A CONDUCTOR’S STUDY OF CANTATA BWV 106

BY JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

by

Ricardo Soto

A Treatise Presented to the

FACULTY OF THE SCHOOL OF MUSIC

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

In Partial Fulfillment of the

Requirements for the Degree

Doctor of Musical Arts

(Choral Music)

January 1994

Copyright 1994 Ricardo Soto

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION..................................................................... 1
Scholarship on the Bach C a n ta ta s .......................................2

Chapter
I. BIOGRAPHY OF B A C H ................................................ 5

II. BACKGROUND TO BWV 106

The Origins of the Bach C a n ta ta ........................................ 19
The Development of the Bach C a n ta tas........................... 25
The Place of BWV 106 in Bach'sC a n ta tas.......................43

III. ANALYSIS OF BWV 106

The Text of BWV 1 0 6 ............................................................. 48
The Music of BWV 1 0 6 ........................................... 56
Conclusion........................................................ 76

APPENDIX 1 ................................................................................................77

APPENDIX 2 ................................................................................................78

APPENDIX 3 ................................................................................ 79

B IBLIO G RAPHY............................................................................................109
 1

INTRODUCTION

The key to the interpretation of any music is analysis.

Thus, before applying any interpretive ideas to a piece of music

a conductor must first understand the architecture of the piece.

In this paper the writer will present an analysis of Cantata

BWV 106 by Johann Sebastion Bach as a framework upon which

an interpretation can be based.

Bach left few indications of expression in BWV 106. Early

music composers were for the most part the main performers of

their own music and consequently were able to communicate

directly to their musical collaborators the desired

interpretation. The modern conductor must decide on his own

what sort of unwritten interpretive changes in dynamics,

articulation, and phrasing are needed to shape the composition.

Decisions of this sort can only be made after detailed analysis.

This project will analyze the Cantata 106's architecture,

the form of the individual movements, and the structure of the

thematic and motivic material. It will consider Bach's

instrumentation for the cantata. It will also examine the

source of Bach's text, the theology behind it, and how it relates

to the music. Ultimately, the purpose of the paper is to provide

a comprehensive understanding of BWV 106, which can then

serve the conductor as a foundation for interpretive ideas of

dynamics, articulation, tempo, and phrasing.

 2

The project will be divided into three chapters. The first

chapter will be a biography of Bach that will provide a

historical perspective to his works. The second chapter will be

devoted to the development of the cantata. It will discuss the

cantata form as Bach inherited it from his predecessors, to its

development in his last Leipzig cantatas. The third and final

chapter will be a detailed analysis of BWV 106. Appendix 1 will

provide a measure by measure framework of BWV 106. This

will give a graphic illustration of the musical divisions in the

cantata. The complete text of BWV 106 is presented in

Appendix 2 and the complete score in Appendix 3.

Scholarship on the Bach Cantatas

Only a small number of works in the English language deal

exclusively with Bach cantatas. Charles Sanford Terry, a

British Bach scholar of the early twentieth century, published

two books on the Bach Cantatas. Bach: The Cantatas and

O ra to rio s '* (1925) gives a detailed description of the Lutheran

service but is outdated in its scholarship; Cantata Texts.

Sacred and Secular bv J. S. Bach^ (1964) provides background

information on the cantata texts and a poetic translation for

each of the cantatas.

1 Charles S. Terry, Bach: the Cantatas and Oratorios

(London: Oxford University Press, 1925).
^Charles S. Terry, Cantata Texts. Sacred and Secular bv J.
S. Bach (London: Holland Press, 1964).
 In 1959 W. G. Whittaker authored a two-volume work

entitled The Cantatas of Johann Sebastian Bach.3 His

acquaintance with the works was a result of his rehearsal and

performance of the complete church cantatas. In his

introduction he states that "no fresh knowledge relating to the

cantatas is revealed in the following p a g e s . T h i s is correct

with regard to historical information, which he gleaned from

the previous investigations of Terry, Spitta, Parry, Pirro, and

Schweitzer. While Whittaker's volumes provide much in the way

of personal insight, their historical content has been rendered

partially obsolete by the wealth of Bach scholarship of the

1960s and 1970s.

Alec Robertson wrote a companion to Terry's work on the

cantata texts, The Church Cantatas of J. S._Bach5(1972) which

deals specifically with the music of the church cantatas. A

work by Alfred Durr, "Performance Practice of Bach Cantatas,"

was published as an entire special issue of The American Choral

3 w . Gillies Whittaker, The Cantatas of Johann Sebastian

B a ch . 2 vols. (London: Oxford University Press, 1959).
4|bid., p. 2.
^Alec Robertson, The Church Cantatas of J. S. Bach
(London: Cassel and Company, Ltd., 1972).
 4

R e v i e w ^ (1974). The article is an English translation of the

introduction to the most comprehensive study of the cantatas,

the two-volume Die Kantaten von J. S. B ach^ (1971), which is

currently available only in German. The English-language

excerpt contains useful information about Bach's original

performance conditions and musical forces.

In choosing the study of BWV 106 as the topic for this

project, this writer has been most influenced by the German

conductor Helmuth Rilling who in 1984 completed the first

complete recordings of the Bach cantatas. Included in these

recordings is a booklet of essays on the cantatas written by

Artur Hirsch, Marianne Helms, or Christoph Wolff, all

internationally recognized Bach scholars. In addition. Professor

Rilling has published two books that deal with the analysis of

Bach's works, namely, the B-minor Mass and St. Matthew

Passion.Q

^Alfred Durr, "Performance Practice of Bach Cantatas, "

American Choral Review 16 (1974).
^Alfred Dürr, Die Kantaten von Johann Sebastian Bach (The
Cantatas of Johann Sebastian Bach) 2 vols. (Kassel: Bàrenreiter,
1 9 7 1 ).
^Helmuth Rilling, Johann Sebastian Bach's B-Minor Mass.
trans. Gordon Paine with a Foreword by Howard S. Swan
(Princeton, New Jersey: Prestige Publications, Inc., 1984). J. S.
Bach: St. Matthew Passion, trans. Kenneth Nafziger (New York:
C. F. Peters, 1977).
 Chapter I

Biography of Bach

In central Germany the name of Bach was associated with

a family of professional musicians of which Johann Sebastian

Bach was the most famous, though others, including his sons,

achieved great distinction. Born on March 21, 1685 to Johann

Ambrosius Bach and Maria Elizabeth Lammerhirt, he was the

last of five children who survived to adulthood. His mother died

in 1694 and his father the following year leaving Bach orphaned

at the age of nine. At this time he went to live with his older

brother Johann Christoph, an organist in Ohrdruf and a pupil of

Pachebel. His brother probably gave him his first keyboard

lessons, but Sebastian did not then or later receive formal

instruction in composition, as far as is known. In 1700 Johann

left his brother's house and traveled to Lüneburg where he

received a scholarship at the Michaeliskirche. While living in

Lüneburg Bach had many important musical encounters. Georg

Bohm, the eminent organist and composer, was organist at

 6

another church there and Bach made his acquaintance at that

time. He traveled to Hamburg to hear the music of Jan Adam

Reincken and Vincent LCibeck, both organists of the north

German style. Bach was exposed to the French style through

Georg Bohm, and from hearing Couperin's music in the French

court in Celle.

In August 1703 Bach received his first position as an

organist in the Neuekirche in Arnstadt. This position was not

greatly demanding and the available musical means were

modest, so Bach outgrew the job in a short time. In the autumn

of 1705, Bach requested permission from the city council for a

month's leave during which he traveled to Lübeck to hear the

music of Buxtehude. A four-week request resulted in a four-

month stay. The young Bach had wanted to attend the famous

A bendm usiken which Buxtehude, the organist of the

Marienkirche, held during Advent. The Abendm usiken were

sacred concerts during which long cantatas, with texts from the

Old Testament, were performed after vespers.

During Bach's visit in Lübeck there were two important

occurances, the death of Leopold I, the "Great", Emperor of

Germany, and the crowning of his son, Joseph I. The city of

Lübeck commissioned Buxtehude to write two important works:

Castrum Doloris to honor the funeral and Tem plum Honoris to

celebrate the ascension to the throne of the new Emperor. Bach

 7

must have heard these two commemorative works while in

Lübeck.

In Bach's early compositions the influence of Buxtehude is

evident both in spirit and in form. Buxtehude, in his Christmas

cantata. Das neugeborne Kindelein sets the four strophes of the

chorale in four movements each reflecting the spirit of the text.

Did Bach remember Buxtehude's composition years later when he

wrote a version of the old Easter hymn, Christ lag in

Todesbanden, BWV 4?

In the vocal and instrumental music of Buxtehude, Bach

found his principal model for the north German style of

composition. One of his first cantata's, Gott is mein Konig, BWV

71, follows Buxtehude's logic in construction, the balance of the

contrasting passages, the mixture of free forms, rigid meter,

and the abundance of musical figures that reflect the text.

In 1707 Bach left Arnstadt for a position as organist in

Mühlhausen. He succeeded Johann Georg Ahle as organist at the

Church of St. Blasius and in 1708 was asked to make

suggestions for improving the organ. It was during this time

that he married his second cousin, Maria Barbara Bach.

During this early period he composed organ and

harpsichord music and his first published work, Gott is mein

Konig, BWV 71, performed at the inauguration of the council on

February 4, 1708. Another of Bach's Mülhaussen cantatas, BWV

131, Aus der Tiefe rufe ich, Herr, zu dir, is a setting of Psalm
 8

130 and is a wonderful example of the Bach 's early cantata

style with it use of two viola parts, text based on scripture,

and multi-sectional movements.

At Arnstadt and Mühlhaussen Bach had begun to acquire

pupils of his own, the first of a long succession during his

lifetime. Many distinguished musicians of the next generation

were proud to call themselves Johann Sebastian Bach's pupils,

not the least of whom were his own sons.

Bach lasted a short time at Mühlhausen because of the

conflict between the Pietists and the orthodox Lutherans.

Pietism stressed the individual's relationship to God in a

personal and uplifting way. The movement sought to bring back

Martin Luther's emphasis on the Scriptures as God's direct

revelation to the individual as well as to emphasize a

devotional life and deepening of personal piety for the believer.

Particularly contrary to Bach's mind was the fact that they

distrusted formality and high art in worship and prefered music

of simpler character expressing personal feelings of devotion.

Opposed to the Pietist were the orthodox Lutherans who,

like Martin Luther, saw in music not an enemy of religion but a

gift bestowed by God to be used in church. They held to the

established dogma and public institutional forms of worship and

believed that all forms of music could give glory to God. Luther

had welcomed into the church not only any musical instrument

but also all sorts of secular song, substituting new, "honest,"

 9

sacred words for the original secular ones. This was possible

and acceptable because the stylistic unity of the sacred and the

secular is one of the characteristics of the Baroque era.9

Bach's parody of his own secular cantatas, reworking them into

sacred music is a prime example of this stylistic unity.

Bach was not happy with this situation in Mühlhausen and

on June 25, 1708 informed the authorities that he had accepted

employment which provided him greater financial security.

Probably a more compelling reason was the prospect of pursuing

at W eimar the type of church music more to his liking without

being hampered by the musical tastes of the Pietists. The

appointment as organist at the Blasius-Kirche, Mühlhaussen was

Bach's last as a church organist.

Leaving Mühlhausen Bach went to work in W eimar as court

organist and violinist beginning a nine-year period of great

creative fervor. At W eimar he composed much organ music and

continued his extensive teaching. He was also frequently

consulted on organ construction and traveled to help test new

in stru m en ts.

From 1715 on Bach composed church cantatas regularly,

about one a month. Highly significant about Bach's cantata

composition_in_Weimar.Js_thal„ he started composing cantatas on

the new reform-cantata texts é t NeumeisteT.*" Although Bach did

not set a large number of cantata texts by Neumiester, the

^Gerhard Herz, Cantata No. 4. p 6.

 10

Lutheran pastor is still important because of the influence that

he bore on other librettists of the time.

