The Cantatas and the Chorale
[Sidenote: _Characteristics of Bach’s Music_]
The prevailing characteristics in Bach’s compositions are intense
earnestness of purpose, and, in his church music, a deep religious
feeling, too deep for the ordinary everyday person to appreciate; an
absolute absence of anything extraneous, such as concessions to singers
and performers, or to the fashion of the day. When Bach writes florid
or highly ornamental passages, they are not intended merely to exhibit
the skill of the performer--their most important purpose is the exact
expression of the words or emotions in hand. In this he and Beethoven
were at one. Their difficulties of execution arise from the necessities
of artistic expression, and such difficulties will be found in all the
truest and best art, the art that lives beyond the fashion of the hour.
Bach, like Beethoven, suffered from the influx of a superficial kind of
music which so easily captivates an unthinking public.
The proximity of the Dresden Court, with its Italian Opera Company
and the opening of an opera-house in Leipsic itself, had much the
same effect in attracting the Leipsic public away from the solidity
and severity of the cantor (whom, all the same, they never ceased to
respect) as the Rossini fever had in the beginning of the nineteenth
century at Vienna with regard to Beethoven’s music. Bach, however,
was in a worse position than Beethoven, for he lived and worked in a
small circle of German towns, and only in the domain of church music.
Teutonic to the backbone, he expressed his thoughts in his own way
without swerving to the right or left. He never had occasion to try and
please any but a North German public, and he mostly endeavoured only
to please himself, and promote the “glory of God” in his own way, by
adhering strictly to what his genius told him was right; and posterity
has endorsed his views.
Beethoven, on the other hand, lived at a time when communications
between countries were beginning to be more rapid and frequent. The
French Revolution, and the constant wars brought about by the ambition
of Napoleon, though temporarily hostile to the actual practice of art,
had the effect of making whatever art was produced more cosmopolitan,
and therefore more easily appreciated outside the artist’s country.
Thus Beethoven’s music soon became known in England: and at the very
time when the Rossini fever was causing him to be forgotten in Vienna
(the town of his adoption) the English Philharmonic Society was
negotiating with the great composer for the composition of a symphony,
and these negotiations, as is well known, resulted in the production of
the greatest symphony the world has yet seen.
[Sidenote: _Bach and Handel_]
It is customary to compare the two musical giants of the first half
of the eighteenth century, Handel and Bach. Both were born in the
same year, 1685, Handel being the senior by one month only: both were
natives of small German towns, within a few miles of each other. Both
received their earliest musical education in Germany, but with the
difference that Bach, coming of a family of professional musicians,
there was never any thought of bringing him up to any other profession,
while Handel’s father, a surgeon, had all the prejudices of his time
and profession against music, and did his best to stifle his son’s
proclivities, till they became too strong for him to longer withstand.
After early childhood the ways of the composers were widely different.
While Bach was painfully acquiring the technique of his art, by making
long journeys on foot to hear and get instruction from eminent German
organists, by practising assiduously day and night, and by copying all
the best music he could lay hands on, Handel was playing the violin and
harpsichord in the German opera conducted by Keiser at Hamburg.
At the age of twenty-one Handel went to Italy and remained there three
years studying, and successfully composing operas for the Italians, who
called him “Il caro Sassone,”--“the dear Saxon.” At twenty-one Bach
was organist of a small and unimportant German town, still working
hard to improve his technical powers in every direction. Everyone
knows that Handel made his first reputation as a composer of Italian
operas which are completely forgotten, and not till he was fifty-five
years old did he begin that series of oratorios or sacred dramas by
which he is immortalised. Bach, on the other hand, making the organ
and the chorale his starting point, continued all his life to compose
sacred music--“church music” as it was called, and never wrote for the
theatre. Handel, domiciled in England, knew his public and knew them
so well that he wrote works which not only became popular at once, but
have never ceased to be popular. Bach either did not know, or did not
care to please his public, and wrote far above their heads, so that for
a time after his death he was forgotten entirely: only when Mozart,
and afterwards Mendelssohn, became acquainted with the wonders of his
genius did the public, almost against their will, begin to appreciate
what a giant had been on the earth in those days.[56]
[Sidenote: _Ein feste Burg_]
Bach’s place in Lutheran Church history is very important. He is
connected directly with the Reformation through the chorale, which
Luther so much encouraged as a means of spreading the new views of
religion. Bach was a strict Lutheran; and the chorale, or hymn to be
sung by the congregation, was perhaps the most important expression of
Lutheran religious feeling. The words will explain this perhaps better
than anything else, if we take an example at random from the Leipziger
Gesangbuch, in literal prose translation--_e.g._ No. 171: “A strong
castle is our God; a good defence and weapon; he freely helps us in all
trouble that can meet us. The ancient wicked enemy is in earnest; his
cruel armour is great power and much deceit: there is none like him on
the earth.
