Motets by J.S. Bach in the context of Lutheran traditions

This article is devoted to the consideration of the motets by J.S. Bach from the perspective of the traditions of the Lutheran divine service of the 18th century in Germany. One of the central problems revealed by the author is the refraction of the ideas of the Lutheran worldview in literary texts of motets and individual work with them by J.S. Bach. By the end of the 18th century, traditions of free prayer-making and the formation of spiritual verse were formed in Germany, which were reflected in the composers' motes. In this regard, the author analyzes the influence of religious and philosophical conceptualism on the musical and poetic design of motets. The combination of J.S. Bach of various sources of literary texts in motets contributed to the emergence of a synthesis of philosophical, poetic and theological principles, and also influenced the formation of their melodic design. It is noted that the motets by J.S. Bach belong to ceremonial works performed in the framework of the memorial liturgy of Lutheran traditions. Attention is paid to the characteristic features of the commemoration rite, including the spiritual chants accompanying the mourning Liturgy. In addition to describing the course of Lutheran worship directly, the author touches upon the issue of forming a certain mentality of the Lutheran mindset, in which the moral and moral analysis is grafted, inspired by the upbringing caused by the religious atmosphere. Lutheran worldview characterized by freedom of reasoning, holding a prayer ceremony, the free addition of spiritual verse, has a significant influence on the choice of compositional forms, genres, literary content of prayers. In general, the dogma itself does not impose any restrictions on the competence and form of the presentation of prayers, in connection with this, the author of the article assumes that the choice of the motet genre of J.S. Bach is due to such freedom for creativity in the composition of spiritual poetry and musical content. The theoretical basis in the process of writing the article was the work of authoritative musicologists - D. Melamed, K. Hofmann, A. Bomba, A. Schweitzer, M. Saponov. In the course of the study, the author comes to the conclusion that the motets by J.S. Bach go beyond the ritual compositions, over time they became widespread outside the practice of worship, representing highly artistic musical works in a complex form. In the works of the composer, the genre in question was embodied on an individualized basis of the existing compositional structures of the German motet in combination with free philosophical textual content.

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