THE CANTATA

AS a result of Luther’s reform in the liturgy the cantata became the principal music, the Hauptmusik. The entire musical service led up to the central point of the liturgy—the sermon. From the opening grand organ prelude through the Introit (on the occasions when it was included), the Kyrie, the Gloria, and the Credo, in their full development through motets and hymns with their chorale-preludes, the music is focused on the particular episode of Christ’s life that was to be the subject of the sermon: the music introduced, adorned, and illumined its content. Hauptmusik, the most important and complete musical and poetic commentary, immediately preceded the sermon and was often called a sermon in music. On festal days a second part of the cantata, or another cantata with a similarly related text, frequently closed the service.

The Hauptmusik held Bach’s lasting attention and creative energies. According to his son Carl Philipp Emanuel, he composed five entire yearly sets of cantatas. Since the liturgical year calls for 59 cantatas, Bach produced a total of at least 295 cantatas, as compared with his single complete Mass, of which 10 parts are transcriptions of cantatas. Today 190 church cantatas are extant.

Of course the voluminous production of many of the eighteenth-century composers is awesome, and Bach was by no means the only prodigious musician. Telemann is reputed to have written seven yearly series of cantatas; Fasch, if called upon, was capable of penning four cantatas in a week;¹ Graupner produced no less than 1,418 cantatas in 50 years. One cannot help but be impressed by the 95 volumes of Handel’s works in the Breitkopf & Hartel edition; the 153 symphonies, 66 divertimenti, and so forth of Haydn; and the greater production in relatively shorter lives of Mozart and Schubert. Bach’s output seems quite normal, if not rather modest, and in fact, Bach worked with more care, more conscience than his contemporaries did. The vast production of others pales, however, in the face of the richness of Bach’s polyphonic texture, the depth of the religious feeling he translated into music, and the thought bestowed upon his work. Many of Bach’s cantatas borrow or are derived from earlier concerti, overtures, and various other orchestral and vocal forms. Some remained unchanged when Bach transplanted them from one usage to another. Bach then cannot be accused of perfunctory mass production. The choral introductions to 200 extant cantatas and their contrapuntal texture show at once an enormous variety in thematic material and in contrapuntal treatment. Bach’s genius, his transcendental technique, and his unfailing penetration of his spiritual subject, realized in musical thought, are truly unequalled.

The Cantata Form

The method of presenting the musical and textual material of the cantata is almost identical with that of the oratorio and the Passion: all work within the framework of recitatives and arias of the opera of that era. There are some differences, however. Many cantatas contain duets, trios, and quartets, but these are not found in the Passions. The cantata, moreover, is introduced by an orchestral and vocal motet or by a symphonic introduction and almost invariably closes with the chorale that is designated for the Sunday or feast day the cantata commemorates.

Some pious devotees viewed the cantatas’ resemblance to operatic style with considerable apprehension. Johann Kuhnau, Bach’s predecessor, objected to what seemed to him an invasion of worldly practices. And during the first performance of Bach’s St. John’s Passion a lady in the congregation indignantly proclaimed: “God help us; it’s certainly an opera-comedy.” At the beginning of the seventeenth century the narratives of both the classical drama and the biblical story were related in a melodious chant or arioso instead of as an aria separated from the recitative. This musical narrative by a single solo voice was the arioso. Monteverdi and his German pupil Schiitz excelled in composing expressive musical narratives, some parts of which contain recurring melodic sections of remarkable emotional appeal. The introduction of this representative style had been prompted by a group of enthusiastic Italian poets who wished to restore the lost art of musical representation of the ancient Greek drama, following the esthetic principles of Aristotle and other Greek “art critics” such as Aristoxenus and Plato. Monteverdi wrote, “The text should be the master, not the servant of the music.” In the midst of a golden age of contrapuntal masters advocates of nuove musiche attempted a revolution of poetry against the supremacy of music. In exclusive circles, musical literati no longer used music to enhance the meter and rhythm of the word, nor to reflect the emotion of the drama. They followed what they believed was the model of the classics.