“We can do nothing of our own power, we are soon lost: but there
fights for us the right man, whom God himself has chosen. Dost thou ask
his name? Jesus Christ is his name, the Lord of Sabaoth. There is no
other God; he is bound to win the day.
“And if the world were full of devils, who would devour us, we need not
fear much, for we shall conquer. The prince of this world, however sour
he may appear, can do nothing against us: a word is able to slay him,”
&c.
[Sidenote: A Notable Chorale]
This is one of the chorales assigned to the Festival of the
Reformation, and one can imagine with what force it would appeal
to those disposed towards Luther’s teaching. Its well-known melody
was composed by Luther, and it was used by Bach as the foundation
of a cantata which is considered by Zelter to have been composed in
celebration of the 200th anniversary of the Reformation in 1717, but
the composer re-arranged it in 1730. The orchestra contains three
trumpets, one flute, two oboes, one oboe di caccia, two violins, viola,
violoncello, organ and figured bass.
The first chorus set to the words of the first verse has the following
vigorous opening, the orchestra playing an independent accompaniment.
(For convenience of English readers we quote from Novello’s octavo
edition.)
[Music: A stronghold sure our God re-]
[Music:
A stronghold sure our God remains,
A shield and hope unfailing
][57]
This is worked in bold fugato (both chorus and orchestra taking the
subject or the counter-subject), for thirty-six bars, which are then
repeated, note for note, to the words: “In need His help our freedom
gains, o’er all we fear prevailing.”
A short quotation may serve to give some idea of the fulness of the
writing and the boldness of the counterpoint, of which the effect, when
sung with proper energy, is overwhelming.
[Music: In need his help our freedom gains]
The words “our old malignant foe” follow, with the new fugue subject
[Music: Our old malignant foe]
occupying twenty-four bars.
Then
[Music:
Would fain work us woe
would fain]
&c. treated fugato for twenty bars; and each line is worked in the same
way.
[Sidenote: A Massive Chorus]
The whole chorus is 221 bars in length, and is a masterpiece of massive
choral and orchestral writing, in keeping with the sentiment of the
words. It opens with three trumpets, drums, violoncello, and organ
manual, the pedal being silent for the first twenty-three bars. At
the twenty-fourth bar (the first quoted on page 97) the pedal enters
with the 16 feet Posaune, and makes a bold canon of eight bars, with
the melody played in the highest register of the trumpet. The canon
concludes with a drum passage on the dominant; and fresh canons between
trumpet and pedal occur at bars 49, 88, 122, 147, 178 and 200.
These seven canons are all formed on the musical phrases of the
tune: and one might almost look upon the chorus as a gigantic
“choral-vorspiel” with long vocal and instrumental interludes between
the phrases given out by the trumpets and pedal.
[Sidenote: A Florid Duet]
The second verse is set as a duet for treble and bass, still in the key
of D. After a ritornello, the bass enters with the words “all men born
of God our Father, at the last will Jesus gather,” set to exceedingly
florid passages, above which floats the melody in the treble voice.
[Music:
Our utmost might is all in men,
All men born of God our]
A bass recitative, commenting on the preceding sentiments follows, and
then a treble aria, “Within my heart of hearts, Lord Jesus, make thy
dwelling.” In the fifth number the whole chorus sings the melody in
unison, now changed to 6/8 time, and with a very florid accompaniment.
[Music: If all the world with fiends were filled.]
This is followed by a tenor recitative, “Then close beside Thy
Saviour’s blood-besprinkled banner, my soul remain,” &c., a duet for
alto and tenor, “How blessed then are they, who still on God are
calling;” and the cantata concludes with the chorale simply harmonised
in four parts, “That word shall still in strength abide,” in the form
familiar to English congregations.
[Sidenote: _Fertility of Invention_]
We have given a fairly full description of this fine cantata in order
to show our readers what is meant when it is said that Bach based
his church music essentially on chorale. Most of the cantatas are
constructed in the same kind of way, _i.e._ a chorale is used as the
chief subject. But that Bach did not merely work on a fixed model is
shown by the fact that no two of the one hundred and ninety cantatas
published by the Bachgesellschaft are alike. Nothing astonishes us
more than the enormous fertility of invention shown in these wonderful
works, the variety of detail, and yet the unity of purpose. The one
idea of the composer was the religious effect to be obtained by the
highest efforts of art devoted to the service of God. Except in
Germany, they are rarely heard in their proper place as part of the
church service: but the mere reading through of the scores produces
a most profound effect, and creates a perpetual astonishment in the
reader at the enormous resources of the composer.
