This tag was created by James A. Brokaw II. The last update was by Elizabeth Budd.
Tönet ihr Pauken, erschallet, Trompeten BWV 214 / BC G 19
Members of Princely Houses: Saxony/Poland, December 8, 1733
For this cantata, there is an inverse relationship between how well known its music is and how frequently it is performed. The key factor in the dissemination of its music is the Christmas Oratorio, into which Bach incorporated both of its choruses and two of its three arias. By contrast, the secular original has only recently begun to experience a livelier concert life. This may have come about in connection with a revaluation and reclamation of Bach’s secular works. In contrast to older views, these are no longer dismissed as passing tributes to the spirit of the age, as trivialities, as a tedious way to make a living; instead, they are seen as an equally important and valuable field of creativity in which Bach invested his creative powers without compromise.The cantata Tönet, ihr Pauken, erschallet, Trompeten BWV 214 (Sound, you drums, ring out, trumpets) is dedicated to the thirty-fourth birthday of Electress Maria Josepha and was probably performed in Zimmermann’s Coffeehouse in Leipzig’s Katherinenstraße. Of the roughly 150 printed libretti only a single copy has survived; its title provides more detail as to the occasion: DRAMA PER MUSICA welches bey dem Allerhöchsten Geburths-Feste der Allerdurchlauchtigsten und Großmächtigsten Königin in Pohlen und Churfürstin zu Sachsen in unterthänigster Ehrfurcht aufgeführet wurde in dem COLLEGIO MUSICO durch Johann Sebastian Bach. Leipzig, dem 8. December 1733 (DRAMMA PER MUSICA that was performed in greatest humility at the all-highest birthday celebration of Her Most Serene Highness and Mightiest Queen in Poland and Electress of Saxony by the COLLEGIUM MUSICUM by Johann Sebastian Bach. Leipzig, December 8, 1733).1 This was her first birthday celebration as Landesmutter (mother of the country): in the same year, her consort, Elector Friedrich August II of Saxony, had ascended to the throne, succeeding August the Strong. Leipzig’s Thomaskantor, Johann Sebastian Bach, had also attached some aspirations to this royal succession: in order to increase the value of his position in Leipzig he had asked the successor to the throne in writing to be granted a court title and at the same time sent him the performing parts for the Missa in B Minor BWV 232.2, which would later become the Kyrie and Gloria of the Mass in B Minor BWV 232.4. Because an answer to his request was not immediately forthcoming, Bach kept his petition in the regent’s mind by performing cantatas for the birthdays and name days of members of the electoral family, probably on the assumption that their announcements in the Leipzig press would be favorably received. Thus the Queen Cantata can be understood as a broad musical hint.
Maria Josepha, honored in absentia with the cantata performance in Leipzig, came from the house of Habsburg and was actually an heir to the imperial throne until she turned eighteen. After her father, Emperor Joseph I, died in 1711 after only six years of regency, his younger brother and successor to the imperial throne spared nothing in his effort to secure his own offspring’s claim to the crown. This took place in 1713 by way of what was known as the “pragmatic sanction” (pragmatische Sanktion). As a result of this agreement, Maria Theresa, born in May 1717, superseded her older cousin to be first in the line of succession. In spite of this relegation, the efforts begun in 1711 in Rome, Vienna, and Dresden to forge a connection between the houses of Habsburg and Wettin continued unabated. The wedding in Vienna on August 20, 1719, of Friedrich August II, prince-elector of Saxony, and the Austrian archduchess Maria Josepha, daughter of the emperor, proved to be an event of the greatest political significance. Through this connection to the German imperial house, the electoral court of Saxony secured its place among the first rank of European courts—after it had already achieved considerable elevation through its acquisition of the Polish crown in 1697. The entrance of the bride occasioned weeklong celebrations in the Saxon residence, with scarcely imaginable displays of splendor. A women’s party in the great garden is described as ending in an open-air theater, “which was incomparable in its design beneath the open sky, in which a French entertainment entitled Les quatres Saisons with intermixed ballets in the French language was presented, whose actors as well as dancers were from nobility. The orchestra, however, consisted of the entire royal ensemble, clothed in their proper livery. The vocalists and orchestra were more than one hundred persons, all on royal salary, so that this festival was one of the rarest and most exquisite celebrations that have ever been seen in the world.”2 Fourteen years later, a similar level of expenditure could hardly have been offered by the bourgeois city of Leipzig and the privately organized Bachische Collegium Musicum, performing at no cost or on a modest expense allowance. Even so, the full festival complement was deployed in the none too spacious environs of Zimmermann’s Coffeehouse, with trumpets and drums, flutes, oboes, and strings, as well as a quartet of singers that may have been supplemented by other vocalists in the opening and closing movements.
In keeping with custom and tradition, the unidentified librettist of our cantata has gods of antiquity as well as an allegorical figure deliver praise of the queen-electress. The composition begins with a general call to good cheer, with trumpets and drums, resounding strings and “muntre Poeten” (lively poets), which flows into a rhyme that was actually frowned upon:
Königin lebe! Dies wünschet der Sachse,
Königin lebe und blühe und wachse!
