CONCORA BACH CONCERT 2019
Weimar Cantatas: BWV182, 12, and 2
Bach in Weimar
Unlike a composer such as Beethoven, whose musical style changed considerably over his lifetime, Johann Sebastian Bach possessed a unique compositional voice that remained remarkably consistent over the decades of his life. We look to his compositional chronology not so much to trace his “growth” as a composer (though obviously, he developed new compositional techniques and refined others over the years), but because the work required of him in each place he lived was so different. In Weimar—first in 1703 and then 1708-17, during which time he ultimately served as Konzertmeister—Bach focused largely on instrumental music. But with his appointment as Konzertmeister in 1714 came a new requirement that Bach write one cantata each month. (Contrast that with the punishing task of writing—and rehearsing/presenting—one per week in Leipzig!) These Weimar cantatas reflect the resources that Bach had at his disposal—an excellent vocal and instrumental ensemble. More so even than the cantatas that date from Bach’s years in Leipzig (1723-50), the Weimar cantatas works feature very creative use of instruments, perhaps a reflection of the fact that during this decade, Bach’s principal output was in instrumental music. The sheer creativity of these works has allowed them to remain among Bach’s most popular cantatas, overrepresented in comparison with the cantatas written in Leipzig. Nearly twenty of these cantatas (all reworked for use in Leipzig later) are extant: BWV182, 12, 172, 21, 61, 63, 152 (1714); BWV80a, 31, 165, 185, 163, 132 (1715) and BWV155, 161, 162, 70a, 186a and 147a (1716).
BWV182: Himmelskönig, sei willkommen
This cantata is one of the few Bach cantatas that was well-known in the choral repertoire even before the renaissance of the Bach cantatas that began in the 1970s. The reasons for its popularity are obvious even at a first hearing: the opening sonata has a very appealing wistful quality, and the three choral movements are immediately attractive, albeit in different ways. This was very likely the first cantata that Bach wrote as Konzertmeister in Weimar, for Palm Sunday 1714. The scoring makes it a particularly intimate work; the original version was for treble recorder and strings, though Bach later reinforced the ensemble with oboe when he presented it in Leipzig.
According to Martin Luther’s “analogy of faith”, all of the bible stories are meant to be reenacted as personal events in the life of the believer. This is particularly evident in BWV182, a cantata written for Palm Sunday. The gospel for this Sunday before Easter is the story of Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem (riding a donkey, symbolizing the king who comes in humility)—the event that marks the beginning of the week of Jesus’ crucifixion. It is a bittersweet festival, since the Christian knows that the crowd will turn all too quickly, and the triumph of the arrival will soon become betrayal at the hands of Judas. The music itself captures both elements of Palm Sunday—both the joy of Jesus’ arrival and the pain of the upcoming Passion. Thus the heartbreaking alto aria and the anguished tenor aria can be capped by the heedlessly joyful final movement, in which the choir journeys with Christ into Jerusalem. One is reminded of the aria Ich folge dir gleichfalls from the St John Passion, the aria that expresses Peter’s blithe pledge to remain with Jesus as he faces the crucifixion—only to abandon him when he counts the cost.
In the libretto, most likely by Salomo Franck, the gospel story becomes a set of lessons for the congregation. Following the opening sonata, which Bach sets in French overture style to represent the royal entry, the chorus entreats the believer to welcome the King of Heaven just as Jerusalem did. Bach sets this chorus as a permutation fugue, a tightly constructed fugue that is more like a strict canon than a fugue with wide-ranging episodes. The mood is joyful, and the few sections in which the choir sings in chordal unity (such as “Komm herein”—“come in”) are particularly striking.
This cantata shares many characteristics with other Weimar cantatas, including the lack of totally free recitative. The bass recitative which follows the opening chorus in BWV182 incorporates arioso; here the bass is used as Vox Christi—the voice of Christ. In it, he declares that he does God’s will gladly, accompanied in the arioso by a eighth-two sixteenth note ostinato that Bach often uses to represent joy.
Uncharacteristic of Bach’s cantatas, there follow three arias in a row, unbroken by recitative. Even with such a small instrumental ensemble, Bach manages to achieve great contrast in his choice of singers and instruments for these three arias. In the first, the bass is accompanied by the strings (the first violin part is in fact a solo part itself), reflecting on how Jesus left his “throne of glory” to act as a sacrifice for the world’s salvation. The walking continuo line suggests that Bach may be depicting the journey from heaven to earth, as well as the journey towards the cross which becomes the place of sacrifice.
