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• 1 2023-09-26T09:32:57+00:00 Nun komm der Heiden Heiland BWV 61 / BC A1 34 First Sunday of Advent. First performed 12/02/1714 at Weimar. Text by Erdmann Neumeister. plain 2024-04-24T15:02:34+00:00 1714-12-02 BWV 61 Weimar 50.979493, 11.323544 11Advent First Sunday of Advent BC A 1 Johann Sebastian Bach Erdmann Neumeister Hans-Joachim Schulze, "Nun komm der Heiden Heiland, BWV 61 / BC A 1" in Die Bach Kantaten: Einführungen zu sämtlichen Kantaten Johann Sebastian Bachs, (Leipzig: Evangelisches Verlagsanstalt 2007), p. 11 James A. Brokaw II Weimar as concertmaster

  First Sunday of Advent

  There are two Bach cantatas that begin with the first strophe of Martin Luther’s chorale Nun komm der Heiden Heiland (Now come, savior of the Gentiles), and both are for the first Sunday of Advent. This one, the older of the two, originated in Weimar in 1714. The other was composed a decade later in Leipzig. The work composed in 1714 is based on a text by Erdmann Neumeister. Born near Weissenfels (Thuringia) in 1671 and active at first in various positions near this royal seat, in 1714 Neumeister was working as senior court chaplain and superintendent in Sorau, Silesia. In that year he published a new annual cycle of cantata texts in Frankfurt am Main under the title Geistliche Poesien mit untermischten biblischen Sprüchen und Choralen auf alle Sonn- und Festtagen (Sacred poems with interspersed biblical sayings and chorales for all Sundays and feast days), intended to be set by Georg Philipp Telemann, the director of music at Frankfurt. In March 1714 Telemann stood as godfather at the baptism of Bach’s son Carl Philipp Emanuel. Six decades later, Carl Philipp Emanuel reported regarding his father that “in his younger years he was often together with Telemann—who also lifted me out of the baptismal font.”¹ It seems likely that this close relationship, featuring godparenthood, enabled an exchange of news and recent developments that included Neumeister’s new annual cycle of texts.
  
  Annual text cycles normally were arranged according to the church year, beginning, as this one does, with the first Sunday of Advent. The Gospel reading for this Sunday, found in the twenty-first chapter of Matthew and nearly identically in Mark and Luke, describes the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem and, thus, the arrival of the savior:

  When they now came near to Jerusalem, at Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples and said to them, “Go into the village that lies before you, and immediately you shall find an ass tied, and a colt with her: loose them, and bring them unto me! And if anyone says something to you, you shall say, the Lord needs them, and immediately he will release them to you.” All this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Prophet, saying, “Tell the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, thy king comes to you, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt, the foal of an ass.’” The disciples went forth, and did as Jesus commanded them, and brought the ass and the colt, and put their clothes on them, and they set him thereon. But many people spread their garments in the way, others cut down branches from the trees, and scattered them in the way. But the people however, those that went before followed, cried and said, Hosanna to the son of David! Blessed is he that comes in the Name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest! (1–9)

  As the title of his annual cycle indicates, Erdmann Neumeister’s cantata poetry belongs to the genre of mixed text form; that is, it contains free poetry—recitatives and arias—alongside chorale strophes and biblical passages. This form of mixed text was long regarded as Neumeister’s most important contribution to the development of the Protestant Church cantata, until it turned out that Neumeister neither invented this hybrid text nor particularly preferred it. His domain was free cantata poetry without chorale strophes or biblical passages, with which he surprised his contemporaries in 1702.² He completed the transition to mixed text subsequently and perhaps even reluctantly; according to a predecessor in Thuringia in 1704 whose identity remains unknown to scholarship, the roots of the practice reach far back into the seventeenth century.
  
  At the beginning of his libretto, Neumeister placed the first strophe of Luther’s German translation of the ancient church hymn Veni redemptor gentium, published in 1524:

  Nun komm der Heiden Heiland, 
  Der Jungfrauen Kind erkannt, 
  Des sich wundert alle Welt, 
  Gott solch Geburt ihm bestellt.
  
  Now come, savior of the Gentiles, 
  Known as the child of the Virgin, 
  Of this, all the world marvels, 
  God ordained him such a birth.

  A chorale fragment concludes the libretto, the Abgesang (second part) of the last strophe of Philipp Nicolai’s 1599 hymn Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern (How brightly gleams the morning star). Nicolai’s strophe begins with the words “Wie bin ich doch so herzlich froh” (How am I though so sincerely glad); the Abgesang reads:

  Amen! Amen!
  Komm du schöne Freudenkrone, bleib nicht lange! 
  Deiner wart ich mit Verlangen.
  
  Amen! Amen!
  Come, you beautiful crown of joy, tarry not long!
  I await you with longing.

