ABSTRACT

In addition to their particular textual features, J. S. Bach’s nine cantatas to texts by Mariane von Ziegler have long been recognized for their special musical nature. Albert Schweitzer described the cantatas thus: “As we read through the scores we fancy we can realize the delight with which Bach set to work on these new texts.” 1 But beyond Bach’s treatment of the Vox Christi in the cantatas, these musical features are more difficult to describe or even, at times, to identify. Like Schweitzer, we can more often sense Bach’s fresh compositional impetus in response to Ziegler’s texts than we can analyze it.