Bach's most important literary collaborator in W eim ar

was the court poet, Salomo Frank who began writing cantata

texts in 1715, modelling himself on Neumeister. He wrote

sacred and secular texts for the court and made use of the

operatic forms of aria and recitatative. The influence of

Neumeister showed itself in two kinds of texts, both of which

Bach set in Weimar. The first was a sequence of recitative and

arias which did not draw at all upon scripture or chorale verse.

The second combined recitative and aria with scriptural texts

and/or chorale verses.

More than half of the extant cantatas of Bach are of the

second type of cantata text and in these Bach took the most

important step in the development of the cantata by endowing

the cantata with a richness of expression not heard before. At

the same time, by his introduction of chorales and elaborately

worked choral movements, Bach turned the cantata into a form

that integrated different elements into a wonderful whole. The

transition to texts of the Neumeister type was the base upon

which all Bach's future cantata-writing was to be built. From

Bach’s W eim ar period there are twenty-one cantatas which are

still in existence. It was probably Bach's intention to write a

whole cycle of cantatas based upon the church calendar, but he

would have to want until Leipzig to fulfill that task.

 11

It was in Weimar that Bach wrote his first secular

cantata, Was mir behagt, ist nur die muntre Jagd!, BWV 208, the

"Hunting Cantata". This was written at the request of Weimar's

Duke Wilhelm Ernst for the celebrations of the birthday of Duke

Christian of Saxe-W eissenfels, who was fond of flamboyant

display. It was performed on February 21 1713.

In 1715 Bach was appointed concertmaster of the 18-

piece chamber orchestra of Duke Ernst August. With this

appointment came an interest in Italian concerted and chamber

music that resulted in many keyboard transcriptions,

particularly from Vivaldi. The four-harpsichords concerto, BWV

1065, is an arrangement of Vivaldi's Concerto in B minor for

four violins, op. 3 no. 10 (RV 580) and is a product of this time

period.

In 1716, because of court politics, Bach's situation in

W eimar began to deteriorate and he started to look for another

position. Prince Leopold of Cothen offered him the post of

Kapellmeister in August 1717. Duke Wilhelm Ernst, however

would not immediately grant Bach permission to leave. Bach

persisted in his request which resulted in his imprisonment

from Novemeber 6 until December 2, when the Duke dismissed

him in disgrace.

In Cothen Bach was working for someone who loved and

understood music, and for this reason his time in Cothen was

possibly the happiest in his artistic career. Bach's duties dealt

 12

mainly with the court orchestra and chamber music. The court

was not of the Lutheran Church but of the Reform Church and

Bach was not required to compose sacred cantatas or to play the

organ. Chamber music, keyboard music, (intended mainly for

instruction), and concertos were a large part of Bach's

compositional output. The Brandenburg Concertos, intended as a

gift for the Margrave of Brandenburg, were composed during this

period. Other compositions of the same period include the six

suites and partitatas for solo violin, the six suites for cello,

BWV 1007-1012, and the Well Tempered Clavier, Book I.

There were two occasions in the Cothen calendar that

were habitually celebrated with choral music and commissioned

poetry: Leopold's birthday, December 10 and New Year's Day. The

flattering birthday-odes were less devotionally worded than the

New Year works, although both tended to refer to Leopold as a

God-like figure. In the age of accepted Divine Right such

attitudes were conventional and uncontroversial. New Y ear

cantata BWV 134a, Die Zeit, die Tag und Jahre macht belongs to

the Cothen period and has partly survived in score. The texts

presented two characters. Time (tenor) and Godly Foresight

(alto) for the audience's consideration on January 1, 1719.

In 1722 Prince Leopold married and his new wife had no

interest at all in music. Bach's happy relationship with the

prince was broken, and he began once again to look for another

p osition.
 13

On June 5, 1722 Johann Kuhnau, Kantor of the

Thomasschule in Leipzig, died leaving the position open. Only

after George Philipp Telemann, and Christoph Graupner were

offered the post and declined, did Bach obtain the job. The

Leipzig authorites have often been criticized for having made

Bach their third choice as Kuhnau's successor. There were

reasons for the hesitancy on the part of the Town Council in

hiring Bach. The Leipzig cantorship required 59 church cantatas

annually. Obviously Telemann, Bach's senior by four years and

an illustrious alumnus of the University of Leipzig as well as

founder of its Collegium Musicum, had not only the reputation

and the Leipzig background behind him but also the experience in

cantata-writing that the Leipzig council must also have been

looking for. Consider that fact that in his life time Telemann

produced 1,518 known church cantatas compared with Bach's

total output of 295.

When Telemann declined the offer, Graupner, two years

older than Bach and one of Kuhnau's former prize pupils at the

St. Thomas School was offered the position. Graupner, a man

with hundreds of cantatas to his credit, was a logical second

choice. Only when the Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt would not

release his employee, did the choice fall on Bach.

Johann was thirty-eight years old and up until that time

had composed only thirty cantatas. During the last six years, in

the employment of the Court of Cothen, he had written mainly a

 14

wealth of secular instrumental music. In 1723 the Leipzig

authorities could see only that the church cantata was

apparently not this gifted musician's field of specialization.

Bach's eventual selection appears to have been an

understandable and a calculated risk on the part of the Leipzig

council.

At the St. Thomas's School Bach was to be responsible for

the musical training of the students who were divided into four

choirs. Each of the four choirs had to perform musical duties at

one of Leipzig's churches under the direction of a prefect. The

least proficient fourth choir provided music at St. Peter’s

Church with unison chorale singing, the somewhat more

proficient third choir performed in the New Church with motet

performances and the first and second choirs sang alternately

in St. Thomas's and St. Nicholas’s. The first choir had to

perform a cantata regularly but the second only on feast days.

Each choir consisted of twelve singers, three sopranos, altos,

tenors and basses.

The Town Council employed four "Town Pipers", three

"Skilled Fiddlers" and one "Apprentice," part of whose

responsibility it was to play in the cantata performances.

These instrumentalists were obviously not enough to sustain

the orchestral needs of a cantata performance which forced

Bach to use his own students from the choir and the

instrumentally trained pupils of St. Thomas. Not happy with the

 15

situation Bach wrote a letter to the Town Council to complain,

requesting the following instrumentalists^®:

Violin I, II 2-3 players each

Viola I, II 2 players each
V io lo n c ello 2 players
Violone: 1 player
Oboe, I, II, (III) 2-3 players
Bassoon 1-2 players
Tru m p et 3 players
Tim pani 1 player

With these less than sufficient, and for that matter,

proficient means at his disposal Bach produced a cantata

performance every Sunday of the church year except during Lent

and the three last Sundays of Advent. CarlPhilipp Emanual Bach

describes his father as an excellent violinist who "kept the

orchestra better together."* Johann Matthias Gesner, Rector of

St. Thomas's School 1730-1734 also gives us a clear picture of

Bach as a conductor of the cantatas."*2

Despite his apparent hard work Bach did not fare well with

his employers, the town council of Leipzig. Even at the start of

his tenure there were quarrels with the town council over

problems of jurisdiction and responsibilities. Bach

nevertheless threw himself into his new duties, concentrating

all his energy on church music. He immediately began to

I ®Alfred Durr, program notes from recording, Das

Kantatenwerk, Complete recordings of the Bach Cantatas by
Nikolaus Harnoncourt, vol. 14, p. 7.
II Ibid, p. 7
I2ibid, p. 8.
 16

produce five cycles of cantatas for the church year. These

cycles were composed in 1723-24, 1724-25, 1725-27, 1728-

29, and on into the 1730’s. Most of the church cantatas were

composed before 1730 in an astounding burst of creative

energy, frequently at the rate of one or more per week. Also in

these years, Bach composed the first versions of the St. John

and St. Matthew Passions (1724 and 1727) and began to publish

his keyboard music. The six partitas appeared between 1726

and 1730.

In 1729 Bach found a new musical outlet outside of his

church duties when he took over the leadership of the Leipzig

Colleguim Musicum. The Collegium was an association of

professional players and university students who gave regular

weekly concerts. Having at his disposal a sufficient supply of

church music, the composition of cantatas on a regular basis

was no longer necessary. The Collegium was an artistically

satisfying arrangement for him and he provided it with

orchestral music, much of which has unfortunately been lost.

Bach's production of sacred works slowed to a trickle

during his years with the Collegium Musicum, but it did not stop

altogether. He continued to produce occasional cantatas, many

of which fill out gaps in his previous cantata cycles. His major

focus, however, was on large-scale works. He composed in

1733 the Kyrie and G loria of what was to later become the Bz

minor M ass. These first two movements of the Mass were

 17

originally presented to Friedrich August II, the Catholic king of

Poland and elector of Saxony, together with Bach's petition for

an honorary appontment to the electoral chapel, a petition

which was not granted until three years later.

Between around 1747 and 1749 the complete Mass was

assembled from the reworking of numerous movements from

earlier cantatas and new composition. The Sanctus was a

composition which had been first performed on Christmas 1724.

Among the Gloria movements, two sections come from earlier

cantatas, the Gratias agimus (the music of which is repeated in

the Dona nobis pacem) from BWV 29 (1731) and the Qui tollis

from BWV 46 (1723). In the Symbolum nicenum, as Bach

entitled the Credo, the sections derived from the cantatas were:

the Cru ci fix us, from BWV 12 (1714), the Et expecto, from BWV

120 (1728-29), the Patrem omnipotentem from BWV 171

(1729?), the O sann a from a lost cantata of 1732 reused in 1734

for the secular cantata BWV 215, and the Agnus Dei from BWV

11 (1735). The Et resurrexit may have been based on a lost

concerto movement. The newly composed sections were the

opening of the Credo, the Et in unum Deum, Et in spiritu,

Confiteor, and Benedictus. of the newly composed sections, the

C red o and C o n fiteor are in stile antico, while the Et in unum

Dominum, Et in spiritu, and Benedictus are in a modern style

that contrasts sharply with all that surrounds it. Bach never

heard it performed as a whole, though parts were sung at

 18

Leipzig, where an abbreviated form of the Latin Mass still had a

place in the Liturgy.

An outstanding event of the later years of the master was

his visit in 1747 to the court of Frederick the Great in Potsdam,

where his son, Carl Philipp Emmanuel, was employed as

Accompanist. The principal artistic result of this visit was the

Musical Offering, based on a theme suggested by the king.

Bach's health began to fail noticeably in 1749, and he

worked very little during that year. He had suffered from

cataracts for several years, eventually becoming totally blind.

Bach died on July 28, 1750, survived by his second wife, Anna

Magdalena, and nine of his twenty-one children. Four of his

sons, Wilhelm Friedemann, Carl Philipp Emanuel, Johann

Christoph Friedrich and Johann Christian became famous

musicians in their own right.

 19

CHAPTER 2

BACKGROUND TO BWV 106

The Origins of the Bach Cantata

The musical origins of the Bach cantata can be found in

three traditions: the Italian vocal cantata, the Italian

concertato, and the German chorale. The Italian vocal cantata

influenced the German church cantata in its structure of aria

and recitative. The Italian concertato style joined with the

melodies and texts of the German chorale to form the chorale

concertato, a predecessor of the Northern German protestant

ca n ta ta.
 20

The Italian Vocal Cantata

Along with opera, an important Italian form of vocal

composition of the seventeenth century was the solo vocal

cantata. The Italian cantata began as a secular work for

performance at private gatherings,consisting of mainly solo

voices accompanied by the newly developed basso continuo

te c h n iq u e .13 It later took the form of strophic arias, strophic

variations and monodic madrigals. It was from the monodic

madrigal that the recitative was born?

The cantata developed from the conflict between the early

Baroque style and the multi-voiced choral style of the

Renaissance. In the search for simplicity and clear declamation

of text, monody was born. ^The cantata developed from monody

into a form that generally consisted of a number of separate

movements. Lacking the length and dramatic complexity of the

related forms of opera and oratorio, the cantata was, in its

earliest stage, a lyrical composition consisting of several

stanzas which have the same bass but different melodies for

each stanza. These strophic variations precede by about twenty

years the first apperance of the term "cantata" in 1620 used by

Alessandro Grandi in his work Cantade (sic) ed arie a voce sola.

