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Cantata BWV 66
Erfreut euch, ihr Herzen
Cantata BWV 66a
Der Himmel dacht auf Anhalts Ruhm und Glück
Discussions - Part 3 |
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Continue from Part 2 |
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Discussions in the Week of July 18, 2010 (3rd round) |
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Douglas Cowling wrote (July 17, 2010):
Week of July 18: ³Erfreut Euch Ihr Herzen², BWV 66
Week of July 18: ³Erfreut Euch Ihr Herzen², BWV 66
Cantata for the Second Day of Easter (Easter Monday)
* Performance History:
Parody of ³Der Himmel dacht² BWV 66a (text only survives)
December 10, 1718 Köthen
http://www.bach-cantatas.com/BWV66a.htm
1st performance: April 10, 1724 - Leipzig
2nd performance: March 26, 1731 - Leipzig
3rd performance: April 11, 1735 ? - Leipzig
* BCML page: (texts, translations, scores and readings): http://www.bach-cantatas.com/BWV66.htm
* Live streaming: http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Mus/BWV66-Mus.htm
* Commentary (Mincham): http://www.jsbachcantatas.com/documents/chapter-48-bwv-66.htm
* Chorale: ³Christ ist Erstanden²: http://www.bach-cantatas.com/CM/Christ-ist-erstanden.htm
* Previous Discussions: http://www.bach-cantatas.com/BWV66-D.htm
* Performance Background: Bachıs Three-Day Festivals
Very little scholarly attention has been paid to the Lutheran custom of celebrating Christmas, Easter and Pentecost each as a three-day festival requiring festal music with cantatas every day. These feasts were the three principal days in the church calendar, and Bachıs workload was commensurate with their importance. In the pre-Reformation calendar, each festival was marked with an ³octave² eight days of equal lavish celebration. Scholars have noted that even before the Reformation, the full octaves had atrophied to a ³short octave² of three days Bachıs Three Days.
What is odd is that three-day festivals survived the wholesale pruning and reduction of the church year in the reformed calendars of both the Lutheran and Anglican traditions. Octaves, vigils, multiple vespers, as well as the elaborate classification of feast days were all swept away. Yet the Three-Day observance with exactly the same readings as the Catholic calendar was retained by Lutherans and Anglicans.
I asked the noted Lutheran historian, Frank Senn, why this seeming detritus of the Catholic calendar was so assiduously maintained by Luther. He suggested that these were ³Communion Days² during which everyone had to receive the sacrament to demonstrate conformity. The large number of people coming to church may have forced the authorities to extend the opportunities for general communion to three full days. There may even have been a tradition of social gradation: burgers and civic worthies on the First Day; servants on the Third.
In England, ecclesiastical taxes were due on these three festivals (especially Easter) and failure to conform could lead to legal penalties and fines. It would be interesting to know if Leipzigers faced civic penalties if they did not conform on those three festivals. The Mondays after Christmas, Easter and Pentecost are still statutory holidays in Germany.
Certainly the music for the three Three-Day festivals was a significant factor in Bachıs workload. Far from resting after the initial day, Bachıs musicians had to be ready for an intensive three-day period of music-making during which the entire population of the city might be present. The monumental scale of the first half of the ³Christmas Oratorio² gives us some sense of the civic importance of the Three-Day festivals.
Wolff outlined the astonishing sequence of music for Bachıs first Christmas in Leipzig in 1723 (Bach, p.265). The composerıs first Easter only three months later was no less extraordinary:
Apr 7, 1724 - Good Friday
St. John Passion, BWV 245
Apr 9, 1724 - Easter Day (1st Day of Easter)
³Die Himmel Lacht², BWV 31
³Christ Lag in Todesbanden², BWV 4
Apr 10, 1724 Easter Monday (2nd Day of Easter)
³Erfreut Euch Ihr Herzen², BWV 66
April 11, 1724 - Easter Tuesday (3rd Day of Easter):
³Ein Herz, das seinen Jesum², BWV 134
Not only was the St. John Passion (BWV 245) first performed, but Bach provided three new cantatas on the Three Days of Easter, as well as a second recycled cantata one of his greatest -- for Easter Day. The logistics of composition and preparation are mind-boggling.
* Notes on the Movements:
Mvt. 1: Chorus: ³Erfreut euch, ihr Herzen²
As Julian pointed out, there are many resemblances to ³Jauchzet Frohlocket in the ³Christmas Oratorio² (e.g. the falling 32nd-note scales and the dactylic figure). Even without the extra brass and timpani, this is a lavishly-orchestrated work with real virtuosic demands, particularly on the bassoon. The middle section reminded me of the duet in ³Kommt Eilet² in the Easter Oratorio.
Two questions ..
1) What is the meaning of the marking, ³Andante² in the B section? Most conductors take it to mean a slower tempo, yet all the principal motifs continue without modification: the opening string figure of arpeggio with tremolo and the dactylic melody. Is there another movement by Bach which is clearly intended to be slower but which continues the same musical material? The effect in the recordings Iıve heard is lame. Does anyone argue that this is a marking which indicates a change of mood and orchestral texture rather than tempo?
2) Are there any markings in the original score to justify the use of soloists in the middle section? Looks OVPP to me, although it would be easy to propose another quartet of ripienists sharing copies and dropping out. The lack of any ³solo² and ³tutti² markings in the original parts and scores has always seemed to me an insoluble problem in the debate.
