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• 1 2023-09-26T09:38:07+00:00 Mer han en neue Oberkeet BWV 212 / BC G 32 11 Comic cantata to honor Carl Heinrich von Dieskau the new Lord of his hereditary estate. First performed on Aug 30, 1742 in Klein-Zschocher. Text by CF Henrici (Picander). plain 2024-04-24T14:56:09+00:00 1742-08-30 BWV 212 Klein-Zschocher 51.43475264316692, 12.03829327644727 Comic cantata Homage BC G 32 Johann Sebastian Bach CF Henrici (Picander) Hans-Joachim Schulze, "Mer han en neue Oberkeet, BWV 212 / BC G 32" in Die Bach Kantaten: Einführungen zu sämtlichen Kantaten Johann Sebastian Bachs, (Leipzig: Evangelisches Verlagsanstalt 2007), p. 692 James A. Brokaw II Dieskau Carl Heinrich von Dieskau

  For Members of the Aristocracy, August 30, 1742

  The cantata Mer han en neue Oberkeet BWV 212 (We have a new squire), also known as the Peasant Cantata, owes its existence to an occasion of rather local significance. Carl Heinrich von Dieskau was a scion of an ancient aristocratic family whose ancestral seat was in Dieskau near Halle in Thuringia. He became directeur des plaisirs at the Dresden court and supervisor of Royal Chapel and Chamber Music. In early 1742 he inherited the manor Kleinzschocher, southwest of Leipzig, from his mother and then made plans for festivities to celebrate the traditional hereditary homage. In deference to decorum, he needed to find an occasion that would permit the suspension of the period of mourning prescribed after his mother’s death. The justification was provided by the noble gentleman’s birthday on August 30, 1742. Although chronicles of the era are silent about details of the celebration, it may have involved—as customary for such festivities—a procession, double ranks of maidens of honor, and, in the evening, a fine fireworks display. For daylight fireworks, the Leipzig cantor of St. Thomas, Johann Sebastian Bach, and his worthy librettist, Christian Friedrich Henrici, came to mind. Whether one or the other took the initiative or whether the two together were represented by someone else, we do not know. As the county tax collector, the poet Henrici/ Picander was immediately subordinate to the district captain Dieskau, so that he is most likely to have initiated the musical tribute. It can be safely assumed that such an investment paid off in due course.
  
  As well designed as it is complex, Picander’s libretto combines expressions of devotion with the depiction of life in the countryside in the spirit of the approaching Rococo age, induces knowing smiles from insiders of the tax system, and indulges in assorted tomfoolery in keeping with the principle that “im Gedicht duzt der Bauer den König” (in poetry the peasant addresses the king by first name). The beginning—and, unfortunately, only the beginning—is in dialect, as if intended to provide the Obersächsisches Wörterbuch der Akademie der Wissenschaften (Upper Saxon dictionary of the Academy of Sciences) with material:¹

  Mer hahn en neue Oberkeet 
  An unsern Kammerherrn.
  Ha gibt uns Bier, das steigt ins Heet,
  Das ist der klare Kern.
  Der Pfarr mag immer büse tun;
  Ihr Speelleut halt euch flink!
  Der Kittel wackelt Mieken schun, 
  Das klene luse Ding.
  
  We have a new squire 
  In our chamberlain.
  He gives us beer, which goes to one’s head, 
  That’s the heart of the matter.
  The pastor may well frown; 
  You musicians, look sharp! 
  Molly’s skirt is already swaying, 
  The little saucy thing.

  
  The situation is easily clarified with a few words of explanation: a new “Oberkeet” (Obrigkeit, “overseer” or “squire”); “Bier” (Freibier, “free beer”), “das steigt ins Heet” (“das in den Kopf steigt,” or “which goes to one’s head”); the anticipation of enjoying a dance; and a frowning clergyman. But before the host and his guests can make their way to the tavern, the Gray Wolf, the soprano and bass have a bit more to hash out with one another. The oafish bass approaches things head-on: “Nu, Mieke, gib dein Guschel immer her” (Now, Mieke, give us a smooch), but is immediately parried:

  Wenns das alleine wär.
  Ich kenn dich schon, du Bärenhäuter, 
  Du willst hernach nur immer weiter.
  Der neue Herr hat ein sehr scharf Gesicht.
  
