Bach, the Profane and Classical Mythology

(Originally written for my Substack - welcome to follow me there: https://substack.com/@markoloco95)

It is not often I stumble upon music by Johann Sebastian Bach that I had not heard before - especially among his cantatas that I have grown to obsess over. Then came Zerreißet, zersprenget, zertrümmert die Gruft (BWV, 205), a lavishly scored ‘secular’ cantata with the the full might of the baroque orchestra, including three trumpets, timpani, two horns that in the opening chorus come together in such a way that resembles the festive character of his better known celebratory oratorios (his Easter and Christmas Oratorios & the Magnificat in D).

My interest soon extended beyond its aesthetic appeal, however. Quite often I read the accompanying commentary to these cantatas to better understand what Bach was depicting exactly, made all the more necessary as a non-German speaker experiencing this music outside of its historical context and ~300 years later (Bach wrote BWV 205 during August 1725). Little did I know that this reading about BWV 205 would lead me down a significant rabbit hole that I now have the pleasure of sharing.

The ‘profane’ cantatas

Bach himself made no explicit effort to create a systematic taxonomy of his cantatas between the sacred and the secular; this was more a posthumous scholarly construction (his son, CPE Bach, was among the first to do so). Interestingly, the term ‘profane’, I learned, has traditionally been applied to his secular cantatas. A contemporaneous reading of that word may imply something that is anti-religious, blasphemous or morally corrupt - this was indeed my initial impression!

Rather, ‘Profane’ comes from the Latin ‘pro fanum’, which originally designated what is ‘outside the temple’ - or outside liturgical or sacred use (Charlton, 1897). Its usage to classify his secular cantatas seems to have emerged only from 1885 - in French criticism - by one René de Récy, who states in his ‘Jean-Sébastien Bach et ses Derniers Biographes’

“une autre composition du maître, celle-là toute profane” (p 415) (another composition by the master, this one entirely profane.)

The French Dictionary defines profane as “l'art profane et l'art sacré” (“secular art and sacred art”), and we have no reason to doubt that its usage in French musicological expression principally meant ‘non-liturgical’. Nonetheless, the semantics of the word remains problematic considering its recognized extended meaning, which the first edition of Dictionnaire de l’Académie française (1694):

C'est une action profane & impie" (It is a profane and impious action)

While it may seem that I am venturing into unnecessary abstraction, this is important context. The libretto by Picander for BWV 205 is inspired by Greek mythology. How could Bach - whose art has come to embody the pinnacle of divine Christian expression - also write music inspired by paganism particularly with the same quality of musical-rhetorical devices that underpin the former?

History and Text of BWV 205

The cantata was commissioned by the students of Leipzig University in tribute to August Friedrich Müller, a lecturer in philosophy and law at the university. It was apparently performed outdoors near Müller’s house in the Katharinenstraße - many magnificent townhouses were built in the baroque style during the early 18th century on Katharinenstraße and regarded as the most magnificent street in Leipzig.

Café Zimmermann on the Katharinenstraße where many of Bach’s secular cantatas were first performed

Picander’s libretto depicts a mythological clash centred on Aeolus, the Greek ruler of the winds, and his seasonal release of autumnal storms. He takes the storm episode from Book 1 of Virgil’s Aeneid, in which Juno, wishing to prevent Aeneas from reaching Itality, travels to Aeolia and asks Aeolus to release the winds against the Trojan fleet. In the book, Virgil describes Aeolus as a sovereign ruler who keeps the winds imprisoned inside a vast cavern in Thrace, struggling against their chains and reverberating the mountain. He retains their passions and rage and without his governance, the world would be swept away (Packowski, 2007).

The libretto of the opening ‘Chorus of Winds’, with English translation by

Zerreißet, zersprenget, zertrümmert die Gruft,
Tear up, burst apart, smash to pieces the cave
Die unserm Wüten Grenze gibt!
that sets limits to our rage!
Durchbrechet die Luft,
Break through the air
Dass selber die Sonne zur Finsternis werde,
so that the sun itself may turn to darkness
Durchschneidet die Fluten, durchwühlet die Erde,
cut through the tides, rage through the earth,
Dass sich der Himmel selbst betrübt!
so that even heaven is distressed.

Aeolus, a Greek god of the wind

On the use of classical mythology

I mentioned my initial surprise at Bach - who is revered today as creating music of divine provenance, with some even going as far to claim he was inspired by God himself - also set music inspired by classical mythology; especially considering classical myths for a long time were considered 'pagan'. Early Christian writers indeed exercised hostility to their worship proclaiming pagan religion as a falsehood.

