An essential facet of European Baroque music is the extent of – for lack of a better term – “international relations.” Composers and performers traveled more widely than ever before, and such interactions fostered a growing effort to synthesize older regional proclivities into a cosmopolitan lingua franca. Although Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) worked exclusively in Germany, he was thoroughly versed in old and new music from abroad. In Bach’s works we witness a conscious effort to unify different national styles. For example, his early keyboard suites drew heavily on Italian and French models: Froberger’s toccatas and Frescobaldi’s canzonas, plus Louis Couperin’s unmeasured preludes, as well as the dance miniatures of François Couperin.

Bach learned a great deal by directly transcribing works by other composers. While working in Weimar around 1716, he made at least nine keyboard transcriptions of violin concertos by Antonio Vivaldi. Bach’s absorption of the Vivaldian idiom marks a significant moment in music history, for it merged North German contrapuntal richness with Italian virtuosic figuration. During subsequent positions in Köthen (1717-1723) and Leipzig (1723-1750), Bach continued to explore and adapt the Italian precedent to suit his own style. At Leipzig, ostensibly consumed with sacred music, Bach still recognized that concerto Allegros could double as introductions or overtures to church cantatas. Moreover, his involvement with that city’s Collegium Musicum, a performing ensemble founded by Telemann in 1702, provided ready occasion and need for larger chamber works.

Bach did not write many concertos for violin; his preferred method seems to have been to adapt string concertos to feature keyboard soloists instead. Thus in the late 1730s he produced a G-minor harpsichord concerto, known as BWV 1058, but which is only a slightly altered version of Bach’s own Concerto in A Minor for violin and strings, BWV 1041. Scholars cannot accurately date the violin version. Some believe it derives from the Collegium years in Leipzig, while others suggest it belongs to the Köthen period. Given Bach’s frequent borrowing of material from other composers, we also cannot rule out that BWV 1041 leans heavily on some unknown source.

The opening Allegro contains all the features of an Italian model, including idiomatic string writing, rhythmic vigor, and short motivic cells. Bach’s ritornello material is wonderfully expansive, stretched by harmonic sequences and deceptive cadences. His individual voice emerges from the greater harmonic range and subtle obscuring of solo-tutti divisions. He is also at his best in the poignant slow movement. All of the features that attract us – the stately pulse, the suspension figures, a highly decorated solo line – can be found in similar concertos by other composers. Bach’s genius comes through in details: the expressive rhythmic figure that recurs in the bass, the subtle integration of ritornello motives amid the solo episodes. The concerto’s concluding Gigue sprints by in passages of continuous 16th notes. Bach’s outer movements provide abundant technical virtuosity. But for some listeners, the emotional depths of the central Andante outshine all else that transpires in these magical fifteen minutes.

The demands on Bach’s time in Leipzig were intense. Little wonder, then, that he dusted off this impressive violin concerto, bulked up the bassline and accompanying parts, and bequeathed a “new” harpsichord concerto (BWV 1058) to the Collegium and the world. Such borrowings were certainly not limited to secular or instrumental contexts. With Sunday services clamoring for his attention, Bach naturally would recycle existing material to fashion works for immediate use. Tonight we hear several selections from one such project, the sacred Cantata 147, Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben (Heart and mouth and deed and life). Source material for Herz und Mund goes back to his time in Weimar, though Bach expanded the structure to include additional movements and fuller orchestration. In its final form, Cantata 147 becomes a 30-minute celebration of Mary’s visitation to Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist.

The simplest way to grasp the structure of alternating chorus, aria and recitative is through a visual list, with the selections performed tonight in italics:

1. Chorus:      Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben

2. Recitative (tenor):      Gebenedeiter Mund!

3. Aria      (alto): Schäme dich, o Seele nicht

4. Recitative (bass): Verstockung      kann Gewaltige verblenden

5. Aria (soprano): Bereite dir,      Jesu, noch itzo die Bahn

6. Chorus: Wohl mir, daß ich Jesum      habe

7. Aria (tenor): Hilf, Jesu, hilf,      daß ich auch dich bekenne

8. Recitative (alto): Der      höchsten Allmacht Wunderhand

9. Aria      (bass): Ich will von Jesu Wundern singen

10. Chorus: Jesus bleibet meine      Freude

The opening chorus establishes a radiant, festive mood in C major highlighted by the presence of trumpet. After the conventional instrumental ritornello, a series of imitative vocal entrances occur. Both trumpet and voices are symbolically linked to “giving voice” to Christ’s salvation:

Heart and mouth and deed and life must give testimony of Christ

without fear or hypocrisy, that He is God and Savior.

