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• 1 2023-09-26T09:33:56+00:00 Gott fähret auf mit Jauchzen BWV 43 / BC A 77 9 Ascension. First performed 05/30/1726 in Leipzig (Cycle III). plain 2024-04-24T16:13:19+00:00 1726-05-30 BWV 43 Leipzig 51.340199, 12.360103 27Ascension Ascension BC A 77 Johann Sebastian Bach Hans-Joachim Schulze, "Gott fähret auf mit Jauchzen, BWV 43 / BC A 77" in Die Bach Kantaten: Einführungen zu sämtlichen Kantaten Johann Sebastian Bachs, (Leipzig: Evangelisches Verlagsanstalt 2007), p. 240 James A. Brokaw II Leipzig III

  Ascension, May 30, 1726

  The Ascension cantata Gott fähret auf mit Jauchzen BWV 43 (God goes up with exultation) was heard for the first time in late May 1726 in Leipzig. Its text takes up the Gospel reading for this high feast day, the conclusion of the Gospel of Mark at the end of its sixteenth chapter: 

  At last, as the eleven sat at table, he revealed himself and scolded their unbelief and their hardness of heart, that they had not believed those that had seen him resurrected. And he spoke to them: go forth in all the world and preach the Gospel to all creatures. Whoever believes and is baptized, he will be blessed; whoever does not believe, he will be damned. The signs, however, that will follow those who believe are these: in my name they will cast out devils, speak with new tongues, cast out snakes; and should they drink anything harmful, it will not injure them; upon the sick they will lay their hands so that it will become better with them. And the Lord, after he had spoken with them, was taken up to heaven and sits at the right hand of God. But they went forth and preached in all places; and the Lord worked with them and confirmed the Word with signs following. (14–20)

      
  The text of our cantata adopts one of the verses literally, albeit only in the middle of the libretto. On the other hand, an Old Testament passage stands at the beginning. This procedure is characteristic of a small group of cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach—as well as of a large part of the works of his Meiningen cousin, Johann Ludwig Bach. Recent studies have shown that the source of texts used by both composers was an annual cycle of cantata libretti printed in Meiningen in 1704. Who the author of this obviously popular and often reprinted collection might be remains uncertain. Certain indications point to Ernst Ludwig, duke of Meiningen, but a definitive proof has yet to be made. In 1726, our cantata’s year of origin, these texts were performed not only in Leipzig but also in Rudolstadt in Thuringia.¹ While the composer of the Rudolstadt cantatas has not been determined, it is firmly established for the Leipzig performances of 1726 that some of the works performed were older cantatas by Johann Ludwig Bach, works that had originated at least ten years earlier, while others were newly composed cantatas by the cantor of St. Thomas School.
  
  At the beginning of his text for the Feast of the Ascension of Christ, the author placed two verses from Psalm 47, which praises God as king: “Gott fähret auf mit Jauchzen und der Herr mit heller Posaune. Lobsinget, lobsinget Gott, lobsinget, lobsinget unserm Könige!” (5–6; God is gone up with jubilation, and the Lord with bright trumpets. Sing praise, sing praise of God, sing praises, sing praises of our king!). The two freely versified texts that follow, a recitative and aria, are also related to the Psalter. They paraphrase verses from Psalm 68, which read: “Der Wagen Gottes sind vieltausendmal tausend; der Herr ist unter ihnen am heiligen Sinai. Du bist in die Höhe gefahren und hast das Gefängnis gefangen; du hast Gaben empfangen für die Menschen, auch die Abtrünnigen, auf daß Gott der Herr daselbst wohne” (17–18; The chariots of God are many thousand times a thousand; the Lord is among them on holy Sinai. You have ascended on high and lead captives in your train; you have received gifts for the people, even the apostates, that God the Lord might dwell among them). The recitative begins with the lines “Es will der Höchste sich ein Siegsgespräng bereiten, / Da die Gefängnisse er selbst gefangen führt” (The Most High would prepare himself a victory parade, / As he leads captivity itself captive). The development of this thought takes place shortly afterward in the aria:

  Ja tausendmal tausend begleiten den Wagen,
  Dem König der Kön’ge lobsingend zu sagen,
  Daß Erde und Himmel sich unter ihm schmiegt
  Und was er bezwungen, nun gänzlich erliegt.
  
  Yes, a thousand times a thousand accompany the chariots,
  Singing praises to the King of Kings, saying
  That earth and heaven bow down beneath him,
  And what he has conquered now entirely succumbs.

  
  In the Meiningen text collection of 1704, these two movements appear beneath the heading “Die aufmerksame Seele” (The watchful soul); correspondingly, the two freely versified strophes after the New Testament dictum appear beneath the heading “Die preisende Seele” (The soul singing praises). Bach evidently made no use of either epithet. The aria follows the second biblical passage of the cantata, taken from the Gospel of Mark: “Und der Herr, nachdem er mit ihnen geredet hatte, ward er aufgehoben gen Himmel und sitzet zur rechten Hand Gottes” (16:19; And the Lord, after he had spoken with them, he was taken up into heaven and placed at the right hand of God).
  
