Well-Regulated Church Music

Well-Regulated Church Music

William L. Hoffman wrote (July 23, 2019):
(The Bach Cantata Mailing List returns to vocal music in the fifth round of weekly discussions to consider various themes and issues, beginning with Bach's meaning of a "well-regulated church music." Members of the BCML mailing list are encouraged to provide their thoughts on what Bach meant. Future discussions will explore such topics as recordings of Bach ensembles, the incomplete chorale cantata cycle, and various aspects of Bach's self-borrowings.)

What did Bach mean by a "well-regulated church music to the glory of God," enunciated in his resignation letter to the Mühlhausen Town Council, 25 June 1708, from the post as organist at the Church of St. Blasius? This statement by the 23-year-old composer (NBR No. 32; BD I, no.1)¹ can be considered the beginning of his Lutheran calling (Berufung), completed in his 1750 Obituary that outlines the musical legacy of his unpublished works (NBR No. 306; BD III, no. 666: 304). The list begins with his vocal music: church pieces, oratorios and a mix of vocal pieces, five Passion oratorios, and motets, followed by organ music. In 1708, Bach had then related that he had "acquired from far and wide, not without cost, a good store of the choicest church compositions." This was the beginning of his life's effort and involved the composition of both sacred vocal and instrumental (organ) music for the church, home, and wider society.

Bach took this 1708 vow literally and in the ensuing 42 years produced the greatest breadth and depth of sacred music, both vocal and instrumental. Although it would take another 100 years after his death to chronicle his accomplishments and begin to publish them systematically in the Bach Gesellschaft Ausgabe editions, the initial 1750 accounting shows that in all the vocal music genres, both sacred and profane, no type of music listed was not found and, conversely, no type of music found was not listed. Within the vocal music are two important distinctions: the five annual cycles (Jahrgänge) of church pieces (Kirchenstücke) that included three extant cycles of cantatas, the embodiment of musical sermons, and within them distinct, partial "mini" cantata cycles which Bach consciously fashioned, as well as the other categories of music.

Bach bridged the gap between Lutheran Kirchenmusik and Seelenmusik, between orthodox and pietist Lutherans, in various ways. Initially, in Mühlhausen his earliest sacred vocal music, which he had begun selectively to collect in his youth, suggests Christoph Wolff in his Bach biography,² affirms the established Lutheran and musical perspective using biblical and chorale quotations. In Leipzig, the crossroads of religious currents, Bach managed to embrace in his vocal music various theological concepts, adding to the principle of a well-regulated church music. The Lutheran chorales composed beginning 200 years earlier, also expressed various currents as found in the texts of Bach's music. In his Passion oratorios he had portrayed the theological concepts of "Christus Victor" in the John Passion as well as a mini Johannine cantata cycle, and the satisfaction/substitution theory of atonement (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvation_in_Christianity) in his St. Matthew Passion,³ as well as Martin Luther's Theology of the Cross (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theology_of_the_Cross) throughout his sacred music. Bach's vocal music could be, simultaneously, hermeneutical, pedagogical and performable, as well as being in the spirit of Luther's dialectics that humans are simultaneously saints and sinners while Jesus Christ was truly both God and man at the same time.

