Recent Researches in the Music of the Baroque Era

This edition presents for the first time all the known motets by Johann Ludwig Bach (1677-1731), a cousin of Johann Sebastian who spent most of his professional career at the small court of Meiningen. Johann Ludwig is best known as a composer of cantatas, including some of the very earliest using modern "Neumeister-type" texts, 18 of which J. S. Bach performed in Leipzig.

The compositions, mostly for eight-part double chorus, are important examples of the early eighteenth-century German motet by one of the most talented composers of his time. They are the most ambitious and best motets outside of J. S. Bach's own, and show Johann Ludwig Bach's creative approach to his texts, harmonic sureness, contrapuntal control (within the limits of his style), a fondness for interesting constructive devices, and melodic gift. The principal source for all of the motets - two manuscripts from the so-called Amalienbibliothek - apparently have a connection to the Bach family. This raises the possibility that J. S. Bach, who was demonstrably interested in motets by members of his family and was a conduit for many of their works, knew these pieces, just as he was familiar with Johann Ludwig Bach's cantatas.

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