Chorale treatments in the Leipzig style

Let us now acquaint ourselves more thoroughly with those cantata movements which I call the representatives of the Leipzig style of choral treatment types. As a first step, it makes sense to places those cantatas belonging to the sixth type into chronological

48 Perhaps this is a conscious expression from Bach, that he took the closing chorale of BWV 27

(“Welt ade, ich bin dein Müde”) directly from Rosenmüller without alteration.

Table 1: Chorale treatments in Bach’s early and Leipzig cantatas

Type 1 Type 2 Type 3 Type 4 Type 5 Type 6

order. The earliest are the two audition pieces, BWV 22 and 23, then the treatments we find in the first year of the Leipzig cantatas follows, in chronological order: BWV 75, 76, 24, 167, 147, 186, 105, 46, 138, 109; finally pieces from the second set of chorale cantatas: BWV 107, 129, 100, 192, although these, with the exception of BWV 107 all date from later. Of the third annual set, only BWV 79 has a place here.

I have already mentioned the closing movement of BWV 22 in the previous chap-ter. Bach, in common with the settings of Kuhnau, sets the fifth stanza of the chorale

“Herr Christ, der einig Gotts Sohn” [“Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God], meticu-lously and consistently. The endless melody of the upper voice perhaps alludes to the infinite goodness of God – “Ertöt uns durch dein Güte” [Kill us with your goodness] –, although the movement is otherwise without further pictorial musical setting. As I will show below, this is the work in which Bach, probably consciously, attempted to follow the style of Kuhnau.

Of quite different construction is the cantata BWV 23, which was heard on the same day as BWV 22 on the occasion of the audition for the post of Leipzig cantor.

The German version of the ancient Gregorian Agnus Dei melody, “Christe, du Lamm Gottes”, which replaced the Latin version following the Reformation, also permeates the other movements of the cantata. Bach incorporates the melody into the upper voice of the recitativo accompagnato of the second movement; the first five notes of this chorale conceal the opening bass passage of the third movement which employs the chorus; finally Bach treats the material in three different ways in the last movement.⁴⁹ It is first heard encased in the free musical material, which is made quite dramatic through the rhetorical chromaticism of the two oboe motifs, creating a pleading ef-fect, and the texture is permeated with the sigh-like pauses of the strings. The drama is reinforced by the serious G minor tonality, with the orchestral bass rising in seconds, which perhaps depicts the difficulty of bearing sins; the four-part choir is organically integrated into this. In the second part of the chorale, Bach calls for a faster tempo and changes to B major. It is a demonstration of his exceptional knowledge of counterpoint:

the two oboes playing in unison follow the soprano part singing the melody throughout in a canon at the fourth. In addition, a bar and a half later, the first violin surprisingly also gives voice to the theme, a third higher (in D major!) In the third part, the musical material livens up, and Bach uses the cantus firmus chorale setting (our third type) in the chorus. The syncopations of the oboe and the downward scale passages of the bass demonstrate that as a result of the initial pleading, the world has been redeemed and mercy pours over.

49 The explanation for the three-fold treatment is that the chorale also divides into three: “Christe, du

Lamm Gottes, der du trägst die Sünd der Welt, erbarm dich unser! / Christe, du Lamm Gottes, der du trägst die Sünd der Welt, erbarm dich unser! / Christe, du Lamm Gottes, der du trägst die Sünd der Welt, gib uns dein’ Frieden!”

The cantata BWV 75 was the first work Bach completed on taking up his new post and he sets the chorale “Was Gott tut, das its wohlgetan” [What God does that is done well] in the closing movement of both parts. We also find an additional orchestral setting of this chorale at the start of the second half. The celebratory treatment of the hymn begins with a four-bar orchestral introduction. The first four notes of the upper voice with the bass in imitation quotes the opening notes of the chorale, in a diminished form. Again, the characteristic of the orchestral texture is the melody in continuous semiquaver motion, although it becomes even more exciting due to the inner voices being spiced with syncopated rhythms. Bach clearly may have intended the fifth stanza of the hymn for the end of the first part, but we can only deduce that from a note writ-ten on the original manuscript.⁵⁰ It is characteristic of the inscrutability of this kind of movement type that there is no explicit indication at all which stanza was intended for the repeated chorale setting at the end of the second part. This would only have been clear from the now lost original parts, or the printed service booklet. We can see from this that the Leipzig type of chorale treatment does not aim at pictorial representation, rather it suggests a basic character, and so it is almost immaterial which strophe the choir sings.

