent Bach biographies by David Schulenberg, Bach, The Master Musicians Series, ed. R. Larry Todd (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020) is reviewed with new materials in Chapter 8, "Cothen (1717-1723)" and Chapter 10, "Leipzig First Years (1723-1730)," BCW. "Schulenberg's Bach: Cöthen Transition, Instrumental, Vocal Music," topics are "Bach Trips While at Cöthen," "Instrumental Music Emphasis," "Vocal Music Gaining Attention," "Earliest, Sacred Cöthen Works Explored," and "Cöthen Sacred Repertory." The other discussion, "Schulenberg's "Bach": Leipzig First Years, Cantata," topics are "Leipzig Conflicts, Allies, Opportunities," "Music Director, Cantor Responsibilities," and "Sacred Cantatas as Core Vocal Music." Another new Bach biography is Michael Maul's J. S. Bach: »Wie wunderbar sind deine Werke« (How wonderful are your works), Insel Verlag (2023): <<Today, Johann Sebastian Bach's compositions inspire audiences in concert halls and churches all over the world. The musicologist and director of the Leipzig Bach Festival, Michael Maul, offers an introduction and an insight into the life and work of the famous composer in »How wonderful are your works«. From Eisenach to Ohrdruf, from Köthen to Leipzig, from cantatas and organ works to the great Passions and the "Brandenburg Concertos", he immerses himself in the vita and the wide-ranging oeuvre of the legendary Thomaskantor. In a way that is easy to understand, he reports on exciting new findings from Bach research, great mysteries and breathtaking moments in Bach's works. In short: Maul delivers a gripping declaration of love for his Bach, with which he wants to inspire and enthrall the readers. Numerous illustrations complement the volume and make it a gift book for all music lovers.>> Source: Buch Café.

ENDNOTES

¹ Michael Maul, Bach's Famous Choir: The Saint Thomas School in Leipzig, 1211-1804, trans. Richard Howe (Woodbridge UK: Boydell Press, 2018: 185f), Boydell and Brewer; the three parties are "(1) the academics, the scholars, and the merchants, among them members of the Prince-Elector's inner circle (Mayors Lange and Steger, and Proconsul Hölzel; (2) the proponents of municipal welfare and moderate Pietists (Platz and Job), and (3) by the followers of the Orthodox persuasion (e.g., J. F. Born, director of the Leipzig consistory and author of the '55^th unmusical border's seat at the St. Thomas School'."
² Michael Maul, Andreas Glöckner, and Winfred Schrammer, 600 Jahr Musik and der Universitat Leipzig: Studien anlässlich des Jubiläums (600 years of music at the University of Leipzig: Studies on the occasion of the anniversary), edited: Fontana, Eszter (Stekovics (2010), Buch Café.

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To Come: "Bach 300: The Year 1723 and its Repercussions: Bach prepares to achieve his calling of a Well-Regulated Church Music to the Glory of God, and related pursuits.