Credo in unum Deum BWV 1081
Suscepit Israel puerum suum BWV 1082
General Discussions

Discussions in the Week of July 3, 2011

Ed Myskowski wrote (July 3, 2011):
Introduction to BWV 1081, 1082

This week we take a brief hiatus from the ongoing cantata discussions, for these two works, which are not familiar to me. I do not see any discussion archived on BCW. Perhaps an opportunity for someone who knows the works to provide a few words?

William L. Hoffman wrote (July 3, 2011):
[To Ed Myskowski] See Article just posted: Latin Church Music: http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Articles/Latin-Church-Music.htm

I'll send along a synopsis later today.

Douglas Cowling wrote (July 3, 2011):
* Credo in Unum Deum BWV 1081

Bach's setting of "Credo in Unum Deum" to open Credo of Bassani Mass in F Major

BCML Page: http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Vocal/BWV1081.htm

Live streaming complete movement: http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/w/134744/Johann-Sebastian-Bach-Credo-in-unum-Deum-BWV1081

Wolff Commentary: "Bach: essays on his life and music": http://tinyurl.com/6hrz8en

Bassani: http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Bassani-Giovanni.htm

* Suscepit Israel puerum suum BWV 1082

Bach's added violins in movement of Caldara Magnificat in C

BCML Page: http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Vocal/BWV1082.htm

Live streaming complete movement:
http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/w/135032/Johann-Sebastian-Bach-Suscepit-Israel-BWV1082

Wolff Commentary: "Bach: essays on his life and music": http://tinyurl.com/6hrz8en

Antonio Caldara: http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Caldara-Antonio.htm

Douglas Cowling wrote (July 3, 2011):
William L. Hoffman wrote:
< See Article just posted: Latin Church Music: http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Articles/Latin-Church-Music.htm >
Thanks for this comprehensive article. I've always complained that Bach's Latin church music has never received it due.

A couple of observations why these two snippets are important.

The adaptaton of the Caldara Magnificat indicates that Bach's Vespers repertoire must have been much greater than just his own Magnificat. The performance of concerted Magnificats corresponds to the increase of concerted Missae and Sanctus seasons during the Leipzig tenure. It also shows that the Dresden connection increased over the years.

Bach must have added this setting of the opening text to Bassani's Credo because the latter began at "Patrem Omnipotentem" as do all Renaissance and most Baroque settings. It also indicates that the Bach performed the Credo in concerted settings in the Leipzig Lutheran service and that the Credo (Symboum Nicenum) must have been sung as a stand-alone setting before it was compiled with the Mass in B Minor. One wonders if CPE Bach remembered this adaptation when he added an orchestral introduction to his father's Credo for the Berlin performance.

William L. Hoffman wrote (July 4, 2011):
Latin Music: BWV 1081, 1082 (Summary and Conclusion)

Thank you, Doug for the posting of recordings and the Christoph Wolf article on Bach's Palestrina-style music, as well as your insights below on the Credo Intonation, BWV 1081 and the Magnificat Insert, BWV 1082.

Here are two excerpts from my BCW Article:

Summary of BCW Article, "Latin Church Music": http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Articles/Latin-Church-Music.htm

Today, the focal point of Bach scholarship, the Neue Bach Ausgabe (New Bach Edition), has accepted some adaptations with the latest vocal study edition, NBA II/9(KB). <Lateinische Kirchenmusik/Passionen: Bearbeitungen fremder Werke, Werke zweifelhafter Echtheit> (Latin Church Music/Passions: Adaptations of Extraneous Works, Works of Doubtful Authenticity) by Kirsten Beißwenger, 2000. Its contents are now part of the Bach Cantata Website (BCW) on-going weekly discussions, including:
*This week (July 3), BWV 1081, <Credo Intonation> to Bassini <Mass>; and BWV 1082, <Suscepit Israel> in Caldara's <Magnificat)>.
To come are:
*BWV 1083, Motet <Tilge Höchster, meine Sünden> (Psalm 51) adaptation of Pergolesi <Stabat Mater> (BCW Discussion, Week of Jun. 24, 2012;
*BWV Anh. Missae (Kyrie-Gloria): BWV Anh. 24-26 (Johann Christoph Pez, Johann Ludwig Bach, Francesco Durante), BCW Discussion, Week of Aug. 18, 2013);
*BWV 1088, <"Arioso" aus einem Passions-Pasticcio (BCW Discussion, Week of Mar. 31, 2013).

