36: Parody

In another context, “parody” might mean something like “artistic critique” or “satire.” But in music, especially in the Baroque era, the “parody model” simply refers to reuse of music pre-composed in some context, in another. The extremely busy and prolific Johann Sebastian Bach— kappellmeister (music director) for four of Leipzig’s Lutheran parishes simultaneously, husband, and father to 20 children—was the era’s most influential and widely known  parodist.


 The Lutheran priest in residence would ask Bach, with varying degrees of notice, basically “Easter this year is April 10, please have written and rehearsed a cantata by then” or something similar, for virtually every feast of the liturgical calendar. Bach was, without a doubt, one of the greatest musical minds we’ve ever seen (the top 3 are certainly Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven; internally, that order is somewhat controversial). But remember that he lived from 1685 to 1750, and so his music had to be written and copied all by hand. This took an extraordinary amount of effort on the part of Johann, Maria Barbara (his cousin/first wife), Anna Magdalena (a soprano in his choir who he married, and remained with until the end of his life, after Maria Barbara died), and probably also his children and students or even the parish musicians.

 Now in 2026, I can write something for violins, violas, cellos, trumpets, timpani, organ, and a standard choir, and essentially instantly have both my original score plus the 10 split parts in separate files, printed in as many perfectly accurate copies as I want. In Bach’s day, this copying process from the original/master into the parts (and as many copies of any given part as there were musicians playing it) was done entirely manually. 

Some notable examples of this model of musical reuse include:

·       BWV 29 (a cantata, which takes only a part), 120a (another cantata, which takes only the same part), 1006 (the original for violin), and 1006a (a transcription in whole of the original, for lute)

·       A different movement in BWV 29 (the same cantata as above), and two separate movements (the “Gratias agimus tibi” [we give you thanks] and “Dona nobis pacem” [grant us peace] from 232, the Mass in B minor)

·       BWV 169 begins with a movement taken from 1053, which is identical (except for instrumentation) to 1053a (1053 is for harpsichord, 1053a is for oboe)

·       BWV 1041 is the same as 1058 (1041 is a violin concerto, 1058 is transcribed for harpsichord, and the same thing happens in the pair 1042/1054—the concerti are in different keys in the pairs, though (A minor and G minor in 1041/1058, and E major and D major in 1042/1054)

I’m sure there are more, that I’m forgetting, or that I don’t know about, for two reasons: 1) I know Bach did this all the time in what have preserved, and I’ve already shown many examples and 2) Bach was notoriously bad at preserving his music, so who knows what he copied in this manner, but didn’t/couldn’t preserve? The good news is this: the more you listen to, the more familiar the music of the masters will become, and the more easily you will spot these reuses.

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