Bach exploited the neutral nature of the text, in as much as he included this chorale setting in cantata 100, composed between 1732 and 1734, for new forces. This cantata was clearly written for a special occasion (possibly a wedding),⁵¹ the opening move-ment is a re-orchestrated version of another cantata movemove-ment – augmove-mented with two horns and a pair of timpani. To make the horns an organic part of the whole cantata which follows the per omnes versus principle, Bach adds additional bars in places so the second version is some seven bars longer than its model. The chorale’s final verse is heard above the orchestral material which makes it even more celebratory. From this, we can deduce that in the chorale setting of the last movement of BWV 75, Bach was also thinking of the final stanza.

The construction of cantata 76 entirely agrees with the aforementioned BWV 75,⁵² with the important difference that the sinfonia which opens the second half does not contain a chorale. The closing chorales of both sections are similar with identical mu-sic al material and treatment, although the employment of a new instrument not fea-turing in BWV 75, the tromba da tirarsi, or slide trumpet, fundamentally changes the

50 Bach never wrote the entire text of chorales in the draft of his score, he just indicated the opening

words on the soprano or bass part. As each verse begins with “Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan”, these three words are of cardinal importance although for Bach it was a practical matter.

51 How it was used by the church is unknown, this supposition is from Alfred Dürr. Dürr, Die Kantaten,

Bd. 2, 867.

52 See Soma Dinyés “Szöveg és zene kapcsolata Bach első lipcsei kantátaévfolyamának kórustételeiben

[The relationship of text and music in the choir movements of Bach’s first Leipzig cantata year]”, in Bach Tanulmányok 8, ed. by Katalin Komlós (Budapest: Magyar Bach Társaság [Hungarian Bach Society], 2000), 29−31.

orchestral texture. The role of the slide trumpet throughout the movement is to intone the individual lines of the chorale “Es woll uns Gott genädig sein” [May God be gra-cious to us] before the entry of the four-part choir. The musical setting of this chorale in the Phrygian mode with its baroque major-minor world of harmony results in some interesting modulations at the end of the chorale; parts emerging from the homphonic material makes this even more exciting.

We witness here Bach the enthusiastic innovator bursting forth: the character of the orchestral material has led to a unified musical texture to this point but then breaks into three parts. The first is the slide trumpet with its intonation of the chorale melody, the second is the constant accompaniment of the string orchestra, spiced with syncopations,⁵³ the third is the remarkable figure in the bass: after three rising semi-quavers, a descending large interval, nearly always a seventh (saltus duriusculus). This exceptionally expressive rhetorical figure is a mental continuation of the previous reci-ta tive “Drum sei dir dies Gebet demütig zugeschickt” [Therefore, let this our pray’r most humbly come to thee] concluding with a colon. The reverence of the bass part expresses humility before God (Example 1).⁵⁴

The closing chorale of BWV 24 also begins as a continuation of the previous move-ment, despite its F major tonality with an A major chord. Perhaps to emphasise the sense of continuity, Bach dispenses with an orchestral prelude and the choir immedi-ately sings the first lines of the first strophe of the chorale “O Gott, du frommer Gott”

[Oh God, you merciful God]. Besides the string and oboe parts, there is also a part for

“Clarino” which is not in Bach’s own hand and which probably indicated an F major baroque horn, which Kuhnau called the corno grande. The material of the orchestral interlude is entirely independent of the chorale melody, and the word Brunnquell found in the second line of the chorale, is exploited for its effects. Brunnequell comprises two words, “well” (Brunne) and “spring” (Quelle).⁵⁵ It is as though all the orchestral interlude is imitating the subtly undulating waters issuing from the spring while the horn pedal radiates an exceptionally relaxed sense of contemplation and the consola-tion found in God.⁵⁶

The continuous semiquaver motion of the upper orchestral parts of the BWV 167/5, its melody independent of chorale and the joyous triple-time pulse, inadvertently

re-53 Their musical material is quite identical during the trumpet and chorus.

54 We find similar pictorial depictions in one of Bach 1720 organ piece BWV 637, in the Orgelbüchlein

(“Durch Adams Fall ist ganz verderbt”) where the pedal makes frequent downward leaps in dimin-ished sevenths symbolising Adam’s fall from grace.

