This tag was created by James A. Brokaw II. The last update was by Angela Watters.
Schwingt freudig euch empor BWV 36.1 / BC G 35
University Functions, April or May 1725
That the cantata Schwingt freudig euch empor BWV 36.1 (Soar joyfully aloft) is a secular work is not immediately obvious from its title. Indeed, two church cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach (or, if you like, a single cantata in two different versions) begin with the same text. Furthermore, there are also two secular cantatas that are intimately related to our composition. It has taken some time for Bach scholarship to disentangle what at first seemed to be a complicated web of relationships. Ultimately, however, the relationships among and chronologies of the group of five works have proven to be both rational and transparent. Most of the unanswered questions concern the archetype of the entire group, the secular cantata Schwingt euch freudig empor.In his autograph score, Bach concisely designated the work as “Cantata,” a term he rarely used. It is admittedly not a cantata in the narrowest sense, which would be a composition of several movements with a single voice and accompanying instruments or simply basso continuo. Our cantata belongs to a subtype, as it were, and indeed one of the most sophisticated: this follows from the participation of four voices, strings, and other instruments. What makes this a cantata, despite all this, is the disposition of the text, which is indeed presented by three soloists and choir. However, no roles are assigned to the participants neither from antique mythology nor from sources in history or the present. Titles such as “Serenata” or “Dramma per musica”—conventional at the time for secular cantatas having any kind of plot at all—do not apply here. From several perspectives, so to speak, a highly deserving teacher is offered an homage in which the text yields no clue whether the teacher is at a school or university.
Older Bach scholarship was unanimously of the opinion that the homage belonged in the confines of Leipzig’s St. Thomas School. This view was based on an envelope accompanying the original manuscript, upon which an earlier owner had indicated that the cantata was for the birthday of Rector Johann Matthias Gesner. As things stand, this assertion can hardly be the result of a review of secondary literature or an investigation of records. Instead, it involves a note that the aforementioned collector had before him, perhaps on a damaged envelope from Bach’s time, and that he restored in his own hand. The reference to Rector Gesner does have some credence, because he is known to have always been a promoter of music—and a personal friend of Johann Sebastian Bach. It is considered to be a particular tragedy for the Thomaskantor that Gesner left his post as rector of St. Thomas School after only four years for the University of Göttingen, then in the process of being founded, so that a benefactor of music was lost to Leipzig and the St. Thomas School. Gesner, a great Latinist before the Lord, remained intimately bound to Leipzig despite the many demands upon him as university professor, librarian, and scientific administrator, as shown by a footnote he appended to a classic Latin text that became quite famous even before the eighteenth century was out. This was Gesner’s new edition of the twelve-volume De institutione oratoria by Marcus Fabius Quintilian, published with numerous annotations in 1738 by Vandenhoek Press, which still exists today. At one point, where Fabius Quintilian describes how Citharode, the cithara player, performed his songs from memory while accompanying himself on the instrument, Gesner notes reproachfully that all this is insignificant in comparison to the achievements of one Johann Sebastian Bach as conductor or keyboard performer.
Gesner’s eulogy was published on various occasions in the eighteenth century and even translated into German several times, which was quite unusual. It strongly implies close musical ties between Gesner and Bach and makes it seem likely that the congratulatory cantata was dedicated to Gesner. There is documentary evidence that Gesner attended choir rehearsals at St. Thomas School and heard performances of church music there with pleasure. Admittedly, from time to time the normally peace-loving Gesner tangled with the hardheaded cantor in discussions involving the relative priority of musical and academic matters at the school. Despite that, the congratulatory cantata could have been heard on any of various occasions in Gesner’s honor; it is documented that an elaborate musical performance was held for him when he left the school in the autumn of 1734.1 In any event, a presentation of the cantata Schwingt euch freudig empor for Gesner’s birthday would have been a reperformance; the work originated in the first half of 1725, when Gesner was a well-established rector at a Gymnasium in Weimar and had not yet even thought of an appointment at Leipzig. It is not at all likely that Bach would have dared to deliver a congratulatory cantata to the rector of the royal Gymnasium in Weimar; only eight years previously Bach himself had been dishonorably discharged from the court because of stubbornness and other complaints, a stain there was no way to erase, at least until after the death of the reigning duke in the summer of 1728.
