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• 1 2023-09-26T09:36:19+00:00 Höchsterwünschtes Freudenfest BWV 194.2 / BC B 31 14 Organ Dedication. First performed 11/2/1723 in Störmthal plain 2024-04-24T17:25:26+00:00 1723-11-2 BWV 194 Störmthal Organ Dedication BC B 31 Johann Sebastian Bach Hans-Joachim Schulze, "Höchsterwünschtes Freudenfest, BWV 194 / BC B 31" in Die Bach Kantaten: Einführungen zu sämtlichen Kantaten Johann Sebastian Bachs, (Leipzig: Evangelisches Verlagsanstalt 2007), p. 628 James A. Brokaw II Leipzig I

  Organ Dedication, November 2, 1723

  
  The cantata Höchsterwünschtes Freudenfest BWV 194.2 (Most highly desired festival of joy) owes its origins to a particular occasion. Properly speaking, it concerns two occasions, the first of which, however, has not yet been verified. The evidence for the second and perhaps more important one is a presentation print of the text, whose single exemplar in Berlin seemed inaccessible for decades because it had been incorporated in a different collection without leaving any indication of its location in the original collection.¹ In English translation the detailed and elaborate title of this print reads:

  As the High-Wellborn Lord, Lord Statz Hilmor von Fullen, Knight of the Holy Roman Empire at Störmthal, Marck-Klebern, and Liebert-Wolckwitz, Gentleman-in-Waiting to the King of Poland, and Worshipful Honorary Chamberlain to the Princely Electoral House of Saxony and Assessor at the Supreme Court of Justice, etc. through whose well-known generosity had the newly built organ in the church at Störmthal examined, the following cantata was performed at a public worship service and consecration of said organ by Johann Sebastian Bach, Princely Capellmeister at Anhalt-Cöthen, also Director of Choral Music at Leipzig and Cantor of St. Thomas School.²

  
  The organ examiner, unnamed in this title, was Bach himself. Although his report has not been preserved, according to official memoranda he found the instrument to be “recognized praiseworthy as reliable and constant” (tüchtig und beständig erkannt und gerühmet) and “without blemish” (ohne Tadel), based on his examination on November 2, 1723. Also unmentioned in the presentation print was the organ builder, Zacharias Hildebrandt. At one time a student and later partner of Gottfried Silbermann, Hildebrandt was by now independent after painful disputes with his former partner. He received a flat-rate payment of four hundred thalers for the instrument with fourteen registers, as stipulated in the contract. However, Hildebrandt had to pay for all materials, from English pewter to glue and brass wire, and he had to pay all the craftsmen involved, from sculptors to carpenters, all while feeding his own people. Although the landowner, Statz Hilmor von Fullen, paid for two additional registers and made living quarters available to the organ builder free of charge, Zacharias Hildebrandt cannot have made any significant profit—a circumstance that seems to have been repeated for all his organ-building projects. 
  
  The inspection of the organ also apparently meant the end of restoration efforts at the church in Störmthal, a village southeast of Leipzig, so that the organ dedication also signified the return of the congregation to their church. This was the only thing the unknown librettist took into account in his libretto; in contrast to the custom of many of his contemporaries, he made no mention of the new organ at all. While the title of the printed text indeed refers to the newly built organ, the text itself is essentially that of a cantata for the consecration of a church. There is frequently talk of “Haus” (house), “Wohnung” (dwelling), and “erbautem Heiligtum” (erected sanctuary), but nothing regarding music or even a musical instrument. All celebration, all expressions of joy refer to the “heilige Wohnung” (holy dwelling); the text praises strength of faith and the power of the Word and asks for grace, help, and blessing.
  
  The fact that the librettist’s wording is more specific in the recitatives than the arias has to do with the work’s genesis. The opening chorus and all four arias go back to a festival cantata (BWV 194.1) from Bach’s Köthen period about whose text and occasion nothing has been learned to date. Here and there, phrases from the lost original libretto presumably were adopted by the Störmthal cantata, but there is no way to prove it. Even so, at times one seems to hear echoes of secular poetry, as in the text of the opening chorus:

  Höchsterwünschtes Freudenfest,
  Das der Herr zu seinem Ruhme
  Im erbauten Heiligtume
  Uns vergnügt begehen läßt.
  Höchsterwünschtes Freudenfest!
  
  Most highly desired festival of joy,
  Which the Lord, to his renown,
  In the newly erected sanctuary
  Lets us gladly celebrate.
  Most highly desired festival of joy!

  
  As mentioned, the recitatives are more specific and comprehensible, as the first one demonstrates:

  Unendlich großer Gott, ach wende dich
  Zu uns, zu dem erwählten Geschlechte,
  Und zum Gebete deiner Knechte!
  Ach laß vor dich
  Durch ein inbrünstig Singen
  Der Lippen Opfer bringen!
  Wir weihen unsre Brust dir offenbar
  Zum Dankaltar.
  Du, den kein Haus, kein Tempel faßt,
  Da du kein Ziel noch Grenzen hast,
  Laß dir dies Haus gefällig sein, 
  Es sei dein Angesicht
  Ein wahrer Gnadenstuhl, ein Freudenlicht.
  