The alto aria is particularly poignant, accompanied by the flauto dolce. In the analogy of faith, the believer is called to lay down before the Savior, just as those at Jesus’ entry to Jerusalem bowed before him. The descending E minor melody is a musical picture of the bow, and the large leaps followed by descending arpeggios likewise suggest humility. In the tenor aria that follows, we turn the corner from the triumphant entry towards the cross: the tenor, accompanied by a highly active and harmonically shifting continuo part, pledges not to “flee when the world cries ‘Crucify!’” This is a reference to Peter, who denied Christ three times in the Passion story. As we find so often in Bach’s Passions, he sets the word Kreuzige—“crucify”—to a diminished seventh arpeggio. The main theological message of Palm Sunday is revealed here: “Lord, from thy cross-banner, both crown and palm shall I find there.”
The two final choruses are as different as any two choruses can be. The first of the two is set firmly in the 17thcentury Lutheran tradition. Written in the stile antico, each line of the chorale Jesu deine Passion (which we also encounter accompanying a bass aria in the St John Passion) is presented to a different vocal accompaniment. The movement is through-composed, and the instruments only double the voices, never presenting their own independent material; this allows Bach greater flexibility in word-painting. Rather than focusing on the harsh aspects of the Cross, Bach concentrates on the positive aspects—the Trost, or consolation for all believers. He sets the word “joy” to running sixteenth notes, “my heart’s pasture” to a lyrical, scalar motive, and “heaven” to a rising figure. He glosses over “passion” and “wounds, crown and scorn”. This leads directly into the triumphant final chorus, a wonderful bookend to the joyful earlier chorus “Himmelskönig, sei willkommen.” The rollicking 6/8 meter is immediately attractive, and the interplay between the instruments is characteristic of the chamber music that Bach wrote in Weimar. Like the cantata’s first chorus, this is also a permutation fugue, with each subsequent voice pledging to enter Jerusalem and accompany the King in love (triumphant entry) and sorrow (crucifixion). It is the perfect pivot from Palm Sunday into Holy Week, and is the perfect closing chorus for one of Bach’s most tightly constructed and theologically profound cantatas
According to Martin Luther’s “analogy of faith”, all of the bible stories are meant to be reenacted as personal events in the life of the believer. This is particularly evident in BWV182, a cantata written for Palm Sunday. The gospel for this Sunday before Easter is the story of Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem (riding a donkey, symbolizing the king who comes in humility)—the event that marks the beginning of the week of Jesus’ crucifixion. It is a bittersweet festival, since the Christian knows that the crowd will turn all too quickly, and the triumph of the arrival will soon become betrayal at the hands of Judas. The music itself captures both elements of Palm Sunday—both the joy of Jesus’ arrival and the pain of the upcoming Passion. Thus the heartbreaking alto aria and the anguished tenor aria can be capped by the heedlessly joyful final movement, in which the choir journeys with Christ into Jerusalem. One is reminded of the aria Ich folge dir gleichfalls from the St John Passion, the aria that expresses Peter’s blithe pledge to remain with Jesus as he faces the crucifixion—only to abandon him when he counts the cost.
In the libretto, most likely by Salomo Franck, the gospel story becomes a set of lessons for the congregation. Following the opening sonata, which Bach sets in French overture style to represent the royal entry, the chorus entreats the believer to welcome the King of Heaven just as Jerusalem did. Bach sets this chorus as a permutation fugue, a tightly constructed fugue that is more like a strict canon than a fugue with wide-ranging episodes. The mood is joyful, and the few sections in which the choir sings in chordal unity (such as “Komm herein”—“come in”) are particularly striking.
This cantata shares many characteristics with other Weimar cantatas, including the lack of totally free recitative. The bass recitative which follows the opening chorus in BWV182 incorporates arioso; here the bass is used as Vox Christi—the voice of Christ. In it, he declares that he does God’s will gladly, accompanied in the arioso by a eighth-two sixteenth note ostinato that Bach often uses to represent joy.
