The present brief survey will focus upon the following broad areas of Bach’s performance practice: numbers of voices and instruments; the organ; other instruments; ornaments and thorough bass; tempo, rhythm, dynamics, and articulation; pitch and tuning.

Numbers of Voices and Instruments

The basic source concerning the numbers of voices and instruments preferred by Bach is his own “Short but most necessary draft” (Entwurff) that he submitted to the Leipzig Town Council on August 23, 17301. In all instances he outlines what he felt was minimally required for the performing of his vocal and orchestral music in the Leipzig church music. For his choir he stipulated 3 or preferably 4 singers be available for each of the parts of soprano, alto, tenor, and bass. A number of modern directors, including Ton Koopman (who is engaged in the recording of a complete cantata cycle), have interpreted this to mean that Bach’s choir was normally comprised of 3 to 4 voices per part, resulting in a total of 12 to 16 singers2.

A different interpretation, however, has been set forth by Joshua Rifkin, namely that Bach’s preferred choir consisted of one singer to a part, with added vocalists only being drawn upon occasionally as reinforcement3. He cites as evidence the tradition in Germany (and elsewhere) of using “concertists,” an essential choir of solo voices, ordinarily made up of four male singers (SATB), but sometimes expanded in size for certain works. This was the favored group (sometimes called the “favoriti”), singers who were capable of executing intricate polyphony. In Rifkin’s view this group would have performed, for instance, without added singers, many of the cantatas using four voices, the Mass in B minor using five, and the Magnificat using eight. In addition to this basic choir other singers, called “ripienists,” sometimes filled out the sound, especially for the singing of chorales or of simpler motets by earlier composers. Bach’s need for these extra singers would seem to explain his request to the Leipzig Council for 12 to 16 singers, enough to make up 4 to 8 concertists as well as 4 to 8 added ripienists. Rifkin has recently recorded a number of cantatas with The Bach Ensemble using a choir of this disposition.

Rifkin’s main support for this approach has been through a study of the surviving part books utilized by Bach. He has found that for many of the Leipzig works there exists but a single copy for each of the concertist singers and usually no copies for the ripieno singers. In those copies that do involve ripienists (only 9 of 150 known sets) their music is limited only to certain sections of the music, hence their separate part-books, which were less extensive than those of the concertists. According to contemporary references the ripienists were positioned away from the concertists, making necessary their own books. The conductor Andrew Parrott has supported Rifkin’s findings4.