But music had already matured as an independent art, and a subservient role would not be tolerated for long. As long as these experiments were limited to circles of learned men of letters, historians and artists, sponsored by exclusive gatherings of noblemen, the classical idea could be pursued. But when musical theaters were opened to the public, audiences unversed in the refinements of poetic meter, rhythm, and rhymes demanded freer dramatic action and more specifically musical entertainment. Therefore, the elements of narrative and action became concentrated in the recitative, while the lyrical effusions were poured out in the aria. The recitative used prose sentences emphasizing the natural inflections of speech, but in the aria the words, set in strophic verse, became entirely subservient to the melody and the rhythm of the song. Moreover, librettists were engaged to fit their texts to the plan of the composers, instead of musicians offering their talents to the service of poetry. The da capo aria—developed mainly by Luigi Rossi (1598-1653), Giacomo Carissimi (1605-1674), Pier Francesco Cavalli (1602-1676), and Alessandro Scarlatti (1660-1725)—is a striking example of the primarily musical appeal of this style, since the first part was repeated in refrain-like manner. The same style was extended to duets, trios, and quartets and proved to be of more lasting favor than the sophisticated literary efforts of poets, historians, and their learned sponsors.

In Germany, during the first part of the eighteenth century, literature was still in its infancy and poets were found chiefly among the clergy. The operatic form of presentation was well suited to the oratorios, Passions, and cantatas of the Lutheran service, where a spontaneous response of faith in the ubiquitous presence of the Spirit could be aroused more immediately by the superrational power of music than by the intellectual appeal of poetry.

This outward form of the eighteenth-century opera was eagerly adopted by cantata writers all over Germany, in spite of its rather stilted character and uneven narrative flow. Action was not of interest in the cantata; contemplation of the theological topic of a particular Sunday formed its main content. The cantata text was prepared by the librettist in the form of an epigrammatic poem—concentrated on one idea related to the sermon—specifically intended for integration in a musical art work. The poem merely suggested the thought, from which the music developed in a metaphysical flight into the regions of religious emotion. In Bach’s cantatas music is the master, hence the seemingly senseless repetition of words over dozens of musical measures: the essence of the epigrammatic poem is absorbed by the song, but the words have become a vocal conveyance for the free expanse of melismata.² (In the Passions and oratorios, with their greater emphasis on action, one may expect a different relation between word and music.)

The theologian and preacher Erdmann Neumeister was the first to sanction publicly the fusion of secular operatic forms with devotional texts. He wrote an oblique attack on pietistic thinking in his Preface to Geistliche Cantaten (1704):

The cantata has the appearance of a piece taken from an opera, and it might almost be supposed that many would be vexed in spirit and ask how sacred music and opera can be reconciled, any more than Christ and Belial, or light and darkness.

Neumeister found that composing cantata texts actually helped him in his own meditations:

When arranging the regular services of the Sunday, I endeavored to render the most important subjects in my sermon in a compact and connected form for my own private devotions, and so to refresh myself after the fatigue of preaching by such pleasing exercises of the mind. Whence arose now an ode, now a poetical oration and with them the present cantatas.³

The minister, dedicated to the “reform-cantata,”⁴ wrote Fiinffache Kirchenandachten (Fivefold Church Devotions), a collection drawn upon by Bach and Telemann, among others. Telemann composed three entire yearly sets of Neumeister’s work. Bach first became acquainted with the operatic style Neumeister advocated in Weimar. He used five of his texts in cantatas he wrote there. By the time Bach had moved to Leipzig, the style was well established and Bach found many other librettists who had adopted it. Only two of the cantatas Bach composed while Director of Music there were based on Neumeister’s texts. It is interesting that while Bach fully approved of Neumeister’s efforts for change, he never used Neumeister’s term cantata, but preferred Hauptmusik:, ein Stuck (a piece), ein Concert, motet, or some other term.

Rector Erdmann Neumeister, author of cantata texts, who through his bold innovations introduced modern operatic forms into church music.

