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• 1 2023-09-26T09:32:57+00:00 Nun komm der Heiden Heiland BWV 61 / BC A1 34 First Sunday of Advent. First performed 12/02/1714 at Weimar. Text by Erdmann Neumeister. plain 2024-04-24T15:02:34+00:00 1714-12-02 BWV 61 Weimar 50.979493, 11.323544 11Advent First Sunday of Advent BC A 1 Johann Sebastian Bach Erdmann Neumeister Hans-Joachim Schulze, "Nun komm der Heiden Heiland, BWV 61 / BC A 1" in Die Bach Kantaten: Einführungen zu sämtlichen Kantaten Johann Sebastian Bachs, (Leipzig: Evangelisches Verlagsanstalt 2007), p. 11 James A. Brokaw II Weimar as concertmaster

  First Sunday of Advent

  There are two Bach cantatas that begin with the first strophe of Martin Luther’s chorale Nun komm der Heiden Heiland (Now come, savior of the Gentiles), and both are for the first Sunday of Advent. This one, the older of the two, originated in Weimar in 1714. The other was composed a decade later in Leipzig. The work composed in 1714 is based on a text by Erdmann Neumeister. Born near Weissenfels (Thuringia) in 1671 and active at first in various positions near this royal seat, in 1714 Neumeister was working as senior court chaplain and superintendent in Sorau, Silesia. In that year he published a new annual cycle of cantata texts in Frankfurt am Main under the title Geistliche Poesien mit untermischten biblischen Sprüchen und Choralen auf alle Sonn- und Festtagen (Sacred poems with interspersed biblical sayings and chorales for all Sundays and feast days), intended to be set by Georg Philipp Telemann, the director of music at Frankfurt. In March 1714 Telemann stood as godfather at the baptism of Bach’s son Carl Philipp Emanuel. Six decades later, Carl Philipp Emanuel reported regarding his father that “in his younger years he was often together with Telemann—who also lifted me out of the baptismal font.”¹ It seems likely that this close relationship, featuring godparenthood, enabled an exchange of news and recent developments that included Neumeister’s new annual cycle of texts.
  
  Annual text cycles normally were arranged according to the church year, beginning, as this one does, with the first Sunday of Advent. The Gospel reading for this Sunday, found in the twenty-first chapter of Matthew and nearly identically in Mark and Luke, describes the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem and, thus, the arrival of the savior:

  When they now came near to Jerusalem, at Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples and said to them, “Go into the village that lies before you, and immediately you shall find an ass tied, and a colt with her: loose them, and bring them unto me! And if anyone says something to you, you shall say, the Lord needs them, and immediately he will release them to you.” All this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Prophet, saying, “Tell the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, thy king comes to you, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt, the foal of an ass.’” The disciples went forth, and did as Jesus commanded them, and brought the ass and the colt, and put their clothes on them, and they set him thereon. But many people spread their garments in the way, others cut down branches from the trees, and scattered them in the way. But the people however, those that went before followed, cried and said, Hosanna to the son of David! Blessed is he that comes in the Name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest! (1–9)

  As the title of his annual cycle indicates, Erdmann Neumeister’s cantata poetry belongs to the genre of mixed text form; that is, it contains free poetry—recitatives and arias—alongside chorale strophes and biblical passages. This form of mixed text was long regarded as Neumeister’s most important contribution to the development of the Protestant Church cantata, until it turned out that Neumeister neither invented this hybrid text nor particularly preferred it. His domain was free cantata poetry without chorale strophes or biblical passages, with which he surprised his contemporaries in 1702.² He completed the transition to mixed text subsequently and perhaps even reluctantly; according to a predecessor in Thuringia in 1704 whose identity remains unknown to scholarship, the roots of the practice reach far back into the seventeenth century.
  
  At the beginning of his libretto, Neumeister placed the first strophe of Luther’s German translation of the ancient church hymn Veni redemptor gentium, published in 1524:

  Nun komm der Heiden Heiland, 
  Der Jungfrauen Kind erkannt, 
  Des sich wundert alle Welt, 
  Gott solch Geburt ihm bestellt.
  
  Now come, savior of the Gentiles, 
  Known as the child of the Virgin, 
  Of this, all the world marvels, 
  God ordained him such a birth.

  A chorale fragment concludes the libretto, the Abgesang (second part) of the last strophe of Philipp Nicolai’s 1599 hymn Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern (How brightly gleams the morning star). Nicolai’s strophe begins with the words “Wie bin ich doch so herzlich froh” (How am I though so sincerely glad); the Abgesang reads:

  Amen! Amen!
  Komm du schöne Freudenkrone, bleib nicht lange! 
  Deiner wart ich mit Verlangen.
  
  Amen! Amen!
  Come, you beautiful crown of joy, tarry not long!
  I await you with longing.

  “Kommen” (come) is the most important keyword of the entire cantata libretto; it is missing only from the one movement that cites a passage from the Gospel. The free portions of the text are characterized by this keyword, as in movement 2, a recitative:

  Der Heiland ist gekommen,
  Hat unser armes Fleisch und Blut
  An sich genommen
  Und nimmet uns zu
  Blutsverwandten an.
  
  The savior is come,
  Has taken our poor flesh and blood
  Upon himself
  And accepts us as blood relatives.

  
  And at the conclusion:

  Was tust du nicht
  Noch täglich an den Deinen? 
  Du kömmst und läßt dein Licht 
  Mit vollem Segen scheinen.
  
  What do you not do
  Still daily for your people? 
  You come and let your light 
  Shine with full blessing.

  The accompanying aria prays for this blessing at the outset of the newly begun church year:

  Komm, Jesu, komm zu deiner Kirche 
  Und gib ein selig neues Jahr!
  Befördre deines Namens Ehre 
  Erhalte die gesunde Lehre 
  Und segne Kanzel und Altar.
  
  Come, Jesus, come to your church 
  And grant a blessed new year!
  Promote your name’s honor, 
  Uphold the sound teaching, 
  And bless pulpit and altar.