Certain pieces in Gaccini’s Nuove musiche (1602) are

written in strophic variation with the same bass used for every

i^Donald Jay Grout, A Historv of Western Music (New

York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. (1980), p. 354.
 21

stanza but with different melodies for the voices. Peri's Se tu

p a rti more clearly foreshadows the later cantata, since its

three stanzas written over the same bass, contain contrasting

sections, arioso and recitative, separated by instrumental

ritornellos, and to some extent anticipate the composite

structure of the developed cantatas.

<^With the cantatas by the opera composers Luigi Rossi,

Cavalli, and Cesti, and by the master of the oratorio, Carissimi,

the typically Baroque feature of contrast between recitative

and aria took place. The cantata settled into a clearly defined

pattern of alternating recitatives and arias, normally two or

three of each for solo voice with continuo acco m p anim en^ Text

construction produced naratives with passages devoted to

contemplation which in turn provided the impetus to set the

division between recitative and aria. In both its literary and

musical aspects the cantata resembled a detached scene from

an opera. Whenever composers wanted to use the expressive

means of opera on a smaller and more intimate scale, they

turned to the cantata, much as later symphony composers turned

to the string quartet.

<^Attesting to the popularity of the form, the prominent

figure of the 17th century, Alessandro Scarlatti, composed over

600 cantatas of which 347 are extant. These works were first

composed in a chain-like pattern, consisting from three to

fourteen movements, that were soon standardized to a pair of

 22

contrasted arias, now in da capo (A-B-A) form preceded by

recitatives and sometimes with an introductory arioso.

Scarlatti's works represent the peak of the Italian cantata's

d e v e lo p m e n ^ Bravura and shallow sentimentality were

eventually the cause of the decline of the art form.^

^ It is safe to say that much of the operatic influence of the

aria and recitative found in the German church cantata is a

result of composers being familiar with the Italian solo-

cantatagp The German cantata composers learned to write

recitatives by imitating the Italian opera and cantata

composers. The Italian solo cantatas were shorter than their

operatic counterparts and were circulated faster than operas.

Also due to the brevity of the cantata, composers were more

likely to be more experimental with them than with opera.^ ^

The German Chorale Goncertato

(^utheran composers of the early Baroque employed the

colorful concertato style of the Venetian school in their vocal

c o m p o sitio n s.16 The concertato style emphasizes contrasting

voices or instruments against each o t h ^ one voice or

instrument against another; or with one group against another;

1^Gerhard Herz, Cantat No. 4 ( New York: W. W. Norton &

Company, Inc., 1967), p. 4.
■>5paul Henry Lang, Music in Western Civilization (New
York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. 1941) p. 344.
"•^Catalyne, p. 308
 23

or with a group against a soloist. Composers such as Schütz and

Schein combined the Italian concertato style of composition

with the German chorale to form the chorale concertato.1 ^

Chorale concertâtes began as either many-voiced, few­

voiced or single-voiced compositions.1® Eventually they grew

into multi-sectjaaal^arkSuJhat^alfarnated^..^Alo.,.choral,_and

inMrÜm e n la l^ s e c tia n s T h is change was partly a result of the

way in which composers set the text.

^ —__________ ~ I f I |I 'infc II II.,11ii, |,||
When there was less

interest in the rhetorical heightening of the individual words

and phrases and more interest in a single "affect,” the music

began to be composed in sections. C horale concertatos

uItimately o rew -Jn to mu11i- m ovem eoi_ao.mDOJS.iticia5__tjiat

resembled the beginnings of the Lutheran church cantata.

Two collections of chorale concertatos that exemplify the

early stage of the evolution of the chorale concertato into the

cantata are Praetorius's Polyhymnia caduceatrix of 1619 and

Schein's Opella Nova.^^ Polyhymnia caduceatrix consists of

multi-strophic chorale concertos composed in the Venetian

polychoral tradition of Giovanni Gabrieli. The P o lyhym n ia

contains many-voiced concertato compositions with brilliant

instrumental and vocal choruses. Praetorius included solo

1^Gerhard Herz, ed. Cantata No. 4 (New York: W. W. Norton

& Company, Inc. 1967) p. 6.
i^Manfred F. Bukofzer, Music in the Baroque Era (New
York: W. W. Norton & Comapny, Inc. 1947), p. 87.
1^Bukofzer, Music in the Baroque E ra, p. 85.
 24

gorgia passages that were characterized by very rapid vocal

ornamentation. He was careful to include simplified,

unembellished versions underneath the ornamented versions in

case the German performers could not sing the gorgia.

Polyhymnia caducetrix of 1619, an important work in the

development of the cantata, is one of the first examples of the

joining the Italian concertato style with the German chorale

tune. Compositions in the Polyhym nia combined instrumental

writing, basso continuo technique, and polyphonic and

homophonie writing. The vocal works found in the P olyhym nia

foreshadowed the later Protestant church cantatas.

Praetorius' chorale concerto Wie schon leuchet der

M o rg en stern found in the Polyhymnia, is representative of this

blending of Italian and German styles. Based on the famous

hymn tune of Philipp Nicolai (1556-1608), the piece Is scored

for five soloists, four-part chorus, two violins, two violas,

basso continuo, two oboes, and two trombones. It is written in

a resplendent vocal style that alternates soli and tutti parts.

The chorale tune is set in rhythmic polyphony for the tutti

section contrasted with homophonie tutti sections. The work

has eight divisions that alternate slow duple meter with fast

triple meter.

Schein's Opella Nova also stands out as a major influence

in the development of the chorale concertato to the chorale

cantata. The collection combined the Italian influences of

 25

constrasting motives, as well as vocal and instrumental

interplay, with the German chorale. The pieces in this

collection are set mostly in single movements to one stanza of

text with striking combinations of styles set within fast-paced

and changing harmonies. The chorale is handled primarily in

two ways. Most often the chorale tune is set in cantus firmus

fashion with the concerting voices adding intrepretive ideas to

the text. Less often, the chorale tune is set as motivic

fragments in chromatic or ornate gorgia. This use of the cantus

firmus technique foreshadows the famous chorale cantatas of

Bach.

Development of the Bach Cantatas

<^Bach composed nearly 300 cantatas of which about 200

are extant.^ He used the term Kirchenstück, Concerto, Dialogue

or M o te tto for most of his choral cantatas and C a n ta ta for

works for solo voice, following the Italian tradition. (T h e

cantatas were orchestrated for a wide variety of instrumental

combinations and the instruments and the voices were treated

with equal importance.

<CThe cantata, which usually lasted from twenty to thirty

minutes, was the principal music for the main Lutheran Serivce.

The music, like the sermon, had the function of elucidating the

assigned scriptures of the day, the Epistle and especially the

Gospel for Sunday or other feast of the liturgical year. An

 26

examination of Bach's own texts reveals their pedagogic

function as well as Bach's traditional Lutheran foundation.^

James Day makes the following observation in regard to the

p{jrpose of Bach's cantatas:

...The majority of his (Bach's) cantatas are simple sermons

set to music. The music was clearly intended to sugar the
didactic pill and to be part of liturgical actions. It
\ fulfilled this function by underlining and decorating
\ important words in the text. The point of departure is
almost always the Gospel for the Sunday on which he
cantatas was performed .20

(^ T h e cantata was an integral part of the service, which, as

established by Luther, followed the structure and some details

of the Roman M a s s .^

(Luther) prescibed a service which followed the Roman

Mass in outline and, to some extent, in detail. It began
with the Kyrie and Gloria in excelsis, sung by the choir....
Then the Epistle was read, and, after a congregational
hymn suited to the season had been sung, the Gospel
was ceremoniously intoned in Latin at the altar. Then
followed the C redo (Creed), also recited in Latin.... At this
point ... music was invited to assist the exposition of the
Gospel topic. Here, accordingly, the cantatas was
performed to a libretto as closely based on the Gospel
text as the Sermon which followed it. Occasionally the
cantata was in two parts, in which case the second
followed the Sermon and preceded the Administration of
the Holy Gommunion .21

20jam es Day, The Literarv Background to Bach's Cantatas

(New York: Dover Publications, 1966), p. 62.
21 Charles Sanford Terry, The Music of Bach, p. 64.
 27

In Leipzig, during Bach's time, the principal service began

at 7 A.M. and could last four hours. The sermon was to begin at

8 o'clock sharp, and therefore the cantata could not last more

than half an hour. Bach rarely exceeded this limit.

The numbers assigned to the cantatas are not in

chronological order of composition, but correspond to their

publication in the Bach-Gesellschaft edition. The approximate

dates of the cantatas, except for the few Bach dated, are ,

determined by the watermarks in the paper which may / -,

correspond with dated compositions, the changes in Bach's

handwriting, the changes in handwriting of his copyists, the

publication date of the \e x X /\h e transposition of the parts for

the instruments up to the high pitch of the organ at W eim ar (a

minor third above the other instruments), and the transposition

of the organ parts in Leipzig down a whole tone (Leipzig organs

were tuned a whole tone above the other instrum ents.)22^

"\^ach can be considered the greatest composer of sacred

Gebrauchsmusik because he wrote his cantatas only when time

and occasion Because of this, the date of

d e m a n d e c h ^ ^
%
composition and date of first performance are very close

together. It is interesting to note that the many primary

22hiarold Gleason, Music in the Baroque 3rd ed. Music

Literature Outlines Series No. 2. (Bloomington, Indiana:
Frangipani Press, 1980), p. 137
23Qerhard Herz, Cantata No. 140 (New York: W. W. Norton &
Company, Inc., 1972), p. 3.
 28

sources of cantatas that we have are in composing scores, not

in revisions or fair copies. This would give the impression,

along with the handwriting, of the extreme pressure under

which Bach produced scores for rehearsal and Sunday

perform ance.

When Bach died in 1750, his cantatas were divided

between his two oldest sons Wilhelm Friedemann and Carl

Philipp Emanuel. Wilhelm Friedemann did not fair well in life,

losing position after position and finally, after ten years of

unemployment, auctioned off the priceless treasure of his

father's manuscripts in 1774, many of which have since been

lost. Philipp Emanuel kept his legacy intact and passed it on to

posterity. Anna Magdalena was allowed to keep the parts for

the performers of the chorale cantatas which she then, out of

destitution, sold to the city of Leipzig. The original parts of

forty-four cantatas have been kept safely by the city of Leipzig

where they are still preserved.

jTsach wrote church cantatas throughout his musical career.