This reform-cantata, of course, is far removed from the union between text and music later composers sought; from this standpoint the style is open to criticism. Albert Schweitzer expresses regret that Bach did not revolt against “the stilted poetry,” and “the empty forms of the Italian recitative and the da capo aria” and return to the “true, simple, and really dramatic church music.”⁵ These operatic devices can present a very real barrier to a twentieth-century concertgoer’s full enjoyment of Bach’s cantatas. Musically, the recitative is too formal and stereotyped, and the poetry of the aria is often embarrassingly maudlin. The Passions and oratorios are music dramas full of action and events with ageless appeal, while the cantata contemplates at length a single theological idea. It is understandable that the Passions and oratorios are performed much more frequently, even though the music in Bach’s cantatas is often far superior. But before discussing Bach’s style in individual works, we should know something of the poets, clergymen, and others who provided the texts—and whose work contributed to the dated character of the cantatas.

Librettists

German poetry was at a very low ebb just before blossoming in the second half of the eighteenth century, and most of the cantata texts Bach had to choose from were hopelessly bad. Preacher-poets unwittingly borrowed the tasteless sentimentality of the Pietist poets and mixed it with dry products of the reasoning theologian, trying to appeal through popular platitudes. But lack of talented poets at the time does not fully explain why Bach used mediocre texts. Clearly there are real difficulties with a collaboration between a musical genius and true poet.

Throughout his life Bach preferred to collaborate with local poets. The quality of these varies greatly but from the time Bach moved to Weimar he selected writers who followed Neumeister. In Miihlhausen, the anti-Pietist Georg Christian Eilmar (presumably), who arranged six cantatas (71, 106, 131, 150, 189, and 196), still used Bible texts, psalms, and hymns. Number 189 is a free translation of the Latin Magnificat. In Weimar Bach found a sympathetic preacher-poet in Salomo Franck, whose poetry appealed to him because of its sincerity, depth, and mysticism. Bach returned Franck’s texts a few times in Leipzig and regularly included Weimar cantatas in the repertoire of Leipzig.

Bach was not officially a church composer in Kothen, but on certain occasions he wrote religious cantatas for his prince and for the small Lutheran church built by Leopold’s mother. Since this small establishment lacked a choir, Bach composed only solo cantatas during this period. He was forced to use nonresident poets here, for none were available in Kothen. For Cantata 47 “Wer sich selbst erhdhet der soli erniedriget werden” (He Who Exalts Self Shall Be Humbled) he used a text by Johann Friedrich Helbig,⁶ a government secretary in Eisenach, whose series, Aufmunterung zur Andacht (Incitement to Devotion), fails notably to incite religious inspiration.

While in Kothen Bach also set to music texts by the notorious Christian Friedrich Hunold (1681-1721)⁷ who wrote under the pseudonym Menantes. Hunold is a curious figure to be associated in any way with the pious composer. Early in the century his skill as libretto writer for the Hamburg opera brought him into close contact with the frivolous world of its singers and actors. When he began to describe scandals of Hamburg society he was expelled from this “Second Paris.” A man of doubtful integrity, he pirated a manuscript of Erdmann Neumeister,⁸ which he published without the consent or knowledge of the author.

Upon arriving in Leipzig, the Bach family developed a cordial relationship with that of Christian Weiss, pastor of St. Thomas. The preacher’s daughter was godmother to Bach’s son Johann Christoph Friedrich, and five years later, in 1737, the preacher’s son Christian, who later was named archdeacon at St. Nicholas, was godfather to Bach’s daughter Johanna Caroline. Both father and son lent their literary skill to Bach’s libretti. Their free verses wove together Bible quotations and hymn verses intended to correlate the cantata and the sermon.