  If that were only all.
  I know you well, you old bear skin, 
  After that you always want more. 
  The new boss has a very sharp face.

  
  The last line means that he has very sharp eyes and sees everything that he shouldn’t. The bass beats a retreat:

  Ach unser Herr schilt nicht;
  Er weiß so gut als wir, und auch wohl besser, 
  Wie schön ein bißchen Dahlen schmeckt.
  
  Ah, our master won’t scold us;
  He knows as well as we, probably better,
  How lovely a bit of cuddling tastes.

  
  Dahlen, vocabulary still used by Goethe, simply means “cuddling” or “billing and cooing”; it is conceivable that the good woman present (the new chamberlain’s wife) did not entirely appreciate this wisecrack. But Mieke, the farm girl, is in no mood to abandon the delicate subject:

  Ach es schmeckt doch gar zu gut, 
  Wenn ein Paar recht freundlich tut; 
  Ei, da braust es in dem Ranzen,
  Als wenn eitel Flöh und Wanzen 
  Und ein tolles Wespenheer 
  Miteinander zänkisch wär.
  
  Ah, it does feel awfully good 
  When a couple gets really friendly; 
  Oh, there’s roaring in your belly, 
  As if stirred-up fleas and bugs
  And a crazy swarm of wasps
  Were all quarreling with one another.

  
  With luck and skill, the bass hits on a new topic and begins to talk about the tax collector, who in this case also acts as law enforcement—policeman and judge in one, without such newfangled innovations as separation of powers:

  Der Herr ist gut: Allein der Schösser, 
  Das ist ein Schwefelsmann,
  Der wie ein Blitz ein neu Schock strafen kann, 
  Wenn man den Finger kaum ins kalte Wasser steckt.
  
  The master is good: but the tax collector, 
  There is a real devil
  Who can hit you with a big fine like lightning 
  When you’ve hardly stuck your finger in cold water.

  
  What’s meant here is clearly a case of unauthorized fishing in the nearby Elster River, along with a draconian fine in the amount of “a new shock,” which could easily be as much as sixty groschen or two and a half thalers. Today, the ensuing sorrow-filled aria could easily be entitled “Hochsteuerland” (High tax country):

  Ach Herr Schösser, geht nicht gar zu schlimm 
  Mit uns armen Bauersleuten üm.
  Schont nur unsrer Haut; 
  Freßt ihr gleich das Kraut
  Wie die Raupen bis zum kahlen Strunk,
  Habt nur genung!
  
  Ah, Mr. Tax Collector, don’t be so hard 
  On us poor farming folk.
  Just spare our hides;
  If you must gnaw through our cabbage 
  Like a caterpillar, down to the bare stem, 
  Let that be enough!

  
  Mieke immediately attempts to defuse the situation:

  Es bleibt dabei,
  Daß unser Herr der beste sei; 
  Er ist nicht besser abzumalen
  Und auch mit keinem Hopfensack voll Batzen zu bezahlen.
  
  The fact remains
  That our master is the greatest;
  No portrait could improve upon him,
  Nor could you pay for him with a gunnysack full of coins.

  
  The reference here is to ancient small coins called batzen with the likeness of a bear named Meister Petz.² A brief paean follows:

  Unser trefflicher 
  Lieber Kammerherr
  Ist ein kumpabler Mann, 
  Den niemand tadeln kann.
  
  Our excellent, 
  Beloved chamberlain 
  Is an affable man
  Whom no one can find fault with.

  
  Here, the rhymes sound a bit like Hans Sachs, and the peculiar word kumpabel—a mixture of Latin capabel (capable) and Kumpanei (comradery)—is occasionally found as late as the nineteenth century.
  