  “Kommen” (come) is the most important keyword of the entire cantata libretto; it is missing only from the one movement that cites a passage from the Gospel. The free portions of the text are characterized by this keyword, as in movement 2, a recitative:

  Der Heiland ist gekommen,
  Hat unser armes Fleisch und Blut
  An sich genommen
  Und nimmet uns zu
  Blutsverwandten an.
  
  The savior is come,
  Has taken our poor flesh and blood
  Upon himself
  And accepts us as blood relatives.

  
  And at the conclusion:

  Was tust du nicht
  Noch täglich an den Deinen? 
  Du kömmst und läßt dein Licht 
  Mit vollem Segen scheinen.
  
  What do you not do
  Still daily for your people? 
  You come and let your light 
  Shine with full blessing.

  The accompanying aria prays for this blessing at the outset of the newly begun church year:

  Komm, Jesu, komm zu deiner Kirche 
  Und gib ein selig neues Jahr!
  Befördre deines Namens Ehre 
  Erhalte die gesunde Lehre 
  Und segne Kanzel und Altar.
  
  Come, Jesus, come to your church 
  And grant a blessed new year!
  Promote your name’s honor, 
  Uphold the sound teaching, 
  And bless pulpit and altar.

  Words of Jesus give the answer to this prayer from the third chapter of the Revelation of St. John: “Siehe, ich stehe vor der Tür und klopfe an. So jemand meine Stimme hören wird und die Tür auftun, zu dem werde ich eingehen und das Abendmahl mit ihm halten und er mit mir” (3:20; See, I stand before the door and knock. Should anyone hear my voice and open the door, to him I will go in and have the evening meal with him and he with me). The meaning of “Tür auftun” and “eingehen”—to open the door and go in—is expressed by the penultimate movement of the cantata, an aria whose text paraphrases the classic metaphor of the human heart as the dwelling of God:

  Öffne dich, mein ganzes Herze, 
  Jesus kommt und ziehet ein.
  Bin ich gleich nur Staub und Erde, 
  Will er mich doch nicht verschmähn, 
  Seine Lust an mir zu sehen,
  Daß ich seine Wohnung werde. 
  O wie selig werd ich sein!
  
  Open yourself, my whole heart, 
  Jesus comes and enters.
  Though I am but dust and earth,
  He will, nevertheless, not disdain me, 
  His pleasure in me to see,
  That I become his dwelling. 
  O how blessed will I be!

  As mentioned, Johann Sebastian Bach’s composition based on this text originated in late 1714 for the service in the Weimar castle chapel. A reperformance is documented in Leipzig in 1723, Bach’s first year of service there. It is remarkable that on this occasion Bach outlined the rather complicated sequence of the church service in the score, including the organist’s duties—which he himself did not have to perform:

  1  Preluding.
  2  Motet.
  3  Preluding on the Kyrie, which is performed throughout in concerted manner [musiciret].
  4  Intoning before the altar.
  5  Reading of the Epistle.
  6  Singing of the Litany.
  7  Preluding on [and singing of ] the Chorale.
  8  Reading of the Gospel [crossed out: and intoning of the creed].
  9  Preluding on [and performance of ] the principal music [cantata].
  10  Singing of the Creed [Luther’s Credo hymn].    
  11  The Sermon.    
  12  After the Sermon, as usual, singing of several verses from a hymn.
  13  Words of Institution [of the Sacrament].
  14  Preluding on [and performance of ] the Music [probably the second half of the cantata]. And after the same, alternate preluding and the singing of chorales until the end of the Communion, et sic porro [and so on].³

  
  Accordingly, the “principal music” (after number 9) or the “Music” (during number 14)—that is, the cantata—would have been performed with the first part before the sermon, between the reading of the Gospel and the singing of the creed, Wir glauben all’ an einen Gott, and the second part after the Words of Institution and before or during Communion or the Offertory. But whether the cantata Nun komm der Heiden Heiland in fact was performed in two parts, the first part ending after the third movement, cannot be determined. It is also conceivable that the entire cantata was performed as principal music and that for the presentation of music during Communion or the Lord’s Supper the work of another composer was drawn upon.
  
