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• 1 2023-09-26T09:36:19+00:00 Nach dir, Herr, verlanget mich BWV 150 / BC B 24 30 Penance Service. First performed circa 1707 in Mühlhausen. . plain 2024-04-24T17:57:07+00:00 BWV 150 Mühlhausen Penance Service BC B 24 Johann Sebastian Bach Hans-Joachim Schulze, "Nach dir, Herr, verlanget mich, BWV 150 / BC B 24" in Die Bach Kantaten: Einführungen zu sämtlichen Kantaten Johann Sebastian Bachs, (Leipzig: Evangelisches Verlagsanstalt 2007), p. 618 James A. Brokaw II circa 1707 Mühlhausen

  Homage, ca. 1707

  The cantata Nach dir, Herr, verlanget mich BWV 150 (For you, Lord, I do long) has been handed down to us without any assignment to the church calendar. In other respects, it is the source of headaches for performers as well as scholars. Indeed, the legitimacy of the attribution to Johann Sebastian Bach was in doubt for a very long time. In particular, it was Arnold Schering, one of the most significant music scholars of the first half of the twentieth century, who with immoderate oratory attempted to convince the experts of the cantata’s inauthenticity. Schering closed a 1913 special study¹ with a kind of sweeping statement with which he described the quality and transmission of the work: “It is all the same, whatever name of a minor Saxon or Thuringian cantor we may put on it. In any case it would be irresponsible, as far as the present case is concerned, if we were to allow the letters ‘di J. S. Bach’ by the teenage St. Thomas student Penzel, put there perhaps through ignorance or foolishness, to lead us astray ever again in our understanding of the personal style and powerful spirit of our Bach.”²
  
  Strong words, certainly. The analysis that precedes it spares nothing in criticizing compositional technique and text declamation, complains about the lack of clarity of form, and mocks errors of counterpoint. A good explanation for deficits of this sort would be that it could be an early work, making pardonable the sins against the rules of composition and declamation. Although even Arnold Schering cannot deny this idea, he remains true to his intention of striking this cantata from the Bachian canon. He takes advantage of the fact that the cantata has survived the ages only in a copy made shortly after 1750 by the St. Thomas School student Christian Friedrich Penzel and gives full rein to his eloquence:

  The formal layout and style of this so-called . . . Bachian cantata place it in the period around or shortly after 1700, where one can still occasionally find the segmented structure as well as simple chaconnes in 3
  2 meter. Leipzig masters of the first rank such as Knüpfer and Schelle are to be disregarded, as well as even Kuhnau, although as a cantata composer he occasionally came off badly. After such brilliant church pieces as he composed around 1710, he would not have offered Leipzig something so hackneyed and old-fashioned. It strikingly demonstrates the total immaturity in judgment of the young Penzel, as he copied this particular cantata that no one could have appreciated in 1750. Or was it piety before an ancient, yellowed manuscript in Sebastian’s music case that he in careless haste signed with the name of the great one? Precisely because of his immaturity, he scarcely would have thought of an intentional deception.³

