The end of times

Cantata 90, for the 25th Sunday after Trinity, was premiered on November 14th, 1723, a few months after Bach’s arrival in Leipzig to occupy the post of Thomaskantor. The autograph score doesn’t indicate the intended instrumentation, so scholars and performers have had to make some assumptions. Strings, continuo and voices are obvious, but it’s not […]

Keyboard Partita No. 2

The second installment of the Clavier-Übung Part I collection, Partita No. 2 in C minor, is a bit shorter than its siblings, with 6 movements instead of 7. Its opening movement is labeled Sinfonia, and it’s structured in three sections – first a French overture, labeled “Grave adagio”, with full chords and dotted rhythms, which […]

In peace with the tritone

The cantata “O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort”, BWV 60, one of two that Bach composed with the same title, continues to show the experimental Bach in his first year in Leipzig, utilizing for the first time a design called a “dialog cantata”, which he would employ several times afterwards. A dialog cantata is structured around two […]