1708, Occasional Cantatas

The year 1708 was a benchmark for Bach. Having toiled with sacred organ music and profane keyboard pieces as an organist and recitalist in Arnstadt, Bach in Mühlhausen had turned selectively and responsively to composing mostly occasional church pieces. These probably had no liturgical applications in the main Sunday and festival services, but were occasional, ancillary sacred music for various sacred services such as the annual town council installation, memorial services, church weddings, and possibly Good Friday confession services. Now called cantatas, these Bach canonical works he called vocal concertos or motets, set to psalms of penitence and joy, respectively: Cantatas BWV 71, "God is my King" (Psalm 74:12); BWV 1138.1 and 1138.2 (titles unknown), BWV 131, "Out of the depths I cry to Thee (Psalm 130), BWV 106, God's Time is the best time"; BWV 196, "The Lord thinks of us" (Psalm 115:12); BWV 150, "For you, Lord, is my longing" (Psalm 25:1), and possibly BWV 233a (Kyrie and "Christ the Lamb of God"), and 143, "Praise the Lord, my Soul" (Psalm 146:1), Francis Browne English translation. Only one liturgical work, Easter Sunday chorale Cantata No. 4, setting of Luther's "Christ lag in Todesbanden" (Christ lies in death's bondage), is dated to this period, probably performed on that Sunday, 4 April 1707, as his test piece, says the new Bach research guide.⁴ This also was Bach's first setting of Lutheran chorales, a cantata tradition established in 1689 by Leipzig cantor Thomas Schelle, and the beginning of a Bach incomplete chorale cantata cycle. Some of these formative pre-Weimar Cantatas are studied again in the NBA New Edition Revised (BWV 21, 106, 131, 150) of Peter Wollny (BA 5940-01, in preparation, https://www.baerenreiter.com/en/catalogue/complete-editions/bach-johann-sebastian/nbarev/overview-of-volumes/).

Also about 1708, as he moved to the court at Weimar as organist, Bach began to compose short organ chorale preludes for the church year services, says Russell Stinson,⁵ to become the unfinished Orgelbüchlein teaching collection (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orgelbüchlein). This was Bach's first template of a well-ordered church music for the de tempore (Proper Time) first half of the church year on the life of Jesus Christ as well as the omne tempore (Ordinary Time) in the life of the church. During the next six years in Weimar, Bach perfected his art of vocal composition while setting the Lutheran organ chorales to open the services. In 1714, Bach was appointed Weimar concert master with duties to compose a liturgical cantata monthly, and producing some 24 pieces as the beginning of an annual cycle. In 1718, Bach became capellmeister at Cöthen and turned almost exclusively to non-vocal composition, producing pedagogical keyboard collections as well as instrumental concertos and sonatas.

Leipzig: Cantata Cycles, Passions

Beginning in Leipzig in 1723 as cantor he focused on three cycles of church-year cantatas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_cantata_(Bach) and the annual Passion oratorio for Good Friday. As town music director, Bach resumed composing occasional sacred works of joy and sorrow as he had done in Mühlhausen, producing annual town council cantatas for the rest of his life, and music for funerals and weddings, as well as pieces for special sacred occasions such as Reformation observances and services of allegiance and peace celebrations for the Saxon Court. Bach also began to compose selectively in other sacred genres as his Leipzig predecessors had done: Latin church music Magnificat and Mass Ordinary Kyrie, Gloria, and Sanctus; church feast oratorios, and motets mostly for funerals. Just published is the late Martin Petzoldt's Bach Commentary, Vol. 3,⁶ of the festive and casual cantatas and the Passions, biblical and theological studies of the vocal music texts, including proprium listings for each year of the town council and Reformation festival performances, with works of other composers.

Besides the partial chorale cantata cycle, Bach various mini-cycles as part of a "well-regulated church music" only recently explored that range from special genres, to theological settings showing Bach's unity through diversity in the sacred cantatas. In Bach's first cycle of 1723-24 are groups of newly-composed cantatas by cantata forms and possibly a single, unidentified author, observes Alfred Dürr in the final edition of his cantata studies.⁷ The first group are biblical words-recitative-aria-recitative-aria chorale, for the 8th to the 14th Sundays after Trinity, BWV 136, 105, 46, 179, 69a, 77, 25, 109, 89 and 104. The second group, non-consecutive, includes pieces with an internal chorale for the 19th Sunday after Trinity , the 2nd and 3rd days of Christmas (Johannine incarnation emphasis), the Sunday after New Year's, Epiphany, and the first Sunday after Easter: BWV 48, 40, 64, 153, 65, and 67; a third group for Septugesima, Annunciation, and Easter Monday to the Sunday after Ascension (except Easter Tuesday and the 3rd Sunday after Easter) and the Reformation Festival, with opening biblical words from the day's Gospel reading, whose author may be Bach's confessor, pastor Christian Weiß the Elder (1671-1737, https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Weiss-Christian.htm), belonging to Cycles 1 and 2, BWV 144, 1135=Anh. 199, 166, 86, 37, 44; 6, 42, 85 and 70. Weiß also may have been one of several authors in the chorale cantata cycle, although this also remains conjecture. "Only precise style-critical methods, based on linguistic and theological studies, could aid further clarification," says. Dürr (Ibid.: 27).⁸

