J.S. Bach: The Vocal Texts in English Translation with Commentary
Since Catherine Winkworth first published her Lyra Germanica in 1855, (reprinted last in 2016), the German chorale tradition has found a home in standard English hymnbooks from which we have become familiar with her gracefully rhymed translations. Even the distinguished Bach translators Charles Sanford Terry, J.S. Bach, Cantata Texts (London, 1926; reprinted 1964) and Henry Sandwith Drinker, Texts of the Vocal Works of J.S. Bach (New York, 1942-1943) sometimes used her versions of the chorales.
The present translations of the vocal texts of Johann Sebastian Bach first appeared as liner notes for Helmut Rilling’s recordings of the sacred cantatas in 1983. In 1984 Hänssler-Verlag included in book format the translations along with detailed performance particulars of Rilling’s work. In 2005, I went beyond the sacred cantatas to publish translations of virtually all of Bach’s extant vocal texts. A second edition appeared in 2006 with the addition of some new material. These translations now include most of Bach’s existing vocal texts, the sacred and secular cantatas, motets, oratorios, passions, magnificats, texts of works for which the music has been lost, and other works from various sources. I have included some works attributed mistakenly to Bach.
The translations are primarily based upon Werner Neumann, Sämtliche von Johann Sebastian Bach vertonte Texte (Leipzig, 1974). The works are numbered and ordered according to Wolfgang Schmieder’s catalogue, Bach Werke-Verzeichnis (BWV) (1950, 1990, and 1998) or, for the texts whose music is lost, with Neumann’s Roman numerals and BWV Anhang (Anh.) numbers. When the German texts are not easily available online, I have transcribed these texts from Neumann’s facsimiles and maintained their original orthography in order to show how they differ from modernized German spelling.