His earliest ones resemble the late seventeenth-century German

church cantata more than they do his later w o rks. 24 The early

cantatas (1704-1711) were written when he was employed at

Arnstadt and Mühlhausen. Differing from the type of cantatas

24peter Berquist, "The Cantatas of Johann Sebastian

Bach," program notes from the Oregon Bach Festival, 1983,
Eugene Oregon, p. 58.
 29

that his predecessors wrote, Bach's cantatas have a structural

unity within each moverneat„dm aJa.a-high^degree of

interdependence_andj;mtesp.Qnd-e-nc.e„betw.aea_ie,xLÆCLdJllu§i£.^®
Each cantata as a whole has a broad formal structure not

present in previously written cantatas. He began to use strictly

symmetrical sequences of movements: for example chorus-

solos-chorus-solos-chorus, as in BWV 1 0 6 .^

^ In the pre-Weimar cantatas of Bach, individual movements

are frequently sectionalized into different types of

compositions: concerto, motet, chorale, and aria. There are no

recitatives in cantatas written during this time and arias are

many times based on ostinato-like fig u res.26 The texts were

based on verses of the Bible (BWV 131, 196), chorales (BWV 4),

or a combination of biblical texts, chorales, and original poetry'

(BW V 106, 71, 1 5 0 )^

^ W V 71, Gott is mein Konig, is the only cantata by Bach

published during his lifetime, that has been preserved. In this

m o tetto , as Bach called it, various instrumental sonorities,

brass choir with timpani; two recorders and cello; a trio of

oboes and bassoon; strings and organ concertato, compete with

one larger and one smaller vocal group in the manner of a

25Christoph Wolff, et al., Bach Familv (London: Macmillan

London Limited, 1983), p. 124.
26Harold Gleason, Music in the Baroque 3rd ed. Music
Literature Outline Series No. 2. (Bloomington, Indiana:
Frangipani Press, 1980) p. 138.
 30

Venetian concertato, as relfected in the cantatas of

B uxtehude.27 The duet, Ich bin nun achtzig Jahr has an

ornamented chorale tune sung by the alto sung against the tenor

and organ obbligato which introduce counter melodies to the

musical texture. The result is a vocal form somewhat

reminiscent of an organ chorale. The final movment is a choral

fugue. Muss taglich von neue, which builds towards a climax in

which all the voices and instrument colloborate^

<j) leaving Mühlhausen and arriving in Weimar, Bach

came TO know the "reform" cantata texts of Erdmann Neumeister

(1 6 71 -17 56 ), a staunch orthodox pastor, strongly opposed to

the Pietist movement. During his life Neumeister published

seven complete yearly cycles of cantata texts (G e is tlic h e

C a n ta te n ) that reflected a new poetic style.<^^^ith Neumeister's

"reforms" the cantata with chorales was often replaced by a

setting of the text without the use of a chorale m e lo d ^ These

texts, in general, consisted of six or seven stanzas of free

poetry based on Scripture, often the Gospel of the Day, or

chorale texts. More often than not, each recitative and aria was

based on a single a ffe c tio i^

These texts exerted a large influence on the style of

cantata libretto and_ the structLLrje-of-the cantata _i t s e l f . The

27Karl Geiringer, Johann Sebastian Bach. The Culmination

of an Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 1966) p. 146.
28philipp Spitta, Johann Sebastian Bach (New York: Dover
Publications, Inc. 1951), p. 473.
 31

c haracteristic feature of these chuxcJoLJCJdüülaïa^ the

L^e, in connection with the prescribed scripture or hymns, of

original poetic insertions which sought to expand on the given

scriptural tex tja n d to bring its meaning home to the listener

through devout meditations of a subjective character. % a c h

poetic texts was designed to be composed either as an arioso or

an aria, usually in da capo form using obbligato instruments and

continuo, frequently with an introductory recitative. )

Neum eister and his imitators wrote their poetry in the so-

called "madrigal" style, that is, in lines of unequal length with

the rhymes irregularly placed.

Other librettists that Bach used for his cantatas include

his W eim ar colleague, Salomo Franck, and later in Leipzig

Mariane von Ziegler and Henrici, whose pen name was Picander.

Bach did not set a large number of cantata texts by Neumeister,

but the Lutheran pastor is still significant because of the

influence that he bore on other librettists of the time.

During this period of cantata composition (1708-1717) Bach

began to write recitatives and da capo arias in imitation of the

Italian operatic forms.29 Solo movements appear more

frequently than in previous cantatas and arias become longe r \

BWV 12, Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen was written in W eimar

for the Third Sunday after Easter, 1714 and is an example of the

new developments in Bach's cantatas. Following a poignant

29Christoph Wolff, Bach Fam ily, p. 127.

 32

instrumental Sinfornia and heartfelt chorus, there is a

recitative followed by three solo aria movements. The last aria

is for tenor, trumpet and continuo. The trumpet plays Johann

Crüger’s melody, Jesu, meine Fruede while the continuo has a

bass figure that repeats at different pitch levels. The cantata

closes with a chorale. Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan, with a

trumpet descant. The type and order of the movements in BWV

12 were very different from Bach earlier cantatas.

^ g ^ o c a lly , as well as instrumentally, the cantata

movements become more virtuosic. Forms used in chorus

sections during this period include fugue, passacaglia, concerto,

motet, and French o v e rtu re ^ Instrumentally the cantatas moved

away from the earlier French style of five-part writing with

two violas, to a more flexible four-part texture that omits the

second viola part.^o Because of this deletion, the single viola

part took on a more rhythmic and melodic character.

-^g^D^uring the W eim ar period Bach wrote about twenty

cantatas, many were revised later for use in Leipzig. BWV 6 1 .

Nun komm der Heiden Heiland is one of the more famous Weimar

cantatas, written for the First Sunday of Advent in 1714 on text

by N e u r^ ^ The text combines chorale verses, newly

invented metrical poetry, and prose from the Bible. The opening

movement is based on the text and melody of the chorale N un

komm, der Heiden Heiland upon which Bach wrote an elaborate

30|bid.
 33

variation in the style and form of a French overture with dotted

rhythms and a tempo scheme of slow-fast-slow. The choice of

this form is significant, because Bach was preoccupied at this

time with the assimilation of foreign styles into his works and

because it was written for the First Sunday of Advent, the

opening, that is ouverture, of the church year.31

The second movement of BWV 61 is a recitative that

announces the coming of the Savior. The following aria is a

siciliano, a form borrowed from Italian opera that is based on a

folk dance in 9/8." It uses a dal segno repetition, that is a d a

ca p o that omits the first ritornello. Bach converts the

welcoming of Christ to his church into a pastoral love song. The

next recitative "Behold, I stand at the door and knock" is

accompanied by five-part strings playing pizzicato to depict the

knocking at the door. The final movement is a motet-like

e laboration of the Abgesang frorn the chorale Wie schon

leuchtet der Morgenstern.^^ ^

Another W eim ar cantata is Ich hatte viel

Beküm m ernis, B W V ^ ^ on text by Salomon Franck. This cantata

is in two parts which were separated by the sermon in

performance. Bach uses the newer operatic da capo arias for

the solo movements. The next to the last chorus introduces a

chorale and the final "Handelian" chorus is a brilliant choral

31 David Grout, A Historv of Western Music, p. 514

32 ibid, p. 514.
 34

fugue with a festival orchestra of trumpets and timpani in

addition to the woodwinds, strings and continuo.

Upon leaving Weimar Bach also left church music,

temporarily, by entering the employment of the court of Cbthen.

The court was Calvinist and so Bach was not required to produce

sacred compositions. With the exception of BWV Anh.5, only

secular cantatas were composed mainly for New Year

celebrations, such as BWV 134a from 1719 and BWV Anh.6 from

1720, and cantatas honoring the prince’s birthday.

^ ^ 2 3 marked Bach’s arrival in Leipzig and Bach's most \

prolific period of cantata composition. His main duty was to

provide the music of the main churches, St. Nicholas and St.

Thomas, with cantata compositions of his own. The Lutheran

liturgical year called for fifty-nine cantatas for all the Sunday

services (excluding Sundays during Advent and Lent) and for

special feast d ayS y/^m o n g the special feasts were such

uncommon ones as (St. John's and St. Michael's Day, Visitation,

Purification, Reformation, Annunciation, the special service

held at the annual election of the Town Council, and three

holidays each at Christmas, Easter, and P e n te c o s t/T h o u g h the

cantor did not have to compose his own cantatas, any self-

respecting cantor considered it a matter of honor to compose

several yearly cycles. This was his professional stock, which

he could use and re-use_. Information from his son, Carl Philipp

Emanuel, tells us that/B ach wrote five complete cycles of

 35

church cantatas during his tenure in Leipzig. est of them^were

COm p o s^ _ p rio r to 1730.

p H is first Leipzig cycle (1723-24) consisted of newly

composed works, and possibly because of the work load,

revisions of earlier cantatas, as well as parodies on earlier

secular c a n t a t a s .^ 3 Most of the texts of these cantatas are

anonymous, probably wntten^^^by^J^ The first

cycle has a wide variety of musical forms and texts. The first

movement of the cantatas, usually a large complex chorus with

full orchestral accompaniment is_JiasecL-on__BiblicaL_and__chorale

text. The final movement is always a simple but expressive,

fojjr-part oho.raIe. Occasionally Bach sets this final movement

with independent instrumental parts., The inn.et jnp vem en ts are

mostly recitatives and arlas^ with an occasional chorus or

chorale. The texts of these movements, in the new poetic style,

are drawn from or comment on the Gospel and Epistle for the

day.

Bach's cantata cycles begin with the First Sunday after

Trinity, when he took up his duties there, and ends with the

Festival of the Trinityj The Cantatas of the first Jahrgang

are;34

BWV 75 Die Elenden so lien essen

BWV 76 Die Himmel erzahlen die Eh re Gottes
BWV 21 Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis

33|bid. p. 129
34Qerhard Herz, Cantata No. 140. 15.
 36

BWV 185 Barmherziges Herze der ewigen Liebe

BWV 24 Ein ungefarbt Gemüte
BWV 167 Ihr Menschen, rühmet Gottes Liebe
BWV 147 Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben
BWV 186 Argre dick, o Seele, nicht
BWV 136 Erforsche mich, Gott, und erfahre mein H erz
BWV 105 Herr, gehe nicht ins Gericht mit deinem Knecht
BWV 46 Schauet doch und sehet, ob irgend ein Schmerz
sei
BWV 179 Siehe zu, dass deine Gottesfurcht nicht
Heuchelei sei
BWV 69a Lobe den Herrn, meine Seele
BWV 77 Du sollst Gott, deinen Herren, lieben
BWV 25 Es ist nichts Gesundes an meinem Leibe
BWV 119 Preise Jerusalem, den Herrn
BWV 138 Warum betrübst du dich mein Herz?
BWV 95 Christus, der ist mein Leben
BWV 50 Nun ist das Heil und die Kraft
BWV 48 Ich elender Mensch, wer wird mich erlosen
Ichglaube, lieber Herr, hilt meinem Unglauben!
BWV 89 Was soil ich aus dir machen, Ephraim?
BWV 194 Hôchsterwünschtes Freudenfest
BWV 60 O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort II
BWV 90 Es reisset euch ein schrecklich Ende
BWV 70 Wachet! betet! betet! wachet!
BWV 61 Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland
BWV 40 Dazu 1st erschienen der Sohn Gottes
BWV 64 Sehet, welch eine Liebe hat uns der Vater
e r z e ig e t
BWV 190 Sing et dem Herrn ein neues Lied
BWV 153 Schau, lieber Gott, wie meine Feind
BWV 65 Sie werden au Saba alle kommen
BWV 154 Mein liebster Jesus ist verloren
BWV 73 Herr, wie du willt, so schicks mit mir
BWV 81 Jesus schlaft, was soil ich hoffen
BWV 83 Erfreute Zeit im neuen Bunde
BWV 144 Nimm, was dein i s t , und gehe hin
BWV 181 Leicht gesinnte Flattergeister
BWV 4 Christ lag in Todesbanden
BWV 66 Erfreut, euch ihr Herzen
 37

BWV 134 Ein Herz, das seinen Jesum lebend weiss

BWV 67 ' Halt im Gedachtnis Jesum Christ
BWV 104 Du Hirte Israel, here
BWV 166 Wo hehest du hin?
BWV 86 Wahrlich, wahrlich, ich sage euch
BWV 37 We da g là ubet und getauft wird
BWV 44 / Sie werden euch in dem Bann tun I

With the chorale cantatas of the second cantata cycle

(1724-25) Bach's begins his most sustained creative effort.