  The Weimar Advent cantata Nun Komm der Heiden Heiland displays the thirty-year-old court organist at the height of his powers. The first movement meets a self-imposed challenge, as it integrates an arrangement of an ancient church hymn with the modern instrumental form of the French overture. This is in three parts; its first and last sections have dotted rhythms and sweeping scales that go back to the fanfares at the French opera in the seventeenth century that announced the arrival of the king. It is thus clear that Bach’s compositional experiment was meant to symbolize, formally, the entrance of Jesus in Jerusalem and the arrival of the savior at the same time. That no radiant major is allowed to sound, and instead a melancholy, shadowy minor, is conditioned by the modal nature of the ancient hymn tune. A change of tempo and meter in the middle section enables the buoyant fugal development of the text line “des sich wundert alle Welt.” Buoyant as well is the tenor aria, following a brief recitative extended by an arioso at its conclusion. Here, the upper strings—two violins and two violas—unite to form a pastose obbligato voice of sonorous timbre. The Gospel recitative, “Siehe, ich stehe vor der Tür und klopfe an” (See, I stand before the door and knock), is taken by the bass, the vox Christi (voice of Christ). The pizzicato interspersed with rests more reflects tense anticipation and preliminary uncertainty than simply tone painting of “knocking at the door.” Sincere naivete and the use of the most modest instrumental forces define the soprano aria, “Öffne dich, mein ganzes Herze,” whose increasingly joyous excitement flows directly into the closing chorale. The two violins form an obbligato part that gives it festive splendor, transiting the entire compass of the two instruments and climbing to the highest possible peak at the closing fermata, certainly conducted and performed in person by the composer and concertmaster, Johann Sebastian Bach.

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  Footnotes

  1. “In seinen jungen Jahren war er oft mit Telemannen zusammen, welcher auchmich aus der Taufe gehoben hat” (BD III: 289 [no. 803]).—Trans.↵
  2. Hobohm (2000); Rucker (2000); and Krausse (1986).↵
  3. NBR, 113 (no. 113).—Trans.↵
• 1 2023-09-26T09:34:18+00:00 Vergnügte Ruh, beliebte Seelenlust BWV 170 / BC A 106 11 Cantata for alto solo. Sixth Sunday After Trinity. First performed 07/28/1726 in Leipzig (Cycle III). Text by GC Lehms. plain 2024-04-24T17:41:05+00:00 1726-07-28 BWV 170 Leipzig 50.979493, 11.323544 05Trinity06 Cantata for alto solo Sixth Sunday After Trinity BC A 106 Johann Sebastian Bach GC Lehms Hans-Joachim Schulze, "Vergnügte Ruh, beliebte Seelenlust, BWV 170 / BC A 106" in Die Bach Kantaten: Einführungen zu sämtlichen Kantaten Johann Sebastian Bachs, (Leipzig: Evangelisches Verlagsanstalt 2007), p. 328 James A. Brokaw II Leipzig III

  Sixth Sunday after Trinity, July 28, 1726

  Without question, this cantata is among the most challenging compositions of its kind. Who it was who had to master the difficult solo alto part at the first performance under Bach’s direction is not documented. It may have been Carl Gotthelf Gerlach, who is known to have occasionally served as an alto. A student in Leipzig, Gerlach was at the St. Thomas School earlier under Bach’s predecessor as cantor, Johann Kuhnau. 
  
  The cantata was heard for the first time on July 28, 1726. Another cantata must also have been performed on the same day: Ich will mein Geist in euch geben JLB-7 (I will put my spirit within you), by Bach’s Meiningen cousin Johann Ludwig Bach. It is likely that one cantata was performed before the sermon during the main worship service, the other afterward. It is not known which work received the preferred position before the sermon. It may have been the cantata by Bach’s Meiningen cousin, because it alone makes direct reference in its text to the Gospel reading of the Sunday. While Bach’s source text is indeed designated as “Andacht auf den sechsten Sonntag nach Trinitatis” (Devotion for the sixth Sunday after Trinity), a relation to the Gospel reading is more difficult to make out than for the cantata by Johann Ludwig Bach. Therefore, the cantata Vergügte Ruh, beliebte Seelenlust BWV 170 (Contented rest, beloved pleasure of the soul) would have been performed on this initial occasion only after the sermon, during Communion. 
      
  This work is one of the few flawless examples in Bach’s oeuvre of the cantata as it is exemplified by Erdmann Neumeister in his collection Geistliche Cantaten statt einer Kirchen-Music (Sacred cantatas instead of a church music), prepared in 1702 and reprinted in 1704. That is, traditional church music with its mixture of biblical text, chorale strophes, and a few freely versified portions was to be replaced—according to Neumeister’s initiative—by subjective expressions of piety exclusively in free poetry.¹ This effort achieved only partial success, although it was widely imitated. Who wrote the exclusively free poetry for this Bach cantata long remained a mystery to Bach research. On several occasions it was even suggested that Bach himself might have authored the text. In the 1950s it was proven not only that Bach had set this text to music in Leipzig but also that—fifteen years before Bach—Christoph Graupner had done so in Darmstadt, where he was court music director; he had also been among Bach’s competitors in 1723 for the Leipzig cantorate.² With this, attention was focused on the Darmstadt court librarian Georg Christian Lehms as author of the text. But it was only as recently as 1970 that final confirmation came with the discovery of a copy of Lehms’s text collection Gottgefälliges Kirchen-Opffer (Church offering pleasing to God), published at Darmstadt in 1711. It turned out that when he was at Weimar, before 1717, Bach had used two texts for composition from this volume and at Leipzig eight further texts in 1725 and 1726.³
  
