This tag was created by James A. Brokaw II. The last update was by Elizabeth Budd.
Erschallet, ihr Lieder BWV 172 / BC A 81
Pentecost, May 20, 1714
With the cantata Erschallet, ihr Lieder, erklinget, ihr Saiten BWV 172 (Ring out, you songs, resound, you strings) we have what is apparently Bach’s earliest composition for Pentecost, one of the high feasts of the church year. The oldest version was performed on May 20, 1714, in the castle church at Weimar. Further performances followed in 1724 and afterward in Leipzig.1 All in all, Bach seems to have made a special place in his oeuvre for this work, since for hardly any other work do we have evidence of so many performances. Its textual and musical qualities may have been decisive here. But above all, one must consider that in the course of the church calendar, only Easter and Christmas were as intense a challenge for the Thomaskantor. Three holidays in a row were to be provided with concerted music; on the first two days, the music was exchanged between the two main churches, St. Nicholas and St. Thomas, early in the day in one, then at noon in the other. In addition to these multiple burdens was the task of offering a cantata at St. Paul, the church of the University of Leipzig, and this, of all things, always on the first day of the three high feast days. It is only understandable that Bach, whenever possible in the face of such a workload, drew upon his store of church cantatas and avoided the composition of new works.Because of the cantata’s date of origin, the Weimar upper consistory secretary, Salomon Franck, is often assumed to be the poet responsible for our cantata’s text. However, this rests on style studies and conclusions based on analogy and is not backed up by documentation. In his libretto, the unknown poet avoids display of biblical knowledge with obscure arcana and remains fairly close to the Gospel reading for Pentecost Sunday. This is found in John 14; it belongs to the farewell addresses of Jesus and begins with the promise of the Holy Spirit:
Jesus answered and spoke to him: Whoever loves me will keep to my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him. But whoever does not love me, he will not keep to my words. And the word that you hear is not mine, rather the Father’s, who has sent me. Such things I have been saying to you, as long as I have been with you. But the comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom my Father will send in my name, he will teach you everything and remind you of everything that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Let your heart not be afraid, and let it not be fearful. (23–27)
The central statement of this Gospel reading is found at a prominent position in this cantata text: “Wer mich liebet, der wird mein Wort halten, und mein Vater wird ihn lieben, und wir werden zu ihm kommen und Wohnung bei ihm machen” (23; Whoever loves me will keep to my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him). In contrast to the other two cantatas for Pentecost, which place this word of Jesus at the very beginning, in this Weimar composition it follows a song of rejoicing in free poetry:
Erschallet, ihr Lieder, erklinget, ihr Saiten!
O seligste Zeiten!
Gott will sich die Seelen zu Tempeln bereiten.
Ring out, you songs! Resound, you strings!
O most blessed of times!
God wants to prepare our souls to be temples.
The generalized “Seelentempeln” (temples of the soul) anticipate the “Wohnung” (dwelling) in the word of Jesus, and the aria that follows it completes the turn to the individual, whereby the proud “Seelentempeln” shrink to modest “Herzenshütten” (tabernacles of the heart):
Heiligste Dreieinigkeit,
Großer Gott der Ehren,
Komm doch, in der Gnadenzeit
Bei uns einzukehren,
Komm doch in die Herzenshütten,
Sind sie gleich gering und klein,
Komm und laß dich doch erbitten,
Komm und ziehe bei uns ein!
Most Holy Trinity,
Great God of honor,
Come, though, in this time of grace
To stay with us,
Come, though, in the tabernacles of the heart,
Though they be slight and small,
Come and let yourself be implored,
Come and move in with us!
Following this paraphrase of Jesus’s dictum, another aria is based on a later saying of Jesus: “Aber der Tröster, der Heilige Geist, welchen mein Vater senden wird in meinem Namen” (But the comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom my Father will send in my name). The poet’s aria follows:
O Seelenparadies,
Das Gottes Geist durchwehet,
Der bei der Schöpfung blies,
Der Geist, der nie vergehet;
Auf, auf, bereite dich,
Der Tröster nähet sich.
O paradise of the soul,
Through which God’s spirit wafts,
That blew at creation,
The spirit that never dies;
Arise, arise, prepare yourself.
The comforter draws near.
Then, in yet another aria, now the third in a row, the unknown librettist deepens these ideas by drawing upon a familiar theme of Baroque religious poetry: the “search motive” (Suchmotif), borrowed from the Song of Songs and usually connected with the metaphor of the lost, beloved Jesus. Here, however, the Pentecost cantata deviates by having the Holy Spirit take the place of Jesus as dialogue partner of the Soul; the two consort in the language of “Jesusminne,” or mystical courtly love for Jesus:
Komm, laß mich nicht länger warten,
Komm, du sanfter Himmelswind,
Wehe durch den Herzensgarten!
Ich erquicke dich, mein Kind.