  If one reduces this verbal cascade to its core substance, what remains is the assertion that the cantata would already have been regarded as distinctly unmodern when it was copied shortly after 1750 and was therefore—particularly regarding its pronounced, finely segmented structure—to be placed hypothetically around 1700. What kept Schering and others from placing the work around 1705 and regarding it as a youthful work by Johann Sebastian Bach? In addition to several musical blunders one would not want to ascribe to the master of the St. Matthew Passion, even in his younger years, it was above all the form of the text that did not conform to the prevailing opinion as to the course of development. It was believed that the combination of biblical passages and free poetry found in the cantata Nach dir, Herr, verlanget mich could not have originated before 1710 because it presupposed a specific change in the form of cantata libretti. For decades there had been talk of a “text reform” and of its supposed originator, Erdmann Neumeister, chief pastor in Hamburg at the end of his career. It is said to have been Neumeister who, after introducing free poetry into the church cantata in 1702, eleven years later created the so-called mixed text form consisting of free poetry as well as biblical passages and chorale verse. In no way is this true, and it doesn’t apply to the cantata Nach dir, Herr, verlanget mich anyway. For the mere presence of free poetry in the text has nothing to do with the modern formal world of recitative and aria drawn from opera, which Erdmann Neumeister had in fact made accessible to the church cantata. Instead, what we have here are strophic forms of an older style, suggesting that they may be the verses of a very rare, as yet unidentified chorale. To use texts of this sort for composition—even in connection with biblical text—was not at all unusual for the seventeenth century. Further, nothing speaks against the hypothesis that in choosing the text, the young Johann Sebastian Bach was following conventions of the age as well as the traditions of the Bach family. Another question concerns when and to what purpose the cantata may have been composed. There are securely dated works for comparison from Bach’s Mühlhausen period, from mid-1707 to mid-1708, but these are distinguished by a visibly more advanced compositional technique. Accordingly, the cantata Nach dir, Herr, verlanget mich must have been composed during Bach’s years in Arnstadt, from the summer of 1703 to the summer of 1707. But at least until February 1706, the young Arnstadt organist refused to make music in the church with students at the lyceum, precluding the performance of cantatas. So the question remains open whether the cantata really belongs to the Arnstadt period and in Arnstadt itself or whether it may have been performed in one of the surrounding villages.
  
  Further, no details have been established regarding the author and origin of the text.⁴ Of its six sections, three are taken from Psalm 25:

  Nach dir, Herr, verlanget mich. Mein Gott, ich hoffe auf dich. Laß mich nicht zuschanden werden, daß sich meine Feinde nicht freuen über mich. (1–2)
  Leite mich in deiner Wahrheit und lehre mich; denn du bist der Gott, er mir hilft, täglich harre ich dein. (5)
  Meine Augen sehen stets zu dem Herrn; denn er wird meinen Fuß aus dem Netze ziehen. (15)
  
  After you, Lord, I long. My God, I place my hopes in you. Let me not be ashamed, so that my enemies do not triumph over me.
  Lead me in your truth, and teach me; for you are the God who helps me, daily I await you.
  My eyes always look to the Lord; for he will pull my foot out of the net.

  
  The succession of these three psalm verses can be described with the keywords “Prayer,” “Confession,” and “Certainty.” At the center stands “Confession”; it is flanked by two six-line strophes that are interrelated, although they are structured differently. At the same time, they, as well as the concluding eight-line strophe, can be understood to interpret the psalm verses that precede them. To this extent, the cantata text can be said to be elegantly structured and consciously formed, despite its simplicity and brevity.
  
  The same can be said of the composition, with the proviso that the work depicts the young Bach’s search for his own musical language and, further, his struggle for mastery of his musical craft. Yet even at this putative early stage there is no lack of self-confidence: right away in the first movement, a sinfonia of fewer than twenty measures and a quite modest ensemble of two violins, bassoon, and basso continuo sets forth the main theme in all of its parts for the following vocal movement in the style of an Italian trio sonata. This theme consists mainly of a series of half-tone steps that fill out the interval of the fourth—the traditional lamento—so that the text “Nach dir, Herr, verlanget mich” is presented as a passionate lamentation. In a rapid succession of lively and measured phrases, an extended fugal exposition is reached in which the text “daß sich meine Feinde nicht freuen über mich” is combined with a variant of the lamento theme, for which the coloratura on the keyword “freuen” (triumph) helps to reveal new aspects.
  
