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• 1 2023-09-26T09:36:18+00:00 Dem Gerechten muß das Licht immer wieder aufgehen BWV 195 / BC B 14 13 Wedding. First performed autumn 1727 to early 1732 in Leipzig after Trinity 1727. . plain 2024-04-29T15:49:50+00:00 BWV 195 Leipzig Wedding BC B 14 Johann Sebastian Bach Hans-Joachim Schulze, "Dem Gerechten muss das Licht immer wieder aufgehen, BWV 195 / BC B 14" in Die Bach Kantaten: Einführungen zu sämtlichen Kantaten Johann Sebastian Bachs, (Leipzig: Evangelisches Verlagsanstalt 2007), p. 600 James A. Brokaw II autumn 1727 to early 1732 Leipzig after Trinity 1727

  Wedding Cermony, 1728–1731

  The cantata Dem Gerechten muß das Licht immer wieder aufgehen BWV 195 (For the just, the light must dawn ever again) belongs to the rather underrepresented group of wedding ceremony cantatas. Here, the word “underrepresented” refers to the assumed disparity between the original corpus of works and those that are still available to us today. Admittedly, the losses of these compositions cannot be precisely quantified. The composer’s obituary of late 1750 simply mentions Brautmeße (bridal masses), that is, wedding ceremony cantatas (Trauungskantaten), within a broad umbrella term, so that even a general estimate of their number is not possible. In any case, the handful of wedding service cantatas that have survived stands in sharp contrast to a far greater number of references to such works. For the period 1723 to 1748, the marriage records for Leipzig’s St. Thomas Church alone contain thirty entries that mention full bridal masses (gantzen Braut-Meße). This refers to wedding cantatas as opposed to half bridal masses (halben Brautmeße), which simply consisted of a series of chorales. Although one cannot conclude, on the basis of the church records, that Thomaskantor Bach was involved in all thirty occasions, one can nevertheless assume that the majority of the bookings were handled by Leipzig’s leading church musician. We owe the church sexton at the time a vote of thanks for his very useful reporting. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of his colleagues at St. Nicholas Church. From the time Bach entered service in 1723 until 1748 there is not a single record of this kind. A change was brought about by a new sexton—but unfortunately too late to be of practical benefit to Bach scholarship. 
  
  That weddings were held in the main municipal church, St. Nicholas, often with festive concerted music, just as they were in St. Thomas Church, is not merely hypothesis. In the early twentieth century, a printed text booklet, unfortunately damaged, was discovered during the demolition of the old St. Thomas School; it is evidence of a wedding service cantata performed on February 12, 1725, for the nuptials of the Leipzig provisions and water administrator (Proviant und Flossverwalter), Christoph Friedrich Lösner, and his bride, Johanna Elisabeth Scherll. According to statements in the St. Nicholas church book, this was a wedding at home; even so, the music performed (unfortunately lost) was a wedding ceremony cantata: church music, not a secular wedding reception cantata. The number of such references to lost Bach cantatas increased in 1994 when more printed texts were discovered in a collection in Bückeburg.¹ According to one of these, a wedding service cantata whose text begins Der Herr ist freundlich dem, der auf ihn harret BWV 1151 (The Lord is friendly to him who awaits him) was performed on January 18, 1729, for the wedding of the Leipzig university professor Johann Friedrich Höckner and Jacobina Agnetha Bartholomäi, the daughter of a Dresden physician. This also was a wedding at home. A second recently discovered text booklet documents the July 26, 1729, performance of the cantata Vergnügende Flammen, verdoppelt die Macht BWV 1146 (Flames of pleasure, redouble your power) for the wedding of Georg Christoph Winckler and Caroline Wilhelmine Jöcher. The wedding, and therefore the cantata performance as well, took place in St. Thomas Church. Admittedly, this welcome recent discovery is countered by the recognition that the sexton’s record keeping of Braut-Meßen at St. Thomas Church obviously cannot claim to be complete.
  
  In view of these findings, it is clear that although the sources of Dem Gerechten muß das Licht immer wieder aufgehen indicate multiple performances, any attempt to attach dates and names to these performances does not hold much promise. Instead, one must be content with the conclusion that the work, at least at its core, belonged to Bach’s cantata repertoire and was performed several times, with or without revisions. The first performance (BWV 195.1) can be placed in the period between the autumn of 1727 and early 1732. Its only evidence is an original title jacket with the text beginning and scoring; we can only conjecture as to the cantata’s original appearance. In early 1736 the texts for the opening and closing movements turn up in wedding reception music for which we have only the text, which was performed in Ohrdruf by Bach’s nephews, the cantor Johann Christoph Bach and the organist Johann Bernhard.² Whether Bach’s composition also made the trip on this occasion to Thuringia and Ohrdruf, the city of his youth, remains uncertain.
  
