Description
Paper presentation:Out of the Canon: The revival of J.S. Bach’s predecessor Johann Kuhnau in the 21st Century
Abstract:
Over the past 150 years, many studies of Johann Kuhnau viewed him merely as a context or a foil to the activities and compositions of Johann Sebastian Bach, his successor as Leipzig Thomaskantor. As an example, Philipp Spitta discussed Kuhnau for an insignificant portion in his three-volume work on Bach, where he described him as a ‘hesitating’ and ‘conservative’ cantor; similarly, Eric Chafe discussed Kuhnau’s thoughts on hermeneutics and rhetoric only as an introduction to his book Tonal Allegory in the Vocal Music of J.S. Bach, in order to support his hermeneutic analyses of Bach’s sacred works. Although more comprehensive analyses of Kuhnau’s church music were made in the PhD dissertations by Evangeline Rimbach (1966) and Lora Matthews (1989), this doctoral research has had a limited impact on wider scholarship. Thus, a reappraisal of Kuhnau is necessary in order to enhance our understanding of him in relation to ideas of musical canon.
Musicians and scholars in the 21st Century reignited their interest towards Kuhnau, such as David Erler who directed a project between 2013 and 2021 to record all of Kuhnau’s sacred works, and is now releasing scholarly editions of Kuhnau’s cantatas. Michael Maul also discussed in detail the environment of the Thomasschule and the Leipzig churches during Kuhnau’s tenure as the Thomaskantor in his book Bach’s Famous Choir. Integrating the discoveries of Erler and Maul, as well as the findings in my ongoing PhD research on Kuhnau’s cantatas, this paper provides insights into recent research on Kuhnau through different aspects such as: musical features of his cantatas; text booklets for his lost cantatas; his social, cultural, and intellectual networks etc. This more informed evaluation of Kuhnau’s music can contribute to efforts to deconstruct the musical canon, revising views of Bach as an exceptional figure and instead showing how he and Kuhnau alike worked with Leipzig musical traditions from previous decades.
Period | 25 Apr 2025 → 26 Apr 2025 |
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Held at | University of Massachusetts, Amherst, United States |