A Mystery Unraveled: Who Composed the Gutenberg 300th Anniversary Cantata?

Abstract

Abstract:The Kantate auf die 300-Jahr-Feyer der Edlen Buchdruckerkunst (the Cantata for the 300th anniversary of the art of book printing, hereafter the Gutenberg Cantata) is an unattributed manuscript from Die Sammlung Gorke in the Bach-Archiv Leipzig. This large, double-choir cantata has long been a subject of interest to scholars, but the circumstances of its composition and first performance have never been known. Now, however, a document has come to light that can answer these questions. My research has connected the Gutenberg Cantata with a performance in the Barfüßerkirche in Frankfurt am Main on 24 June 1740. I have determined that the music was composed by Heinrich Valentin Beck (1698–1758), then Frankfurt's Vice-Kapelldirector of Music. Beck is virtually forgotten, save for a dissertation by Bodo Wolf from 1911 and an article by Werner Menke from 1942. Only one other work, the early cantata Ich schicke mich zu meinem Ende, is currently firmly attributed to Beck. Wolf argued that six works attributed to Telemann were actually written by Beck, a testament to the similarities between Beck's and Telemann's compositional styles. Wolf's thesis, however, was discredited by Menke, and the Gutenberg Cantata thus offers one of two rare instances of a verifiable, original composition by Beck. It also reveals the importance that contemporaries accorded Gutenberg's invention of the printing press three centuries earlier, an event that was celebrated with elaborate ceremonies across Germany. This article illuminates the sources and context for this unusual cantata, whose origins have to this point been shrouded in mystery, and allows us to reassess Beck's role in the musical life of Frankfurt.