Prologue

Quid uerum atque decens curo, & rogo, & omnis in hoc sum. 1

The central thesis of this book is one that was first put forward at a musico-
logical gathering in Boston the best part of two decades ago. (Appendix 6
presents Joshua Rifkin's 1981 paper in published form for the first time.) Yet
insofar as any of this new thinking may have filtered through to conductors,
singers, and the listening public - to those most directly affected by the per-
formance of J. S. Bach's choral music - it has emerged in such a distorted
and simplistic form that disbelief has been all but guaranteed. With the
250th anniversary of Bach's death now upon us, the present aim therefore is
to clarify the various issues and to give a richly rewarding subject the wider
public attention it deserves.
Although the matter under discussion is nothing less than the essential
nature of the medium used by Bach throughout his entire career and for
what is arguably the core of his incomparable musical output, many people
may well be somewhat bemused at the very suggestion that 'Bach's choir'
might allow of any significant discussion at all. (Does it really matter what
sort or size of choir sings his music? Isn't it just a matter of musical taste and
judgement?) After all, it is not as if any urgent need for reassessment has
arisen through the rediscovery of a major document from Bach's own
hand, explicitly defining his choral ideal in unexpected ways. The critical
sources remain the familiar ones, already picked over by generations of Bach

1 'The search of truth and decency hath fill' d my breast,/ Hath every thought and fac-

ulty possess'd' (Horace, Epist. 1.i.11) - a quotation chosen by Johann Abraham

Birnbaum to head his (anonymously published) UnpartheyischeAnmerckungen [1738],
dedicated to and in defence of J. S. Bach; see Appendix 4, document 4.
2 The Essential Bach Choir

scholars. Is there really any need to question their collective scholarly opin-
ion, one which has served musicians well enough through most of the twen-
tieth century?
The realization that a familiar object or concept may make much better
sense when viewed in an entirely different way can happen in a blinding
flash, or it may demand an arduous process of analysis. Like countless oth-
ers, I initially reacted to Rifkin's challenge with some scepticism. But as a
conductor - and as one engaged in making recordings (which by their very
nature are likely to be more widely influential than occasional concert per-
formances) - I felt a responsibility to wrestle with the newly raised issues
until I was quite sure of what I thought. The more I pondered, the more it
became apparent that this was no casual hypothesis but rather the
inescapable product of a radical and brilliant re-examination of the central
source material. Or, to put it another way, it became clearer at every turn
that conventional theory and practice were resting on the flimsiest of foun-
dations, on a simple assumption (albeit an entirely understandable one)
which was proving all but impossible to substantiate. What was thereby
revealed, after effectively lying hidden since the eighteenth century, was not
a minor historical point, a detail of purely academic interest, but a funda-
mental principle of performance - and of composition - running right
through Bach's (and others') creative output, and consequently something
which would contribute to a significantly fuller understanding of his music.
Not everyone sees it this way, of course. Hence the present book, which
aims above all to make the subject readily accessible to all those who wish to
explore it seriously - by presenting all the salient material in a single place
for the first time. In particular, the various appendices, tables and illustra-
tions will, I hope, make this a useful work of reference. I have shamelessly
plundered and recycled material from articles of my own which originally
appeared in the Oxford University Press journal Early Music; in most cases,
though, this material has undergone a process of substantial revision, re-
organization, and, above all, expansion.
With the sudden intensification of millennial talk at the start of the New
Year 1999 I became acutely aware that Bach celebrations in the year 2000 -
which will inevitably help shape the listening habits and performance expec-
tations of millions for decades to come - seemed destined to sidestep this
whole area of research and performance, more out of sheer convenience and
habit than for considered historical or musical reasons. The old half-truths
would become even more deeply rooted. A short book might go at least
some way towards salvaging the situation.
 1

