This Bach site offers English translations to the vocal works of
J. S. Bach along with introductory information on the sources and
on performance history of each work. Commentary
on the text is found in footnotes which are quickly opened by
clicking on the footnote number.
Announcements:
Please note: These translations may be used gratis in programs and program notes for concert performances with the following acknowledgment:
© Z. Philip Ambrose, translator, Web publication: http://www.uvm.edu/~classics/faculty/bach
For all other uses permission must be granted by contacting
Z. Philip Ambrose at Philip.Ambrose@uvm.edu
or by writing to
Z. Philip Ambrose
Department of Classics
The University of Vermont
481 Main Street
Burlington, VT 05405.
Preface to the Revisions of 2020
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 use 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. This revision now includes 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 no longer attributed 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, 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.
The following information is found in the introductory material to each work:
Sacred Occasion
Author, if known
Printed source, if any
Facsimile, if any
Biblical Text (Dictum)
Parody: ← left arrow from other Bach works; → right arrow to other Bach works.
Chorale Text with verses used and modern printed sources.
Date and place of first performance.
Bach Gesellschaft (BG) and Neue Bach Ausgabe (NBA) editions
Subtitles such as Dramma (sic) in Musica, Dialogus, or Serenata.
Dramatis Personae such as Soul, Jesus, mythical characters with Bach's vocal assignments to each.
Footnotes to each work report scriptural passages cited, historical allusions to persons and events, various poetical and rhetorical features, and parallel passages both from within Bach's corpus and from such classical authors as Vergil, Horace, and Ovid. For historical and critical information on each work I have consulted both Neumann's edition of the texts and his Handbuch der Kantaten Johann Sebastian Bachs (Leipzig, 1971); also Alfred Dürr's invaluable Die Kantaten von Johann Sebastian Bach (Kassel, 1971); and the Critical Commentaries (Kritischer Bericht) of the NBA.
The Table of Occasions lists the Epistle and Gospel lections for each sacred occasion.
At the end of the volume there is an alphabetical list of work titles.
The librettos of many cantatas are of unknown authorship. Others are by published poets like Salomo Franck of Weimar, Christian Friedrich Heinrici (Picander), Prof. Johann Christoph Gottsched and his student Christiane Mariane von Ziegler (née) Romanus, all three of Leipzig, to name just a few. The printed texts (PT) of the cantatas of such poets were available to audiences. The concepts of the cantatas were appropriate to the church year, and usually expressed in the librettos as direct passages from scripture and traditional hymns
Translation comes in various styles and purposes. Bach's compositions themselves are translations of the printed texts into music, indeed, translations from one language into another, for the language of Baroque music had its own grammar and syntax in the so-called Doctrine of the Affections (Affektenlehre). My purpose was to make as clear as possible Bach's treatment of critically important words while maintaining the metrical pattern and word and line divisions in the texts of his librettists. My translations can therefore be sung, but my purpose was not that of Catherine Winkworth, who wanted to enrich English hymnody with the German tradition. Because today the vocal works of Bach are rarely performed in English, my intent is to lead performers and hearers back to the original language of the texts and to Bach's translation of those texts into music.
There are, admittedly, two unfortunate results of this style of translation: 1) normal English idiom, if not obscuring meaning, must sometimes be stretched; 2) rhyming becomes difficult. I do, here and there, find opportunities to introduce some rhyming and have rhymed, at least partially, several of the secular cantatas, including the Coffee Cantata (BWV 211) and Hercules at the Crossroads (BWV 213).
Some four decades ago, Prof. Christoph Wolff encouraged me to undertake the translation of Bach's works. He made the challenge seem more intriguing by suggesting that German speakers who read my English, namely singers, instrumentalists, and audience would pause to ponder concepts they had hitherto passed over without much thought simply because of familiarity. I hoped, in turn, that English performers and audience would gain a better understanding of the German original.
This present third revision will have benefited from the suggestions, corrections, and added material, kindly offered over the years by many friends of Bach. Questions and comments are still welcome via e-mail at philip.ambrose@uvm.edu.
Finally, I must express my gratitude to Rubin Goldberg for his patient, diligent, and competent revisions to this website.
