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• 1 2023-09-26T09:32:59+00:00 Du wahrer Gott und Davids Sohn BWV 23 / BC A 47 21 Estomihi. First performed 02/07/1723 for Bach's audition in Leipzig plain 2024-04-24T14:49:37+00:00 1723-02-07 BWV 23 Köthen 51.340199, 12.360103 18Estomihi Estomihi BC A 47 Johann Sebastian Bach Hans-Joachim Schulze, "Du wahrer Gott und Davids Sohn, BWV 23 / BC A 47" in Die Bach Kantaten: Einführungen zu sämtlichen Kantaten Johann Sebastian Bachs, (Leipzig: Evangelisches Verlagsanstalt 2007), p. 152 James A. Brokaw II Köthen

  Estomihi Sunday

  During Johann Sebastian Bach’s era in Leipzig, Lent began after Estomihi Sunday and with it a period without music called tempus clausum. This traditional silencing of concerted church music, broken only by the Feast of the Annunciation on March 25, brought with it in 1723 a certain time-related urgency for the Leipzig City Council. After the death of Johann Kuhnau, the cantorate of St. Thomas had been unoccupied for eight months, and although several candidates, such as Georg Philipp Telemann of Hamburg and Georg Friedrich Fasch of Zerbst, had signaled their interest, they decided to remain in their previous positions. If the council wanted to avoid further delay, it would have to make it possible for remaining candidates for the prominent position to perform their audition compositions before Estomihi Sunday 1723 at the latest. And thus it happened—with wise foresight, it should be added. At the year’s beginning, no one could have sensed that the successor decisively chosen in January, Christoph Graupner from Darmstadt, would also withdraw by the end of March. Be that as it may, in early February 1723 the council once again allowed performances by applicants, and this time even the press took notice. A newspaper in Hamburg printed a Leipzig announcement of February 9, which reads: “On Sunday last [February 7] in the morning the Hon. Capellmeister of Cöthen, Mr. Bach, gave his test here at the Church of St. Thomas for the hitherto vacant cantorate, the music of the same having been amply praised on that occasion by all knowledgeable persons.”¹
  
  “Sunday last” refers to Estomihi, the last opportunity for performances of church music before the weeks of the tempus clausum, and “music of the same” refers, at least in part, to the cantata Du wahrer Gott und Davids Sohn BWV 23 (You true God and David’s son). We now know that on February 7, 1723, Bach performed not one but two cantatas. Here we are talking about the cantata Jesus nahm zu sich die Zwölfe BWV 22 (Jesus took unto him the twelve), which, in its manuscript transmission, is clearly designated “das Probestück in Leipzig” (the audition piece in Leipzig), as well as Du wahrer Gott und Davids Sohn. The latter cantata appears to have been the one the composer readied first, since the score and parts were prepared in the ducal residence at Köthen, which had been Bach’s domain of activity since late 1717; the composer brought them with him to Leipzig. Why he needed to prepare a second cantata—probably on short notice—has long been in dispute. Perhaps it seemed to him, after further consideration, that it would be safer to perform a work at the Leipzig audition that was closer to the style of Kuhnau and hence the Leipzigers’ listening preferences than the exceedingly demanding cantata Du wahrer Gott und Davids Sohn. This work, which we can call the “original audition piece,” was undoubtedly performed on Estomihi Sunday in 1723, probably not as the Hauptmusik (main music) before the sermon but afterward as sub communione (during the celebration of Holy Communion). But that decision came later; originally, the cantata would have indeed been intended as the main music—as is suggested by its close textual relationship to the Gospel reading of the day.
  
  The Gospel reading for Estomihi Sunday is found in the eighteenth chapter of Luke. It begins with the journey to Jerusalem, and thus it unmistakably marks the beginning of Jesus’s period of suffering: “Then he took unto him the twelve, and said unto them, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all things shall be accomplished, that are written by the prophets concerning the son of man” (Luke 18:31). The account of the healing of a blind man follows a bit later:

  And it came to pass, that as he came near Jericho, a certain blind man sat by the wayside begging: As he however heard the people pass by, he asked what it meant. And they told him that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by. And he cried, saying, Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy on me. And they who went before rebuked him, that he should be silent: but he cried much more, thou son of David, have mercy on me. But Jesus stood still, and commanded him to be brought unto him. As they brought him near to him, he asked him, and spoke, What do you want me to do for you? And he said, Lord, that I might see. And Jesus said unto him, Be seeing! Your faith has helped you. And immediately he received his sight, and followed him, glorifying God: and all the people, when they saw it, gave praise unto God. (Luke 18:35–43)

  The cantata text, whose author remains unknown, takes up the call of the blind man on the wayside in the first movement, an aria, and quotes it in the following manner with commentary:

  Du wahrer Gott und Davids Sohn,
  Der du von Ewigkeit in der Entfernung schon
  Mein Herzeleid und meine Leibespein
  Umständlich angesehn, erbarm dich mein.
  
