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Suggestions for Future Research into Bach and the Chorale: Aspects of Repertoire, Pedagogy, Theory, and Practice

2011; Baldwin Wallace University; Volume: 42; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/bach.2011.a820294

2767-4843

Robin A. Leaver,

Diverse Musicological Studies

Suggestions for Future Research into Bach and the Chorale: Aspects of Repertoire, Pedagogy, Theory, and Practice1 RobinA. Leaver The have harmony chorales been and used of counterpoint. Bach forgenerations appearto Yet be for for well-known, the all their teaching familiarity, after ofkeyboard all, their they havebeen used forgenerations fortheteaching ofkeyboard harmony and counterpoint. Yet forall theirfamiliarity, their background, thecontexts within whichthey originated, their transmission by Bach's sons and pupils,as well as otherissues, remain imperfecdy known.The primary thesisof thisarticleis thatour knowledge ofBach'sunderstanding anduse ofchorales, texts as well as melodies, is fragmentary andincomplete, and muchresearchstill needstobe doneinordertoenlarge thepicture ofBach'sknowledge of,involvement in,and use of theLutheranchorale.The corpusof Bachchorales maywellhavebeenmorediverse thantheKirnbergerC . P.E Bach editionpublishedbyBreitkopf between1784and 1787 might suggest. Twenty yearsearlier, in hisnewyearcatalogof 1764 Breitkopf offered two different manuscript collectionsof chorales harmonized byBach: 1) Bach, J.S. Capelmeisters undMusikdirectors inLeipzig,150 Choräle,mit4 Stimmen, a 6 thl.[150Choralesin4 parts](p. 7)...2 ^he article isa revision ofa paper originally given asa public lecture atQueen's University, Belfast, Northern Ireland, in2008. 2Philipp Spitta, Johann Sebastian Bach, 2vols. (Leipzig: Breitkopf &Härtel, 1873-1 880), 2:596, note 23.; Philipp Spitta ,Johann Sebastian Bach ,HisWork and Influence on the Music of Germany y1685-1750 ,trans. Clara Belland J. A.Fuller Maitland, 3vols. (London: Novello, 1899; reprint, New York: Dover, 1951), 3:115, note 170. [Cited hereafter as Eng. Trans.] 40 Bach and the Chorale 41 2) Bachs,J.S.Vollständiges Choralbuch mitinNotenaufgesetztenGeneralbassean240 inLeipziggewöhnlichen Melodien. 10 thl.[CompleteChoralBook withnotessetwithfigured bass comprising 240 melodiesinuse inLeipzig](p.29).3 Whatseemsto havegone generally unnoticed is thatthesetwo anthologies represent different types ofchoralesettings: thefirst was a collectionof 150 vocal settings in fourpartsand the second an anthology of240 keyboard settings inwhichthemelodiesweregiven withfigured bass.Spittareported thatbothofthesemanuscripts had beenlost,thoughhe hintsthatthe150 four-part choralesmayhave had some relationship withMarpurg'smanuscript of one hundred choralesthatformedthe basis of Birnstiel's collection,published between 1765 and 1769, which ultimately led to the editionof Kirnberger and C. P. E. Bach.4The manuscript of 150 four-part chorales, whichSpittathought lost,hasbeenidentified as Ms.R.18in the Musikbibliothekder Stadt Leipzig,5 but the manuscript Vollständiges Choralbuch containing 240 melodieswithfigured basshas notbeenlocated. Apart fromthe sixty-nine melodieswith figured bass in the SchemelliGesangbuchof 1736, and perhapstheno longerextant eighty-eight choralesinBach'shandthat wereinC. P.E. Bach's copy oftheSchemelli Musikalisches Gesangbuch ,6writers havefocusedtheir 3Spitta, 2:589, note 1;Eng. Trans. 3,108, note 148. 4On the complexities ofeditions ofBach's four-part chorales, seeGerd Wachowski, "Die vierstimmigen Choräle Johann Sebastian Bachs. Untersuchungen zu den Druckausgaben von1765 bis1932 und zur Frage der Authentizität." Bach Jahrbuch 69 (1983): 51-79. 5See Friedrich Smend, "Zuden ältesten Sammlungen der vierstimmigen Choräle J. S. Bachs" inBach-Studien: Gesammelte Reden und Aufsätze, ed., Christoph Wolff (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1969), 237-69; originally appeared inBach Jahrbuch 52(1966): 5-40. See alsoHans-Joachim Schulze, "'150Stück vondenBachischen Erben': ZurÜberlieferung dervierstimmigen Choräle Johann Sebastian Bachs," Bach Jahrbuch 69 (1983): 81-100. 6"Naumburgisches Gesangbuch mit gedruckten und 88vollstimmigen geschriebenen Chorälen," Verzeichnis des musikalischen Nachlasses des verstorbenen Capellmeisters Carl Philipp Umanuel Bach (Hamburg: Scheibe, 1790), 73;the term "vollstimmigen" implies four-part settings rather than melodies with figured bass.SincetheSchemelli Gesangbuch was prepared for the Naumburg-Zeitz, the reference to"Naumburgisches Gesangbuch" inС. P.E. Bach's Nachlass is usually taken as a reference tothe 42 Bach attention almostentirely on vocal settings ofchorales, epitomized in theBreitkopf editionof 1784-1787. But beforethepossibility of figured bass choralesbyBach can be addressed,it is necessaryto review thefurther ground-work thatneedstobe donewithregard to thebackground ofBach's knowledge and experience ofthechorale. Threesectionsfollow. The first dealswiththeneed to establish thechoralerepertory thatBach was first exposed to as a boy,and whichhelaterbuiltuponwhenhewasinLüneburg, Arnstadt, Mühlhausen ,and Weimar.The second sectionfocuseson Bach's later teaching of figured bass withregardto thechoralein Leipzig.Here particular attention is givento theSchemelliGesangbuch . The third sectiondrawsattention to therecendy discovered Kittelmanuscript, Choralbuch ,whichgivesmultiple alternative bassesandfigures, andto whatlight thesesettings might shedon Bach'spedagogy, sinceKittel insisted thathe onlypassedon whathe hadlearntfrom histeacher, Johann SebastianBach. Bach's Earliest Chorale Repertory BorninEisenach,wherehisfather, Ambrosius (1645-1695),was a leadingcourt,town,and churchmusician, and hisfather's cousin, JohannChristoph(1671-1721), was the organistof the Georgenkirche inthetown,7 Johann Sebastian...