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• 1 2023-09-26T09:33:55+00:00 Du Hirte Israel, Höre BWV 104 / BC A 65 13 Misericordia Domini. First performed 04/23/1724 in Leipzig (Cycle I). plain 2024-04-29T16:08:02+00:00 1724-04-23 BWV 104 Leipzig 51.340199, 12.360103 23MisericordiaDomini Misericordia Domini BC A 65 Johann Sebastian Bach Hans-Joachim Schulze, "Du Hirte Israel, Höre, BWV 104 / BC A 65" in Die Bach Kantaten: Einführungen zu sämtlichen Kantaten Johann Sebastian Bachs, (Leipzig: Evangelisches Verlagsanstalt 2007), p. 204 James A. Brokaw II Leipzig I

  Misericordias Domini, April 23, 1724

  This cantata is for the second Sunday after Easter, also called Misericordias Domini. The Gospel reading for this Sunday comes from the tenth chapter of John, a chapter that is devoted in its entirety to the parable of the good shepherd and his sheep. From this, the following words of Jesus are assigned to Misericordias Domini:

  I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep. The hireling, however, who is not a shepherd, of whom the sheep are not his own, sees the wolf come and leaves the sheep and flees; the wolf catches and destroys the sheep. 
  The hireling only flees, for he is a hireling and does not care for the sheep. I am the good shepherd and know those of mine and am known by those of mine, as my father knows me and I know the father. And I give my life for the sheep that are not of this stable, and those I must lead here, and they shall hear my voice, and there shall be one herd and one shepherd. (112–15)

  
  Bach composed this cantata during his first year as cantor of St. Thomas School; he performed it on April 23, 1724, as shown by a printed text booklet to be used by the audience. The unknown author of the text hews closely to the Sunday Gospel reading, although he places a verse from Psalm 80 at the beginning: “Du Hirte Israel, höre, der du Joseph hütest wie der Schafe, erscheine, der du sitzest über Cherubim” (1; You shepherd of Israel, hear, you who leads Joseph like the sheep, appear, you who sits among cherubim). Also characteristic for this verse is the parallelism, which is found everywhere in the Psalter, expressed here in the two-part invocation “höre,” “erscheine” (listen, appear). The entreaty “erscheine” receives greater weight, because in the refrain of the psalm—a prayer for the preservation of Israel as the vine of God—it is repeated three times: “Gott Zebaoth, tröste uns, laß leuchten dein Antlitz; so genesen wir” (80:19; God Zebaoth, comfort us, appear, and we shall be saved).
  
  The bucolic image of the shepherd and his flock remains present throughout the rest of the cantata text. In the movements that follow, the plea of the psalm verse is juxtaposed to the pledge of the Gospel reading and applied to Christian existence: certainty of faith is grounded in the assurance of redemption through the sacrifice of the good shepherd. The first recitative reads:

  Der höchste Hirte sorgt für mich,
  Was nützen meine Sorgen?
  Es wird ja alle Morgen
  Des Hirten Güte neu.
  
  The highest shepherd cares for me,
  Of what use are my sorrows?
  Indeed, every morning
  The shepherd’s goodness is made new.

  
  The text of the ensuing aria is indebted to the classical search motive (Suchmotiv):

  Verbirgt mein Hirte sich zu lange,
  Macht mir die Wüste allzu bange,
  Mein schwacher Schritt eilt dennoch fort.
  
  If my shepherd is hidden too long, 
  If the wilderness makes me all too anxious,
  My weak step still hurries on.

  
  The image of the sheep gone astray must also be included; it is found at the end of the epistle for Misericordias Domini from 1 Peter 2:25: “Denn ihr waret wie die irrenden Schafe; aber ihr seid nun bekehrt zu dem Hirten und Bischof eurer Seelen” (For you were like the sheep gone astray; but you are now returned to the shepherd and bishop of your souls). In the second recitative of the cantata, the verses are in the same vein:

  Ach, sammle nur, o guter Hirte, 
  Uns Arme und Verirrte; 
  Ach laß den Weg nur bald geendet sein
  Und führe uns in deinen Schafstall ein!
  
