Johann Sebastian Bach (3 page)

The original source (printed text with autograph manuscript score) of a completely unknown vocal work unexpectedly turned up at the Duchess Anna Amalia Library in Weimar. It concerns an aria for soprano, two violins, viola, and continuo composed by Bach on the occasion of the fifty-second birthday of his employer, Duke Wilhelm Ernst of Saxe-Weimar, on October 20, 1713. Bach set to music a twelve-stanza German poem by the theologian Johann Anton Mylius (1657–1724) on the duke's motto, “Omnia cum Deo, et nihil sine eo” (Everything with God, and nothing without Him). The music is composed in the form of a strophic aria with ritornello, a genre popular in late seventeenth-century Germany but not previously found among Bach's compositions. The work, written for a prominent occasion, confirms Bach's privileged position at the Weimar court even before his promotion from court organist to concertmaster in 1714.

Michael Maul, “ ‘
Alles mit Gott und nichts
ohn' ihn
'—
eine neu aufgefundene Aria von Johann Sebastian Bach,”
BJ
(2005): 7
–
34; edition within the series
Faksimile-Reihe Bachscher Werke und Schriftstücke—Neue Folge
, ed. Bach-Archiv Leipzig (Kassel, 2005). The aria will be listed in the Schmieder catalogue under BWV 1127.

• Weimar instrumental works (pp. 133ff.):

The early history of the Sonata for Organ, BWV 528, which goes back to a hypothetical trio sonata in G minor for oboe, viola da gamba, and continuo from around 1714, offers one of the few plausible traces of Bach's chamber music in Weimar.

Pieter Dirksen, “Ein verschollenes Weimarer Kammermusikwerk Johann Sebastian Bachs? Zur Vorgeschichte der Sonate e-Moll für Orgel (BWV 528),”
BJ
(2003): 7–36.

• On the examination of the organ in Gera (p. 143):

Newly discovered documents bring about substantial revisions to Bach's commissions as organ examiner in the Thuringian city of Gera. They pertain to three (not two) organs built by Johann Georg Finke. Moreover, Bach's visit to Gera previously assigned to 1724 must now be moved to the period May 30 to June 6, 1725. Bach was accompanied by two people, presumably Anna Magdalena Bach and the barely fifteen-year-old Wilhelm Friedemann. The trip was probably connected with a visiting performance at the Osterstein Palace, the residence of Heinrich XVIII, Count of Reuss. Bach had already performed at the Reuss palace at Schleiz in 1721. He traveled from Schleiz via Gera back to Cöthen in August 1721, and on that occasion examined the organ at the palace church as well as the progress made in building the organ in the Church of the Savior; he even saw to it that the large commission for the organ in the municipal church would also go to Finke.

In 1725, Bach received a top honorarium of 30 rthl. for his certification of the two organs, in the municipal church and the Church of the Savior. On June 3, 1725, the first Sunday after Trinity, the large three-manual organ in the municipal church of St. John's in Gera was dedicated by Bach. Generous expenses for overnight lodgings and entertainment (including supplies of wine, brandy, coffee, tea, sugar, and tobacco) testify to his special VIP treatment.

In Leipzig Bach's new cantata cycle was supposed to begin on the first Sunday after Trinity in 1725, as it had the previous two years. Because of Bach's absence at the beginning of June, the irregular rhythm of the third cycle (see pp. 281ff.) was already destined from the start. Its opening cantata (BWV 39) was composed in the following year and performed on June 23, 1726.

Michael Maul, “Johann Sebastian Bachs Besuche in der Residenzstadt Gera,”
BJ
(2004): 101–20. For further updated details on Bach's organ examinations, see Christoph Wolff and Markus Zepf,
The Organs of J. S. Bach: A Handbook
, trans. Lynn Edwards Butler (Urbana, Chicago, and Springfield, 2012).

• On Augustin Reinhard Stricker (pp. 194ff.):

New research on Bach's Cöthen predecessor Augustin Reinhard Stricker provides important information about his lost German opera
Alexander und Roxane
, magnificently produced on the occasion of the wedding of King Friedrich I and Sophia Louise of Mecklenburg-Grabau in December 1708 (repeated in January 1709) at the Berlin court. Stricker, at the time chamber musician, tenor, and composer of the Prussian court capelle, sang the principal role of Neptune, god of the seas. Additionally, the cast of characters included “Dancers in the Entrée of the Amours and Plaisirs: The Prince of Cöthen, the Elder [Leopold]. The Prince of Cöthen, the Younger [August Ludwig].” Moreover, listed among the super-numeraries in Neptune's suite as well as in the ballet scenes is Margrave Christian Friedrich of Brandenburg, the king's brother and later dedicatee of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos.