Uncharacteristic of Bach’s cantatas, there follow three arias in a row, unbroken by recitative. Even with such a small instrumental ensemble, Bach manages to achieve great contrast in his choice of singers and instruments for these three arias. In the first, the bass is accompanied by the strings (the first violin part is in fact a solo part itself), reflecting on how Jesus left his “throne of glory” to act as a sacrifice for the world’s salvation. The walking continuo line suggests that Bach may be depicting the journey from heaven to earth, as well as the journey towards the cross which becomes the place of sacrifice.
The alto aria is particularly poignant, accompanied by the flauto dolce. In the analogy of faith, the believer is called to lay down before the Savior, just as those at Jesus’ entry to Jerusalem bowed before him. The descending E minor melody is a musical picture of the bow, and the large leaps followed by descending arpeggios likewise suggest humility. In the tenor aria that follows, we turn the corner from the triumphant entry towards the cross: the tenor, accompanied by a highly active and harmonically shifting continuo part, pledges not to “flee when the world cries ‘Crucify!’” This is a reference to Peter, who denied Christ three times in the Passion story. As we find so often in Bach’s Passions, he sets the word Kreuzige—“crucify”—to a diminished seventh arpeggio. The main theological message of Palm Sunday is revealed here: “Lord, from thy cross-banner, both crown and palm shall I find there.”
The two final choruses are as different as any two choruses can be. The first of the two is set firmly in the 17thcentury Lutheran tradition. Written in the stile antico, each line of the chorale Jesu deine Passion (which we also encounter accompanying a bass aria in the St John Passion) is presented to a different vocal accompaniment. The movement is through-composed, and the instruments only double the voices, never presenting their own independent material; this allows Bach greater flexibility in word-painting. Rather than focusing on the harsh aspects of the Cross, Bach concentrates on the positive aspects—the Trost, or consolation for all believers. He sets the word “joy” to running sixteenth notes, “my heart’s pasture” to a lyrical, scalar motive, and “heaven” to a rising figure. He glosses over “passion” and “wounds, crown and scorn”. This leads directly into the triumphant final chorus, a wonderful bookend to the joyful earlier chorus “Himmelskönig, sei willkommen.” The rollicking 6/8 meter is immediately attractive, and the interplay between the instruments is characteristic of the chamber music that Bach wrote in Weimar. Like the cantata’s first chorus, this is also a permutation fugue, with each subsequent voice pledging to enter Jerusalem and accompany the King in love (triumphant entry) and sorrow (crucifixion). It is the perfect pivot from Palm Sunday into Holy Week, and is the perfect closing chorus for one of Bach’s most tightly constructed and theologically profound cantatas
BWV12: Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen
This is the second cantata that Bach wrote as Konzertmeisterin Weimar in 1714, following on from BWV182. It was written for the third Sunday after Easter, with the Gospel reading relating to Jesus’ departure before his ascension. In the libretto text, the author (most likely Salamo Franck) develops the idea of sorrow at Jesus’ departure into the larger theme that in order to be reunited with the risen Jesus, Christians must suffer as He also suffered.
Like some of the other Weimar cantatas, BWV12 uses a pair of violas, inherited from the French tradition. Bach’s early cantatas are marked by their especially creative use of instrumentation to amplify the meaning of the text. In this case, Bach employs the plaintive oboe as the sole addition to the string complement. Indeed, he uses the oboe to great advantage in the cantata, beginning with the soulful sinfonia, an adagio concerto movement. Accompanied by throbbing and sighing ostinati in the strings, the oboe plays a highly ornamented lament redolent of a Vivaldi slow movement.
The extraordinarily expressive sinfonia acts as a prelude to the chorus, one of the most famous of all of Bach’s vocal works. It is better known in its later version, however—the Crucifixus from the Mass in B Minor. In its original version, the A section of theda capoform is mostly a setting of four words: “weeping, lamentation, worry, despair…”; the sentence is continued later: “…anguish and trouble are the Christian’s bread of tears…” The long series of vocal suspensions provide harmonic tension, underpinned by an unwavering, almost trudging ostinato in the upper strings. The section is unified through the use of a ground bass in the continuo, a descending chromatic line that repeats twelve times, possibly representing the twelve disciples. This descending line represents the bitter path for the Christian. The B section finishes the sentence begun in the A section: “…that bear the marks of Jesus.” This section, which Bach chose not to use in the Crucifixus parody, is slightly faster than the anguished A section, and moves in a more lilting triple time.
