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• 1 2023-09-26T09:36:44+00:00 Jauchzet, frohlocket, auf, preiset die Tage BWV 248 I / BC D 7 I 9 Christmas Day. Part of Christmas Oratorio. First performed 12/25/1734 at Leipzig. plain 2024-04-24T14:47:14+00:00 1734-12-25 BWV 248 I Leipzig 11Christmas Christmas Day BC D 7I Johann Sebastian Bach Hans-Joachim Schulze, "Jauchzet, frohlocket, auf, preiset die Tage, BWV 248 I / BC D 7I" in Die Bach Kantaten: Einführungen zu sämtlichen Kantaten Johann Sebastian Bachs, (Leipzig: Evangelisches Verlagsanstalt 2007), p. 632 James A. Brokaw II Christmas Oratorio Leipzig

  Christmas Day, December 25, 1734

  The cantata Jauchzet, frohlocket, auf, preiset die Tage BWV 248 Part I (Exult, rejoice, arise, praise the days) is for the first day of Christmas and was first performed on December 25, 1734, in St. Nicholas, the main church of Leipzig. With it, Johann Sebastian Bach began to realize his plan to provide a musical arrangement for the first of the three high feasts of the church year: instead of single cantatas independent of one another, a complete cycle for the longer period from Christmas to Epiphany. The models for such an ambitious sequence of cantatas—aside from Bach’s own works, such as the chorale cantata annual cycle, composed in 1724 and 1725—include the multipart Lübeck Abendmusiken, as well as other Passion cantata series and multipart Passion oratorios whose performances since the end of the seventeenth century are documented at the Thuringian court of Gotha in particular.
  
  Whether Bach intended at the outset to call his cycle of six cantatas an oratorio is open to question. The original numbering in his autograph scores only begins with the third cantata. The reason for Bach’s momentary uncertainty can be seen clearly in the original print of the text of 1734. Its title unmistakably reads: ORATORIUM, Welches Die heilige Weyhnacht über In beyden Haupt-Kirchen zu Leipzig musicieret wurde (ORATORIO, which was set to music over holy Christmas Night in both main churches in Leipzig).¹ However, it is clear from the headings in the individual cantatas that one can speak of a cyclical performance only within certain limitations. According to the traditional schedule for concerted music at the main churches, St. Nicholas and St. Thomas, the St. Nicholas congregation heard the first, third, and fifth cantatas in the main worship service in the mornings and the other cantatas at vespers on the second day of Christmas, New Year’s Day, and Epiphany. Worshipers at St. Thomas, on the other hand, were able to hear only the first, second, fourth, and sixth cantatas. There was, therefore, a good bit of artistic idealism lurking in Bach’s conception of performing the Christmas story from the birth of Christ to the appearance of the wise men from the East.
  
  Even so, long-term planning can be assumed here, although it remains unclear that Bach considered every detail well in advance. In addition to the arrangements for performance just described, with their unavoidable preference for St. Nicholas Church, the treatment of the Gospel narratives raises several questions. Bach allocated the text belonging to the first day of Christmas in equal parts to the first two cantatas and the text for the second day to the third cantata. In similar fashion, the last two cantatas share the Gospel text for Epiphany, while the account of the flight to Egypt, expected on the Sunday after New Year’s Day, is missing entirely. It would appear that Bach managed the specific layout of the 1734–35 end-of-year season rather idiosyncratically: there was no Sunday after Christmas but a Sunday between New Year’s Day and Epiphany.
  