This first cycle is a heterogeneous collection⁹ that includes almost all of the some two dozen works originally composed in Weimar (see Thomas Braatz discussion, BCW http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Topics/Weimar-Cantatas.htm), some adjusted for different services in Leipzig (BWV 80a, 70a, 186a, 147a) which may be consider a partial cycle. Meanwhile, the NBA recently studied again some of these cantatas, BWV 31, 132, 143, 161, 172 (Andreas Glöckner, BA 5936-01, 2012, https://www.baerenreiter.com/en/shop/product/details/BA5936_01/). Another structural mini-cycle could be the first cycle integration of earlier works presented as two cantatas or two-part cantatas before and after the sermon in 15 services, says Christoph Wolff:¹⁰ BWV 75, 76, 21, 24+185, 147, 186, 179+199, 70, 63 (+238), 181-18, 22+23, 1135+182, 31+4, 172+59, and 194/165. Complete double annual cycles are found in the music of Georg Philipp Telemann and Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel, the latter which Bach may have presented in 1735-36 (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/LCY/1735.htm).

Chorale Cantatas, Johannine Mini Cycle

Another area subject to further study is the fusion of emblematic, Christological sermons with specific cycles of cantatas, a tradition first fostered by Bach cantor predecessor Johann Schelle in 1690 with chorale sermons based on the musical texts as chorale cantatas, Dürr shows (Ibid.: 29f), while Schelle was the first to introduce cantata text books into the services. Beginning at Easter 1724, Christian Weiß may have presented an emblematic cycle after his health returned, enabling him to preach regularly again. Vocal music based on Lutheran chorales was a long-standing tradition, traced to Ludwig Senfl (c1486-1542), says Dürr (Ibid.: 29), and fostered by Dietrich Buxtehude. Besides the per omnes versus cantata settings verbatim of all the chorale stanzas (BWV 4, 137, 129, 192, 112, 117, 177, 97, 14, 9, 100), many lacking service designation and some appropriate for weddings, Bach composed using a textually unique format. This involves the opening chorale choruses and closing plain chorales, the first and last stanzas set verbatim, with poetic paraphrases of the internal stanzas set as arias and recitatives (some with chorale tropes) from the 1st Sunday after Trinity 1724 to the Annunciation Feast, 25 March 1725), using hymns well-known in Leipzig, a total of 40 newly-composed works.¹¹ Bach also composed hybrid chorale cantatas with all verses verbatim plus additional poetic paraphrases (BWV 140, 80), as well as Cantatas 58, 68, and 128 with certain chorale arrangements composed during the second cycle.

Bach in 1725, following the partial chorale cantata cycle, actually began his third cycle with the mini-cycle of Johannine Christus Victor Easter-Pentecost season cantatas set to poetic texts of Leipzig poet Mariane von Ziegler. These 10 were not part of the chorale cantata cycle estate distribution of scores to son Friedemann and parts sets to Anna Magdalena and donated to the Thomas School (now on permanent loan to the Bach Archiv Leipzig). Instead they were part of the third cycle division between sons Friedemann and Emanuel. The ten Ziegler Johannine settings emphasize John's unique Gospel settings of Jesus' Farewell Discourse to his Disciples and related themes, and are the culmination of Bach's Christological cycle settings of John's Gospel. These also include the incarnation-themed Cantatas 40 and 64 from the first cycle, as well as the St. John Passion, BWV 245, says Eric Chafe.¹²