  For the era, it was not at all unusual to draw upon a relatively old collection of texts. It was an inaccurate premise of older scholarship that a close temporal relationship necessarily existed between the appearance of a printed collection and an associated composition—a premise that led to a number of disastrous errors. In the case of the Lehms texts, it is clear that they, with their powerfully elemental Baroque manner of expression, stood diametrically opposed to the galant sensibilities of the age. Whether Bach prized them for exactly this reason and deliberately adopted a backward-looking attitude is impossible to say. 
  
  The Andacht (devotional) text authored by Lehms comprises five movements: three arias and two recitatives. The language is characterized by the frequent use of compound nouns, a feature that betrays a proclivity to powerful Baroque expression. On the one hand, this may have to do with the collection’s relatively early origin; on the other hand, it could point to the author’s background and spiritual home. Although he finished his career in Darmstadt, Lehms came from Liegnitz in Lower Silesia. It was the Silesian schools of poetry, in particular, the Second Silesian School of the late seventeenth century, that the early eighteenth century regarded as the stronghold of harsh, crude, overladen, overblown expression. Bach himself had to endure such a comparison when in May 1737 Johann Adolph Scheibe in Hamburg launched an attack against Bach’s compositional style, calling his works turgid and confused and comparing them to the works of the Silesian playwright Daniel Casper von Lohenstein.
  
  With “Vergnügte Ruh, beliebte Seelenlust” (Contented rest, beloved pleasure of the soul), Lehms begins his hymn of praise to “wahren Seelenfrieden” (true peace of the soul)—the “Stille und Ruhe des Herzens” (heart’s quiet and ease). He continues:

  Dich kann man nicht bei Höllensünden,
  Wohl aber Himmelseintracht finden;
  Du stärkst allein die schwache Brust.
  Drum sollen lauter Tugendgaben
  In meinem Herzen Wohnung haben.
  
  You cannot be found amid the sins of hell
  But rather in heavenly concord;
  You alone strengthen the weak breast.
  Therefore should true gifts of virtue
  Have their dwelling in my heart.

      
  But this gentle entreaty is only a prelude. Like a preacher thundering from the pulpit against the gathered throng of sinners, Lehms holds forth in his first recitative:

  Die Welt, das Sündenhaus,
  Bricht nur in Höllenlieder aus
  Und sucht in Haß und Neid,
  Des Satans Bild an sich zu tragen.
  Ihr Mund ist voller Ottergift,
  Der oft die Unschuld tödlich trifft,
  Und will allein von Racha! sagen.
  
  The world, that house of sin,
  Breaks forth only in songs of hell
  And seeks, through hate and envy,
  To bear Satan’s image.
  Its mouth is full of the poison of asps,
  Which often strikes innocence mortally
  And would only speak of Raca!

  
  With this, the poet builds a bridge to the Gospel reading for the sixth Sunday after Trinity, found in Matthew 5, not far from the Sermon on the Mount. It focuses on the message of justification with the words of Jesus: “For I say to you: Unless your righteousness is better than that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. You have heard what is said to the ancients: ‘You shall not kill; whoever kills, he shall be guilty before the law.’ I, however, say to you: Whoever is angry with his brother, he is guilty before the law; whoever, though, says to his brother: Racha! He is guilty before the council; however, he who says: You fool! He is guilty before the fires of hell” (20–22). In long, powerfully expressive verses, the second aria laments the misguided ways of the human heart:

  Wie jammern mich doch die verkehrten Herzen,
  Die dir, mein Gott, so sehr zuwider sein;
  Ich zittre recht und fühle tausend Schmerzen,
  Wenn sie sich nur an Rach’ und Haß erfreun.
  
  How the wayward hearts afflict me
  That against you, my God, are so sorely set.
  I truly tremble and feel a thousand pains
  When they delight only in vengeance and hate.

  
  “Gerechter Gott” (righteous God), cries the poet, “Was magst du doch gedenken” (What might you think), and concludes with the lines “Ach, ohne Zweifel hast du so gedacht: / Wie jammern mich doch die verkehrten Herzen!” (Ah, without doubt have you thought: / How the wayward hearts afflict me!). Thus the return to the aria’s beginning is accomplished by a simple artifice, and the train of thought is closed. The last recitative continues the lament “Wer sollte sich demnach / Wohl hier zu leben wünschen” (Who should therefore / Wish to live here) but returns to “Gottes Vorschrift” (God’s injunction), namely, to love even the enemy as a friend. The final chorale closes the circle to the “Vergnügte Ruh” of the beginning:

  Mir ekelt mehr zu leben,
  Drum nimm mich, Jesu, hin.
  Mir graut vor allen Sünden,
  Laß mich dies Wohnhaus finden,
  Wo selbst ich ruhig bin.
  