The chorale supplies the u n ify in g _ j^ m e.nt, with the^complete

rnelody and text of the first and Jast_stanzas^,being_used in the

openinq^chorus and final _movemeat.. The typical opening

movement for a chorale cantata was a large cantus firmus

composition while the inner movements employed paraphrased

text from the middle verses of the chorale. In these inner

movements the cantus firmus was either paraphrased, mixed

with free material, or used as a complete tune. The cantatas of

the second Jahrgang are:

^BWV 20 O Ewigkeit, du DonnerwortI

BWV 2 Ach Gott, vom
BWV 7 Christ unser Herr zum Jordan Kam
BW V 135 Ach Herr, mich armen Sünder
BWV 10 Meine Seel' erhebt den Herren
BWV 93 W er nur den lieben Gott lasst walten
BW V 107 Was willSt du dich betrüben
BWV 178 Wo Gott, der Herr, nicht bei uns halt
BWV 94 Was frag ich nach der Welt
BW V 101 Nimm von uns, Herr, du treuer Gott
BWV 113 Herr Jesu Christ, du hochstes Gut
BWV 33 Allein zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ
 38

BWV 78 Jesu, der du meine Seele

BWV 99 Was Got tut, das ist wohlgetan
BWV 8 Liebster Gott, wann werd ich sterben
BWV 130 Herr Gott, dich loben alle wir
BWV 114 Ach, lieben Christen, seid getrost
BWV 96 Herr Christ, der einge Gottessohn
BWV 5 Wo soil ich fliehen hin
BWV 180 Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele
BWV 38 Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir
BWV 80 Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott
BWV 115 Mache dich, mein Geist, bereit
BWV 139 Wohl dem, der sich auf seinen Gott
BWV 26 Ach wie flüchtig, ach wie n ich tig
BWV 116 Du Friedefürst, Herr Jesu Christ
BWV 62 Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland II
BWV 91 Gelobet seist du, Jesu Christ
BWV 1 2 1_
B W VT33 Ich freue mich in dir
BWV 122 Das neugeborne Kindelein
BWV 41 Jesu, nun sei gepreiset
BWV 123 Liebster ImmaneuI, Herzog der From men
BWV 124 Meinen Jesum lass ich nicht
BWV 3 Ach Gott, wie manches Herzeleid 1
BW V 111 Was mein Got will, das g'scheh allzeit
BWV 92 Ich hab in Gottes Herz und Sinn
BWV 125 Mit Fried und Freud ich fahr dahin
BWV 126 Erhalt uns, Herr, bei deinem Wort
BWV 127 Herr Jesu Christ, wahr' Mensch und Gott
BWV 1 Wie schon leuchtet der Morgenstern
BWV 249 Kommt, eilent und laufet
BWV 6 Bleib bei uns, denn es will Abend werden
BWV 42 Am Abend aber desselbign Sabbats
BWV 85 Ich bin ein guter Hirt
BWV 103 Ihr werdet weinen und heulen
BWV 108 Es ist euch gut, dass ich hingehe
BWV 87 Bisher habt ihr nichts gebeten in meinem
Namen
BW V 128 A u f Christi H im m erlfahrt allein
BW V 183 Sie werden euch in den Bann tun II
BWV 74 W er mich liebet, der wird mein Wort halten II
 39

BWV 68 Also hat Gott die Welt geliebt

BWV 175 Er rufet seinen Schafen mit Namen
BWV 176 Es ist ein trotzig und verzagt Ding

Jlwie Schon leuchet der Morgenstern, BWV 1, was written

for the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Leipzig, 1725

and is wonderful example of Bach's second cantata cycle, it

calls for a large orchestra of two horns, two oboes da caccia,

two solo violins plus the regular string section and continuo.

Wie schon leuchtet is a chorale cantata based on a well-known

Bach's first and last movement used

the initial and concluding stanzas of the hymn as well as the

chorale melody. The four inner movements use paraphrased text

from the chorale.

In the opening^chorus of Bach's chorale concertos the

chorale is generally treated in one of two ways, "both of which

have their origin in forms of organ compositions based on

c h o r a l e s . "35 |n Wie schon Leuchtet Bach used th.e_fQJ:m_of__a

chorale p%ludey or ( ^ t a s ia . The first movement is an involved

chorale chorus in which, after an instrumental introduction, the

chorale melody is presented by the sopranos in long notes. The

supporting voices dance around the melody frequently taking

material from the chorale. When the first line of the chorale is

completed, there follows a short section for the .orchestra, and

35c. Hubert H. Parry, Johann Sebastian Bach: (New York

and London: G. Putnum's Sons, 1909), p. 378.
 40

then the second phrase of the chorale is treated similarly to the

first. This process continues through the whole movement,

ending with an instrumental passage. The following movements

consist of recitative-aria-recitative-aria, the arias being quite

extended, technically difficult and very beautiful.- Expressive

countermelodies of the second horn further enhance the closing

c h o ra le .*^
The second form for the opening chorus of a chorale

cantata is that of afTuqal natuce^and followed the pattern known

as the Pachebel Choralverspiel. In this type the chorus begins

without an instrumental introduction^ The secondary parts

enter successively in imitations based on the melody of the

chorale, but in diminished note values; and, when they have all

entered, the part to which the chorale is given sings the melody

in longer note values, like a cantus firmus in the older

contrapuntal style, while the other parts continue in diminution.

This process is repeated through each phrase of the chorale to

the end. The first movement of B W v ( ^ ) Ein' Feste Berg,

follows the general scheme of this style, although the cantus

firmus is stated in the long note values b y jh e trumpet and

organ pedal in canon, not by a vocal part.

In reference to the chorale choruses that appear within

th^_cmotata,_twpJtypes_^^^ are of interest, not

including the common four-part settings. The first type may be

called an extended chorale. Each line of the chorale is stated in

 41

a simple four-part setting and separated from the next by

interludes that are most often instrumental. Movement 6 of

BWV 46 Schauet doch und sehet, ob irgend ein schmerz sei, wie

mein Schm erz is a fine example of this treatment as is the

famous Jesus bleibet meine Freude (Jesu, Joy of Mans Desiring)

movement from BW V _jJJ , Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben.

The second type of chorale choruses that appear within

the cantatas is a chorale setting, in which one or more voices

sing the hymn tune jn unison, above a free instrumentnal

accompaniment. The fifth movment of BWV 80, Und wenn die

Welt well Teufel war, is a glorious example of this as is the

fourth movement Zion hort die Wachter singen from B W \C l& 0,

W achet auf. ^

On March 25, 1725, Bach stopped writing chorale cantatas,

and two months later on May 27, 1725, he brought the steady

flow of cantata composition to a halt. He never resumed the

regular composition of church music that had characterized his

first two years at Leipzig. Bach scholars are still baffled by

this sudden cessation of creative activity.

With the third cycle Bach continued the patterns

established in the first two cycles and tried others, some new,

some returning to pre-Leipzig models. In the third cycle, as

well as the fourth, Bach borrows from previously written

concerto material for opening instrumental movements. BWV

169, for instance, introduces as a sinfonia what was first

 42

concieved as the first movement of the E major Concerto for

harpsichord and orchestra, BWV 1053. An aria in the same

cantata appeared first as the slow movement of this concerto.

Bach squeezed even more mileage out of this concerto by using

the finale as the sinfornia to Ich geh und suche mit Verlangen
BWV 49.36

The third Jahrgang, 1725-26:

BWV 168 Tue Rechnungl Donnenwort

BWV 137 Lobe den Herren, den machtigen Konig der Ehren
BWV 164 ihr, die ihr euch von Christo nennet
BWV 148 Bringet dem Herrn Ehre seines Namens
BWV 79 Gott der H err ist Sonn und Schild
BWV 110 Unser Mund sei voll Lachens
BWV 57 Selig ist der Mann
BWV 151 Süsser Trost mein Jesus kommt
BWV 28 Gottlob! nun geht das Hahr zu Ende
BWV 16 H err Gott, dich loben wir
BWV 32 Liebster Jesu mein Verlangen
BWV 13 Meine Seufzer meine Trànen
BWV 72 Ailes nur nach Gottes Willen
BWV 146 Wir müssen durch viel Trübsal in das Reich
Gottes eingehen
BWV 43 Gott fàhret au f mit Jauchzen
BWV 129 Gott sei der Herr, mein Gott

The Fourth Jahrgang, 1726-27:

BWV 39 Brich dem Hungrigen dein Brot

BWV 88 Siehe, ich will viel Fischer aussenden
BWV 170 Vergügte Ruh, beliebte Seelenlust
BWV 187 Es wartet alien auf dich
BWV 45 Es ist dir gesagt, Mensch, was gut ist

36Karl Geirinoer. Johann Sebastian Bach. The Culmination

of an Era. 171.
 43

BWV 102 Herr, deine Augen sehen nach dem Glauben

BWV 35 Geist und Seele wird verwirret
BWV 17 W er Dank opfert, der preiset mich
BWV 19 Es erhub sich ein streit
BWV 27 Wer weiss, wie nahe mir mein Ende!
BWV 47 W er sich selbst erhohet, der soli erniedriget
w erden
BWV 169 Gott soil allein mein Herze haben
BWV 56 Ich will den Kreuzstab gerne tragen
BWV 49 Ich gen und suche mit Verlangen
BWV 98 Was Gott tut, dais ist wohlgetan I
BWV 55 Ich arm er Mensch, ich Sündenknecht
BWV 52 Falsche Welt, dir trau ich nicht
BWV 204 Ich bin in mir vergnügt
BWV 58 Ach Gott, wie Manches Hereleid II
BWV 82 Ich Habe genug
BWV 84 Ich bin vergnügt mit meinem Glücke

There is a complete cycle composed by Bach on text by

Picander that is lost. Characteristic of Picander texts is the

interpolation of chorale and free poetry in arias and choruses.

The few surviving cantatas from 1729 and after show no new

stylistic fea tu res .

The Place of BWV 106 in Bach's Cantatas

BWV 106, one of Bach's earliest cantatas, was most

probably composed in August, 1707, for the funeral service of

Bach'_s,_uocle,^obias_Lammerhirt, who died on August 10. He

was Bach's uncle on his mother's side and in his testament the

four children of Bach's mother received each 50 Gulden which

meant to Bach the equivalent of seven months salary. This is

significant because with this inheritance the young composer

 44

was not only socially but also economically secure and

therefore in a position to marry his cousin Maria Barbara of

Arnstadt.37 BWV 106 and BWV 198, Trauer Ode, are Bach's only

cantatas written specifically for a funeral service.

T T h e scoring for BWV 106 is most unusual, with two

recorders, two gambas, and continuo. j Bach writes for gamba in

only four other cantatas: BWV 152, Tritt auf die Glaubensbahir,

BWV 76, Die Himmel erzahlen die Ehre Gottes', BWV 198, Trauer

O de\ and BWV 205, D er zufriedengestellte Aolus. The orchestras^

for the St. John and St. Matthew Passions also include gamba. ^

Significantly,<((four out o f^ jie eight times that Bach scores |o r

gambas it Is „m the context of (d e a tl^ Perhaps in Bach's mind, ^

the gamba best suited the somber and introspective nature of j

death -related music.

In BWV 106 the composer calls for which are

^ -
always recorders in f, a s opposed to transverse flutes which he

calls flauto traverse or traversière. For Bach and his

contem poraries^he recorder was the instrument of the

shepherd.^ Possibly the composer was making a connection

between his scoring the cantatas for ty^^acoTders and the last

name of his Uncle Làmmerhirt, for whom this cantata was

composed, which means "shepherd oJLtbeJambs." Use of the

recorders also reflects the "old style" of composition and is

37Gerhard Herz, Essays on J.S. Bach (Ann Arbor, Michigan:

UMI Research Press, 1985), p. 128.
 45

well suited to the Old Testam ent text of the first part of the

c a n ta ta ,

~ r ~The division of a m p yem ejt JotQL^sbort,,^^^^^^

sections is characteristic of_ Bach's_.e.at:lv_cao.tatas7\ Rather than

fusing a movement into a unified musical whole, as became his

ideal later on,\Bach is guided in his Mühlhausen and earliest

W eim ar cafrtatas“"by tiïe'lïvorèl;. Absorbing himself in the text

B ^ L c g n ^ r s _ M in e _ .b y J change_of,meaning

Having organized his textual m aterial, he created musical

sections that varied in speed, meter, key, and style according to

the implication of the texWÿ'The young Bach took to heart the

phrase: "In the Beginning was the word."38 The second

movem ent_of_BWM..J.06. shares_in. This characteristic the early

cantatas, having four contrasting_s^ctions: one for chorus

alone, two for soloists, and one for soprano solo with chorus,

e ach section capturing the mood of this .text^

/^A nother trait of the early cantatas found in BWV 106 is

that they are composed with no recitatives and the arias__are

bimit o^er repeating b a s s jin e ^ s u c h as In deine Hànde and Ach,

Herr, lehre uns bedenken. Of the ten church cantatas Bach

wrote that do not have recitatives, six were written before | j)

vl
1709, and the last four were composed after 1725 when Bach

was in Leipzig.