  You true God and David’s son,
  Who from eternity at a distance has already
  Looked closely upon my affliction and my bodily pain,
  Have mercy upon me.

  This manner of quotation and simultaneous explanation and interpretation is characteristic of a large portion of cantata poetry of the era—but it is seen here in unusually concentrated form. This is true of the middle part of the aria with the plea:

  Und laß durch deine Wunderhand 
  Die so viel Böses abgewandt,
  Mir gleichfalls Hilf und Trost geschehen.
  
  And through your wondrous hand
  Which has averted so much evil,
  Let help and consolation befall me likewise.

  It is true as well for the following recitative, which begins, again alluding to the blind man on the wayside,

  Ach! Gehe nicht vorüber;
  Du aller Menschen Heil,
  Bist ja erschienen, 
  Die Kranken und nicht die Gesunden zu bedienen
  
  Oh! Do not pass by,
  You, salvation for all people,
  Are certainly appeared
  To serve the sick and not the healthy.

  The last line alludes to a word of Jesus from Luke 5:31, which he spoke as he sat at table with tax collectors and sinners: “Die Gesunden bedürfen des Arztes nicht, sondern die Kranken” (The healthy have no need of the doctor, but rather the sick). There is again simultaneous quotation and interpretation in the third aria, whose beginning, “Aller Augen warten, Herr, du allmächtiger Gott, auf dich” (The eyes of all wait, Lord, you almighty God, upon you), takes up a formulation from Psalm 145:15: “Aller Augen warten auf dich, und du gibst ihnen ihre Speise zu seiner Zeit” (The eyes of all wait upon you, and you give them their meal in due season). Physical infirmity and spiritual blindness are both meant in the passage:

  Gib denselben Kraft und Licht,
  Laß sie nicht
  Immerdar in Finsternissen!
  
  Grant them [meaning the eyes] strength and light
  Do not leave them
  Forever in darkness!

  
  The cantata libretto closes with the German Agnus Dei, Christe, du Lamm Gottes (Christ, you lamb of God), whose appeal “Erbarme dich unser” (Have mercy on us) connects to the first movement and the call of the blind man by the wayside.
  
  More than nearly any other work, this composition reflects Bach’s transition between music director at Köthen and cantor of St. Thomas School at Leipzig. In particular, the first movement is very much like chamber music with its filigree of five obbligato parts—two oboes, two voices, and basso continuo—as well as its hovering rhythm and thickly woven imitative textures; it is among the most exquisite and sophisticated compositions in all of Bach’s cantatas.² The second movement, a recitative for tenor, does not simply restrict itself to expressive interpretation of text but presents another dimension as well: the upper accompanying instruments—two oboes and first violin—present the chorale melody Christe, du Lamm Gottes independently of the voices. By contrast, the following choral movement, “Alle Augen warten,” is, outwardly, apparently simple, almost song-like. This is particularly true of the way in which “Aller Augen warten, Herr . . .” is presented by the choir in a refrain-like fashion, while the other lines of text are incorporated in sections, clearly set apart by restriction to the two lowest voices. Upon closer examination, however, it becomes clear that the music is not simple at all; the clarity of the rondo-like form is complicated by an artful voice leading in which the bass voice offers subtle quotations of the chorale melody Christe, du Lamm Gottes.
  
  Originally, the cantata (BWV 23.1) was to have ended with this movement. For unknown reasons, perhaps owing to the cantata’s new function as music for Communion (BWV 23.2), Bach appended yet another supremely artistic chorale movement, the tripartite Christe, du Lamm Gottes. Two years later, in March 1725, he used this chorale arrangement as the final movement of the second version of the St. John Passion BWV 245.2. In light of our current knowledge, this seems ever more justified, since the chorale movement originated as part of a Passion, now mostly lost, that Bach must have composed by 1717 at the latest in Weimar. Another performance took place in 1769 in Hamburg: Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach used his father’s chorale arrangement as the closing movement of his own St. Matthew Passion. The printed text booklet bore the precautionary note: “Choral. Wird von der Gemeine nicht mitgesungen. Christe! Du Lamm Gottes, der Du trägst etc.” (Chorale. Not to be sung by the congregation. Christe! Thou Lamb of God, who bears etc.).
  