  Words of Jesus give the answer to this prayer from the third chapter of the Revelation of St. John: “Siehe, ich stehe vor der Tür und klopfe an. So jemand meine Stimme hören wird und die Tür auftun, zu dem werde ich eingehen und das Abendmahl mit ihm halten und er mit mir” (3:20; See, I stand before the door and knock. Should anyone hear my voice and open the door, to him I will go in and have the evening meal with him and he with me). The meaning of “Tür auftun” and “eingehen”—to open the door and go in—is expressed by the penultimate movement of the cantata, an aria whose text paraphrases the classic metaphor of the human heart as the dwelling of God:

  Öffne dich, mein ganzes Herze, 
  Jesus kommt und ziehet ein.
  Bin ich gleich nur Staub und Erde, 
  Will er mich doch nicht verschmähn, 
  Seine Lust an mir zu sehen,
  Daß ich seine Wohnung werde. 
  O wie selig werd ich sein!
  
  Open yourself, my whole heart, 
  Jesus comes and enters.
  Though I am but dust and earth,
  He will, nevertheless, not disdain me, 
  His pleasure in me to see,
  That I become his dwelling. 
  O how blessed will I be!

  As mentioned, Johann Sebastian Bach’s composition based on this text originated in late 1714 for the service in the Weimar castle chapel. A reperformance is documented in Leipzig in 1723, Bach’s first year of service there. It is remarkable that on this occasion Bach outlined the rather complicated sequence of the church service in the score, including the organist’s duties—which he himself did not have to perform:

  1  Preluding.
  2  Motet.
  3  Preluding on the Kyrie, which is performed throughout in concerted manner [musiciret].
  4  Intoning before the altar.
  5  Reading of the Epistle.
  6  Singing of the Litany.
  7  Preluding on [and singing of ] the Chorale.
  8  Reading of the Gospel [crossed out: and intoning of the creed].
  9  Preluding on [and performance of ] the principal music [cantata].
  10  Singing of the Creed [Luther’s Credo hymn].    
  11  The Sermon.    
  12  After the Sermon, as usual, singing of several verses from a hymn.
  13  Words of Institution [of the Sacrament].
  14  Preluding on [and performance of ] the Music [probably the second half of the cantata]. And after the same, alternate preluding and the singing of chorales until the end of the Communion, et sic porro [and so on].³

  
  Accordingly, the “principal music” (after number 9) or the “Music” (during number 14)—that is, the cantata—would have been performed with the first part before the sermon, between the reading of the Gospel and the singing of the creed, Wir glauben all’ an einen Gott, and the second part after the Words of Institution and before or during Communion or the Offertory. But whether the cantata Nun komm der Heiden Heiland in fact was performed in two parts, the first part ending after the third movement, cannot be determined. It is also conceivable that the entire cantata was performed as principal music and that for the presentation of music during Communion or the Lord’s Supper the work of another composer was drawn upon.
  
  The Weimar Advent cantata Nun Komm der Heiden Heiland displays the thirty-year-old court organist at the height of his powers. The first movement meets a self-imposed challenge, as it integrates an arrangement of an ancient church hymn with the modern instrumental form of the French overture. This is in three parts; its first and last sections have dotted rhythms and sweeping scales that go back to the fanfares at the French opera in the seventeenth century that announced the arrival of the king. It is thus clear that Bach’s compositional experiment was meant to symbolize, formally, the entrance of Jesus in Jerusalem and the arrival of the savior at the same time. That no radiant major is allowed to sound, and instead a melancholy, shadowy minor, is conditioned by the modal nature of the ancient hymn tune. A change of tempo and meter in the middle section enables the buoyant fugal development of the text line “des sich wundert alle Welt.” Buoyant as well is the tenor aria, following a brief recitative extended by an arioso at its conclusion. Here, the upper strings—two violins and two violas—unite to form a pastose obbligato voice of sonorous timbre. The Gospel recitative, “Siehe, ich stehe vor der Tür und klopfe an” (See, I stand before the door and knock), is taken by the bass, the vox Christi (voice of Christ). The pizzicato interspersed with rests more reflects tense anticipation and preliminary uncertainty than simply tone painting of “knocking at the door.” Sincere naivete and the use of the most modest instrumental forces define the soprano aria, “Öffne dich, mein ganzes Herze,” whose increasingly joyous excitement flows directly into the closing chorale. The two violins form an obbligato part that gives it festive splendor, transiting the entire compass of the two instruments and climbing to the highest possible peak at the closing fermata, certainly conducted and performed in person by the composer and concertmaster, Johann Sebastian Bach.

  ---

  Footnotes

  1. “In seinen jungen Jahren war er oft mit Telemannen zusammen, welcher auchmich aus der Taufe gehoben hat” (BD III: 289 [no. 803]).—Trans.↵
  2. Hobohm (2000); Rucker (2000); and Krausse (1986).↵
  3. NBR, 113 (no. 113).—Trans.↵
• 1 2023-09-26T09:35:19+00:00 Es erhub sich ein Streit BWV 19 / BC A 180 19 St Michael's Day. First performed 09/29/1726 in Leipzig (Cycle III). Text by CF Henrici (Picander). plain 2024-04-24T14:47:10+00:00 CF Birkmann 1726-09-29 BWV 19 Leipzig 51.340199, 12.360103 06StMichael St Michael's Day BC A 180 Johann Sebastian Bach CF Henrici (Picander) Hans-Joachim Schulze, "Es erhub sich ein Streit, BWV 19 / BC A 180" in Die Bach Kantaten: Einführungen zu sämtlichen Kantaten Johann Sebastian Bachs, (Leipzig: Evangelisches Verlagsanstalt 2007), p. 544 Leipzig III