1725 Omne Tempore Cantatas

One partial, interim cycle that Bach prepared and composed for was the omne tempore period in 1725, from the First Sunday after Trinity to the 26th Sunday after Trinity, from June 3 to November 25. Bach appears to have taken a composer's holiday from his cantor position, beginning with a one-week trip to Gera, 25 May to 6 June (RRCJSB: 508) to inspect and perform on the St. John's Church organ, possibly followed by an unrecorded trip to Cöthen with Anna Magdalena. The initial Trinity Time period through the 6th Sunday after Trinity (July 8) involved two abridged cantatas by Bach and four cantatas of Telemann as well as a German Magnificat for the Visitation Feast (July 2), the five non-Bach cantatas found in a printed libretto book:¹³

06/03 Trinity +1, ?BWV 75a(2), “Was hilft des Purpurs Majestät”;
06/10 Trinity +2, ?76a(II/9), “Gott segne noch die treure Scharr”;
06/17 Trinity +3, “Ich ruft zu dir, herr Jesu Christ” (unknown) [cf. BWV 177, chorale cantata, 1732 Tr.+4];
06/24 John/Tr.+4, ?Telemann TVWV 1:596 “Gelobet sei der Herr, der Gott Israel”;
07/01 Trinity +5, ?Telemenn TVWV 1:310 “Der Segen des Herrn machet reich ohne Muhe”;
07/02 Visitation Fest, (Johann Mattheson) "Meine Seel erhebt den Heern"; and
07/08 Trinity +6, ?Telemann TVWV 1:1600 “Wer sich rachet, an dem wird sich der Herr wider rachen. ”
The first two Trinity Time performances involved shorted versions Cantatas 75 and 76 (https://www.bach-digital.de/receive/BachDigitalSource_source_00024470) without chorus, possibly presented by one of Bach's prefects, and the five non-Bach cantatas possibly presented by Georg Balthasar Schott, director of the University (St. Paul) Church (see Trinity Time 1725," in "3rd Cycle of Bach Cantatas in Leipzig Discussions - Part 2," http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Topics/Cycle-3-P02.htm). These were Bach's first systematic use of music by other composers, best known in the recently discovered "String Cycle" of Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel, presented in 1735-36 (http://bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Stolzel-Gottfried-Heinrich.htm).

For the remained of 1725 only a few Bach cantata performances have been identified: premieres of two festive works with chorus, chorale Cantata BWV 137 (per omnes versus) on the 12th Sunday after Trinity and Cantata 79 for the Reformation Festival, October 31; and possible reperformances of Weimar Cantata BWV 1136=Anh. 209 (text only, music lost) on the 7th Sunday after Trinity, July 15; Cantata BWV 168 on the Ninth Sunday After Trinity, July 29; Cantata BWV 164 on the 13th Sunafter Trinity, August 26; and possibly Leipzig Cycle 1 Cantata BWV 148, on the 17th Sunday after Trinity, September 23, as well as the premiere of council Cantata BWV 1139.1=Anh. 4 on 27 August (music lost). Most performances were for festive events while reperformances of Weimar Cantatas 168 and 164, texts by Salomo Franck, may have been tributes to Bach's friend and colleague who died on 14 June.