The chorale, "Aus der Tiefe" (Out of the depths) from the anonymous St. Luke Passion, BWV 246/40a, was recently discussed. Also, there is a recent BCW Article, "Johann Sebastian Bach's Adaptation of the Kyrie and Gloria from Palestrina's <Missa sine nomine> (1590), Provenance and Description of Source Materials," based on the NBA KB II/9 pp. 23-30, prepared by Thomas Braatz © 2010

The shaping of the <Credo> section involved five vital, non-Bach compositions between 1739 and 1748, as outlined by George B. Stauffer in his study <Bach: the Mass in B Minor: The Great Catholic Mass> (Yale University Press: 2003), p. 105. The "Credo in unum Deum" music marks the culmination of a long series of studies on Bach's part:
"[1] The studies began with his growing interest in Renaissance vocal style in the late 1730s and early 1740s, and more particularly with his [1739] composition of the <stile antico> pedal settings of <Clavierübung> III (The Kyrie-Christe-Kyrie complex [BWV 669-674] and the six-part <Aus tiefer Not Schrei ich zu dir> [From deep distress I cry to you, (Confession, Penitence, and Justification), BWV 686-687]).
[2] They continued with his arrangement, around 1740, of Caldara's Magnificat in C Major, in which he augmented the four-part chorus of the "Suscepit Israel" with two obbigato instruments, much in the manner of the violin lines in the "Credo" [BWV 232II] (the instrumental lines are unlabeled in the "Suscepit" score, but they seem to be for violins). (See below)
[3] Around 1742, Bach studied Palestrina's <Missa sine nomine>, which includes an imitative Credo in Renaissance style.
[4] About five years later [1747-48] he composed the polyphonic "Credo in unum Deum," BWV 1081, for Mass 5 of Bassani's <Acroama missale> (Bach Compendium (BC) E-9, first published in Wiesbaden, 1968. Though only sixteen measures long, the F-major movement displays the same type of writing as the "Credo" [<Symbolum Nicenum> or Nicene Creed] of the B-Minor Mass: Renaissance vocal counterpoint over quarter-note continuo ostinato [manuscript reproduction below]. The setting leads without pause to Bassani's "Patrem ominiptentem," which, like the "Patrem" on the B-Minor Mass, is in Baroque concerted style.
[5] Finally, seemingly at a later point [1748] , Bach wrote the G-mixolydian version of the "Credo". . . . Whether he intended this music, entitled "Credo in unum Deum. Fuga a 8 Voci obligate" in the only surviving manuscript (which is in the hand of his student Johann Friedrich Agricola [c.1755]), to serve as a preface for anther composer's "Patrem" in the manner of BWV 1081, or whether he conceived it as a dry run for his own <Symbolum> (which he may have invisioned in aonther key at first) is an intriguing question that cannot yet be answered. The G-mixolydian vsersion resembled the A-mixolydian version in all but a few details."