  St. Michael’s Day, September 29, 1726

  
  Bach’s cantata Es erhub sich ein Streit BWV 19 (A battle arose) was composed in 1726 for St. Michael’s Day on September 29. Our cantata has well-known predecessors by Heinrich Schütz and by Bach’s uncle Johann Christoph Bach, an organist active in Eisenach and a “great and expressive composer,” as a family chronicle describes him.¹  All begin with the same passage from the Revelation of St. John. It is uncertain whether Johann Sebastian was aware of the Schutz composition, although he could have encountered it during his school days at Lüneburg, presuming he had access to the music collection of the St. Michael’s School. We are better informed as to his knowledge of the Michaelmas work by the Great Eisenacher, Johann Christoph Bach. Sebastian Bach’s second-oldest son, Carl Philipp Emanuel, wrote about this to the Göttingen music historian Johann Nikolaus Forkel in the late summer of 1775 while sending several musical items from the Ancient Bach Archive (Alt-Bachisches Archiv): “The twenty-two-part work is a masterpiece. My blessed father performed it on one occasion in church, and everyone was astonished by its effect. I do not have enough singers here; otherwise, I would gladly perform it one day.”²
  
  That such expressive and elaborately set works for St. Michael’s Day existed has to do with the particular nature of the feast day. In the words of Friedrich Smend, one of the most important Bach researchers of the twentieth century, the church announced:

  According to Holy Scripture, hell and the devil were disempowered by Christ’s death and resurrection; that in the end times the ultimate destruction of the Antichrist shall first occur; that therefore today on earth the battle rages between Godly and ungodly forces.... The church in Bach’s time, and in particular Johann Sebastian himself, were aware of this battle and celebrated the day of the archangel Michael as a feast of triumph, at which at the same time God was called upon for assistance through angelic forces in the struggles of this life. However, the idea of the angels directed one’s attention to one’s own death; indeed, Jesus himself had said in the parable that the pauper Lazarus was carried to the bosom of Abraham by the angels. Beside this peaceful image of dying there appears the awesome depiction of the prophet Elijah, who travels toward heaven in his chariot pulled by fiery steeds. To be borne by angels to the same place, where the Ecclesia triumphans (church triumphant) celebrated, was therefore the prayer of every Christian during this period.

  
  It is unusual that the relevant biblical text is found not in the Gospel reading for the day but in the Epistle. The twelfth chapter of the Revelation of St. John reads:

  Und es erhub sich ein Streit im Himmel: Michael und seine Engel stritten mit dem Drachen; und der Drache stritt und seine Engel, und siegten nicht, auch ward ihre Stätte nicht mehr gefunden im Himmel. Und es ward ausgeworfen der große Drache, die alte Schlange, die da heißt der Teufel und Satanas, der die ganze Welt verführt, und ward geworfen auf die Erde, und seine Engeln wurden auch dahin geworfen. Und ich hörte eine große Stimme, die sprach im Himmel: Nun ist das Heil und die Kraft und das Reich unsers Gottes geworden und die Macht seines Christus, weil der Verkläger unserer Brüder verworfen ist, der sie verklagte Tag und Nacht vor Gott. Und sie haben überwunden durch des Lammes Blut und durch das Wort ihres Zeugnisses und haben ihr Leben nicht geliebt bis an den Tod. Darum freuet euch, ihr Himmel und die darin wohnen! (7–12)
  
  And a battle arose in Heaven: Michael and his angels battled with the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and did not prevail, also their home was no longer found in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown out, the old snake, who there is called the Devil and Satan, who seduced the entire world, and was thrown upon the earth, and his angels were also thrown there. And I heard a great voice, that spoke in heaven: Now is the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ, for the accuser of our brother is cast out, which accuses them before our God day and night. And they have overcome because of the blood of the Lamb and through the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even unto death. Therefore rejoice, you heavens, and those who live in them!

  
  The cantata text composed by Bach follows the beginning of this epistle, but in rhymed paraphrase, except for the first line:

  Es erhub sich ein Streit.
  Der rasende Schlange, der höllische Drache, 
  Stürmt wider den Himmel mit wütender Rache. 
  Aber Michael bezwingt,
  Und die Schar, die ihn umringt, 
  Stürzt des Satans Grausamkeit.
  
  A battle arose.
  The raging snake, the hellish dragon,
  Storms against the heavens with furious vengeance. 
  But Michael conquers,
  And the army that surrounds him 
  Topples the savagery of Satan.

  
  The author of this rhymed paraphrase cannot be identified with certainty. The text for Bach’s cantata has a somewhat peculiar and convoluted history. Many of its formulations are found in a seven-strophe poem with the title Erbauliche Gedancken auf das Fest Michaelis (Edifying thoughts on St. Michael’s Day), which the Leipzig occasional poet Christian Friedrich Henrici published in his Sammlung Erbaulicher Gedancken über und auf die gewöhnlichen Sonn- und Fest-Tage (Collection of edifying thoughts about and on the usual Sundays and feast days). However, Henrici’s poem was not intended for use as a cantata libretto; instead, it was to be sung to the melody Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr (Honor only to God on high). It is one of countless efforts to enrich and update the contents of contemporary hymn collections.
  
  This source text was reshaped to become a cantata libretto with recitatives and arias, following in principle the procedure so often seen in Bach’s chorale cantatas.³ However, in this case the revision avoids the characteristic retention of the opening and closing strophes of the chorale text. Instead, the cantata text begins with the rhymed paraphrase of the Epistle’s beginning just described. It closes with the ninth strophe from the 1620 chorale Freu dich sehr o meine Seele, whose text begins:

  Laß dein Engel mit mir fahren 
  Auf Elias Wagen rot
  Und mein Seele wohl bewahren, 
  Wie Laz’rum nach seinem Tod.
  
  Let your angel journey with me On 
  Elijah’s red chariot
  And preserve my soul well
  Like Lazarus after his death.

  
  The second movement of the cantata text is also a paraphrase of part of the Epistle:

  Gottlob, der Drachen liegt. 
  Der unerschaffne Michael 
  Und seiner Engel Heer 
  Hat ihn besiegt.
  Dort liegt er in der Finsternis 
  Mit Ketten angebunden,
  Und seine Stätte wird nicht mehr 
  Im Himmelreich gefunden.
  
  Praise God, the dragon lies. 
  The uncreated Michael 
  And his host of angels 
  Have conquered him.
  There he lies in the darkness 
  Bound with chains,
  And his home will no longer
  Be found in the kingdom of heaven.