Bach's later employer, at the time fourteen years of age and a pupil of the Berlin Ritterakademie, apparently received dance instruction along with his brother and participated actively in musical performances. His acquaintance with Stricker, who moved to Cöthen as capellmeister in the summer of 1714, goes back as far as the opera performances of 1708–09.

Hans-Joachim Schulze, “Von Weimar nach Köthen: Risiken und Chancen eines Amtswechsels,”
Cöthener Bach Hefte
11 (2003): 9–27.

• About Cöthen performances of cantatas BWV 21 and 199 (pp. 199, 213ff.):

Among the anonymous copyists of the original performance material of the cantata “Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis,” BWV 21, Johann Jeremias Göbel has now been identified. Göbel was cantor of the Reformed (Calvinist) municipal school and therefore responsible for the music at the Reformed “Cathedral Church” (St. Jacob's Church) in Cöthen. This circumstance evinces for the first time that, on specific occasions, Bach also provided music for worship services in the main Reformed church of the principality, and not just in 1729 at the funeral of Prince Leopold. Conceivably, the occasion for the performance of BWV 21 was a Day of Repentance ceremony held in Cöthen every five years. One such service occurred during Bach's employment in Cöthen on May 1, 1721.

The discovery of the autograph violin part for the soprano solo cantata “Mein Herze schwimmt im Blut,” BWV 199, rounds out our information about the Cöthen version of the work. We now know that it was performed around or after 1720 without oboe, with viola da gamba (instead of solo viola), and in the key of D minor (at low pitch, ca. Hz 392; see below: About Leipzig arrangements of Cöthen cantatas).

Michael Maul and Peter Wollny, “Quellenkundliches zu Bach-Aufführungen in Köthen, Ronneburg und Leipzig zwischen 1720 und 1760,”
BJ
(2003): 97–141; Tatjana Schabalina, “Ein weiteres Autograph Johann Sebastian Bachs in Rußland: Neues zur Entstehungsgeschichte der verschiedenen Fassungen von BWV 199,”
BJ
(2004): 11–40.

• On a guest performance in Zerbst (pp. 208, 217ff.):

A recent publication turned up the text to Bach's festive birthday music for Prince Johann August of Anhalt-Zerbst on August 9, 1722, which reveals the outline of the lost secular cantata. Probably on the same day, the tenth Sunday after Trinity, a corresponding festive church cantata for the count's birthday was performed, but no traces of it have survived. Commissions for works and performances were apparently connected with a provisional joint administration of the capellmeister's office, which Bach looked after from nearby Cöthen before Johann Friedrich Fasch took over the position in September 1722. One member of the Zerbst court orchestra was Johann Caspar Wilcke, Jr., brother of Anna Magdalena Bach, who had already made frequent appearances as a singer even before her marriage to the Cöthen capellmeister.

Barbara Reul, “ ‘O vergnügte Stunden / da mein Hertzog funden seinen Lebenstag': Ein unbekannter Textdruck zu einer Geburtstagskantate J. S. Bachs für den Fürsten Johann August von Anhalt-Zerbst,”
BJ
(1999): 7–18; Hans-Joachim Schulze, “Johann Sebastian Bach und Zerbst 1722: Randnotizen zu einer verlorenen Gastmusik,”
BJ
(2004): 209–14.

• On the 1720 trip to Hamburg (pp. 211–15):

The archival documents that deal with appointing the organist at St. Jacobi Church yield details of the procedures and prove that Bach had already come to a decision
after
his concert at St. Catharine's and
before
the audition of the other candidates. But they also point out that the expectation of a financial payment from Bach was hardly decisive for his rejectionist attitude.

Philipp Tonner, “Bachs Bewerbung in Hamburg—eine Frage des Geldes?”
Hamburger Jahrbuch für Musikwissenschaft
18 (2001): 207–31.

• About Leipzig arrangements of Cöthen cantatas (pp. 242ff., Tables 8.7 and 8.13):

Bach's official inauguration was originally planned for Pentecost 1723 but had to be postponed by two weeks for unknown reasons. Yet after signing his provisional contract on April 19, Bach first prepared himself for the earlier inauguration and scheduled performances of the cantata “Wer mich liebet, der wird mein Wort halten,” BWV 59, for Whitsunday as well as “Erhöhtes Fleisch und Blut,” BWV 173; and “Erwünschtes Freudenlicht,” BWV 184, for the second and third days of Pentecost, respectively; given the time pressure, all were parodies of vocal works from the Cöthen period. However, when the date of the inauguration was moved to the first Sunday after Trinity, Bach broke off working on BWV 59 (see pp. 242ff.). It remains to be seen whether this cantata, in its four-movement form, was performed on Whitsunday, May 16, 1723, at the “Old Service” in St. Paul's, the university church. In any case, Bach postponed the completion of the three Pentecostal cantatas to the following year, when they were performed at the Leipzig main churches (p. 273).