  Eternally, great God, ah, turn 
  To us, to your chosen people,
  And to the prayers of your servants!
  Ah, let our lips’ offering
  Through fervent singing
  Be brought before you!
  We consecrate our hearts to you openly
  As an altar of thanksgiving.
  You, whom no house, no temple holds
  Because you have neither limit nor boundaries,
  Let this house be pleasing to you,
  May it be to your countenance
  A true throne of grace, a light of joy.

  
  By this point at the latest, the poet’s model has become clear: it is Solomon’s prayer for the consecration of the Temple in 2 Chronicles 6. The nineteenth verse, after which the first recitative is modeled, reads: “But turn yourself, Lord, my God, toward the prayer of your servant and his pleading, that you hear the request and prayer that your servant makes before you.” The arias, by contrast, proceed in much more generalized formulations, in particular the first, in which rhyme sequence and line structure create a kind of circular movement:

  Was des Höchsten Glanz erfüllt,
  Wird in keine Nacht verhüllt,
  Was des Höchsten heilges Wesen
  Sich zur Wohnung auserlesen,
  Wird in keine Nacht verhüllt,
  Was des Höchsten Glanz erfüllt.
  
  Whatever the radiance of the Most High fills
  Will not be veiled by any night.
  Whatever the holy being of the Most High 
  Has chosen for his dwelling place
  Will not be veiled by any night,
  Whatever the radiance of the Most High fills.

  
  After another recitative-aria movement pair, two strophes from Johannes Heermann’s 1630 chorale Treuer Gott, ich muß dir klagen (Faithful God, I must lament to you) close the first half of the cantata. The second half begins with another recitative-aria pair, continues with a recitative dialogue and a duet, and, after another recitative, ends with two further chorale strophes, here from Paul Gerhardt’s 1647 hymn Wach auf, mein Herz und singe (Awaken, my heart, and sing).
  
  For the most part, Bach’s composition of this wide-ranging, twelve-movement libretto goes back to a Köthen cantata for an unknown occasion. This explains its similarity to the suite, the fact that all arias exhibit a pronounced dance-like character. The opening chorus figures here as well; it takes the form of the French overture, with its slow opening and closing sections with dotted rhythms and sweeping scales, and a quick, fugal (or at least imitative) center section that in our cantata is performed by the chorus, while the slower external sections are reserved for the orchestra. The first aria for bass, strings, and an oboe presents the pastoral type, with its 12
  8 meter, rocking figures, and gentle movement of the bass. The second aria, for soprano and strings, is unmistakably designed as a gavotte. The third aria, in which the tenor is accompanied only by the continuo, is similar to the gigue. The duet, the last movement in aria form, embodies the minuet. In addition to these dance types, many unusual demands on the vocalists testify to the origin of these movements in Köthen and their performance by virtuosos at court.³
  
  In spite of these handicaps, Bach performed the cantata Höchsterwünschtes Freudenfest not only in November 1723 in Störmthal (BWV 194.2) but also several more times in Leipzig. The first of these is documented in 1724 for the feast of Trinity (BWV 194.3); the second followed a bit later, with reduced scoring and an altered and reduced sequence of movements (BWV 194.4); the third, once again for Trinity, is documented in 1731 but includes only the first half of the work. Later, Wilhelm Friedemann Bach performed the cantata in Halle. A copy of the score prepared by Johann Tobias Krebs, one of Bach’s first students and later active in Buttstädt, belongs to the choir archive in Crimmitschau. Just like Bach’s autograph manuscript, it bears the title Concerto Bey Einweyhung der Orgel in Störmthal (Concerto for the consecration of the organ at Störmthal) and thereby testifies to a masterpiece of organ construction that survives today and has made the name of the tiny village of Störmthal known the world over.

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  Footnotes

  1. Wollny (1997, 21–26).↵
  2. Als Der Hoch-Wohlgebohrne Herr, / Herr / Statz Hilmor / von Fullen, / Des Heiligen Römischen Reichs Ritter, / Auf Störmthal, Marck-Klebern und Liebert- / Wolckwitz, / Königlich Pohlnischer und Churfürstlicher Sächsischer / Hochbestallter Cammer-Herr und Ober-Hof- / Gerichts-Assessor, etc. / Das durch Dero Hochrühmliche Sorgfalt, / Neuerbauete Orgel-Werck / In der Kirche zu Störm-Thal übernehmen / und examinieren ließe, / Wurde / Nachfolgende Cantata / Bey öffentlichen Gottesdienste und Einweyhung besagter / Orgel aufgeführet, / Von / Johann Sebastian Bachen, / Hochfürstlich Anhalt-Cöthenischen Capell-Meister auch Directore Chori Musici / Lipsiensis, und Cantore der Schulen zu St. Thomas. / gedrückt bey Immanuel Tietzen.—Trans.↵
  3. The plausible hypothesis of a performance in Störmthal in deeper tuning can be neither confirmed nor excluded. Cf. Ellis and Mendel (1965, 201 f., 235) and Glöckner (2003, 92 ff.).↵
• 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.).↵