Johann Sebastian Bach (66 page)

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10.5. The
Extraordinaire Concertenin
Honor of the Electoral-Royal Family

Leipzig audiences, deprived since 1720 of their own opera house, could experience in Bach's
drammi per musica
something of what was offered by the royal opera in Dresden. At the same time, Bach's pieces were by no means poor or makeshift substitutes for real opera. His compositions demonstrate, at every step, full mastery of the dramatic genre and the proper pacing of the dialogues. After Johann Adolph Hasse's first production in 1731 of his opera
Cleofide
, Bach frequently traveled to the Dresden opera and, as Forkel reports, often “took his eldest son with him. He used to say in jest some days before his departure: ‘Friedemann, shan't we go again to hear the lovely Dresden ditties?' Innocent as this joke was in itself, I am convinced that Bach would not have uttered it to anybody except this son who, at that time, already knew what is great in art and what is only beautiful and agreeable.”
⁵⁷
Here Forkel points to an important characteristic of Bach's secular cantata movements, choruses, arias, and recitatives alike: they are infinitely more elaborate than those ordinarily found in opera scores, yet no less moving, meaningful, or effective. Especially when it comes to creating musical imagery such as Hercules and his Echo in BWV 213/5, orchestral semantics such as the soft murmuring of playing waves in BWV 206/1, or specific word-tone relationships such as “exploding metal” in BWV 214/4, Bach proceeds with unparalleled imagination, technical sophistication, and a strong sense for immediate effects.

Unlike the librettos of the moral cantatas, virtually all the homage cantata texts address the specific occasion for which the work was written, often with references to its dedicatee. And since the occasion would not normally recur, repeat performances, with few exceptions, had to be ruled out. However, as there was no principal genre difference between secular and sacred cantatas, their ready adaptability as sacred cantatas allowed the music of many secular cantatas a permanent place, albeit with different texts. Bach made the most of this situation, apparently counting on that possibility all along. Thus, going well beyond the parody technique he had applied when adapting Cöthen works to Leipzig church cantatas, he converted the bulk of his occasional cantatas to sacred compositions, thereby further expanding and enriching the available repertoire. Works like the Kyrie and Gloria of the Mass in B minor, BWV 232
^I
; which date to 1733, and the
Christmas Oratorio
, BWV 248, of 1734–35 benefited in particular from Bach's highly discerning and methodical processes of adaptation.

By letting Bach tap directly into a large pool of musicians, his post as director of the Collegium Musicum had a stabilizing effect on the performing ensemble he needed for St. Thomas's and St. Nicholas's and to some extent helped offset the city council's unwillingness to provide more and better-paid personnel. One of the first manifestations of Bach's newly won “command” over the city's best musicians occurred on the second day of Pentecost in 1729, shortly after he had become Collegium director. At this performance, he opened the cantata BWV 174 with a festive sinfonia that was a lavishly expanded version of the first movement of the third
Brandenburg Concerto
, with a large ensemble of 2 horns, 3 oboes, 3 solo violins, 3 solo violas, 3 solo cellos,
ripieno
strings, and continuo (including bassoon and violone), the likes of which had heretofore not been heard. Although Bach may have realized that such demonstrations of his capacity to mobilize large-scale forces would eventually undermine his efforts to obtain funding for additional personnel, he was determined to make the best possible use of the sacred repertoire he had created in the 1720s. It is not possible to reconstruct the kind of musical calendar for the 1730s and 1740s that can be assembled for 1723–1725 and the later 1720s (Tables 8.7–11); nonetheless, there is plenty of evidence that Bach re-performed a large number of cantatas, even if specific dates can rarely be assigned. It remains unclear if Bach intended to keep the annual cantata cycles largely intact and to present them in order. In only a single instance do the original performance parts suggest the re-performance of a whole cycle, or at least a major segment of it: the chorale cantata
Jahrgang
seems to have been performed again sometime between 1732 and 1735, as we can deduce from the consistent performance instructions (e.g., organ “tacet” markings) for a dozen or so cantatas.
⁵⁸

Apart from additions to the chorale cantata cycle, which Bach tried to complete but never did, the new contributions to the repertoire of church cantatas are for the most part works derived from occasional secular compositions. Particularly prominent examples are cantatas BWV 30 and 36, but Bach pursued the same procedure also with some larger-scale works, beginning with the
St. Mark Passion
of 1731 (which drew heavily on the
Funeral Ode
of 1727) and ending with a group of three oratorios from 1734–35 to 1738 (Table 10.6). However, the parody process was not limited to the transformation of secular cantata movements into sacred works. The Kyrie-Gloria Masses of the 1730s, for instance, are based almost entirely on parody models from sacred cantatas.