Introduction

What size of choir sang J. S. Bach's concerted church music? What vocal
forces did he really want to perform those works? To the second question, at
least, received wisdom has a ready answer: 'Bach speaks of three or four
[singers] to a part in four-part writing as ideal.' 1
In recent decades, performances of Bach's choral works on historical lines
have been dominated by this image of a 12- or 16-strong choir. But behind
that image lies another - the even more familiar one of massed voices (158
of them) at the 1829'centenary' revival of the St Matthew Passion in Berlin
under the direction of the 20-year-old Felix Mendelssohn. 2 Though the two
images may appear quite different, they nevertheless depict one and the
same medium; each is what we clearly recognize as a 'choir'. And, though it
is rarely articulated, a defining characteristic of such a choir, large or small,
is that each voice part is sung by at least two singers - and perhaps by 12 or
20 - but not by one. This definition of a choir seems self-evident to us today,
as it undoubtedly did in Mendelssohn's time, almost eighty years after J. S.
Bach's death.
Yet, if we look at the Lutheran traditions of the seventeenth century in
which Bach's music has its roots, we find that the term 'choir' has a crucial-
ly broader meaning, one which embraces not only an instrumental ensem-
ble (Instrumental Chor) but also groups of just one voice (or instrument)
per part- 'consorts', as they have recently (and usefully) come to be known.
Heinrich Schi.itz, typically for his time, draws a clear distinction between

1 Ellen T. Harris, 'Voices', chap. 5 in Brown/Sadie 1989, p. 114.

2 Rehearsals had started, at the Mendelssohns' house, with some 12 singers, but num-
bers 'grew from one rehearsal to the next'; for Eduard Devrient's contemporary
account, see NBR, pp. 509-19. See also Geck 1967.
4 The Essential Bach Choir

two types of choral medium for certain of his Psalmen Davids (1619), in
which
the second choir is used as a capella and is therefore strong [in numbers],
while the first choir, which is the corofavorito [literally, the 'favoured choir'],
is by contrast slender and comprises only four singers ...

. . . wird Coro secondo fur eine Capell gebraucht/ und dahero starck bestim-
met/ weil aber Charo 1. welches ist Charo Fauorito hingegen schwach/ und nur
von vier Sangern ist ... 3

In other words, capella sections are appropriate for several voices per part
(or perhaps voices and instruments), but the remainder is intended for sin-
gle voices.4 While we may be tempted to associate the former with a 'real'
choir and, subconsciously, to dismiss the latter as being for a mere vocal
quartet and hence not strictly for a choir at all,5 seventeenth-century usage
is unambiguous: both groups qualify perfectly naturally as 'choirs'.
Moreover, we should note that it is not the several-per-part choir that is
'favoured' in such works but the small elite group of solo voices - the vocal
'consort'. It is select choirs of this latter sort that are the chief protagonists of
most seventeenth-century concerted music; capella writing need not appear
at all, and when it does, it generally plays a subsidiary role.
The critical question is therefore this: which of these two types of choir was
destined to become the essential vehicle for the concerted music of J.S. Bach?
The prime focus of our attention here will be the church music of Bach's
Leipzig years, the best-documented phase of his career. But many of the con-
clusions we may draw will apply equally to his earlier works - and, indeed,
to those of his Lutheran contemporaries; there is, after all, no reason to sup-
pose that Bach's practices in Leipzig were exceptional for his time.
Not surprisingly, no single document tells us everything we might wish to
know, and in this book we shall examine not only Bach's own writings and
the key musical sources (especially the many surviving sets of original per-
forming parts) but also a mass of other pertinent material - archival, theo-
retical and iconographic. And each step of the argument is to be taken with
caution, since (as we have already seen) both unfamiliar concepts and
treacherous terminology abound.
It may be as well to notice a few key terms at the outset:
Chor: a choir (of singers and/or instruments); a piece of choral music (a
'chorus'); a choir-loft

3Schutz 1619,Preface ~3, referring to swv31, 33, 39 and perhaps 41.

