Book dossier

J.S. Bach and the German motet

by Daniel R. Melamed

J. S. Bach's much-performed motets are probably the most sophisticated pieces ever composed in the genre. Daniel Melamed takes a fresh look at Bach's works in the context of the German motet tradition, showing that they are firmly rooted in the conventions of his time. This allows new insights into Bach's contribution to the genre and into the vexing question of instrumental participation in the motets. Professor Melamed argues for Bach's authorship of an early motet wrongly dismissed as inauthentic, and demonstrates that other motets were products of Bach's familiar technique of musical reworking. The chronology of the motets can be substantially revised, and Bach's activities as a motet composer shown to extend over his entire career. An understanding of the eighteenth-century conception of "motet" sheds light on how and why Bach used motet style in his cantatas, Latin works, and oratorios. Finally Bach's study and performance of seventeenth-century motets late in his life, documented in newly discovered and reconstructed sources, played an important role in his exploration of his family's history and of the musical past.