But the reality is more nuanced. While the worship of the 'pagan' gods in Europe following Christianization was sacrilegious, with violence even being invoked to suppress such practices (the 'Northern Crusades' as an example), a remarkable amount of pagan culture would be preserved in art qualified through the secularization of classical culture. This was partly due to the enormous intellectual influence the classical world (e.g. writers such as Homer, Virgil, Cicero & Ovid) had exercised on Europe following Christianization. The clerics shaming the pagan cults were often inspired by the very writers whose works were imbued with the pagan spirit. Secularization of the Greco-Roman religions, one could say, became a natural resolution to that conflict: their gods no longer represented credible figures for religious worship but literary figures, allegories and rhetorical symbols.

This is very important to consider when we interpret in what mind a German lutheran canton in the early 18th century would set music inspired by classical myths to music. By Bach's time, Christianity had already long appropriated ancient culture as acceptable and educated symbolic vocabulary for deployment by artists.

How Bach Depicts the Winds

One prominent rhetorical device Bach evidently employs centres his depiction of the ‘winds’. In the opening chorus, he makes extensive use of contrary motion - instrumental lines moving in opposing directions. From bar 5, for example:

From Bar 5 (violins & viola): 2nd violin and viola descending in thirds against the rising first violin part

From bar 16: (flutes and oboes): contrary motion again emphasized, with wind parts moving in opposing directions.

From bar 20: more elaborate example imitative counterpoint in the minor, dominated by contrary-motion scalar figuration: the bass, strings, oboes and flutes each play their own contribution to the counterpoint in unison. The effect is a flurry of independent and contrasting motifs, much like the motion of a violent storm.

Some 'word painting' highlights

The passage contains remarkable word painting, in which the ‘Zerreißet’ (English: tear up) is presented as though torn to pieces through fragmented imitation with staggered entries. Its three syllables are separated into short attacks, interrupted by rests (depicting the winds as scattered and violent) before consolidating into a cadential block. It is also interesting to see the cadence on ‘Gruft’ (denoting the prison or cavern) is set in longer, more stable notes.

From Bar 29: ‘Zerreißet’ (tear up) before consolidating into a cadential block

Starting with “Durchbrechet die Luft” (“break through the air”), the B section immediately provides a contrast to the earlier fragmented assaults of “Zerreißet”. Here, Bach gives way to a homorhythmic pattern as though perhaps the dispersed winds have now combined into a single current, before descending to a cadence in F minor as the sun turns to darkness.

From bar 85: Durchbrechet die Luft, Dass selber die Sonne zur Finsternis werde, (Break through the air so that the sun itself may turn to darkness

My final highlight

From Bar 102: “Durchschneidet die Fluten, durchwühlet die Erde, Dass sich der Himmel selbst betrübt!” (cut through the tides, rage through the earth, so that even heaven is distressed.)

Look at how how Bach treats "Himmel selbst betrübt" ("Heaven is distressed") , here. Bach prepares a cadence in b minor, but on "-trübt" he abruptly shifts to the dominant (f sharp minor). Notably his vocal writing suddenly shifts to a perpetual type of motion, while the continuo retains the rapid scalar motion that maintains the image of turbulent wind. The passage finally closes with an end to the B section in the key of F sharp minor. Together, this f# minor passage is evocative of a mighty storm that gives way to cadential consolidation. And contrasted with the restorative de capo (return to A section) that follows, Bach juxtaposes - almost theatrically - the cosmic consequence of the destructive power of the wind where even the heavens are plunged into distress, with their original demand to "tear, burst and smash" the cavern containing the winds.

Closing remarks

From hearing this work for the first time last month, this has evidently become quite a rabbit hole. Notwithstanding Bach's sheer genius in his use of musical rhetoric to depict these classical myths, what's perhaps more interesting his that this rhetoric closely resembles that which he applied in his sacred cantatas. It demonstrates his ability - and indeed willingness and adaptability - to transfer musical-rhetorical techniques between both sacred and secular contexts. Being less familiar with his secular cantatas, for me this has added a new dimension to Bach and which deserves much more exploration. Indeed, it appears that his secular cantatas have received relatively less analytical attention from Bach scholarship, which I suspect has historically been drawn more strongly to the theological and devotional significance of his sacred works.

Sources

Académie française. (1694). Le dictionnaire de l’académie françoise. Paris, Vve de J.B. Coignard. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_VEw4AQAAMAAJ

Charlton, L. (1879). A latin dictionary Lewis and short. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.147309/page/n1459/mode/2up
For "Profanes", see Page 1459

Paczkowski, S. (2007). A Polonaise Duet for a Professor, a King and a Merchant: on Cantatas BWV 205, 205a, 216 and 216a by Johann Sebastian Bach. https://www.bachnetwork.org/ub2/paczkowski.pdf

Récy, R. de. (1885). JEAN-SEBASTIEN BACH ET SES DERNIERS BIOGRAPHES. Wikisource. https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Jean-Sébastien_Bach_et_ses_derniers_biographes

Edited 1 minute ago1 min by Markus Boyd