Long live the queen! This wishes the Saxon,
Long live the queen and blossom and thrive!
Next, Irene, goddess of peace, enters with a recitative praising “der frohe Glanz der Königen Geburtsfests-Stunden” (the happy radiance of the queen’s birthday celebration hours) and a pleasing glance at her attribute of peace, the olive tree. Her opposite, the war goddess Bellona, enters next with an aria:
Blast die wohlgegriffnen Flöten,
Daß Feind, Lilien, Mond erröten,
Schallt mit jauchzenden Gesang!
Tönt mit eurem Waffenklang!
Dieses Fest erfordert Freuden,
Die so Geist als Sinnen weiden.
Blow the well-handled flutes,
That enemy, lilies, moon may blush,
Ring out with exultant song!
Make noise with your battle sounds!
This celebration calls forth joys
That nourish the soul as well as the senses.
Very little influence of Johann Christoph Gottsched is to be found here: the idea of making “enemy, lilies, moon” blush through the playing of flutes would have found no favor with the author of Versuch einer Critischen Dichtkunst. The associated recitative is more martial. After the “knallendes Metall” (crashing metal) of the salute fired by the cannon royal, the “schimmernde Gewehr” (gleaming rifles) are praised, beside “Meiner Söhne gleichen Schritten / Und ihre heldenmäßge Sitten” (My sons’ marching steps / And their heroic demeanors). This is unmistakably aimed at the Saxon army; yet one senses from a letter written by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach to his godfather, Telemann, that this was not always a group inclined to heroic action. Written in the first year of the Seven Years’ War, Emanuel Bach referred to himself ironically as “an honor-loving Saxon who well understood that there wasn’t much danger involved.”3 The next recitative-aria movement pair is given to Pallas, protector of science and art. She urges her subordinates, the Muses, to make their own contributions to the celebration—albeit while avoiding “längst bekannte Lieder” (songs that are too well known). Fama, the embodiment of Fame, closes the round dance with an aria and recitative: she wishes to bring praise of the queen throughout the entire world and up to the firmament. The finale is an ensemble: Irene, the goddess of peace, begins with “Blühet, ihr Linden in Sachsen, wie Zedern!” (Blossom, you lindens in Saxony, like cedars!); Bellona, the goddess of war, seconds with “Schallet mit Waffen und Wagen und Rädern!” (Resound with weaponry and wagons and wheels!); Pallas Athena urges, “Singet, ihr Musen, mit völligem Klang!” (Sing, you Muses, with full sound!). All three, as well as Fama, close with these lines:
Fröhliche Stunden, ihr freudigen Zeiten,
Gönnt uns noch öfters die güldenen Freuden:
Königin, lebe, ja lebe noch lang!
Happy hours, you joyous times,
Grant us still more often these golden joys:
Queen, may you live, yes live still longer!
One year later, four of the nine movements in this cantata became part of the Christmas Oratorio BWV 248. We cannot say whether Bach was so farsighted as to compose the cantata with this in mind—but it is not out of the question. The four recitatives were not brought into the oratorio; nor was the aria entirely focused on instrumental timbres, with its “wohlgegriffnen Flöten” (well-handled flutes). The expansive opening movement took on the same role in the first cantata of the oratorio; the rousing finale, performed twice, opens and closes the third cantata. The appeal of Pallas Athena to her Muses became the shepherd’s aria in the second cantata, whereby alto and obbligato oboe were exchanged for tenor and transverse flute. There was little to be changed in the bass aria with obbligato trumpet, which reads, “Großer Herr, o starker König” (Great ruler, O powerful king) in the first cantata of the Christmas Oratorio and “Kron und Preis gekrönter Damen” (Crown and prize of crowned ladies) in the original version. The latter is not exactly skillful linguistically; it is possible that the librettist wrote “Ruhm und Preis” (fame and praise) and that Bach exchanged “Kron” for “Ruhm” without noticing the repetition of the word. In any case, he was entirely pragmatic in his choice of vocal scoring. For Fama, the goddess of fame, he chose the bass voice because of its assertiveness against the obbligato trumpet.
Footnotes
- BD II:244 (no. 344).—Trans.↵
- “welches unter freyem Himmel unvergleichlich schön angeleget war, woraus ein Französisches Divertissement ‘Les quatre Saison’ betittelt mit untermischten Balletten in Französischer Sprache vorgestellt wurde, wovon die Acteurs als auch die Täntzerin und Winter aus adelichen Standes Personen bestunden. Das Orchester aber, war von der völligen königlichen Capelle in ihrer ordentlichen Kleidung bestellt. Die Vocal Musique und das Orquestre sind von mehr denn 100 Personen, so in Königlichen Besoldung stehen, bestellt worden, also, daß dieses Festin vor eine der rarest- und delicatesten Lustbarkeiten zu halten, die jemals in der Welt gesehen worden” (Becker-Glauch 1951, 98 ff., esp. 107).↵
- “ein ehrliebender Sachsen, der da wohl einsahe, daß nicht viel Gefahr darby zu übernehmen war.”—Trans.↵