Z. Philip Ambrose 26, June, 2020
Lyman-Roberts Professor Emeritus 63 Robinson Parkway
of Classical Languages and Literature Burlington, VT 05401
The University of Vermont
The second example, from somewhat later antiquity, suggests to me the efficiency of translation as philology, by which I mean literary interpretation in the broadest sense. Lucius Apuleius, born c. 123 A.D. in North Africa in a Greek-speaking family, explains in his introduction to the Metamorphoses that he first studied in Athens and then went to Rome to learn Latin. He continues: "Behold I first crave and beg pardon lest I should happen to displease or offend any of you by the rude and rustic utterance of this strange and foreign language. Indeed this very change of language corresponds to the inconstant (i.e. changing) subject matter we undertake with our pen: we begin here a Grecian tale; reader attend; you will be delighted." In 1566 Apuleius' translator William Adlington writes: "But as Lucius Apuleius was changed into his human shape by a rose, the companions of Ulysses by great intercession, and Nebuchadnezzar by the continual prayers of Daniel, whereby they knew themselves and lived after a good and virtuous life: so can we never be restored to the right figure of ourselves, except we taste and eat the sweet rose of reason and virtue."(1) The transformation of Lucius from human to ass was for the purpose of enlightening the human. Apuleius implies that this movement through change to self-enlightenment is akin to his treatment of a Greek tale: its movement from Greek through the "rude and rustic utterance" of Latin for the purpose of illuminating the Greek mind of the author. To parody Adlington, a foreign language is the "sweet rose of reason" which returns Apuleius to his original form. Thus, with this translation of the vocal texts of Bach, the purpose is not to supplant, certainly not to upstage or obscure, but to enhance the original. And therewith let it be hoped that these translations of Bach's works may offer some service not only to the American or English or Japanese but even to the German listener, interpreter, or performer.
Several general problems posed by Bach's texts deserve special attention. First, their stylistic and formal variety: not only do they spring from over a dozen known and probably as many unknown poets, they also have the internal variety of their Biblical texts, chorales, recitatives, and arias. Second, many of the texts themselves, such as the hymns of Luther and Biblical passages, are translations from works which are known to English-speakers in other versions. A related difficulty is posed by the fact that at every moment Bach is himself translating these texts. Bach's music helps the translator understand the text, but in attempting to translate both the text and Bach's own musical translation of it I have been persuaded to depart sometimes from the most idiomatic English in order to maintain Bach's treatment of key words, the original meter, accent, and word- and phrase-breaks. I have thought the observance of these features more essential than the preservation of the rhyme-scheme, except in some of the secular cantatas. In the Evangelist's narrative in the Passions and the Christmas Oratorio exact syllabic equivalence with the original is impossible without doing violence to the familiar English form of the Biblical text. In the Latin texts of the Masses, without attempting syllabic equivalence with the original, I follow the style of the American Book of Common Prayer (1928), but translate directly from Bach's text since it differs occasionally from the Missale Romanum.
While the translation itself is intended to constitute a commentary on the original, I explain in footnotes many proper and place names, historical allusions to persons and events. Mere enthusiasm for the texts has inspired me frequently to note subtle intentions of the poets, rhetorical figures, or parallel passages both from within Bach's corpus and from without, especially from such classical authors as Vergil, Horace, and Ovid.
The inspiration for this whole undertaking came from Professor Christoph Wolff. Since first suggesting the project in the late summer of 1979, he has helped me generously in both broad design and many details. I hope that others will yet find solutions to those passages in which I have not been up to the philological ideal he represents. Finally, I must confess that I would not have accepted Professor Wolff's challenge to wander awhile from the mainstream of classical studies without the encouragement of my companion in music, Professor Jane Ambrose. To her I dedicate this book. To my daughter Julia Ambrose Viazmenski and my son-in-law Alexei, who have with great diligence entered this project into this site, I am deeply grateful. I can only understand such an effort as a labor of love.
The University of Vermont
Whitsuntide 1984
Burlington, Vermont
1. Reprinted in Apuleius, The Golden Ass, being the Metamorphoses of Lucius Apuleius, revised by S. Gaselee (Cambridge, U. S. A., and London: The Loeb Classical Library, 1915), p. xvii