  With the third movement, we are on solid ground with respect to authorship. It matches Christian Friedrich Henrici’s St. Michael’s Day text of 1725 word for word:

  Gott schickt uns Mahanaim zu; 
  Wir stehen oder gehen,
  So können wir in sichrer Ruh 
  Vor unsern Feinden stehen. 
  Es lagert sich, so nah als fern,
  Um uns der Engel unsers Herrn 
  Mit Feuer, Roß und Wagen.
  
  God sends Mahanaim to us; 
  Whether we stand or go
  We can in secure repose 
  Stand before our enemies.
  Encamped around us, near and far, 
  Is the angel of our Lord
  With fire, steed, and chariot.7

  
  In part, the image of the barricade of wagons refers to Psalm 34:7, which reads, “Der Engel des Herrn lagert sich um die her, so ihn fürchten, und hilft ihnen aus” (The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him and    helps them out), and partly to 2 Kings 2:11, depicting the separation of the prophets Elijah and Elisha: “And as they went with one another and talked, see, there came a fiery chariot with fiery horses, they separated the two from each other, and Elijah went up in a whirlwind to heaven” The first line of the aria refers to Jacob’s encounter with the angels, as described in Moses 32:1–2, with the mention of Mahanaim: “Jacob, however, went on his way, and the angels of God met him. And as he saw them, he said: This is the army of God, and called the place Mahanaim.” This name can mean not only “army camp” but also “two armies.” In 1711 Erdmann Neumeister, later the senior pastor in Hamburg, created the following cantata text:

  So laß auf beiden Seiten
  Die Mahanaim mich begleiten. 
  Wird mir von Feinden nachgestellt; 
  So laß die Feuer-Roß’ und Wagen 
  Ihr Lager um mich schlagen.
  
  So let on both sides
  The Mahanaim accompany me. 
  Should I be chased by enemies;
  Then may the fire steeds and chariots 
  Close their camp around me.

  
  He had used similar expressions in a cantata libretto in 1702. There is every reason to suppose that Henrici, nearly thirty years younger, borrowed extensively from the older poet.
  
  The same applies to the fourth movement of the cantata, a recitative whose text begins, “Was ist der schnöde Mensch, das Erdenkind” (What is this vile person, the child of Earth), in which the angels are described as a protecting, vigilant, and defending army. On the other hand, no model for the fifth movement, an aria in which the angels are sought to aid in praising God, can be found in either Neumeister or Henrici:

  Bleibt, ihr Engel, bleibt bei mir. 
  Führet mich auf beiden Seiten, 
  Daß mein Fuß nicht möge gleiten. 
  Aber lernt mich auch allhier
  Euer großes Heilig singen
  Und dem Höchsten Dank zu singen.
  
  Abide, you angels, abide with me.
  Lead me on both sides,
  That my step might never slip.
  But train me even here
  To sing your great “Holy”
  And sing thanksgiving to the Most High.

  
  The problematic language and awkward rhyme structure in the last three lines point to a self-taught nonprofessional. We cannot say whether the cantor of St. Thomas took pen in hand himself in this instance or if he asked someone nearby for the still missing aria text. In contrast, the sixth movement, the last recitative before the closing chorale, whose text begins, “Laßt uns das Angesicht / Der frommen Engel lieben” (Let us adore the countenance / Of the devout angel), proves to be a conflation of two text strophes from Henrici’s poem of 1725.
  
  Bach’s composition begins suddenly, in the apocalyptic tumult of battle, with thick, fugue-like attacks of hammering repeated tones and ravaging passages intertwined with one another and above the whole the gleaming high trumpets, voices of war. Their limited tonal ambitus imposes boundaries on the harmonic unfolding; even more in that regard occurs in the middle section, with vivid language unfurling a series of images of the dangerously chaotic scene. With the return of the opening section and its text, “Es erhub sich ein Streit,” the architecture of the overall movement is completed, on the one hand, but it becomes clear that there can be no talk of a plotlike “course of action,” on the other hand.
  
  A brief bass recitative is followed by the first aria, “Gott schickt uns Mahanaim zu,” for soprano and two oboi d’amore. The soft coloration of the woodwinds suggests warmth and intimacy; the dense, attentive texture with abundant imitation and parallel thirds and sixths suggests security and assurance. The string-accompanied tenor recitative, with its air of self-accusation, brings this idyll to an end. But the aria “Bleibt, ihr Engel, bleibt bei mir” leads into a new wo6rld of enchantment. From beginning to end it is dominated by the hovering, 6
  8 Siciliano rhythm familiar from the Christmas Oratorio, associated with the angels, begun by the string instruments and the basso continuo and taken over by the tenor soloist. In addition, a high trumpet sounds the melody “Herzlich lieb hab ich dich, o Herr” (Sincerely I love you, O Lord). The aria’s free text is strongly associated with the third chorale strophe:

  Ach Herr, laß dein lieb Engelein 
  Am letzten Tag die Seele mein 
  In Abrahams Schoß tragen
  
  Ah Lord, may your dear little angel
  On my last day carry this soul of mine    
  To the bosom of Abraham.    

  
  The relatively large number of chorale lines, the slow tempo of the aria, and the virtually instrumental demands upon the voice make this movement a true challenge for the singer. This seems to have been a problem in Bach’s time as well, since there are certain indications that at the first performance both of the arias for tenor were omitted. Toward the end things become less challenging, with an uncomplicated soprano recitative and the joyful closing chorale, to which the brass once again lends a radiant brilliance.
   