The first and largest of the five Kyrie-Gloria Masses sets the aesthetic trend for the whole group of Latin liturgical works by presenting a highly select cross section of particularly elaborate cantata movements. This is the only such work whose genesis is known, at least in its broad outlines. On February 1, 1733, King Augustus the Strong died in Warsaw, and on the following day a state mourning period was declared for the customary duration of six months. The music-free half year provided Bach with a welcome opportunity to pursue a project that might have been on his mind for some time but could now be realized. Like his father, the new Saxon elector and Polish king, August III, demonstrated great interest in all the arts, sharing with his Viennese wife, Maria Josepha, a special fondness for Italian poetry and music (the Hapsburg archduchess had been a student of the imperial capellmeister Giuseppe Porsile). Chamber, theater, and church music were equally well cultivated at their court; the electoral couple often played an active role in determining such details as opera casts and stage sets, and their children received a thorough musical education.
⁵⁹
Since her arrival in Dresden in 1719, Maria Josepha had lent the strongest support to the development of music for the court church. Thus, she personally saw to acquiring for the court church's music library the estates of court capellmeisters Johann Christoph Schmidt and Johann David Heinichen, concertmaster Jean-Baptiste Volumier, and later, court composers Jan Dismas Zelenka and Giovanni Alberto Ristori and concertmaster Johann Georg Pisendel.
⁶⁰

Bach had always maintained a close relationship with the Dresden court capelle, so he was given a prominent place in the festivities surrounding the premiere of Hasse's opera
Cleofide
on September 13, 1731: he was invited to play a recital, at three in the afternoon the next day, on the Silbermann organ at St. Sophia's Church in Dresden. The occasion inspired the lyricist Johann Gottlob Kittel (Micrander) to publish a poem in the Dresden newspaper along with a brief report of the concert given “in the presence of all the Court musicians and virtuosos in a fashion that compelled the admiration of everyone.” The poem draws an analogy between Orpheus and Bach, who, “whene'er he plays, does each and all astound.”
⁶²
In the spring of 1733, Bach saw an opportune moment to achieve, with the support of his Dresden colleagues, a more formal relationship with the court by dedicating a major composition to the new elector. He wanted to stress his official function as cantor and music director in Leipzig, so the choice of work was easy to determine: since the
Mass
represented the only major genre in the realm of sacred music shared by Lutherans and Roman Catholics, it was the most suitable type of work that the Lutheran cantor could submit to a Catholic court, especially one in which most of the landed gentry and high society maintained their hereditary Lutheranism. And when Bach undertook to compose a large-scale solemn Mass for a five-part choir and an orchestra with trumpets and timpani, he chose the type most functional for both the Lutheran service in Leipzig and the Catholic service in Dresden, which set only the Kyrie and Gloria of the Mass ordinary. Indeed, such abbreviated Masses, the only kind performed on high feasts at the Leipzig main churches, were also the preferred type at the Dresden court church.
⁶³

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10.6. Major Additions to the Sacred Music Repertoire in the 1730s

Bach completed the
Mass in B minor
, BWV 232
^I
, by July 1733 at the latest, revising a number of movements from extant compositions for this purpose (see Table 10.6). Along with the
Mass
, he also seems to have revised his Magnificat of 1723, the work on which the five-part choral texture of the B-minor
Mass
is modeled; this new version modernized the instrumentation and eliminated the inserted Christmas
laudes
in order to make it liturgically suitable for any time of year. Although the Magnificat revision can be dated only roughly—between 1732 and 1735—it would have been logical for Bach to review this, his only large-scale piece of Latin church music, in conjunction with the Kyrie-Gloria Mass project.
⁶⁴
Conceivably, the Magnificat in its new version was first performed at the Vespers service on July 2, the Marian feast of the Visitation and also the fourth Sunday after Trinity, when public performances were permitted to resume after the state mourning period.
⁶⁵

A performance of the Kyrie-Gloria Mass, BWV 232
^I
, may actually have taken place within the mourning period, when the new elector paid a visit to Leipzig on April 20–21, 1733, for a special reception by the city council. The entire population was required to line up in festive clothing at 8
A.M
. on the first day of the visit, on both sides of Grimma Street, from the market square through the Grimma Gate to St. John's Church at the cemetery outside the city wall. On the second day, again at 8
A.M
., a special fealty celebration took place at St. Nicholas's in the presence of King August III, with a sermon on Psalm 28:8–9 delivered by superintendent Deyling. After 10
A.M
., His Royal Highness was carried in a sedan chair from the church to the bourse for a reception given there by the region's chivalry.
⁶⁶
The two-hour bi-confessional service must have included music, although no particulars are known. Latin church music, however, would have been most appropriate, and a Kyrie-Gloria Mass would have been equally acceptable to Lutheran and Roman Catholic constituencies. Unfortunately, no original Leipzig performing materials exist for BWV 232
^I
, making it impossible to confirm a performance of this work in Leipzig on this (or any other) date.