Another glib insincere librettist like Menantes with whom Bach came in contact, this time in Leipzig, was Christian Friedrich Henrici. Fifteen years Bach’s junior, Henrici was a backslider. But Bach must have enjoyed a cordial relation with him: Henrici’s wife was godmother to one of Bach’s children. Henrici tried to make a living by his satirical poetry, unrestrained imitations of Johann Christian Gunther’s songs, but failed and turned to writing devotional songs. In the Preface to his Collection of Profitable Thoughts for and upon the ordinary Sundays and Holidays he inadvertently exposes himself in his naive question, “Why should he not then employ this natural gift” of “verse making” that “was easy for him, and took him very little time,” “and turn it to account for his living?”⁹ Picander, Henrici’s pseudonym, soon lost his religious enthusiasm and wrote three farces. When these failed to reap financial rewards he was inspired to write cantata texts again. He finally accepted, in 1736, the profitable job of tax collector, which he retained till his death in 1764. Bach could not have taken too stern an attitude toward Picander’s satirical poems, since he set to music this poet’s lusty Peasant Cantata.¹⁰

Bach set one poem of Leipzig’s poet Johann Christoph Gottsched to music: the Mourning Ode for the death of Queen Christina Eberhardine, Electress of Poland and Saxony, the Lutheran wife of the Catholic King August II. Bach later transferred the music of this cantata to his Passion of St. Mark—a work now lost—asking Picander to supply a suitable text.

One other librettist whose poetry Bach used in some of his later cantatas was Marianne von Ziegler, a wealthy and influential lady in Leipzig society. She was the first woman in Leipzig to open her home as a salon for musicians and men of letters, very much in the style of the grandes dames in French literary circles. Bach visited her home when he lived in Leipzig; she survived him by 10 years. Her personal life was marked by tragedies. Her father, a mayor of Leipzig, accused of some unknown state crime, died in prison. She was twice widowed. But these terrible blows of fate seemed unable to break her spirit. She made music, and also pursued literary studies under Gottsched’s leadership. She was a woman of strong artistic convictions for despite Gottsched’s open antipathy to opera she defended her predilection for this art and its related forms.

Bach used several of her texts in his best cantatas. As a poetess she surpassed all preceding librettists in sincerity, warmth, clarity, and fluency. She published Vermischte Schriften in Gebundener und ungebundener Schreibart (Miscellaneous Writings in Strict and Free Manner),¹¹ and was honored with the title of Imperial Poetess. In spite of these recognitions of her literary achievements and her excellent schooling, she was instilled with the humility needed to submit her talents to the role of librettist for Bach, whose genius she was able to appreciate and whose art she respected.

We do not know who collaborated with Bach in the construction of his later chorale-cantatas, which are based on the original hymn texts used in an earlier period of more naive, less artful, and more direct religious utterance. The “operatic” construction of the Neumeister model, however, is superimposed even upon these works. Although the texts of these hymns appear in unadulterated form in the choral movements, they are often freely paraphrased in the recitatives and arias in madrigal stanzas. In some cases a recitative by a solo voice sings a short line of commentary between the stanzas of the original chorales. A few times only (in Cantatas 100 and 107) Bach uses hymn verses exclusively. In these cases they are sung by the chorus, using solo voices in arias and in the closing chorale. Only one stanza in these two cantatas is set to a recitative.

One wonders with Schweitzer why Bach did not employ better poets. In the city of Leipzig he had easy access to such men as Gottsched (1700-1766), Christian Gellert (1715-1769), Rabener (1715-1771), and Elias Schlegel (d. 1749). The answer lies partly in the natural independence of the true poet; only the verse maker is usually willing to make himself subservient to another art. Bach needed a personality that he could guide, verses he could remodel when necessary. Mature poetry makes its appeal to a different part of the human psyche than music: it reaches the soul through reflection not sheer emotion. And, as Spitta aptly observes, “artistic feeling and emotions in the domain of religion, during Bach’s period, found vent almost exclusively in music, and from the moment when sacred poetry made itself felt as a prominent influence, religious music began to decline.”¹² A versifier like Picander could be induced to model his texts after those of his favorite librettists, Johann Jacob Rambach and Salomo Franck; or Bach could insert lines of his own into Picander’s text without the poet’s objecting.