  When Johann Sebastian Bach decided to integrate this elaborate Passion chorale into his Estomihi cantata, he probably had at first no idea of the difficulties this would entail. Most likely with an eye on the challenging choral parts as well as the preparation time, which was certainly quite short, he assigned a traditional Stadtpfeiffer ensemble—cornet and three trombones—to support the four voices. In order to achieve a key that would allow this ensemble to be played, he needed to transpose the entire cantata a half tone lower, to replace the oboes with oboi d’amore, and to have a series of new parts copied out.³ In this altered form, the cantata was performed in February 1723 and perhaps once again in the following year. Several years afterward there was yet another performance (BWV 23.3); this time, Bach omitted the brass ensemble and thus could return to the original key. 
  
  Because of its eventful history, the cantata Du wahrer Gott und Davids Sohn had a remarkably extensive set of performing materials. From Bach’s estate they came into the custody of the Berlin State Library and were stored there undisturbed until the beginning of the twentieth century. Then, someone appears to have concluded that no one would have anything against his appropriating several of the many performing parts. As might be expected, the theft went unnoticed until the 1970s, when the parts, purloined before the First World War, unexpectedly turned up in Thuringia. Shortly afterward, they were returned to Berlin⁴—to the great pleasure of not only the librarians but also Bach research, which soon found itself well positioned to solve many riddles regarding the origin and performance history of Bach’s Estomihi cantata. 

   

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  Footnotes

  1. NBR, 101 (no. 95).↵
  2. Geck (1972).↵
  3. Wolff (1978).↵
  4. Schulze (1977). Regarding the ascertainment of five additional parts, see Wolff (2002).↵
• 1 2023-09-26T09:32:57+00:00 Jesu, nun sei gepreiset BWV 41 / BC A 22 17 Chorale cantata on hymn by Johannes Hermann. New Year's Day. Part of Chorale Cantata Annual Cycle. First performed 01/01/1725 in Leipzig (Cycle II). plain 2024-04-24T16:11:26+00:00 1725-01-01 BWV 41 Leipzig 51.340199, 12.360103 13NewYear Chorale Cantata New Year's Day BC A 22 Johann Sebastian Bach Johannes Hermann Hans-Joachim Schulze, "Jesu, nun sei gepreiset, BWV 41 / BC A 22" in Die Bach Kantaten: Einführungen zu sämtlichen Kantaten Johann Sebastian Bachs, (Leipzig: Evangelisches Verlagsanstalt 2007), p. 65 James A. Brokaw II Chorale Cantata Annual Cycle Leipzig II

  New Year's Day

  This cantata, heard for the first time on New Year’s Day 1725, belongs to Bach’s chorale cantata cycle, a set comprising more than forty compositions that originated for the most part between the early summer of 1724 and Easter 1725 and that appears to have remained incomplete. The cantata’s libretto follows the model observed by most of the compositions of the cycle: a chorale serves as the source text, whose first and last strophes are adopted word for word and whose middle strophes are more or less freely reshaped into recitatives and arias. In terms of the first and last strophes, Johannes Herman’s chorale from the year 1593 turns out to be unproblematic. At most, the length of the strophes at no fewer than fourteen lines apiece might be regarded as unusual:

  Jesu, nun sei gepreiset
  Zu diesem neuen Jahr
  Für dein Güt, uns beweiset
  In aller Not und G’fahr,
  Daß wir habet erlebet
  Die neu fröhliche Zeit,
  Die voller Gnaden schwebet
  Und ewger Seligkeit,
  Daß wir in guter Stille
  Das alt Jahr habn erfüllet.
  Wir wollen uns dir ergeben
  Itzund und immerdar,
  Behüt Leib, Seele und Leben
  Hinfort durchs ganze Jahr.
  
  Jesus, be now praised
  At this new year
  For your goodness, shown to us
  In all distress and danger
  So that we have experienced
  This joyous new time,
  Which hovers full of grace
  And eternal salvation,
  That in good stillness
  We have completed the old year.
  We want to commit ourselves to you
  Now and ever more,
  Protect body, soul, and life
  Henceforth through the entire year.