The alto recit-aria pair marks the theological centre of this cantata. As the alto sings “We must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of Heaven”, she is accompanied by the strings and continuo. The same scale that the top violin plays in long notes is revealed at the end of the short recitative as a depiction of the ascension, another reference to the day’s Gospel reading. The beautiful aria, which features another plaintive oboe solo, is replete with musico-theological imagery. Just as the text says that “cross and crown are tied together”, Bach ties them together musically, with musical crosses (C-B natural- C) in the continuo part while the short note values of the oboe solo look like a musical crown on the page. We know that the image of the crown was very important to Bach; he designed a family crest himself, with a crown at the top of the crest.
The musicologist Eric Chafe has written of the importance of Eb major in the Saint John Passion as the key of “Trost”—consolation for the faithful. So the shift from the C minor of the alto aria to Eb major of the bass aria is a significant one. In the aria, reminiscent of Ich folge dir gleichfallsfrom the Saint John Passion, Bach sets up a four-part canon between the two violins, continuo and bass soloist. This cantata text is more emphatic than the Passion’s aria: the believer will follow Christ and embrace the disgrace of his Cross. The idea of the believer owning the humiliation of Jesus through the crucifixion is an important Lutheran concept. In Luther’s analogy of faith, the believer must experience the abasement of Jesus in order to share in his resurrection.
The tenor aria is an exhortation to the congregation: “Be faithful, as all the pain will only be a trifle.” The tenor is accompanied simply by the continuo, which makes use of the ubiquitous Baroque falling-fifth chord progression. This progression often refers to descent, such as the deposition of Christ following the crucifixion. Certainly, the use of the funeral chorale Jesu, meine Freudein the trumpet, suggests death. In true Lutheran fashion, the promise of “all bad weather passing” refers to being released from life’s difficulties in death, rather than necessarily finding solace in this life. The closing chorale, accompanied by a soaring descant on the trumpet and first violin, reinforces this idea. To the faithful Christian, the only way to endure life’s vicissitudes is to trust God and “allow Him sovereign control”.
Like some of the other Weimar cantatas, BWV12 uses a pair of violas, inherited from the French tradition. Bach’s early cantatas are marked by their especially creative use of instrumentation to amplify the meaning of the text. In this case, Bach employs the plaintive oboe as the sole addition to the string complement. Indeed, he uses the oboe to great advantage in the cantata, beginning with the soulful sinfonia, an adagio concerto movement. Accompanied by throbbing and sighing ostinati in the strings, the oboe plays a highly ornamented lament redolent of a Vivaldi slow movement.
The extraordinarily expressive sinfonia acts as a prelude to the chorus, one of the most famous of all of Bach’s vocal works. It is better known in its later version, however—the Crucifixus from the Mass in B Minor. In its original version, the A section of theda capoform is mostly a setting of four words: “weeping, lamentation, worry, despair…”; the sentence is continued later: “…anguish and trouble are the Christian’s bread of tears…” The long series of vocal suspensions provide harmonic tension, underpinned by an unwavering, almost trudging ostinato in the upper strings. The section is unified through the use of a ground bass in the continuo, a descending chromatic line that repeats twelve times, possibly representing the twelve disciples. This descending line represents the bitter path for the Christian. The B section finishes the sentence begun in the A section: “…that bear the marks of Jesus.” This section, which Bach chose not to use in the Crucifixus parody, is slightly faster than the anguished A section, and moves in a more lilting triple time.
The alto recit-aria pair marks the theological centre of this cantata. As the alto sings “We must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of Heaven”, she is accompanied by the strings and continuo. The same scale that the top violin plays in long notes is revealed at the end of the short recitative as a depiction of the ascension, another reference to the day’s Gospel reading. The beautiful aria, which features another plaintive oboe solo, is replete with musico-theological imagery. Just as the text says that “cross and crown are tied together”, Bach ties them together musically, with musical crosses (C-B natural- C) in the continuo part while the short note values of the oboe solo look like a musical crown on the page. We know that the image of the crown was very important to Bach; he designed a family crest himself, with a crown at the top of the crest.
