3 ms·
Professional Bach singer here: member of American Bach Soloists, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Bach Collegium San Diego, Carmel Bach Festival. It's actually
by Bud 10y ago
Professional Bach singer here: member of American Bach Soloists, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Bach Collegium San Diego, Carmel Bach Festival.
It's actually not true that the "vast majority" of Bach's work had no texts. Bach wrote over 200 cantatas (with around 5-10 movements and separate texts each) plus an assortment of masses and 4 extremely large choral/orchestral works: the St. Matthew and St. John Passions, the Christmas Oratorio, and the B Minor Mass.
Looking at the catalog of all of Bach's works, which I have here, BWV (Bach Werke-Verzeichnis) numbers 1 thru 1071, you get all the way to BWV 525 before you even get out of the vocal works. Numbers 1 thru 524 are all cantatas, masses, oratorios, lieder, the many chorales of course, secular and comic cantatas, etc. And of course many/most of these are far larger than the individual organ works.
(Bach actually wrote a lot more cantatas than this; but only around 224 of them survived. Another hundred or so were lost.)
- devindotcom 10y agoThis is my understanding too, his choral works are many. They were part of the Bach family factory though, IIRC, so might not be the best data points for learning what makes Bach Bach note by note.
- Bud 10y agoNot so; the cantatas are authentic J.S. stuff.
- gumby 10y agoThanks for correcting my hyperbole, which I suppose is due to my bias for his keyboard works which I like to play (at home -- I doubt anyone suffer through my playing). I do like the masses and passions though, so you are spurring me to listen to more choral work!
- Bud 10y agoTotally check out the cantatas; many of us feel that the cantatas are the real heart of Bach's work. Bach was fundamentally a church musician.
- pg_is_a_butt 10y agoi member.
- sumpmonster 10y agoIf you have an iPhone or iPad I would reommend the Bach cantatas app to learn about Bachs cantatas: http://www.cantatasapp.com http://www.cantatasapp.com and https://appsto.re/de/HecH5.i https://appsto.re/de/HecH5.i
- gaur 10y agoHow many of the lost hundred cantatas do you think contained new (unknown to us) music, as opposed to music that was parodied in a surviving cantata?
- ktRolster 10y agoMost of them, probably