Bach recycles the opening material at the end, creating a kind of da capo ABA aria structure. The middle portion is not fully delineated by virtue of firm cadences but uses tonal and textural contrast to dramatic effect. In a remarkable passage, Bach sets off the B section by using unaccompanied voices for an extended meditation on the ideas of “fear” and “hypocrisy.” It sounds like a brief respite of older sacred influences at work, as if Bach wanted this passage to have a particular impact devoid of instrumental fanfare.

A similar kind of expressivity emerges from the alto aria, “Schäme dich, o Seele nicht” (Do not be ashamed, oh my soul). Compared to the grand opening chorus, Bach’s retreat to an intimate scoring – just alto voice, oboe d’amore, and basso continuo – powerfully brings the matter of spiritual doubt from a global to a personal level. Combined with the oboe d’amore’s dolorous timbre and minor-mode key, the aria captures a memorable moment of introspection. By the time of the aria “Ich will von Jesu Wundern singen,” the mood has changed completely to one of exultation: “I will sing of Jesus’ wonders . . .” Even before the bass voice enters with the musically apt concept of “sing[ing] of Jesus’ wonders,” Bach uses fanfare signals (C major triads in fast tempo, trumpet calls, and a vigorous bassline) to announce this new optimism. He deftly employs chromaticism and dissonance to draw attention to the first appearances of keywords like “schwache” (weak) and “ird’schen” (earthly) as the last vestiges of mankind’s doubts are gradually swept aside.

At the end Bach places a soothing pastorale in G major. The unsuspecting listener may be moved by the arrival of a familiar musical friend, commonly but inaccurately translated as “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.” Bach’s finale offers a combination of Italian concerto elements with traditional four-part chorale that grounds the entire Lutheran experience. The opening string ritornello establishes a lilting charm, setting the stage for what could be a trumpet concerto. Instead, when the solo trumpet enters, it merges with the chorus to present the sustained pitches of the hymn tune. Bach immerses us in a sophisticated blend of dance, cantus firmus vocal style, and Italian concerto. In brief, this movement embodies the cosmopolitan, synthetic brilliance that makes his music so captivating.

Like BWV 1041/1058 discussed above, the Concerto for Keyboard and Strings in F Minor, BWV 1056, is almost certainly based on an earlier violin concerto. But apart from an exception noted below, scholars have not been able to identify and locate those possible sources. Bach focuses attention in the first movement on the head motive, which is built on a recurring neighbor-note figure. In addition, the choice of key contributes to the emotional mood, for F minor is a rich, dark, at times imposing key. Form recedes in significance behind the more attractive aspects of motivic development and imitation. The ritornello/solo distinctions are as a clear as anything penned by Vivaldi, and the later movements continue to strongly exhibit Italianate features.

The idyllic Largo soars on the keyboard’s florid melodic line, given only token harmonic support by the strings. It may derive from a lost oboe concerto, but we can still hear its expressive potential utilized to good effect in the oboe solo at the start of Bach’s Cantata 156, Ich steh mit einem Fuß im Grabe (I Stand with One Foot in the Grave).  The spirited Finale stays comfortably within the conventions of concerto form as defined by Bach’s Italian predecessors. Instead, small details show the master’s hand at work: a poignant suspension here, a striking key change there. Clearly this is not Bach’s last or most profound word in the concerto genre. Still, its balance between tense outer movements in F minor and a serene middle movement in A-flat major is enough to recommend it to later generations.

