Forum on Music and Christian Scholarship

German Magnificat and Chorale Cantata: J. S. Bach’s Meine Seel erhebt den Herren (BWV 10)
Mark A. Peters, Trinity Christian College

In The Cantatas of J. S. Bach, Alfred Dürr describes the unique nature of BWV 10, Meine Seel erhebt den Herren, thus: “It is not based on a Protestant hymn, and yet if ever a work deserved the description ‘chorale cantata’ it is this, for it is based on a genuine (Gregorian) chorale melody, that of the ninth psalm-tone” (678). Indeed, it is difficult to know how to consider BWV 10: it is one of the best known of Bach’s chorale cantatas, but one whose text is based not on a chorale but a canticle and whose music is related not only to Bach’s chorale settings but also to his settings of biblical quotation and to his Latin Magnificat (BWV 243).

This paper addresses textual and musical features of BWV 10, especially as they relate to the chorale cantatas of Jahrgang II. It argues that the singular nature of the cantata’s model, the prose text of the Magnificat in biblical quotation and its associated Psalm tone melody, require us to consider the cantata in a different way than the remainder of Bach’s chorale cantatas, those based upon poetic texts and chorale melodies. Textually, the Magnificat in Bach’s Leipzig implied two languages, either Latin or German. It also implied a variety of text types, from strict quotation to paraphrase to free text inspired by the words of the Magnificat. Finally, each of these text types had its own musical tradition, from chanted Psalm tone to its simple four-part harmonization to concerted settings in German and in Latin which sometimes incorporated the Psalm tone but more often did not. In exploring the textual and musical features of BWV 10, this paper will thus demonstrate Bach’s engagement with the multiple genres and text types that constituted the Magnificat tradition in eighteenth-century Germany.

Bach, Schelle, and the Tradition of the Chorale Cantata in Leipzig
Markus Rathey
Yale University

Johann Sebastian Bach’s Chorale Cantata Cycle, composed during the second year of his tenure at St. Thomas’s in Leipzig (1724–1725) was his largest scaled project, dwarfing by far the oratorios, passions, and his organ music. It has been frequently suggested that the chorale cantatas could have been inspired by a similar cycle composed by one of Bach’s predecessors, Johann Schelle, around 1690. Schelle’s cantatas were the result of collaboration with the pastor at the Thomaskirche, Johann Benedict Carpzov, who preached a cycle of hymn sermons in 1688/89 and another one in 1689/90. As the print with the outlines of these sermons suggests, Schelle set the very hymns that were interpreted by the preacher. Even though most of the cantatas are lost, it is possible to reconstruct Schelle’s cycle at least in part, based on the extant compositions and contemporary inventories.

It is unusual that we have sermons and compositions that were written for the same occasion. The three extant cantatas by Schelle and the sermons by Carpzov allow a unique comparison of homiletical and musical interpretations of the same hymns.

The paper will analyze the chorale cantatas by Schelle and the sermons by Carpzov. In a second step it will ask in how far Schelle’s and Carpzov’s cycle might have had an influence on Bach when he composed his Chorale Cantata Cycle in 1724/25.

A Meditation on Peter’s Denial in J. S. Bach’s Passions
Nik Taylor
Indiana University

J. S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion BWV 244 features chapters 26 and 27 of the Gospel text interrupted by individual four-part chorales, poetic arias, or accompagnato/aria pairings. There is, however, one exception where instead of one interpolation there are two consecutive commentary movements; this is the moment following Peter’s denial and weeping (No. 39 “Erbarme dich” and No. 40 “Bin ich gleich von dir gewichen”). Because there was a long-standing tradition in contemporary oratorio passions to place an aria following Peter’s denial, Bach and his librettist’s use of both an aria and chorale at this point is unusual. BWV 244 is not the only work in which Bach utilizes two commentary movements at this point in the narrative. A dual interpolation is also found in Bach’s 1726 performance of an anonymous St. Mark Passion and in his four versions of the St. John Passion BWV 245.

There are a number of factors that could have motivated Bach to go against the conventional interpolation of the biblical text. One of these is the actus division of Olearius’s biblical text that can provide justification for the placement of various commentary movements. Another possibility is the eighteenth-century liturgical practice in Leipzig of dividing the passion performances into two parts, which may have required a chorale at the end of the first half of the work. There is also an unexplored theological implication behind the use of two movements following Peter’s denial, one that relates to the two-part reflection on the passion story in Martin Luther’s treatise A Meditation of Christ’s Passion (1519). Indeed the theological issue and rhetoric of this treatise correspond to both the textual and musical affect of the two movements following Peter’s denial. Overall this moment presents ways in which extra-musical factors effected Bach’s passion settings.