  The first freely versified text “Doch bin und bleibe ich vergnügt” (Yet I am and remain content) is set as an aria for soprano and obbligato violins. “Aria” is admittedly a high-flown designation for the short-segmented structure, in which hardly two measures follow one another without being separated by a cadence. Motet-like short segmentation also characterizes the second choral movement, on a passage from Psalm 25. Here, sustained single pitches stand out, an illustrative element depicting the word “harren” (await). The second aria is set up as a trio of alto, tenor, and bass, in parallel for the most part. Their text, beginning “Zedern müßen von den Winden / Oft viel Ungemach empfinden” (Cedars must, from the winds / Often suffer much hardship), provides the composer the occasion to depict, through the incessant figuration of the basso continuo, the raging of the forces of nature. The ensuing psalm verse follows the model of the first, beginning with the short-breathed exchange of phrases that culminates in a fugal intensification, here, however, with the more challenging procedure of permutation fugue.
  
  The closing and consummate tutti on the freely versified text that begins “Meine Tage in dem Leide / Endet Gott dennoch zur Freude” (My days of suffering / God will nevertheless end with joy) is designed as a chaconne, a series of variations above a constantly repeating theme in the bass. The solemnity of the step dance in 3
  2 meter and its rigorously managed procedures of repetition and variation produce a constant earnestness that creates a unity of character amid the diversity of variations. Thus a large-scale coherence is ultimately established that had been lacking from the previous movements. This “lack” obviously presupposes the perspective of Bach’s later oeuvre; in that early period to which the cantata belongs, diversity and variety within a confined space were undoubtedly a virtue, proof of richness of invention, and without this criterion a just assessment of the early works for keyboard and organ would be hardly conceivable.

  Addendum

  Only a few years after his book’s publication, Schulze was able to resolve several significant mysteries attending this cantata, clarifying the work’s purpose and producing a quite compelling hypothesis as to the author of its text.⁵ Within the seven-movement scheme, the three strophes of free verse (movements 3, 5, and 7) read as follows:

  3.
  Doch bin und bleibe ich vergnügt, 
  Obgleich hier zeitlich toben Kreutz, 
  Sturm und andre Proben, 
  Tod, Höll und was sich fügt.
  Ob Unfall schlägt den treuen Knecht, 
  Recht ist und bleibet ewig Recht.
  
  Yet I am and remain cheerful, 
  Although here briefly rage 
  Cross, storm, and other trials, 
  Death, hell, and all that follow.
  Though misfortune may strike the loyal servant, 
  Right is and must ever remain right.
  
  5.
  Zedern müssen von den Winden Oft viel 
  Ungemach empfinden, 
  Oftmals werden sie verkehrt.
  Rat und Tat auf Gott gestellt, 
  Achtet nicht was widerbellet,
  Denn sein Wort ganz anders lehrt.
  
  Cedars must, from the winds, 
  Often feel much hardship, 
  Often are they uprooted.
  Counsel and action based on God, 
  Ignore that which howls back,
  For his word teaches quite differently.
  
  7.
  Meine Tage in dem Leide
  Endet Gott dennoch zur Freude:
  Christen auf den Dornenwegen
  Führen Himmels Kraft und Segen.
  Bleibet Gott mein treuer Schutz, 
  Achte ich nicht Menschentrutz; 
  Christus, der uns steht zur Seiten, 
  Hilft mir täglich sieghaft streiten.
  
  My days in suffering
  God nevertheless ends in joy:
  Christians on their thorny paths
  Are led by heaven’s power and blessing 
  If God remains my loyal defense,
  I may ignore human spite; 
  Christ, who stands at our side,
  Helps me daily to fight victoriously.