The musicologist Eric Chafe has written of the importance of Eb major in the Saint John Passion as the key of “Trost”—consolation for the faithful. So the shift from the C minor of the alto aria to Eb major of the bass aria is a significant one. In the aria, reminiscent of Ich folge dir gleichfallsfrom the Saint John Passion, Bach sets up a four-part canon between the two violins, continuo and bass soloist. This cantata text is more emphatic than the Passion’s aria: the believer will follow Christ and embrace the disgrace of his Cross. The idea of the believer owning the humiliation of Jesus through the crucifixion is an important Lutheran concept. In Luther’s analogy of faith, the believer must experience the abasement of Jesus in order to share in his resurrection.
The tenor aria is an exhortation to the congregation: “Be faithful, as all the pain will only be a trifle.” The tenor is accompanied simply by the continuo, which makes use of the ubiquitous Baroque falling-fifth chord progression. This progression often refers to descent, such as the deposition of Christ following the crucifixion. Certainly, the use of the funeral chorale Jesu, meine Freudein the trumpet, suggests death. In true Lutheran fashion, the promise of “all bad weather passing” refers to being released from life’s difficulties in death, rather than necessarily finding solace in this life. The closing chorale, accompanied by a soaring descant on the trumpet and first violin, reinforces this idea. To the faithful Christian, the only way to endure life’s vicissitudes is to trust God and “allow Him sovereign control”.
BWV21: Ich hatte viel Bekümmerni
Musicologists have compared this cantata from June 1714 to Bach’s Passions and B Minor Mass—although it is obviously on a smaller scale, this two-part cantata (divided by the day’s sermon) nonetheless has a remarkable emotional scope and musical structure that anticipates those later, larger works. The text of the cantata is nothing less than an exploration of the most basic tenet of Christianity: that the believer, lost in her pain and misery, need only turn to Christ, and her night of misery will be transformed into a new morning of rejoicing. Bach accomplishes that journey in a number of ways: contrasting instrumentation; a wide range of keys and tonalities; text-painting that explores the emotional content of the libretto; and melodic material that spans the most heart-wrenching to the most gloriously uplifting.
The compositional history of the work certainly suggests that the piece was meaningful for Bach. It was the fourth cantata that he wrote in Weimar; BWV172 came between BWV12 and 21. Bach presented the cantata in Weimar, Cöthen and Leipzig, with changes made for each locality; there is even evidence that the work originated before his tenure in Weimar. Perhaps the most notable difference between the three cities was the availability of soloists. In Weimar, there was no soprano soloist, so all of the high solos were sung by a tenor, whereas in Cöthen they were all sung by a soprano. In Leipzig, where Bach used the cantata in one of his very first services, he divided the solos between soprano and tenor; we use that version this afternoon. But perhaps the most effective element of the cantata remained consistent throughout all versions—the surprise appearance of three trumpets and timpani at the very end of the work. This movement, which sets the same text as the final chorus in Handel’s Messiah (written a quarter century later), packs a real punch, particularly after the focus on the plangent oboe timbre in the first part of the work. Small wonder that this cantata remains one of Bach’s most beloved.
To hear BWV182 and BWV12 on the same program, you could be forgiven for thinking that the “standard” Bach cantata would have 8 or 11 movements, begin with an instrumental sinfonia and feature several different choral movements. In fact, these two cantatas are outliers among Bach’s cantatas, which—especially in Leipzig—usually feature an opening chorus, two recit-aria pairs and a closing four-part chorale. The longer format of these Weimar cantatas reflect Bach’s early influences from North German composers, especially Buxtehude; the outsized length also reflects the fact that Bach had a month to compose each cantata, rather than the week that he would later have in Leipzig. The opening sinfonia resembles that of BWV12, with a plaintive oboe solo soaring above the strings. The first choral movement is fugal, with a throbbing, almost sobbing quasi-subject in a minor key. It is not a proper fugue, but rather, features overlapping statements of that theme, illustrating not only the “grief in my heart” from the text, but also an almost obsessive, repetitive replaying of that grief throughout the entire section. Also reflective of north German choral models, Bach shifts to new material as the emotional content of the music changes, rather than using the same musical material throughout. In this way, when the text becomes “but thy consolations revive my soul”, the heavily stressed opening motive is transformed into something more joyful, with active sixteenth-note passages.