38|bid, p. 131.
 46

Bach's choice of text for BWV 106 is characteristic of his

early cantatas. The text Is a composite of Biblical texts,

namely Acts of the Apostles, the Psalms, Isaiah, Ecclesiasticus,

Revelations, and Luke.f Included with they;Ja^Ujr,e>is also

freely written poe^y and a d ld ^ lg ) text. It is likely that Bach

compiled his own texts for the earliest cantatas because they

show the composer's preference Jo^r Old Testaments text,

especially those taken from PsalmsJ^ ^ f the 36 vocal movements

in his first 6 cantatas (BWV 131, 106, 71, 196, 4, and 150)

almost one-half, or 17, make use of Psalms verses, 12 of hymn

stanzas.

^^he use of an opening sinfomq^ is another characteristic of

Bach early cantata style. Of the early cantatas only BWV 71

lacks an introductory S in fo n ia.^ Independent instrument opening

movements also occur in six of Bach's W eim ar Cantatas, mostly

in the earlier one S y j About half of these have two viola parts

carrying on the tradition of the five-part text seventeenth-

century composers preferred.

majority of Bach's early cantatas are conceived

symmetrically with a chorus in the center, one at the end and

one at the beginning (following the introductory S in fo n ia ]^ Bach

organizes BWV ff3 1.' Aus der Tiefen rufe, ich, Herr, zu dir into

five movements of symmetrical design:

Chorus Chorale-Aria Chorus Chorale-Aria Chorus _

 47

BW V 106 shares in this chiastic structure which will be

discussed later in this paper.^^^

 48

CHAPTER 3

ANALYSIS O F BWV 106

The Text of BWV 106

<LAs is characteristic of Bach's early cantatas, the text of

BW V 106 is a composite of Biblical verses and chorale

s t r o p h ^ ^ Written in the tradition of Tunder, Buxtehude, and

Johann Christoph Bach, [the cantata contains no recitativeiD

When considering the music,[The arias of BWV 106_are__not_ol_the

tolian operatic type, but rather the German arioso type, whose

text was freauentlv_^amD 0 5 ed_.oveca reoeatinq bass figure. The

inor a n ^ Ach , Herr, lehre uns bedenken, and^ e alto^ n a). In

deine Hande, follow this type. Not until W eimar and Bach's

frequent use of the Neum eister reform -cantata librettos did

Bach begin using the da-capo a^ja,„style.>

BW V 106 is composedTrr1^ur~Th^ The first and

fourth movements^ an instrumental sinfonia and a brief chorus

re s p e c ^ e lv . consist_of__anly__sinqle sections. The second and

third movements a re subdivided into clear "submovements" as

fo llo w s ;
 49

Second Movement. /u no rus:

/Che Gottes Z eit is die allerbeste

Z e it

.Ténor Ach, Herr, lehre uns

bedenken

B ass^^a: Bestelle de in H ausi

Chorus: Er ist der site Bund

Third Movement. Alto Aria: In deine Hande

Bass-Alto Duet: Heute, heute, wirst

du mit mir

Fourth Movement Chorus: Glorie, Lob, Ehr’ und

Herrlichkeit

After the somber instrumental introduction, the second

^ovem ent,_^h!G ^ , offers this text:

Gottes Z eit ist die allerbeste Zeit.

God's time is the very best of time.

In ihm leben, weben und sind wir.

In Him we live, move, and have our being,

So lange er will.

As long as He wills.

In ihm sterben wir zu r rechten Zeit,

in Him we die in His good time,

Wenn er will.

When He wills

'7/7 ihm leben . . .", the only biblical text in this section, is taken

from Acts of the Apostles 17:28. Presumably the remaining

 50

text is either Bach's or an anonymous librettist. It is also quite

possible that the deceased for whom the cantata was written,

while he was alive, arranged the text and submitted it to Bach

as the libretto to his own funeral cantata. ^9 Although choosing

the words of one's own funeral oration is feasible, choosing the

time of one's death is not. The message of the opening text of

this movement bears this in mind. Here is a juxtaposition

between life and death, and that in both, God's time is the best.

opening and closing choral sections frame a dialogue

between the soul, a tenor,_aQdjGo^^^ The soul

opens the conversation with the arioso Acb Hezc expressing

humility in his human frailtyTj The soloist requests wisdom to

take to heart the knowledge of the inevitability of death. The

text is from the words of King David taken from Psalm 90:12. I

Ach, Herr, lehre uns bedenken,

O Lord, teach us to consider

dass wir sterben müssen,

that we must die,

a u f dass wir klug warden.

that we might gain wisdom.

No break occurs be^ e e n the tenor arioso and the b a s s ^ ^ ^

that follows. The aria is a continuation of the dialogue. God

39 a similar situation took place between Heinrich Schütz

and Posthumus Reus, for whom the Musikalische Exequien was
composed.
 51

a nswers the Soul in^the words of Prophet Isaiah 38:1. It is

significant that the aria is set for the bass voice. Wi t h

Bestelle dein Haus Bach continues in the tr^itioo_oi_ha^

figure of Christ being _sung_J^ This is a

centuries old tradition dating from the plainsong passions of

the 12th century.Jin the St. Matthew and St. John Passions this

characteristic setting of Christ as a bass soloist is c o n tin u e d ^

The text for the aria is ^idacticj urging the soul to put his life

in order because the end is near.

Bestelle dein Haus!

Set in order thy house,

denn du wirst sterben und nicht lebendig bleiben.

for thou shalt perish and not remain alive.

Es ist der alte Bund , the next section of BWV 106, is a

complex movement with many levels of musical activity that

will be discussed later in this paper. Textually, three ideas

occur simultaneously: the choral text, the soprano text, and a n

implied text presented instrumentally. The chorus enters first

with a verse from Ecclesiasticus 14:7. The message is rather

bleak and speaks of the unescapable fate of mortal man. With

the words of Es ist der alte bund , God, represented by the choir,

continues in His dialogue with the Soul:

Es 1st der alte Bund,

This is the old law,

Mensch, du m u3t sterben.

 52

Man, thou must die.

The choral setting_olJEsL_/sljjec^/(e_BLmd-J5-Gvedappe

with the words of th ^ so p ran o solojst speaking for the Soul. An

expression of hope, her text has a differentcharacter than the

foreboding words of the chorus. She is asking Christ,the figure

of the New Law, to bring life to the dying soul. T he text is from

R evelations 2 2 :2 0 .

Ja komm, Herr Jesu, komm.

Yes come. Lord Jesus, come.

O ver the choral text. Es ist der alte Bund, and the

soprano's text. Ja komm, Bach overlaps a third idea, a chorale

m ^^dy.,_pm seDtedJnstm nientally by the recorders and viola da

gambas. The faithful, upon hearing the chorale tune, would have

recognized it as a funeral chorale and would have associated

this text with it:

Ich hab' mein Sach Gott heimgestellt,

I have cast all my care on God,

Er machs mit mir, wies ihm gefallt;

He does with me as He wishes.

Soil ich allhier noch langer leb'n

W hether I die, or whether live,

N icht w ie d e rs tre b ’n

No more I'll strive,

Sein'm Willen thu ich mich ganz ergeb’n

 53

But I will submit my will to Him.

After this very complex movement with its multiple levels

of musical activity, Bach writes a simple continue aria for alto,

In^ e in e Hande. Now the Soul is speaking to God again:

In deine Hande befehl ich meinen Geist:

Into your hands I commend my spirit;

du hast mich erloset, Herr, du getreuer Gott.

for thou hast redeemed me. Lord, thou faithful God.

"Into your hands I commend my spirit" is traditionally

one of the seven last words spoken by Christ from the cross on

Good Friday. The dying Christ uses word taken from Psalm 3 1 :6.

The text, together with the music, gives a sense of calm

resignation. The Soul is no longer fighting the inevitability of

death. This peacefulness has come about because of the triumph

of the New Law, in the person of Christ, over the Old Law.

The words of the alto soloist are complemented by another

Good Friday text taken from Luke 23:43. In this gospel verse

Christ, from the cross, speaks to the Good Thief promising him

a place in heaven. In the previous aria the Soul says: "Into your

hands I commend my spirit," now God answers in the words of

the Bass soloist:

Heute wirst du mit mir im Paradies sein.

Today you shall be with me in Paradise.

^OSpitta, p. 458
 54

Included in the musical setting of the Bass aria is a

chorale sung by the altos of the chorus,/c/7 hab mein sach' Gott

h eim gestellt_jw h\oh is Luther's paraphrase of Simeon's Canticle.

The chorale enters half-way through the bass aria with the te>^

of the Prophet Simeon from the New Testament. These words

welcoming death were spoken after viewing the Christ Child for

the first time in the Temple of Jerusalem, Luke 2:29-32. The

Soul speaks to God, also welcoming death, in the chorale text as

f ol l ows:

M it Fried und Freud ich fahr' dahin

In peace and joy I depart.

In Gottes Willen,

As God wills it,

Getrost 1st mir mein Herz und Sinn,

I am consoled in heart and mind,

S anft und stille.

calm and quiet.

Wie Gott mir verheissen hat:

As God gave me his promise:

D er tod is mein Schlaf worden

My death is changed to slumber.

With this dialogue, which concludes this alto chorale, Bach

has presented a little drama, the drama of Man struggling to

find meaning in death. In his conversation with the Almighty,

 55

Man claims victory with Christ which he expresses in the words

of the final movement.

The text for the fourth and final movement of BWV 106 is

the seventh strophe of the chorale In dich hab ich gehoffet, Herr

by Adam Reusner (1533):

Glorie, Lob, Ehr und Herrlichkeit

Glory, laud, praise and majesty

Sei dir, Gott Vater and Sohn bereiV,

Be given to thee, God Father and Son,

Dem Heilgen Geist mit Namen,

The Holy Ghost with these names,

Die gottlich Kraft

Thy godly power,

Mach uns sieghaft.

Make us triumph

Durch Jesum Christum, Amen.

Through Jesus Christ, Amen.

Bach has been considered as the "Fifth Evangelist", a

composer whose cantatas were sermons in themselves. In this

cantata one can see thatthe young Bach had a definite message

to relate to his listeners in analmoststory-like fashion. The

first choral movement relates man's utter dependence on the

Will of God. W e do not choose our own time to die. With the

futility of death in mind, man is reminded to number his days

and set his house in order, for the Old Law states that he must
 56

die. Then in a dramatic way the whole scene changes when

Christ enters the picture. Hopelessness is changed into

peaceful confidence. The Soul places itself in the hands of God

knowing it has a place in Paradise. A song of victory over death

is sung in the final chorale. In BWV 106, Bach brings his

listener from profound sorrow, to peaceful confidence, and

finally to heartfelt joy.

The Music of BWV 106

Elem ents of Structure

The succession of keys Bach chooses in BWV 106 builds an

underlying structure for the cantata and helps him tell his

story. Structure, revealed by the succession of keys, is in an

inverted arch form as shown in Example l . ^ h e music begins in

the key of E-flat major and descends to B-flat m inor,C Sfow est

key. This low point in the succession of keys corresponds to the

low point in the drama of the cantata. Then Bach begins to take

his Jisteners progressively upward until he returns to the

f^rig ian j^key of E-flat major giving the cantata a sense of

wholeness or completeness.
 57

Ex. 1. Key structure in BW V 106

[Although the opening sonatina is in a major key, its

austere instrumentation, low range, and slow pulsating eighth

notes convey the sober character of a minor modeT] The chorus

opens the second movement in E-flat major, the same key as the

first movement. The lightness of the choral writing puts it in a

convincing major mode. When the tenor solo enters in C minor

the work begins its downward motion from E-flat to C, and from

the major mode to a darker minor mode. The bass solo, which

follows, is also in C minor but the bass voice being lower than

the tenor voice, adds to the downward feeling.

