This document provides an overview of Johann Sebastian Bach and his cantatas. It discusses Bach's life and career, focusing on his work in Leipzig where he composed over 200 sacred cantatas for use in church services. It describes the form and characteristics of the Baroque cantata, and provides analysis of two movements from Bach's famous Cantata No. 140, "Wachet Auf." It also provides background on Baroque keyboard instruments and an introduction to the fugue form, with analysis of the first fugue from Bach's The Art of Fugue.

1. THE ENJOYMENT OF MUSIC
ESSENTIAL LISTENING
EDITION
by
Kristine Forney
Andrew Dell’Antonio
Joseph Machlis
THIRD EDITION
Lecture Slides – Chapters 19 and 24

2. Chapter 19
Musical Sermons:
Bach and the Lutheran Cantata

3. Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750)
• Most prominent composer
of Baroque Period
• Born in Eisenach, Germany;
family with many musicians
• Culminating figure of the
Baroque style
• Career in northern
Germany
• Devout Lutheran
• Secular and church
patrons during career

4. Johann Sebastian Bach
(1684-1750)
• Composed music at three locations during
career (a few famous works composed at
each)
– Weimar--music for church services
– Cöthen--The Well-Tempered Clavier and 6 Brandenburg
Concertos
– Leipzig--Mass in b minor, the cantata, Wachet Auf (“A
Mighty Fortress is Our God”), St. Matthew Passion, 2 and
3-part Inventions for harpsichord

5. Johann Sebastian Bach
• First wife, Maria
Barbara, dies
• Marries Anna
Magdalena, for
which he wrote book
of keyboard music,
still used today

6. Johann Sebastian Bach Other
Important Works
• St. Matthew Passion--for vocalists and orchestra
• The Well-Tempered Clavier--Books 1 and 2--two sets of
preludes and fugues in all 24 of the major and minor keys
• Toccata and Fugue in D minor--for keyboard
• Chorale Prelude (Wachet Auf)--an organ version of one
movement of his Cantata #140 (a chorale prelude was played
prior to singing the hymn on which it was based)

7. The Baroque Cantata and Oratorio
Bach and the Church Cantata
• Cantata (Italian “to sing”)
• Vocal genre for solo singers and
instrumental accompaniment
• Based on lyric, dramatic, or
narrative poetry
• Sacred cantatas (Lutheran
church)
• Secular cantatas
• Multi-movement works

8. Baroque Cantata:
General Characteristics
• Featured soloists, chorus, and orchestra
• Similar in style to an oratorio, but much
shorter
• Sacred cantatas
– Usually glorified New Testament subjects
– Often based on a Lutheran Chorale (a 4-part hymn
sung by the congregation)
• Secular cantatas
– Based popular stories and themes
– Otherwise, like sacred cantatas

9. The Church Cantata
• Performed in worship service
• 1700-Influence of Erdmann
Neumister
– Theologian & poet who
introduced subjective,
meditative texts not of
Biblical liturgical origin
– Designed for use in arias
or duets, in addition to
choruses based on the
Chorale

10. The Baroque Cantata and Oratorio
Bach and the Church Cantata
• Chorale
• Martin Luther
• Early hymns: in unison
• Later hymns: 4-part harmony, soprano melody
• Unifying thread of the Protestant cantatas

11. Bach’s Cantatas at Leipzig
• 58 per year
• Small orchestra: 18-24 players
• Approx. 200 cantatas preserved (not
numbered by Bach, but by editors)
• All use chorale melody as basis for each
movement
• Typically have five to eight movements
• Several choral numbers, recitatives, arias

12. Bach and the Church Cantata
Duties at Leipzig
• Church
• University
collegium
musicum

13. Cantata No. 140
Wachet Auf, ruft uns die Stimme
(Wake Up, Call the Voices)
• Performed Sunday Before Advent
• Text: Matthew 25: 1-13, parable of 5 wise, 5
foolish virgins
• Message: Be prepared and vigilant, for you
don’t know when God will call
• Seven sections total

14. Johann Sebastian Bach
Cantata 140--Movement 1
• An opening chorus
• Dotted rhythms (long-short-long-short) make this sound like a march
(similar to a French Overture).
• Upper voice has the melody in very long notes.
• Elaborate lines of counterpoint are weaved with the lower voices and the
orchestra.
• Form: also in Bar Form, but long pauses between sung sections are filled
in by the orchestra.
• Form: uses the ritornello principle--each vocal chorale section is followed
by an orchestra ritornello section.
– Ritornello 1 -->Chorale A --> Ritornello 2 --> Chorale A (again) -->
Ritornello 3 --> Chorale B --> Ritornello 4

15. Cantata 140-Movement 1
• Movement I

18. Johann Sebastian Bach
Cantata 140--Movement 4
• Tenors; violins, violas in unison; continue
• Chorale tune returns
• Upper voice has the melody in very long notes.
• Ritornello; dance-like, for the procession of the maidens as
they “all follow to the joyful hall and share in the Lord’s
supper.”
• Melody repeated and varied
• Faster rhythmic values than opening movment; broken into
component phrases linked by instrumental melody

19. Cantata 140-Movement 4
• Movement 4

21. Chapter 24
Process as Meaning:
Bach and The Art of Fugue

22. Keyboard Instruments in the Baroque Era
• Organ
• Harpsichord
• Clavichord

23. The Organ:
The King Of Instruments
• Largest and most powerful keyboard instrument
• Air pumped through “ranks” of pipes which are
opened closed by depressing keys on keyboard
• Pipes create sounds that mimic many other
instruments: woodwinds, brasses, strings.
• Early organs used people to pump bellows.
• Modern organs used electricity to move air.

24. The Keyboard Instruments: The
Harpsichord
• Small, delicate instrument
• Has two keyboards or “manuals”
• Black & white keys opposite of piano
• Keys operate a plectrum (a pick-like device made of leather or
a bird quill), which plucks the string.
• The plectrum produces a twang-like sound.
• Knobs that affect coupling of strings
• The player cannot vary the dynamics of the sound on a
harpsichord.
• Lost popularity around 1750

25. Two basic types of keyboard
pieces
• Based on harmony with
strong element
of improvisation
– prelude
– chorale prelude
• Stricter forms based on
counterpoint
– fugue
Keyboard Instruments in the Baroque Era
Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier
Bach: Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring
Bach: Toccata and Fugue in D Minor

26. The Baroque Fugue: General
Information
• Contrapuntal
• Instrumental or choral
• Subject (main musical theme)--played in
one “voice” and then imitated in others
• Countersubject(counter theme played
opposite the subject in other voices)
• Episodes--parts of the fugue in which the
subject is not heard--used for transition
and musical interest

27. FUGUE

28. The Fugue and Its Devices

29. Fugue: Compositional
Techniques
 stretto-subject imitated before it is completed
 pedal point(organ point)-a single tone, usually in
bass is held while other voices are still moving
 sequence-pattern of notes repeated several times in
succession but at different pitch levels
 suspension-holding notes from one chord to next to
create tension & release

30. Bach's Contrapunctus 1, from The Art of Fugue
(Listening Guide)
• 4-voice fugue
• Exposition:
– subject is presented in order: alto-soprano-bass-
tenor
• Episode

31. Contrapunctus 1
Contrapunctus I

34. by
Kristine Forney
Andrew Dell’Antonio
Joseph Machlis
Lecture Slides
THIRD EDITION
THE ENJOYMENT OF MUSIC
ESSENTIAL LISTENING EDITION
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