Third Cantata Cycle, 1725-27

The third cantata cycle, which Bach completed in early 1727, has several "mini-cycle" features of three different librettists. It utilizes 25 settings of Johann Ludwig and Sebastian of the proto-cantata Rudolstadt texts (https://bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Helm.htm) first published in 1705 and republished in 1726 (see "Cantata BWV 15, https://bach-cantatas.com/BWV15-D.htm: "Discussions in the Week of June 20, 2010"). With their emphasis as two-part cantatas beginning with citations from the Old and New Testaments and having choruses, arias, recitatives, and chorales, these simple pietistic lyrics pre-date the so-called Erdmann "Neumeister-type (liturgical) cantata" (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Neumeister.htm). There are two other "mini-cycles" within the third cantata cycle that show Bach's interests in textual and other features. Bach began the church year cycle with the 1711 published texts of Georg Christian Lehms (1684-1717, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Christian_Lehms), including alternate settings (BWV 57) for the Feast of St. Stephen, 2nd Day of Christmas Festival, and a setting (BWV 151) for the Feast of St. John the Evangelist, 3rd Day of Christmas Festival. In all, Bach set 11 of Lehms' texts (BWV 54, 199, 110, 57, 151, 16, 32, 13, 170, 35 and 1136=Anh. 209). Recently discovered are texts for cantatas in the third cycle by Bach student Christoph Birkmann (1703-1771, see BCW article, https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Birkmann-Christoph.htm), based on the research of Christine Blanken,¹⁴ for the last compositions of this cycle: Cantatas 169, 56, 49, 98, 55, 52, 58, and 82 as well as, possibly the three inserted arias in the 1725 St. John Passion: BWV 245a-c: "Himmel reßie, Welt erbebe, "Zerschmettert mich, ihr Felsen und ihr Hügel," and "Ach, windet euch nicht so, geplagte Seelen." With the Birkmann lyrics, Bach in late 1726, "appears to have realised a new concept, by introducing liturgical music in solo- or dialogue-form, with sophisticated instrumental arrangements (for example, with obbligato organ)," says the unnamed author of the BCW article.

Another unique element in the third cantata cycle is Bach's use of various types of borrowings: instrumental transcriptions from concertos and sonatas for organ obbligato in choruses, arias and sinfonias, possibly for Friedemann (BWV 169, 49, 170, 27, 47, 146, 188), and parodies for cantatas BWV 34a for Pentecost and Cantata 193 for the Town Council in 1727, according to findings of Tatiana Shabalina.¹⁵ Her recent research in the Russian National Library in St. Petersburg and elsewhere shows that Bach turned to certain copyists in the second half of the 1720, as he began to curtail production of church-year cantatas. "In the 1730s and 1740s, however, most of the parodies were made by Bach himself, and the copyists participated little or not at all in the process," she says (Ibid.: 28).

1728-29 Picander Cantata Cycle

During the next church year, 1728-29, Bach set Picander's cycle to just nine cantatas that summarized his cantata art, filled service gaps and celebrated feast days: St. Michaels's Feast (BWV 149), Trinity +21 (BWV 188), Christmas Day (BWV 197a), New Year's Day (BWV 171), Epiphany +3 (BWV 156), Quinquagesima Estomihi (BWV 159), Easter Monday (BWV Anh. 190, Emanuel sketch only), Easter Tuesday (BWV 145), and finally, Pentecost Monday (June 6, 1729; BWV 174). These are the only extant remnants, with various self-borrowings, of a presumed Bach 4th cantata cycle of Picander texts (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picander_cycle_of_1728–29). Some Bach scholars are still probing the source material of the free-standing chorales, suggesting that many could have closed the Picander cycle of lost cantatas.¹⁶

Organ Music, Chorales, Sacred Songs

Two genre that can be considered as part of Bach's "well-ordered church music" are the collections of instrumental music in the form of organ chorale preludes and the vocal chorales and sacred song collections.