  
   Also untouched in the cantata is the final strophe, whose text begins: “Dein ist allein die Ehre, / Dein ist allein der Ruhm” (Yours alone is the honor, / Yours alone is the fame). However, a problem for the unknown librettist arose from the fact that he needed to fashion two each of arias and recitatives, and Herman’s chorale had only a single inner strophe. In spite of this not entirely favorable situation, the poet solved his problem satisfactorily and, moreover, did so while adhering to the sequence of ideas in Herman’s second chorale strophe. It begins with the lines:

  Laß uns das Jahr vollbringen
  Zu Lob dem Namen dein,
  Daß wir demselben singen
  In der Christen gemein
  
  Let us complete the year
  In praise of your name,
  That we sing of the same
  Among the Christian congregation

  
  As an aria text, this took the following form:

  Laß uns, o höchster Gott, das Jahr vollbringen,
  Damit das Ende so wie dessen Anfang sei.
  Es stehe deine Hand uns bei, 
  Daß künftig bei des Jahres Schluß
  Wir bei des Segens Überfluß
  Wie itzt ein Halleluja singen.
  
  Let us, O Most High God, complete the year,
  That its end may be as its beginning.
  May your hand remain with us,
  That in future at the year’s close
  We, amid an overflow of blessings,
  As now, sing an alleluia.

  
  For the ensuing recitative, there remained only two lines available in the strophe: “Wollst uns das Leben fristen / Durch dein allmächtig Hand” (If you wish to draw out our lives in misery / Through your almighty hand). It would have been hardly conceivable to draw upon the Gospel reading for the holiday, for it consists of only a single verse from the second chapter of Luke, with its account of the circumcision and naming of Jesus. The librettist therefore chose other biblical verses focusing on the initial stage, among them from the first chapter of the Revelation of St. John: “Ich bin das A und O, der Anfang und das Ende” (22:3; I am the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End), as well as from Psalm 139: “Deine Augen sahen mich, da ich noch unbereitet war, und alle Tagen waren auf dein Buch geschrieben, die noch werden sollten, als derselben keiner da war” (16; Your eyes saw me, as I was yet unprepared, and in thy book all my days were written, which were yet to become, since none of them were there). The recitative drew on these and other similar sources:

  Ach, deine Hand, dein Segen muß allein
  Das A und O, der Anfang und das Ende sein.
  Das Leben trägest du in deiner Hand,
  Und unsere Tage sind bei dir geschrieben;
  Dein Auge steht auf Stadt und Land;
  Du zählest unser Wohl und kennest unser Leiden,
  Ach gib von beiden,
  Was deine Weisheit will, worzu dich dein Erbarmen angetrieben.
  
  Ah, your hand, your blessing must alone 
  Be the A and O, the beginning and the end.
  The life you carry in your hand,
  And our days are written with you;
  Your eye watches over city and country;
  You count our well-being and know our misfortunes,
  O grant us of both
  What your wisdom demands, wherever your mercy drives you.

  
  Other lines from Herman’s chorale strophe contain the prayer for protection of the community and fatherland, for peace and blessing and maintaining purity of faith:

  Erhalt deine lieben Christen
  Und unser Vaterland.
  Dein Segen zu uns wende,
  Gib Fried an allem Ende;
  Gib unverfälscht im Lande
  Dein seligmachend Wort.
  
  Preserve your dear Christians
  And our fatherland.
  Send your blessing upon us,
  Grant peace everywhere.
  Give faithfully across our country
  Your blessed-making word.

  
  This gives the librettist the opportunity, in the next aria, to call to mind the importance of preserving the faith:

  Woferne du den edlen Frieden
  Von unsern Leib und Stand beschieden,
  So laß den Seele doch dein seligmachend Wort.
  Wenn uns dies Heil begegnet,
  So sind wir hier gesegnet
  Und Auserwählte dort.
  
  Just as you have granted a noble peace
  For our bodies and our station, 
  Then but allow the soul your blessed-making word.
  If we receive this salvation,
  We are blessed here on earth,
  And we are chosen there in heaven.

  
  The background to this plea can be just as easily inferred from the two last lines of Herman’s chorale—“Die Teufel mach zuschanden / Her und an allem Ort” (Destroy the devils / Here and everywhere)—as from the recitative’s expanded paraphrase, at the center of which stands a literal quote from Martin Luther’s Litanei Deutsch (German litany):

  Doch weil der Feind bei Tag und Nacht
  Zu unserm Schaden wacht
  Und unsre Ruhe will verstören,
  So wolltest du, o Herre Gott, erhören,
  Wenn wir in heiliger Gemeine beten:
  “Den Satan unter unsre Füße treten.”
  So bleiben wir zu deinem Ruhm
  Dein auserwähltes Eigentum
  Und können auch nach Kreuz und Leiden
  Zur Herrlichkeit von hinnen scheiden.
  