  I am sickened to live longer;
  Therefore, take me, Jesus, away.
  I shudder before all my sins.
  Let me find this dwelling place
  Wherein I can find peace.

   
  In spite of its rather overwrought language, the text is quite well suited for composition. It provided Bach the opportunity to draw on all registers of his art and to put an unusual wealth of invention on display. For the first aria, the song of praise to contented repose, the 12
  8 meter, at peace within itself and complete, and the soft gleam of the key of D major provide ideal foundations. Here, the richness of tone of the strings and the warm timbre of the oboe d’amore unfold just as does the self-possessed singing voice. With the beginning of the first recitative, this ideal world is left forever. Indeed, the image of the world itself is put in question, for in the second aria, “Wie jammern mich doch die verkehrten Herzen,” the world itself is—musically speaking—turned on its head. The otherwise obligatory bass foundation is omitted, violins and violas join to form a foundation in a high register, and singing voice and organ give themselves over to a harmonic and melodic adventure tantamount to the path through a maze. Only rarely did Bach employ this bassetto effect—the omission of the basso continuo—but on each occasion with particular intent. In this case, the “irregular” procedure characterizes the extraordinary, incomprehensible, not understandable rationally, or only in irregular fashion—in other words, the “wrong paths” of the “wayward” hearts. A parallel example of something not rationally explicable and hence set the same way in music would be the soprano aria from the St. Matthew Passion “Aus Liebe will mein Heiland sterben” BWV 244, 49.
  
  With its thematic invention and dance-like verve, the third aria of the cantata could pass as a song of praise of the joys of earthly existence were there not, at the very beginning, an augmented step from D to G-sharp—a tritone, the diabolus in musica. It represents the revulsion against the pharisaical existence, the necessity of reversing course.
  
  In 1750 Bach’s oldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann, performed the first aria of our cantata in Halle as part of a pasticcio (BR-WFB F 20), in which still another cantata movement⁴ by Johann Sebastian and a recitative of unknown origin were included. The second and third arias were not included; they were probably too challenging technically or, with their musical symbolism, would not have been understood.

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  Footnotes

  1. Hobohm (2000); Rucker (2000); Krausse (1986).↵
  2. Schulze (1959).↵
  3. Noack (1970).↵
  4. The first movement of Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben BWV 147.↵
• 1 2023-09-26T09:33:56+00:00 Wer mich liebet, der wird mein Wort halten BWV 59 / BC A 82 10 Dialog Cantata . Pentecost. First performed 05/28/1724 in Leipzig (Cycle I). Text by Erdmann Neumeister. plain 2024-04-24T16:24:24+00:00 1724-05-28 BWV 59 Leipzig 51.340199, 12.360103 29Pentecost Dialog Cantata Pentecost BC A 82 Johann Sebastian Bach Erdmann Neumeister Hans-Joachim Schulze, "Wer mich liebet, der wird mein Wort halten, BWV 59 / BC A 82" in Die Bach Kantaten: Einführungen zu sämtlichen Kantaten Johann Sebastian Bachs, (Leipzig: Evangelisches Verlagsanstalt 2007), p. 253 James A. Brokaw II Leipzig I

  Pentecost, May 28, 1724

  This is the earlier of two cantatas of the same name for the first day of Pentecost. The two cantatas are closely connected with one another: they both begin with the same biblical passage, and their instrumental setting is the same. 
  
  As usual, the text takes up the Gospel reading for the holiday. This is found in the fourteenth chapter of John and contains a portion of the farewell addresses by Jesus, in particular, 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. You have heard that I have said to you: I go away and come again to you. If you loved me, you would rejoice that I have said “I go to the Father,” for the Father is greater than I. And now I have said to you, before it happens, when it will happen, you will believe. I will not talk with you much more, because the prince of this world is coming, and he has no power over me. But that the world might recognize that I love the Father and I also do as the Father has bidden me: stand up, and let us go hence. (23–31)

  
  The text of our cantata comes from the chief pastor of Hamburg, Erdmann Neumeister; it was published in 1714 in Frankfurt am Main in an annual cycle of cantata texts under the title Geistliche Poesien mit untermischten biblischen Sprüchen und Choralen auf alle Sonn- und Festtagen (Spiritual poems with interspersed biblical sayings and chorales for all Sundays and feast days), intended for the use of Frankfurt music director Georg Philipp Telemann. The title of this collection refers to the gemischte Kantatenform (mixed cantata form), in which biblical passages, chorale stories, and free poetry are components of equal importance. For decades, scholars regarded Neumeister as the inventor of this particular scheme and the mixed text form as the result of his efforts at reform. More recently, it has turned out that Neumeister’s achievement lay solely in the establishment of geistliche Poesien (free poetry) in the form of recitative and aria, borrowed from opera—and that his contribution to mixed cantata form should be seen as a nod to contemporary taste.¹
  