The organ collections involve music for various services, public and private. The chorale preludes for the opening of services are the very early Neumeister Chorales (BWV 1090–1120), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neumeister_Collection); Chorale Preludes (24), formerly known as "from the Kirnberger collection" (BWV 690–713, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_compositions_by_Johann_Sebastian_Bach#BWV_690); the Miscellaneous (51) chorale preludes (BWV 714–765, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_compositions_by_Johann_Sebastian_Bach#NBA_IV-9); and the Weimar Orgelbüchlein, BWV 599-694 (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV599-644.htm). The 1739 Clavierübung III, German Organ Mass/Catechism Chorales, BWV 669-689 (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV669-689-Gen1.htm) is appropriate for the main and vesper services, and catechism services while the shorter catechism chorales and the duets, BWV 802-805, are appropriate for private home catechism devotional activities. The unfinished "Great 18" Chorale Preludes, 651-668 (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV651-668.htm, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Eighteen_Chorale_Preludes) are most appropriate for opening and communion services, while many of the extended preludes and fugues, BWV 531-552, could have been composed as recital repertoire and for special, occasional services of mourning, allegiance, thanksgiving and weddings ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_organ_compositions_by_Johann_Sebastian_Bach#In_the_form_of_a_Prelude,_Toccata,_Fantasia,_Passacaglia,_middle_movement_and/or_Fugue_(BWV_531–582). For pedagogical purposes are the early Chorale Partitas/Variations (BWV 766–768, 770, https://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/handle/1808/24151); and the 1747 published Chorale variations (Canonic Variations on "Vom Himmel hoch), BWV 769, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canonic_Variations_on_%22Vom_Himmel_hoch_da_komm%27_ich_her%22); and the published c1747-48 transcription Six Schubler Chorales, BWV 645-650 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schübler_Chorales). In preparation are Christine Blanken's two volumes of Organ Chorales, BA 5939-01 and undesignated in the Bach New Edition of the Complete Works - Revised Edition (https://www.baerenreiter.com/en/catalogue/complete-editions/bach-johann-sebastian/nbarev/overview-of-volumes/).

Following his initial compositioof brief organ chorale preludes, Bach in Mühlhausen began to compose various types of chorale settings in Cantata 4 in five verses: instrumental sinfonia, chorale choruses, chorale aria arrangements, and a plain chorale. In Weimar, Bach composed closing plain chorales for his liturgical cantatas and in Leipzig also added plain chorales to his other compositions of Passions oratorios, feast day oratorios, and motets, as his cantor predecessors had composed, who also had composed settings of Latin church music. As Bach in the later 1720s transitioned from sacred cantata cycles to instrumental music, he probably began to collect his cantata plain chorales as pedagogy for his organist-cantor students, which culminated in son Emanuel's collection of 371 hymns published by Breitkopf in 1784-87. This included the 175 so-called "free-standing" or "orphan" chorales, BWV 253-438, which Bach may have composed for liturgical purposes. Bach returned to Lutheran hymns in 1736 with the publication of the Schemelli Gesangbuch (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Christian_Schemelli), which contained two hundred years of Lutheran chorales as well as recent pietist-oriented sacred songs for which Bach provided 69 two-part cantus-figured bass settings, BWV 439-507, and in which the 954 sacred songs reflect both Kirchenmusik and Seelenmusik.

Well-Appointed Church Music

Bach commented on the subject of a church music in his 1730 memorandum to the his employer, the Leipzig Town Council, a "Short But Most Necessary Draft for a Well-Appointed Church Music" (BD I, no. 22; https://www.cengage.com/music/book_content/049557273X_wrightSimms/assets/ITOW/7273X_40_ITOW.pdf). The letter points out that a "well-appointed church music requires vocalists and instrumentalists" and "sets forth what Bach perceived to be the bare minimum of forces needed for the performance of his religious music." Bach added "a few modest thoughts regarding its decline." He noted the decline in the quality of singers admitted to the Thomas School, the loss of assisting instrumental, volunteer university students, and on feast days the requirement to provide polyphonic music at both St. Thomas and St. Nicolas, instead of the Sunday alternation between the two (Bach also had to provide the same music on feast days at the University St. Paul church). Bach concluded by pointing out that musicians now had to learn different national styles and the new musical style, pointing to the Dresden Court orchestra as the new standard. Bach had little hope of improvements and probably was setting a standard while allowing himself as cantor to curtail actively composing weekly cantatas for the churches.

