Workshop on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of the collaboration between Christiane Mariane von Ziegler and Johann Sebastian Bach and the performance of BWV 128 with the team from the new edition of the works of Ziegler, https://www.ziegler-edition.de at the University of Oxford, 7–8 May 2025 . Full programme. Organiser: Henrike Lähnemann.
In 1725, Johann Sebastian Bach faced a dilemma: he had run out of texts for the weekly offering of cantatas to be performed in the main churches of Leipzig, and there were still nine Sundays to fill for the prime festive season of the year, from Jubilate Sunday (the third after Easter) via Ascension and Whitsun to Trinity Sunday, the feast that still gives its name to Oxford’s third term. To his rescue came a young woman, Christiana Mariana von Ziegler (1695–1760). She provided, with a remarkably quick turn-around, the libretti for the Sundays that Bach was still missing in order to complete his second choral cantata cycle, among them the Ascension Day cantata ‘Auf Christi Himmelfahrt allein’ which became BWV 128, the autograph manuscript of which is now held in the Bodleian Library. It was acquired in 2024. This coincides with the start of a major new edition project at the Institute for Technology Karlsruhe (funded by the DFG) which will highlight the feminist and enlightenment aspects of Ziegler’s work. In theworkshop musicologists, theologians, and philologists from Germany, Switzerland and Britain discuss Ziegler’s texts after listening to Bach’s setting of her cantata text in the glorious surroundings of the Sheldonian Theatre, close to the 300th anniversary of the first performance of the cantata.
Read a full report (in German) on the blog of the Ziegler edition.
Another outcome of the workshop were the introductory talks for a series of three concerts ‘Bach in Context’, with the second one quoting from the correspondence of Christiane Mariane Ziegler to show contemporary appreciation and aesthetic judgement of musical performance.
Wednesday, 7 May
St Edmund Hall, Old Library: Female Enlightenment
10 am Welcome by Henrike Lähnemann
- Astrid Dröse/Marisa Irawan: CMZ – an Early Feminist of the Enlightenment
- Oliver Bach: Leipzig as a Centre of Enlightenment Thought: Protagonists, Ideas, Institutions
11.30am Inga Mai Groote: CMZ as Librettist for Bach – Towards an Understanding of BWV 128
12.30 Lunch in St Edmund Hall
Bodleian Library / Sheldonian Theatre, Broad Street, Oxford
2.30–4pm/4.30–5.30pm Open rehearsal with John Butt in the Sheldonian Theatre
3–4pm/4–5pm Print Workshop with Richard Lawrence in the Schola Musicae in groups
6.15pm: Manuscript viewing in the Weston Library
6.30pm: Pre-concert talk with John Butt and Robert Quinney
7.30pm: Concert: Bach 1725 with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment / New College choir
8 May
Taylor Institution Library / Ashmolean Museum
9:30am Introduction by Henrike Lähnemann in Room 2 of the Taylorian
10am Guided tour of the Ashmolean
10.30/11.45am: Session in the Print Room in the Ashmolean with Caroline Palmer & Jim Harris
10.30/11.45am: Group work on creative translations of texts by Christiana Mariana von Ziegler
1–2pm: Presentation of the groups in the Main Hall of the Taylorian
3pm Guided tour of Oxford
St Edmund Hall
5:15pm: Podium on Women of the Hall
7pm: Dinner in St Edmund Hall
8.30pm: Rehearsal for the Compline
9.30pm: Compline in the Crypt of St Peter-in-the-East with the St Edmund Consort
Delegation
- Prof. Dr. Astrid Dröse (Karlsruhe)
- Prof. Dr. Inga Mai Groote (Zürich)
- PD Dr. Oliver Bach (Tübingen)
- Dr. Marisa Irawan (Karlsruhe)
- Dr. Rebecca Hirt (Karlsruhe)
- Alicia Huber, B.A. (Karlsruhe)
