Number of Cantatas
Discussions - Part 3

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Bach Archive Leipzig purchases important manuscript for Bach maintenance around 1770 > how many cantata cycles did Bach write?

Johan van Veen wrote (January 16, 2020):
https://www.archyworldys.com/bach-archive-leipzig-purchases-important-manuscript-for-bach-maintenance-around-1770/

William L. Hoffman wrote (January 17, 2020):
[To Johan van Veen] Thank you, Johan. The closing chorus of the SMP was performed in concert in 1770. Bach Passions also may have been performed at the Thomas Church in the second half of the 18th century. Schweitzer's romantic myth that Bach's music died and was resurrected about 1800 should be put asunder. Other myths are the five Bach cantata cycles and wife Anna Magdalena as an "impoverished widow."

Zachary Uram wrote (January 17, 2020):
[To William L. Hoffman] William, in your view, how many cantata cycles did Bach write?

William Rowland (Ludwig) wrote (January 17, 2020):
[To Zachary Uram] The historic records show that Bach's music did not die out completely. Joseph Haydn in fact stole some of the music that he used in his London Symphonies (I think it is #90 or close to it)--listen and see if you agree).

The entire myth about Bach's music center's around the way the son's treated their mother and one brother apparently did not appreciate his father's genius and used the manuscripts for fires and for hairdressing procedures or just threw them into the garbage.

We know that Beethoven was very much acquainted with both Handel and Bach--who were inspite of what you may under the disillusion of--were about the same age. The Mozarts were also wel acquainted with J.S. Bach's music.

Julian Mincham wrote (January 18, 2020):
[To Zachary Uram] There remains a lot of confusion about how many cantata cycles Bach wrote. This comes, mainly, from the obituary written by CPE Bach and Agricola and published four years after Bach died. They stated (see the New Bach Reader) that Bach completed five cycles and, if anyone would know, it has been assumed that that person would be CPE. However it may well be that the obituary cannot always be trusted fully. For an in depth examination of these issues see Peter William's book JS Bach: a Life in Music which is a deconstruction of the obituary in the light of later research (in this he casts doubt on a number of CPE's statements) A briefer description of the ways in which the existing cantatas may be grouped is to be found in the website www.jsbachcantatas.com. (See chapter 1 of the Introduction to Volume 3---culmination.

An intriguing theory put forward elsewhere on that website is that CEP, who was only about 14 when the Bachs moved to Leipzig, may have been unaware of how many of the cantatas from the Weimar years were recycled for his father's first year at Leipzig. If that is the case he may have considered the Weimar cantatas to form the first cycle, the first year at Leipzig the second, the second year at Leipzig (the chorale cantatas) the third, and the subsequent 50 or so extant cantatas the basis of a fourth and fifth cycle bolstered, very probably, by works by other composers (such as the 18 cantatas by Johann Ludwig Bach which are known to have been used in 1726 ---see Wolff, p 282).

This is an attractive theory in that it obviates the need to assume the loss on a hundred or so works, which would seem to be the case if, as the obituary states, Bach composed five full cycles.

Zachary Uram wrote (January 18, 2020):
[To Julian Mincham] Thinking about 100 or so cantatas of Bach being lost is almost too much to bear!!!

Jeffrey Solow wrote (January 18, 2020):
[To Zachary Uram] Christoph Wolff estimates more than 200 lost instrumental works from Cothen and that only 15-20% of his works from Weimar have survived.

Julian Mincham wrote (January 18, 2020):
[To Jeffrey Solow] True but with caveats. They are only estimates. One could also estimate how much of his music has survived, which would otherwise have been lost, through his habit throughout his life of re-using pre-composed pieces. Also Wolff's book was published almost 20 years ago and, iconic though it is, quite a bit of research and re-thinking about the Bach repertoire has gone on since then e.g. William's book, which I mentioned in my last email, was first published in 2007. Also Dürr, the fount of knowledge, in many ways of the cantatas, lists those cantatas which are known to be missing which is not many. Of course there is no way of knowing how many are missing where there is no existing text or documentary evidence that suggests their existence.