  After the praises of the chamberlain’s humanity have been sung, next on the agenda is his influence in public affairs, including the conscription of soldiers—here euphemistically called "Werbung" (recruitment)—and, of course, taxes:

  Er hilft uns allen, alt und jung, 
  Und dir ins Ohr gesprochen:
  Ist unser Dorf nicht gut genung
  Letzt bei der Werbung durchgekrochen?    
  Ich weiß wohl noch ein besser Spiel, 
  Der Herr gilt bei der Steuer viel.
  
  He helps us all, old and young, 
  And let me whisper in your ear:
  Didn’t our village squeak through OK 
  In the last recruitment?
  I know an even better game,
  The master has lots of clout with the taxes.

  
  Then as now, in tax matters speech is silver, but silence is gold:

  Das ist galant,
  Es spricht niemand
  Von den caducken Schocken 
  Niemand red’t ein stummes Wort, 
  Knauthain und Cospuden dort 
  Hat selber Werg am Rocken.
  
  It is a pretty thing, 
  That no one brags
  About those evaded taxes.
  No one breathes a silent word. 
  Knauthain and Cospuden there 
  Themselves have holes in their clothes.

  
  The manors of Knauthain and Cospuden belonged, like Kleinzschocher, to the Dieskau family estate, and the “caducken Schocken” refer to the taxation of wastelands, in other words, taxes that do not actually need to be paid.
  
  The bass now turns his attention to the “gnädige Frau” (mistress) and considers her with truly dubious praise:

  Und unsre gnäd’ge Frau 
  Ist nicht ein Prinkel stolz.
  Und ist gleich unsereins ein arm und grobes Holz,
  So redt sie doch mit uns daher,
  Als wenn sie unsersgleichen wär
  Sie ist recht fromm, recht wirtlich und genau, 
  Und machte unserm gnädgen Herrn
  Aus einer Fledermaus viel Taler gern.
  
  And our gracious mistress Is not a bit aloof.
  And like our kind is made of poor, crude wood,
  And therefore speaks with us
  As if she were just like ourselves.
  She’s truly fair, truly good-hearted and direct, 
  And for our gracious master she’d make
  Four thalers from a bat.³

  
  The financial wishful thinking of the “gracious ones” becomes clearer when we recall that “Fledermaus” (bat) was the slang term for a worn penny. Even so, the aria that follows has to do with the loss of fifty thalers, which has to be made up through redoubled penny-pinching.
  
  After so much depiction of milieu, some music is called for. In honor of the squire, the soprano lets a little song be heard:

  Klein-Zschocher müsse 
  So zart und süße
  Wie lauter Mandelkerne sein. 
  In unsere Gemeine
  Zieh’ heute ganz alleine
  Der Überfluß des Segens ein.
  
  Let Kleinzschocher be 
  As tender and sweet 
  As pure almonds.
  In our community
  Let nothing come today except
  A surplus of blessings.

  
  The bass serves up a contrasting program:

  Das ist zu klug vor dich
  Und nach der Städter Weise; 
  Wir Bauern singen nicht so leise.
  Das Stückchen, höre nur, das schicket sich vor mich:
  Es nehme zehntausend Dukaten 
  Der Kammerherr alle Tag ein.
  Er trink ein gutes Gläschen Wein 
  Und laß es ihm bekommen sein.
  
  That is too smart for you
  And in the manner of the city;
  We peasants don’t sing so soft.
  Now listen to this one that’s just right for me!
  Ten thousand ducats every day
  May the chamberlain take in.
  May he drink a glass of good wine,
  And may he find it good.

  
  Molly doesn’t think it’s all that good:

  Das klingt zu liederlich.
  Es sind so hübsche Leute da, 
  Die würden ja
  Von Herzen drüber lachen; 
  Nicht anders, als wenn ich, 
  Die alte Weise wollte machen:
  Gib, Schöne, 
  Viel Söhne
  Von artger Gestalt, 
  Und zieh sie fein alt,
  Das wünschet sich Zschocher und Knauthain fein bald.
  