  Bach prepared a version in two parts with eight movements, most likely in 1742 (BWV 195.2). Six or seven years later the work was to be performed again, but Bach decided afterward to shorten it radically, eliminating the last three movements. Instead of simply crossing out the movements and preserving them, he took the unusual measure of cutting them from the manuscript, so that there is no longer any way of knowing what they looked like.
  
  Only the text of the eight-movement version from the 1740s, the work of an unknown librettist, has been handed down to us in its entirety. It begins with verses from Psalm 97: “Dem Gerechten muß das Licht immer wieder aufgehen und Freude den frommen Herzen. Ihr Gerechten, freuet euch des Herrn und danket ihm und preiset seine Heiligkeit” (11–12; For the righteous, light must dawn ever again, and joy for the devout of heart. You righteous, be glad in the Lord, and thank him and praise his holiness). The first recitative takes up the idea of ever-dawning light:

  Auch diesem neuen Paar,
  An dem man so Gerechtigkeit
  Als Tugend ehrt,
  Ist heut ein Freudenlicht bereit’,
  Das stellet neues Wohlsein dar.
  
  For this new couple as well,
  In whom one honors both righteousness
  And virtue,
  A light of joy is prepared today
  That represents a new well-being.

  
  Whether the allusion to “Gerechtigkeit” (justice) is meant for a bridegroom who was an attorney remains an open question. The associated aria begins:

  Rühmet Gottes Güt und Treu,
  Rühmet ihn mit reger Freude
  Preiset Gott, Verlobten beide!
  
  Praise God’s goodness and faithfulness,
  Praise him with lively joy,
  Praise God, betrothed pair!

  
  The second recitative describes the progress of the wedding ceremony:

  Wohlan, so knüpfet denn ein Band,
  Das so viel Wohlsein prophezeihet.
  Des Priestes Hand
  Wird jetzt den Segen
  Auf euren Ehestand, auf eure Scheitel legen.
  
  Well, then, tie a bond
  That augurs so much well-being.
  The priest’s hand
  Will now lay the blessing
  Upon your marriage, upon your heads.

  
  The first part of the cantata, performed before the ceremony, closes with a choral movement:

  Wir kommmen, deine Heiligkeit,
  Unendlich großer Gott, zu preisen.
  Der Anfang rührt von deinen Händen,
  Durch Allmacht kannst du es vollenden
  Und deinen Segen kräftig weisen.
  
  We come to praise your holiness,
  Everlastingly great God.
  The beginning stirs from your hands.
  Through omnipotence you can complete it
  And reveal your blessing powerfully.

  
  The second part, performed after the ceremony, consists only of a chorale, the opening strophe of Paul Gerhardt’s hymn Nun danket all und bringet Ehr (Now all thank and bring honor). This was originally followed by an aria, a recitative, and a freely versified chorus. The reason for omitting this part of the cantata may have had to do with the recitative, which begins:

  Hochedles Paar, du bist nunmehr verbunden,
  Itzt warten schon die segensvollen Stunden
  Auf dich und dein erhabnes Haus.
  
  Most noble pair, you are now bound,
  Now the blessing-filled hours await
  You and your sublime home.

  
  Clearly, this addresses an aristocratic bridal couple and could not be adapted for anyone. It is indeed regrettable that the cantata survives only in its latest, abbreviated, and hence unbalanced form due to a comparably insignificant occasion.
  
  Bach’s composition, as it has been handed down, is characterized by the festive choral movements at the beginning and close of the first part of the work, performed before the ceremony. In contrast to the final chorus’s simpler, rather homophonic writing and dance-like swing, the opening chorus seems quite sophisticated in its conception. The two psalm verses are arranged fugally, whereby a change from 4
  4 to 3
  4 meter just before the middle of the movement strongly underscores the transition from the first psalm verse to the second. The opening twelve-measure phrase proves to be the germinal cell of the entire movement, in which flutes, oboes, and strings combine with the brilliance of high trumpets. The fugue theme derived from this ritornello pays tribute to its instrumental origins; its problematic text declamation could almost arouse the suspicion that the entire section of the movement originally belonged to another work with a different text. The varied architectonic combination with the instrumental germinal cell far outweighs the apparent deficiency. The differentiation between solo and ripieno voices is unusual for a cantata of this sort. Together with the remarkably rich scoring, it suggests a performance occasion of high rank, at least for the 1742 version.
  
