Alfred DürrThe Cantatas of J. S. Bach: With Their Librettos in German-English Parallel Text

Superb compilation of research and analysis of the cantatas of J.S. Bach. As a professional who conducts a lot of Bach's music I really appreciate having this resource with all of the cantatas in one place. It is nicely laid out so it is easy to find the work you want and the commentary is quite good.The ONLY reason I am not giving it five stars is the binding. A book that is priced over $100 with close to 1000 pages should have a sewn binding! The glued binding makes if difficult to open the book so that it lays flat and if you force it you will run the risk of having the pages come away from the spine! Come on Oxford - you are making enough money on this book, do it right!

Alfred Dürr's _The Cantatas of J. S. Bach_ is the top choice in research materials for work in Bach's cantata masterpieces. This text was the first choice of all my professors when I asked about resources for my doctoral research project. I have now used it to work on several significant papers as well as to prepare program notes for concerts that I have conducted of Bach's cantatas. The information contained is scholarly sound and also is beautifully expressive of the human response to these vocal works. Each cantata entry contains information on text translation, instrumentation, movement keys, source origin and general analysis of the most significant musical and textual features of the works. Introductory essays articulately describe the context of these compositions' creations. This text is a must-have for scholars, students, conductors, singers, teachers and all those love Bach's works.

Now in English and paperback! This stupendous work of German fastidious scholarly research is a must have for every Bach's cantatas aficionado. A huge opus, impeccably organized, following the Lutheran Church Year to help better navigate the confusing BWV classification. It is a remarkable tool for looking up any cantata very easily. The brief analysis of each work from an historical and musical perspective show how the great Bach scholar Alfred Durr had a full grasp of that immense and complex subject. If you want to discover the world of Bach's Cantatas, or simply organize them better in your mind, this book should be in your library.

This is the Bach bible. The softcover version is a little cheap, so pages are already coming out. But that's OK as I plan to self-bind it with my binding machine. This will be a resource for my entire career. So glad it was translated. If only it were a little cheaper.

A spectacular book for those interested in a deeper knowledge of the Bach cantatas. Over the last few months, I listened to the complete sacred cantatas, but without translations of the libretti, I was only partially informed. Now, I'll be able to listen again and have yet another window opened on the incredible genius of J.S. Bach. This book goes far beyond just providing English translations, and will be a valued companion in my Bach study.

...such as myself. Yes, yes, I know, it's bloomin' expensive for a paperback, but what a paperback! An essential companion to one of the greatest bodies of music ever written. Professor Dürr describes the cantatas in church year order, so first up is Advent cantata BWV61 "Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland" for the first Sunday in Advent. In addition to the church cantatas, you also get the secular cantatas and the Christmas Oratorio, not to mention detailed historical and musical descriptions. In short, a treasure trove of a book.

Reference book to understand the sacred works of Bach. Its high point is the translation of the cantata's lyrics. The English versions of that texts are not literal and its expressive content remains very clear. All this greatly enhances the pleasure of listening to the music of the great Saxon genius.

The book gave the first date the cantata was performed, the period of the church year and information about the cantata itself, all in a clear, well ordered format. I thought the translations were excellent; there was only two instances, where I thought the CD I had,conatained a better translation of the cantata title.

This is an extremely thorough reference book covering all the cantatas (sacred or otherwise) of JS Bach. The book contains a very interesting introduction covering mostly historical issues (including the difficult questions of the arrangement of the church cantatas into 5 supposed cycles, and how much of each cycle survives), and issues of performance practice. Its format, with respect to the church cantatas, is then to follow the liturgical year, and then for each Sunday/feast day deal with each cantata in chronolgical order before moving onto the next Sunday. The secular cantatas are treated in analogous fashion.This is the general organisational scheme. For each cantata Professor Durr then provides the full German text, with an English translation (with hymn quotations very usefully highlighted), details of key, time signature, and some details of orchestration. A discussion section then follows, giving the performance history of the work, and also detailed information about biblical references and allusions. There is then a fairly detailed description of the music, movement by movement, including a limited discussion of the thorny topic of musical symbolism. For a very small minority of cantatas, a rather more detailed description is included.Clearly an enormous amount of factual information is contained in this book, which probably distills a vast amount of research. It can be seen from the description above that Durr is immensely thorough in his approach, and, even with the slightly limited discussion of the music, the book still weighs in at well over 900 pages! The book seems to me particularly strong on chronology (Durr is a ground-breaking researcher in this area), musical structure, and also biblical references and allusions. I think a Bach-lover who is a committed Christian (a category into which I do not fall) might well, inter alia, find this book a very useful aid to devotion.The main reservations I have are as follows:1. Professor Durr does not seem to me to be very successful in conveying the character of the music (although he tries to do so), or in justifying his value judgments of the music's qualiity (or otherwise)- and there are a fair number of value judgments in the book. For me this is a very important aspect. I suppose this can to some extent be explained by the fact that he is a musicologist, as opposed to a professional musician.2. Speaking strictly from the standpoint of a music-lover who is attempting to collect the complete cantatas on CD, I find that the liner notes of the series I am collecting (Suzuki and Gardiner) already cover most of the areas covered by Durr (although usually less thoroughly on the three particular areas I highlight above). So there is a substantial amount of overlap. I would add that John Eliot Gardiner is particularly sucessful on the area where Professor Durr is weakest (see paragraph 1 above), and the Suzuki writer is at least as good as Durr on decribing the music. So I would question whether this book really is "essential", at least from the above standpoint. I also don't think this book would be of interest to a CD collector who is only collecting a few of the cantatas.

This is just such a fantastic book. It will reveal to me something of the meaning and purpose behind the cantatas. They will no longer be just pure music great as it is.As a Christian I will learn more about The Lord and Jesus.I am so lucky to have been given the chance to acquire this book. I have tried other books about the cantatas but none of them provide everything I need i.e. parallel translation, synopsis, bakground, etcetera.In a nutshell if one wants to fully appreciate and gain insight into JS Bach's cantatas then this is the most valuable way of doing so.

...such as myself. Yes, yes, I know, it's bloomin' expensive for a paperback, but what a paperback! An essential companion to one of the greatest bodies of music ever written. Professor Dürr describes the cantatas in church year order, so first up is Advent cantata BWV61 "Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland" for the first Sunday in Advent. In addition to the church cantatas, you also get the secular cantatas and the Christmas Oratorio, not to mention detailed historical and musical descriptions. In short, a treasure trove of a book