Bach in the 1730s turned to directing the Collegium musicum weekly concerts and utilized the ensemble to present drammi per musica for the visiting Saxon Court and its supporters, as he sought the honorary title of court composer. This situation revived a serendipitous practice that he had first employed in Weimar with the dramatic music of profane cantatas and in Cöthen with court congratulatory serenades. He utilized this reservoir of symbolic music about static mythological and allegorical characters (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_secular_cantatas_by_Johann_Sebastian_Bach) to re-create sacred choruses and arias with similar affekt through the processes of transformative linguistic parody into oratorios or contrafaction as Mass Ordinary movements (see "Bach’s Dramatic Music: Serenades, Drammi per Musica, Oratorios," http://bach-cantatas.com/Articles/HoffmanBachDramaII.pdf. To the church music foundation of three cantata cycles, Bach added the second Obituary vocal music category of "Many oratorios, Masses, Magnificats, several Santctus" as well as the profane music of "secular cantatas [dramata], serenades, music for birthdays, name days, and funerals, wedding cantatas [Brautmessen]; and also several comic vocal pieces" (BWV 201, 211, 212). Here, Bach in his musical estate had conflated dramatic social pieces with sacred music, since they both derived their existence from God through divine right and God's creation. The last two vocal music categories listed are the five Passions and the motets. Obituary author Emanuel Bach was aware of the numerous plain chorales and eventually collected and published them, without texts, as the epitome of four-part writing.

A "well-regulated church music," that is a well-ordered and produced legacy of vocal and instrumental music, represents and encompasses a spectrum of Bach intentional and systematic creations for the church and beyond to the venues of the home as well as the larger society.