  The two recitatives are also more sophisticated in their setting than usual. The second, with its flutes and oboes, is an accompagnato movement, while the first, with its animated basso continuo, stays clear of the rhythmically free style of declamation of the secco recitative. The stylishly syncopated effect of Lombard rhythm is ever present in the only remaining aria in the cantata. Whether Bach intended to follow the spirit of the age in general here or whether he was responding to a particular wish from the bridal couple is unclear. If this aria comes from a lost serenade in honor of the elector-prince and his family,³ as has been suggested,⁴ that Bach performed in late 1738 on commission from the University of Leipzig, then the praise for the congratulatory music from a contemporary would certainly apply to our aria as well. He attested to “Herrn Capellmeister” Bach that this music was “perfectly arranged according to the latest fashion” (vollkommen nach dem neuesten Gschmack eingerichtet gewesen).

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  Footnotes

  1. Tiggemann (1994).↵
  2. Wollny (1997, 26–36); Wollny (1998).↵
  3. Willkommen, ihr herrschenden Götter der Erden BWV 1161.—Trans.↵
  4.  Wollny (1997, 35 ff.).↵
• 1 2023-09-26T09:38:46+00:00 O holder tag, erwünschte Zeit BWV 210.2 / BC G 44 6 Cantata for wedding of Privy Councilor Georg Ernst Stahl and Johanna Elisabeth Schrader. First performed on Sep 19, 1741 in Berlin. plain 2024-04-24T14:57:38+00:00 1741-09-19 BWV 210.2 Berlin 52.52002846645434, 13.393180674123663 Wedding BC G 44 Johann Sebastian Bach Hans-Joachim Schulze, "O holder tag, erwünschte Zeit, BWV 202 / BC G 41" in Die Bach Kantaten: Einführungen zu sämtlichen Kantaten Johann Sebastian Bachs, (Leipzig: Evangelisches Verlagsanstalt 2007), p. 720 James A. Brokaw II Berlin

  Weddings, September 19, 1741

  To a slightly greater degree than other similar compositions, the wedding cantata O holder Tag, erwünschte Zeit BWV 210.2 (O blessed day, longed-for time) seems to have some connection to Bach’s family. Posterity can only welcome this, for even though the work of Johann Sebastian Bach has outlasted the ages, the composer’s private life lies for the most part in the darkness of history. Among the few documents that highlight the situation are these often-cited lines from Bach’s autobiographical letter of October 28, 1730, to his friend and schoolmate Georg Erdmann, in which the composer assures his friend that his children, one and all, are “born musicians, [so that I] can already form an ensemble both volcaliter and instrumentaliter within my family, particularly since my present wife sings a good, clear soprano, and my eldest daughter, too, joins in not badly.”¹ The striking emphasis on Anna Magdalena Bach’s singing technique at a time when Bach’s sons from his previous marriage were accomplished string and keyboard musicians suggests that her brief career as a singer at the court of Anhalt-Köthen in 1721 and 1722 was not the end of the story. Admittedly, the music lexicographer Ernst Ludwig Gerber wrote near the end of the eighteenth century that Anna Magdalena Bach died “without once having made use of her talent in public."² Gerber might have been relying on his father’s accounts of having studied in Leipzig in the mid-1720s; as a student of Johann Sebastian Bach, he had also been associated with Bach’s family later on. However, such a statement probably reflects the view of a time when German female singers achieved fame across Europe and their appearance on opera and concert stages was a matter of course. From that perspective, the standard procedure in the first half of the eighteenth century of relying on boys and falsettists for soprano and alto parts in church and chamber music and sometimes in opera as well must have seemed positively Stone Age. For Bach, on the other hand, the inability to work with female singers in church or in his Collegium Musicum was a custom that was hardened by long tradition and with which one simply had to come to terms. It is thus no coincidence that truly demanding soprano parts are relatively rare in his vocal works.
  