I tend to take the more optimistic line that there is less missing, maybe much less, than some writers have suggested. I have also wondered ------If there are 100 or so cantatas missing, the likelihood is that they would have been composed within his first five years at Leipzig (in order to set up a five year cycle which he could then repeat over the decades thus freeing him for other projects). Would he have had the time to do this in those years? Prolific as he was, there are still only so many hours in the day--and there were all of his other duties as well.

Luke Dahn wrote (January 18, 2020):
[To Julian Mincham] Some inferences can be made regarding missing cantatas by examining the four-part chorales. The Dietel Collection of chorales is particularly noteworthy in this respect. Ludwig Dietel almost certainly copied his manuscript of 149 four-part settings from the original manuscripts in the mid 1730s when he was a student of Bach's in the Thomasschule. Much of the Dietel collection's ordering is roughly according to the liturgical calendar, which implies that the cantata manuscripts were catalogued at the Thomaskirche in a similar fashion. (See the patterns in this table: http://www.bach-chorales.com/ChoralesByLiturgicalCalendar.htm)

Now, of the 149 Dietel settings, fifty of them do not come from surviving cantata/passion manuscripts. I believe that it's fairly safe to say that these 50 chorales came from cantatas that are now lost and from the St. Mark Passion. This is further supported by the fact that taken as a whole, these 50 Dietel settings bear characteristics that resemble the chorales that do survive from extant cantata/passion sources, and these characteristics are not present in a majority of the BWV 253-438 chorales surviving only by way of posthumous collections of the Bach chorales (i.e. the Breitkopf publication). Because of this last fact, I share Julian's skepticism that the number of cantatas that are lost is very large. Of the ~185 individual chorales (BWV 253-438), I don't believe that the number of chorales coming from lost cantatas/passions approaches anything close to 50%.

The liturgical arrangement of portions of the Dietel collection assists in making speculations regarding which individual chorales may have come from cantatas that are lost. I have compiled a list of such speculations, mostly from scholars from the NBA commentaries (i.e. Smend and Häfner) and from Dürr, at the following page (which I believe Will Hoffman has referenced in posts from the recent past): http://www.bach-chorales.com/SpeculationsRegardingIndividualChorales.htm

Peter Smaill wrote (January 19, 2020):
[To Luke Dahn] I agree that the trend of scholarship veers away from the old assumption that the C P E Bach Vierstimimige Choralen collection of 1789 indicates over 100 lost cantatas, often attributed to the unsupported thesis that the impoverished WFE Bach disposed of such a volume of cantatas to an unknown buyer who then lost or destroyed them.

Michael Maul has helped establish that several related cworks were settings for house funerals, notably the lovely “Denket doch, ihr Menschenkinder,” BWV 1122. in the Dietel collection. There evidence for the funeral but not any cantata in respect of this chorale.

Julian Mincham wrote (January 19, 2020):
[To Luke Dahn] It's fascinating how deductions may be drawn from one area of Bach's output (i.e. the chorales) and extended to throw some light on other matters of interest. Several friends and colleagues have said to me that they wonder what there is yet to discover about a composer such as Bach, after all these years and all the research that has taken place in recent decades---little do they know!. In fact it's not so much the discovery of new facts welcome though they are (such as the discovery of the significance of the paper water marks in the last century) but the bringing together of, and making further deductions from, observations from various sources.

Linda Gingrich wrote (January 20, 2020):
[To Julian Mincham] It's been a long time since I've had a chance to weigh in on this list (although I keep up with the posts), but I'd like to underscore what Julian says. Bach brought such inventiveness, richness and depth to his musicianship that the opportunities for discovery seem nearly endless. Besides, there is plenty that scholars disagree on! Enough to keep them going for a long time!

Julian Mincham wrote (January 19, 2020):
[To Linda Gingrich] Nice to hear from you Linda. Still musically busy, I trust?

It would be good to revive the debates and discussions on this list. They were quite energetic and stimulating a few years ago but have dropped off in recent times. Maybe it needs someone to suggest a few pointed topics.