  Ah! Just gather, O good shepherd,
  Us poor and straying ones;
  Ah, only let the path be ended soon 
  And lead us into your sheepfold!

  
  The metaphor of the sheepfold is taken, once again, from John 10, the beginning of which reads: “Wahrlich, wahrlich, ich sage euch: Wer nicht zur Tür hineingeht in den Schafstall, sondern steigt anderswo hinein, der ist ein Dieb und ein Mörder. Der aber zur Tür hineingeht, der ist ein Hirte der Schafe” (1; Truly, truly I say to you: Who goes into the sheep stall not by the door but climbs in somewhere else, he is a thief and a murderer. He, however, who enters through the door, he is a shepherd of the sheep). The word of Jesus follows a bit later: “Ich bin die Tür; so jemand durch mich eingeht, der wird selig werden und wird ein und aus gehen und Weide finden” (9; I am the door; whosoever enters through me, he will be blessed, will go in and out and will find pasture). The ensuing aria text takes this up:

  Beglückte Herde, Jesu Schafe,
  Die Welt ist euch ein Himmelreich.
  Hier schmeckt ihr Jesus Güte schon
  Und hoffet noch des Glaubens Lohn
  Nach einem sanften Todesschlafe.
  
  Happy flock, Jesus’s sheep,
  The world is to you a heavenly kingdom.
  Here you taste Jesus’s goodness already
  And still hope for faith’s reward
  After a gentle sleep of death.

  
  Having begun with a psalm, the cantata closes with one: the chorale strophe “Der Herr ist mein getreuer Hirt, dem ich mich ganz vertraue” (The Lord is my faithful shepherd, whom I trust completely). It belongs to a 1598 paraphrase of Psalm 23 by Cornelius Becker, Der Herr ist mein Hirte, mir wird nichts mangeln (The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want), and this psalm serves as a lesson on the Sunday of Misericordias Domini.
  
  As might be expected, Bach’s composition understands the initial psalm passage to be the central statement and underscores its significance by clothing it in an expansively executed choral movement. In its dominating instrumental motives—the juxtaposition of energetic accents and hovering triplets—it is of course less indebted to pleading invocation than the balanced serenity of the pastorale milieu. The tranquil basses—remaining at one pitch level for as long as twelve 3
  4 measures—serve the sense of the pastoral as much as the entry of an oboe trio, whereby it bears mentioning that at no point in the opening movement do the oboes take on a truly independent role. One might venture the possibility that the composer may initially have meant to keep the impression of the pastorale in check by avoiding the participation of the oboes as shepherds’ shawms. The opening movement consists of six sections; the first is reserved for the instruments, which introduce the main thematic material. The other sections alternate regularly between chordal or figural textures and fugue, so that the third and fifth fugal sections stand between nonfugal sections 2, 4, and 6. At first, Bach’s text underlay hews strictly to the wording of the psalm, but in the course of the movement it gives more weight to the invocation “erscheine” as opposed to “höre” at the beginning. According to an observation by Christoph Wetzel, “The second entreaty [is] . . . the more urgent by virtue of its greater number of repetitions as well as its twice-greater speed as compared to the first entreaty.”¹ In accordance with principles of musical structure, the development that results from dealing with the text this way prevents Bach from taking up the initial “Du Hirte Israel, höre” again at the movement’s conclusion. 
  
