The World of the Bach Cantatas: Early Selected Cantatas

Publisher Marketing: In The World of the Bach Cantatas, leading Bach scholars place the works in their historical and biographical context, guiding us through their literary, musical, aesthetic, and theological features. The essays are designed to accompany a project by Ton Koopman, the renowned Dutch conductor, to record the complete set of cantatas on the Erato label. Early Sacred Cantatas covers the works Bach wrote during the first twenty-eight years of his life, before his move to Leipzig in 1723. Another volume will deal with Bach's secular cantatas, and a third with his cantatas dating from 1723 to 1750, his years at the Thomasschule in Leipzig. Publisher Marketing: The cantatas of J. S. Bach are among the best known and most frequently performed musical works of the baroque period. However, when they are played and heard today, questions arise that are difficult to answer because the works are being experienced outside their historical context. Such questions concern the role of the cantatas in Bach's compositional development, musical models for the works, and performance practice during the composer's lifetime. In this book, Bach scholars place the works in their historical and biographical context, guiding the reader through their literary, musical, aesthetic and theological features. This volume--the first of three which complement a recording project by the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and incorporating the complete Bach cantatas--covers the sacred cantatas he wrote during the first 28 years of his life, before his move to Leipzig in 1723.

Contributor Bio:  Wolff, Christoph Christoph Wolff is William Powell Mason Professor of Music at Harvard University and Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. He is the author of "Bach: Essays on His Life and Music" (1991) and other works.