Linda Gingrich wrote (January 20, 2020):
[To Julian Mincham] Hi Julian, nice to hear from you too! Yes, very busy musically, more than ever. That means that my Bach studies have taken a back seat, and I'd like to move them much farther forward. Replying to the list is a way to jump start that, I hope. I also noticed the drop off in discussion, which is another reason I haven't participated. It does seem to have picked up a bit lately. A few pointed topics might work to spark some discussion. In the past that seems to have mostly revolved around recordings, which I'm less interested in. If you have any ideas on topic, send them my way and we can maybe mull them over together.

How are you doing? Keeping up on your Bach studies and web site? I haven't been there in a long time, unfortunately.

Linda Gingrich wrote (January 20, 2020):
<> But ideas to spark discussion are always welcome!

William L. Hoffman wrote (January 21, 2020):
I also have tried to find the sources of the so-called "orphan" chorales. Below is an email I sent in August to the leading Bach scholar, Nobuaki Ebata, who is pursuing these chorales as sources of lost cantatas but have received no reply. He was supposed to have published his findings with the Bach Network in 2017. His colleague, Yo Tomita, told me then in a personal communication: "Nobuaki is very busy with other things, and his research on Four Part Chorales is also very slow coming. I do not think there is anything he will publish in the next 12 months."

Dear Nobuaki Ebata: Yo Tomita has provided me with your email. In his article on ”Documents” in the 2017 Routledge Research Companion to Johann Sebastian Bach, Yo says (Page 88): “the systematic research of Nobuaki Ebata on manuscript sources of the Four-Part Chorales may well lead to the identification of some that originated from the chorale movements of the lost Picander-Jahrgang cantatas (the fourth annual cycle of which presently only approximately ten cantatas are known to have survived), and possibly offer further possibilities of identifying the chorale movements from the cantatas of the fifth Jahrgang and two passions, all of which have completely disappeared.” I understand that the sources of these chorales, BWV 253-438, are also shrouded in mystery.

Colleagues at the Bach Cantatas Website have pursued the origins/applications of these chorale settings, notably Thomas Braatz, https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Articles/Breitkopf-History.htm, Luke Dahn (http://www.bach-chorales.com/ChoralesTimeline.htm, http://www.bach-chorales.com/SpeculationsRegardingIndividualChorales.htm), and myself (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Vocal/BWV250-438-Gen4.htm). As you know, the saga or odyssey is quite complicated. Further, I am still trying to determine which chorales most likely were used in the St. Mark Passion, with the Dietel settings as the primary source. Meanwhile Forkel was in communication with Friedemann and may have had access to lost chorale sources (two Jahrgang and two passions), which it is assumed Friedemann may have inherited in 1750 and subsequently sold.

I am particularly impressed with the range of your Bach studies as found in Yo’s Bach Bibliography (http://homepages.bw.edu/bachbib/script/bach1c.pl?0=Ebata,%20Nobuaki), particularly your research into the Easter Oratorio sources and Bach’s revisions (http://swb.bsz-bw.de/DB=2.355/SET=1/PRS=HOL/SHW?FRST=9&COOKIE=Us209,P2e6A,I2094,B1493+,SY,NRecherche-DB,D2.355,E24880706-0,A,H,R193.197.31.8,FY). I am pursuing a doctorate in historical musicology, “Bach’s Lost Pentecost Oratorio and the Leipzig Reformation Jubilee of 1739,” with special emphasis on the presentation of that oratorio as well as the Easter and Ascension Oratorios and possible connections to the four “Lutheran” Masses, BWV 233-236 and the Clavierübung III.

I also impressed with the contribution of Japanese scholars studying Bach (https://www.bachnetwork.org/ub11/ub11-cressy.pdf). I assume your are quite involved at the Bach Archive-Leipzig with the building of a database of catalogues. I would be very appreciative of any comments you might offer regarding the search for the chorale sources or other matters discussed above. Thank you for your consideration.

Jeffrey Solow wrote (January 21, 2020):
All excellent points. As I finished reading the relevant chapter in Wolff last night I noted that in a footnote he observes that it is possible that the 4th and 5th yearly cantata cycles never existed, even though he discusses their probable content in his main text.