  Neumeister starts his libretto with the beginning of the Gospel reading for the holiday: “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” (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). The ensuing recitative takes up the keyword “Wohnung” (dwelling) and places it in the context of the classical metaphor of the human heart as the dwelling of God:

  O, was sind das vor Ehren,
  Worzu uns Jesus setzt?
  Der uns so würdig schätzt,
  Daß er verheißt,
  Samt Vater und dem heilgen Geist
  In unsre Herzen einzukehren.
  
  O, what are those honors
  To which Jesus leads us?
  He who treasures us so highly
  That he promises,
  Together with Father and Holy Spirit, 
  To dwell in our hearts.

  
  In what follows, the nullity of human activity is demonstrated, after which the initial idea returns:

  Wie nun? Der Allerhöchste spricht,
  Er will in unsern Seelen
  Die Wohnung sich erwählen.
  Ach, was tut Gottes Liebe nicht?
  Ach, daß doch, wie er wollte,
  Ihn auch ein jeder lieben sollte.
  
  What then? The Most High promises
  He will in our souls
  Choose his dwelling place.
  Ah, what does God’s love not do?
  Ah, that only, as he wished,
  Everyone should love him too.

  
  The first strophe of Luther’s German version of the hymn Veni Sancte Spiritus is formulated as a prayer:

  Komm, heiliger Geist, Herre Gott,
  Erfüll mit deiner Gnaden Gut
  Deiner Gläubiger Herz, Mut und Sinn,
  Dein brünstig Lieb entzünd in ihn’n.
  
  Come, Holy Spirit, Lord God,
  Fill, with the goodness of your grace,
  The heart, courage, and mind of your believers,
  Enkindle your ardent love in them.

  
  An unusually eloquent aria text is devoted to the opposition of the earthly and the heavenly, although this too proves to be derived from the metaphorical interpretation of the human heart:

  Die Welt mit allen Königreichen,
  Die Welt mit aller Herrlichkeit
  Kann dieser Herrlichkeit nicht gleichen,
  Womit uns unser Gott erfreut:
  Daß er in unsern Herzen thronet
  Und wie in einem Himmel wohnet.
  Ach Gott, wie selig sind wir doch,
  Wie selig werden wir erst noch, 
  Wenn wir nach dieser Zeit der Erden
  Bei dir im Himmel wohnen werden.
  
  The world with all its kingdoms,
  The world with all its glory
  Cannot equal this glory
  With which our God delights us:
  That he is enthroned in our hearts
  And dwells as if in heaven.
  Ah God, how blessed are we indeed,
  How blessed will we be only
  When, after this time on Earth
  We shall dwell with you in heaven. 

  
  The third strophe of Luther’s hymn Erhalt uns, Herr, bei deinem Wort concludes the libretto:

  Gott Heilger Geist, du Tröster wert,
  Gib dein’m Volk, einerlei Sinn auf Erd,
  Steh bei uns in der letzten Not,
  G’leit uns ins Leben aus dem Tod!
  
  Come, Holy Spirit, you worthy comforter,
  Give to all your people unity of purpose on Earth,
  Stand by us in our last suffering,
  Lead us into life out of death!

  Bach composed this text no later than 1724 and perhaps as early as May 1723; thus, he may have completed it before taking office as cantor of St. Thomas in Leipzig. It may be that the apparent designation “Für alle Fälle” (For all situations) has something to do with the fact that the work does not fulfill every expectation attending the high rank of the Pentecost holiday. In particular, this is seen in the relatively modest setting for two trumpets and drums, strings, and continuo. Over and above this, the opening movement oddly avoids the usual four-part chorus. Instead, it is a duet for soprano and bass that closely matches Bach’s compositional procedure in Köthen before early 1723, where ensemble movements with two voices predominated. In spite of this self-imposed limitation, Bach achieves a remarkable wealth of polyphonic combination and thus projects the text in ever new illumination. A terse motto theme is stated and repeated, with the singers exchanging the lead until the fifth iteration, which opens into a synchronous presentation of the words of the Lord by both singers.
  
  A recitative accompanied by strings that ends in an arioso is followed by a chorale movement Komm, heiliger Geist, in a six-part harmonization that is expanded by the independent leading of the second violin and viola. The concluding aria for bass with obbligato solo violin is relatively terse: pre- and postludes are only eight measures long, and the text in between is presented almost without repetition, as fast as possible, as it were. The closing chorale stipulated in Neumeister’s text is missing in Bach’s score and in the performance parts. At the same time, there are several indications that the cantata was not meant to end with a bass aria and that the chorale was to be involved somehow. Today’s performances remedy the situation by simply exchanging the movements—a stopgap measure to address this apparently simple but quite enigmatic Pentecost cantata.