Bach is generally considered as the greatest composer for the organ,
but his organ works, wonderful as they are, seem small in comparison
with these marvellous cantatas, all different and yet all connected, as
it were, by an underlying unity of purpose.
[Sidenote: _The Choral-vorspiel_]
Bach took the melody of “Ein feste Burg” for one of his finest
choral-vorspiele (Peters, 245, No. 22). This is a particularly
interesting composition, since it is the only chorale in which we
obtain any clue to Bach’s methods of registering. In Walther’s MS. are
given a few indications “a 3 clav.” for three manuals. The left hand is
to begin with the fagott, sixteen feet, and the right hand on the choir
with the “sesquialtera.” The piece was doubtless intended for the organ
at Mühlhausen which was renovated and enlarged under Bach’s directions,
and which had three manuals, containing on one a sixteen feet “fagott,”
and on another a combination producing a “good sesquialtera tone.” It
is one of the larger choral-vorspiele, containing fifty-eight bars.
It is worth while noticing how Bach, in this, and all other
choral-vorspiele, does not adhere literally to the notes of the melody,
but introduces ornamental passages, or lengthens and shortens notes
to serve his purpose, or introduces the subject in augmentation and
diminution. This was the regular custom amongst German organists. The
choral-vorspiel is, in its simplest form, merely intended to prepare
the congregation for the melody that is to be sung, but instead of a
mere bald playing through of the tune, as is usual in English churches,
the organist was expected to use his art in elaborating it.
[Sidenote: ‘Surprising Variations’]
Bach, in his younger days, was accused of over-elaborating, not only
the vorspiele, but the accompaniment. It was a fault of youth, and
hardly called for the official censure that the Council at Arnstadt
thought fit to administer. He was practically his own teacher. If he
had been under the guidance of an older and more experienced organist,
he would undoubtedly have curbed his zeal for “surprising variations.”
At that time he seems to have lost sight of the fact that he was
expected to accompany the congregation. He forgot all about them,
and gave free rein to his imagination so that the “congregation were
confounded.” And well they might be, by the following example of his
accompaniment.
[Music: “WER NUR DEN LIEBEN GOTT LÄSST WALTEN.”
_From the Leipziger Gesangbuch. As sung._
Wer nur den lieben Gott lässt walten
und hoffet auf ihn allezeit.]
[Music: BACH’S METHOD OF ACCOMPANYING WHEN AT ARNSTADT.
_Peters 244, Variante zu No. 52._
Wer nur den lieben Gott lässt walten
und hoffet auf ihn allezeit]
He was in reality not suited to be a mere accompanist--his genius was
too great to be tied down to the formal notes sung by the congregation,
and a far lesser man would have suited this kind of work better. His
choral-vorspiele are masterpieces of organ work; his extemporised or
written accompaniments are artistic, but quite impracticable.
But when he harmonises a chorale in vocal parts for his choir to sing
with the congregation, his genius shines forth in the most exquisite
harmonic combinations possible. Examples abound, and a volume might
be written on this subject alone. We can only indicate here a few
instances of various treatments of the chorale.
Every one knows the opening double chorus in the _Matthew Passion_.
After an instrumental introduction full of dignity and solemnity, built
chiefly on tonic and dominant pedals (E minor), the first chorus sings,
“Come ye daughters, weep with me, behold the Lamb as a bridegroom.”
The second chorus exclaims, “Whom? How?” while the first continues its
course, and a “Soprano ripieno” chorus enters with the chorale--
[Music:
O thou begotten son of God.
Who on the cross wast slain.]
The work is now performed every Good Friday in the Thomas Church at
Leipsic. The organ gallery occupies the whole of the west end of the
nave and two side aisles. On each side are placed the singers, the
soprano and alto parts being sung by women. This chorale is sung by the
boys of the Thomas Schule, some forty in number, and the effect of the
contrast of tone bringing it in is overwhelming. Poor Bach, with his
miserable little rabble of a choir with three voices to a part, can
hardly have realised how his music would sound many years after his
death, when performed by a large body of enthusiastic and intelligent
musicians.
The next chorale in the work is
[Music: O Holy Jesu how hast thou offended,]
harmonised for four voices, and accompanied by violins, flutes, oboes,
violas and basses, in unison with the respective voices and figured
bass organ part. This accompaniment is used for all the succeeding
chorales, and we may remark that the melody is given to the two flutes
and two oboes as well as the first violins, that it may be made
prominent.