  The relatively brief tenor recitative flows into an arioso near the end, serving, on the one hand, to strengthen the closing statement, “Gott ist getreu,” and, on the other, to draw attention to the quotation-like character of the passage by changing the manner of setting. “Gott ist getreu” is a biblical text taken from 1 Corinthians 10:13. Meditative and earnest, the tenor aria “Verbirgt mein Hirte sich zu lange” (If my shepherd hides too long) employs the two oboi d’amore not so much to represent the shepherd’s realm as the vox humana, the voice of humanity in general. The mood of tranquil and composed reflection is broken only twice in passing, when bitter chromaticism and alien progressions bring the phrase “macht mir die Wüste bange” vividly alive to us.
  
  The bass aria “Beglückte Herde, Jesu Schafe,” which follows a brief recitative, is entirely different. Here the pastoral character predominates once again with tranquil basses and sweet harmonies filled with parallel thirds and sixths. The calm, as it were, perfect 12
  8 meter concerns the shepherd’s milieu only indirectly; instead, it is meant symbolically here and embodies the “Himmelreich” (realm of heaven) referenced in the text. Consequently, the middle part of the aria, whose text promises “des Glaubens Lohn / Nach einem sanften Todesschlafe” (faith’s reward / After a gentle sleep of death), can offer little contrast; there is simply a modest modulation to a closely related key and a change from major to minor.
  
  A four-part chorale on the melody Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr (Alone to God in the highest be glory) concludes the cantata. It is unusual that this movement is in A major, two progressions of the fifth from the cantata’s beginning in G major. This tonal ascent can hardly be coincidental; there is no musical need for it. Hence one must have faith in Bach’s intention and behold its grounding in the theological message of the text.

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  Footnotes

  1. “[Ist] der zweite Bittruf . . . durch die größere Anzahl sowie durch die gegenüber dem ersten Bittruf doppelt schnelle Ruffolge der dringlichere” (Wetzel 1985, 145).↵
• 1 2023-09-26T09:32:58+00:00 Sie werden aus Saba alle kommen BWV 65 / BC A 27 12 Epiphany. First performed 01/06/1724 in Leipzig (Cycle I). plain 2024-04-24T16:27:31+00:00 1724-01-06 BWV 65 Leipzig 51.340199, 12.360103 14Epiphany Epiphany BC A 27 Johann Sebastian Bach Hans-Joachim Schulze, "Sie werden aus Saba alle kommen, BWV 65 / BC A 27" in Die Bach Kantaten: Einführungen zu sämtlichen Kantaten Johann Sebastian Bachs, (Leipzig: Evangelisches Verlagsanstalt 2007), p. 82 James A. Brokaw II Leipzig I

  Epiphany, January 6, 1724

  The Feast of Epiphany, also known as High New Year or Three Kings’ Day, is celebrated on January 6. As the feast of the birth and baptism of Christ, it has been among the most popular holidays of the church year since ancient times. The Gospel reading for this feast day, the story of the Wise Men from the East found in the second chapter of Matthew, and the Epistle of the day, from the sixtieth chapter of the prophet Isaiah, have proven to be virtually inexhaustible sources of inspiration for artistic creativity, although certainly with different emphasis. According to Arnold Schering, “The old Italian and Netherlands painters . . . conceived the scenes of the Three Kings’ worship of the child Jesus as a rule as major state affairs. They placed mother and child in the center of the painting, both surrounded, however, with such an abundance of animated humanity and heaps of garments, jewelry, and beasts of burden, so confused that one feels present at a sumptuous homage to royalty rather than at a silent devotion in a Bethlehem manger.”¹
  
  A “silent devotion in a Bethlehem manger” would match the section of the Gospel reading as Johann Sebastian Bach composed it for the sixth cantata of the Christmas Oratorio: “As they saw the star, they became overjoyed and went in the house and found the little child with Mary, his mother, and fell to their knees and prayed to him and brought out their treasures and gave him gold, frankincense, and myrrh” (Matthew 2:10–11). By contrast, one indeed encounters a “sumptuous” scenario in Isaiah 60:4–6, which reads:

  Lift up your eyes and look around: these all gathered together come to you. Your sons shall come from afar, and your daughters will be carried in arms. Then you shall see your pleasure, and flow together, and your heart shall fear, and be enlarged; because the abundance of the sea shall be converted unto thee, the forces of the Gentiles shall come unto thee. For the multitude of camels shall cover you, the young camels of Midian and Ephah; they will from Sheba all come, they shall bring gold and incense; and they shall sing forth the praises of the Lord.

