On the Cantatas of J.S. Bach: Trinity I-VII: The Bach Cantatas, #1

By Hendrik Slegtenhorst

In his more than 200 cantatas Bach interprets the human condition through musical assertion and examination of the relevance of the gospels and epistles of the Christian Bible. Every cantata is discussed in my six book series On the Cantatas of J.S. Bach.

 

The epistle, which is essentially didactic, is from the Apostolic letters retained in Scripture. The gospel, which is concerned with the life and teachings of Christ, is effectively an exposition of His adherence to principles and the application of action.

 

Guided by this context, Bach consistently propounds surpassing interpretations of the nature and spirit of life. Though the over-reaching principles are philosophical and ethical, how they apply is determined, ultimately, by the individual.

 

Book One of this series examines the 35 surviving cantatas for the Sundays and feast days of Trinity I to VII. Bach, in these, affirms and explains such fundamental aspects as the relationship of money to morality, and the correlation between personal identity and the need to understand others.

 

It is a personal exploration, both his and mine.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Enlora Press
• Release date: Jan 19, 2022
• ISBN: 9781386918370

Hendrik Slegtenhorst

Hendrik Slegtenhorst’s executive and senior management work has been for local governments, post-secondary education, and heritage institutions, and on board directorships for cultural, community, and economic development. In addition to his work as a writer, speaker, columnist, and editor, Slegtenhorst has held corporate appointments in project management, information technology, and human resources. Soon after being brought to life in Rembrandt’s university city of Leiden in the Netherlands, his parents emigrated to Canada, where, by design, Slegtenhorst has worked in its largest cities—Ottawa, Montréal, Edmonton, Calgary, Toronto, and Vancouver—and many of the country’s smaller communities. He has also worked in the United States, Europe, and Africa, and resides in Vancouver, Canada.

Book preview

Within the music of Bach flows an intense awareness of our human condition, of our heart as the sibling of the soul. These commentaries are concerned with Bach’s enabling artistry, its elemental contemplations, and the persistence of their relevance. It is a personal exploration. It is written for those who seek the same.

In the cantatas for Trinity I through VII, the five aspects of the human condition that Bach dwells upon are first, the relationship of money to morality; second, the linkage between compassion and individual salvation; third, the influence of condemnation upon the sense of redemption; fourth, the correlation of identity and the need to understand otherness; and fifth, how the sacred is invested in the secular and are, thus, identical.

In this age, which, through indifference and apathy and willful ignorance, considers the past increasingly useless and increasingly irrelevant to informing, and having formed, its present, the heritage of older art is equally devalued, and often considered decreasingly meaningful; this augmented by the lack of distinguishing what is art from what is entertainment. Moreover, in many of the world’s places, including the English-speaking ones, and especially those in North America, the effort to avail oneself of expressions formed into another language becomes more and more frail.

The cantatas of Johann Sebastian Bach, a religious musician from the central German state of Thuringia who lived from 1685 to 1750, are amongst the prominent omissions. These compositions have several attitudes prevailing against them: they are old, they are in German, they are for ecclesiastical use, and they are works of art.

About two hundred of the three hundred Bach composed remain. The loss of one third is tormenting, as those that we have represent work unequalled in sustained artistry and inspiration, and one of the greatest series of didactic works in the Western heritage.

Bach’s church cantatas, written in the early 18th century, mostly in Leipzig when it was (and still is) the chief town of Saxony, and for a captive audience of Lutheran believers, are, as are so many products of man’s creativity, bereft of their original social environment, and, consequently, of the individuals who were part of such an environment and who, at that time, constituted the audiences and beneficiaries of such creations. For the cantata is a formulation of the Baroque age, and the Lutheran church cantata is a product of the German Baroque, the impetus devolving from Luther’s retention of music in the regular liturgical service, and its content deriving from the theological priorities of that time.

The time itself is of lesser importance than the priorities of the theology, which are, in effect, priorities of ethics expressed through principles of religious guidance and practice. The inclusion of the music in Baroque services may, now, be thought to be less important than the nature of that music itself, which, when listened to, is found to be of astonishing variety, innovation, and illumination.

