Salomon Franck

Salomon Franck (1659-1725) is the most important text poet of Bach's Weimar cantatas. He also was consistorial secretary, court librarian and director of the numismatic collection at the Weimar court.

Franck, born and burried in Weimar, studied law and theology in Jena. He is often considered the most gifted of all Bach's text writers. Formally speaking he was not a pietist, although his texts clearly show pietist tendencies (like the death mysticism that obviously also inspired Bach). At least since 1694, he wrote cantata texts old-style, with bible texts and short stanzas (like in motets). Franck did not regularly write cantatas of the modern Neumeister type until 1715 (canatatas Italian-style, with freely conceived recitatives and da capo arias). One of the first cantatas of this kind that Franck wrote is the text of BWV 208 (1713), the Hunt Cantata for the Weissenfels court. Before that (since 1710), Franck wrote a transitional type with chains of arias, but without free recitatives.

Franck wrote, among other things, the following collections of cantatas (year cycles): Evangelisches Andachts-Opffer (1714/1715), Evangelische Seelenlust (1716), Evangelische Sonn- und Fest-Tages-Andachten.


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