Douglas Cowling wrote:
< Thanks for this comprehensive article. I've always complained that Bach's Latin church music has never received it due.
A couple of observations why thestwo snippets are important.
The adaptaton of the Caldara Magnificat indicates that Bach's Vespers repertoire must have been much greater than just his own Magnificat. The performance of concerted Magnificats corresponds to the increase of concerted Missae and Sanctus seasons during the Leipzig tenure. It also shows that the Dresden connection increased over the years.
Bach must have added this setting of the opening text to Bassani's Credo because the latter began at "Patrem Omnipotentem" as do all Renaissance and most Baroque settings. It also indicates that the Bach performed the Credo in concerted settings in the Leipzig Lutheran service and that the Credo (Symboum Nicenum) must have been sung as a stand-alone setting before it was compiled with the Mass in B Minor. One wonders if CPE Bach remembered this adaptation when he added an orchestral introduction to his father's Credo for the Berlin performance. >
I also agree with Doug that I think settings of the Latin Symbolum Niceum of Bach and other composers were presented in Leipzig Churches. Besides the plethora of Missae (Kyrie-Gloria) and Sanctus and Magnficats available in Leipzig at the churches and through local Bookselers, we find available the full Latin Masses of Fux, Bassini, Caldara and Zelenka. Uwe Wolf in his Forward to his Baerenreiter edition of the early movements from the MBM (Missae, Credo & Sanctus; 2005) says that there is documentation that the Latin Credo was recited by Leipzig congregations after Bach's time. Yet, we have various examples of Luther's German vernacular Mass Ordinary hymn settings, as well as corresponding earlier chants being recited (Magnificats, Psalms, biblical readings. More study is needed of the total Leipzig service practices, especially at Vespers and the Catechism Service (Friday and Sunday) where surely the Clavieruebung III Catechism chorales, Luther's Deutsche Messe hymns, and the Latin Credo were performed, depending on the subject and time of the church year.

For his "well-ordered church music," Leipzig gave Bach by far his greatest opportunity to cast a wide net and scour every niche and corner of church music practice. Bach never missed an opportunity and I believe that after his burst of cantata and Passion composition, he spent the last two decades systematically composing and compiling his Christological Cycle (Oratorios, Passions and Latin music) as well as his Chorale Cycle of organ preludes and hymns (BWV 250-508), all for the Church Year -- all types of services.

Thus we have five cycles of church music -- remember that Bach himself never labeled most of his cantatas as such. It was son C. P. E. and Agricola, who did in Bach's Obituary.

I think Bach exploited the concept of annual church year "cycles" in the broadest sense possible.

Kim Patrick Clow wrote (July 4, 2011):
William L. Hoffman wrote:
< Thus we have five cycles of church music -- remember that Bach himself never labeled most of his cantatas as such. It was son C. P. E. and Agricola, who did in Bach's Obituary.
I think Bach exploited the concept of annual church year "cycles" in the broadest sense possible. >
That's quite a logical stretch.

Evan Cortens wrote (July 4, 2011):
[To Kim Patrick Clow] I must agree with Kim here, there is an awful lot subsumed into the "thus" at the beginning of Will's final paragraph. So much so, in fact, I'm not entirely sure to what is referred.

While I agree that J. S. Bach himself did not often label sacred concerted multi-movement vocal works intended for performance in church "cantatas", his son did. In CPEB's Nachlassverzeichnis, published in 1790, he in fact refers to several of his father's works with this term.

However, that's kind of a side point here, for the obituary actually refers to Kirchenstücke (church pieces). This was a standard term at the time for this sort of music, and I think it's very hard to think that CPEB and Agricola were referring to anything other than sacred concerted multi-movement church vocal works. They go on to list masses and organ pieces separately, in fact.

Anyway, all this to say, the "five full annual cycles of church pieces, for all the Sundays and holidays" is a tough statement to reconcile, unless we allow for enormous losses. While undoubtedly cantatas have gone missing, I find it extraordinarily hard to believe that 100+ cantatas by JSB simply vanished, without any trace whatsoever. Rather I'm more convinced by William Scheide's argument that the obituary number is simply a counting error.

I don't think getting to five by including masses and organ works explains this.

Douglas Cowling wrote (July 4, 2011):
William L. Hoffman wrote:
< Thus we have five cycles of church music -- remember that Bach himself never labeled most of his cantatas as such. It was son C. P. E. and Agricola, who did in Bach's Obituary.I think Bach exploited the concept of annual church year "cycles" in the broadest sense possible. >
We certainly don't have five cycles of original works, but some day we may be able to list all the works for the first five years of the Leipzig cantorate and see how Bach regulated the balance between his own works and
those of others.

Given that he carefully produced a Sanctus and Magnificat for his first Christmas, I suspect that the Latin works - Missae, Sanctus, Credo and Magnificat - were part of the well-regulated cycles as well.

