Pietism

During Johann Sebastian Bach’s extraordinarily hectic and industrious first Leipzig compositional period a new musical orientation manifested itself in the second half of 1726. Since the end of May 1723, practically without a break, he had composed a new cantata every week, rehearsed it with his musicians, and then realized its performance. His usual preference in these works had been for large ensembles enabling him to present magnificent choral numbers to Leipzig churchgoers. But now these opulent ensembles yielded to a combination of solo voice parts and relatively small instrumental ensembles. Instead of grand choral numbers and monumental cantus firmus settings, finely elaborated arias were now what dominated. The texts that now were pre- ferred also must have created a stir: in these works a pronouncedly subjective first-person “Ich“ came into the foreground of what were increasingly ex- pressive poetic texts.