Cantatas · Masses · Oratorios Passions · Motets

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“The unpublished works by the late Bach are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among them previously unpublished versions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