  In 2005 an alert Belgian blogger named Johan DeWael noticed that the last four lines of the concluding eight-line strophe, the chaconne, begin with the letter sequence B-A-C-H and that in the third movement—the first strophe of free poetry—the six lines begin with D-O-K-T-O-R.⁶
  
  The online discussion focused on speculation that Bach had applied his signature to the text of his first cantata, and little further progress in solving the riddle was made. However, by correcting several errors of spelling and usage, Schulze was able to decipher an acrostic that involved all lines of free poetry in the text:

  The solution to this puzzle did not present any particular difficulties. All that was required were a few changes to the text as it has stood until now. In the fifth movement, verse 1 (measure 5), the reading “Zedern”—which accords with the primary source, Christian Friedrich Penzel’s copy of 1755 (P1044)—must be restored to its historical spelling “Cedern”:⁷

  Cedern müssen von den Winden

  Similarly, in movement 5, verse 3 (measure 15), the nonsensical reading “Oftmals” (often)—obviously the result of a handwriting error, unnoticed until now—had to be corrected to “Niemals” (never), appropriate to the “steadfastness of these trees”:

  Niemals werden sie verkehrt

  In movement 7, verse 4 (measure 28), the imprecise word “Führen” (to lead)—hardly appropriate to “Himmels Kraft und Segen” (Heaven’s power and blessing)—was replaced by the—conjectural—“Kühren” (old spelling, here used in the sense of “elect”):

  Küren Himmels Kraft und Segen

  The freely versified strophes, corrected through these minor edits, yield the acrostic Doktor Conrad Meckbach and thus refer to one of the most important Mühlhausen personages during the era of young Johann Sebastian Bach.⁸

  
  A year after publishing these revelations in Bach-Jahrbuch 2010, Schulze followed up with several corrections and clarifications.⁹ The spelling “DOCTOR” is more historically appropriate to the early eighteenth century and hence preferable to “DOKTOR”; moreover, the Penzel copy has “Creutz, Sturm und andere Proben” instead of “Kreutz,” as seen in recent editions. Second, a presentation print of the text must have been produced in addition to the performance, since the acrostic could not easily have been perceived aurally alone.
  
  Meckbach was a Mühlhausen burgomaster and town councilor who spoke in favor of hiring Bach as organist at Divi Blasii on May 24, 1707, and, a bit more than a year later, on June 26, 1708, recommended that Bach’s dismissal be granted to allow him to accept a new position at the court of Weimar.
  
  Schulze tentatively suggested that Georg Christian Eilmar, archdeacon at St. Mary’s in Mühlhausen, may have been the librettist, based on his authorship of several funeral odes for Meckbach’s wife in 1709. And in 2011 Schulze ventured the possibility that the work might have been in honor of Meckbach’s seventieth birthday on April 19, 1707. Locating the work at Mühlhausen, Schulze concluded in 2010, should make possible a fairer view of its musical merits, help to clarify its compositional superiority to works by contemporaries, and draw attention to commonalities and differences with its sister works Aus der Tiefen rufe ich, Herr, zu dir BWV 131 and Gott ist mein König BWV 71.

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  Footnotes

  1. Schering (1913); Glöckner (1988).↵
  2. Schering (1913, 52).↵
  3. Schering (1913, 50–51).↵
  4. Please see the addendum to this essay.—Trans↵
  5. Schulze (2010); Schulze (2011a); Schulze (2011b).—Trans.↵
  6. Schulze (2010, 70).—Trans. ↵
  7. Schulze (2010, 71).↵
  8. Schulze (2010, 71).—Trans.↵
  9. Schulze (2011).↵
• 1 2023-09-26T09:32:58+00:00 Nimm, was dein ist, und gehe hin BWV 144 / BC A 41 14 Septuagesimae. First performed 02/06/1724 in Leipzig (Cycle I). plain 2024-04-24T17:46:55+00:00 1724-02-06 BWV 144 Leipzig 51.340199, 12.360103 15Septuagesimae Septuagesimae BC A 41 Johann Sebastian Bach Hans-Joachim Schulze, "Nimm, was dein ist, und gehe hin, BWV 144 / BC A 41" in Die Bach Kantaten: Einführungen zu sämtlichen Kantaten Johann Sebastian Bachs, (Leipzig: Evangelisches Verlagsanstalt 2007), p. 131 James A. Brokaw II Leipzig I

