Analyzing Bach Cantatas

305 Pages·2003·17.94 MB·English

by  Eric Chafe

ANALYZING BACH CANTATAS
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A N A L Y Z I NG
BACH CANTATAS
Eric Chafe
OXFORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
To my wife, Patricia,
in love and hope.
OXFORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
Oxford New York
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Copyright © 2000 by Oxford University Press
First published in 2000 by Oxford University Press, Inc.
198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016
First issued as an Oxford University Press paperback, 2003
Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.
198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016
Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Chafe, Eric Thomas, 1946 -
Analyzing Bach cantatas / Eric Chafe.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN o-i9-5i2099-x; ISBN 0-19-516182-3 (pbk.)
1. Bach, lohann Sebastian, 1685-1750. Cantatas. 2. Cantatas, Sacred—Analysis,
appreciation. 3. Bach, Johann Sebastian, 1685-1750—Harmony.
4. Bach, Johann Sebastian, 1685-1750—Religion.
I. Title.
ML410.B13C38 1998
782.2V 092—dc21 98-15109
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 42
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
Acknowledgments
IHAVE BENEFITED GREATLY FROM THE ASSISTANCE, advice, and encouragement of
many persons in writing this book. My decision to study Cantata 77 came about
in part as the result of a 1993 invitation from Alexander Goehr, then composer-in-
residence at Tanglewood, to speak to his composition seminar on the duruslmollis
idea in Baroque music. That occasion forced me to think about the relationship be-
tween my earlier studies of Bach and Monteverdi. The outcome was that in spring
!994I gave a paper on Cantata 77 at a meeting of the American Bach Society in At-
lanta. On that occasion Martin Petzoldt encouraged me to pursue the line of rea-
soning that appears in chapters 7 and 8 of this book. Professor Petzoldt very kindly
sent me a copy of parts of his unpublished Habilitationsschrift on the Bach cantata
texts, a work that was of enormous value to me in preparing that study. Once the
notion of writing a book on the analysis of Bach cantatas had jelled in my mind, I
received financial assistance from Brandeis University in the form of Mazer Faculty
Grants that enabled me to get student research assistance; Kathryn Carlson and
Dana Dalton helped me considerably in this regard. A grant from the National En-
dowment for the Humanities and financial assistance from Brandeis University gave
me a year off in 1992 - 93, during which I studied and wrote on the Bach cantatas ex-
clusively. Most of what I wrote that year will, in fact, appear in a future study, but the
opportunity to devote a year to study of the Bach cantatas was certainly a major im-
petus for this book. Renate Steiger very kindly read the final manuscript and made
several valuable suggestions and supportive comments.
During the writing of this book, my wife, Patricia, was stricken suddenly and un-
expectedly with a subarachnoid aneurysm, after which there were many medical
complications that blocked her recovery for a long time (nearly two years at the
point of writing). Writing this book was one of the activities that most sustained me
during that time, a testimony to the tremendous power of Bach's music to uplift the
spirit. In addition, I counted on many friends and colleagues in various ways for
vi Acknowledgments
support. Their help was, and is, far too extensive for me to begin to acknowledge it
here. They know who they are, and I hope they know as well how grateful I am.
Among them one must be singled out because her instant response to the emer-
gency that occurred in early 1996 (when I was, unfortunately, on the West Coast)
may literally have saved my wife's life. My good friend and former student Wendy
Heller took charge when I called her to say that my wife had sounded ill on the
phone, recognizing the gravity of the situation, getting Pat to the hospital immedi-
ately, and following up in many ways, both before and after I returned home. This is
the perfect occasion for me to express not only my gratitude for that but also my
pride in having had such an outstanding student, colleague, and friend. Finally, two
of the prepublication reviewers of the manuscript of this book, Robin Leaver and
Richard Taruskin, lifted the veil of anonymity from their reviews. Their comments,
which I followed as closely as possible, were of great help to me in preparing the final
draft. Finally, I am grateful to Barenreiter Music Corporation for permission to re-
produce the facsimile editions of "Dies sind die heil'gen zehn Gebot" in Example 7.1.
Contents
INTRODUCTION IX
ONE
THE HERMENEUTIC MATRIX 3
Basic Principles 3
Aspects of the Liturgical Year 11
TWO
THE LUTHERAN "METAPHYSICAL" TRADITION IN
MUSIC AND MUSIC THEORY 23
THREE
CANTATA 21, "ICH HATTE VIEL BEKUMMERNIS" 42
Commentary on the Individual Movements 51
FOUR
MODAL QUESTIONS 72
The Seventeenth-century Background 73
Bach and Modal Tradition 82
"Durch Adams Fall"—Andreas Werckmeister on
the Hypophrygian Mode 89
viii Contents
FIVE
BACH'S REFLECTION ON THE PAST:
MODAL CHORALES IN CANTATA DESIGNS 101
"Durch Adams Fall ist ganz verderbt" in Cantatas 18 and 109 102
"Ach Gott, vom Himmel sieh' darein" in Cantatas 153 and 2 111
"O grosser Gott von Macht" in Cantata 46 132
six
TWO CHORALE CANTATAS 139
Cantata 121: "Christum wir sollen loben schon" 139
"Es ist das Heil uns kommen hier" (Cantata 9) 149
SEVEN
CANTATA 77: THE THEOLOGICAL BACKGROUND l6l
"Dies sind die heil'gen zehn Gebot": The Chorale and Its History 161
The Text of Cantata 77 174
EIGHT
"DU SOLLT GOTT, DEINEN HERREN, LIEBEN":
AN ANALYSIS OF CANTATA 77 183
Commentary on the Individual Movements 189
NINE
CANTATA 60: "O EWIGKEIT, DU DONNERWORT" 22O
NOTES 241
BIBLIOGRAPHY 271
INDEX 277
Introduction
MY CHIEF PURPOSE IN WRITING THIS BOOK was to stimulate as wide as possible
a range of scholars, professional musicians, students, and other Bach lovers to
become deeply involved with the Bach cantatas, including the less well-known ones.
Many of the latter, in fact, count, like their more famous counterparts, among the
very highest achievements of Western musical art. Nevertheless, studies of individ-
ual Bach cantatas that are both illuminating and detailed are few in number; and
those that endeavor to integrate the analysis of both text and music along with their
substantial historical backgrounds are fewer still. I have attempted, therefore, to in-
troduce what I believe to be the most necessary areas of knowledge for anyone en-
gaged in analyzing Bach cantatas. It will be clear from my title and chapter headings
that I view analysis as a process through which we attain understanding, a means to
an end, not an end in itself; and that I believe that process, like the works themselves,
involves the interaction of musical and extramusical qualities.
If we take seriously our knowledge that the Bach cantatas were written for occa-
sions and ends that transcended music alone, then to study them historically neces-
sitates our involvement with the theological content of their texts and, just as im-
portant, with the principles according to which that content was formulated so as to
speak directly to the individual listener. What such a listener lacked in terms of the
aesthetic consciousness of later eras was compensated for by his or her receptiveness
to the web of intentions that bind the works to their cultural and religious sur-
roundings. The foremost of those intentions was that the cantata mirror what might
be described as the dynamic character of the faith experience in terms of an unfold-
ing sequence of affections and forms. Since that process was widely conceived as one
of increasing understanding on the part of the believer, the cantata was basically a
form of internalized paysage moralise, a term referring to the third of the traditional
four senses of hermeneutics, the moral or tropological sense, which normally fo-
cused on the faith concerns of the individual. In this sense, the listener and the ide-
ix