  That sounds too dissolute! 
  There are such fancy people here
  Who would certainly
  Laugh heartily over it;
  No different than if I
  Wanted to offer this old tune:
  Give us, pretty one, 
  Many sons
  Of stalwart form
  And bring them up well,
  That’s what Zschocher and Knauthain want, very soon.

  
  Whatever is so “liederlich” about the “Dukaten” aria—that is, licentious and self-indulgent—cannot be inferred from the text, nor can the reason for the laughter of the “hübschen” people—that is, polite and well-educated. The chamberlain and his gracious wife will have heard the wish for “many sons” with rather uncomfortable expressions; so far, they have had five daughters—but not the longed-for son and heir.
  
  Be that as it may, the bass gives in:

  Du hast wohl recht.
  Das Stückchen klingt zu schlecht; 
  Ich muß mich also zwingen,
  Was städtisches zu singen. 
  Dein Wachstum sei feste 
  Und lache vor Lust.
  Deines Herzens Trefflichkeit
  Hat dir selbst das Feld bereit’,
  Auf dem du blühen mußt.
  
  You’re quite right.
  The little piece sounds too bad. 
  I must then force myself
  To sing something more urbane. 
  May your increase be steady, 
  And laugh with delight.
  The excellence of your heart
  Has itself prepared the field for you 
  On which you must certainly blossom.

  
  After more to-and-fro the party is finally ready to move in the direction of the Gray Wolf:

  Wir gehn nun, wo der Tudelsack 
  In unsrer Schenke brummt.
  Und rufen dabei fröhlich aus:
  Es lebe Dieskau und sein Haus, 
  Ihm sei beschert,
  Was er begehrt
  Und was er sich selbst wünschen mag.
  
  We’re going now where the bagpipes 
  In our tavern drone.
  As we call joyfully out:
  Long live Dieskau and his house, 
  May he be granted
  All that he desires
  And whatever else he might wish for.

  
  Bach’s composition, which he himself entitled “Cantate burlesque,” shows evidence at many points of close collaboration between composer and poet in preparing the libretto. This is particularly true of the two “urban” arias. Only the soprano’s paean to Kleinzschocher is undisguised; its model was an aria from a congratulatory cantata for August the Strong performed in 1732.41 There, the personified Landes-Vorsehung (National Destiny) begins:

  Ich will ihn hegen, 
  Ich will ihn pflegen
  Und seiner Seele freundlich tun.
  
  I want to cherish him, 
  I want to care for him
  And be kind to his soul.

  
  In contrast, the bass aria operates with a double-edged sword: the “Dein Wachstum sei feste” (May your prosperity be secure) goes back to the dramma per musica Der Streit zwischen Phoebus und Pan BWV 201, where it is connected to the text “Zu Tanze, zu Sprünge, so wackelt das Herz” (For dancing, for leaping, so wobbles the heart). Steadiness here, violent wobbling there: the music intentionally and successfully undermines what the text says. The same thing happens, whenever possible, in the two shorter aria movements. The song of praise to the excellent, companionable, fault-free chamberlain is set to the ancient melody of the “Folie d’Espagne” (Follies of Spain), which otherwise appears with texts such as “Du strenge Flavia, / Ist kein Erbarmen da” (You strict Flavia, / Have you no mercy) or else, particularly in operas of the period, to accompany the entrance of a fool. The “Ducats” aria cites a contemporary hunting song, accompanied by a hunting horn for the sake of authenticity; in the meantime, the heart of the matter is a popular song text “Was helfen uns tausend Dukaten, / Wenn sie versoffen sind” (What good to us are one thousand ducats / When they are drunk?). It’s no wonder that the soprano finds this licentious and self-indulgent and fears that nice people will have an unfavorable impression. The “alte Weise” (old ditty) with “viel Söhne” (many sons) may be based on a lullaby that possibly once enjoyed a crude second text. In the first recitative, a so-called Großvatertanz (grandfather dance) or Kehraus (last dance of the evening) is heard at appropriate spots, usually sung to the words “Mit mir und dir ins Federbett, / Mit mir und dir ins Stroh” (With me and you in the feather bed, / With me and you in the straw).
  