  Septuagesima Sunday

  I still recall with great pleasure a certain fugue by the late Mr. J. S. Bach, on the words: Nimm was dein ist, und gehe hin. (The text was not dramatic; one could thereby imagine a chorus of admonishers.) This fugue evoked a most unusual attentiveness and particular delight even among most of the musically inexperienced listeners, which certainly did not come from the contrapuntal artifices but from the superb declamation which NB. the composer brought to the subject and, by way of a special little play, to the phrase gehe hin. The truthfulness, natural character, and exactly commensurate correctness of the declamation was immediately picked up by everyone’s ears. . . . I admit, however, that it is often difficult, and also not always and continuously possible to pay attention to the declamation in the subjects of a fugue, especially if the subject is to be used for certain contrapuntal artifices. At the same time, many a harmonic artificiality might well be clarified by a correct declamation.¹

  
  This description of the opening movement of the cantata Nimm, was dein ist, und gehe hin BWV 144 (Take what is yours and go forth) comes from the year 1760 and as such is a quite rare and indeed singular example of the reception history of Bach’s cantatas. The author of the text is the Berlin music theorist Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg, highly influential in his time; the quote is from his Kritische Briefen über die Tonkunst (Critical letters on composition), published in installments. 
  
  Marpurg was a vigorous defender of the virtues of Bach’s fugue writing and engaged in much debate in that regard with his rival Johann Philipp Kirnberger, also active in Berlin and also a Bach student. In contrast to Kirnberger, who came from simple circumstances and often complained of his meager general education, Marpurg was a cosmopolitan spirit and gifted writer who by 1740 had already spent quite a bit of time in Paris, the realm of his contemporaries Diderot and d’Alembert.² The vocabulary he chose to characterize the fugues of Bach—“truthfulness, natural character, and exactly commensurate correctness”—sounds rather like the terminology of the age of Enlightenment, leaving the question open as to how much Marpurg’s assessment might have in common with that of Bach.
  
  The quoted scriptural passage, “Nimm, was dein ist,” comes from the Gospel reading for Septuagesima Sunday, the ninth Sunday before Easter or the third Sunday before Lent. The twentieth chapter of Matthew tells the parable of workers in the vineyard: “For the kingdom of heaven is like a householder, who went out early in the morning to hire laborers in his vineyard. And when he agreed with the laborers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard” (1–2). The parable further describes workers who are hired several or even many hours later, however, with the promise “I will give you what is right,” and, finally, the paying of wages when everyone receives the same amount—one penny—at which those who had been hired first were not amused:

  And when they had received it, they grumbled against the householder and said, these last have worked but one hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us, who have borne the burden and heat of the day. But he answered one among them, and said: Friend, I do you no wrong: were you not at one with me for a penny? Take what is yours, and go forth! I will give unto this last, even as unto you. Or do I not have the power to do what I will with my own? Are you envious because I am good? So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen. (Matthew 20:11–16)

  
  “Nimm, was dein ist, und gehe hin” is one of a total of twenty-four sayings of Christ found among Johann Sebastian Bach’s Leipzig cantatas. The unknown author of the text places it at the beginning of his libretto and follows it with the sequence aria–chorale–recitative–aria–chorale. This six-movement type, with a New Testament passage at the start and two chorales, has fewer than ten examples among Bach’s cantatas from 1724 and 1725. The cantata Nimm, was dein ist is the earliest of these. Perhaps this early origin indicates an initial attempt, a tentative move into a previously unexplored area. For the poet seems not to be particularly inspired by the scenario of the workers in the vineyard and its deeper meaning. His thoughts revolve in a narrow radius around the concepts “sufficiency” (Genügsamkeit) and “pleasure” (Vergnügung), whereby the first means “modesty or lack of pretension” (Sichbescheiden) by today’s understanding, and the last could be translated as “contentment” (Zufriedenheit). However, according to Friedrich Smend, “Not to be understood in the bourgeois fashion of this world, but as ‘restoration of the soul,’ to be at peace in the devotion to God and the surrender to his will.”³ “Murre nicht, lieber Christ, wenn was nicht nach Wunsch geschicht” (Do not grumble, dear Christian, when something goes against your wishes), warns the first aria, taking the “Murre wider dem Hausvater” (grumble against the householder) from the Gospel text and continuing:

  Sondern sei mit dem zufrieden,
  Was dir dein Gott hat beschieden,
  Er weiß, was dir nützlich ist.
  
