During his life as a church musician, Bach composed cantatas for the liturgical year of the Lutheran church. We know of five complete year-long cycles for Sundays and feast days, which would amount to somewhere between 270 and 320 cantatas. He also wrote cantatas for occasions such as the consecration of a new organ, university functions, funerals, and weddings.
The most important and lengthy post Bach held was Cantor of St. Thomas church in Leipzig, where he was responsible for directing the music for all the main churches of the city as well as the University, combined with teaching duties. At St. Thomas, he led the choir and orchestra each Sunday and feast day as they performed the works he had written.
The reformer Martin Luther wanted church music to be sung in the language of the people, not the Latin of the Roman church. Some of Bach’s chorale cantatas are based on Lutheran hymns, and all are written in German, the language his congregation spoke.
Each Bach cantata is unique, but typically, they include a four-part choir and soprano, alto, tenor, and bass soloists. When they are based on a hymn, they begin with a choral fantasia on the first stanza of the hymn with one part, perhaps the sopranos, spinning out the melody of the hymn. Recitatives and solos follow on the text of the subsequent verses. Finally, a simple four-part chorale closes the work with the last verse of the hymn. Perhaps, in Bach’s time, the congregation sang along with the choir on the closing chorale. (Don’t worry, we won’t ask you to try that!)
Animated by faith, Bach often signed his cantatas with SDG, an abbreviation for Soli Deo Gloria, or Glory to God Alone. In a collection he wrote of 46 chorale variations for organ, intended to teach students how to write the form, he ended the dedication with these words: “To the glory of all highest God and to the instruction of my fellow men.”
Artistic Director Christian Grube has chosen four chorale cantatas that beautifully show Bach’s musical genius and the depth of feeling that suffuses his work. The singers of the Santa Cruz Chorale will be joined by four professional soloists (more about their glorious voices soon) and the Monterey Bay Sinfonietta for Why the World Loves Bach. We look forward to sharing the joy of Bach with you.
