This tag was created by James A. Brokaw II. The last update was by Angela Watters.
Die Freude reget sich BWV 36.3 / BC G 38
University Events, 1737–1738
The homage cantata Die Freude reget sich BWV 36.3 (Joy bestirs itself) belongs to a complex of compositions around the Advent cantata Schwingt freudig euch empor BWV 36.4/5 (Soar joyfully aloft). These compositions offer a nearly unparalleled view of Bach’s management of his creative work as a composer over his lifetime and the intertwining of sacred and secular vocal works with one another. The point of departure for this series of at least five works is the secular cantata Schwingt freudig euch empor BWV 36.1, which originated in early 1725 at the behest of a group of students at the University of Leipzig to honor a teacher who unfortunately remains unknown. In late November 1725 or 1726 the cantata was reperformed outside Leipzig under the title Steigt freudig in die Luft BWV 36.2 (Climb joyfully in the air) for the birthday of Princess Charlotte Friederike Wilhelmine, the consort of Bach’s earlier patron Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Köthen. The opening and closing ensembles and three arias were sufficient, underlaid with new text, while the four recitatives were newly composed, along with recitative interpolations in the last movement. A bit later Bach fashioned a new Advent cantata (BWV 36.4) from the first movement and arias by means of further textual changes. All the recitatives were omitted, as was the final ensemble, because of its all-too-superficial dance character. Instead, a verse from Philipp Nicolai’s chorale Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern (How beautifully gleams the morning star) served to close the cantata.It is possible that this early Advent version is not by Bach himself but was only produced on commission by him, perhaps by a substitute to provide church music. Remarkably, this transformation, completed by 1730 at the latest, did not sideline the original secular work. On the contrary, it (BWV 36.1) was performed again in the early 1730s in honor of Johann Matthias Gesner, rector of St. Thomas School, probably to celebrate his birthday in April 1731. In late 1731 Bach created the expanded and final Advent version (BWV 36.5), now with eight movements as opposed to five in the first version. But even this did not close the door on further performances of the original secular version. With the cantata text revised once again and with newly composed recitatives, in the summer of 1735 the cantor of St. Thomas dedicated Die Freude reget sich to a member of the Rivinus family of scholars in Leipzig. The object of the homage was probably Johann Florens Rivinus, whom we find once again, in September of the same year, among the godparents for Bach’s youngest son, Johann Christian. In sum, in addition to the two Advent versions of the cantata, there are three secular forms, as well as an additional reperformance. It thus becomes clear that Bach regarded not only his sacred vocal works but also substantial portions of his secular oeuvre as repertoire—and managed them as such.
Johann Florens Rivinus, alias Bachmann, the students’ presumed honoree, was born on July 27, 1681, as scion of a Leipzig academic family. On July 9, 1723, he had taken a post as professor of jurisprudence. On this occasion, several members of his circle had presented him with a “magnificent evening of music,” as it was called, whose text—appropriately enough for the name Rivinus-Bachmann—began with the words “Murmelt nur, ihr heitern Bäche” (Murmur on, you merry brooks). Admittedly, nothing is said about the fact that one of the “Bäche,” namely Johann Sebastian, the recently appointed cantor of St. Thomas School, was engaged as composer.1The honoree advanced directly and successfully in his career, leading him to the office of rector of the university for the first time in 1729 and again in 1735. Some of his colleagues found one thing or another to criticize about him: the literary reformer Johann Christoph Gottsched did not forget that Rivinus had tarnished his name because he—Gottsched—had held his commemoration speech for the poet Martin Opitz in 1739 during church hours on a day of penance and, a year later, considered using St. Paul’s Church for a speech honoring the tercentenary of the invention of the printing press.
