This tag was created by James A. Brokaw II. The last update was by Angela Watters.
Die Zeit, die Tag und Jahre macht BWV 134.1 / BC G 5
Members of Princely Houses, Anhalt-Köthen, January 1, 1719
It took a fairly long time before it could said of the secular cantata Die Zeit, die Tag und Jahre macht BWV 134.1 (Time, which makes days and years) that what belongs together has finally grown together again. At some time between 1719 and 1724, the first page of its composing score was torn away and lost, and with it the opening recitative, a large part of the first aria, and the second recitative. In the early years of the nineteenth century, the manuscript found its way into the Berlin collection of Georg Poelchau in this mutilated condition. Poelchau parted with the fragment sometime later and gave it to the physician and autograph collector Johann Heinrich Feuerstein. The musical world became aware of Feuerstein through the publication of the Mozart biography by Georg Nikolaus von Nissen, and Feuerstein’s extensive correspondence with Mozart’s widow and other members of the family. Born in 1797, he was first active in Thuringia and finally in Saxony. Having fallen victim to mental illness, he died in a poorhouse in Dresden. More recently, the fragmentary Bach cantata was owned by the Dresden librarian and director of the historical museum Karl Constantin Kraukling.1 Kraukling, a native of the Baltic region, was associated with many prominent personalities of his era, among them Goethe, the sculptor Johann Gottfried Schadow, and Ludwig Tieck. After Kraukling’s death the manuscript passed through several private collections before ending up in the library of the Paris Conservatory.In 1881 the Bachgesellschaft published the cantata fragment as part of its complete edition of Bach’s works—with a heavy heart, having abandoned hope of recovering what had been lost. Just at that moment, however, Philipp Spitta—having just completed his monumental standard study of Bach’s life and work—discovered the entire text of the homage cantata and published it and other discoveries in a music journal. But it was only in the early twentieth century that scholars could investigate the recovery of the pieces thought to have been lost. It turned out that Bach had asked one of his assistants in Leipzig to prepare a replacement manuscript for the missing first sheet of his score but without the original text, since he planned to transform the secular version into a church cantata and supply it with new text. The astonishing identification of the replacement sheet without text (which is why it remained unidentified for so long) provided the long-missing keystone for reconstructing the composition.
More evidence for the cantata’s genesis is provided by the reprint of the text in a collection that appeared in Halle under the title Auserlesene und theils noch nie gedruckte Gedichte unterschiedener Berühmten und geschickten Männer (Selected and in part unpublished poetry of various distinguished and skillful men). The publisher of the volume is Menantes, whose given name was Christian Friedrich Hunold. Hunold, a native of Thuringia, was forced to return to his home suddenly after a stellar career in Hamburg and was active in Halle. He entitled the text he authored for Bach Glückwunsch zum neuen Jahr 1719. An das Durchlauchtigste Haus von Anhalt-Cöthen. Im Namen anderer. Menantes (Congratulations for the new year 1719. To the most serene house of Anhalt-Köthen. In the name of another. Menantes). In this serenata, the congratulations are offered by the personifications of Time and Divine Providence; they present the main ideas in a brief recitative:
Die Zeit, die Tag und Jahre macht,
Hat Anhalt manche Segensstunden
Und itzo gleich ein neues Heil gebracht.
O edle Zeit! Mit Gottes Huld verbunden.
Time, which makes days and years,
Has brought Anhalt many hours of blessing
And now brings a new well-being.
O noble time! With God’s favor bound.
In the first aria, Time urges giving thanks to the creator of all things for these “hours of blessing” (Segensstunde):
Auf, Sterbliche, lasset ein Jauchzen ertönen;
Euch strahlet von neuem ein göttliches Licht!
Mit Gnaden bekröne der Himmel die Zeiten,
Auf, Seelen, ihr müsset ein Opfer bereiten,
Bezahlet dem Höchsten mit Danken die Pflicht!
Arise, mortals, let jubilation ring out;
Upon you a divine light shines anew!
May heaven crown the times with grace.
Arise, souls, you must prepare an offering.
