Bach's vocal scoring: What can it mean?

Early Music

Volumn 26, Issue 1, 1998, Pages 99-107

  Butt, John ^a,b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE   (United Kingdom)

^b King's College

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 61449245140     PISSN: 03061078     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/em/26.1.99     Document Type: Article

References (24)

1. J. Rifkin, 'Bach's chorus: a preliminary report', Musical times, cxxiii (1982), pp.747-54
2. R. Marshall, 'Bach's chorus: a preliminary reply to Joshua Rifkin', Musical times, cxxiv (1983), pp.19-22
3. J. Butt, Bach - Mass in B minor (Cambridge, 1991)
4. and Music education and the art of performance in the German Baroque (Cambridge, 1994), pp.106-13
5. For more on the vocal scoring in North German sacred concertos in the generation before Bach, see G. Webber, North German church music in the age of Buxtehude (Oxford, 1996), esp. pp.175-80. Webber shows that the basic scoring of a piece (with solo singers alone) could often be expanded with ripienists for certain tuttis, and also with additional string parts for the middle of the texture (pp.103-4)
6. U. Siegele, 'Bachs Stellung in der Leipziger Kulturpolitik seiner Zeit (Schluß)', Bach-Jahrbuch, lxxii (1986), pp.33-67, esp. p.45
7. See also his 'Bachs Endzweck einer regulierten und Entwurfeiner wohlbestallten Kirchenmusik', Festschrift Georg von Dadelsen zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. T. Kohlhase and V. Scherliess (Neuhausen-Stuttgart, 1978), pp.313-51
8. For a summary of the political situation in Saxony, see his 'Bach and the domestic politics of Electoral Saxony', Cambridge companion to Bach, ed. J. Butt (Cambridge, 1997), pp.17-34
9. A. Parrott, 'Bach's chorus: who cares?', Early music, xxv (1997), p.300
10. '... scholars and performers alike ... overwhelmingly either ignore these arguments or dismiss them as self-evidently nonsensical.' A. Parrott, 'Bach's chorus: a "brief yet highly necessary" reappraisal', Early music, xxiv (1996), p.551
11. See, for example, G. Stauffer, Bach - the Mass in B minor (New York, 1997), esp. pp.207-16
12. For more on this issue and a survey of the influence of Rifkin's theories on recent recorded performances of Bach, see J. Butt 'Bach recordings from 1980 to 1995: a mirror of historical performance', forthcoming in Bach perspectives, iv, ed. D. Schulenberg (1998)
13. Even here, Rifkin argues convincingly that the pattern of survival makes this seem unlikely. J. Rifkin, 'Bassoons, violins and voices: a response to Ton Koopman', Early music, xxv (1997), p.305
14. See Rifkin 'Bach's chorus', p.749
15. 'Parrott, 'Bach's chorus: a "brief yet highly necessary" reappraisal', p.574
16. See A. Dürr, critical commentary to the Neue Bach-Ausgabe of the St Matthew Passion, ii/5, p.49
17. NBA, ii/4, critical commentary, p.51
18. Butt, Music education, pp.112-13
19. Parrott, 'Bach's chorus: a "brief yet highly necessary" reappraisal', p.574
20. See L. Dreyfus, Bach and the patterns of invention (Cambridge, MA, 1996), p.242
21. D. Martin Luthers Werke: kritische Gesamtausgabe (Weimar, 1883-1983), ii, p.136
22. Chafe, Tonal allegory, pp.275-423; for the connections between the St Matthew Passion and Luther's meditation on Christ's Passion, see esp. pp.337-47
23. 'Dem Christus leyden muß nit mit worten und scheyn, sondern mit dem leben und warhafftig gehandelt werden': M. Luther, 'A meditation on Christ's Passion' (1519), D. Martin Luthers Werke, ii, pp.141-2
24. See E. Axmacher, 'Aus Liebe will mein Heyland sterben' - Untersuchungen zum Wandel des Passionsverständnisses im frühen 18. Jahrhundert (Neuhausen-Stuttgart, 1984), esp. pp.204-18