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  Footnotes

  1. Hobohm (2000); Rucker (2000); Krausse (1986).↵
• 1 2023-09-26T09:34:19+00:00 Mein Herze schwimmt im Blut BWV 199 / BC A 120 8 Solo Cantata. Eleventh Sunday After Trinity. First performed 08/12/1714 at Weimar. Text by GC Lehms. plain 2024-04-24T17:19:50+00:00 1714-08-12 BWV 199 Weimar 50.979493, 11.323544 05Trinity11 Solo Cantata Eleventh Sunday After Trinity BC A 120 Johann Sebastian Bach GC Lehms Hans-Joachim Schulze, "Mein Herze schwimmt im Blut, BWV 199 / BC A 120" in Die Bach Kantaten: Einführungen zu sämtlichen Johann Sebastian Bachs, (Leipzig: Evangelisches Verlagsanstalt 2007), p. 374 James A. Brokaw II Weimar as concertmaster

  Eleventh Sunday after Trinity, 1712–1713

  
  This early work by Johann Sebastian Bach, the cantata Mein Herze schwimmt im Blut BWV 199 (My heart swims in blood), is among those that the composer is known to have performed particularly frequently. The composition originated in Weimar in 1714 at the latest or even perhaps a year or two earlier. Since Bach had only been appointed concertmaster to the court of Weimar in March 1714, at which point he became obligated to write a new cantata every four weeks, one must ask what occasion the cantata Mein Herze schwimmt im Blut may have been meant for if it was written before that decisive change in Bach’s professional responsibilities. Further, the question applies to later performances as well, since not all of them were connected to the original occasion in the church calendar as stipulated in the libretto. This is particularly true of one or more performances that must have taken place in 1720 in Köthen¹ (and perhaps Hamburg as well); in these cases, it is difficult if not impossible to establish any connection to the eleventh Sunday after Trinity.
  
  In fact, it is only the libretto that shows this connection. The text is found in the annual text cycle Gottgefälliges Kirchen-Opffer (Church offering pleasing to God), which was rediscovered in 1970. Printed in 1711 in Darmstadt, it is the work of the court librarian there, Georg Christian Lehms. The text appears beneath the heading “Andacht auf den eilfften Sonntag nach Trinitatis” (Devotion for the eleventh Sunday after Trinity). Bach’s score, on the other hand, mentions nothing of the sort; the composition simply appears beneath the heading “Cantata a voce sola” (Cantata for one voice). Bach may have found justification for such an approach in the text itself, which speaks about sin and remorse, guilt and atonement in only the most general terms and for the most part eludes any particular assignment within the church calendar.
  
  At the same time, the text does not entirely avoid reference to the Gospel reading for the eleventh Sunday after Trinity. This reading, found in Luke 18:9–14, contains Jesus’s parable of the Pharisees and the tax collector:

  He, however, spoke such a parable to several who presumed themselves to be pious and scorned the others: Two people went up to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed to himself thusly: I thank you, God, that I am not like the other people, robbers, unrighteous, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast two times a week and give a tenth of all that I have. And the tax collector stood at a distance, did not want to lift his eyes up to heaven, but rather struck his breast and spoke: God be gracious to me, a sinner! I say to you: This one went to his home justified rather than the other. For he who exalts himself, he shall be humbled, and he who humbles himself shall be exalted.

  
  The librettist, Lehms, places the tax collector’s cry “Gott sei mir Sünder gnädig!” (God be gracious to me, a sinner!) in the geometric center, so to speak, of his cantata text. However, there is much to cover before this turning point is reached. An extended recitative at the beginning of the cantata is dedicated to intensifying self-accusation. Its title verse, “Mein Herze schwimmt im Blut,” harks back to a motif of Baroque emblematics used extensively before Lehms by Erdmann Neumeister, a pastor and cantata librettist active in Weissenfels, Sorau, and, later, Hamburg. The text’s first aria speaks of tearful remorse and wordless lament:

  Stumme Seufzer, stille Klagen,
  Ihr mögt meine Schmerzen sagen,
  Weil der Mund geschlossen ist.
  Und ihr nassen Tränenquellen
  Könnt ein sichres Zeugnis stellen,
  Wie mein sündlich Herz gebüßt.
  
  Speechless sighs, silent cries,
  You may speak my sorrows,
  For my mouth is closed.
  And you watery springs of tears
  Could bear certain witness
  How my sinful heart repents.