INTERMISSION

Bach is often remembered for his incredible fluency in writing cantatas for the Leipzig liturgy. During the first five years of his tenure in Leipzig, he averaged one cantata per week. Yet a similar genre, the motet – also in demand for both regular and occasional services – did not elicit the same commitment. Bach must have worked in the genre as a younger man; a church musician could hardly avoid penning an occasional motet here and there. Even accounting for the probable loss of some early examples, Bach’s motets are greatly outnumbered by the bulk of his other sacred works. The seven that remain seem, on stylistic grounds, to stem from roughly 1723-1734. It should be noted that the motet, as a genre, always played a less significant role in the Lutheran liturgy. This does not mean, however, that the surviving motets are deficient in quality. It does mean that a work like BWV 230, the four-part motet Lobet den Herrn alle Heiden, has its dimensions and ambitions dictated to some degree by its function.

A motet in the Lutheran service usually followed the opening organ prelude, especially in a Vespers service, though it could also be performed during Communion on special feast days. And while we know next to nothing about the origins of Bach’s motets, the relative brevity of Lobet den Herrn suggests that it was an “introductory” piece and likely followed immediately on the heels of Bach’s own organ prelude. The voices enter imitatively (as in a fugue) and continue with driving, motoric figures lifted straight out of the organ repertory. Modulations are subtle, points of cadential articulation are few, and Bach’s melodies are both instrumental and joyfully exacting. He lays out the text, Psalm 117, across three sections within a single movement: the opening and closing passages united in fugal texture, and a central chordal section written in antique style reflecting on God’s “Gnade und Wahrheit,” grace and truth. Noteworthy are the pictorial pedal tones heard at the idea of “Ewigkeit” (eternity).

Today’s distinction between chamber and orchestral music – mainly separated by the number of performers involved – was not significant in Bach’s day. Rather, the primary distinction was based on venue or function. Chamber music embraced all that was not destined for either the theater or the church. Even this classification meant relatively little in musical terms, for material originally used in a sacred cantata might one day be recycled into an instrumental concerto, as we observed above in BWV 1056.

Bach’s four Orchestral Suites thus provide a minor mystery. We can think of them as “orchestral” in the same way that a concerto is orchestral simply because multiple instrumental families are involved. At the same time, these suites were definitely intended for a chamber music setting. All evidence suggests that two (Nos. 1 and 4) stem from Bach’s years at the Pietist court in Köthen, where he composed very little sacred music. The other two (Nos. 2 and 3) were written in Leipzig at a time when Bach needed works for the Collegium Musicum. To further confuse matters, Bach referred to these suites as Ouvertures. Thus the most substantial part of the work – its opening “French Overture” movement – becomes almost synonymous with the entire multi-movement piece.

Moving beyond terminology, the genre of Orchestral Suite No. 1 in C Major has a long pedigree. It is a dance suite headed by a three-part overture. Apart from the scale and polyphonic complexity of the opening movement, all of the dances would have been familiar to listeners in generations previous to Bach. The most characteristic aspects of the opening movement are gestural dotted rhythms and sweeping violin runs inherited from the French Overture. Bach also explores oppositions between small and large ensembles (borrowed from the concerto) and by including a lengthy fugue in the middle of the overture. The fugue is so long, in fact, that even the most historically-minded performer might question Bach’s indication to repeat the fugue in its entirety.

Bach maintains a fairly rigid harmonic structure among the ensuing dances. These dances are all in two-part (binary) form, where the A section covers a move from the tonic to the dominant key – in this case, from C to G major – and the B section passes through related minor keys on its way back to tonic. The pacing and manner in which these tonal moves are undertaken remains reassuringly consistent from one dance to the next. Repetition, written into all the dances, works better here than in the earlier fugue since it allows the listener to discover subtleties of voice leading. Of course, it also allows the performer to vary volume, timbre, articulation, and ornamentation. Apart from the Courante and Forlane, each dance is written as a da capo pair, such that the first dance is heard both before and after the second dance (e.g., Minuet 1, then Minuet 2, followed by Minuet 1 again without repeats). Of particular note is the Forlane, a traditional dance from the region around Venice, but which eventually became a favored dance among French aristocrats.

Everything from the spelling of the title (Ouverture) to the inclusion of a Forlane to the exclusion of the traditional German Allemande reveals a decidedly French flavor for this suite. Circling back, then, it probably matters little whether we regard this suite as orchestral or chamber music. Recognizing Bach’s desire to infuse cosmopolitan stylistic traits seems more significant; transcending the Germanic seems more germane.

Jason Stell, © 2025