This tag was created by James A. Brokaw II. The last update was by Angela Watters.
Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben BWV 147 / BC A 174
Visitation of Mary, July 2, 1723
This cantata belongs to a small group of works that Johann Sebastian Bach composed near the end of his time at Weimar and that he reworked radically in his first few months after arriving in Leipzig in 1723, integrating them into his repertoire as cantor of St. Thomas School.1 The reason for the revisions was the fact that he had written these cantatas for the second, third, and fourth Sundays of Advent, which made them unusable in Leipzig. Those three Sundays belonged to the tempus clausum, during which no musical performances took place in church. Our cantata’s text is found in a collection by Salomon Franck, the chief consistorial secretary at Weimar, that appeared in 1717 in Weimar and Jena with the title Evangelische Sonn- und Fest-Tages- Andachten (Protestant Sunday and feast day devotions). This print contains the cantata text Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben (Heart and mouth and deed and life) beneath the heading “Auf den vierten Advent-Sonntag” (On the fourth Sunday of Advent). In contrast to the ten-movement Leipzig work, the Weimar version comprises only six movements. After the opening chorus, four arias follow, and the piece closes with a strophe from Johann Kolrose’s Ich dank dir, lieber Herre (I thank you, dear Lord), whose text begins “Dein Wort lass mich bekennen” (Let me bear witness to your word).Salomon Franck’s cantata libretto is closely bound to the Gospel reading for the fourth Sunday of Advent. Found in John 1, it recounts the witness of John the Baptist. The opening chorus in Franck’s libretto alludes to this foundational idea with the lines “Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben / Muß von Christo Zeugnis geben” (Heart and mouth and deed and life / Must bear witness of Christ).
The revision of the Advent cantata, probably composed in December 1716, to a cantata for the Visitation of Mary required extensive alterations to the text in order to produce a connection to the Gospel reading for that feast day. This Gospel reading is found in Luke 1 and tells of Mary’s visit with Elizabeth. The account closes with Mary’s song of praise, known in Latin as the Magnificat.
The unknown arranger in Leipzig inserted substantial portions of this canticle into the new version of the cantata libretto. The recitative that follows the brief Weimar opening chorus thus begins:
Gebenedeiter Mund!
Maria macht ihr Innerstes der Seelen
Durch Dank und Rühmen kund;
Sie fänget bei sich an, des Heilands Wunder zu erzählen,
Was er an ihr als seiner Magd getan.
Blessed mouth!
Mary makes her innermost soul
Known by thanksgiving and praise;
She begins with herself to tell of the savior’s wonders,
What he has done for her as his handmaiden.
The corresponding place in Luke 1 reads “Meine Seele erhebet den Herrn” (46; My soul magnifies the Lord) and “denn er hat die Niedrigkeit seiner Magd angesehen” (48; for he has looked upon the lowliness of his maid), as well as “denn er hat große Dinge an mir getan” (49; for he has done great things for me). As the recitative continues, it leaves this tone and ventures the possibility of denial. This foreshadows the following aria, whose second part deals with exactly this sort of denial. The first part, on the other hand, is devoted to the confession of belief:
Schäme dich, o Seele, nicht,
Deinen Heiland zu bekennen
Soll er dich die seine nennen
Vor des Vaters Angesicht.
Be not ashamed, O soul,
To acknowledge your savior
Should he name you as his own
Before the Father’s countenance.
These are Salomon Franck’s formulations, although slightly moderated: the original version of 1717 reads, in reference to the Song of Solomon, “Soll er seine Braut dich nennen / Vor des Vaters Angesicht” (Should he name you his bride / Before the Father’s countenance). The beginning of the ensuing recitative paraphrases another section from the Canticle of Mary. Luke 1:51 reads: “Er übet Gewalt mit seinem Arm und zerstreut, die hoffärtig sind in ihres Herzens Sinn. Er stößt die Gewaltigen vom Stuhl und erhebt die Niedrigen” (He shows power in his arm and disperses those who are arrogant in their heart’s mind. He throws the mighty from their seats and exalts the lowly), but the librettist writes:
Verstockung kann Gewaltige verblenden,
Bis sie des Höchstens Arm von Stuhle stoßt;
Doch dieser Arm erhebt,
Obschon vor ihm der Erde Kreis erbebt,
Hingegen die Elenden,
So er erlößt.
Obstinacy can blind the powerful
Until the arm of the Most High throws them from their seats;
Yet this arm,
Although the earth’s orb trembles before it,
Exalts the miserable,
Whom he redeems.
The associated aria deviates in two respects from the Weimar cantata.
Here is Franck’s version:
Bereite dir, Jesu, noch heute die Bahn!
Beziehe die Höhle
Des Herzens, der Seele,
Und blicke mit Augen der Gnade mich an.