  
  The ensuing recitative culminates in the scripture “Gott sei mir Sünder gnädig!” and leads to a confession of guilt that is no longer mute but formulated in the language of the soul:

  Tief gebückt und voller Reue
  Lieg ich, liebster Gott, vor dir.
  Ich bekenne meine Schuld,
  Aber habe doch Geduld,
  Habe doch Geduld mit mir.
  
  Deeply bowed and filled with remorse,
  I lie, dearest God, before you.
  I confess my guilt
  But yet have patience.
  Have patience yet with me.

  
  Then a chorale strophe is presented in the manner of an announcement. It is drawn from Johannes Heermann’s chorale Wo soll ich fliehen hin (Whither shall I flee), written in 1630 in the midst of the Thirty Years’ War:

  Ich, dein betrübtes Kind,
  Werf alle meine Sünd,
  So viel ihr in mir stecken
  Und mich so heftig schrecken, 
  In deine tiefe Wunden,
  Da ich stets Heil gefunden.
  
  I, your troubled child,
  Cast all my sins,
  As many as hide within me,
  And so severely frighten me,
  In your deep wounds,
  Where I have always found salvation.

  
  A final recitative apostrophizes the wounds of Jesus as “Felsenstein” (rocky crag) and “Ruhstatt” (resting place) and from there progresses to a “vergnügten” (cheerful) conclusion, one that is contented and joyful:

  Wie freudig ist mein Herz,
  Da Gott versöhnet ist
  Und mir nach Reu und Leid
  Nicht mehr die Seligkeit
  Noch auch sein Herz verschließt.
  
  How joyful is my heart
  As God is reconciled
  And upon my repentance and suffering
  No longer excluded from blessedness
  Nor his heart as well.

  
  The word “Herz” appears twice in this concluding aria and eight times in the entire cantata text; the frequency of its appearance underscores its importance as a metaphor of Christian mysticism for mutual devotion. In the opinion of a recent German literary scholar, this cantata libretto possesses a remarkable “inner dynamism, from the contrition and remorse of the opening movement to the certainty of faith in the last. Moreover, this cantata, which counts among the longest libretti by Lehms, is one of astonishing unity and coherence. All movements, including the chorale, appear in the first person; the recitatives and arias are always closely associated with one another formally and in terms of content.”²
  
  It is possible that Bach may have been fully aware of the merits of this text and for that reason accorded it a privileged position within his repertoire. Further, the rather tenuous connection to any particular occasion in the church calendar will have been a factor, as well as the unproblematic setting for soprano, oboe or solo violin, strings, and basso continuo. Certainly, the soprano part poses considerable challenges; one wonders who in Weimar and later in Leipzig was capable of mastering it: an adult falsettist or a boy who—like Bach himself—still possessed a soprano voice at the age of fifteen or sixteen. Only under exceptional circumstances could Bach have considered enlisting the aid of a female singer, perhaps with the participation of his wife, Anna Magdalena, at a performance in his own home or at the performance in Hamburg in 1720 mentioned earlier. Christoph Graupner, court Kapellmeister at Darmstadt and Bach’s competitor for the Leipzig cantor’s position, may have taken this option: Graupner composed this text in 1712 for soprano solo, in fact; in accordance with the customs of Darmstadt church music, Graupner was able to give the part to an opera singer.
  
  One can see how important the unity and coherence of his composition were to Bach in the exceptional fact that he set all recitatives as accompagnati, adding chordal accompaniment in the strings. The only exceptions are very short textual passages that serve as transitions, which, as it were, “announce” the ensuing movements.
  
  The concept pairs sin/redemption and penance/reconciliation are seen particularly in the opposition between the first and last arias: here, in a somber D minor, an oboe melody laden with expressiveness and suffused with sigh motives, with which the voice is led in a nearly instrumental fashion; there a virtually unleashed jubilation in the dance rhythms of a gigue. Preceding this exhilarated closing aria is a closely worked trio movement in which the soprano’s performance of the chorale melody, Wo soll ich fliehen hin?, is enwreathed by the swirling figuration of a deep string instrument. The broadly conceived F major aria, “Tief gebückt und voller Reue” (Deeply bowed and filled with remorse), is at the musical center of the cantata. The soprano’s noble cantabile enters upon a texture of string instruments; with its blossoming melody and simple harmony it recalls the Italian models that Bach studied with great interest exactly when he composed this cantata in 1713 or 1714.

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  Footnotes

  1. Schabalina (2004).↵
  2. “innere Dynamik, von der Zerknirschung und Reue des Eingangs- bis zur Glaubensgewißheit des Schlußsatzes. Zudem ist diese Kantate, die zu den längsten Textdichtungen von Lehms zählt, von erstaunlicher Einheit und Geschlossenheit. Alle Sätze, einschließlich des Chorals, erscheinen in der Ichform; die Rezitative und Arien sind jeweils inhaltlich und formell eng miteinander verknüpft” (Krausse 1986, 13).—Trans.↵