In the choral section. Es ist der alte Bund , the tonal

descent continues with music in F minor. When the soprano

soloist enters in A-flat major she lightens the gloomy feeling,

and, after two measures, the music returns to F minor. The

playing back and forth between the major and minor keys in this

concertato section shows the conflict between the Old Law

with the New Law. The movement ends with the solo soprano

line avoiding the A-flat in the final cadence, making one think

of F major. However, the presence of the melodic minor sixth of

 58

D-flat carries to the end the major-minor am bivalence found

earlier in the section as shown in Example 2. The closing F-

major cadence provides the dominant to B-flat minor, the key of

the following movement.

pk,mnim 0

JihonmiteJ»
— f==:------------
— — ( .---
^ J.
b«B1
1 k' <aJ
j i j j■ n . ^ L.r 1 - T f —
bca<
ir r r~^y-iy=^— :

Ex. 2. Final cadence of second movement of BWV 106

The alto solo, In deine Hande (Into your hands I commend

my spirit), is the most intimate moment of BWV 106. Its key of

B-flat minor is the lowest point in the succession of keys of

the cantata. Set simply with the voice and continue, and no

obbligato instruments, it is a calm expression of the humble

soul at rest.

From this tonal and dramatic low point of the alto solo,

the Bass enters on a relatively high note and the upward trend

begins. The movement from B-flat to A-flat is seen as an

ascent of a seventh instead of a descent of a second. The

change of mode from minor to major also creates an upward

 59

momentum. The rising motion continues after the Bass solo as

the alto chorale enters in C minor. The end of the movement has

a further tonal lift created by the C major of the final measures

and cadence. The fourth movement completes the ascent by

returning to the opening key of E-flat major.

In addition to the structure found by examining the

succession of keys, there is also a symmetrical structure to

BWV 106, built around the movement Es ist der alte B u n d . Due

to its many levels of musical activity, the movement is the

most complex of BWV 106. It is also the central movement in

the cantata's conflict between the Old Law and the New Law.

On either side of Es 1st der alte Bund, Bach balances two

solo sections. Tenor and bass arias precede this central

movement and alto and bass arias follow it. These two solo

sections are in turn each flanked by a choral section. The

opening instrumental Sonatina of the cantata is matched at the

close of the cantata by a fugal extension of the final chorale.

The fugue, durch Jesus Christum, Amen, begins with the chorus

accompanied only by the continue. The instruments enter during

the last seventeen measures, providing the parallel to the

opening instrumental movement. Example 3 is a diagram of the

symmetrical structure of BW V 106.

 60

00

p
to

cro
 61

The Music of BWV 106

The first movement of BWV 106 is an instrumental B to

sinfonia which introduces the forces of the orchestra. Example

4 shows how the movement begins first with the continue, then

the viola da gambas, followed by the recorders in unison.

1. Sonatina

VioU da gamba I

-E = r

Ex. 4. Opening of the first movement of BWV 106

Bach compounds the use of these "old" instruments with

the use of "old" medieval hocketing to further the notion of the

"Old Law" that will be presented in the following choral

movment. Hocketing is the technique whereby the flow of

melody is interrupted by the insertion of rests (in this case the

 62

rest are implied by the tied notes) is such a way that the

missing notes are supplied by another voice so that the melody

is divided between the voices^^. Example 5 illustrates this

medieval musical devise.

^ j ^—V _ 0 . m ^

A ________ g ... ^ --------^ f # ^ -f--

4 ^ - - —,,-, 3 1
— 4 r— 1------1— 9 L J

Ex. 5 Hocketing in the Recorder Parts

As is typical of Bach's earliest cantatas, the second

movement of BWV 106 is multi-sectional, having four major

divisions: chorus, tenor arioso, bass aria, and finally chorus

with soprano soloist. In the first choral sections there are

three textual ideas that Bach sets as three melodically

independent segments, reminiscent of a motet-like style of

com position.^ The text of the first segment, "God's time is the

very best time" has a "rather matter of fact" feeling that is

reflected in the straightforward, homophonie musical setting.

The choir Is accompanied, at this time, by the full instrumental

ensem ble.

^ h e second choral segment, In ihm leben, is interesting

because of the word-painting that Bach uses on the word

Donald Grout, A Historv of Western Music, p. 132.

 63

”weben." Notice in the Example 6 how the eighth notes of the

melodic line seem to quiver with life on the word w e b e n ,

"move.” The fugal style and the 3/4 meter also create the idea

of movement,Jj

In ihm k - ben.

Ex. 6. Word-painting on w eben

More word-painting occurs with the text "as long as He

wills" (so lange er will). Example 7 demonstrates how Bach, to

show the idea "long" has the sopranos sustaining a B-flat on the

word lange, "long.7

sind wir. so lan-ge er wiB.

Ex. 7. Wording painting on lange

 64

The playful fugato of In ihm leben ends with the

introduction of the text "In Him we die." A complete change of

character take place in the homophonie section that follows.

The previous section was marked Allegro, while this one is

marked Adagio assai. For the most part, the instruments double

the voices. In measures 41 and 45, as shown in Example 8, Bach

sets the word ''sterben" with sighing motives in the soprano

and tenor parts. He sets the same word in measures 43 and 44

with chromatic movement that sounds as if the voice is

struggling to escape death. The final cadence, "Wenn er will"

(when He wills) is made to sound even more solemn and

emphatic by its Phrygian motion and its fermata on the word

"w ill. "
— w=»------------------------------- 1-------------- =----------# — r T ~ T -------- • — *—
^ » ' - ~ --------------1-------------- =--------------— p — c —
^ ^ T 1 - p ---------'• • * 1^ — '-------------------------------------- ^
In ihm su r . ben w ir zu ra d i - u rZ c à , in ihm w w -b u i w ir, in ih m

■ H -j— H — j!— ÿ — py— ■ J — ^— 1- ^ — J) J — J—

I j In ihm ster . ben w ir zu jm ch • 1er Zen, j in ihm s u r • ben

» j j in aL, ster • ben w ir zu rech • ter Zen. in ihm s u r • ben

e p. y n » --
— ------- '
! -------------------------------- 1------------------------------ L Î-----1
# --a » — • ■ i J
In ihm su r • ben w ir ru rech • M r Zed, in ihm s u r • ben

hen w ir, in ihm s te r. ben w ir

|r
rech • ter Z e it, cr wë. I

o J n J- h - i) 1
= f) ^ 1 . -
-g —1-
w ir. in ihmsser - ben w ir, sufbenw ir rech • ter Zen, er w il. i

■>1 ^ .L _ !
if M = -y — ^ T ------------ " ' '
in ihm ster • ben w ir, sterben w ir rech - ter Z e it, 1
er w ill.
r^ r - i---- • -- r . '
I

w ir, in ihm sur • ben w ir, gerfaen wir z u /^ m ch- u r v Zen. wenn er w ill.

Ex. 8. Musical setting of In ihm sterben

 65

From the ponderous mood of this choral section Bach

moves Into a light but pensive mood for the tenor arioso. In the

text the soul is asking to be reminded of the inevitability of

death. Bach uses two repeating figures to present the idea of

reminding. One of the ostinato patterns is a two-measure

figure in the continue part, illustrated in Example 9. The other

is a four-m easure pattern in the recorder part illustrated in

Example 10.

Ex. 9. Ostinato in the continue part

Ex. 10. Ostinato in the recorder part

A quick change of pace takes place in the following

m ovem ent, Bestelle dein Haus, for bass soloist. In 3/8 time,

the vivace movement resembles a Totentanz. The grim reaper

with his violin is replaced here by quick, arpeggiated figures in

the recorders as shown in Example 11. The continue figure,

shown in Example 12, gives the movement a dance-like quality.

One might imagine the figure of death dancing to this music on

 66

the deceased's coffin. Strong and commanding, the music suits

the text from Isaiah 38:1. It is strong and commanding, urging

the soul to set his life in order.

Ex. 11. Recorder's Totentanz figure

=!}= -y? IT■r --- f----- ------ b—1

r : i..g-
be sui•le den H na. denn du w in i aer - - - beo. und nicte k • i
- 1»» J* „
J4i--- ---- 1---7 )"V-

Ex. 12. Jig-like continue figure

The central concertato section of the entire cantata

follows the bass aria and comprises three levels: choral, solo,

and instrumental. Es ist der alte Bund (This is the old law) , is

a choral setting for the lower three voices of the choir that

gives the section a very somber effect. This text about the Old

Law is set in an old motet style, reminiscent of Palestrina. The

opening vocal line, constructed with a tritone, possesses an

austere quality. This tritone motive is found in all three voices

as a fugato subject in Example 13. Notice the half-step motion

that begins and ends the subject, as if the voices are trying to
 67

escape the awkwardness of the tritone, the interval of the

devil, but are unable.

Ex. 13. "Es ist der alte Bund" tritone fugato subject

The soprano soloist, representing the dying soul, is the

second level of musical activity. Her reassuring solo, set to the

text "Yes, come. Lord Jesus," seems to float above the choral

voices in juxtaposition against them.

Theologically, this is the turning point of the whole

cantata. Jesus Christ, representing the New Law, enters the

cantata and with the words of the soprano soloist, the

Christian's faith conquers the hopelessness of death.

The recorders and gambas are the third level of musical

activity. They enter as accompaniment to the soprano solo with

the chorale tune "Ich hab mein Sach Gott heimgestellt". The

chorale is one that the congregation would have recognized as a

funeral hymn. Upon hearing it played by the recorders and

 68

gambas they would have been able to sing the text on their own.

This sumperimpostion of a chorale in long notes intensifies the

meaning of the sung text. It is an example of Bach applying the

German Organ Chorale Prelude technique of the seventeenth

century to the cantatas. It seems as if Bach took every

opportunity he could to convey a message to his congregation.

At the beginning of this concertato section the choir

enters first, followed by the soprano soloist accompanied later

by the instruments. Bach heightens the urgency of the text by

shortening and overlapping the musical segments of the choir

and soloist. It is significant that when this overlapping occurs,

the soprano never sings when the choir is singing the text, "This

is the old law." Through this Bach might be trying to say that

Christ had come to replace the Old Law, and that the Old Law

and New Law could not stand together.

More symbolism occurs in the closing music of this

movement. The final choral entrance in measure 180 ascends in

wonderful chromatic harmonies on the text, "Man thou must die."

The voices seem to show that the dying soul is actually "rising

to new life in Christ." The viola da gambas' and continuo's last

notes are the heartbeat of the dying soul. The instruments drop

out one by one, the first gamba, then the second gamba, leaving

the cello as the last pulsating heart beat. A wonderfully

expressive soprano solo line closes the movement. Bach places

a ferm ata on the final measure, a whole re s t-a forced grand

 69

pause to consider the meaning of what has happened musically

and theologically. The last five measures of the second

movement are shown in Example 14.

JJ I
. , piamMamm ----_ ----- (“ T f ^

k lo n n iH B v J e -Ml. Herr J e -w t

r —1 , > I—] =
■V— J. ---------- —
scr - ben 1

- ben !
------ - ^

Ex 14. The closing of the second movement of BWV 106

The third movement of BW V 106 contains two sections, a

continua aria for alto, "In deine H ande," followed by the bass

aria, "Heute, heute wirst du mit mir." The alto aria "In deine

H an d e, " resembles the tenor aria, "Ach, Herr, lehre uns

b e d e n k e n , " In that It too is based on a repeated figure in the

continue, displayed in Example 15. The motive, an ascending

scale passage, symbolizes the soul's rising to heaven.

 7
70

Cominuo

Ex. 15. The repeated continue figure of the alto aria

The alto aria, quiet and introspective in character,

contrasts the strong bass aria that follows. The text of the

bass aria, "Today you shall be with Me in paradise" confirming

that the soul will follow Christ into heaven. Bach brings this

out in the music by having the continuo part (the soul) in

motivic imitation of the bass part (Christ). This compositional

technique of imitation is enipjjoyed-e#en by Bach to illustrate

musically the idepT^of^^llowing" .^2

H bu - K. hew ' K .w in id u iia i nur. hoi - h o i- c— A in * n *.

E )^ ^ 6 . Motivic imitation between voice and continuo

Example 17, below, contains two points of interest. Note

the layering of the first strophe of Luther's version of Simeon's

Canticle. "Now Lord, You may dismiss Your servant in peace," h

42The soprano aria Ich folge dit^^eiüfTfalls (I follow

Thee) from the SL H o b n is-E a ss jc fi-'^lso exemplifies Bach's use of
imitation to show "following."
sung in augmentation by the altos of the chorus and commi

on the text of the bass soloist. Notice, also, the expressivi

word-painting of the word "stille" (quiet). Bach silences the

instruments at this point, illustrating the "quiet" and the voices

murmur softly.