  Yet because the foe, by day and night,
  Watches out to do us harm
  And will destroy our peace,
  So you want, O Lord God, to listen
  As we in holy congregation pray,
  “May Satan be trodden beneath our feet,”
  So we remain, to your renown,
  Your chosen property
  And may also, after cross and sorrow,
  Into glory from here depart.

  
  As mentioned previously, the libretto’s conclusion is formed by the third and last strophe of Johannes Herman’s chorale.
  
  Bach’s composition of this skillfully constructed text is not meant for New Year’s Day, as one might actually expect. Instead, the autograph score is inscribed at the top “Festo Circumcisionis Christi”—on the Feast of the Circumcision. This score had an unusual fate in the twentieth century. Probably part of the inheritance of Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, it came into private possession in Saxony in the eighteenth century; then in 1833 it was bought by the singer and dedicated collector of Bach’s works Franz Hauser; finally, in 1904 it was donated by the estate of his son to the Royal Library in Berlin. 
  
  Several years later, someone—whose understanding of the collection of Bachiana was a bit different—must have ripped out the third-to-last folio in the score and made off with it. Shortly after the First World War, the first page of this folio was sent to the local history museum in Saalefeld, where it is currently stored. The second page, which seemed lost forever, turned up in Eisenach at the end of the 1970s, was identified, and thereafter was returned to Berlin without any further ado.¹ 
  
  Fortunately for the perpetrator, the theft went undiscovered for many years, probably because of the unusually extensive composing score. This is chiefly due to the length of the first movement, which at 213 measures has an expanse seen nowhere else, and, moreover, to the abundant space required by the notation, as the movement requires a traditional festival scoring with trumpets and drums. In principle, this opening movement follows the model nearly all of its sister works in the chorale cantata cycle are bound to: the chorale melody is heard in large note values by one of the voices, here, as in most cases, the soprano; the other voices are subordinated to this leading voice figurally and contrapuntally; and the whole is embedded in a motivically unified instrumental texture. In the cantata Jesu, nun sei gepreiset, this unified instrumental texture is dominated over long stretches by the trumpets and drums, which cede their leading role with the entrance of the choir and then reclaim it after each exposition of one of the chorale phrases. This procedure holds for the first half of the movement, in which two identical sections sound lines 1 to 4 and then 5 to 8. At this spot in the text—“Daß wir in guter Stille / Das alt Jahr habn erfüllet” (That we in good stillness / The old year have completed)—meter, tempo, and dynamics change abruptly, but only a few measures later, the scenario changes once again as a closed motet movement follows on the last four lines of text in which the instruments simply double the vocal parts. In order to create a rounded musical form after this heterogeneous material, Bach returns to the manner of setting at the beginning, this time combining it with the repeated last two lines of the chorale strophe.
  
  The four solo movements of the cantata are arranged by voice range, descending from soprano to bass. Bach links the naive sincerity of the first aria text, “Laß uns o höchster Gott, das Jahr vollbringen” (Let us, O highest God, complete the year), with the gracefully dance-like gestures and the instrumental palette of the pastorale, in which the voices, three oboes, and basso continuo combine in a densely woven harmonic texture. The brief alto recitative is followed by the tenor aria “Woferne du den edlen Frieden” (Just as you have granted a noble peace), a movement in which the musical substance stands in no particularly close relationship to the text, admittedly difficult to manage as it is. This aria is dominated by the technically challenging, highly expressive solo part of its obbligato instrument, a violoncello piccolo, whose dark timbre seems chosen for the solemnity of the text. The bass recitative is interrupted—as expected—by the insertion of several lines from the litany. The closing chorale repeats, in condensed form, the compositional procedures of the opening movement: the single lines of text are associated with intermittent fanfares of trumpets and drums, which recall the themes from the cantata’s beginning. In the last four lines of the chorale strophe, an altered meter appears, as in the first movement; yet here, as there, the last two lines are repeated, at variance with the text. The repeated lines are answered by a conclusory fanfare of the trumpets and drums. 

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  Footnotes

  1. Schulze (1977).↵