  ---

  Footnotes

  1. BD I:265 (no. 184)BWV 2.—Trans.↵
  2. “Das 22stimmmige Stück ist ein Meisterstück. Mein seeliger Vater hat es einmahlin Leipzig in der Kirche aufgeführt, alles ist über den Efeckt erstaunt. Hier habe ichnicht Sänger genug, außerdem würde ich es gerne einmahl aufführen” (BD III:292[no. 807]). The Alt-Bachisches Archiv was a collection amassed by J. S. Bach of musical works by older family members to document the clan’s musical legacy. The collection was preserved by Carl Philipp Emanuel.—Trans.↵
  3. Christina Blanken (2015b, 55) has demonstrated that Christoph Birkmann is responsible for the arrangement of Henrici’s text.—Trans.↵
• 1 2023-09-26T09:36:18+00:00 Gott ist unsere Zuversicht BWV 197 / BC B 16 17 Wedding. First performed 1736 to 1737 in Leipzig after Trinity 1727. . plain 2024-04-24T17:23:53+00:00 BWV 197 Leipzig Wedding BC B 16 Johann Sebastian Bach Hans-Joachim Schulze, "Gott ist unsere Zuversicht, BWV 197 / BC B 16" in Die Bach Kantaten: Einführungen zu sämtlichen Kantaten Johann Sebastian Bachs, (Leipzig: Evangelisches Verlagsanstalt 2007), p. 604 James A. Brokaw II 1736 to 1737 Leipzig after Trinity 1727

  Wedding Ceremony, 1736–1737

  Bach inscribed his autograph score of the cantata Gott ist unsere Zuversicht BWV 197 (God is our assurance) with the words In diebus nuptiarum (On wedding days). Hence, it is for wedding celebrations and belongs to the not particularly comprehensive group of Trauungskantaten (wedding ceremony cantatas) or, in the terminology of Bach’s day, Brautmessen (bridal masses). Furnishing wedding ceremonies and celebrations with festive music was an ancient tradition, and the “better society” of Leipzig saw no reason to give it up or restrict its use. On the contrary: the annual average of such commissions was relatively stable, making it possible to calculate Bach’s supplemental income as a nearly constant amount. Regarding these fees, a regulation at St. Thomas School observed tersely that “with respect to the bridal masses, the cantor has until now been given one reichsthaler for each, with which he shall also henceforth be satisfied and shall not demand more.”¹
  
  In practice, however, a more lucrative arrangement was in force. Former St. Thomas School students described it when they were asked in 1781, when disagreements about fee amounts arose. Gottlob Friedrich Rothe, sexton at St. Thomas Church and later known as a friend of the writer Johann Gottfried Seume, went on record saying: “In previous times, the cantors Kuhnau, Bach, Harrer, along with the organists, served in person at bridal masses and afterward held a banquet as recreation. For the sake of convenience, the old Martius told the groom to give a thaler instead of this banquet. Since that time the thaler has always been given to those people.”² The concern here is for catering in addition to cash benefits, for the participation of cantors and organists in celebratory meals, and, later, for the more popular, time-saving option of receiving monetary compensation in lieu of participating in the wedding reception feast. The “alte Martius,” responsible for the new regulation of 1730, functioned in Bach’s day in Leipzig as director of weddings and funerals. Rothe’s colleague Carl Ephraim Haupt, sexton of St. Nicholas Church, unearthed another memory in 1781: “For a full bridal mass the Herr Cantor received two thalers, which he always kept, and one thaler instead of a double flask of wine (which I myself, as a student, many times gave the blessed Herr Cantor Bach in kind; the food has long since ceased).”³And so, contrary to the stipulation in the school regulations, the cantor of St. Thomas School received three thalers, one of which was paid in kind for some time and later was paid as a cash benefit. Two thalers went to the St. Thomas School students and five to the city musicians, or eight, in case trumpets and drums were involved. Hence, it was understandable that often the fathers of brides avoided these expenses and, under various pretexts, arranged stille Trauungen (silent weddings) without music or had the ceremony performed outdoors in the countryside. Just as understandably, the clergy and musicians tried to collect the fees to which they were entitled and that they had already taken into account in calculating their basic salaries; many legal disputes were fought over this.
  
  These relatively high fees were incurred by the full bridal masses—or, as we would say today, wedding ceremony cantatas (Trauungskantaten). "Half bridal masses" (halben Brautmessen) were less lavish, financially as well as musically. These involved the performance of several wedding chorales with instrumental accompaniment. These obligations were less profitable and productive in every respect, and the Thomaskantor made every effort to pass them off to a substitute. That person, most frequently a prefect in St. Thomas School, would then find out how well he could get along with the mischievous band of singers. In the early summer of 1736, the only way Gottfried Theodor Krauß, then twenty-two years old, knew how to earn respect was through corporal punishment. This touched off a long-lasting dispute between the cantor and rector of St. Thomas School that has come to be known in Bach biography as the “prefects’ battle” (Präfektenstreit). In one of his missives to the Leipzig town council, the rector remarked, viciously, that the “misfortune” (Unglück) of the prefect, who ultimately had to leave the school, was

  to be attributed solely to the negligence of the Cantor. For if he had gone to the wedding service as he should have, since there was nothing wrong with him, instead of thinking it was beneath his dignity to conduct at a wedding service where only chorales were to be sung (for which reason he has absented himself from several such wedding services, including the recent one for the Krögels, in connection with which, as I could not help hearing, the musicians in service to Your Magnificences and You, Noble Sirs, complained to other people)—then the said Krause would have had no opportunity to indulge in those excesses, both in the Church and outside.⁴

  
  The cantata Gott ist unsre Zuversicht is a true full bridal mass. It was composed during the tension-filled years 1736 and 1737, when the prefects’ battle threatened to shake the foundations of musical tradition at Leipzig’s St. Thomas School. Who the bridal couple may have been cannot be established today. The unknown librettist crafted his text in such a general fashion that any search for clues has little hope of success. Perhaps this is in fact an advantage of the libretto, reflecting Bach’s intention to use the cantata over and over. The opening movement begins with a phrase in the first verse of Psalm 46:

  Gott ist unsre Zuversicht,
  Wir vertrauen seinen Händen. 
  Wie er unsre Wege führt,
  Wie er unser Herz regiert, 
  Da ist Segen aller Enden.
  
  God is our assurance, 
  We trust his hands.
  As he guides our ways, 
  As he governs our heart,
  There is blessing for all purposes.

  
  Next, two recitatives surround an aria before the cantata’s first part, performed before the ceremony, closes with the third strophe from Luther’s chorale Nun bitten wir den Heiligen Geist (Now we implore the holy spirit): “Du süße Lieb, schenk uns deine Gunst” (You sweet love, grant us your favor).
  