  In view of the text structure of similar works described earlier, one would expect only another recitative-aria pair between the New Testament scripture and the concluding chorale. Instead, the Ascension text presents a series of six identically formed strophes, which may have originally existed as a free-standing poem, drawn upon later by the librettist to fill out the cantata text. The first strophe of this series relates to the situation between Resurrection and Ascension:

  Mein Jesus hat nunmehr
  Das Heilandwerk vollendet
  Und nimmt die Wiederkehr
  Zu dem, der ihn gesendet.
  Er schließt der Erde Lauf, 
  Ihr Himmel öffnet euch und nehmt ihn wieder auf.
  
  My Jesus has now completed
  The work of salvation 
  And makes his return
  To him who sent him.
  He closes his earthly journey,
  You heavens open and take him up again.

  
  The strophes that follow apostrophize Jesus as “Helden Held” (hero of heroes), as “des Satans Schrecken” (the terror of Satan), as “Keltertreter” (winepress treader); they speak of the place reserved for him at the right hand of God and of his help for the oppressed. The turn to the individual believer occurs at the end of the sequence:

  Er will mir neben sich
  Die Wohnung zubereiten,
  Damit ich ewiglich
  Ihm stehe an der Seiten,
  Befreit von Weh und Ach!
  Ich stehe hier am Weg und ruf ihm dankbar nach.
  
  He will prepare for me 
  A dwelling next to him
  That I may in eternity
  Stand at his side
  Freed from woe and grief!
  I stand here on the path and call to him thankfully.

  
  At the conclusion of the libretto stand two strophes from a hymn written by Johann Rist in 1641, Du Lebensfürst Herr Jesu Christ (You prince of life, Lord Jesus Christ).
  
  The layout of Bach’s composition is clearly influenced by his avoidance of any alteration or, in particular, any abbreviation of the extremely extensive text. Strictly speaking, only the opening movement was spared the pressure to shorten and concentrate. It unfolds with the instrumental brilliance appropriate to the high feast day, including trumpets and drums. Its musical form corresponds to the meaning and dignity of the psalm text, with a structure of several sections in which fugal textures predominate. 
  
  The texts between this entrance portal and the concluding chorale are all composed as recitatives and arias, almost without regard for their idiosyncrasies. All four voices are included: tenor, soprano, bass, alto. Only in the penultimate movement, a recitative, does the soprano enter for a second time in a kind of supernumerary fashion.² In the first aria, the tenor is accompanied by an obbligato part comprising two violins, whose energetic repeated pitches, spacious broken chords, and sweeping passages indicate an “aria with heroic affect” in spite of the 3
  8 meter that would otherwise be characteristic of a dance type. The simple recitative with the passage from Mark that follows seems a bit forlorn, although the simple narrative form offers little alternative. The introverted and strikingly sympathetic soprano aria “Mein Jesus hat nunmehr das Heiland-Werk vollendet” (My Jesus has now completed the work of salvation) closes the first part of the cantata, before the sermon.
  
  The second part of the cantata opens, once again, with a recitative. The bass voice is here accompanied by the string instruments, which depict the contrast-rich text with powerful broken triads and soft, anxious pitch repetitions:

  Es kommt der Helden Held,
  Des Satans Furcht und Schrecken,
  Der selbst den Tod gefällt.
  
  Now comes the heroes’ hero,
  Satan’s fear and terror,
  Who felled death itself.

  
  The excitement of this movement spreads to the bass aria “Er ist’s der ganz allein die Kelter hat getreten” (It is he who, quite alone, has trodden the winepress), the rolling figures of the basso continuo evoking the biblical image of treading the winepress, while a high trumpet, led at a wide interval above the between voice, symbolizes the solitariness of the victor. As in the first part of the cantata, a restful movement follows one charged with tension. The tranquil parallel thirds and sixths of the two oboes do not seem to accord entirely with the text performed by the alto:

  Ich sehe schon im Geist,
  Wie er, zu Gottes Rechten,
  Auf seine Feinde schmeißt,
  Zu helfen seinen Knechten.
  
  I see already in the spirit
  How he, at God’s right hand,
  Smashes his enemies
  To help his servants.

  
  As expected, the cantata concludes with a four-part chorale movement. It is unusual, however, that the setting of the melody Ermuntre dich, mein schwacher Geist (Cheer yourself, my weak spirit) is only minimally the work of Bach. Rather, the composer took it from the 1682 Leipzig hymnal by Gottfried Vopelius with only slight revision. The oldest source for the hymn would scarcely have been at Bach’s disposal; it went back to the Guben cantor Christoph Peter and was published in 1655 under the title Andachts Zymbeln (Devotional cymbals) in Saxonian Freiberg.³ What caused Bach to adopt the artless setting almost completely devoid of dissonance in his cantata in place of his own unmistakable harmonization of the chorale remains his secret. The context, however, deserves attention: the cantata Gott fähret auf mit Jauchzen was Bach’s first composition after a period of three months, during which he exclusively performed cantatas by his Meiningen cousin Johann Ludwig Bach in Sunday services for the main churches of Leipzig.

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  Footnotes

  1. Blankenburg (1977); Schulze (2002a).↵
  2. Schulze here refers to the extra or “supernumerary entry” (überzähliges Einsatz) in fugue technique, where a fugal exposition is extended to include an extra entry by one of the voices after all have already sounded the theme.—Trans.↵
  3. Platen (1975).↵