[AMS-announce] ANNOUNCEMENT: Bach's Chorale Cantatas, summer course at Yale ISM

[Announcements for the AMS]

Summer Course: Bach's Chorale Cantatas

 The Yale Institute of Sacred Music (ISM) offers in the context of its
summer program a seminar on Johann Sebastian Bach's cycle of chorale
cantatas (June 9-13, 2008). The course will be taught by Yale faculty
member Markus Rathey, PhD.
 As in recent years, the courses at the ISM are filling up quickly but
a few places are still available. The fee for the one week course is
$400. For more information check the web site:
<http://www.yale.edu/sdqsummerterm/ism020.htm>http://www.yale.edu/sdqsummerterm/ism020.htm


 The course:
 Johann Sebastian Bach's Chorale Cantatas
 June 9 – 13, 9:00 - 11:30 am

 During the second year of his tenure at St. Thomas's in Leipzig
(1724–1725) Johann Sebastian Bach tackled his largest project: a cycle
of cantatas for the entire year, which was based on popular hymns of
the Protestant church. Even though he broke off the project for
unknown reasons in January 1725, the remaining 40 cantatas are still
the largest scaled cycle Bach composed, dwarfing by far the oratorios,
passions, and his organ music.
 The chorale cantatas are interesting for two reasons: the texts
combine paraphrases of congregational hymns with interpretations of
the biblical readings for the Sunday. Like a sermon, the cantatas aim
to translate the biblical message into the present. Secondly, Bach
experiments with different techniques of chorale settings, making the
cycle of chorale cantatas almost an encyclopedia of his techniques as
a composer of hymn settings. The course will focus on these two
aspects, exploring the way the theological and musical layers
intersect and how they support each other.

 The teacher:
 Markus Rathey, PhD, is associate professor of music history at the
Yale Institute of Sacred Music, the Yale School of Music, and the Yale
Divinity School. As a scholar, dedicated to the work and life of
Johann Sebastian Bach, he is a frequent contributor to the
Bach-Jahrbuch, Bach Journal of the Riemenschneider Bach Society, and
other journals. He is vice president of the Forum on Music and
Christian Scholarship and serves on the editorial board of the Bach
Journal. He recently contributed the chapter on Bach's Chorale
cantatas for the Bach Handbuch, published by Laaber.  
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