Liebste Liebe, die so süße,
Aller Wollust Überfluß,
Ich vergeh, wenn ich dich misse.
Nimm von mir den Gnadenkuß.
Sei im Glauben mir willkommen,
Höchste Liebe, komm herein!
Du hast mir das Herz genommen.
Ich bin dein, und du bist mein.
Come, let me wait no longer,
Come, you gentle heaven’s wind,
Waft through the garden of my heart!
I refresh you, my child.
Dearest love, who so sweet,
The abundance of all delight,
I shall die if I am without you.
Take from me the kiss of grace.
I welcome you in faith,
Highest love, come within!
You have stolen my heart.
I am yours, and you are mine.
A retreat to a familiar realm after this ecstatic high point might seem likely, but the ensuing chorale text does not suit that purpose. It is by Philipp Nicolai, who did so much to shape sacred Baroque poetry as described here with his hymns written shortly after 1600, Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern (How brightly shines the morning star) and Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme (Awaken, calls to us the voice). The fourth strophe of the morning star hymn is quite close to the language of the preceding dialogue between the Soul and the Holy Spirit:
Von Gott kömmt mir ein Freudenschein,
Wenn du mit deinen Äugelein
Mich freundlich tust anblicken.
From God to me comes a joyful light
When you, with your little eye,
Turn your friendly glance to me.
And at the close:
Nimm mich
Freundlich
In dein Arme,
Daß ich warme
Werd von Gnaden:
Auf dein Wort komm ich geladen.
Take me
Kindly
In your arms,
That I become warm
From your grace:
At your word I come invited.
Johann Sebastian Bach’s composition of this substantial, content-rich text features a wealth of melodic invention, an obvious delight in colorful timbres, and a measured tribute to polyphonic ambition. Thus the opening chorus begins with a moderate dialogue between the chorus and a festive orchestral ensemble enriched by trumpets and drums. The beginning does sound a bit odd, with its declamation of text punctuated by rests “Erschallet, — ihr Lieder, — erklinget, ihr Saiten.” For that reason it has been suggested that this portion of the first movement might go back to an older work, perhaps a secular cantata. While this is a possibility, there is a simpler explanation: that the short-breathed exchange between chorus and orchestra in the sense of “Erschallet, ihr Lieder” was intended for the particular acoustics of the small but relatively high chapel in the Weimar castle, perhaps an echo effect. Apart from that, this effect is implemented only at the beginning; otherwise the presentation of the text is well regulated and quite coherent. This applies especially to the fugal central section of the opening movement, in which the voices are led in the manner of a motet, and the instruments simply double them.
The second movement, with the biblical passage from John, is the cantata’s only recitative, in which the concluding phrase “und Wohnung bei ihm machen” broadens in an arioso that takes up more than half of the brief movement. The first of the three arias is also relatively short, in which the invocation of “Heiligste Dreieinigkeit” is adorned with the heraldic symbolism of three trumpets. The movement that follows stands in the greatest conceivable contrast to this aria’s small structure: the mode changes from major to minor, the orchestration changes from trumpets and drums to strings, the voice from bass to tenor, and the meter from
4 to
4 . The greatest difference is the spacious, sonorous timbre of the strings with their “endless melody,” probably meant to symbolize the inexhaustible “long breath” of the Holy Spirit.
The effect of the delicate duet between the soprano (the Soul) and the alto (the Holy Spirit) is rather playful, in contrast to the gathered gravity that precedes it. However, the expenditure of artistic resources is hardly inconsiderable: an oboe (in another version of the cantata, the obbligato organ) carries the Pentecost chorale Komm, Heiliger Geist, Herre Gott in a lavishly ornamented form; and together with it the two voices and the lively, active bass, in whose highest tones the chorale is hidden, form a dense quartet texture whose compositional challenges in many places recall the Orgelbüchlein BWV 599–644, which originated around the same time. The closing chorale movement is not simply in four parts: an obbligato instrumental part stands out above the soprano in elegant counterpoint against the rather modest leading of the voices.
In the first performances in Weimar in 1714 and Leipzig in 1724, the opening movement was repeated as a brilliant conclusion; in a later performance at Pentecost in 1731, Bach avoided this and from then on stuck to this solution. In a performance documented in 1735 in nearby Delitzsch, of which at least the printed text survives, not only is the repetition of the first movement missing, but so is the bridal mysticism of the duet. If this indeed was the Bach composition and not, perhaps, a new composition of the Weimar text, then the Delitzsch cantata of 1735 would be further evidence of the enduring popularity of this, the earliest of Johann Sebastian Bach’s cantatas for Pentecost.
Footnotes
- A text booklet for Leipzig church music in 1721 surfaced in St. Petersburg; it includes this text, raising the possibility that Johann Kuhnau may have performed works by J. S. Bach before the latter became cantor at St. Thomas School. See Schabalina (2008, 57).—Trans.↵