Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Bach's cantatas are among the highest achievements of Western musical art, yet studies of the individual cantatas that are both illuminating and detailed are few. In this book, noted Bach expert Eric Chafe combines theological, historical, analytical, and interpretive approaches to the cantatas to offer readers and listeners alike the richest possible experience of these works. A respected theorist of seventeenth-century music, Chafe is sensitive to the composer's intentions and to the enduring and universal qualities of the music itself. Concentrating on a small number of representative cantatas, mostly from the Leipzig cycles of 1723-24 and 1724-25, and in particular on Cantata 77, Chafe shows how Bach strove to mirror both the dogma and the mystery of religious experience in musical allegory. Analyzing Bach Cantatas offers valuable information on the theological relevance of the structure of the liturgical year for the design and content of these works, as well as a survey of the theories of modality that inform Bach's compositional style. Chafe demonstrates that, while Bach certainly employed "pictorialism" and word-painting in his compositions, his method of writing music was a more complex amalgam of theological concepts and music theory. Regarding the cantatas as musical allegories that reflect the fundamental tenets of Lutheran theology as established during Bach's lifetime, Chafe synthesizes a number of key musical and theological ideas to illuminate the essential character of these great works. This unique and insightful book offers an essential methodology for understanding one of the central bodies of work in the Western musical canon. It will prove indispensable for all students and scholars of Bach's work, musicology, and theological studies.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Introduction (p. ix)
• 1 The Hermeneutic Matrix (p. 3)
• Basic Principles (p. 3)
• Aspects of the Liturgical Year (p. 11)
• 2 The Lutheran "Metaphysical" Tradition in Music and Music Theory (p. 23)
• 3 Cantata 21, "Ich Hatte Viel Bekummernis" (p. 42)
• Commentary on the Individual Movements (p. 51)
• 4 Modal Questions (p. 72)
• The Seventeenth-century Background (p. 73)
• Bach and Modal Tradition (p. 82)
• "Durch Adams Fall"--Andreas Werckmeister on the Hypophrygian Mode (p. 89)
• 5 Bach's Reflection on the Past: Modal Chorales in Cantata Designs (p. 101)
• "Durch Adams Fall ist ganz verderbt" in Cantatas 18 and 109 (p. 102)
• "Ach Gott, vom Himmel sieh' darein" in Cantatas 153 and 2 (p. 111)
• "O grosser Gott von Macht" in Cantata 46 (p. 132)
• 6 Two Chorale Cantatas (p. 139)
• Cantata 121: "Christum wir sollen loben schon" (p. 139)
• "Es ist das Heil uns kommen hier" (Cantata 9) (p. 149)
• 7 Cantata 77: The Theological Background (p. 161)
• "Dies sind die heil'gen zehn Gebot": The Chorale and Its History (p. 161)
• The Text of Cantata 77 (p. 174)
• 8 "Du Sollt Gott, Deinen Herren, Lieben": An Analysis of Cantata 77 (p. 183)
• Commentary on the Individual Movements (p. 189)
• 9 Cantata 60: "O Ewigkeit, Du Donnerwort" (p. 220)
• Notes (p. 241)
• Bibliography (p. 271)
• Index (p. 277)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

As he did in this book‡s companion volume, Tonal Allegory in the Vocal Music of J.S. Bach (CH, May'92), Chafe (Brandeis Univ.) here takes an all-encompassing view of "analysis." He supplements the expected melodic, harmonic, and structural analysis with an intensive study of symbolic representation, relating a series of carefully chosen vocal works to the design of the liturgical year, the way that modality in final chorales governs Bach‡s overall compositional decisions, and a general hermeneutical approach that connects Lutheran theology and Bach. Patient readers who will listen and follow a score while they read will find in these pages a way to hear Bach at the most profound interpretive level. The cantatas that receive the most intensive treatment, BWV 21 and BWV 77, can serve as models for readers who wish to continue their study of this body of work, one of the major achievements of artistic history. Chafe is a major Bach scholar, and this book will become a classic in the literature. Upper-division undergraduates through professionals. J. P. Ambrose; University of Vermont

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Eric Chafe is the Victor and Gwendolyn Beinfield Professor of Musicology at Brandeis University. His previous books include Monteverdi's Tonal Language (1992), which won both the American Musicological Society's Kinkeldey Award and the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award, and Tonal Allegory in the Vocal Music of J. S. Bach (1991).