  
  The Sabaean people alluded to here have been known to inhabit southern Arabia at least from the eighth century BCE through the second century CE. Trade routes between India, Ethiopia, and northern lands brought the area great affluence. Its star declined as transport by caravan on land was gradually replaced by ships at sea.
  
  This context becomes significant when one goes about bringing Bach’s score to life. In particular, the instrumental part in the opening movement is as rich as it is attractive; in it, horns, recorders in the upper regions of their range, and hunting oboes—oboi da caccia—appear in pairs. The horns move partly in the harmony-filling “horn range” and partly in the higher clarino register. The oboi da caccia—reed instruments originally in half-round, curved form with a large bell—have a darkly sonorous, distinctively attractive sound in the context of the original instruments of the Bach era. Together with the strings and the recorders in their upper ranges, the hunting horns and oboes produce a multicolored array of sonorities that seem entirely appropriate to the pomp of a royal procession. The 12
  8 meter chosen by Bach also can be seen to fit with this scenario: it can symbolize “completeness,” “church,” or “angels”—but also royalty. An older interpretation of our opening movement ascribed a pastorale coloring and hence had the horns tuned in C, sounding an octave lower than notated. This practice is in no way justified, although it is still stubbornly adhered to. Instead, what is meant is a heraldic symbolism focusing on the kings from Sheba apostrophized in the second movement of the cantata, where the horns must sound in their upper range.
  
  After eight purely instrumental measures, the chorus enters with “Sie werden aus Saba alle kommen,” the incoming throng symbolized by the overlapping, canonic entries of thematic material. Ten measures later, the bass begins a rocking, then lively fugue theme, taken up immediately by tenor, alto, and soprano, at first in permutation procedure and then in stretto. How seriously the composer took his task here can be seen in an extensive set of sketches—a relatively rare case for Johann Sebastian Bach—which were preserved by chance in a cantata score of the same period.² Above all, they show the evolution of the fugue theme from a rather clumsy, uncharacteristic tune with many pitch repetitions, reworked until it received its final, elegant form. Contrary to earlier interpretations, the choice and implementation of fugue do not point to an “anwachsenden und sich vergrößernden Strom” (growing and increasing stream); instead, they point to the general sense of order, dignity, pomp, and high rank, befitting the scenario at the crib at the birth of Christ the king.³ The movement’s close takes up the initial theme again and concludes with, so to speak, the global text line in unison, “Und des Herren Lob verkündigen” (And announce the praise of the Lord). The thematic correspondence with the Prelude in C Major BWV 547 for organ is palpable. Which of the two pieces came first and what hides behind the similarity of course remain unknown at this point.
  
  Following such an overpowering opening, it is difficult for the other movements to assert themselves. The chorale strophe “Die Kön’ge aus Saba kamen dar” (The kings came out of Sheba) connects in meaningful ways with the text of the opening movement. Here we are dealing with a section of the 1545 hymn Ein Kind geborn zu Bethlehem (A child is born in Bethlehem), a German version of the ancient Latin Puer natus in Bethlehem, whose fourth strophe, “Reges de Saba veniunt,” is the source. The chorale has a direct relationship to the liturgy for Epiphany, since the Puer natus hymn was heard at the beginning of the service.
  