Ex. 17. The alto chorale layered over the bass solo and

accom panim ent

 72
The fourth and final movement of BWV 106 is an

elaboration on the seventh strophe of the chorale 7/7 dich hab

ich gehoffet, H e r r by Adam Reusner (1533). The full

instrumental ensem ble presents a majestic five-m easure

introduction, shown in example 18, creating a variation of the

first line of the chorale tune. After the choir enters, the

instrumental ensemble continues playing and provides an

accompaniment in off-beat chords. Between the lines of the

chorale Bach writes short instrumental interludes, ornamented

echos of the preceding choral phrases. The off-beat chords and

the instrumental interludes between the chorale lines are

shown in Example 19.

Vio&dm gmrnmg

Ex. 18. Instrumental introduction to fourth movement.

 73

Ck> • ne. Lob, Efar. in d Hen <br. Goa - ter

G to • he. Lob. Ebr. und Herr - lich • kea d r. G oa Va • ter in d

Ehr

Hen - licfa - d r. Goa Va ' 1er imd

Ex. 19. Choral entrance of fourth movement.

Bach closes the cantata with a brief, brilliant fugal

treatm ent of the text, "durch Jesum Christum, Amen. " The fugal
 74

subject, which is derived from the chorale melody, is comprised

of quarter notes. This is contrasted by a counü&^e^tÿecT-^

containing melismatic sixteenth notes, as can be seen in

Example 20. The fugal subject then enters eight times in two

expositions. The instruments are tacet during the first part of

the fugal section and remain silent until the middle of the

second exposition, when they enter colla-parte, intensifying the

fugal activity. The movement draws to a close with the

subject, in augmentation, in the soprano. The instrumental

doubling and the augumentation in the soprano part is show in

exam ple 21. The cantata that began instrumentally ends

instrumentally echoing the final choral Amen.

Ex. 20. Fugal counter-subject

 75

A- A >

A.

1'' rrn r r r m
A im , A

Ex. 21. The final eight measures of BWV 106.

 76

Conclusion

The conductor who reads this project will gain an a better

understanding of Cantata BWV 106. From the detailed analysis

given in this paper a conductor will have a framework upon

which an interpretation can be based. The text, the structure of

the work, and the thematic and motivic materials have been

discussed. The intention of the writer is to provide a basis

upon which decisions concerning dynamics, articulation, tempo,

and phrasing can be made. Interpretative ideas founded on

analysis, such as presented in this project, can only serve to

enrich and enliven a performance of a masterpiece such as

Cantata BWV 106.

 77

APPENDIX 1

Measure-bv-Measure Framework of BWV 106

1st mvt.
Instruments

0 10 15 20
I I I

2nd. mvt.
Coro: Tenor arioso:
Gottes Zeit In ihm Leben Ihn ihm Sterben Ach Herr

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70
I I I I I I I I I I I

Bass aria:
Bestelle dein Haus!

70 75 80 85 90 95 100 105 110 115 120 125 130

C oro :
Es 1st der alte Bund

131 135 140 145 150 155 160 165 170 175 180 185

3rd mvt.
Alto aria: Bass aria:
In deine Hànde Heute, wirst du mit mir

5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70

4th mvt.
C oro:
Gloria Lob Durch Jesum Christum, Amen
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
I I I I I I I
 78

APPENDIX 2

Text of BW V 106
1st Movement;
Instrumental

2nd Movement:
Chorus: God's own time is the very best of times.
In Him we live, move, and have our being,
As long as He wills.
In Him we die in His good time,
When He wills.

Soul Tenor: O Lord, teach us to consider that we

must die, that we might gain wisdom
God Bass: Set In order thy house,
for thou shalt perish nor may thy days be
lengthened.
God Chorus: This is the old law, Man, thou must die.
Soul Soprano: Yes come. Lord Jesus, come.

3rd Movement
Soul Alto: Into your hands I commend my spirit;
for thou hast redeemed me. Lord, thou
faithful God.

Christ Bass: Today you shall be with me in Paradise.

Soul A lto : In peace and joy I depart, as God wills it,
I am consoled in heart and mind, calm
and quiet.
As God gave me his promise:
May death is changed to slumber.

4th Movem ent

Chorus: Glory, laud, praise, and majesty
Be to thee, God Father and Son given.
The Holy Ghost with these names.
Thy godly power
Make us triumph.
Through Jesus Christ, Amen.
 79

APPENDIX 3

BWV 106
Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit

1. Sonatina
Molw Adagio

Vioia da gamtaa B

«1 «1. «1 W -1 J -1 W W W«L
 -#—m—m— «—r

"SI -—lVi -

vw V»

08
 81

2. (Coro
FtauM I

Flnioa

Sojwmno

Ga Z tà in Om êt i* die ai - k r

aJ - k r

Got' kr k r • be.M e

m d k m l. kr« b e iZen, In ihm ben.

Zed, d k ml kr m dk al k r . bcam Zed. ihm

19 dje ai - k r-b e ate IZed.

b e .« K . u id k a l. k r . be-aa Zed.
 82

thm

und and und

ihm ben.

ben.

m
à . a gJ ^ ^r

und ihm

sind smd

ben und and ben und ben,

ben und snd

83
 84

tMB

in iv n ben

In ih m

4» «

in Am I stcr* ben roch

ben recb Cf w ii.

boi
SSL

mcb Ztn. er mn#.

 85

dm • km Xcrr.Ich • le
 86

a .

•eh.

MM. mm

leh-re nbe i.dad«rir istcr-baimui a tf daJl. •uf

87
 88

V MV
laid
d« k
be • m i • k doa hUm .

89

m-

d a n du du

ben ben, ben. und

 89

HmmI
 90

<s\r,A“7
09

du

dcf

U3

der ■ K Sund:

ben. mA di n d k l
U9

IMB.

iki

du bOB I

dd

benl
 92

02

mitt e

kzxnm.hkn Jb- w .
 93

Ji. >> k a rn v H a rJ c -

du du inift

ben. ben,
 94

A
> .H br Je • m . j».

bca I
 95

«I (

der

du du

bai. <àiifijdi flttr bm. ffiid t

b flo M m e d u à ie iA M r du

toeo. MaaKd,du omA Mrtan. du n id i mer • bm. MmMwbmmA itcr

 96

bmI

ben I

3. [Aria]

AJIO

I/I d a • ne Hân-de

Conaouo

3K
in d a O cin.
 97

ta-

du

T U . ' 'S J ^ : ;,: ,j[ ^ ,.._ „ ^ =

G ot. l n _ dà - nc_iita>de. 1 a — do • ne—HIn rtr. m dm - OC—i Ü n - d e _ 6*4

ee

ta (kl
 98

Hai

2S

un P*

« t i_ f t - «1 • dm ...

<ki le. hcu <ki ma

 99

r A lio &o*oj

^ ^ ' _ IJ rr ' _

, -------- - » ■ .. ..I ^ ------------

L -U - ■■ '------- '

Fried und A=d idl

--- a ----- ------------ [.---------- ---------------------------------- « ----------

? . !" =

hoi I f ___ v m du rim mw. nur im Pi

w sr
 100

Got Wil

hew r . hew - c wira du

H en

Pa -
 101

> - ------------- ----- — ......................................... . ■. ^

Goa j hci "- fiCD

-------- » -------------,kp , #------g ----- - # -?

 1 03

4. (Coro)

ind dr. Goa Vk -

^ 4» , ,V
und Hot • làh .h e * dr. Co* Va • cr

tnri (he. Ooa Vh • ler

C ia - ne. Lob. O r. Herr • licb • he* (hr. Goa Va . r r

 1 04

Sebm,, 1 bam *. dM hn* - gw G «a im Na - m aal

* ....... * - ' •* ~ — -a r-g

SotM be • me. àem bed gea C e d i im !% . - maat

± IÈ V T F m ■ 1 . ' . . -------------
? : 'L— W ■■■ ^ ---------- " | = = ' = ' ^ z ± - r - - "j r - - 'T —
Setm tiH M . dam bed - geo G d « ma Na - mm 1

_ .......... g s a i n ------------------

Sote be bed pm C bm i o u t Na

— - ,■ i j 1
k « •

a
.

d ■ u u 1--------------
1 _ _

* -------- ---------- « -------- — L J

m ,& ■Tl 1------------ h 4= j T l 1 -g
# 1
■ :. {? ' 4 i- l- ■■■ ‘ ? ^ ^ j " -
fW 'd ■ r - 1 h-f> ------------ 1— ; B r „■
W - g z . l J 6 .^ .P E :? E :.
~ - ~ ' V’ ^ — ■- "■ - \T' i -

> 7 * ---------------------------:— 1— ■ - . '" F ........... - - i - . £ J - g g ^ -----------

Die fo u • tc b K n ft maeta la u img - ta ti j j

------------------------- -- --------------
^
V ----------
Dm fd a • beta Kiaft macta ima ue# • baft
■ = ^ _ j=
------- T- - - - - - - - - - - - - , - r --------T ------ -- "■' - - -"■
: Dd go# • beta K n A nm gi im we# - b d l
—# -------- ----------------------------------

go# • beta K raft maob una ne# • baft

1 ------- • -------- ------- ^ ----------------
.J.-------- J, , ., T ^ :'^ = -ri -Y ". -, ," = .± : ------------------------ -
 1 05

A lla c ro
1 06
 1 07

d # :k - - - P - . rP . 1 P frT
_ i-------------------1---------- ------

i. j' ' ^ ■„ f ---------

fi., _:: . r - .;-g : ^ « ._ i ^ ' p c :n

i j — .J - . . . . w - . I. n J T T j.....P .* 1 p r iw f^ « --g ff-e p g ? ijji ■ .

7 -------y t ÏÏ ÿ u p ------------- w y ---------1------------------- :
A . . mem.A • |mm. dm *
# & ------

- mmm, àmdk Je • mem On - emmm. A • mm. A • imm.A - • mm.

± $ z s j± ..jL " 3 = fp r r F r
w ^ ^ ()i y mêM
fT rfff
r
» H~ n :
11r r
l-m lit-
1 r
.*
r
r~m
r rr i
f r m P T f p r f T r if :

• mm. due* >e • ewmjoaieim*. AjnmAmm. A • mm, A . ■ ■

fft f f ~ 3
rt 1 ,,1 i ' fT V r j* " -h i" Ft -"F, --»1 5 ^ # ^ -f” - !■ ■ . > K: " J 3 Z

• m»% A • IMB.A • ram. Aacfe Je>«uniC3n>mmm. A mem. A mmAram. A • mm. A

—- f -f _ i - ■ _ p r _^r f 1 M .n S
1-----------C3------------- «------------------------- MM ----- 1 ^ W ' -----L a ‘ - r --------------------------
 ij-jj

f T r i: _ i: "Y ' !.-? = ■

1 - - - H
p — r
I ,
r r ^ f fr -.^ i= =

PL## ,pt:W|.'>E', ■ lat .*q»P , J l ',„ dTTB W1

1
r - 'ta j " 1 ' V ^ -
fimm
17\ —

r K — r ■■"» - - -
1 • ’ ^ J ' ^ ----------------
A mm. Amm.An— 1 Ammu A

7 ’ "
9 - P P -#= gPg {?
A -a m . AnmkAima. Ammj A «mm. AimeA-dmA AnmJ A mm. A " m m A • mm.
/n________.j
ft .. flfl Æ ..x^^ m -s .. W ^ft- ft. _ « j: ■
-—1'll j 1 1 t-1 ■: -e^TT*'-----9----l U f—g= ,!'!—?----JljJ*-»* 9—-f* » f U U - i - .*T T, J. ,.
'J ' ^ ^
mm. Amm. A » mm. AimmA - mm. Amm. A* flMB%A • fmi« A
----------L..------------»-------------------------—m------------m--------------—«— * ---------- .... ^ ------------------------ Æ1--

f . ^ '
 109

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 110
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 111

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 112
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