Handel's Water Music

For much of his career, Bach’s primary duty was to compose sacred cantatas for Sunday church services and holidays. It was common to re-appropriate old material for the multi-movement works for voices and ensemble, a practice that helped Bach to produce more than 200 cantatas. Besides crafting sacred cantatas based on biblical and contemporary texts, Bach also wrote occasional secular cantatas for birthdays or other celebrations; these comical works bordered on musical theater and quoted popular tunes of the day.

Bach began a number of his cantatas with instrumental movements dubbed “sinfonias” or, less frequently, “sonatas.” In that era, a sinfonia indicated an overture in the Italian tradition, with fast outer sections surrounding a slower middle section. (With the addition of a French minuet, the sinfonia morphed into the familiar four-movement symphony.) Bach used the term sinfonia loosely, and most of the examples on this program were simply concerto movements inserted verbatim or with slight changes.

The Easter Oratorio, BWV 249, was a prime example of Bach’s self-borrowing; it began as a secular work (the “Shepherd” Cantata), re-emerged as a sacred cantata on Easter Sunday of 1725, and further expanded in 1735 into the oratorio we now know. The opening Sinfonia and Adagio, with solo parts for violins and oboes, likely belonged to an earlier concerto grosso.

The Cantata No. 42, “Am Abend aber desselbigen Sabbats,” debuted in Leipzig on April 8, 1725, the week after Easter. The Sinfonia, featuring oboes and bassoons, is another suspected concerto movement, although the original is lost. The da capo structure of the movement brings back the vibrant opening after a contrasting section Bach marked cantabile.

The renowned American composer John Corigliano composed Fancy on a Bach Air for Judy and Robert Goldberg. Playing on the coincidence of their names, Corigliano suggested that his new work depart from the same aria (Italian for “air,” or song) that Bach used as the basis of his “Goldberg” Variations for keyboard. Corigliano scored the work for solo cello, a texture that recalls Bach’s six cello suites. Corigliano wrote, “My ‘Goldberg Variation,’ Fancy on a Bach Air, is for unaccompanied cello. It transforms the gentle arches of Bach’s theme into slowly soaring arpeggi of almost unending phase-lengths. Its dual inspiration was the love of two extraordinary people and the solo cello suites of a great composer—both of them strong, long-lined, passionate, eternal, and for me, definitive of all that is beautiful in life.”

The Sonata from Cantata No. 31, “Der Himmel lacht! Die Erde jubilieret” took advantage of the large orchestra that Bach had at his disposal in Weimar. This cantata from Easter Sunday in 1715 uses three trumpets and timpani to bolster its regal tone. Another selection with prominent trumpet is the Sinfonia from Cantata No. 75, “Die Elenden sollen essen,” which Bach introduced a week after he moved to Leipzig in 1723. The sinfonia comes midway in the cantata, and it treats the trumpet like a singer, using the instrument to outline the hymn tune “Was Gott tut, das ist wohgetan” by Samuel Rodigast.

The Sinfonia from Cantata No. 150, “Nach dir, herr, verlanget mich,” is an early example of Bach’s work, dating from sometime between 1704 and 1707. Some scholars have argued that the cantata is spurious, but most now accept it as a fledgling effort from Bach’s journeyman years. By contrast, the Sinfonia from Cantata No. 212, “Mer hahn en neue Oberkeet,” comes from Bach’s final known cantata, the “Peasant” Cantata composed in 1742 for the birthday of a nobleman. The introductory movement is a veritable dance montage, spinning through a range of approachable themes in varied meters before interrupting itself for a stark minor-key episode.

Bach composed the Cantata No. 207, “Vereinigte Zwietracht der wechselnden Saiten,” in 1726, in honor of Gottlieb Kotte’s appointment to the faculty of Leipzig University. The bright Ritornello borrows music from the finale of the “Brandenburg” Concerto No. 1, with the selection transposed so that trumpets can replace the original horns. Another straightforward case of recycled material is the Sinfonia from Cantata No. 156, “Ich steh mit einem Fuss im Grabe,” lifted from the slow movement of a lost oboe concerto. Bach later converted that same concerto into the Keyboard Concerto in F Minor, BWV 1056.

The Cantata No. 174, “Ich liebe den Hochsten von ganzem Gemute,” first appeared on “Whit Monday” (the second day of Pentecost) in 1729. The Sinfonia is a fortified version of the first movement from the “Brandenburg” Concerto No. 3, with oboes and horns added to the original ensemble of strings. The opening of the cantata’s text, written by Bach’s frequent collaborator Christian Friedrich Henrici (better known as “Picander”), sums up Bach’s lifetime of creating incomparable music for the church: “I love the Highest with my entire being, / He also has the greatest love for me.”

© 2012 Aaron Grad.