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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.).↵