An interview with Lionel Meunier

Why was the Bach family so drawn to the cantata?

I think what was fantastic about the cantata was the addition of instruments, the colours you could bring and the arias you could begin to write. It carried the sacred text, and I think people were starting to want not only motets. Cantatas were popular, also, because they increased the musical possibilities you could offer the congregation. Imagine the people going to mass and getting this as the music. It would have created an amazing impression. What did JS Bach do differently to his forebears?

Whatever it was – motets, cantatas, anything – he didn’t invent a new style, but he wrote everything to its maximum potential. What impresses me with Bach is actually the writing for instruments, even more than for voices. Obviously, the science of fugues is already there, but it’s the creativity that he had which was just superior to any of them. I also love the way he uses the chorale in Christ lag in Todesbanden; it’s just as impressive to me as Jesu, meine Freude, the motet.

Tell us more about Christ lag in Todesbanden. Was it JS Bach’s first cantata?

It is a mystery because nobody knows when he wrote it exactly, or when it was performed for the first time. The earlier manuscript is lost; we just know, from the later version, which parts he added. I always find the Bach family’s earlier repertoire speaks very directly. JS Bach’s later cantatas are a bit more refined, but I have to confess that it’s the early cantatas that I prefer out of all those he wrote.