Bach never wrote an oratorio in the sense of a sacred dramatic work to be performed on a stage without action. We have shown that the Passion settings are a portion of the Lutheran Lenten services; and the church cantatas take much the same place as the anthem in the English Cathedral service, with the difference of greater length, orchestral accompaniment, and an opportunity for the congregation to take part in the final chorale.

The so-called Christmas Oratorio, dated 1734, is nothing more than a series of six cantatas, to be sung during the service on six successive days at Christmas time. Each begins with a chorus which is followed by several arias and recitatives, and each ends with a chorale, besides which, chorales are also interspersed in the body of the work. The second cantata opens with a most exquisite symphony, of a pastoral nature something akin to the pastoral symphony in the “Messiah,” but longer, and with the most subtle orchestral effects; especially are the passages for two oboes interchanging with the strings most beautiful; and the chief “motive” of the symphony recurs in the accompaniment of the closing chorale. The character of the choruses is for the most part one of triumphant joyfulness, and the arias have all the tender effects which Bach so well knew how to produce.

The Easter Oratorio is a short cantata without a chorale.

The motets are compositions in several movements for unaccompanied voices, from three to eight in number. The movements are interspersed with chorales harmonised in four parts. The seventh motet, “Ich lasse dich nicht,” though as fine as any, is considered to be almost certainly not by Bach, and is therefore only given as an appendix in vol. 39 of the Bach Gesellschaft edition. The appendix also gives a figured bass and instrumental accompaniment to No. 2. “Der Geist hilft unsrer Schwachheit auf.”

Motets by Bach and other composers are sung in the Thomas Church at Leipsic, and in the Kreuz-Church at Dresden at vespers on Saturday afternoons.

Bach also wrote a few secular vocal works. Among these are several birthday, wedding and funeral cantatas—odes for important personages; some “Dramme per Musica,” two of which, the “Choice of Hercules,” and “TÖnet ihr Pauken” are taken bodily from the Christmas Oratorio, other words being adapted to the music; a cantata for the dedication of a new organ at StÖrmthal, a comic cantata in praise of coffee. Some of the secular cantatas were composed for the Concert Society which met once a week about 1736 in a coffee-house in the Katharinen-strasse at Leipsic, and of which Bach was the director. Among these was “The strife between Phoebus and Pan.”

Besides the B minor Mass Bach wrote four “short” masses of much smaller calibre, four “Sanctus,” and a “Magnificat” in D major of great power and beauty. This work appears in two forms, of which one is much finer than the other, and is therefore considered to be the latest. It was the custom to intersperse the singing of the Latin Magnificat with four chorales, but this custom not coinciding with Bach’s sense of the fitness of things, he added the chorales as an appendix to his score.

The work is for a five part choir, with arias, a duet, and a trio. The trio is a remarkable canon, or rather piece of canonic imitation in the voice parts, to the words “suscepit Israel puerum suum,” to which the strings play an accompaniment, while the oboes play in their highest register the chorale “meine Seel’ erhebt den Herren” (“my soul doth magnify the Lord”). And, as showing Bach’s sense of form, the whole work is welded together by a fresh working of the material of the opening chorus, at the words “sicut erat in principio et nunc.... Amen.” We have remarked on this kind of construction in the second cantata of the Christmas Oratorio,[75] and it is not at all infrequent with Bach.

Except opera and oratorio Bach wrote every kind of work that was known in his day. The Bach Gesellschaft completed the publication of his works in full score in 1898 in some sixty large quarto volumes. Complete editions of the vocal works in pianoforte score and the instrumental in full score have been published by Peters, and by Breitkopf and HÄrtel of Leipsic, while the editions of selected portions published from time to time since the beginning of the nineteenth century are innumerable.

But when we say “complete edition” it must be understood as referring only to the works that have been preserved, for a large number seem to have been lost when the great man died: before his property was valued for probate there was an unseemly scramble for his manuscripts among his elder sons.

Mizler, in his “Necrology,” tells us the bare fact that there were five “year courses” of cantatas, i.e. sets of cantatas for each Sunday and holy day throughout the year. The Lutheran ecclesiastical year contains fifty-nine such days (six Sundays in Lent and three in Advent are excluded). The five courses would therefore require no less than 295 cantatas. Of these W. Friedemann took three “year courses,” since he could use them in his post of organist at Halle, but his wretched circumstances forced him afterwards to part with them one by one.

Forkel only knew of “eight to ten motets for double chorus,” and twenty-one church cantatas, two five-voice masses, a mass for two choirs, of which the first choir is accompanied by strings, the second by wind, a double-chorus Passion with text by Picander (this must be the “Matthew Passion”), a Sanctus, some motets, a single fugue for four voices, and a comic cantata.

The other two “year courses,” which included about ninety cantatas, and the two known Passions, went to C. P. Emmanuel Bach.

The MSS. of the larger number of the existing works of Bach are in the Royal Library and in that of the Joachimsthal at Berlin. Many of these are in autograph. The parts are of more value than the scores, since they are not only more carefully copied, but contain the corrections for performance.

Bach used to wrap up his scores and parts in covers on which the name of the work and title of the composer were fully given, while on the MSS. themselves nothing was given. If the cover were lost, therefore, the composer’s name was lost. Many works by other composers are found in Bach’s handwriting, both score and parts.

The Bach Gesellschaft has been at immense pains to search for all that exists of Bach’s compositions. In vol. vi. they give a long account of the difficulties they had to contend with in publishing the B minor Mass; the owner of the autograph score, placing every difficulty in their way, would neither sell it nor lend it to them, and finally tried to dispose of it secretly to some unknown person. They were obliged, therefore, to publish it from such copies as they could collect; but almost immediately after they had done so they obtained access to the precious MS. and were able to publish an appendix, giving whatever variations from their own edition were found there.

Of Bach’s instrumental compositions the most important are, as we have indicated, those for the organ and other keyed instruments. He has left many orchestral works, but these have not the significance of his organ and clavier music, for the symphony, in the modern sense, was not yet developed.

His playing is thus described by the poet Schubart:—“J. S. Bach was a genius of the highest order, his soul is so peculiar, so gigantic, that centuries will have to pass before he is reached by anyone. He played the clavier, the flÜgel, the cymbal with equal creative power, and the organ—who is like him? who will ever equal him? His fist was gigantic; he could, for example, stretch a 12th with the left hand, and perform running passages between with the three inner fingers; he made pedal runs with the greatest possible exactness, he drew the stops so silently that the hearer almost sank under the magic effect; his hand was never weary, and lasted out through a whole day’s organ playing.

“The comic style was just as familiar to him as the earnest; he was equally a virtuoso and composer. What Newton was as a philosopher Bach was as a musician. He had such a wealth of ideas, that no one except his own great son can come near him; and with all this he combined also the rarest talent for teaching.”

With respect to the Manieren or grace-notes attacked in the “Kritische Musikus” by Scheibe, a friend of Bach’s answered the attack by saying that by means of these signs no performer would now be able to destroy the effect of a piece by applying his own method; those who went wrong would be put in the right way, and the honour of the master would be retained.

The four chief ornaments are—

The Trill (tr.) seems to have been put down rather recklessly, perhaps on account of fashion. Thus, the oboe sometimes has trills given it which are quite impossible to perform.