4One writer imagines that 'it was not at all unusual for the Favoritchorto have more
than one singer to a part' but presents no support for this notion (Smithers 1997, p. 22).
5 Sure enough, a 'Chorus pro cape/la' has recently been defined (in contrast to a

'Favoritchor')as 'a proper choir of many voices': Smithers 1997,p. 22 (emphasis added).
 Introduction 5

concertiren:to perform (a principal role in) concerted music

Concertist: one who performs a principal role in concerted music (as
opposed to a Ripienist, who performs a ripieno or 'filling-out' part)
figural: contrapuntal - generally used to denote music of a more elaborate
or demanding nature than simple chorales, and thus often (but not
always) concerted music
Kirchenstuck: (specifically) a church cantata (literally, a 'church piece')
Motette: motet - as encountered here, most often used to denote a tradi-
tional repertoire of sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century motets, con-
siderably simpler in character than the motets of Bach's own time
Music: music; music-making, or a piece of music, which involves instru-
ments (such as a concerted work); a body of musicians (i.e. an ensemble)
musicalisch: (of a singer) musically literate - specifically, implying compe-
tence equal to the demands of the older Motette repertoire
musiciren: to perform music involving instruments
Orgel:organ; organ-loft
Singen: singing, especially of chorales and the simple Motette repertoire (as
opposed to concerted works )6

The works Bach composed during his 27 years in Leipzig, like the documents
concerning his activities there, arose for the most part in a specific institu-
tional context. Chapter 2 of this book looks at the nature of his duties as
Cantor of the Thomasschule and Director musices for the town, and surveys
the varied range of musical tasks discharged by the pupils of the school
under Bach's supervision. Chapter 3 examines the diverse repertoires in use
there, from simple chorales to the most demanding new concerted music,
and the differing technical demands they made on the performers.
Chapter 4 notes the specific vocal requirements of concerted music and
elucidates the essential - and, in Bach's time, utterly conventional - distinc-
tion between 'concertists' and 'ripienists'. A secure grasp of that distinction is
crucial to our perception of the character and composition of Bach's choir; to
equate 'concertist' with modern 'soloist' and 'ripienist' with 'choir-singer', for
example, would be sure to trigger a succession of misunderstandings.
The presence or absence of ripienists - which is clearly central to deter-
mining not only the size of Bach's choir but its very nature - hinges on the
question of copy-sharing. To accept that three (or more) singers sang each
vocal line in a work of Bach's, we are compelled to assume that each surviv-
ing copy was routinely shared by several singers, and/or that large numbers

6 Thus, when we read of two 'persons' assisting at the Neue Kirche (c.1740) 'partly

with the Singenand also with the Music' ('theils beym Singen oder auch bey der Music':
Glockner, p. 136), it may not be entirely clear whether those persons were singers who
also played in the instrumental ensemble, or whether they were singers who were capa-
ble of singing concerted music as well as simple motets.
6 The Essential Bach Choir

of extra copies have disappeared. Chapter 5 asks whether the available evi-
dence supports either of these assumptions.
How often were ripienists available to Bach, and in what numbers?
Chapter 6 focuses on their role, inspecting the handful of works which
explicitly call for them, and the manner in which they are deployed.
The case in favour of the model of a 12- or 16-strong Bach choir has tra-
ditionally rested on the composer's Entwurff of 1730, addressed to the
Leipzig Town Council.7 We see in Chapter 7 that the purpose of this docu-
ment is to set out the structure and operation of the musical institution in
Bach's charge. Can this administrative memorandum - for it is not a musi-
cal treatise - tell us how many singers Bach required to perform a cantata or
a Passion?
Additional musicians are known to have joined the Thomasschule pupils
quite regularly in performing Bach's concerted music, and their presence has
been used to bolster the idea that Bach used several singers on each voice
part. Chapter 8 investigates how numerous these additional performers
actually were and what role they played.
Chapter 9, which addresses the relative proportions of vocal and instru-
mental groups, challenges the (often unconscious) assumption that a large
instrumental ensemble necessarily implies a large body of singers. Chapter
10 then explores related questions of balance between voices and instru-

ments, as a practical matter of acoustics and musicianship.

Only after investigating all these issues with an open mind will we be able
to frame responsible answers to the two questions with which we began.
Those answers may well turn out to be different from those we take for
granted; and the differences may help us to learn whether the questions
themselves are matters of marginal academic interest or have the power to
transform our conception of the music itself.

7 'Kurtzer, iedoch hochstnothiger Entwurff einer wohlbestallten Kirchen Music',

cited hereafter as Entwurff: BD I, pp. 74, 67 = NBR, pp. 158, 152. For a full text and trans-
lation of this document, see Appendix 3 below; for detailed discussion, see Siegele 1978
and Rifkin 1990.