  Rather, be content with that 
  Which your God has destined for you.
  He knows what is useful for you.

  
  The first part of the cantata text closes with the first strophe from Samuel Rodigast’s hymn of 1674, “Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan, es bleibt gerecht sein Wille” (Whatever God deals is dealt bountifully; his will remains just). The ensuing recitative juxtaposes “Genügsamkeit” (sufficiency) and “Ungenügsamkeit” (discontentment): if “Genügsamkeit” takes the helm, “da ist der Mensch vergnügt, mit dem, wie es Gott fügt” (then one is content with what God ordains). “Ungenügsamkeit,” however, gives rise to grief, trouble, discontentment of the heart: “Und man gedenket nicht daran: Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan” (And one does not consider: what God deals is dealt bountifully). By recalling the first line of Rodigast’s chorale strophe, the text poet could have concluded a section and at the same time prepared to leave for new shores. Instead, in the aria text that follows, he remains on paths already trodden:

  Genügsamkeit 
  Ist ein Schatz in diesem Leben,
  Welcher kann Vergnügung geben
  In größter Traurigkeit.
  
  Contentment
  Is a treasure in this life
  That can provide pleasure
  Amid the greatest sorrow.

  
  And even with the selection of the closing chorale strophe, he does not leave the familiar territory: this strophe from a hymn by Margrave Albrecht von Brandenburg, “Was mein Gott will, das g’scheh allzeit, / Sein Will der ist der beste” (What my God wills, let it be for all time, / His will it is the best) of 1547 stands so close in content and word choice to Samuel Rodigast’s strophe of 125 years later that neither tension nor even contrast can be established.
  
  Johann Sebastian Bach’s composition of this somewhat problematic libretto originated in early 1724, his first year in Leipzig, and was performed for the first time on February 6 in St. Thomas Church. The place and date are confirmed by a text booklet printed that year that survived by chance to be read by the audience during the performance. Bach composed the opening movement on the saying of Christ (Christuswort) as a choral fugue in the manner of a motet—one of only a few such cases. The seven-word text was too short for a true motet, in which each phrase is assigned its own musical section, and it also did not fit the voice exchange technique preferred by Bach. The remaining possibility was a contrapuntally ambitious vocal fugue. Bach chose the alla breve style, appropriate to the church, in which the half note gets the beat and the eighth note is the smallest rhythmic value. The head of the theme, with two large intervals and a concluding descent to the tonic, recalls the chorale Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir (From deep affliction I cry out to you); whether this was intentional remains an open question. Two secondary themes are assigned to the text component “gehe hin,” one with long note values with ties over two and even three measures, and a second in rapid, almost playful declamation on three notes, two short and one longer. This second theme, which appears at one moment as a component of a fugal exposition and, at another, as part of an episode, impressed not only the theorist Marpurg but also the musically inexperienced listeners in his realm. From our perspective today it offers a tutorial for Bach’s economical use of his compositional materials. For nearly sixty measures, this “gehe hin” motive is omnipresent but never appears in parallel motion in more than two voices at the same time. Only in the very last measures does it appear in three and then in all four voices simultaneously, serving the final crescendo as well as the dignified and restful conclusion—very much in the sense of a mild correction, as delivered by the Gospel reading from Matthew. From this standpoint, Marpurg’s interpretation of the “chorus of admonishers” (Chor der Ermahnenden) appears to be a misunderstanding owing to the spirit of his epoch.⁴ 
  
