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J.S. Bach’s St Matthew Passion as a Lenten Meditation
Winter 2004-2005
Johann Sebastian Bach’s St Matthew Passion was first performed at the St. Thomas church in Leipzig as part of the Good Friday service. As was the local practice, the first part of the passion was performed before; the second part, after the sermon.
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J. S. Bach in Leipzig: Cantata as Text
Spring 1997
In tuning to Bach's Cantorate in Leipzig, a position he accepted at the age of 38 and retained until his death 27 years later, we enter the final stage of our study of the composer's encounters with pietism.
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J. S. Bach and Pietism
Fall 1994
Up to this point in our study, we have traced Bach's encounters
with pietism from his early childhood in Ohrdruf to his first
position of importance, namely, that of organist in
Mühlhausen. In the process of retracing Bach's steps, we have
uncovered evidence indicating that he did not reject pietism out
of hand, as earlier studies have concluded, but, rather, that he
accepted, and often sought out, positions in places where it
flourished. The evidence has come to light in a wide variety of
sources: historical studies of German cities and provinces;
biographical sketches of superintendents and pastors, as well as
city and court officials; new research on the historical, social,
and theological contexts of pietism; and, finally, the music
itself. Rarely is the evidence explicit; often it is fragmentary.
Taken together, however, it conveys a new image of Bach.
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J. S. Bach and Pietism
Spring 1994
After describing Bach's trip to Lübeck and his apprenticeship
with Buxtehude, we now turn our attention to his tenure as
organist in Mühlhausen. In traveling the few miles between
Amstadt and Mühlhausen, Bach moved from a small provincial
town, where he was a parish organist, to an Imperial Free
City, where he held the city's most prestigious musical post.
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J. S. Bach and Pietism
Fall 1993
In the previous article we described Bach's encounters with
Pietism in his early years, beginning with his childhood in
Ohrdruf and continuing until his appointment, at the age of
eighteen, as organist in Amstadt in his native Thuringia. We
left off our account when Bach took a leave from his position
to travel to Lübeck in northern Germany. On returning home
after four months - instead of the four weeks that had been
granted him - he stated that he had remained in Lübeck in
order to "gain an understanding of one problem and another
connected with his art." Although the avowed purpose of his
trip was to hear Buxtehude play the organ, it is clear that Bach
arranged his visit to coincide with the annual perfonnance of
the city's Abendmusiken, a series of concerts perfonned during
Advent. There he heard a new style of music, one that, as we
will see, had far reaching musical and theological implications
for his career as a church musician.
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Bach’s Career as a Church Musician: Early Years
Summer 1993
My purpose, in this series of articles, is to examine Bach’s relationship to Pietism in light of the new research that has been carried out in theological circles over the past two decades. Many church historians, including Peter Erb, Ernest Stoeffler, and Dale Brown, no longer describe Pietism as a separatist movement that sprang to life at the end of the seventeenth century and quickly spread throughout northern Europe, eventually reaching America. Rather, they argue, it needs to be seen as the outgrowth of a reform movement that began shortly after the Reformation and continued well into the nineteenth century. In response to this more comprehensive — some call it revisionist — view of Pietism, music historians have begun to reevaluate and reinterpret the movement’s influence on church music. In the case of J. S. Bach (1685-1750), a reappraisal is important not only because of his stature as a composer, but also because he was active as a church musician during the period in which Pietism reached its peak in Germany.
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J. S. Bach and Pietism
Spring 1993
New research by theologians and music historians has given rise to a new set of questions about J. S. Bach’s relationship to Pietism, a reform movement that was flourishing in Germany when he wrote his cantatas and passions. What links, if any, did Bach have to the movement? How well did he know the writings of the Pietistic fathers? And, what influence did their writings have on his sacred works?
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Remembering Don Paul Olson
Winter 1990
In writing to renew my subscription to Pietisten, it was also my plan to order a gift subscription for Don Paul Olson, whom I met by chance in California this past summer where he was serving as chaplain at the Samarkand home in Santa Barbara.