  From the colorful overture to the tuneful ensemble finale, most movements give the impression of having been conceived and composed with double entendres in mind⁴—and must also have been heard as such. Unfortunately, many movements have not yet given up their secrets, and so the pleasure of listening to the only apparently ephemeral Peasant Cantata is mixed with perplexity—just as is Mozart’s “Musical Joke.”

  ---

  Footnotes

  1. The same company published the Wörterbuch der obersächischen Mundarten (Dictionary of Upper Saxon dialects).—Trans.↵
  2. Meister Petz is the name of a bear in a fable in which various animals have human names: Isegrim the wolf, Lamprecht the hare, Adebar the stork.—Trans.↵
  3. In other words, the coins would be well-worn.—Trans.↵
  4. Schulze (1976). Other clues to “borrowed material” appear in Boyd (1993). Dieskau’s advancement at the Dresden court may have prompted the librettist to entitle his 1751 republication of the text “Auf eine Huldigung. Cantata burlesque,” thus defusing the obvious textual and musical allusions to those in power.↵
• 1 2023-09-26T09:38:28+00:00 Vereinigte Zwietracht der wechselnde Saiten BWV 207.1 / BC G 37 9 Congratulatory cantata for Professor of Law Gottlieb Kortte. First performed on December 11, 1726 in Leipzig. plain 2024-04-24T15:04:44+00:00 1726-12-11 BWV 207.1 BC G 37 Johann Sebastian Bach Hans-Joachim Schulze, "Vereinigte Zwietracht der wechselnde Saiten, BWV 207.1 / BC G 37" in Die Bach Kantaten: Einführungen zu sämtlichen Kantaten Johann Sebastian Bachs, (Leipzig: Evangelisches Verlagsanstalt 2007), p. 709 James A. Brokaw II Professor of Law Gottlieb Kortte

  University of Leipzig, December 11, 1726

  It is fairly certain that the homage cantata Vereinigte Zwietracht der wechselnden Saiten BWV 207.1 (Concordant discord of changing strings) owes its existence to a commission from a group of students at the University of Leipzig. The occasion was a promotion in the law faculty of the group’s Leipzig alma mater. Gottlieb Kortte, born in 1698 in Beeskow Lausitz, earned a master’s degree in 1720 after studying theology, philology, and jurisprudence. Four years later he had earned the title of doctor of canon and civil law at Frankfurt an der Oder, and in late 1726 he became a professor at the University of Leipzig. He delivered his inaugural address in Latin on December 11 of that year; it is reported that he must have spoken from memory, because he had been in such a hurry that he left his notes at home. It remains uncertain whether the twenty-eight-year-old actually appeared the absent-minded professor or whether he only faked his forgetfulness in order to display his capabilities in the proper light by delivering his disquisition from memory. Unfortunately, Kortte was granted only a brief period in his new position; death took him in April 1731. It was said that the “beacon of hope” of the faculty was “deeply mourned by the studious young, before whom he had stood to great applause, and all who knew his deep and thorough learning.”
  
  Eleven years after Kortte’s death, a memoir extended to the citizenry of Dresden demonstrated what this loss meant for the university and its law faculty in particular.¹ Under the title Thränen und Seuffzer wegen der Universität Leipzig (Tears and sighs over the University of Leipzig), a private lecturer named Johann Gottlieb Reichel unsparingly criticized everything and everyone and hauled the legal faculty over the coals. Avarice and accumulation of responsibilities—or empire building—were, in his view, the reasons for the virtually unparalleled indifference of the professors and the decline of the faculty. The full professor Carl Otto Rechenberg in particular was shown no mercy. A quarter century earlier, he had attended Bach’s examination of the organ in St. Paul’s Church as representative of the university. Reichel wrote of him:

  Lord Privy Councilor Rechenberg is the chair and full professor of the law faculty and the superior expert on law, indeed, as learned and capable a man as can be found anywhere in the world, a man whom everyone talks about, a respected man who can accomplish more in an hour than others can in an entire day, all of which we must say in his honor. But my God! We could also say that he reads as little as Dr. Börner, and we cannot say which of these is the laziest. Before he became a professor he held a collegium now and then, but afterward, once he had achieved his goal of becoming a full professor, he reads nothing at all; if indeed he starts something, it’s not as if he wants to read seriously but rather only pro forma in front of others, as if he had read it, though he only wanted to do so but did not actually do it, and how does it help us, in the four weeks that he reads, we will certainly not learn very much, and easily one hundred students leave Leipzig having heard him at most only two or three times, others have never had the good fortune to hear him even once. Shall we ask the reason, where indeed this astonishing laziness comes from? There is none other than this, that one has given himself entirely over to salaciousness, and that one views his profession as only a side job that one does not have to attend, and that brings in only six to eight hundred reichsthalers.

  
  It goes on for pages this way. Gottfried Kortte, highly gifted but cut down in his prime, would certainly have been spared a scolding of this sort. The text of our homage cantata gives one a sense in several places what high hopes his colleagues had for him. The unknown librettist is not at all sparing with encomiums, suggestions, and admonitions from the mouths of the allegorical figures Fortune, Gratitude, Industry, and Honor, but only after the customary invitation to a happy gathering:

  Vereinigte Zwietracht der wechselnden Saiten, 
  Der rollenden Pauken durchdringender Knall, 
  Locket den lüstern Hörer herbei,
  Saget mit euren frohlockenden Tönen 
  Und doppelt vermehrendem Schall 
  Denen mir emsig ergebenden Söhnen,
  Was hier der Lohn der Tugend sei.
  
  Concordant discord of changing strings, 
  The rolling drums’ penetrating boom, 
  Entice the pleasure-seeking listener hereby, 
  Tell, with your exultant tones
  And doubly multiplied sound,
  To my sons, diligently devoted to me, 
  What the reward for virtue here shall be.

  
  The phrase “vereinigte Zwietracht” turns out to be the German version of the Latin concordia discors, found in Ovid’s Metamorphoses as discors concordia and, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, widely used as a motto for single compositions or entire work cycles. From this perspective it is not terribly significant that in March 1738, nearly twelve years after the homage cantata for Gottlieb Kortte was first performed, there was a Leipzig musical celebration for the name day of the Saxon prince elector beginning with the words:

  Ergetzender Wohlklang vereinigter Seyten,
  Der wechselnden Töne durchdringender Schall! 
  Locket den lüsternen Hörer herbey.
  
  Delightful euphony of unified strings, 
  The changing tones’ penetrating sound!
  Entice the pleasure-seeking listener hereby.

  
  Even so, the commonalities with the text set to music by Bach can scarcely be denied. When we recall that the author of the more recent libretto, Heinrich Gottlieb Schelhafer, in later life a professor in Hamburg, was studying law in Leipzig at the time in question (1726) and is known to have met the then new professor Kortte, we are tempted to suspect that he may have taken part in the congratulatory cantata, may have known its text, and might even be its author.²
  
  The opening ensemble is followed by an extended recitative and aria voiced by the allegorical figure Diligence, who promises rich rewards for those following the stony path:

  Zieht euren Fuß nicht zurücke, 
  Ihr, die ihr meinen Weg erwählt. 
  Das Glücke mercket eure Schritte, 
  Die Ehre zählt die sauren Tritte,
  Damit, daß nach vollbrachter Straße
  Euch werd in gleichem Übermaße
  Der Lohn von ihnen zugezählt.
  
  Do not draw back your foot, 
  You who choose my path.
  Fortune takes note of your steps, 
  Honor counts the painful treads
  So that, after the road has been completed, 
  ou will be paid in equal superfluity
  The reward for them.

  
  Honor and Fortune join in with a dialogue and then unite their voices in a duet. Thereafter, Gratitude comes into play, first with a verbose recitative and then with an aria:

  Ätzet dieses Angedenken
  In den härtsten Marmor ein! 
  Doch die Zeit verdirbt den Stein. 
  Laßt vielmehr aus euren Taten 
  Eures Lehrers Tun erraten.
  Kann man aus den Früchten lesen, 
  Wie die Wurzel sei gewesen,
  Muß sie unvergänglich sein.
  