55 The English translation of the second line is: “O Thou, source of every grace”.

56 The depiction of water is not rare in Bach’s work. In my opinion, the opening chorus of the St John

Passion begins with the waves of the Kidron stream; settings of the chorale “Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam” always feature trickling water (BWV 7/1, 684); the secular cantata “Schleicht, spielende Wellen” (BWV 206) features allegorical appearances by the four great rivers of Saxony, the Vistula, Elba, Danube and Pleiße.

calls the closing chorale of Kuhnau’s Christmas cantata, Uns ist ein Kind geboren.

Even the voice-leading of the bass in bars 7 and 21 fills an identical role (Examples 1−2). If this music is nonetheless more “Bachian”, it is due to the musical texture be-ing never less than four-part; Bach does not insert the lines of the chorale “Nun lob, mein Seel, den Herren” [Now praise, my soul, the Lord] individually into the musical texture, but in the interests of musical continuity, tends to use them two at a time; the rhythmic ornamentations of what, in principal, are homophonic choir parts makes the choir material itself polyphonic, alongside the dynamic orchestral parts. The movement otherwise is devoid of more profound musical associations. The slide trumpet is not al-lotted a solo role and simply reinforces the chorus sopranos.

The well known chorale setting of BWV 147 is heard at the end of both parts of this two-part cantata. The sixth and sixteenth stanzas of the chorale beginning “Jesu, meiner Seelen Wonne” [Jesus, delight of my soul] are virtually identical; this may have suggested to Bach to put Baroque pictorial musical depiction to one side and give the work over to all-embracing musical effects. He makes the double-time melody into a triple pulse, which was a well established method of the time for expressing general joy. But Bach makes a very conscious choice with the time signature: 98 time has since the Middle Ages been the symbol for divine perfection, the so-called tempus perfec-tum, since all three beats of the bar are subdivided into a further three, thus getting closer to the divine perfection of the Holy Trinity. This outlook fits the first line of the stanza beautifully, since finding any divine figure results in heavenly happiness:

“Wohl mir, daß ich Jesum habe” [Good that Jesus is with me], and “Jesus bleibet meine Freude” [Jesus remains my friend]. The chorale lines are incorporated individually into the orchestral material, during the introductory eight bars of which the upper voice plays the first two chorale lines in an ornamented but nonetheless distinct manner. The slide trumpet again is allotted the role of reinforcing the chorus sopranos, but in the sixth chorale line, playing in its natural overtone of C major – this time with a brighter timbre –, it makes a miraculous contribution to the unfolding of the line of the so-prano’s chorale melody.⁵⁷

The orchestral pedal heard after the final chorale line and the G major tonality both are in agreement with Alfred Dürr’s suggestion of a pastoral basic tone⁵⁸ – this is a well established musical expression of the concept of Jesus as good shepherd even if there is no explicit mention of this in the cantata text.

BWV 186 is another two-part cantata, although Bach wrote most of its movements while in Weimar. Naturally the chorale setting that closes both parts is clearly a new composition. The four-bar orchestral introduction is based on the Baroque musical

57 It should be noted that the most important section of text is placed there: “und sich mir zu eigen

gibet”: “and Jesus gives himself to me”.

58 Dürr, Die Kantaten, Bd. 2, 748.

practise of dialogue between instrumental groups. The half-bar dialogue between oboes and strings and then their unification in unison presages the basic tone of the twelfth strophe of the chorale “Es ist das Heil uns kommen her” [Salvation has now come for all]: the dialogue between God and man requires constant self-denial on the part of man. This struggle is characterised by the entries of the lower three voices of the chorus, always delayed and diminished to half values compared to the chorale melody sung by in the soprano part. Moreover, in place of the homophonic construction, permeated by the expected rhythmic ornamentations – apart from the first chorale line – we hear a polyphonic texture every two notes. The storminess of the chorale setting is increased by the semiquaver runs (sometimes mixed with demisemiquavers) up and down the strings following a quaver rest expressing the word grauen [abhor]. Thus a more dra-matic musical texture is created, thanks to the musical material of the orchestra which is independent of the chorale and the suggestive imitations of the chorus. By using these effects, Bach is able to disguise the absence of pictorial description in the music.

