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Bach: Bach Cantatas
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Having spent much of the 1720s composing cantatas, Bach had assembled a huge repertoire of church music for Leipzig’s two main churches. He now wished to broaden his composing and performing beyond the liturgy. In March 1729, he took over the directorship of the Collegium Musicum, a secular performance ensemble that had been started in 1701 by his old friend, the composer Georg Philipp Telemann. This was one of the dozens of private societies in the major German-speaking cities that had been established by musically active university students; these societies had come to play an increasingly important role in public musical life and were typically led by the most prominent professionals in a city. In the words of Christoph Wolff, assuming the directorship was a shrewd move that 'consolidated Bach’s firm grip on Leipzig’s principal musical institutions’.[5] During much of the year, Leipzig’s Collegium Musicum gave twice-weekly, two-hour performances in Zimmerman’s Coffeehouse on Catherine Street, just off the main market square. For this purpose, the proprietor provided a large hall and acquired several musical instruments.
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At Leipzig, Bach seems to have fit in amongst the professoriate of the university, with many professors standing as god-parents for his children, and some of the university's men of letters and theology providing many of the librettos for his cantatas. In this last capacity Bach enjoyed a particularly fruitful relationship with the poet Picander. Sebastian and Anna Magdalena ... welcomed friends, family, and fellow musicians from all over Germany into their home; court musicians at Dresden and Berlin as well as musicians including George Philipp Telemann (one of C.P.E.'s godfathers) made frequent visits to Bach's house and may have kept up frequent correspondence with him. Interestingly, George Friedrich Handel, who was born in the same year as Bach, made several trips to Germany, but Bach was unable to meet him, a fact he regretted.
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Early in his career, Bach was employed by churches in Arnstadt and Mühlhausen, then at the court of Weimar. During these periods he wrote most of the major organ works and a few early cantatas. Most of Bach's chamber music dates from his years at Köthen, where he served as Kapellmeister to the court of Prince Leopold.
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In 1723, J. S. Bach was appointed Cantor and Musical Director of the Thomaskirche, Leipzig. This post required him not only to instruct the students of the St. Thomas school (Thomasschule) in singing but ... to provide weekly music at the two main churches in Leipzig. Bach endeavored to compose a new church piece, or cantata, every week. This challenging schedule, which basically amounted to writing an hour's worth of music every week, in addition to his more menial duties at the school, produced some of his best music, most of which has been preserved. Most of the cantatas from this period expound upon the Sunday readings from the Bible for the week in which they were originally performed; some were written using traditional church hymns, such as Wachet auf! Ruft uns die Stimme and Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, as inspiration for the music.
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Bach performed a cantata on Sunday at the Thomaskirche, on a theme corresponding to the lectionary readings of the week, as determined by the Lutheran Church Year calendar. He did not perform cantatas during the seasons of Lent and Advent. Although he performed cantatas by other composers, he ... composed at least three entire sets of cantatas, one for each Sunday and holiday of the church year, at Leipzig, in addition to those composed at Mühlhausen and Weimar. In total he wrote more than 300 sacred cantatas, of which only about 195 survive.
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Overview of repertory: J. S. Bach composed music in all the prevailing genres of his time. For voices he composed cantatas, masses, and oratorios. His instrumental works include concertos and sinfonias for orchestra and an enormous amount of keyboard music, for both organ and harpsichord.
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Bach Cantatas