  Etch this commemoration 
  In the hardest marble!
  Indeed, time erodes the stone. 
  Instead, let from your deeds 
  Your teacher’s action be divined. 
  If one can tell from the fruit 
  What the root was like,
  It must then be everlasting.

  
  Diligence, Honor, Fortune, and Gratitude each takes the floor in a recitative, after which, all together, a “Kortte lebe, Kortte blühe” (Long live Kortte, may Kortte flourish) introduces the finale. Here again, in the closing ensemble, the four allegorical figures step forward individually, Honor with “den mein Lorbeer unterstützt” (he whom my laurel favors), Fortune with “der mir selbst im Schoße sitzt” (he who sits in my own bosom), Diligence with “der durch mich stets höher steigt” (he who climbs ever higher through me), Gratitude with “der die Herzen zu sich neigt” (he who inclines our hearts to himself ). The one so acclaimed must, as the closing text says,

  In ungezählten Jahren 
  Stets geehrt in Segen stehn
  Und zwar wohl der Neider Scharen,
  Aber nicht der Feinde sehn.
  
  Must for countless years
  Stand ever honored in blessing
  And probably see crowds of the envious 
  But not of enemies.

  
  Unfortunately, Gottlieb Kortte was not granted “countless years,” but the music composed and performed in his honor certainly was. The venture was probably financed by a collection taken among students. The result must have been quite a respectable sum, since otherwise the opulent setting of the opening and closing movements with trumpets, drums, flutes, oboes, and strings could not have been realized. With his strategy in the opening chorus, Bach created a remarkable combination of reduced workload and increased difficulty for himself. Reduced workload, because he brought into the cantata the second fast movement from his F-major concerto, known today as the First Brandenburg Concerto BWV 1046; increased difficulty, because he transposed it to D major, traded the pair of horns for trumpets and drums, and, in particular, with a scarcely imaginable degree of artistic craftsmanship, replaced the solo violino piccolo with a four-part choral texture. (The last word has not yet been spoken with regard to the possibility, occasionally ventured, that the concerto movement was actually the result of the revision of a vocal-instrumental ensemble work and that, in our cantata, Bach simply restored, mutatis mutandis, the original state of affairs.)³
  
  In the middle of the cantata, Bach once again drew upon the concerto previously mentioned. After the duet for Fortune and Honor, represented by soprano and bass, there follows an instrumental postlude entitled “Ritornello.” This turns out to be a variant of the second trio for two horns, three oboes in unison, and basso continuo from the F-major concerto; here the horns are replaced by trumpets, and the piece is transposed from F to D major.
  
  The first of the two arias, for tenor and strings, is rather neutral thematically, a consequence of the didactic nature of its text. The second, for alto and two obbligato flutes, is characterized by the remarkable discrepancy between the broad arabesques of melody for voice and flutes, on the one hand, and the strings in unison, on the other. The goal of the rhythmically emphasized repetitions in the strings is clearly meant to recall the “härtesten Marmor” (hardest marble) alluded to in the text—sculpturally, please note, rather than the poetic paraphrase “Ätzen” (etch) in the text. The closing ensemble presents itself as a comparatively undemanding, harmonious conclusion.
  The echo effects might point to an outdoor performance, perhaps aided by
  relatively mild December weather.
  
  In any case, a march for many instruments from Bach would have sounded well in the open air. Moreover, the organizers would have requested it in order to parade in front of the honoree’s house. And although this sort of thing was not at all uncommon in Leipzig, the procession would have aroused considerable notice, perhaps from “crowds of the envious” as well: at least among those members of the professorship for whom a comfortable life—supported financially by empire building—was more important than the pedagogical instruction expected of them, which should actually have led them to Fortune and Gratitude through Diligence and Honor.

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  Footnotes

  1. Reichel (1929).↵
  2. Schulze (1969, 27ff.).↵
  3. Boyd (1993); Talbot (1999, 271–76).↵