With BWV 136, the series of two-part cantatas comes to a close: in the annual cantata cycles, we now only find occasional Sundays when two cantatas, or a two-part cantata is heard.⁵⁹ It is interesting that at the same time, the constant use of the Leipzig type of chorale treatment that closes cantatas also ceases. From the start of the annual cycle, apart from BWV 21 and 185⁶⁰ every cantata finished with this type. The closing chorale of BWV 136 is composed in the style associated with Bach’s Weimar period:

the simple four-part chorale setting is paired with an obligato violin solo. Perhaps the composer felt that the treatment style of his earlier period better suited the material cre-ated in Weimar.

BWV 105 is the first of the one-part newly composed cantatas, and has a miracu-lously meticulous structure and unified subject matter. However it is not at all in the same festive style or length as the cantatas in the six weeks preceding it. The eleventh verse of the chorale melody “Jesu, der du meine Seele” as the closing gesture of the work receives a quite unique accompaniment. Of course, we must find the reason for this in the text and the first chorale line supplies the answer: “Nun, ich weiß, du wirst mir stillen / mein Gewissen, das mich plagt” [Now I know You will quieten my tortured conscience]. The wind instruments (slide trumpet, two oboes) probably reinforced the chorus, because Bach employs effects in the orchestral material that are so idiomatic for string instruments that it would be inconceivable that he would have used the wind

59 Similar exceptions are BWV 179 and 199 (11th Sunday after Trinity); BWV 70 (26th Sunday after

Trinity); BWV 181 and 18 (Sexagesima Sunday); BWV 22 and 23 (Quinquagesima Sunday), and BWV 31 and 4 (Easter Monday). Only BWV 179 is a new composition.

60 Both are revivals of earlier compositions.

Example 1: BWV 76, No. 14. Choral, bars 1–8.

Example 2: BWV 167, No. 5. Choral, bars 1–9

Example 3: Kuhnau, Uns ist ein Kind geboren, No. 8. Choral, bars 1–14

instruments to double them.⁶¹ There is no prelude, the orchestral launches the move-ment with the choir and a string vibrato which is also used in other places in the cantata, using not quaver motion but semiquavers that create an exceptionally exciting effect.

This is used in the first aria of the work to express trembling from fear due to a bad con-science and the first two lines of the chorale quoted above carry the same meaning. The orchestra interludes are exceptionally short; one cannot really call three chords an inter-lude, even though they are varied rhythmically each time, so really they are effectively the resonance of the chorale. The semiquaver string vibrato accompaniment to chorale lines 3−4 becomes a triplet, then with verses 5−6 a quaver and with 7−8 a triplet again, while in the postlude, quarter and half notes prepare the final note of the work. The con-tinuous slowing of the rhythmic values obviously depicts conscience resting in faith.

Bach again subordinates the whole of the chorale setting to a single effect, guided by a fantastic idea, and to a word (stillen – quieten) which succeeds so well that the music does indeed become a pictorial portrayal.

BWV 46, for the following Sunday, is an exceptional masterpiece, but to under-stand the closing chorale, we have to follow the musical figures from the very start of the cantata. The opening movement is the German treatment of the well known Latin responsory, O vos omnes, qui trasitis per viam. Bach uses exceptionally dramatic chords, rhythms and forms to express the pain.⁶² The second movement is an unusually richly orchestrated recitativo accompagnato in which besides the strings, two recorders are allotted the task of depicting the most important musical effects. The text laments for the destroyed Jerusalem, blaming its former inhabitants for not paying attention to Jesus’s tears, so now the “sea waves of emotion”⁶³ are going to destroy the sinners.

There is no shortage of astounding chord sequences in this movement but perhaps its most interesting musical feature is that Bach depicts the water motif in three places with the constant use of small motifs from the recorders. In the first moment, it is the

“vessel of tears”, then “the tears of Jesus” and finally, incrementally, the “waves of emotion” [des Eifers Wasserwogen].⁶⁴ The movement is followed by a bass aria with its exceptionally visual depiction of the storm, something unique in Bach’s oeuvre. The treacherously difficult semiquaver runs from the sliding trumpet, the constantly

“vessel of tears”, then “the tears of Jesus” and finally, incrementally, the “waves of emotion” [des Eifers Wasserwogen].⁶⁴ The movement is followed by a bass aria with its exceptionally visual depiction of the storm, something unique in Bach’s oeuvre. The treacherously difficult semiquaver runs from the sliding trumpet, the constantly