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The new genre that evolved from the Leipzig chorale setting type

In document Space, time, tradition (Pldal 113-118)

of the Leipzig type of chorale setting in Bach

5. The new genre that evolved from the Leipzig chorale setting type

I must now interpret the fact that after the first 21 Sundays spent in Leipzig, Bach ap-parently turned his back on this new movement type. Bach demonstrated tremendous creative power launching himself into his new job, we see his inventiveness that en-abled him to take a technique from Kuhnau and mould it according to his own taste and the requirements demanded of Sunday chorales, and so he hardly seems justified in abandoning it at a time when it had seemingly solidified as the most appropriate form for him. We must look for a solution, naturally, in the further development of the genre.

Bach’s intention of ever stretching the boundaries of the chorale movements in BWV 186, 138 and 109 can be clearly observed, which served to boost their musical expres-sive content. In cantata 186 he changes the fundamental treatment of chorus parts, in BWV 138 the orchestral parts pull down earlier barriers in the genre, and in BWV 109 the proportions of large form surpassed anything previously attempted. This means that the musical material Bach chose in his chorale settings had outgrown the boundaries of this movement type. He had to find a new form which was able to carry immeasurable musical message linked to the chorales. From this, it followed that the chorale setting had to give up its hitherto customary role of rounding off a cantata and needed to be placed in a far more emphatic place, which was at the very beginning of the work. This is how the cantus firmus setting with chorus was raised into a general opening move-ment of the chorale cantatas as has been analysed above. This was naturally the end result of a long period of experimentation during which period Bach developed two types of style simultaneously. In the opening movements of the first cantata cycle, we can observe movements that have swollen into the first cantata movements as further developed variations on the Leipzig cantata setting type because of their overwhelming musical message.

The first such work is BWV 77. Its position within the annual cycle aptly demon-strates my theory: before this cantata written for the 13th Sunday following the festival of the Holy Trinity, Leipzig chorale settings had been heard on seven occasions,

includ-ing BWV 186. The openinclud-ing movement of cantata 77 begins with music independent of the chorale, but the choir sings a biblical text to it (this immediately excludes it as a member of the Leipzig chorale setting style); this is later paired with the chorale melody beginning “Dies sind die heiligen zehn Gebot” [These are the holy ten com-mandments] which is heard on slide trumpet and bass, in a canon by augmentation.91 The opening movement of BWV 25 the following Sunday may have entranced the chorale loving Leipzig congregation: Bach inserted a four-part version of the chorale

“Herzlich tut mich verlangen” [I long for you from my heart] played by the trombones into a two-themed chorus movement on a Biblical text. This was making demands on his audience of a Schelle-type absorption to find out which verse section suited best the Biblical verse sung by the chorus.92 The following Sunday featured BWV 138 in which the chorale was placed last; BWV 95, heard a week later, contained a movement with two chorale settings which deserved to be placed at the start of the cantata. In their dimensions and the intricacy of the orchestral material, these two chorale settings cross the boundaries of previous movement types. In the opening movement of BWV 95, the first verse section of “Christus, der ist mein Leben” [Christ who is my life] is built into the 34-time orchestral material with lively syncopations, then a tenor recitativo ac-compagnato leads to the second chorale setting. The idea for the second chorale derives from an interesting association: the second verse section of the opening chorale also begins with these same words − “Mit Freud fahr ich von dannen” [I leave with joy from there] − like the opening line of the funeral hymn treated here, the one starting “Mit Fried und Freud ich fahr dahin” [I leave with peace and joy there]. In this case, a tightly structured canon in the two upper flute parts signify the musical stylistic element for which the movement transcends the boundaries of the Leipzig chorale setting type. The opening movement of BWV 48, written on the nineteenth Sunday after Holy Trinity, is another interesting experiment. The chorus sings a biblical text, and above the musical material expressing the longing for the Messiah, line by line, we hear the melody of the subsequent closing chorale, played by oboe and slide trumpet in a canon at the fifth.

The listener can but guess which verse section will be heard with the chorale quotation at the end of the work. Two weeks after cantata 48, the stirring closing chorale of BWV 109 was heard. BWV 60 was the last cantata before Advent which from our perspective contains a noteworthy chorale setting. In the opening movement, the musical material unfolds based on dialogue between instrumental groups, this time on several levels.

Into this is incorporated the chorale melody “O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort” [O Eterntiy, o word of thunder] sung in long note values by the altos, line by line, and also a mono-logue filled with anxiety. This latter is sung by the tenor soloist who throughout the cantata is the allegorical personification of Fear. We find in this piece form and content

91 For a more detailed analysis see Dürr, Die Kantaten, Bd. 2, 570–571.

92 For a more detailed analysis see Dinyés, “Szöveg és zene kapcsolata”, 37.

married to music to such maximum effect that in itself it would have surpassed the boundaries of the Leipzig chorale setting type.93

