Johann Schelle (1648-1701) and Johann Kuhnau (1660-1722) both were born in the saxon town of Geising and started their musical career as discant singers in the court orchestra of Dresden. With the support of Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672), Schelle was able to perform as a singer in the ducal chapel of Wolfenbüttel and in 1665 became a pupil of the Thomasschule of Leipzig for two years. He then studied at the University of Leipzig and worked as cantor in Eilenburg. In 1677 Schelle succeeded Sebastian Knüpfer (1633-1676) as Thomaskantor of Leipzig. During his tenure he gained much reputation, both as a fatherly teacher and through his innovative composition style. Significant for the development of the musical genre of the cantata are Schelles works based on various poetry cycles, wherein he already uses early forms of the recitative. The two cantatas we recorded, however, do not contain such passages and can rather be defined as so-called concerto-aria-cantatas. The texts used by Schelle have been written by David Elias Heidenreich (1638-1688) in 1665, including a Bible verse followed by a poem explaining it. Each cantata starts with said Bibel verse in form of a concerto for bass singer, two obbligato instruments and basso continuo. After a strophic aria including instrumental ritornellos, this part is repeated. Seven cantatas in this instrumentation and form have been handed down to us. It can be assumed that there once was a complete cycle of Heidenreich-Cantatas by Schelle. Apparently, he set the texts to music even twice, since
some of the poems by Heidenreich are also existent in lager instrumentation. Because one of the cantatas was composed for the rare 6th Sunday after Epiphany, it is possible to limit the creation of these pieces down to the years following Schelles employment in Eilenburg. A performance of the cantatas by the very talented bass singer Johann Christoph Urban (1671-1756) can be assumed to have taken place in 1696. From 1684 on, Johann Kuhnau was the new organist at the Thomaskirche of Leipzig. After working as discant singer in Dresden, Kuhnau spent a few years in Zittau, where he held various musicial positions. Afterwards he studied law at the University of Leipzig. During that time he also directed music performances by his fellow students. Kuhnau was considered a polymath. Throughout his life he published various collections of music for keyboard instruments, treatises on music theory, as well as some novels. Particularly outstanding is his collection »Musicalische Vorstellung einiger biblischer Historien« (Leipzig, 1700), one of the earliest examples of program music in European music history. Kuhnau’s sonatas, suites, preludes and fugues always enjoyed great popularity among his contemporaries. The form and sophistication of his sonorous Toccata in A major already points to the great organ virtuoso Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750). When Johann Schelle died in 1701, Johann Kuhnau had already acquired an excellent reputation in Leipzig, so that the city council nominated him as his successor from among four other candidates without much
hesitation. As the new Thomaskantor, Kuhnau continued Schelle's work, whom he held in high esteem. This can be seen by the fact that he wrote an obituary after the death of his predecessor.