By Marc Destrubé

Music is the movement of sound to reach the soul for the education of its virtue.  – Plato

JOHANN Sebastian Bach wrote some 300 cantatas during his lifetime, of which about two-fifths have been lost.

The bulk of them were written in the 1720s, during his employment as cantor at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig – when, for several years, he composed, rehearsed and performed one cantata per week for performance in the Sunday services.

That many of these cantatas are musical masterworks is testament to one of the most remarkable creative productions of all time.

What makes this all the more remarkable is that Bach can have had no idea that his music would remain for posterity, and be performed again centuries later; and yet, he still invested these works with all the fertility of his musical imagination.

Although he was writing for a specific Sunday service in the liturgical calendar, and for an audience of devoted Lutherans, the music and the sentiments it expresses go far beyond a specific occasion or context.

An important aspect to understanding the universality of Bach’s music is being aware of a basic tenet of Baroque musical expression: the Affektenlehre, or ‘doctrine of affects.’

This aspect of late baroque (early 18th century) music-making dictated that musical expression was ‘objective’; it was meant to convey artistic and emotional expression according to a set of conventions, based on rhetorical principles, and only one affect was to be expressed in each section of music.

Two aspects of this are important here: there was no place for personal expression – emotional or otherwise; and there were no distinct or exclusive religious affects. Compositions expressed universal human emotions: joy, wonder, longing, despair and so on.

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This is borne out in Bach’s cantatas by the fact that he often used parody techniques, borrowing from his own previously composed secular music to construct new sacred works.

In the cantatas, one finds many pieces based on French court dances, or done in the Italian concerto style. Into this backdrop, Bach ingeniously wove old chorale melodies, and used the secular forms to suggest to a well-versed public whatever sentiment or mood was indicated by the religious text. He even used one of his own popular Brandenburg concertos as the basis for a cantata.

The depth of Bach’s religious fervour has been the subject of much discussion. Some feel that all of Bach’s work, sacred and secular, was an expression of deep religious feeling.

Others suggest that he was primarily preoccupied with career-building, and strove to impress his employers and demonstrate his genius by turning out music of great sophistication – whatever the circumstances.

Indeed, whenever he was not in the employ of the church he invariably turned his attention to secular instrumental music.

We can never go back and look into Bach’s heart and mind; nor will we ever recreate the circumstances of the composition of his cantatas, written for a single religious occasion and for a congregation of devotees.

A church will always remain the most appropriate place to present his cantatas. But listeners in the concert hall will nevertheless hear music that speaks to – and inspires – our most basic human and spiritual urges.

Marc Destrubé is music director and violin soloist for Early Music Vancouver’s Bach Cantata Project, which will present Festive Cantatas for Christmas December 22 at the Chan Centre. Contact: earlymusic.bc.ca.

December 2010