  The aria in this first part of the cantata is striking; its text begins with these peculiar lines:

  Schläfert allen Sorgenkummer 
  In den Schlummer 
  Kindlichen Vertrauens ein.
  
  Put to sleep all care and sorrow 
  In the slumber
  Of childlike trust.

  
  This is an indication of parody, the retexting of music already on hand. The model is easily identified: it is found in what would later be known as Bach’s Easter Oratorio BWV 249 in the tenor aria “Sanfte soll mein Todeskummer” (Gentle shall my deathly trouble), which in turn goes back to a lullaby (Schlummerarie) in the secular model for the oratorio, the Shepherd Cantata BWV 249.1 as it is often called. Bach obviously planned to adapt this music, composed in 1725, and instructed his librettist accordingly. His efforts to create an appropriate new text were unrewarded, however, and Bach decided against his original intention in favor of new composition.
  
  Bach proceeded differently in the second part, performed after the ceremony. Here both arias go back textually as well as musically to a Christmas cantata that probably originated in 1728, Ehre sei Gott in der Höhe BWV 197.1 (Glory to God in the highest). The greeting to the infant Jesus, “O du angenehmer Schatz” (O you charming treasure), became “O du angenehmes Paar” (O you charming couple). These lines in the original are just as purposeful:

  Ich lasse dich nicht, 
  Ich schließe dich ein
  Im Herzen durch Lieben und Glauben.
  
  I will not let you go, 
  I enclose you
  In my heart through love and faith.

  
  They became these more general and less pointed lines:

  Vergnügen und Lust, 
  Gedeihen und Heil
  Wird wachsen und stärken und laben.
  
  Pleasure and delight, 
  Prosperity and salvation
  Will grow and strengthen and nourish.

  
  The second part of the cantata closes with a strophe from Georg Neumark’s Wer nur den lieben Gott läßt walten (Whoever only lets dear God rule). Bach’s score is silent as to which text is intended. Another rather uncertain tradition presents Neumark’s seventh strophe in a partially paraphrased version:

  So wandelt froh auf Gottes Wegen, 
  Und was ihr tut, das tut getreu.
  Verdienet eures Gottes Segen, 
  Denn der ist alle Morgen neu:
  Denn welcher seine Zuversicht
  Auf Gott setzt, den verläßt er nicht.
  
  Then wander happily on God’s ways, 
  And whatever you do, do it faithfully. 
  Earn your God’s blessing,
  For it is every morning new:
  For whoever places his trust
  In God, he will not forsake him.

  
  As discussed, there are two layers of different ages in Bach’s composition. The younger one includes the opening chorus, first aria, all the recitatives, and, mutatis mutandis, both choral movements. The older one is represented by the two arias in the second part, albeit with some alterations. The first of these arias, “O du angenehmes Paar” (O you charming pair), for bass, obbligato oboe, two muted violins, bassoon, and basso continuo, was scored for alto and two transverse flutes in the Christmas cantata; the original key, G major, was kept. The second aria, whose text begins “Verngügen und Lust” (Pleasure and delight), was originally scored in D major for bass and obbligato oboe d’amore. In the new version, it was transposed to G major and arranged for soprano, solo violin, and two oboi d’amore. The two oboes are only entrusted with filler parts, owing to the higher ranges of singing and instrumental obbligato parts. The wind parts in low register now do not allow the distance to the continuo bass to seem too large.
  
  The most important of the newer group of movements are the opening chorus and first aria. Accompanied by a large festival orchestra with trumpets and drums, as well as woodwinds and strings, the chorus enters after an instrumental introduction of twenty-four measures with the obligatory fugal exposition on the earnest text beginning “Gott ist unsre Zuversicht, / Wir vertrauen seinen Händen.” But this episode flows directly into several sustained chords, after which all polyphonic ambitions seem tossed aside. The loose interplay of vocal and instrumental parts gives hardly any hint that this is a church cantata for a particular occasion. Instead, the writing reminds us of Bach’s secular cantatas between 1730 and 1740.
  
  Similar features are found in the third movement, the “slumber aria,” scored for alto, oboe d’amore, strings, and basso continuo. But here Bach’s intentions regarding an adequate realization of the textual content can be clearly felt and easily comprehensible. If the aria in the Weissenfels Tafelmusik of 1725 had a unified scope, a certain degree of contradiction crept into the new version of the text for Easter of the same year, seen in the words “Todeskummer” (death throes) and “Schlummer” (slumber), on the one hand, and “tröstlich” (comforting) and “erfrischend” (refreshing), on the other. The librettist of the wedding cantata followed this tendency blindly; to the beginning section, with its “Schläfert alle Sorgenkummer,” he added a contrasting continuation with the words “Gottes Augen, welche wachen” (God’s eyes, which watch). Perhaps unwittingly, he failed to accomplish his task, thereby challenging the cantor of St. Thomas to compose a new composition, which had not been his initial intention. In this way, the contradiction intended by the text—but basically unintentional—is elevated to a principle, and the middle part of the aria is distinguished from the external parts by the change of key, meter, tempo, and thematic material.    