With the second annual cantata cycle, Bach began a new project, the chorale cantata cycle, in which the first movement each Sunday featured a chorale setting in a different style. This was in truth Bach’s triumph in chorale setting as we have analysed above since he put all his musical technique to the service of these melodies, exploiting the variational possibilities of chorale settings. Perhaps a complete chorale cantata cycle by Schelle, lying in the library, may have inspired Bach to undertake a similar enter-prise, writing a new chorale cantata for each Sunday, setting a single hymn. This could explain the scarcity of Leipzig chorale types in the second annual cycle because if as an opening movement a setting has been heard, a similar movement could not have the same impact at the end. It also could not have found a place because in the chorale cantatas the hymn serving as the basis for for the work is also heard in a simple four-part form – clearly with the aim of allowing the congregation to join in singing at the end. That the chorale cantata cycle came to a halt with the performance of BWV 1 on March 25th 1725 was, according to Christoph Wolff’s hypothesis, not Bach’s personal decision but because the priest who was writing the paraphrases of the chorale texts unexpected died.94

The cantatas of the third and four annual cycles turn away from the principal of increased use of chorales, and we encounter other principals that do not permeate the entire cycle. Examination is hindered because most of the cantatas have been lost, fur-thermore the third annual cycle was probably written over a two year period (mean-while Bach wrote supplements for the second cycle and wrote the St Matthew Passion), and from the fourth Picander cycle, only 11 works have survived. There are examples here of traditional chorale treatments (BWV 28/2, 16/1), and we find several move-ments which use various Leipzig chorale setting types (BWV 13/3, 27/1, 49/6, 98/1, 58/1, 58/5, 159/2).

6. Summary

At the end of the study let us pose the question expressed in the title as a statement:

did the music library of the Thomasschule influence Bach’s cantata art? Could a new musical influence inspire the composer who arrived in Leipzig at the age of 38? Bach would not have been interested by the majority of the library, but he would certainly

93 Of the cantatas belonging to the first cycle using as an opening movement a chorale setting similar

to the earlier ones, only one belongs to the first cycle: BWV 73. It dates some while after the devel-opment of the type, and because of its premiere on January 23 1724, it is quite separate both from its predecessors and the ensuing series (the second cycle began on June 11th 1724). In its style it could be a deserving member of the chorale cantata cycle so I will not analyse it.

94 Wolff, The Learned Musician, 278.

have been specifically drawn to the Leipzig section, which contained the works of the cantor-predecessors and inspired his chorale setting techniques to the greatest degree.

Nowhere else were there as many works by Knüpfer and Schelle gathered together, those faithful bastions preserving the Leipzig chorale tradition. Although Bach did not recommend the directors of the Thomasschule to purchase Kuhnau’s musical legacy95 he knew his style first hand and recognised those elements which he could harness dur-ing a period in the early 18th century when musical styles were changdur-ing. From Bach’s works analysed above, we can be sure that he studied the works of earlier cantors in the Thomasschule library, primarily the work of Schelle. We have tangible proof for this in the birth of the chorale cantata cycle and the way that in Bach’s new cantatas musical chorale allusions rooted profoundly in Christian symbolism became common. In sum-mary, we can state that the chorale setting work of Bach’s predecessors as cantor did indeed have a shaping influence on Bach’s Leipzig cantatas.

(English translation by Miklós Bodóczky)

95 Unlike Kuhnau, Bach very rarely performed works by other composers so there was no sense in him

purchasing Kuhnau’s cantatas for the library because he would never have used them.

Articulation in the Six Cello Suites of J. S. Bach Problems of the Sources and the Critical Editions

The article is an extract of my DLA doctoral thesis, defended in 2008, entitled J. S.

Bach: Hat szvit szólócsellóra (BWV 1007–1012). Előadásmód, artikuláció. A források és a kritikai kiadások problematikája [J. S. Bach: Six suites for solo cello (BWV 1007-1012). Performance method, articulation. Problematic questions in sources and critical

editions] (research director: László Somfai).

In the year 2000, no fewer than four critical or so-called Urtext editions of Bach’s Six suites for solo cello were published. If we take these scores in hand, alongside the vol-umes of the Neue Bach Ausgabe (hereinafter NBA) published between 1988 and 1991, then even at first glance some striking differences are apparent. While the fundamental texts of the scores – the notes and the rhythm – are largely identical, the signs indicat-ing the performance style – the articulation marks and the ornaments – show very great discrepancies (publication details of the editions are shown in Table 1). How is this possible if each editor took the same critical approach? And how can we make the right choice among the editions and the individual variants of the texts?

I began dealing with these questions as a cellist, later making an attempt to an-swer them in detail in my DLA dissertation. In my paper I chose articulation as the primary theme of my investigations, as it is in this particular area that we encounter the greatest number of problematic questions and articulation is inseparably connected to way the pieces are played. My paper includes a summary about the earlier editions of the pieces and the results of research so far, an examination of the general aspects of critical edititing and the use of the disputed term Urtext, as well as a discussion of string articulation generally in Bach’s time and specifically in Bach’s compositions.

Table 1: Data of the critical editions under discussion Publisher Year of

publication Editor Facsimile appendix

Bärenreiter; NBA

volume VI/2 1988–1991 Hans Eppstein A, B, C, D manuscripts

Bärenreiter;

“Bärenreiter Urtext” 2000 Bettina Schwemer, Douglas

Woodfull-Harris A, B, C, D manuscripts and first printed edition Breitkopf & Härtel 2000 Kirsten Beisswenger A manuscript

Henle 2000 Egon Voss, Reiner Ginzel

Wiener Urtext 2000 Ulrich Leisinger

The main section of the paper presents and evaluates the editorial decisions of each of the five chosen editions by type, illustrated with numerous examples. I provide an abstract of this latter part of the dissertation in the following.

In document Space, time, tradition (Pldal 113-118)