Whoever it was who was honored with Bach’s “Cantata” in early 1725 remains shrouded in darkness.2 By all appearances, the dedicatee is to be sought in the confines of the university, but it cannot be determined who—as the text reads—might be the
Hochverdienter Mann, der in ausgesetzten Lehren
Mit höchsten Ehren
Den Silberschmuck des Alters tragen kann.
Highly deserving man who in continual teaching
With highest honor
Can wear the silver regalia of age.
Near the end, the text maintains that “Das Auge dringt aus den gewohnten Schranken / Und sieht dein künftig Glück und Heil” (The eye penetrates its usual limits / And sees your future fortune and welfare); hence, one might assume that the one addressed is not as near the end of his life’s course as the previous “silver regalia of age” seem to imply. Consequently, much of this text is likely meant metaphorically. What creates nearly insurmountable obstacles for today’s scholarship is exactly what facilitated the repurposing of the cantata at the time—perhaps for Gesner’s birthday in 1731.
There was no lack of further reperformances. Although the recitatives needed to be newly composed for every occasion, arias and choruses needed only minor edits of text, for the most part. Thus in late 1726 or even a year earlier, there was a reissue in honor of Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Köthen (BWV 36.2); in this case, the text began “Steigt freudig in die Luft” (Climb joyfully in the air). Soon afterward, the opening chorus as well as all three arias found their way into an Advent cantata that retained the original title, Schwingt freudig euch empor (BWV 36.4). In late 1731 Bach expanded this intermediate version to a two-part Advent cantata (BWV 36.5) with eight movements in total. Admittedly, this did not stop him, in the summer of 1735, from going back to the original composition, now ten years old, and performing it under the title Die Freude reget sich BWV 36.3 (Joy bestirs itself) in honor of a member of the Rivinus family of scholars in Leipzig. In contrast to the Köthen version, the Rivinus version has been completely preserved (or can be restored with little effort), so that it also can be made available to contemporary audiences.
Bach’s handling of his original creation conveys his esteem for its qualities and that he deemed it worthy for all time. The unknown librettist for the first version played a decisive role in this success, for his libretto, true to the maxims of contemporary theorists, gives the composer the opportunity to present various characters in close succession. The fact that gentle tones predominate in the cantata may have to do with the age of the honoree, or with a wish expressed by him, or with guidelines issued by others.
This is how the opening movement proceeds, with its partly polyphonic, partly chordal choral parts in a filigree dominated by the soft timbre of the oboe d’amore that causes the accompanying string instruments to be a bit restrained. From the D major of this beginning, the tenor recitative and aria turn to the relative key, B minor. Voice and oboe d’amore—here in a soloistic role—combine in this aria, whose text, beginning “Die Liebe führt mit sanften Schritten / Ein Herz, das seinen Lehrer liebt” (Love leads with gentle steps / A heart that loves its teacher), seems to have established the music’s gentle, dance-like character in advance. The bass aria standing at the cantata’s center strikes a somewhat stronger tone and with its D major returns to the key of the opening movement. The text reads, in no way modestly:
Der Tag der dich vordem gebar
Stellt sich für 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 spoke:
Let there be light!
The strings, led by the cheerfully animated concertante first violin, lend this movement brightness and a sense of festivity. Yet the third movement pair, a recitative and aria for soprano, returns to the realm of mild glow. At this point, a viola d’amore, a stringed instrument in the alto range with a silvery sound, joins with the soprano, alternating between lovely melody and figuration idiomatic to the instrument and echoing one another in the middle section in a coquettishly playful way. The cantata concludes with a choral movement in several parts, with interpolated recitatives, in which the three soloists once again appear in the order of their first entrances: tenor, bass, soprano. Here the dance character of the gavotte reigns, whose affect is, as Johann Mattheson writes, “truly an exultant joy.” It is truly a cause for celebration that this music has been preserved. Even so, we would like to know for whom it was originally intended.
Footnotes
- Hofmann (1988).↵
- Several years after his book was published, Schulze revisited the question, considering several further people who may have been the cantata’s dedicatee, including Ludwig Christian Crell (1671–1733), a candidate who would fit the available evidence perfectly but for the facts that he served as rector of the competing St. Nicholas School and was quite Pietist in his beliefs. See Schulze (2010, 74–79).—Trans.↵