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Der Herr ist mein getreuer Hirt BWV 112 / BC A 67
Misericordias Domini, April 8, 1731
This cantata belongs to Bach’s annual cycle of chorale cantatas—and to a place in the church calendar for which the cycle had a gap at first. In early 1725 the Thomaskantor prematurely halted work on the project, which he had started the previous summer. Over the next decade, he took every opportunity to complete the cycle. This cantata, for Misericordias Domini Sunday, is one such work, created at a later date. It was performed for the first time on April 8, 1731, in St. Nicholas Church in Leipzig. The place and date of performance are documented by an original printed text booklet of the same year; the data it provides are corroborated by evidence in the handwritten sources, in the watermarks in the paper in Bach’s own manuscript score, and in the associated original parts, as well as in the names and birthdates of the students of the school at St. Thomas who participated in writing out the parts. There is a bit of uncertainty as to the work’s genesis regarding the beginning of Bach’s handwritten score. The first movement is copied cleanly and with very few corrections, so that one must consider it a copy of an older exemplar; whether this was simply a composing score or the opening movement of an older work, perhaps with a different text, cannot be determined at present. Bach’s autograph score is sharply distinguished from the scores of other cantatas because of this combination of the first movement in fair copy with the other movements in composing score. There would seem to be a close relationship between the aesthetic quality of the autograph and its eventful fate in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.After the composer’s death the score passed into the possession of his oldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann, who sold it in Berlin in his later years. It reappeared in 1827 in an auction and was acquired by Carl Philipp Heinrich Pistor, a privy councillor and official in the Prussian postal service. The next documented owner was Marie Lichtenstein, whose married name was Hoffmeister; she appears to have acquired the manuscript no later than 1847, after Pistor’s death. It may have been a wedding gift; perhaps it was chosen because it was the most attractive of the Bach scores left behind by Pistor. Marie Hoffmeister, daughter of Heinrich Lichtenstein, a member of Carl Maria von Weber’s circle of friends, was both godmother and piano teacher to Pistor’s nephew Ernst Rudorff, later a music professor in Berlin. On the basis of this close and friendly relationship, the manuscript came into the possession of the Rudorff family, only to be sold in 1893 by Ernst Rudorff probably to Max Abraham, then owner of the Leipzig music publisher Peters. The next securely documented owner was Henri Hinrichsen, Abraham’s nephew and successor in leadership of the firm. When the firm was expropriated by the Nazis in the late 1930s, his exquisite collection of autographs wound up in the Leipzig city library, including the Bach cantata. In 1945, upon occupation of the city of Leipzig by American troops, Henri Hinrichsen’s second oldest son, Walter, came to Leipzig and took back the property of his father, who had been murdered in 1942 in a concentration camp. As a result, Bach’s score of the cantata Der Herr ist mein getreuer Hirt BWV 112 (The Lord is my faithful shepherd) traveled to New York and today is preserved in the Pierpont Morgan Library.
Certainly, the high estimation of Bach’s score seen here depends on more than its calligraphic appearance; it has just as much to do with the work’s musical as well as textual qualities. Like several other late additions to Bach’s chorale cantata cycle, the composition of Der Herr ist mein getreuer Hirt makes use of an unaltered chorale text; it thus avoids the usual reworking of individual chorale strophes to become recitatives and arias. The five-strophe hymn originated in Strasburg and is first documented in 1630; its author is understood to be Wolfgang Meuslin, also called Wolfgang Musculus. The oldest hymnals transmit the chorale anonymously; in them it appears beneath the heading “Psalmen und Geistliche lieder, welche von fromen Christen gemacht und zu samen gelesen sind” (Psalms and sacred hymns that are created by pious Christians and selected as seed) along with Psalm 23. Like the Gospel reading and epistle for the Sunday, this chorale deals with the good shepherd and belongs to the day of Misericordias Domini as a lesson:
Der Herr ist mein Hirte; mir wird nichts mangeln. Er weidet mich auf einer grünen Aue und führet mich zum frischen Wasser. Er erquicket meine Seele; er führet mich auf rechter Straße um seines Namens willen. Und ob ich schon wanderte im finstern Tal, fürchte ich kein Unglück; denn du bist bei mir, den Stecken und Stab trösten mich. Du bereitest vor mir einen Tisch im Angesicht meiner Feinde. Du salbest mein Haupt mit Öl und schenkest mir voll ein. Gutes und die Barmherzigkeit werden mir folgen mein Leben lang, und ich werde bleiben im Hause des Herrn immerdar.
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He grazes me on a green meadow and leads me to fresh water. He refreshes my soul; he leads me on the right path for his name’s sake. And if I already walked in the dark valley, I feared no misfortune; for you are beside me, your rod and staff comfort me. You prepare before me a table in the face of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil and fill my cup full. Goodness and mercy will follow me my life long, and I will remain in the House of the Lord forever.
Meuslin’s versification does full justice to the density of this text, as his very first strophe shows:
Der Herr ist mein getreuer Hirt,
Hält mich in seiner Hute,
Darin mir gar nichts mangeln wird
Irgend an eine Gute,
Er weidet mich ohn Unterlaß,
Darauf wächst das wohlschmeckend Gras
Seines heilsamen Wortes.
The Lord is my faithful shepherd,
Keeps me in his care,
In which I shall not want for
Any good thing.
He grazes me without ceasing
From where grows the tasty grass
Of his healing word.
In its brevity and concision, Bach’s composition follows the diction of both the biblical and the poetic model. Hence the opening chorus is among the briefest of its kind in the entire cycle of chorale cantatas. The buoyant instrumental ritornello, to which two horns lend a festive brilliance, hardly comprises ten measures and is heard independently only three times, before the first and third lines of the chorale and as a postlude. Motivically, the ritornello remains continually present, in accordance with the procedure in the opening movements for the entire cycle, whereby the chorale is presented line by line and in motet-like counterpoint with the other voices—although the instrumental ritornello is not responsible for the coherence of the entire movement as much as usual. Instead, the presentation of the chorale by the voices is so rarely interrupted—the longest pause is only three measures long—that for that very reason the required cohesion is achieved. Hence the balances are modified, and the competition between vocal and instrumental forces enters a different dimension.
The second movement hews more closely to the familiar pattern. It is an aria on the second chorale strophe “Zum reinen Wasser er mich weist” (He leads me to pure water) for alto and obbligato oboe d’amore. The pastoral affect, rocking
8 meter, flowing motion, and focused earnestness of the key of E minor all contribute to the expression of unshakable assurance, thus pointing to the thrice-stated couplet “Er führet mich auf rechter Straß / Seiner Geboten ohn Ablaß” (He guides me on the right path / Of his commandments without pause) as the fundamental statement.
The third strophe, “Und ob ich wandert im finstern Tal” (And though I wandered through the dark valley), begins as an arioso, accompanied by an ostinato that returns five times in the basso continuo. Suddenly there is a change to a recitative accompanied by string instruments, which highlights the keywords “Verfolgung, Leiden, Trübsal, und dieser Welte Tücke” (persecution, suffering, tribulation, and the malice of this world) through modulation to distant keys. The lively duet “Du bereitest für mir einen Tisch / Für mein’ Feinden allenthalben” (You prepare for me a table / Before my enemies everywhere) once again takes up the cheerfulness of the first movement before the closing chorale forges a link to the festive beginning with the ancient melody Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr (To God alone in the highest be glory).