The soprano aria that follows is justly one of Bach’s most famous solo vocal pieces. The text—“sighing, tears, care, need”—provides wonderful fodder for word-painting, particularly with the opening downward sighing figure. Oboe and soprano are equal partners in this duet, which is written in the latest Italian style, rather than the North German style that is seen in the choral movements. In the tenor aria, Bach again uses text-painting, this time to illustrate the “streams of salted tears” and “storm and waves”. The series of slurred sixteenth notes throughout the piece continue the sobbing idea from the earlier soprano aria, in addition to acting as long series of waves. In the middle section of that aria, Bach is particularly conscious of the text “Here I sink to the bottom”, with the tenor falling to the lowest part of his range.
The choral setting of Psalm 42 that comes next, like the opening chorus, changes musical material with each textual/emotional shift. Restlessness is depicted with a faster tempo, a skittering instrumental motive and unsettled counterpoint in the voices. The movement ends with a fugue, the subject of which feels almost like an inversion of the opening chorus’ setting of “Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis”, descending where the first motive had reached upwards.
The minister’s sermon would have separated the cantata into two sections. The tone of the work decidedly shifts towards the positive in the second half; in the duet between soprano and bass, the soprano prays for help in her despair, and seems too preoccupied with her misery to hear the voice of God in the bass, who answers all of her “neins” (nos) with a “ja” (yes). The chorus that follows is almost a rebuke of the soprano’s anxiety, essentially saying that all of our woes and self-pitying can only make things worse. This movement uses one of the most beautiful Lutheran hymns, still sung in many churches today in its English translation, “If thou but trust in God to guide thee”. Bach sets two verses of the chorale, one sung by the tenors and the other by the sopranos. Like the other choruses, he uses a form that is common in North German cantatas, known as “motet style”. In this genre, the writing resembles a Renaissance motet more than it does the Italian concerto style that Bach would employ more in Leipzig. Rather than being a strict fugue, the other three parts share the melodic material among them almost like a canon. The first motive is a descending scale, perhaps representing God reaching down to humankind. The second motive reaches upwards, something Bach often does to depict humankind turning towards God in prayer. In movements like this, I am often reminded of the space between God and Adam’s fingers in Michelangelo’s Sistine chapel ceiling painting.
The transition from sorrow to joy is complete in the final two movements. The tenor aria features an exuberant, florid cello line and a straightforward, declamatory vocal part. This movement is a passepied, a Baroque dance form that is faster than the stately minuetand a bit less breathless than a gigue. Composers used this dance form to suggest joy and playfulness, perfect for a text in which the worried Christian finally transforms their “groaning into exulting”. Bach’s choice of a final choral movement is at once fascinating and extraordinary. Rather than closing with a chorale, or setting a text that continues the theme of transformation, Bach instead composed something akin to a doxology. The introduction of trumpets and timpani is a masterstroke, and the elaborate fugal writing anticipates the artful choral fugues of his Leipzig years. The sorrowful C minor opening sinfonia has been transformed into an exultant C major song of victory and praise, completing the long emotional journey of this remarkable cantata.
Chris Shepard, 2019
The compositional history of the work certainly suggests that the piece was meaningful for Bach. It was the fourth cantata that he wrote in Weimar; BWV172 came between BWV12 and 21. Bach presented the cantata in Weimar, Cöthen and Leipzig, with changes made for each locality; there is even evidence that the work originated before his tenure in Weimar. Perhaps the most notable difference between the three cities was the availability of soloists. In Weimar, there was no soprano soloist, so all of the high solos were sung by a tenor, whereas in Cöthen they were all sung by a soprano. In Leipzig, where Bach used the cantata in one of his very first services, he divided the solos between soprano and tenor; we use that version this afternoon. But perhaps the most effective element of the cantata remained consistent throughout all versions—the surprise appearance of three trumpets and timpani at the very end of the work. This movement, which sets the same text as the final chorus in Handel’s Messiah (written a quarter century later), packs a real punch, particularly after the focus on the plangent oboe timbre in the first part of the work. Small wonder that this cantata remains one of Bach’s most beloved.