As a cellist, one aspect of researching and studying Bach’s first years in Leipzig that is important to me, is that the intense amount of work involved with composing so many cantatas, plus his teaching obligations, supports his having finished all 6 cello Suites before he left Cothen (the only thing about them of which we can be certain is that they were complete by the time J. P. Kellner copied them in 1726). It seems unlikely to me that Bach had time to think about ‘breaking new instrumental ground' by composing a solo suite for a 5-string cello (#6) during those first years in Leipzig. I am not convinced by the arguments that some cantatas from 1724/5 call for a Violoncello Piccolo and Bach might have written the 6th Suite for the same player. A careful examination of those parts show that they were for a 4-string instrument: the highest notes of their range is much lower than the highest notes of the #6th Suite. Even those parts that seem to have been written for an violoncello’s piccolo tuned G,D,A,E don’t change this as the 6th Suite clearly calls for an instrument with a C-string. (Thomas Braatz’s translation and discussion of the relevant pages from Ulrich Prinz’s study of Bach’s instrumentis extremely interesting and useful, but there is nothing like looking at the actual violoncello piccolo parts themselves!)

Julian Mincham wrote (January 21, 2020):
[To Jeffrey Solow] Interesting. I agree that Bach would seem to have had little time for much else than the cantatas for church and other events that we have extant, during his first years at Leipzig. I really do not know how he managed to compose over fifty cantatas a year, almost all (in the second cycle new and not recycled as in the first cycle) plus other religious works along with his various professional duties at the school and churches in those first years years. What an incredible feat of artistic expression! One only has to look at, for example the opening movements of BWV 101 or 103 to recognise some of the magnitude of his achievement. Additionally, he had previously stated his aim to produce a large and servicable body of church music and, after the years of producing the secular repertoire at Kothen, so it is reasonably to assume that, over the first 5 Leipzig years he devoted himself more or less wholly to that end. If ever there was an artist who aimed at doing things properly, it was Bach.

I was interested in the remarks about the use of the piccolo cello (or not!) in the first two years at Leipzig. I had previously accepted the received advice about this but you are suggesting, Jeffrey, that this was not the case. Is there any clue in his notation (e'g' use of clefs etc) that might be suggestive? (I say this without going back to check as the idea just came into my head as I wrote).

Jeffrey Solow wrote (January 21, 2020):
The aforementioned article by Thomas Braatz (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Topics/Violoncello-Piccolo.htm) has a table of utilized clefs as well as tables regarding ranges, (likely) tunings and number of strings. I have not looked at the parts for all of these cantatas but I say ‘likely’ because I think most (if not all, with the exception of the 6th Suite, which species a cello with 5 strings) of these assessments are inferred from the writing rather than specified in the part. I started by examining the violoncello piccolo parts (BWV 115, BWV 41, BWV 68) specifically identified by Andrew Talle in his new edition of the Suites that is part of the NBA(rev), and have slowly been looking at additional cantatas in Prinz’s list.

Jeffrey Solow wrote (January 21, 2020):
I just noticed that Prinz lists BWV 115, BWV 41, and BWV 68 as all calling for a 5-string violoncello piccolo. As the highest note in those part is c1 (C, one octave above middle C), I do not see the necessity for assuming the presence of an E-string. For sure, the highest note in the first 5 Suites is g', which is played by the 4th finger in 4th position. However, if a cellist puts his 1st finger on the harmonic A of the A-string (a1), c1 would be played with the 3rd finger -- the cellist does not have to ascend into thumb-position. I can readily see Bach learning that it is possible to play somewhat higher than 4th position, especially on a small cello held normally, i.e. between the legs, gamba style. A portrait of the Italian-born cellist Jacob Cervetto (c.1690 – 1783) shows him playing in that exact register on a normal-sized 4-string cello.

<Cervetto-Giacommo-01>

Jeffrey Solow wrote (January 22, 2020):
One additional point: on a cello with an E-string (e1), the equivalent note to c1 on the A-string - that is, the note played with the same finger in the same position - is g’, the highest note in the 6th Suite, BWV 1012. Clearly, by the time Bach composed the 6th Suite (in Cöthen, I believe), he had learned that cellists could play higher than 4th position, at least on a smaller-sized violoncello piccolo, and he carried that knowledge with him to Leipzig where there was at least one cellist who had and could play a 4-string piccolo cello.

Number of Cantatas: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Lost Bach Cantatas: Part 1 | Part 2