The German church cantata of the eighteenth century was the culmination of a long tradition of Lutheran "sermon music" that used the proclamation, amplification, and interpretation of scripture to teach and persuade the listener. Bach's cantatas also served this didactic purpose and typically incorporate numerous allusions to scriptural passages or themes in their librettos. Unfortunately, many of these passages remain obscure to the twentieth-century musician because they demand a much closer familiarity with the Bible than is common today. The Handbook to Bach's Sacred Cantata Texts identifies scriptural references for the wording, imagery, and themes that Bach's listeners would have known. In addition, the religious or literary theme of each text is summarized within the specific context of the cantata as a whole. With interlinear translations and a full complement of indexes.

This is the only English translation of this important book by the world's most distinguished Bach scholar.

The cantatas of Johann Sebastian Bach are among the best known and most frequently performed musical works of the Baroque period. In an illuminating discussion of the musical, literary, aesthetic, and theological aspects of the composers early cantatas, leading Bach scholars place the works in their historical and biographical context. 85 photos.

This is an edition of all the surviving cantatas with texts by Francesco Buti (1606‒82), and thus one of the first editions of seventeenth-century Italian cantatas organized around a single poet rather than a single composer. It contains ten pieces set to music by the first generation of Roman cantata composers, such as Carlo Caproli, Giacomo Carissimi, Marco Marazzoli, Luigi Rossi, Mario Savioni, and Loreto Vittori, as well as the traveling guitar virtuoso Francesco Corbetta. Most of the pieces belong to the genre of chamber cantata and are scored for solo voice and basso continuo, though also included are a duet and a lengthy, semi-dramatic cantata for four voices and obbligato instruments. The compositions in this volume thus make a significant sampling of the early Italian cantata repertoire available to scholars and performers.

This book, first published in 1974, has become the classic study of one of the most popular musical forms in early eighteenth-century France. It not only documents and examines a considerable repertoire for the first time, but it also places the genre in the wider context of both French and Italian baroque musical styles.