  ---

  Footnotes

  1. “Anlangende die Brautmessen, ist bisher dem Cantori von ieder ein Reichs-Thaler gegeben worden, mit welchem er auch hinführo sich begnügen lassen, und mehreres nicht fordern soll.”↵
  2. “In vorigen Zeiten haben die Cantores Kuhnau, Bach, Harrer, die gantzen Brautmessen in der Kirche und im Hauße, so wie die Organisten, in Persohn abgewartet, und nachher zur Recreation, eine Mahlzeit erhalten. Zu mehrerer Bequemlichkeit für solche, hat dann circa 1730, der alte Martius, den Bräutigam disponirt, ihnen statt dieser Mahlzeit einen Thaler zu geben. Seit der Zeit ist dieser Thaler allemal denen Leuten mit liquidiert worden” (BD III:342 [no. 852]).↵
  3. “Von einer ganzen Brautmeße bekommt der Herr Cantor 2 Thaler, die er allemal erhalten, und 1 Thaler statt einer Doppel-Flasche Wein (welche ich als Schüler dem seeligen Cantori Bach vielmahl selbst in natura gehohlt habe, die Speisung ist schon längstens abgekommen)” (BD III:342 [no. 851]).↵
  4. NBR, 181ff. (no. 184).↵
• 1 2023-09-26T09:38:46+00:00 Weichet nur, betrübte Schatten BWV 202 / BC G 41 9 Wedding cantata. First performed before 1730, perhaps as early as Coethen. plain 2024-04-24T15:23:45+00:00 BWV 202 Wedding BC G 41 Johann Sebastian Bach Hans-Joachim Schulze, "Weichet nur, betrübte Schatten, BWV 202 / BC G 41" in Die Bach Kantaten: Einführungen zu sämtlichen Kantaten Johann Sebastian Bachs, (Leipzig: Evangelisches Verlagsanstalt 2007), p. 716 James A. Brokaw II Before 1730 (Coethen?)

  Secular Wedding, before 1730

  Among the secular cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach, the wedding cantata Weichet nur, betrübte Schatten BWV 202 (Retreat, you gloomy shadows) enjoys a special popularity. This is due, on the one hand, to its high musical qualities and, on the other, to the truly timeless effect of its text, which is easily grasped by those not familiar with Baroque language. Even so, there is a complication: this particular solo cantata, performed so frequently in our time, yields very few hints as to the secret of its origin. Its rather peculiar transmission also leaves several questions unanswered. This simple fact alone is nearly incomprehensible. This unique work survived only because of a stroke of luck: a thirteen-year-old prepared a copy during the composer’s lifetime, and this singular copy fell into the hands of knowledgeable collectors during the nineteenth century, who preserved it for posterity.
  
  The search for the origins of this crucial copy of the cantata leads one to Gräfenroda in Thuringia. About halfway between Ohrdruf and Ilmenau, Gräfenroda was a relatively small settlement during the eighteenth century, with only a few hundred inhabitants. It was the birthplace and center of activity for Johann Peter Kellner, one of the most enthusiastic and industrious collectors and performers of Bach’s compositions in his era. Kellner, born in 1705 and thus twenty years younger than Johann Sebastian Bach, began amassing a comprehensive collection of his organ, harpsichord, and violin works as a young man. In his autobiography, published in 1760, Kellner remarked: “I had once seen and heard a great deal about a great master of music and found exceptional pleasure in his work. I refer to the late Capellmeister Bach in Leipzig. I longed for the acquaintance of this excellent man and was so fortunate as to enjoy it. In addition to him, I have had the honor of hearing the famous Herr Handel, capellmeister in London, and getting to know him as well as still other living masters of music.”¹
  
  Kellner’s own role in the preservation of our cantata remains open to conjecture. One of his students is more important in this connection: Johannes Ringck, born in 1717 in Frankenhain, a village near Gräfenroda. In 1730, when he was only thirteen, he copied not only our Bach cantata with all the care he could muster but also an extremely long organ work by Dieterich Buxtehude, a Te Deum Laudamus, no fewer than 268 measures in length. Several years later, Johannes Ringck went to Gotha to continue his training with the famous court music director and composer Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel. Shortly after 1740 we find him in Berlin, first as music teacher and opera composer and then, after 1755, as organist at St. Mary’s Church, where he played the Joachim Wagner organ, still extant today. In October 1772 the English music scholar Charles Burney judged Ringck’s musical capabilities thusly: “In the church of St. Mary, there is a fine organ, built by Wagner; Mr. Ringck, the organist, is much esteemed as a performer of ex tempore fugues, though he is possessed of less brilliancy of finger than the organist of St. Peter.”²After Ringck died in the summer of 1778, Wilhelm Friedemann Bach—now sixty-eight years old and without a position—sought to succeed him, but without success.³ As late as 1829 Ringck’s name is found in a letter to Goethe from the Berlin building contractor and director of the Sing-Akademie, Carl Friedrich Zelter. A month after Mendelssohn’s sensational revival of the St. Matthew Passion, Zelter looked back with pride upon the continuity of the Bach tradition in Berlin in a letter received by Goethe: “For fifty years I have been accustomed to honoring the genius of Bach; Friedemann died here; Emanuel Bach was royal chamber musician here; Kirnberger, Agricola were students of old Bach; Ringck, Bertuch, Schmalz, and others performed scarcely anything other than pieces by old Bach; I myself have been teaching [Bach’s music] for thirty years and have students who play all of Bach’s things well.”⁴ At the time Zelter wrote this, when a good measure of Prussian hegemony was in the air, Ringck had died half a century before, and his copy of the cantata Weichet nur, betrübte Schatten was twice as old as that.
  
  No tradition tells us whose wedding Bach composed this work for, who provided the text, or who sang the challenging soprano solo. It has been suggested that Johann Peter Kellner, only twenty-five years old in 1730 and still working as a cantor’s assistant in Gräfenroda, may have had another score at his disposal that he presented to his pupil Ringck for copying and that has been since lost; but this does not lead any further either. The only certainty is that the work existed before 1730. Whether it was composed after 1723 in Leipzig or earlier in Köthen, as is often suggested, remains unclear at this time.
  
  As might be expected, the names of the wedding couple remain shrouded in darkness, as well as nearly all accompanying circumstances. The text of the sixth movement does provide a rather vague clue:

  Und dieses ist das Glücke,
  Daß durch ein hohes Gunstgeschicke 
  Zwei Seelen einen Schmuck erlanget, 
  An dem viel Heil und Segen pranget.
  
  And this is good fortune,
  That through a lofty, benevolent fate 
  Two souls attain an ornament
  On which much salvation and blessing are emblazoned.

  
  With a little imagination, one might interpret “hohes Gunstgeschicke” to be an allusion to the permission to marry from the authorities, which might indicate a rural situation. What is missing from the final movement may offer another clue. Ribald wishes for the quick appearance of progeny, so typical of the era, are found here only cryptically:

  Sehet in Zufriedenheit 
  Tausend helle Wohlfahrtstage,
  Daß bald bei der Folgezeit
  Eure Liebe Blumen trage.
  