Bach’s homage cantata could have been for Rivinus’s fifty-fourth birthday on July 27, 1735, or for the celebration of his appointment as rector in October of the same year, or for still another occasion.2 The reason for the uncertainty is due to the incomplete state of the source materials, on the one hand, and the librettist’s very general language, on the other. He seems to have had only the texts of the first and possibly second versions of the secular cantata available to him for preparation of a parody text. If he did have the score of the original version, we must assume either that he didn’t know how to read it or that the relationship between text and musical declamation was a closed book to him. In any case, he worked ingeniously and fluently from his exemplar, anxiously avoiding the adoption of any expression from it or even allowing any similarity. Perhaps some things about the first version seemed overdrawn to him, and he felt prompted to put a modern, refined taste on display. The second aria in the 1725 version in honor of an unknown teacher seems a bit excessive:
Der Tag, der dich vordem gebar,
Stellt sich vor uns so heilsam dar
Als jener, da der Schöpfer spricht:
Es werde Licht!
The day that once bore you
Presents itself to us as beneficial
As that on which the Creator said:
Let there be light.
The new, ten-years-younger version reads, as it were, “sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought”:
Das Gute, das dein Gott beschert,
Und was dir heute widerfährt,
Macht dein erwünschtes Wohlergehn
Vor uns auch schön.
The good that your God bestows
And that presents itself to you today
Makes your desired welfare
Splendid to us as well.
The composer had no problem with the three newly minted recitatives or the recitative interpolations in the closing movement. But Bach seems to have thrown up his hands in the face of the parody texts for the opening chorus and the three arias. In any case, he made no great effort to limit the damage. And so it comes, as it must. In the opening chorus, the third and fourth lines of text originally read: “Doch haltet ein! ein Herz darf sich nicht weit entfernen, / Das Dankbarkeit und Pflicht zu seinem Lehrer zieht” (But stop! A heart need not travel far / That to its teacher’s drawn by gratitude and duty), while the new version reads: “Verfolgt den Trieb, nur fort, ihr treuen Musensöhne, / Und liefert itzt den Zoll in frommen Wünschen ein!” (Follow your urge further, you loyal sons of Muses, / And deliver your tribute now in devout wishes!). The repeated cry “Haltet ein!” interspersed with rests becomes, in the new version, “Verfolgt den Trieb,” “den Trieb,” “verfolgt,” and “nur fort, ihr treuen Musensöhne.” Scandalous text declamation like this would certainly have been kept out of the view of the likes of Johann Mattheson or Heinrich Bokemeyer; Bach would have been made a laughingstock of all Kenner and many Liebhaber for the rest of his life.
Infelicities of this sort often appear in this cantata; even so, the performance in 1735 would not have failed to have its effect overall. Despite lapses in the text and the preliminary resignation of the composer in the face of these pitfalls, the qualities of what was adopted from the 1725 version are essentially preserved in the new one.
In the arias and ensemble movements, Bach evidently focused on enriching the scoring, in particular by adding a transverse flute that for the most part doubles the first violin or oboe d’amore at the unison or octave. Evidently, a solo bass was not available, and so the second recitative-aria movement pair was entrusted to an alto without requiring a change of key. And so the basic framework of the cantata remained unaltered, and with it the crucial movements.
Unchanged, the opening movement adds a filigree instrumental texture to the cheerful interplay of chordal and polyphonic choral sections in which the part for oboe d’amore and flute dominates and the strings stand in the background. In the tenor aria, the voice and (presumably) obbligato oboe d’amore or solo violin compete with one another, carried along by the gentle rhythms of the passepied. The powerful, rather superficial alto aria that leads back to the home key of D major provides a certain contrast; the strings, led by the joyfully animated concertante first violin, lend it luminosity and festivity. Soprano and solo violin, supported by the flute, lead to a softly glowing region and unfold a sonorous interplay between lovely melody and figuration that is appropriate to the instruments and that dissolves in playful echo effects in the middle section. The closing gavotte, cheerful and rather folk-like, leads back to solid ground.
Footnotes
- BWV3 notes that “because the performance on June 9, 1723, was immediately after Bach’s assumption of office, the hypothetical attribution to JS Bach is extremely uncertain” (BWV3, 720).—Trans.↵
- Peter Wollny recently identified the copyist of the second violin and viola parts as Johann Wilhelm Machts, who entered St. Thomas School on May 31, 1735, at age eleven; his role as copyist is unlikely to have begun before 1737–38. See Wollny (2016, 83–91).—Trans.↵