Volume One - Experimentation
The first Leipzig cycle followed by the early and secular cantatas.Experimentation and recycling within the first cycle followed by the earliest religious and extant secular cantatas.
Volume Two - Consolidation
The second Leipzig cycle followed by the later chorale cantatas.The chorale as the critical foundation of the cantata.
Volume Three - Culmination
Cycles three and four and the late works. Contextual considerations and expansions of the genre. 