This tag was created by James A. Brokaw II. The last update was by Angela Watters.
Lobe den Herren, den mächtigen König der Ehren BWV 137 / BC A 124
Twelfth Sunday after Trinity, August 19, 1725
This cantata, Lobe den Herren, den mächtigen König der Ehren BWV 137 (Praise the Lord, the mighty king of honor), is a member of Bach’s annual cycle of chorale cantatas and is assigned to the twelfth Sunday after Trinity. Although there is no real doubt about this assignment, several questions remain open. If the Thomaskantor had composed the work “on schedule,” so to speak, he would have first performed it on August 27, 1724. But this is not the case; there is no evidence of any cantata performance on that day at all. Actually, on the following day—the Monday after St. Bartholomew’s Day—the city council election was held in Leipzig, an occasion that was traditionally celebrated with festive music in the main church, St. Nicholas. But this would not have hindered normal Sunday church music. Therefore, in 1724 the cycle of Bach’s chorale cantatas was missing the composition for the twelfth Sunday after Trinity. Instead, our cantata appears to have originated a year later and would have been performed for the first time on August 19, 1725, in order to belatedly close the gap left a year before.However, this apparently plausible explanation is contradicted by several details in the original surviving performance materials, above all the watermark in the paper, which makes a date of origin in April or May of 1725 seem likely. However, in this time period all possible dates are already occupied by other compositions; furthermore, the cantor of St. Thomas had prematurely suspended all further work on the cycle in March of that year. The source material and the performance calendar are therefore not compatible in this instance. This could be resolved by the observation that a dual assignment is documented for our cantata—for St. John’s Day and for the twelfth Sunday after Trinity—so that June 24, 1725, might be considered as the day of first performance. Standing in the way, however, is the fact that a performance of the cantata Gelobet sei der Herr, der Gott Israel (Praised be the Lord, the God of Israel)—apparently a composition by Georg Philipp Telemann—is documented for that day. But perhaps the puzzle’s solution does lie here after all: it may be that Bach envisioned our cantata for St. John’s Day 1725 and prepared the performance materials, but, due to Bach’s illness or a hastily arranged trip, his substitute fell back upon a less challenging work by another composer and bridged the gap between June 24 and July 8 with its performance.
It is less likely that rescheduling or other issues could have had anything to do with the text and melody of the hymn chosen for the chorale cantata. Even so, it is worth noting that the chorale Lobe den Herren, den mächtigen König der Ehren is very seldom found in the standard hymnaries of the Bach era in Leipzig. A rather secondary hymn collection does contain the chorale. Initiated by the Klinikum St. Georg and the prison and orphanage associated with it, the collection was first published in 1721 with 710 hymns; a second edition of 1730 contains 860 chorales. In addition, Schemellis Gesangbuch also contains the hymn. The hymnal was published in 1736 in nearby Zeitz and printed by Breitkopf in Leipzig, and the collaboration of Johann Sebastian Bach brought it into high regard. On the other hand, text and melody had a well-established place in a hymn collection of Pietistic cast published several times in Halle beginning in 1704 by Johann Anastasius Freylinghausen.
That the hymn Lobe den Herren, den mächtigen König der Ehren found a footing in Halle more readily than in Leipzig or Dresden may have to do with the poet and his theological views. Joachim Neander was born in Bremen in 1650, the scion of a theological family that had fashionably Grecized their original name, Neuman. He attended the Gymnasium illustre (grammar school) in the city of his birth and later studied in Heidelberg and Frankfurt, where he came into contact with leading figures such as Philipp Jakob Spener and Johann Jacob Schütz, under whose influence his views developed toward what would later be called “reformed Pietism.” This led on several occasions to conflicts that caused Neander to give up his first secure position as rector of the Latin school of the Reformed congregation in Düsseldorf after several years. Legend has it that without a position, he spent the entire summer near Düsseldorf in the valley named for him, the Neanderthal (Neander Valley). In May 1679 he received an assistant pastor’s position at the Martini Church in Bremen, city of his birth, but died the following year. In 1680 or as early as 1679, a collection of fifty-seven hymns appeared in Bremen under the title Glaub- und Liebes-Uebung: Auffgemuntert durch einfältige Bundeslieder und Dank-Psalmen (Practice of belief and love: Encouraged by simple anthems and thanksgiving psalms). Included here is Lobe den Herren, which according to Reformed custom takes up a psalm, in this case Psalm 103. The associated melody, which received its familiar form in the Freylinghausen Hymnary of 1704, appears to be descended from a secular ancestor. Its dance-like rhythm may be the reason for the unusual use of the dactylic verse meter.
Bach made use of all five strophes without any changes to the not entirely unproblematic text and thus avoided the usual practice of reshaping the internal strophes to become recitatives and arias, generally seen elsewhere in Bach’s chorale cantatas. Hence he needed to create an opening tutti, a series of solo movements, and a closing chorale from the text and melody of the chorale, and he met the challenge with bravura. The light and pleasing element that prevails, more than usual, in this cantata—the almost superficial, folk-like character and dance-like manner that inform all five cantata movements—is no doubt due to the secular origins of its chorale melody.
From the very first measure, as the festive orchestra announces itself with trumpets and drums, oboes and strings, the opening movement follows the invitation heard only at the movement’s end: “Psalter und Harfen, wacht auf! / Lasset die Musicam hören!” (Psaltery and harps, awake! / Let the music be heard!). Energetic syncopations and surging anapestic motives characterize the sweeping play of the concerted instrumental groups and the imitative weaving of the voices. The chorale melody, presented line by line by the sopranos, must keep in mind from time to time (so to speak) that a concerted chorale arrangement is being performed, not a concerto or suite movement.
The second movement is equally elated and delightful: solo violin, alto, and basso continuo unite to form a chorale trio with a carefully ornamented cantus firmus. Two decades later, this movement reappears, transcribed for organ with the heading “Kommst du nun, Jesu, vom Himmel herunter” (Come you now, Jesus, from heaven to Earth), in the printed collection Sechs Choräle von verschiedener Art BWV 645–50; it is used again in the Schübler Chorales.
The third movement, a quintet for soprano, bass, two oboes, and continuo, transposes the chorale melody to E minor and, in this form, reaches regions unattainable by the original version. This is particularly true of the biting chromaticism that sets this verse:
In wieviel Not
Hat nicht der gnädige Gott
Über dir Flügel gebreitet!
In how much adversity
Has gracious God
Spread his wings over you!
The fourth movement is once again a chorale trio, however, of a different kind: the basso continuo, with an energetic, recurrent theme complex, and the soprano, nearly instrumental in its leading, are joined by the chorale melody, performed by the trumpet. Unperturbed, it keeps to its key, C major, although the other two parts move in the relative minor, A minor.
An obbligato brass ensemble extends the four-part closing chorale to a festive seven parts.