Prepare the way to you, Jesus, even today!
Move into the cavern
Of the heart, of the soul,
And look with eyes of grace upon me.
In Leipzig that version became:
Bereite dir, Jesu, noch itzo die Bahn,
Mein Heiland, erwähle
Die gläubende Seele
Und siehe mit Augen der Gnade mich an!
Prepare the way to you, Jesus, even now,
My savior, choose
The believing soul
And look with eyes of grace upon me!
Further, in the Leipzig libretto this aria changed places with the one that followed it in the Weimar text. The former, whose text begins “Hilf, Jesu, hilf daß ich auch dich bekenne” (Help, Jesu, help that I also acknowledge you), introduces the second half of the Leipzig cantata. The first half closes with a strophe from the chorale Jesu, meiner Seelen Wonne (Jesus, delight of my soul). In contrast to the two movements that precede it, the only recitative in the second half of the cantata does not take up the Canticle of Mary but rather the beginning of the Gospel reading for the feast day, Mary’s entrance into the house of Zacharia, and her first encounter with his pregnant wife, Elizabeth: “Und es begab sich, als Elisabeth den Gruß Marias hörte, hüpfte das Kind in ihrem Leibe” (Luke 1:41; And it came to pass, as Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the child in her body leaped). In closing with an expression announcing “Dank und Preis” (thanksgiving and praise), this recitative opens the way for an aria filled with praise and thanks:
Ich will von Jesu Wundern singen
Und ihm der Lippen Opfer bringen,
Er wird nach seiner Liebe Bund
Das schwache Fleisch, den irdschen Mund
Durch heilges Feuer kräftig zwingen.
I want to sing of Jesus’s wonders
And to him bring offerings of the lips.
He will, according to his covenant of love,
Subdue the weak flesh, the earthly mouth
Through his holy fire.
This text had to be fundamentally reformulated by the Leipzig librettist so that the Weimar composition could be used again. What was required was the use of what is known as parody procedure, because the first version all too clearly alluded to the Gospel reading for Advent and the witness of John the Baptist:
Laß mich der Rufer Stimmen hören,
Die mit Johannes treulich lehren.
Ich soll in dieser Gnadenzeit
Von Finsternis und Dunkelheit
Zum wahren Lichte mich bekennen.
Let me hear the callers’ voices,
Which, with John, teach faithfully.
I shall, in this time of grace,
From gloom and darkness
Confess myself to the true light.
The second part of the cantata closes as the first one did, with a strophe from Martin Janus’s hymn Jesu, meiner Seelen Wonne.
Bach’s composition of this extensive libretto is a distinctive mix of older and newer movements. The opening chorus and four arias are of Weimar origin, as seen in the attributes of their text and musical style; in Leipzig the four recitatives were added, as well as the chorale movements closing the first and second parts of the cantata. The original Weimar closing chorale was discarded and lost.
In spite of the brevity of its text, the opening chorus is spacious and complex in its design. An introductory sinfonia returns many times throughout the movement, enriched by a vocal component in a technique known as Choreinbau, in alternation with unaccompanied choral episodes and two fugal expositions.2 This elegant and balanced architecture, which encompasses fewer than seventy measures, combines a delight in music making with a wealth of thematic invention and inimitable concentration.
The four arias embody a procedure characteristic of Bach’s Weimar compositional style: they omit a formal da capo and only repeat the instrumental ritornello at the end. The first aria, “Schäme dich, o Seele, nicht,” is set for alto and oboe d’amore. The original Weimar version almost certainly used a different obbligato instrument. It has no small challenge in contending with the negative statements in its text. The soprano and tenor arias have head motives that are eloquently expressive and hence formative: the soprano voice, with its “Bereite dir, Jesu, noch itzo die Bahn,” is assisted by a solo violin; the tenor, accompanied only by basso continuo, has the even shorter and extremely pregnant “Hilf, Jesu, hilf.” Bach added an obbligato trumpet to the bass aria, the next to last movement in the cantata. In view of this, in a secular context the aria could be a vehicle for the allegorical figure of Fama, the personification of Fame. Its song of praise within a church cantata achieves, at minimum, the special status of “music within music.”
The movements that close both halves of the cantata are identical musically. In them, the vocal component is embedded in a sonorous, hovering figuration of strings and woodwinds. That these choral movements seem rather out of place today has less to do with the composition itself than with its reception history and is the inevitable result of wearing out a favorite piece.
Footnotes
- The Weimar early version with BWV2 designation BWV 147a. . . is not included in BWV3 because only the first movement is transmitted in the autograph score. . . . [W]hether other movements existed can no longer be determined. BWV3 (192, no. 147). —Trans.↵
- Choreinbau (choral embedding) is a technique in which the instruments play the ritornello while the newly added chorus sings independent material.—Trans.↵