Kim Patrick Clow wrote (July 4, 2011):
Evan Cortens wrote:
< Anyway, all this to say, the "five full annual cycles of church pieces, for all the Sundays and holidays" is a tough statement to reconcile, unless we allow for enormous losses. While undoubtedly cantatas have gone missing, I find it extraordinarily hard to believe that 100+ cantatas by JSB simply vanished, without any trace whatsoever. Rather I'm more convinced by William Scheide's argument that the obituary number is simply a counting error. >
Again, I give precedence to the eyewitnesses account, regardless of how you try to explain away the inconsistency ("100 cantatas are missing? Well that's impossible, so the eyewitnesses were wrong and couldn't count"): it's a "No true Scotsman" type of fallacy I think. We know specifically of cases where there is a single unique source or a copy of a extant cantata, we also know of several others that survive in only part books or we know cantatas were commissioned, but are not extant, the missing number of cantatas is on par with what's missing from other baroque composers. Plus what we know is missing from the instrumental music, so I don't think it's unreasonable to believe that 100 cantatas by Bach would be missing.

Kim Patrick Clow wrote (July 4, 2011):
Kim Patrick Clow wrote:
< we also know of several others that survive in only part books >
That was meant to read "survive with only the title, or a text book with the music missing" not "part books"

Doh!

Ed Myskowski wrote (July 4, 2011):
Evan Cortens wrote:
< While undoubtedly cantatas have gone missing, I find it extraordinarily hard to believe that 100+ cantatas by JSB simply vanished, without any trace whatsoever. >
Indeed, especially since these would be 100+ church works. I believe the majority of the missing works for which there is evidence are secular, occasional works, distinct from the church works which curated for repeat performances.

EC:
< Rather I'm more convinced by William Scheide's argument that the obituary number is simply a counting error. >
EM:
Is it an error, or a misunderstanding of what constitutes a cycle? There are the two relatively complete Leipzig cycles, two other much less complete, but distinct, Leipzig cycles, and a variety of pre-Leipzig works (most of which were ultimately reworked for Leipzig). I count five.

William L. Hoffman wrote (July 4, 2011):
[To Ed Myskowski] I think it's more a matter of terminology. When we examine the Obituary original list of unpublished works including numbered genre, I personally cannot find any listed work (type) that has not been found and when we look at works found recently and associated with Bach, the only possible exception is the Weimar Ode, BWV 1127?, not part of Bach's estate.

Julian Mincham wrote (July 4, 2011):
Ed Myskowski wrote:
< Is it an error, or a misunderstanding of what constitutes a cycle? There are the two relatively complete Leipzig cycles, two other much less co >
Pretty much to the point. There is very little, if anything apart from a particular interpretation of the comments in the Obituary to indicate the loss of 100 cantatas. it is very likely that CPE was not aware of how much of the Weimar work that JS reused for the first Leipzig cycle.

Here is a possible scenario to explain the 'five cycles' noted in the obituary.

Cycle 1 the Weimar cantatas (Possibly also making use of a half dozen or so of the very earliest works)

Cycle 2 the first Leipzig cycle making reuse of many of these works) it is not outside the bounds of possibility that bach kept a pile of both Weimar original and Leipzig reused works in his composing room and that CPE saw and remembered these later as two independent cycles).

Cycle 3 the second Leipzig cycle of chorale cantatas

Cycle 4 listed by Wolfe (pp281-283) as the '3rd annual cantata cycle) nearly 40 works which is fewer than the 53 of the chorale cycle but not by a substantial number. Some of these may be missing.

Cycle 5 listed by Wolfe (p 284) as the 4th annual cycle) just under a dozen works and clearly not 'complete' in the sense of some of the earlier ones. So are there about 40 works lost here? possibly although it is also possible that, as with some of his other grand plans, Bach lost interest in the later stages and didn't get around to completing the cycle. There are about two dozen later works about half of which are the late burst of chorale cantatas which some critics have argued were to be inserted into the second Leipzig cycle, but otherwise it seems pretty clear that Bach had lost interest in producing cantatas, at least not at the rate of those from 1723-5, and relied more on works by other composers or earlier ones by himself.

At the very most, by taking this scenario there may be about 60 lost works. But if so, one has to address the following question, how is it that those up to the end of 1727 have been so well preserved and so many of the later ones lost? What particular explanation covers this scenario?