FOOTNOTES

¹ NBR, The New Bach Reader: A Life of Johann Sebastian Bach in Letters and Documents, edd. Hans T. David & Arthur Mendel, rev. & enlarged by Christoph Wolff (New York: W. W. Norton, 1998).
² Christoph Wolff, Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician, updated ed., (New York: W. W. Norton, 2013: 114, https://books.google.com/books?id=YtJVFiHnepcC&pg=PA114&lpg=PA114&dq=Bach++Mühlhausen+resignation+letter&source=bl&ots=0h3BU8t-uA&sig=ACfU3U31TjD3AypNutSKwH-SXrbcFV7kzg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwij3JycncnjAhX1wMQHHUpzCf4Q6AEwAHoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=Bach%20%20Mühlhausen%20resignation%20letter&f=false.
³ See Peter Smaill, "Bach among the Heretics: Inferences from the Cantata Texts," in Understanding Bach, Vol. 4 (Bach Network UK 2009: 101-118, https://www.bachnetwork.co.uk/ub4/smaill.pdf.
⁴ Robin A. Leaver, Chapter 20, "Life and Works 1685-1750," in Routledge Research Companion to Johann Sebastian Bach (RRCJSB), ed. Robin A. Leaver (London & New York: Routledge, 490).
⁵ Russell Stinson, Bach: the Orgelbüchlein (New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999: 12).
⁶ Martin Petzoldt, Theologisch-Musikwissenschaftliche Kommentierung Der Geistlichen Vokalwerke Johann Sebastian Bachs (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2019); this publication does not include the forthcoming Bach Werke Verzeichnis Works Catalogue, BWV; as cantor, Bach was involved in as many as 60 gantze Brautmeße (great wedding masses), says the NBA KB (https://www.baerenreiter.com/en/shop/product/details/BA5010_41/: "Content"), and with the dates listed in the RRCJSB.
⁷ Alfred Dürr, "Development of the Bach Cantata," The Cantatas of J. S. Bach, rev. & trans. Richard D. P. Jones (Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 2005: 26ff).
⁸ See Harald Streck, in his 1971 dissertation study of Bach’s cantata texts, “Die Verskunst in den poetischen Texten zu den Kantaten J. S. Bachs” (University of Hamburg), classifies four different librettists’ groups of the chorale cantata texts: Group 4, earliest, possibly by various authors and of inferior poetic quality (BWV 20 to 127); and subsequently interspersed are Group 2, BWV 101 to 180; Group 1, BWV 78 to 124; and Group 3, BWV 33 to 125; see also, Arthur Hirsch, "Johann Sebastian Bach’s Cantatas in Chronological Order," BACH No. 4 (Berea OH: Riemenschneider Bach Institute, July 1973: 19, 25).
⁹ The late scholar William Scheide (1914-2014, https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Scheide-William.htm) did a study of the first cycle in manuscript, "Bach Achieves His Goal: His First Year of Regular Church Music Following the Leipzig Lutheran Calendar," housed in the Scheide Library at Princeton University. Scheide ibest known for uncovering the Johann Ludwig Bach two-part cantata cycle with 18 pieces cousin Sebastian performed in 1726 during the third cantata cycle (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/LCY/1726.htm).
¹⁰ Christoph Wolff, "Wo bleib Bachs fünfer Kantatenjahrgang? (Where is Bach's Fifth Annual Cycle?), in Bach Jahrbuich, Vol. 68 (1982; Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1982: 151f).
¹¹ See Alfred Dürr, "Bach's Chorale Cantatas," reprinted in BACH essays, ed. Yo Tomita (Burlington VT: Ashgate, 2011: Chapter 11, 111-119 (https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781315096704/chapters/10.4324/9781315096704-11); a source-critical study of the genesis of Bach's chorale cantatas and the reasons for its incompletion remains.
¹² See Eric Chafe, J. S. Bach's Johannine Theology: The St. John Passion and the Cantatas for Spring 1725 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), as well as the article, "Two 'Johannine' Cantatas: Dazu ist erschoienen Der Sohn Gottes (For this reason the Son of God appeared, I John 3:8) and Sehet, welch eine Liebe (See, what sort of love, I John 3:1), in Compositional Choices and Meaning in the Vocal Music of J. S. Bach; Contextual Bach Studies No. 8, ed. Robin A. Leaver (Lanham MD: Lexington Books, 2018: 23-50). It also is possible to consider Bach's composition of the Italianate dialogue Easter Oratorio, BWV 249, with its poetic emphasis on John's Gospel (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Vocal/BWV249-Gen5.htm), as part of a Bach extended Johannine cycle of vocal music.
¹³ See Wolf Hobom, "Neue 'Texte zur Leipziger Kirchenmusik'," in Bach Jahrbuch Vol. 59 (1973: 5-32); William Scheide, "Zum Verhältnis von Textdrucken und musikalischen Quellen der Kirchenkantaten Johann Sebastian Bachs," in Bach Jahrbuch Vol. 62 (1976: 79-94); Stephen Daw, The Music of Johann Sebastian Bach: The Choral Works (Rutherford NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1981: "Appendix: Chronology of known performances," p. 227); and Andreas Glöckner, "Bemerkungen zu den Leipziger Kantatenaufführungen vom 3. bis 6. Sonntag nach Trinitatis 1725," in Bach-Jahrbuch Vol. 78 (1992: 73-76).
¹⁴ See Christine Blanken, "A Cantata-Text Cycle of 1728 from Nuremberg: A preliminary report on a discovery relating to J. S. Bach’s so-called ‘Third Annual Cycle’," in Understanding Bach 10 (2015, http://bachnetwork.co.uk/ub10/ub10-blanken.pdf: 9-30).
¹⁵ Tatiana Shabalina, "Activities around the Composer’s Desk: The Roles of Bach and his Copyists in Parody Production," in Understanding Bach 11 (2016, http://bachnetwork.co.uk/ub11/ub11-shabalina.pdf: 9-38).
¹⁶ See Luke Dahn's bach-chorales.com, "Speculations Regarding the Original Liturgical Occasions of the Individual BWV 253–438 Chorales,"http://www.bach-chorales.com/SpeculationsRegardingIndividualChorales.htm, "Picander Jahrgang").