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• 1 2023-09-26T09:34:50+00:00 Erfreute Zeit im neuen Bunde BWV 83 / BC A 167 8 Purification of Mary. First performed 02/02/1724 in Leipzig (Cycle I). plain 2024-04-24T16:55:35+00:00 1724-02-02 BWV 83 Leipzig 51.340199, 12.360103 16Purification Purification of Mary BC A 167 Johann Sebastian Bach Hans-Joachim Schulze, "Erfreute Zeit im neuen Bunde, BWV 83 / BC A 167" in Die Bach Kantaten: Einführungen zu sämtlichen Kantaten Johann Sebastian Bachs, (Leipzig: Evangelisches Verlagsanstalt 2007), p. 512 James A. Brokaw II Leipzig I

  Purification of Mary, February 2, 1724

  This cantata is for the first of the Marian feasts in the church year, the Feast of the Purification of Mary on February 2. This feast, celebrated since the seventh century, concerns the code of conduct for new mothers, recorded in Leviticus 12; this is also the basis for the Gospel reading of the day, found in Luke 2:22–32, the presentation of the infant Jesus in the Temple. Verse 22 reads: “And as the days of her purification according to the law of Moses were accomplished, they brought him to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord.” Following instructions regarding the animal sacrifice customary for this occasion, verse 25 continues:

  And behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; and this man was righteous and devout, and waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. And it was revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he should not see death before he had seen the Christ of the Lord. And he came, prompted by the Spirit, into the Temple. And when the parents brought the infant Jesus into the Temple to do for him as one does according to the law, he took him in his arms and praised God and said: Lord, now let your servant depart in peace, as you have said; for my eyes have seen your savior, which you have prepared before all peoples, a light to enlighten the Gentiles, and for the glory of your people Israel. (25–32)

  
  The musical texts for the feast on February 2 generally do not highlight the honoring of Mary. Instead they nearly always focus on the words of the ancient Simeon: the fulfillment of his heart’s desire to meet the savior and his longing for death. The unknown librettist of our cantata keeps to this tradition. He immediately brings joy and longing for death together in the first lines, an aria text:

  Erfreute Zeit im neuen Bunde, 
  Da unser Glaube Jesum hält.
  Wie freudig wird zur letzten Stunde
  Die Ruhestatt, das Grab bestellt.
  
  Joyous era of the new covenant
  When our faith embraces Jesus.
  How joyfully at the last hour
  The resting place, the grave, will be prepared.

  
  The same set of contrasts also dominates the second movement, a recitative. Here Simeon’s speech appears as a literal quote, although separated in two sections that frame the movement as its beginning and end. It begins with the biblical passage: “Herr, nun lässest du deinen Diener in Friede fahren, wie du gesaget hast” (Lord, now let your servant depart in peace, as you have said). At this point, the librettist appends his own thoughts:

  Was uns als Menschen schrecklich scheint,
  Ist uns ein Eingang zu dem Leben.
  Es ist der Tod.
  
  What to us as humans seems terrifying
  Is for us an entry into life.
  Death is an end.

  
  At the end, beginning with free poetry that flows into the original wording from Luke, the text reads: 

  Was Wunder, daß ein Herz des Todes Furcht vergißt.
  Es kann erfreut den Ausspruch tun:
  “Denn meine Augen haben deinen Heiland gesehen, welchen du bereitet hast für allen Völkern.”
  
  How wondrous that a heart forgets the terror of death.
  It can joyfully make the statement:
  “For my eyes have seen your savior, whom you have prepared before all peoples.”

  
  The literal Gospel quotation is followed by an aria text that seems once again to freely paraphrase joy and longing for death; in actuality, however, it is a skillful versification of a passage from Hebrews 4: “Therefore let us approach with joy to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace at the time when we are in need of help” (16). Moving away from this language only slightly, the librettist writes:

  Eile Herz, voll Freudigkeit,
  Vor den Gnadenstuhl zu treten.
  Du sollst deinen Trost empfangen
  Und Barmherzigkeit erlangen,
  Ja bei kummervoller Zeit, 
  Stark am Geiste, kräftig beten.
  
  Hasten, heart, full of joyfulness,
  To step before the throne of grace.
  You shall receive your consolation
  And obtain mercy,
  Indeed, at sorrowful times,
  Strong in spirit, pray powerfully.

  
  The last recitative summons once again the “Finsternis” (darkness) that threatens faith and “des Grabes Nacht” (the night of the grave) but closes with a reassuring reference to the savior as a “helles Licht” (bright light). This is the keyword for the concluding chorale text, the fourth strophe from Luther’s German version of Simeon’s song of praise, the Canticum Simeonis: “Er ist das Heil und selig Licht / Für den Heiden” (He is the salvation and blessed light / For the heathen). The close of the Gospel reading for the feast day returns here, almost literally: “Ein Licht, zu erleuchten die Heiden” (A light to enlighten the Gentiles).
      
