Cantatas · Masses · Oratorios Passions · Motets
Cantatas · Masses · Oratorios Passions · Motets
Cantatas · Masses · Oratorios Passions · Motets
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4<br />
Johann Sebastian Bach<br />
Sacred Vocal Works<br />
“The unpublished works by the late Bach are<br />
approximately as follows:<br />
1) Five annual cycles of church works for all Sundays<br />
and feast days.<br />
2) Many oratorios, masses, a Magnificat, sep arate<br />
Sanctus settings, dramatic pieces, serenatas,<br />
works for birthdays, name days and funerals,<br />
wedding masses, and some comic vocal pieces.<br />
3) Five <strong>Passions</strong>, one of which is for double choir.<br />
4) Some double-choir motets.”<br />
These few words from the obituary of Johann Sebastian<br />
Bach published in 1754 provide a brief survey of<br />
his vocal music, which in more respects than mere volume<br />
represents the most important element of his entire<br />
oeuvre. While Bach’s keyboard and organ works<br />
spread quickly throughout Europe and consolidated<br />
his reputation as an unsurpassed master of harmony,<br />
modulation, and the “art of pure composition,” the<br />
sacred vocal music was initially accessible to only a<br />
small circle of experts.<br />
Soon after 1800 the motets and the Latin church<br />
works began to occupy a firm place in the repertoire,<br />
due in part to the fact that their texts were less closely<br />
associated with Lutheran services and with the period<br />
of their composition than those of the cantatas.<br />
Finally, the sensational revival of the St. Matthew<br />
Passion by the Berlin Singakademie in 1829 under<br />
the young Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy prepared<br />
the way for the publication of a complete edition of<br />
the works of Johann Sebastian Bach, which was initiated<br />
on the occasion of the centenary of his death.<br />
The immense destruction caused by the Second<br />
World War, which did not spare Europe’s cultural inheritance,<br />
led to the fact that soon after 1950 work<br />
began at the Bach-Archiv in Leipzig and the Johann-<br />
Sebastian-Bach-Institut in Göttingen on the preparation<br />
of a new Complete Edition of his compositions;<br />
its conclusion was ceremoniously observed in 2007.<br />
At the same time the Stuttgart Bach Editions, published<br />
originally by Hänssler-Verlag, have combined a<br />
high level of both musicological and practical presentation<br />
of the music.<br />
J. S. Bach (Haußmann, 1748) <strong>·</strong> Carus 40.398/10, postcard<br />
Since 1996 there has also been close co operation<br />
with the Bach-Archiv Leipzig. Since then many of<br />
Bach’s works have been presented in critical new editions,<br />
among them previously unpublished versions<br />
of well-known vocal works. Complete performance<br />
material is available for all of these works for sales.<br />
Bach vocal