For myself I think that the confusion of the Weimer cantatas with the first Leipzig cycle and the falling off of Bach's interest in the later years are much more persuasive arguments justifying the Obituary statement. I would guess that the total loss of works is more likely to be between 20 and 30.

Of course that might be wistful thing too!

Douglas Cowling wrote (July 4, 2011):
Julian Mincham wrote:
< Here is a possible scenario to explain the 'five cycles' noted in the obituary. >
I wonder if we are wrong to think of five cycles of "original works." Could it not be that Bach always intended from the beginning to use other composers' works, particularly Johann Ludwig Bach? I find it hard to believe that Bach set to work on the cantata cycles and then ran out of steam after a couple of years. Could the five cycles of the obituary not be a reference to a well-regulated project which Bach announced to his colleagues and which was always intended to include other composers' cantatas and Latin church music settings? The Five-Year Plan would have been notable project worthy of mention in an obituary.

Evan Cortens wrote (July 4, 2011):
Douglas Cowling wrote:
< I wonder if we are wrong to think of five cycles of "original works." >
You say "I wonder if we are wrong to think of five cycles of "original works."" It's worth noting that the obituary (in the NBR translation) prefaces the list with "The unpublished works of the late Bach are approximately as follows." (p. 304) How ever they reached the number, it seems clear, I think, that the obituary authors intended to list original works composed by Bach.

Ed Myskowski wrote (July 4, 2011):
Julian Mincham wrote:
< At the very most, by taking this scenario there may be about 60 lost works. But if so, one has to address the following question, how is it that those up to the end of 1727 have been so well preserved and so many of the later ones lost? What particular explanation covers this scenario? >
This strikes me as the single most critical question.

Kim has raised the point that 100+ lost works would be consistent with other Baroque composers. Agreed, but the Bach clan is unique, and JSB was especially dedicated to continuing the lineage, with his musically trained and professionally well-placed sons. Hence, an unusually good (and well-planned) preservation of works.

Julian Mincham wrote (July 4, 2011):
Douglas Cowling wrote:
< I find it hard to believe that Bach set to work on the cantata cycles and then ran out of steam after a couple of years. >
So would I. But he didn't really run out of steam in such a short period (if he ever did!) He composed cantatas regularly at Weimar, if less intensively than at Leipzig where he composed them pretty well regularly, for upwards of four years, until 1727. Subsequently he composed (probably)something between 40 and 50 religious and secular works in this format.I think the scenario is more one of getting interested in other challenges rather than of running out of steam.

Ed Myskowski wrote (July 4, 2011):
Julian Mincham wrote:
< I think the scenario is more one of getting interested in other challenges rather than of >running out of steam. >
Preparation, printing, publication, and sales of the ClavierUbung series is one such challenge, which is easily underestimated.

Douglas Cowling wrote (July 4, 2011):
Julian Mincham wrote:
< I think the scenario is more one of getting interested in other challenges rather than of running out of steam. >
Since we're all speculating in the absence of any documentary evidence, I still find it hard to believe that Bach lost interest in the cantata as a genre. Lack of interest usually manifests itself in dull conventional work: "Wachet Auf" may be his greatest cantata. It's part of the Romantic Bach Myth that he was "forced" to be a church musician and abused by petty-minded official, his spirit only soaring when he wrote large-scale works like the Passions or his "unperformable" masterpiece-of the-mind, the Mass in B Minor.

Why not an outline where he planned to recast the Leipzig music over a five year period? In the first two years, he intended to establish his mark through a astonishing stream of original works. After that, he planned "mixed" cycles. Perhaps he even commissioned Johann Ludwig to write cantatas that they both knew would be performed in Leipzig (good promotion for Ludwig!).

Bach's Five-Year Cantata Project is tragically incomplete and the composer a failure if we assume that he planned 5 years of original works. I suspect that the sacred cantata series are not disfigured by loss or incomplete effort. I think we just haven't found a perspective which allows us to understand Bach's strategic encyclopedic plan.

Continue of this part of the discussion, see: Number of Cantatas [General Topics]