During his first year in Leipzig, Bach made greater use than heretofore assumed of vocal works from the Cöthen years (p. 197), in addition to cantatas from the Weimar period. We may note that the Cantata BWV 75 for the first Sunday after Trinity, still composed on Cöthen paper (p. 244); the Cantata BWV 69a for the twelfth Sunday after Trinity (p. 271); and the first town council election cantata (p. 287), whose original scores contain several movements as fair copies, reveal themselves as parodies rather than new compositions. The following movements can be traced to Cöthen models: arias no. 3 and 5 from BWV 75; the opening chorus from BWV 69a, with its typically Cöthen duet formations (based on BWV Anh. 5?); and the opening chorus and arias no. 3, 5, and 7 from BWV 119.

Detailed comparisons between the Leipzig arrangements and their Cöthen models provide conclusive evidence that the Cöthen court capelle, presumably like its Berlin predecessor ensemble and following French tradition, performed at low pitch (“Tief-Kammerton,” ca. Hz 392).

Andreas Glöckner, “Vom anhalt-köthenischen Kapellmeister zum Thomaskantor: Köthener Werke in Leipziger Überlieferung,”
Cöthener Bach Hefte
11 (2003): 78–96.

• About the participants in Leipzig church music (pp. 260–63):

The normal choral complement called for by Bach in his memorandum of 1730 (one to two concertists and at least two ripienists for each vocal part of his “elite” ensemble), which has been cast into doubt by Andrew Parrott and Joshua Rifkin, is confirmed by two historical choir rosters: one from 1729 names twelve singers in the primary choir that Bach conducted, and another from 1744–45 names seventeen singers. Moreover, it has become evident that Bach's instrumentalists and singers were regularly supported by substitutes and assistants from the town musicians and by professional forces from the ranks of university students. This applies in particular to Bach's private pupils, as shown in the case of his future son-in-law, Johann Christoph Altnickol: he moved from being a paid choir singer at the Mary Magdalene Church in Breslau to Leipzig, where he attended the university and entered Bach's ensemble, taking along two fellow students.

Andrew Parrott,
The Essential Bach Choir
(Woodbridge/Suffolk, 2000). The latest exchange in a protracted discussion regarding Bach's Leipzig performing forces consists of three articles in the journal
Early Music
(
EM
): Andreas Glöckner, “On the performing forces of Johann Sebastian Bach's Leipzig church music,”
EM
38 (2010): 215–22; Andrew Parrott, “Bach's chorus: The Leipzig line. A response to Andreas Glöckner,”
EM
38 (2010): 223–36; Andreas Glöckner, “ ‘The ripienists must also be at least eight, namely two for each part': The Leipzig line of 1730—some observations,”
EM
39 (2011): 575–86. Barbara Wiermann, “Altnickol, Faber, Fulde: Drei Breslauer Choralisten im Umfeld Johann Sebastian Bachs,”
BJ
(2003): 259–66.

• New cantata text booklets and confirmed performance dates (p. 275–78):

Only six original printed text booklets of church cantatas were known until Tatjana Schabalina turned up several more such booklets in St. Petersburg, as well as an exemplar of the book with Picander's cantata cycle of 1728. Several booklets corroborate performing dates previously determined only on the basis of a philological analysis of the musical sources: (1) September 3 to 29, 1724, for BWV 33, 78, 99, 9, and 130; (2) August 27, 1725, for BWV Anh. 4; (3) June 1 to 8, 1727, for BWV 34, 173, 184, and 129; (4) Good Friday, April 24, 1734, for the performance of G. H. Stölzel's passion oratorio “Ein Lämmlein geht und trägt die Schuld” at St. Thomas's under Bach's direction.

Tatjana Schabalina, “
Texte zur Music
in Sankt Petersburg. Neue Quellen zur Leipziger Musikgeschichte sowie zur Komposition- und Aufführungstätigkeit Johann Sebastian Bachs,”
BJ
(2008): 33–98, and “
Texte zur Music
in Sankt Petersburg—Weitere Funde,”
BJ
(2009): 11–48. “Allein zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ,” BWV 33. Facsimile of the autograph score (Scheide Library, Princeton), the original performing parts (Bach-Archiv Leipzig), and the original libretto of 1724 (Russische Nationalbibliothek, St. Petersburg). Commentary by Christoph Wolff and Peter Wollny (Leipzig, 2010).