Bach and the Counterpoint of Religion ed. by Robin A. Leaver

Abstract

Reviewed by: Bach and the Counterpoint of Religion ed. by Robin A. Leaver Alon Schab Bach and the Counterpoint of Religion. Edited by Robin A. Leaver. (Bach Perspectives, no. 12.) Urbana, Chicago, and Springfield: University of Illinois Press, 2018. [x, 157 p. ISBN 978-0-252-04198-3. $50] The new volume of Bach Perspectives is given the intriguing title Bach and the Counterpoint of Religion. The title of the 2016 meeting of the American Bach Society, in which three of the seven chapters in the volume originate, was more straightforward—"J. S. Bach and the Confessional Landscape of His Time" (p. vii). However, if the contrapuntal analogy of the reviewed publication is to be pursued further, then one could say that the polyphony here is not only between different parts but also between different hierarchical levels in the social composition. The new volume deals with several complicated tensions: Moravians and Pietists vs Lutheran Orthodoxy, Lutheranism vs Catholicism, Christianity vs Judaism, and sacred vs profane. Even Bach himself would have hesitated to compose such a ricercar à 7, with so many subjects and countersubjects. At the very least, he would have requested the King's permission to take leave and to work on such an intricate undertaking at home for some time. Mark Noll's "Historical Proximity: John Wesley Visits Leipzig in 1738" describes the potential meeting of Johann Sebastian Bach and John Wesley (1703–1791), founder of Methodism. Aptly described by Noll as an intriguing might-have-been (p. 1), such a meeting, had it taken place, would have been a rather dull historical event. The sum of hard evidence about the great men's whereabouts on 27–28 July 1738 is surveyed over a page and a half. However, from the point of view of intellectual history, it is indeed a fascinating moment to examine—and Noll dedicates about half of his chapter to the task. The texts of Bach's three extant cantatas for the Ninth Sunday after Trinity (BWV 94, 168, and 105) are analysed from a Wesleyan vantage point, also taking into account hymns written by Charles Wesley, John's brother. Wesley, passing through Leipzig after two weeks he had spent with the Moravian community in Marienborn, rejected modern concerted church music. Thus, the potential conflict between the two giants would have related to Bach's musical style, at which "Wesley would have been appalled" (p. 10). Noll rounds off his account of the hypothetical meeting with two pieces of concrete history: the first regards the role played by Moravians ("who had stood apart from Bach in his own day, both ecclesiastically and musically", p. 15) in mounting the first full performances of Bach's choral works in the U.S. during the nineteenth century. The second regards John Wesley's nephew, Samuel Wesley, whose attempt to publish Bach's Credo as early as 1815 is a might-have-been no less remarkable than the one that did not take place in Leipzig in 1738. Joyce L. Irwin's contribution also belongs to the realm of the history of ideas. It tackles a question that must disturb many lovers of Bach's music from the moment they attempted their first minuet from the Anna Magdalena Clavier-Büchlein—what were Bach's views with regards to dance and dance music? Irwin's chapter is handy for citing all the immediate sources needed for "the short answer"—namely Werckmeister, Taubert, Carpzov, and Mattheson. Its true contribution, however, is for padding these sources with a wide range of contemporary theologists' views, including Lutherans, Calvinists, and Pietists. Indeed, the "long answer" embodies a chapter in the history of Lutheran theology but Irwin's chain of arguments is well paced and may also be followed by those whose acquaintance with seventeenth-century theological disputes around dancing is basic. At first look, Robin A. Leaver's study of the 1724 Catholisches Gesang-Buch seems like a piece of reference literature, containing the context to, and in two appendices also the contents of, the hymnal for the use of the Catholic community in Leipzig. However, it also interprets the [End Page 65] contents of the hymnal within the context of the ongoing...