It’s like counting the stars in the heavens or searching for the best words in the dictionary. Bach composed so much liturgical music-including around 200 sacred cantatas-that an outsider often struggles to find an entry point. I welcomed this structure, although others might find it too constraining. It took me a long time to recapture the sense of transcendence and metaphysical awe that sacred music, at its best, can possess.” “I probably still retain negative associations with church music, the result of prolonged childhood exposure. Bach was composing new music every week at this juncture, and the class would follow in his steps-with me doing the same two thousand miles away. Hence I started my personal listening project in early September with Jesu, der du meine Seele (BWV 78), first performed in Leipzig on September 10, 1724. His Bach cantata course follows an interesting structure-it attempts to match, week by week, Bach’s second cantata cycle from 1724, a very fertile period for the composer. I decided that I would listen to the same works he was studying and performing in class. When he finally returned to campus in August, he signed up for a course on Bach’s cantatas. During the pandemic, he came back home from college and did classes online, but for relaxation spent an hour or so playing Bach on our piano every day. My son Thomas is the indirect reason for this late night listening project. I haven’t encountered any cantata performances that are quite so freewheeling, but why not? I can’t watch Glenn Gould perform Bach without getting caught up in the sheer uninhibited joy he expresses at the piano. Bach was very much attuned to musical enjoyment-he clearly took delight in his calling-and a few performers still approach his works from this perspective. “Ah! How sweet coffee tastes,” she proclaims, “sweeter than a thousand kisses.” And she warns dad that cutting off her supply will turn her into “a shriveled-up roast goat.”īut the sacred cantatas can be just as exuberant. The most obvious examples are his secular cantatas, the best known of which is the so-called “Coffee Cantata,” almost a mini-comic opera-focused on the plight of a father trying to stop his single-minded daughter from drinking so much java. Yet Bach himself had fun with his cantatas, which weren’t just pious musical exercises required for his job (excuse me, let’s call it a vocation). Thomas Church, Leipzig (Wikimedia Commons) Sure, we’re still allowed to listen to Bach, but fun, really?īach in a stained-glass window at St. Perhaps it’s a sign of our times-or maybe just my own insecurities-that I immediately feel I have to defend this statement. And I know this sounds paradoxical, but I listen to music to unwind-although I’ve also been listening to it during the day for my vocation.Įven so, when I tell people about my fun cantata project, I get a little embarrassed. ) But it’s true, I do clock in a lot of hours, albeit satisfying ones, and even I need time to unwind. Some people have called me a workaholic, an accusation which makes me bristle-how can you call what I do work ? (I prefer the terms vocation or calling. For me, this is the most relaxing time of day.

I do most of my cantata listening late at night, after everyone else has gone to sleep. I’ve been listening to them every day for the last two months, and this has become one of the most enjoyable parts of my daily routine. In several recent public interviews and private conversations, I’ve mentioned how much fun I’m having with Bach cantatas.

Youtunes bach 78 cantata