  Bach’s composition on this text originated during his first year of service as Thomaskantor and was first performed on February 2, 1724, in both of Leipzig’s main churches. This date is confirmed by a printed text booklet titled Zur Leipziger Kirchen-Music (For Leipzig church music) to be read by the audience during the performance; it bears the inscription “Am Fest der Reinigung Mariä. Früh in der Kirche zu St. Nicolai und in der Vesper zu St. Thomae” (On the Feast of the Purification of Mary. Early in St. Nicholas and at vespers in St. Thomas). This corresponds to the customary practice in Leipzig during Bach’s era of offering church music on high feast days (to which all three Marian feasts belong) in both main churches: in the morning at the main service in one church and in the afternoon at the vespers service in the other.
  
  Despite this feast day context Bach’s cantatas for the Purification are rather restrained and introverted in their overall character, and thereby correspond to the figure and words of Simeon as the central statement of the Gospel reading for the feast day. The only exception is the cantata Erfreute Zeit im neuen Bunde BWV 83 (Joyous era of the new covenant). The beginning of its text gave the composer reason to choose a richer setting for the orchestra. In addition to strings and woodwinds, he selected brass instruments, which are normally reserved for festive occasions, in our case, two horns. But that is not all: the opening movement presents itself as a lively, animated, indeed quite cheerful violin concerto. The limited pitch capabilities of the natural horns of Bach’s era restricted the possibility of venturing into distant keys, so that the ritornello of the first movement sounds mostly in the home key of F major. But despite that, Bach produced such a skillfully worked out concerto movement that it is possible to perform the entire aria as a purely instrumental movement, omitting the voice part. But further, the question arises whether Bach adapted an original instrumental movement to become an aria. Attempts to reconstruct the putative original have recently been undertaken. Philipp Spitta, the most important Bach scholar of the late nineteenth century, argued vehemently for the original character of the aria and wanted its instrumental part to be understood only as an homage to the popular formal principle of the Italian concerto. What might have brought such a gesture about, however, remains open. In this connection, it seems odd that at the beginning of the aria and also later the text fragment “Erfreute Zeit” is repeated up to six times, obviously dependent upon the instrumental part, before the rest of the first two text lines appears. The long coloraturas on the second syllable of “Erfreute” are entirely appropriate to the character of the text and serve the intended competition between voice and solo violin. But the way the final syllable of that word is sustained and emphasized with a trill does not quite correspond to the stipulations of Bach’s era for good text declamation. The relationship between text and music in the middle part of the aria is less problematic. Sinking figures and chromatic intensifications are assigned to the text elements “Ruhestatt” (resting place) and “Grab” (grave), and pitch repetitions by the solo violin using the open strings E, A, and D evoke the sound of funeral bells.
  
  The second movement, with its Simeon passages, leads to an entirely different sphere: Bach has the bass perform this in the liturgical eighth psalm tone, embedding it, however, in a two-part instrumental texture including the violins and violas, on the one hand, and the basso continuo, on the other. In a manner appropriate to the serious nature of the biblical text, the two voices move for the most part in canon, resulting in the compositional principle known as “cantus firmus with two independent canonic voices.” This technique is often found in Bach’s late period, above all in the Musical Offering BWV 1079. As Werner Braun has shown, “In Bach the ‘strict fugue,’ certainly understood first of all as clear evidence of his supreme musical genius, points beyond itself: as an emblem of infinity or perfection, for example, it becomes a theological symbol; as an emblem of ‘Following’ it becomes an exegetical metaphor.”¹ How seriously Bach took his compositional approach is shown by the fact that he not only assigns the strict canonic writing to the words of Simeon but also twice interrupts the other freely versified text with a brief canonic episode, thus creating a link to the outer framing sections. 
  
  After this serious intermezzo, the cheerfulness of the cantata’s beginning returns. The key of F major is taken up once again, and the solo violin is quite unbridled as it unfolds its virtuosity. The tenor tries to match it when possible, as in “Eile Herz, voll Freudigkeit, / Vor den Gnadenstuhl zu treten,” the paraphrase of a verse in Hebrews 4 mentioned earlier. Here again, it is possible that this piece, in which the instruments predominate, may have an instrumental work in its ancestry. After another recitative a simple chorale movement closes the cantata, a strophe from Martin Luther’s hymn Mit Fried und Freud ich fahr dahin (In peace and joy I now depart), on a melody found in Johann Walter’s Wittenberg hymnal of 1524.
  
  Three years after its origin, Bach performed the cantata again, and further performances are not out of the question. Almost fifty years later, the second-youngest son of the Thomaskantor, Johann Christoph Friedrich, the “Bückeburger Bach,” used this closing chorale by itself, arranged for solo bass and strings, in two places in his oratorio Die Kindheit Jesu (The infancy of Jesus). These two movements are titled “Chorale: Simeon.” The text for the oratorio was authored by no less a figure than Johann Gottfried Herder.

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  Footnotes

  1. “Weist auch bei Bach die ‘gebundene fuge,’ so gewiss sie zunächst als bloßes Zeugnis seines überragenden musikalischen Ingeniums verständlich ist, häufig über sich hinaus: als Sinnbild der Unendlichkeit oder Vollkommenheit etwa wird sie zum theologischen Symbol, als Sinnbild des ‘Nachfolgens’ zur exegetischen Metapher” (Braun 1969, 111).↵