All the other chorales in this work, six in number, are thus arranged
and accompanied. The well-known Phrygian melody
[Music: Herzlich thut mir verlangen.]
occurs no less than five times, sometimes harmonised in the Ionian,
sometimes in the Phrygian mode, and he has arranged it in the latter
mode as a very beautiful vorspiel for the organ (Peters 244, No. 27).
We may here remark that in playing the organ choral-vorspiele no notice
is to be taken of the _fermata_, which are only used when the melodies
are sung.[58]
[Sidenote: Uses of the Chorale]
Besides the choral-vorspiele, and the introduction of the melody in
conjunction with a chorus, and the harmonisation in four parts, with
orchestra doubling the voice parts, Bach makes many other uses of the
chorale. In the _Christmas Oratorio_, for example, he combines it
with recitative, the melody being freely accompanied by the orchestra,
and interspersed with recitative passages of the nature of interludes
between the lines. Or he harmonises it in four parts, with free
orchestral interludes.
The above quoted melody appears in the _Christmas Oratorio_ with
brilliant orchestral accompaniment and interludes, three trumpets,
drums and two oboes being used besides the strings and organ.
Erk has collected 319 chorales in two volumes (Peters), extracted
from the church cantatas, &c., and has given full particulars of
the sources. Sometimes they are worked up as fugues. Thus, the tune
composed by Kugelmann about 1540, and generally known in England as the
“Old Hundredth,” appears in the cantata “Gottlob! nun geht das Jahr zu
Ende” in the following form, the voice parts being doubled by strings,
cornet, two oboes, three trombones and organ.
[Music: Nun lob mein Seel.]
The choral-vorspiele published in the Peters’ edition number about
143--besides several sets of partitas or variations on chorales, and
many “Varianten,” or different workings of the same vorspiel.
Although this eminently national German and Lutheran form of religious
art sank deeply into Bach’s soul, and more or less influenced and
coloured all his compositions for the Church, he was accused at Leipsic
of being too proud to demean himself to conducting or accompanying a
mere chorale!
What he did was to allow his genius full play on a form which intensely
interested him, and to exhibit it in new and original aspects.
[Sidenote: _Orchestration_]
The orchestration of the cantatas is of great interest. It is generally
known that Bach did not usually employ the orchestral instruments in
the modern manner, but made each play an independent counterpoint.
Thus there were as many contrapuntal parts as there were voices
and instruments combined; and a cantata was described as being,
for example, “in nine parts, for one oboe, two violins, one viola,
one violoncello, soprano, alto, tenor, and bass voices with organ
continuo,” or as a “concerto for four voices, two oboes, viola and
continuo.” Sometimes, as in “Erforsche mich Gott,” there is a violin
obbligato above the voice parts in the final four-part chorale. In
other cantatas it is noted that the “cantus firmus (the chorale-melody)
is in the soprano,” or other voice. In the opening chorus of “Herr Gott
dich loben wir,” the cantus firmus is in the soprano, the other voices
sing throughout, making the interludes which are usually allotted to
the instruments.
Bach was fond of dividing his violas. Thus, part of “Gleichwie der
Regen und Schnee” is scored for four voices, two flutes, two violins,
_four violas_, fagotto, violoncello and continuo.
Or parts are written for a viola and a taille (the tenor viol). In “O
Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort,” the scoring is for three oboes, two violins,
viola and continuo, with a tromba da tirarsi (slide trumpet) in unison
with the soprano throughout. The cantata “Ich hatte viel Bekümmerniss,”
known in England as “My spirit was in heaviness,” was composed and
performed at Weimar on the third Sunday after Trinity, 1714, on his
being made Concertmeister there. It is labelled “Per ogni tempi,”
“suitable for any season.” It has one oboe and one fagotto, besides the
usual strings.
[Sidenote: A Mannerism]
“Es ist nichts gesundes” is scored for three flutes, cornet, three
trombones, two oboes, the usual strings and four voices. Here the
cantus firmus is given out by the organ in the bass with figures,
[Music]
and there is no further reference to it until long after the chorus
have entered, and have been singing contrapuntal passages, when,
without any warning as it were, the three flutes, cornet, and three
trombones, which have hitherto been silent, bring in the chorale in
four parts, the voices and strings continuing their contrapuntal
course. The effect is so peculiarly Bach-like that we cannot refrain
from quoting a few bars.
[Music: FROM THE CANTATA “ES IST NICHTS GESUNDES AN MEINEM LEIBE.” NO.
25.
