Tears into Wine: J. S. Bach's Cantata 21 in its Musical and Theological Contexts
Eric Chafe
Abstract
A study of J. S. Bach’s Cantata 21, the fourth cantata composed by Bach in Weimar 1714 after his elevation to the position of concert master. Bach’s longest cantata to this point in his career, Cantata 21 has in recent years suffered from adverse aesthetic judgments (especially its final chorus) as the result of lack of knowledge of its compositional history. Study of the cantata in relation to the relevant theological literature of the time reveals that it is a work of unusually careful construction. In the context of its companion works of 1714, Cantata 21 emerges as a pivotal work in Bach’s ... More
A study of J. S. Bach’s Cantata 21, the fourth cantata composed by Bach in Weimar 1714 after his elevation to the position of concert master. Bach’s longest cantata to this point in his career, Cantata 21 has in recent years suffered from adverse aesthetic judgments (especially its final chorus) as the result of lack of knowledge of its compositional history. Study of the cantata in relation to the relevant theological literature of the time reveals that it is a work of unusually careful construction. In the context of its companion works of 1714, Cantata 21 emerges as a pivotal work in Bach’s oeuvre.
Keywords:
Bach Cantata 21,
music and theology,
Bach in Weimar,
Weimar 1714,
Music and the Foretaste of Eternity,
seventeenth-century Lutheran Orthodoxy,
Johann Mattheson
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2015 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780190217297 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: April 2015 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190217297.001.0001 |
Authors
Affiliations are at time of print publication.
Eric Chafe, author
Brandeis University, Newtonville, MA, Victor and Gwendolyn Beinfield Professor of Music
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