Since a true librettist—and one Bach was prone to choose—is always willing to accommodate the desires of the composer to his own artistic needs, it is not always possible to identify his literary work. In many cases Bach may have written the entire text himself, or made the necessary revisions without consulting a literary expert. C. S. Terry ascribes the texts of 32 cantatas to Bach.¹³

Bach’s Cantata Style

The cantatas are still seldom performed and only occasionally, and imperfectly recorded, primarily because the works cannot be heard out of context as naturally as the Passions, oratorios, the Magnificat, and even the Mass. Their texts sing of specifically Lutheran theology, while Passion drama is equally gripping for Catholic or Protestant, Jew or Gentile. The Christmas Oratorio, the Magnificat, and the Mass also have a universal appeal, unhampered by the subjectivity and bad poetry of the cantata libretti.

It is a great loss, for Bach bestowed his greatest efforts on the cantatas, which contain some of the most superb music of his entire output. Much music of the Mass, oratorios, the Magnificat had its origin in the cantatas. The cantata constituted the source and end of all Bach’s music. He incorporated parts of his work with forms outside the church such as concerti, symphonies, dances (some of which heretofore existed in secular form only), and overtures in imitation of those used by Lully and his disciples for curtain raisers to their operas. Numerous passacaglias can be found in the cantatas such as are found in the music dramas of Monteverdi; there are chaconnes, bourrees, Gavottes, and innumerable other dances of unknown origin as well.

In his earliest cantatas he used mainly Bible texts, psalms, and hymns, often arranged by preachers. Cantata 15 (“Denn du wirst meine Seele nicht in der Holle lassen,” Thou Wilt not Leave My Soul in Hell), dating from his Arnstadt period, constitutes Bach’s first attempt at composing a cantata. Even the transformation that is available to us (the original version is lost) shows unique features that distinguish it from the predominant type of later days. Bach’s cantata style was constantly growing. The introductory motet is lacking in this early work, and some sections that bear the name of recitative show characteristics of ariosos.

The opening motets alone exhibit an inexhaustible variety of contrapuntal devices and techniques; their architecture is nothing short of awe inspiring. In the opening chorus to No. 80, “A Mighty Fortress is our God” (the basic choral motet of which was composed in Weimar) Bach takes themes of the famous Lutheran hymn and constructs a fugue on each of its six phrases, and weaves them all into a motet. The second phrase appears as the counterpoint to the first. Bach reveals his genius to fashion given themes by slight rhythmic and intervallic adjustments to his ends without appreciably distorting them. He succeeds in leaving the original melody sufficiently intact to recognize it spontaneously while strengthening its original design. In Leipzig he superimposed upon each fugal section a canon in which the trumpet part in the highest register was followed identically by the lowest trombone stops on the organ, a climactic effect so charged with spontaneous symbolism that it inspires awe for the Creator in Heaven as well as for its creator in St. Thomas.

Cantata 14, “War Gott nicht mit uns diese Zeit” (If God Were not with Us) opens with a hymn by Johann Walther on Luther’s free translation of Psalm 124. Bach again treats every phrase of the hymn melody fugally, this time, however, accompanying each theme with its own inversion in canon, while the horns and the oboes sing the original phrases in augmentation (a tempo twice as slow). To carry such treatment throughout all seven phrases of the hymn and resolve all the contrapuntal problems demands a unique skill in which Bach never has been surpassed.

Together with a synthesis of all contrapuntal skills, all instrumental and vocal forms, all secular and ecclesiastical devices, the cantatas are also richest in Bibelauslegung, the musical exposition of religious concepts we found in the chorale-preludes. One example not found in the organ works vividly points up the wealth of symbolism in the cantatas. In the soprano aria of Cantata 11 Bach pictures Christ’s ascension as He is lifted up toward Heaven and then hidden from sight by a cloud.¹⁴ By means of three high-pitched instruments and a soprano voice, significantly omitting the terra firma of the thoroughbass, he gives the illusion of height and imitates the billowing undulations of the cloud. He reen-acts the emotional excitement of the Ascension while painting the scene in music. The soprano, in a state of bliss, expresses the essential idea of this age of faith: “Jesus, your love stays with us, that I may now refresh my spirit in the knowledge of Your future reign.”