  After this simple chorale movement one could imagine a caesura in the cantata’s course, closing the first half before the sermon. If so, the bass recitative that follows would have begun the cantata’s second half. Free poetry appears here for the first time; its author remains unknown. The prophecy of Isaiah is recounted, along with the events in Bethlehem; and gold, frankincense, and myrrh appear as “priceless presents” in the recitative. However, the following lines seem rather wooden and clumsy:

  Mein Jesu, wenn ich itzt an meine Pflicht gedenke, 
  Muß ich auch zu deiner Krippe kehren
  Und gleichfalls dankbar sein,
  Denn dieser Tag ist mir ein Tag der Freuden.
  
  My Jesus, if I now remember my duty, 
  I must also return to your crib
  And likewise be thankful,
  For this day is to me a day of joys.

  If one recalls the fact that the cantata Sie werden aus Saba alle kommen was written for January 6, 1724, it may have been that Bach occasionally encountered problems finding suitable texts, especially in his first year in office.

  No less infelicitous is the text of the ensuing aria, whose didactic tone is not exactly conducive to musical inspiration:

  Gold aus Ophir ist zu schlecht, 
  Weg, nur weg mit eitlen Gaben, 
  Die ihr aus der Erde brecht, 
  Jesus will das Herze haben.
  
  Gold from Ophir is too poor, 
  Away, but away with idle gifts 
  That you break out of the earth. 
  Jesus wants to have your heart.

  Bach helps himself here with a quartet texture—bass voice, basso continuo, two oboi da caccia—in which the rhythm of the opening line, “Gold aus Ophir ist zu schlecht,” persists in every measure. “Ophir” here means a fabulous country that turns up occasionally in the Hebrew Bible, such as in 1 Kings 9:27–28: “And Hiram sent his servants by ship, shipmen that had knowledge of the sea, with the servants of Solomon. And they came to Ophir, and fetched from thence gold, four hundred and twenty talents, and brought it to King Solomon.” This land was thought to be in the Near East or India, in South Africa, or even in distant Peru (although this is difficult to reconcile with navigational capabilities in biblical times). Bach may have meant the exotic sound of the oboi da caccia as an allusion to this far-off, unknown land of gold.
  
  After the recitative and aria for bass, the tenor voice has its say with the same sequence. “Des Glaubens Gold, der Weihrauch des Gebets, die Myrrhen der Geduld sind meine Gaben” (The gold of faith, the frankincense of prayer, the myrrh of patience are my gifts)—these are the “köstliche Geschenke” (precious gifts) in the earlier recitative for bass, now declared to be personal offerings of thanksgiving. Musical development is possible only with difficulty at this point. It succeeds again only in the aria for tenor, “Nimm mich dir zu eigen hin” (Take me unto yourself as your own), whose joyous testament, with its yearning leaps of the sixth at the beginning of the theme, almost has a touch of sentimentality about it, which is hardly moderated by the dancelike 3
  8 meter but instead intensified by the orchestra’s blaze of color. The interchange between the instrumental groups and, above all, the octave doublings between registers recall the brilliant array of timbral juxtapositions in the first movement. And so the progression from the outward display of “Sie werden aus Saba alle kommen” to the turn to the personal in “Nimm mich dir zu eigen hin” seems to be the conceptual core of the cantata text, elucidated and made clear musically.
  
  A simple four-part chorale movement on the melody Was mein Gott will, das g’scheh allzeit (What my God wills is for all time) concludes the cantata. It is only by a circuitous path that we know which strophe Bach intended to underlie the melody. An entry in the original score indicates a strophe from Paul Gerhardt’s hymn Ich hab in Gottes Herz und Sinn (I have to God’s heart and mind). According to a recent investigation,⁴ the entry is in the hand of Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach, Johann Sebastian’s second-youngest son, and may go back to the missing original parts, and to this extent can claim a significant degree of authority.
   

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  Footnotes

  1. Schering (1942, 17).—Trans.↵
  2. Jesus schläft, was soll ich hoffen? BWV 81 / BC A 39.—Trans.↵
  3. Wetzel (1985, 145).↵
  4. Wollny (2001a).↵