Pay to the Most High your duty with gratitude!
Time and Divine Providence go into great detail about the starlight in “Anhalt’s princely heavens” (Anhalts Fürstenhimmel) and only pause when it is time to sing a duet:
Es streiten, es siegen die künftigen Zeiten
Im Segen für dieses durchlauchtigste Haus.
Dies liebliche Streiten beweget die Herzen,
Die Saiten zu rühren, zu streiten zu scherzen,
Es schläget zum Preise des Höchsten hinaus.
Future times fight and conquer
In blessing for this most illustrious house.
This friendly contention bestirs all hearts
To pluck the strings, to contest, to jest.
It redounds to the praise of the Most High.
Now Divine Providence takes up the scepter to meditate on the “temporal well-being” (zeitlich Wohl) and “future welfare” (künftige Heil) of the princely house of Köthen. The voluble reflections of the recitative flow into an aria:
Der Zeiten Herr hat viel vergnügten Stunden,
Du Gotteshaus, dir annoch beigelegt,
Weil bei der Harmonie der Seelen,
Die Gott zum Hort und Heil erwählen,
Des Himmels Glück mit einzustimmen pflegt.
The Lord of Time has provided many contented hours
To you already, you divine house,
For with the harmony of souls
Who choose God as refuge and salvation,
The fortune of heaven is wont to join.
Once again Time takes the stage in order to plead for the blessing of the Most High “für dies weltberühmte Haus” (for this world-famous house) and closes with these words:
Erneure, Herr, bei jeder Jahreszeit
An ihnen deine Güt und Treu!
Renew, Lord, at every season
Your goodness and faithfulness to them!
And Divine Providence delivers the rationale:
Des Höchsten Huld wird alle Morgen neu.
Es will sein Schutz, sein Geist insonderheit
Auf solchen Fürsten schweben,
Die in dem Lebens-Fürsten leben.
The grace of the Most High becomes every morning new.
His protection, his spirit most of all,
Will hover over such princes
As live in the Prince of Life.
The concluding ensemble gathers these appeals together:
Ergetzet auf Erden, erfreuet von oben,
Glückselige Zeiten vergnüget dies Haus!
Es müsse bei diesen durchlauchtigsten Seelen
Die Gnade des Himmels die Wohnung erwählen;
Sie blühen, sie leben, ruft jedermann aus.
Delight on Earth, rejoice on high,
Blessed times bring joy to this house!
With these most illustrious souls
The grace of heaven must choose to dwell;
May they flourish, may they live, everyone calls out.
Bach’s composition is hard-pressed to cope with this verbose libretto. Because the recitatives are of necessity quite lengthy, the other movements struggle to avoid being upstaged. The finale alone, which runs for more than three hundred measures in
8 meter, is an elated, dance-like ensemble that unites all the participants, offering the soloists further opportunities for display and otherwise expanding the vocal texture to four parts. The first aria resembles the gesture of the closing ensemble; in addition to placing the tenor in an unusually high range, it involves the entire instrumental complement. The affects of joyful movement predominate here; the 3/8 meter approximates the gigue dance type, and the triadic motives found everywhere evoke a kind of victor’s pose. The voices in the second aria are less imperious: they are tightly coupled together over long stretches and cede the initiative to the string instruments, in particular, the nearly constant figuration of the virtuoso first violin. In contrast, the G minor aria by Divine Providence seems rather introverted, with her song of praise to the many hours spent in contentment. The stubbornly returning repeated tones in the basso continuo, the sole accompaniment, seem to try to work against loss of memory. Strangely, this aria as well as its recitative were left out when Bach redesigned this homage music to become a cantata for the third day of Easter.2 Strictly speaking, the term “redesign” (Umgestaltung) is not quite appropriate, because six of the eight original movements were adopted without any changes to the music. Thus one scarcely knows what is more astonishing: the artistry of the librettist, who successfully fashioned a new sacred text to perfectly fit not only the arias and choruses but also the extensive recitatives, syllable for syllable, or the composer’s defiance of death,3 with which he realized his intention for an en-bloc parody.