_Bars 14 to 17._
Es ist nichts Gesundes an meinem]
[Music: meinem Leibe]
The above quotation is only a specimen of what is found throughout
a long chorus, all the sections of the chorale being introduced in
turn, with a never-ceasing flow of counterpoint in the voice parts,
accompanied in the same way by strings.
If we examine the voice parts we shall find that they practically
amount to a double canon, the tenor imitating the bass, the treble
imitating the alto. But the canon is not carried out with an iron-bound
rule which would crush all beauty out of the music; on the contrary,
the imitations are quite free and unconstrained. Each voice must have
its melody, even if collisions occur now and then, such as between
alto and tenor bar 15, last quaver: alto and bass just previously to
this: the consecutive sevenths in the treble and alto bar 16, third
and fourth quavers, or the entry of the tenor on F♮ bar 17, against
the F♯ in the bass. This rough and healthy vigour is thoroughly
characteristic; the parts must express themselves by their melody; if
they happen occasionally to collide, this is of much less importance
than that their vigorous melody should be sacrificed in order to
sweeten the harmony.
[Sidenote: Technical Skill]
The string accompaniment must also take its part. The instruments
are all treated as individuals, not merely as filling up harmonies.
Therefore they do not reiterate one note in each chord, but move about.
The wind instruments play in four part harmony which is complete in
itself. It might perhaps appear that this is merely a display of
learning and contrapuntal skill, but a close examination of Bach’s
most elaborate works will reveal the fact that the greater the
contrapuntal task he sets himself, the more expressive is the music.
Such choruses exhibit the highest possible technical skill, but all
this is as nothing compared to the wonderfully artistic effect that
the composition as a whole produces.
In some cases Bach writes an organ obbligato part in addition to the
“continuo,” or figured bass. Thus the opening symphony of “Wir danken
dir, Gott, wir danken dir,” composed for the election of the Town
Council at Leipsic in 1737, consists of the “Prelude” of the violin
solo suite No. 6 transposed to D,
[Music]
on the obbligato organ, with accompaniments for three trumpets, drums,
two oboes, strings and continuo (to be played on another organ[59]).
Bach seems to have tried every kind of experiment with his orchestra.
For instance in “Freue dich erlöste Schaar” an aria is accompanied by
a flute, a muted violin, the rest of the strings pizzicato, and the
organ part to be played staccato. One peculiarity, however, of his
orchestration is that the combination of instruments he chooses for a
particular movement remains the same throughout. Rests occur in the
parts, but there is no variety of treatment within the movement. Thus
in the above-mentioned aria the lower strings having begun pizzicato
play pizzicato throughout, the first violins remain muted throughout,
and the organ plays staccato throughout. Again, in the opening chorus
of “Es ist nichts gesundes,” referred to above, the wind never plays
anything but the chorale in four parts. Of variety there is plenty, but
it is not produced by modern methods.
Bach was just as careful in the choice of instruments for his
particular effects as in the choice of stops in organ playing. Many of
the instruments he used are now obsolete, and their intonation must
have been very faulty. Yet if they had the particular tone colour
he considered fitting he would not hesitate to employ them, to the
exclusion of, or together with, the more manageable instruments such
as the violin, viola, oboe, &c. Amongst the obsolete instruments he
employed to accompany the voices in his cantatas and Passion music
were violoncello piccolo,[60] viola da gamba,[60] taille,[61] viola
d’amore,[60] cornet,[60] oboe d’amore,[62] oboe da caccia,[60]
lituus,[60] violetta,[60] violino piccolo.[60]
[Sidenote: Cantatas]
Some of the cantatas are called solo cantatas; they consist of a series
of movements usually founded on a chorale, for one or more solo voices,
and contain no choruses, though occasionally a chorale is to be sung by
the congregation.
The cantatas are often called by Bach “Concertos.” Thus “Bereitet die
Wege” for fourth Sunday in Advent is entitled “Concerto à 9, 1 oboe, 2
violini, 1 viola, 1 violoncello, soprano, alto, tenor, bass, col basso
per organo di J. S. Bach.”
FOOTNOTES:
[56] Burney devotes nearly a whole volume to Handel, and only one
paragraph to Bach.
[57] The original tune would be, with the above words--
[Music: A stronghold sure our God remains]
[58] See Griepenkerl’s Introduction to Peters, vol. 244.
[59] According to Gesner the keyboard of the Rück-positiv (back choir)
of the St Thomas’ organ stood apart from the chief organ, and was used
by Bach to conduct from (see the frontispiece of Walther’s Lexicon,
1732). If there was an organ obbligato part, it would be played on this
manual, while another person played the _continuo_ on the chief organ.
[60] See Glossary.
[61] See p. 108.
[62] A minor third below the oboe, and of more pathetic tone.