To hear BWV182 and BWV12 on the same program, you could be forgiven for thinking that the “standard” Bach cantata would have 8 or 11 movements, begin with an instrumental sinfonia and feature several different choral movements. In fact, these two cantatas are outliers among Bach’s cantatas, which—especially in Leipzig—usually feature an opening chorus, two recit-aria pairs and a closing four-part chorale. The longer format of these Weimar cantatas reflect Bach’s early influences from North German composers, especially Buxtehude; the outsized length also reflects the fact that Bach had a month to compose each cantata, rather than the week that he would later have in Leipzig. The opening sinfonia resembles that of BWV12, with a plaintive oboe solo soaring above the strings. The first choral movement is fugal, with a throbbing, almost sobbing quasi-subject in a minor key. It is not a proper fugue, but rather, features overlapping statements of that theme, illustrating not only the “grief in my heart” from the text, but also an almost obsessive, repetitive replaying of that grief throughout the entire section. Also reflective of north German choral models, Bach shifts to new material as the emotional content of the music changes, rather than using the same musical material throughout. In this way, when the text becomes “but thy consolations revive my soul”, the heavily stressed opening motive is transformed into something more joyful, with active sixteenth-note passages.
The soprano aria that follows is justly one of Bach’s most famous solo vocal pieces. The text—“sighing, tears, care, need”—provides wonderful fodder for word-painting, particularly with the opening downward sighing figure. Oboe and soprano are equal partners in this duet, which is written in the latest Italian style, rather than the North German style that is seen in the choral movements. In the tenor aria, Bach again uses text-painting, this time to illustrate the “streams of salted tears” and “storm and waves”. The series of slurred sixteenth notes throughout the piece continue the sobbing idea from the earlier soprano aria, in addition to acting as long series of waves. In the middle section of that aria, Bach is particularly conscious of the text “Here I sink to the bottom”, with the tenor falling to the lowest part of his range.
The choral setting of Psalm 42 that comes next, like the opening chorus, changes musical material with each textual/emotional shift. Restlessness is depicted with a faster tempo, a skittering instrumental motive and unsettled counterpoint in the voices. The movement ends with a fugue, the subject of which feels almost like an inversion of the opening chorus’ setting of “Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis”, descending where the first motive had reached upwards.
The minister’s sermon would have separated the cantata into two sections. The tone of the work decidedly shifts towards the positive in the second half; in the duet between soprano and bass, the soprano prays for help in her despair, and seems too preoccupied with her misery to hear the voice of God in the bass, who answers all of her “neins” (nos) with a “ja” (yes). The chorus that follows is almost a rebuke of the soprano’s anxiety, essentially saying that all of our woes and self-pitying can only make things worse. This movement uses one of the most beautiful Lutheran hymns, still sung in many churches today in its English translation, “If thou but trust in God to guide thee”. Bach sets two verses of the chorale, one sung by the tenors and the other by the sopranos. Like the other choruses, he uses a form that is common in North German cantatas, known as “motet style”. In this genre, the writing resembles a Renaissance motet more than it does the Italian concerto style that Bach would employ more in Leipzig. Rather than being a strict fugue, the other three parts share the melodic material among them almost like a canon. The first motive is a descending scale, perhaps representing God reaching down to humankind. The second motive reaches upwards, something Bach often does to depict humankind turning towards God in prayer. In movements like this, I am often reminded of the space between God and Adam’s fingers in Michelangelo’s Sistine chapel ceiling painting.
The transition from sorrow to joy is complete in the final two movements. The tenor aria features an exuberant, florid cello line and a straightforward, declamatory vocal part. This movement is a passepied, a Baroque dance form that is faster than the stately minuetand a bit less breathless than a gigue. Composers used this dance form to suggest joy and playfulness, perfect for a text in which the worried Christian finally transforms their “groaning into exulting”. Bach’s choice of a final choral movement is at once fascinating and extraordinary. Rather than closing with a chorale, or setting a text that continues the theme of transformation, Bach instead composed something akin to a doxology. The introduction of trumpets and timpani is a masterstroke, and the elaborate fugal writing anticipates the artful choral fugues of his Leipzig years. The sorrowful C minor opening sinfonia has been transformed into an exultant C major song of victory and praise, completing the long emotional journey of this remarkable cantata.
Chris Shepard, 2019