  May you see in contentment
  A thousand bright days of well-being, 
  So that in the near future
  Your love may bear flowers.

  
  This abundance of good taste and consideration is easier to ascribe to an amateur librettist than a professional poet. In any case, a concluding movement of this sort made sense because the entire cantata text takes place in a natural idyll in which Flora, the ancient Italian goddess of blossoms and flourishing, plays the lead role.
  
  The change of seasons and the transitoriness of their splendor is the widely varied theme of the unknown librettist. The beginning of the libretto indicates a wedding in the early months of the year, as in the first aria:

  Weichet nur, betrübte Schatten, 
  Frost und Winde, geht zur Ruh. 
  Florens Lust
  Will der Brust
  Nichts als frohes Glück verstatten, 
  Denn sie träget Blumen zu.
  
  Retreat, you gloomy shadows, 
  Frost and wind, retire to bed. 
  Flora’s delight
  Will grant the breast 
  Nothing but happy fortune, 
  For she brings flowers.

  
  Then, with a recitative:

  Die Welt wird wieder neu, 
  Auf Bergen und in Gründen
  Wird sich die Anmut doppelt schön verbinden, 
  Der Tag ist von der Kälte frei.
  
  The world becomes new again, 
  In the mountains and in valleys
  Loveliness clings with doubled beauty, 
  The day is free of chill.

  
  And once again in an aria that brings the sun god Phoebus into the scenario:

  Phoebus eilt mit schnellen Pferden
  Durch die neugeborne Welt.
  Ja, weil sie ihm wohlgefällt,
  Will er selbst ein Buhler werden.
  
  Phoebus hastens with quick horses 
  Through the newborn world.
  Yes, because she pleases him
  He himself would become a lover.

  
  A spring panorama is assumed in what follows, in which the goddess of flowers, Flora, and the sun god, Phoebus, are joined by the god of love, who is introduced in a recitative and extolled further in an aria:

  Wenn die Frühlingslüfte streichen 
  Und durch bunte Felder wehn, 
  Pflegt auch Amor auszuschleichen, 
  Um nach seinem Schmuck zu sehn, 
  Welcher, glaubt man, dieser ist, 
  Daß ein Herz das andre küßt.
  
  When the breezes of spring caress 
  And waft through colorful fields, 
  Even Cupid is wont to sneak out 
  To look for his prize,
  Which, it is thought, is this, 
  That one heart another kisses.

  
  Ultimately, the god Cupid commands the field and enjoys the advantage over the other deities—as in the next to last aria:

  Sich üben 
  Im Lieben
  In Scherzen sich herzen
  Ist besser als Florens vergängliche Lust.
  
  To practice
  In love
  In playfulness to embrace
  Is better than Flora’s ephemeral delight.

  
  The way that Johann Sebastian Bach uncovers ever new facets of this rather restrained libretto truly deserves admiration as he transforms the subtle intimations of the libretto into different characters. The three-part opening movement is the composition’s crown jewel. Its gently ascending chords in the strings and the rhapsodically hovering melodies of voice and obbligato oboe evoke the departing “gloomy shadows”; it changes to a cheerful scenario in the quick middle section, and, after this brief foretaste of longed-for blossoming splendor, it returns to the dark mood of the beginning. The second aria, accompanied only by basso continuo, depicts the “swift horses” of the sun god, Phoebus. The dance type that predominates here is that of the gigue, whose main characteristics are, according to Johann Mattheson, a Hamburg contemporary of Bach, “the most extreme speed and volatility, but mostly in a flowing and not impetuous way: like the smoothly shooting arrow of a stream.”⁵ The third aria, with obbligato violin solo, takes a more careful pace: no wonder, since it depicts the god Cupid, who is “wont to sneak out” (auszuschleichen pflegt) to be on the lookout for victims for his arrows. The fourth aria, “Sich üben im Lieben” (To practice love), is once again in a faster tempo; the soprano and oboe compete with one another in the dance character of a passepied. The concluding gavotte is designed as a stylized dance song: instrumentally compact in the framing sections, and with a more relaxed movement when the soprano enters. Its distinct three-part structure serves as a cheerful reminiscence of the cantata’s beginning, and the soprano voice, joined with the broken chords in the high string instruments, evokes once again the wintry gloom of the opening movement, now, however, on the firm ground of the irreversible change of season.

  ---

  Footnotes

  1. “Ich hatte sehr viel von einem grossen Meister der Music ehemals theils gesehen,theils gehöret, und fande einen ausnehmenden Gefallen an dessen Arbeit. Ichmeyne den nunmehr seligen Capellmeister Bachen in Leipzig. Mich verlangte nach derbekanntschaft dieses vortrefflichen Mannes, und wurde auch so glücklich, dieselbe zugeniessen. Ausser diesen habe auch den so berühmten Herrn Händel, Capellmeisterin London, zu hören und ihm, nebst noch andern lebenden Meistern in der Music,bekannt zu werden die Ehre gehabt” (BD III:77 [no. 663]).—Trans.↵
  2. Burney (1773, 2:207).—Trans.↵
  3. Henzel (1992).↵
  4. “Ich bin seit 50 Jahren gewohnt, den Bachschen Genius zu verehren; Friedemann ist hier gestorben, Emanuel Bach war hier Königlicher Kammermusiker,Kirnberger, Agrikola Schüler vom alten Bach, Ring, Bertuch, Schmalz und Andereließen fast nicht anderes hören als des alten Bachs Stücke; ich selbst unterrichte seit30 Jahren darinne und habe Schüler, die alle Bachschen Sachen gut spielen.” Zelter sent the letter of April 6, 1829, to Friedrich Konrad Griepenkerl and afterward sent a copy on to Goethe. See Schulze (1984b, 130).—Trans. ↵
  5. “äußerste Schnelligkeit und Flüchtigkeit, doch mehrentheils auf eine fließende und keine ungestüme Art: etwa wie der glattfortschießende Strom-Pfeil eines Bachs.”↵