  What is the earliest evidence of Bach’s plan to structure the cantata cycle later called the Christmas Oratorio? The question is of some importance because its answer could help to clarify the classic question of how the parody procedure, which Bach turned to so frequently in the Christmas Oratorio, should be assessed from Bach’s perspective as well as that of later generations. Since before 1850 Bach scholarship has been aware that the majority of the arias and choral movements come from secular festive cantatas and are simply supplied with new text. Although scholars had to take this into account relatively early, it has often proven difficult for them to come to terms with this knowledge. In 1880 Philipp Spitta hoped to solve the question by maintaining that Bach was scarcely able to write anything outside of a religious context: “His secular occasional works were, rather, nonsecular, and as such they did not fulfill their purpose. The composer returned them to their true home when he transformed them to church music.”² Later, Albert Schweitzer complained that through retexting, word and tone had become alienated from one another at many points. In contrast, more recent Bach scholarship has shown with many examples how sensitively and conscientiously Bach and his librettists proceeded in most cases, even if the results might differ in quality. Accordingly, the richness and complexity of Bach’s music produce a “musical surplus” that allows the individual movement to be open to very different texts. As Ludwig Finscher wrote in 1969, “The musical greatness of Bach’s works is the prerequisite of their suitability for parody.”³
  
  It is worth asking whether Bach’s Christmas Oratorio owes its origins to the composer’s more or less coincidental recourse to several congratulatory cantatas, as well as to a church cantata of unknown purpose from 1733–34, or whether in conceptualizing those works Bach did so with their reuse in mind as part of a larger cantata cycle. Since Bach began relying on parody frequently and deliberately no later than the start of his tenure at Leipzig, he can hardly have begun considering the future uses of works for one-time occasions only after he had finished composing them.
  
  With regard to the Christmas Oratorio, this could mean that the cantatas Laßt uns sorgen, laßt uns wachen BWV 213 (Let us care for, let us watch) and Tönet, ihr Pauken, erschallet, Trompeten BWV 214 (Sound, you drums, ring out, trumpets) were designed with their reusability in mind. However, one objection would be that even if Bach thought through a secular work’s reuse, he prepared it only in a generalized sense. Even when setting the text for a one-time performance for a specific occasion, Bach did so with all his powers and artistic acumen. That the high compositional standard accommodated other and partially divergent text relationships was desirable, but ultimately it was a side benefit.
  
  The first cantata of the oratorio demonstrates in exemplary fashion what obstacles were still to be overcome in spite of all Bach’s foresight. Bach composed the movement “Tönet, ihr Pauken” from the 1733 cantata for the queen of Poland (BWV 214) with its use as an opening movement in mind. His librettist, unfortunately unknown, skillfully prepared a new version in which the triad “tönet,” “erschallet,” “erfüllet” (sound, ring out, fill) is replaced by “jauchzet,” “preiset,” “rühmet” (exult, praise, extoll). What could not be repaired was the deep beginning of the vocal part with what had been an imitation of drum beats. A second problem arose from the adoption of the alto aria from the cantata Herkules auf dem Scheideweg BWV 213 (Hercules at the crossroads), also of 1733. The brusquely defensive “Ich will dich nicht hören, ich will dich nicht wissen, verworfene Wollust, ich kenne dich nicht” (I will not hear you, I will not recognize you, depraved Pleasure, I know you not) was replaced with “Bereite dich Zion, mit zärtlichen Trieben, den Schönsten, den Liebsten bald bei dir zu sehn” (Prepare yourself, Zion, with tender urges, to see the most beautiful, the dearest beside you). This required a change in instrumental accompaniment as well as numerous performance markings in order to alter the character of the aria radically without touching the compositional substance. The adoption of the aria “Fama” from the queen’s cantata was less difficult. The original “Cron und Preis gecrönter Damen” (Crown and trophy of royal ladies), gleaming with the sound of trumpets, could be recycled with a clear conscience to “Großer Herr, o starker König” (Great Lord, O powerful king) in praise of the savior. Newly composed, therefore, were the evangelist’s role, the accompanied recitatives, and the chorales. In this effort, Bach had to keep in mind the existing material, taken from the secular first version, as he sought to integrate it within the new composition. The success of this comprehensive awareness remains undisputed over generations.

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  Footnotes

  1. “Weyhnacht” is singular.—Trans.↵
  2. Spitta (1899, 2:576–77).—Trans.↵
  3. “Die musikalische Größe der Bachschen Werke ist die Voraussetzung ihrer Parodierbarkeit.” Finscher (1969, 105).↵