  Among the small number of such exceptional compositions, the cantata O holder Tag, erwünschter Zeit undoubtedly takes first place. This work places such high demands on vocal technique, stamina, and phrasing that a performance by anyone other than a professional singer is scarcely imaginable. If Bach’s sobriquet “clear soprano” is actually an understated characterization of rather extraordinary vocal skill, then it seems nearly certain that the composer intended this challenging ten-movement solo, which lasts as long as an entire opera act, for his second wife. 
  
  Admittedly, we have no way of knowing when and for what occasion this work originated. The wedding cantata version itself can be assigned to the early 1740s, or, more precisely, the summer of 1741. It was dedicated to the wedding of the doctor and royal Prussian court counselor Georg Ernst Stahl with Johanna Elisabeth Schrader in Berlin on September 19, 1741. A few weeks earlier, the Thomaskantor had visited his second oldest son, Carl Philipp Emanuel, in the Prussian official residence, probably staying in the renowned physician’s home. We do not know whether the wedding date had already been set or whether Bach was already at work preparing a suitable composition. In any case, the serious illness of his wife, Anna Magdalena, as well as upcoming musical obligations with the annual town council election must have called him back to Leipzig. Even so, he did not let that prevent him from sending a particularly beautifully written solo soprano part for the cantata O holder Tag to Berlin along with other performance materials, thus contributing his part to the arrangements for the wedding of the doctor, a good friend of the Bach family. It was in this sense that, alongside several general allusions to a “patron of the arts” (Mäzenaten) and friend of music, the unidentified librettist of the new version entered an unmistakable reference to the doctor’s name in a prominent place, the last recitative:

  Dein Ruhm wird wie ein Demantstein,
  Ja wie ein fester Stahl beständig sein.³
  
  Your renown shall be as a diamond,
  Indeed, as constant as tempered steel.

  
  Several cantatas with very different texts preceded this, presumably the final version. Conceived as homage performances for patrons of the arts, their content consisted of praise of music and its protectors. These forms of the text, beginning with “O angenehme Melodei” (O pleasant melody), go back at least to 1729 (BWV 210.1). In the middle of January of that year, Duke Christian of Saxe-Weissenfels stayed in Leipzig. In 1994 a print of the text came to light;⁴ it shows that Bach took the opportunity to demonstrate “his most humble devotion” in a cantata. According to a later message from Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Duke Christian was among those potentates who “particularly loved [his father] and also supported proportionately.” The version performed in 1729 was repeated several times with minor edits to the text. One of the cantatas was performed in the 1730s in honor of Imperial Count Joachim Friedrich von Flemming, commander of the Leipzig garrison who lived at Pleissenburg fortress.
  
  It is possible that an even earlier homage composition precedes our wedding cantata as well as the homage music for the duke of Weissenfels; however, nothing is known about its text or the reason it was performed. A particularly plausible occasion would be a guest performance at Bach’s former post, the court of Anhalt-Köthen. Remarkably, in December 1725 its account books show payment of an honorarium “to the Leipzig Cantor Bach and his wife, who performed here on several occasions.”
  
  Since the text of this oldest version has not been preserved, assessments of the relation between text and music are only possible within limits. Apart from the literary quality of the text and its suitability, the strengths of our cantata lie above all in the diversity of its arias’ characters. Embedded in a texture of string instruments tinted by the warm timbre of the oboe d’amore, whose regular structure and dance-like gestures make one think of a suite movement such as a passepied, the soprano part first devotes itself to the interplay between the two poles outlined in the text, “casting down into a swoon” and “refreshing again,” in which it must climb virtuosically to high C-sharp with three ledger lines. With its balanced voice leading, gentle harmonies, and softly rocking 12
  8 meter, the second aria, with obbligato oboe d’amore and violin, alludes to the popular slumber scenes in contemporary opera. The third aria is characterized by abrupt changes between sighing, halting, and hastily rushing passages of the obbligato flute and the voice competing with it. In the polonaise aria, “Großer Gönner, dein Vergnügen” (Great patron, your pleasure), the oboe d’amore is able to unfold virtuosically; this piece was a favorite of Bach that he put to use in various secular contexts. The closing congratulatory aria, “Seid beglückt, edle Beide” (Be happy, noble pair), is energetic but carefully balanced timbrally; all participants join in the crowning finale. 

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  Footnotes

  1. NBR, 152 (no. 152).—Trans.↵
  2. Gerber (1790).—Trans.↵
  3. Maul (2001).↵
  4. Tiggemann (1994).↵