Johann Sebastian Bach’s Oratorios: The Life of Christ from a Composer’s Perspective
Johann Sebastian Bach’s Passions and Oratorios, considered cornerstones of the Western classical music canon, form the culmination of his art as a composer of sacred music. For a listener today, it is almost inconceivable that these large works were originally composed for the Lutheran liturgy, framed by readings, hymns, and a sermon. But when we explore the pieces in their original context, we can see a close relationship between liturgical practices, the church year, and Bach’s music. Following the order of the church year, many of Bach’s larger works trace the life of Christ: his birth in the Christmas Oratorio, his suffering and death in the St. John and St. Matthew Passions, the resurrection in the Easter Oratorio, and the ascension in the small yet magnificent Ascension Oratorio. The course will introduce the participants to Bach’s major vocal works and explore the theological and liturgical contexts of these compositions. A background in music is not necessary—just the love of great music and an open ear for the fascinating ways in which Bach tells the story of Christ.
The texts and scores will be available online at the beginning of the class. Recommended reading: Markus Rathey, Bach’s Major Vocal Works: Music, Drama, Liturgy (Yale University Press, 2016).
Professor Rathey is a specialist in the works of Johann Sebastian Bach, 17th and 18th century music, and the relationship between music, religion, and politics during the Enlightenment. Rathey studied musicology, Protestant theology, and German in Bethel and Münster. He taught at the University of Mainz and the University of Leipzig and was a research fellow at the Bach-Archiv, Leipzig, before joining the Yale faculty in 2003.
Rathey’s most recent book, Bach in the World: Music, Society, and Representation in Bach’s Cantatas (Oxford University Press 2023) explores the intersection of Bach’s cantatas with contemporary discourses within literature, visual art, and political theory. In his previous books, Rathey has shown new paths for the study of Johann Sebastian Bach’s sacred vocal works. His study Johann Sebastian Bach’s Christmas Oratorio: Music, Theology, Culture (Oxford University Press, 2016) is the first book on this composition in English and it not only sheds new light on Bach’s compositional practice but it also locates the oratorio within the religious and social landscape of eighteenth-century Germany. Rathey’s third recent book is an introduction to Bach’s Major Vocal Works (Yale University Press, 2016). Within the short time since its publication, the book has become a standard work on Bach’s sacred vocal music, praised for its depth but also its accessibility. As one reviewer highlights, it is a prime example for “bringing musicology to the public.” The book also appeared in a Japanese translation in 2017.
A multi-year research collaboration on music and religion in the long nineteenth century culminated in two books. The book Theology, Music and Modernity: Struggles for Freedom (Oxford University Press, 2021, co-edited with J. Begbie and D. Chua) focuses on the philosophical and theological discourses in the decades around 1800 and their impact on musical composition and performance. The second book, Sacred and Secular Intersections in Music of the Long Nineteenth Century: Church, Stage, and Concert Hall (Lexington Press, 2022, co-edited with Eftychia Papanikolaou) extends the focus to works from the later nineteenth century and also highlights musical traditions from France, Russia, Poland, and the US.
Earlier books by Rathey include a study of the Baroque composer Johann Rudolph Ahle, titled Johann Rudolph Ahle (1625-1673). Lebensweg und Schaffen (Eisenach, 1999), focusing on the relationship between compositional practice and the music market in the seventeenth century, and a study of C.P.E. Bach’s compositions for the Militia in Hamburg, Kommunikation und Diskurs: Die Bürgerkapitänsmusiken Carl Philipp Emanuel Bachs (Hildesheim, 2009), which explores the pedagogical function of music within the Patriotism discourse in the second half of the eighteenth century. In 2008 he published an edition of the music-theoretical writings by Johann Georg Ahle (Hildesheim, 2008).
Professor Rathey has published numerous articles on music by Bach, Mozart, Schütz, Buxtehude and their contemporaries in scholarly journals such as Eighteenth-Century Music, Early Music, Early Music History, Journal of Musicological Research, Bach-Jahrbuch, and Schütz-Jahrbuch. He frequently serves as a commentator on J.S. Bach and on the relationship of music and religion for a number of major media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, The Economist, Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR 3), BBC Radio, and Swedish Radio.
Rathey is past president of the American Bach Society and past president of the Forum on Music and Christian Scholarship. He currently serves on the editorial boards of the Yale Journal for Music and Religion.