The cantatas are both devotional and didactic. Many offer surpassing interpretations of the nature and spirit of life; and many are of absorbing musical interest, both expressively and formally. The cantata was usually performed before the sermon; or, if the work were in two parts, the first before, the second after, the sermon. It was performed Sundays and feast days. A new cantata was expected for each performance. The sermon related to the gospel for the day.

To understand the cantatas well, therefore, requires an effort both on the part of society as we now have it, and on the part of individuals who have the conviction that the belief that was has, still, something essential to teach and illuminate. The more these efforts are made, the more it will be possible to retain the meaningfulness of Bach’s works for the contemporary person, and lessened will be the possibility that, as so many artistic and religious works have encountered, they will be decreasingly useful to the spirit of humankind, and therefore consigned to the oblivion that much newness in culture invariably and inevitably has imposed, pushed away, and ultimately expelled, from the experience of thought by the colonization and narrowing of thought by the here and now.

It is difficult for a non-religious thinker in today’s world to penetrate feelingly and with conviction and psychological trust into the works of the religious; and it is equally difficult for the religious to put in abeyance their current beliefs in order to let another’s religious experience, perhaps even one that is antithetical or contrary to their own, enhance and expand their understanding of how the spiritual and the mystical can work in ways that are valid even if not, to them, theologically supportable or acceptable.

These two matters represent the greater obstacles to an appreciation of Bach’s church work in this vein. The lesser obstacles are the forms and conventions of the music, the nature and style of the texts, and, for the individual who has no German, the spoken language used. Although it may seem, also, to be of considerable interest and undoubted value also to have a grounding in the art of music, this is inessential if one accepts that one of the ideal characteristics one seeks to attain is being able to emulate, at least intellectually, the kind of receptivity that Bach’s Lutheran congregation would have given, in however greater or lesser degree, to the work and its place in the religious service of the day.

Coupling with this notion of the congregation are other notions of environment. For example, life would have moved much more slowly in early 18th century Germany. Even the passage across town would have been a completely different kind of experience then: either daunting, by the sheer size of the community to be traversed, or enclosing, by the sheer density and compactness of the city and its operations and functions. Life would have been considerably quieter. Nothing electrical, of course, existed. The greatest sounds were those of the thunder and of the cannons of war. The churches would have been central to society. In Germany, the Reformation would have been in potent sway; and the matter of how one approached one’s God was a matter of the profoundest importance and of regular and recurrent consideration and contemplation. And the musician was a servant: of the town, of the church, and of his faith.

The cantata, as implied by its name, is a musical piece that is sung, distinct from the sonata, which is a musical piece that is sounded, namely, by an instrument or instruments.

Cantatas generally comprise several movements, in varying number.

The most common forms of this singing are the structured aria—usually with the opening section repeated, and so termed da capo—and the unstructured recitative. The aria (literally, an air, or tune), an elaborate composition for solo voice or voices, normally explores a concept or situation; it is often accompanied by a solo instrument, either with or without the balance of the orchestral forces.

The recitative (literally, a recitation) normally provides commentary or connective information, by means of a speech-like declamatory solo (or sometimes, multiple) vocal style; it usually is accompanied sparsely by continuo—essentially the harmonic bass of the music—, and sometimes more elaborately by instruments from the orchestra.

The most common forms of singing for the choir are the chorus—usually a complex piece, but also one that, like the aria, explores a concept or situation; and the chorale—almost invariably based on a melody known to the congregation, and so a piece that unites the import of the work in itself and in the context of the service, and that makes plain the essence of the overall communication. Often this chorale melody is the musical basis for the entire cantata.

Women were not permitted to participate as ecclesiastical musicians. The soprano parts were assigned to boys; the alto parts to counter-tenors. Two results of this practice were that soprano parts tended to be simple relative to the balance of the music, and alto parts, because the male alto has a particularly expressive quality, often were favoured with music of a particularly intensive nature.

In addition to the solo singers and chorus—most cantatas have both, but some have one or the other—an orchestra is used. Typically this is comprised of strings, supported by instruments (often including the organ) that provide harmonic continuity (the continuo), and to which orchestral ensemble frequently are added oboes, sometimes flutes or recorders, and occasionally a bassoon or trombones. Pieces that are particularly festive or