But this intricate symbolism is usually lost on modern audiences. A second reason that the cantatas are rarely performed more is the almost unsurmountable difficulties they present for the soloists. Today a professional concert singer, expected to master all styles of the past centuries, at least four languages, and a full-throated and very substantial tone, cannot possibly accomplish the agility of Bach’s choir boys. Trumpeters today are in the same position as the singers. The lip technique required to play music of Bach’s era calls for the sacrifice of good lower registers; Bach did not use special trumpets for his high tessatura.

Few of Bach’s works are as hampered by the limitations of modern large-scale production and undisciplined technique as much as the cantatas. In Leipzig Bach’s chorus consisted of about 17 singers: seven basses, five sopranos, three tenors, and two altos. The instrumentalists numbered about 10 to 12, depending on the orchestration needs of the particular text. The organist played the continuo part (Arnold Schering and Arthur Mendel have unquestionably proved that the harpsichord was never used to accompany the cantatas).¹⁵ The organist reinforced the harmonic body of the composition from his figured bass. Bach’s pupil Kirnberger reminds us that when Bach accompanied his own compositions he always kept the inner voices moving contrapuntally. The relentless and monotonous beat of a harpsichord plucking stiff blocks of harmony, commonly heard in present-day performances, destroys the expressive beauty of this primarily melodic music. This harmonic time beating with chords is especially offensive when it is done on a harpsichord with its incisive, plucked tonal attack.

The number of wind instruments and strings was not determined on the basis of harmonic balance, as in our modern orchestra. The four-string instruments of Bach’s orchestra could not possibly balance their volume with the penetrating oboe da Caccia or the high registers of the trumpets; the strings were employed mainly as support and guide for the singers, generally played the same parts, or nearly the same, as the voices. In those days violins sounded much softer than they do today, because they were played with shorter bows, the sticks of which were convex.¹⁶

Bach’s choice of wind instruments depended on the sentiments suggested by the text: the flutes suggested sweetness, quiet contentment, tender lament, or pastoral grace; trumpets appear with jubilant texts; horns were associated with royalty, but at times also accompanied pastoral scenes; and timpani were often used to illustrate force, power, and courage. Bach, however, is not consistent and his choice of obligato instruments resists classification according to emotional content of the text.¹⁷

Another prejudice against the cantata is the absurd belief that all movements must be performed in strict time; nothing is more deadening than this time beating. The recitatives lend themselves naturally to a parlando style. When Bach wished a stricter treatment he specifically instructed the singer (who had only his or her own part before him) with the term a battuta (in strict time). In Cantata 38 “Aus tiefer Noth schrei Ich zu Dir“ (From Deepest Need I Call to Thee) he calls for the recitative to be sung a battuta because the accompaniment is the chorale melody upon which the cantata is built. This special warning to keep strict style represents a deviation from the norm, however. Most now accept the idea that recitatives generally should be sung, but the same interpretive freedom in the arias is still frowned upon. Yet, obviously, the most lyrical movement in the cantata should receive the most lyrical treatment, an impossible feat with a relentless, inelastic beat.

Naturally, any many-voiced composition will require a stricter style than a solo, especially when in fugato style. Trios, quartets, and solos with obligato instrumental parts also follow a steady and uniform figuration; still these ensembles are notably poorly performed by today’s groups. Bach rarely marked the tempo, and this constitutes one of the major difficulties. The minutest difference in tempo one way may encourage elasticity and facilitate breathing, while a change in the other direction may destroy all freedom of expression.

The profound, varied, exquisite music of the cantatas is almost completely lost to the general public. Dull, obscure libretti, stringent demands on vocal and instrumental performers, and uncertain tempo instructions all contribute to the absence of cantatas from the concert stage, but most of all the cantatas suffer more than any of Bach’s church music when they are severed from their liturgical function. They are much less at home in the concert hall than the Mass and the Passions. The audience who reads their libretti (unless there be some staunch Lutherans among them) feels ill at ease with their baroque poetry. Only parts of the cantatas, mostly the opening motets, invite enjoyment of the music for its own sake. The other movements remain immersed too deeply in their liturgical context.