  The aria that follows begins with the urgent advice “Murre nicht, lieber Christ” (Do not grumble, dear Christian), yet this kind of negative statement stands against the musical realization. In accordance with the custom of his era, Bach feels compelled to treat the statement as if it were meant affirmatively. Strings in their deep registers; frequent tone repetitions in the strings and the basso continuo; and the alto voice, almost entirely in its deepest register: all these allow the displeasure of the workers, indicated in the Gospel reading, to emerge vividly—in contrast to the librettist’s text. The rhythmic shape of the salutation “lieber Christ” (dear Christian) could be taken as a reminiscence of the rhythmically identical “gehe hin” of the previous movement. In its meter and simple setting, in particular the frequent unisons between the voice and first violin, the aria is of the minuet dance type, capable, in the view of a Bach contemporary, of expressing “measured merriment” (mäßige Lustigkeit)—in the case of our aria, rather more “measured displeasure” (mäßige Unlust). We leave this realm only with the sunny G major of the chorale movement “Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan.”
  
  The ensuing recitative, with its praise of “Genügsamkeit,” retraces the course of the first three cantata movements—from B minor to E minor to G major. It soon undergoes a harmonic darkening, however, when the discussion turns to grief, trouble, and discontent as the consequences of “Ungenügsamkeit.” The closing quotation of earlier text, “Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan,” recalls only distantly the music of the earlier chorale. Even so, it has a hidden relationship to the aria that follows a fulsome song in praise of “sufficiency.” This aria is a trio that is not dissimilar from Bach’s organ trios: two animated, melodic, and coequal upper parts—here soprano and oboe d’amore—are linked to a bass that, although it has its own profile, is clearly drawn from the two upper voices. The “hidden relationship” is produced by the oboe d’amore in the first six measures. The chorale melody “Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan” is hidden in the main notes, although in B minor and transferred to the middle register. When this passage reappears, nearly unchanged, at the end it produces a convincing transition to the concluding chorale movement, “Was mein Gott will, das g’scheh allzeit.” Originally a secular song, it entered sacred hymnody as early as the sixteenth century.

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  Footnotes

  1. NBR, 363–64 (no. 357).—Trans.↵
  2. Smend (1966).—Trans.↵
  3. Schulze (2004a).↵
  4. In 2011 Schulze revisited his assessment of Marpurg’s parenthetical remark as a criticism of Bach’s choice of fugue to set the brief biblical passage. Drawing upon the writings of Heinrich Bokemeyer, Johann Mattheson, and Christian Gottfried Krause to articulate contemporary views disapproving of fugue to set texts spoken by individuals, Schulze pointed to late eighteenth-century writings by Agricola and Johann Georg Ebeling that found Bach’s fugues to be “fiery and sublime, with much art, full of powerful expression” (Ebeling) and that they contained “much fire and splendor” (Agricola) and concluded that they aimed at a “compromise” with the prevailing views of the age. By the same token, “the . . . ‘chorus of admonishers’ [is] . . . meant to justify the possibility, increasingly questioned by contemporary aesthetics, of choosing a polyphonic movement for the statement of an individual and to defend it against possible attacks by means of a reinterpretation. Thus, upon closer consideration, Marpurg’s remark is revealed to be an alternative to the prevailing views of his age” (Der . . . “Chor der Ermahnungen” . . . will die von der zeitgenössischen Ästhetik zunehmend in Frage gestellte Möglichkeit, für die Aussage eines einzelnen einen mehrstimmigen Satz zu wählen, rechtfertigen und mittels einer Umdeutung gegen mögliche Angriffe in Schutz nehmen. Mithin entpuppet sich Marpurgs Äußerung bei näherem Zusehen als Gegenentwurf zu herrschenden Ansichten seines Zeitalters) (Schulze 2011b, 33).—Trans.↵