When Johann Sebastian Bach composed Christ lag in Todesbanden (Christ lay in the bonds of death), he not only created it as a set of variations based on the original Christ lag in Todesbanden by Martin Luther, but also made use of older styles by imitating “the chorale- based compositions of 17th century composers like Dietrich Buxtehude.” Although Bach was born during the 17th century (in 1685), the genre of chorales could be considered an old style during the time that he wrote Christ lag in Todesbanden because he wrote it during the very early parts of the 18th century from 1707-1708. Another reason behind why that could count as an old genre is because just a couple of years later, starting from 1710, the genre was reformed by additions of …show more content…
As I was looking through the score and listening to Christ lag in Todesbanden, I have discovered that it is indeed true that there are no recitatives anywhere. There were absolutely no areas of spoken text being sung, and in fact, I thought that this piece was closer to resembling the many large polyphonic religious works for voices and instruments rather than the favola in musica or opera. I also do not remember hearing any solo parts for just one singer with or without instruments, there were no cadenzas at all, and the words were recycled from Luther’s original Christ lag in Todesbanden. I’m guessing that the old style was more serious and traditional, while the newer generation of Chorales were probably written to sound more like the popular plays and operas that the public was getting entertained by lately. I think that there may have been some sort of drive to get the public to also like Chorales, which could be why operatic features to it were later