The dividing year, clearly but not arbitrarily, is 1734. Before it and after it Bach was aided by new writers. But the earlier period pre-eminently was one of experiment, out of which emerged the glorified hymn-libretto, or Choral Cantata, of Bach’s last years. That it sprang, in some degree, from the difficulty of finding good original texts in sufficient number may be granted. That it was adopted as an avenue of escape from Picander’s coarser work is a conjecture based, apparently, upon a prevalent exaggeration of Bach’s dependence on that writer. The fundamental reason which led Bach to the hymn-libretto undoubtedly was the fact that it most closely fulfilled the ideals which informed his work. The first Cantata performed during Bach’s Cantorship(412) reveals a new author, whose assistance, if the conclusion is well grounded, was at Bach’s disposal throughout the whole of the earlier Leipzig period. Spitta’s keen insight failed him in this instance. He betrays no recognition of the new writer, and occasionally(413) attributes his libretti to Picander. The credit of the discovery belongs to Rudolf Wustmann, though he fails to work it out to its fullest conclusions.(414) No one can read the early Leipzig libretti without being struck by the number of them that are not only uniform in structure, but similar in tone and point. They all begin with a Bible text, chosen frequently, but not invariably, from the Gospel for the Day. Every one of them ends with a hymn-stanza. Their Arias, with hardly an exception,(415) are written in what, compared with Picander’s rollicking dactyls, may be held hymn-metres. Their Recitativi, almost invariably, are didactic or exegetical.(416) They do not display the vapid rhetoric of Picander. Nor do they express the reflective or prayerful mood that reveals Bach. They are essentially expositive and, it is noticeable, are studded with direct or veiled references to Bible passages which expand or enforce the lesson of the initial text. In a word, they suggest the work of a preacher casting his sermon notes into lyrical form, an impression which is strengthened by the fact that the libretto invariably opens with a Scripture passage and frequently blends the Gospel and Epistle for the Day in one harmonious teaching. Spitta detected this characteristic. But he failed to follow up the clue. He speaks(417) of one of these texts(418) as a “moralising homily,” a phrase concisely appropriate to them all. Moreover, a remark of his,(419) pointing the significance of the god-parents chosen by Bach for his children—Eilmar, for instance—as revealing Bach’s intimate associates at the moment, affords another clue to the personality of the new writer.