Mvt. 2: Recitative (Bass) ³Es bricht das Grab und damit unsre Not²
Mvt. 3: Aria (Bass) ³Lasset dem Höchsten ein Danklied erschallen²
Interestingly, the little ³Victory² motif of tremolo string arpeggios which closes the recitative returns in fuller form in the B section of the aria. One wonders if we are meant to connect with the famous middle section of ³Es ist Vollbracht² in the St. John Passion (BWV 245) which had been heard four days earlier. The aria, oddly, is in the same key (D major) and time signature (3/8) as the opening movement. There is no attempt to provide the contrast of an instrumental solo, although the weighty orchestral texture doesnıt have the concerto elements of the opening. It does however end its B section in F# minor as well.
Mvt. 4: Recitative (Dialogue) & Arioso (Duet) (A & T)
³Bei Jesu Leben freudig sein²
Mvt. 5: Aria (Duet) (A & T)
³Ich fürchte {zwar, nicht} des Grabes Finsternissen²
The appearance of the dramatic characters of Fear and Hope suddenly turns the work into a ³Dialogue², the old-fashioned term for the early Italian sacred "scena" which later developed into full oratorios. It is unusual for Bach to use a mixed literary genre. In other cantatas, Bach maintains the chwithout naming them throughout the cantata: e.g. the Bride/Soul and Bridegroom/Christ characters in ³Wachet Auf² (BWV 140). The figures of Fear (alto) and Hope (tenor) also appear in ³O Ewigkeit Du Donnerwort² (BWV 60) which is entitled a ³Dialogus² not a ³concerto² or ³cantata.² In this cantata, the bass voice appears as Christ. It is puzzling that Bach did not make the bass aria in ³Erfreut Euch² a setting of a scriptural dictum so that the soloist completed the allegorical framework as Christ. Bach often uses the bass as the Vox Christi in the cantatas of the Easter season.
Mvt. 6: Chorale ³Alleluja! Alleluja! Alleluja²
The use of the second half of a chorale is not totally without precedent: Bach uses the conclusion of ³Wie Schön Leuchtet² in the final movement of ³Nun Komm Der Heiden Heiland² (BWV 61) albeit as the basis of a
contrapuntal chorus. |
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William L. Hoffman wrote (July 18, 2010):
³Erfreut Euch Ihr Herzen², BWV 66: Art of Parody
During Johann Sebastian Bach's first Lenten season in Leipzig in 1724, he composed the <St. John Passion> (BWV 245) for Good Friday and planned the completion of his first cantata cycle with 14 works for the Easter Season through Trinity Sunday. Bach continued to recycle church service cantatas composed for Sunday services in Weimar but serendipitously was able to utilize the music of five secular celebratory serenades originally composed in Köthen as church service cantatas for Easter and Pentecost Mondays and Tuesdays as well as the Trinity Sunday festival.
Since these Köthen works had secular texts celebrating Prince Leopold and his realm, Bach in Leipzig was required to set the music to new text underlay with biblical references to the appointed church service. Adding traditional closing chorales, Bach transformed these intimate, engaging pieces through a process called vocal parody, a technique and practice that had come to infuse major works, particularly Masses, in the late Renaissance.
Bach began with literal parody settings, virtually note-for-note with word-for-word text substitution. With each serenade, he adapted most of the available madrigalian mostly de capo arias and tutti ensembles as choruses, altering only the order of the often substantial movements. Bach even parodied many of the extensive free-verse secco recitatives and then altered the music again in service repeat performances in 1731 and 1735. In some cases, Bach retained the keyboard accompaniment and changed the words, in others he made partial parodies of phrases or other alteration of the text and music. Cantata BWV 134a for Easter Tuesday was substantially revised in the recitatives for the reperformances.
Sometimes, Bach put together movements with a blend of parody techniques or used several parodied single madrigalian movements in pastiches or proto cantatas for secular occasions in the 1730s. What began as "Gebrausch" music to be used only once evolved through invention and creation into elaboration and variation, as Hans-Joachim Schulze emphasizes in his extensive study, "The Parody Process in Bach's Music: An Old Problem Reconsidered" (BACH XX/1, Spring 1989, p. 18; English translation Daniel Melamed). Schulze even proposed, as scholars have increasingly accepted in the past 20 years, that the opportunistic and calculating Bach increasingly conceived music for such Leipzig civic purposes as birthdays, funerals and town council installations while simultaneously planning to utilize the same music through vocal parody in his Christological Cycle.
Bach in 1724 was selective in his choice of Köthen pieces, recycling about half of his at-least ten required serenades. This was the beginning of an odyssey that would enable Bach to exploit some fine music for different purposes, sort of like producing fine wine in new bottles, including double repeats in 1731 and 1735 of all five sacred feast day cantatas. These five also were a springboard for Bach to expand his serenade style and form in Leipzig into more than a dozen profane drammi per musica, many containing movements to be parodied. As he completed two full cycles of church cantatas and began a third at Advent 1725, Bach increasingly turned to creative transformation, especially with major Passion and feast day oratorios and Mass movements in his Christological Cycle of the 1730s, culminating in his great Mass in B Minor at the end of his life in 1750.
Bach scholar and Lutheran theologian Friedrich Smend in <Bach in Köthen> (1985, 86-92) first confirmed the musical characteristics of the original serenades and their parody text relationship with the surviving cantata music found in Leipzig sacred services. He described the original vocal music, based upon the surviving score of
BWV 173a and parts sets of BWV 134a, BWV 184a and BWV 194a, as occasional music, in four-parts, "mainly in solid chordal harmony and marked figurative polyphony. The main thematic materials in the vocal music is borne by the (p.88) soloists, who perform in duet" or dialogue style.
Recitative usually opens the serenades, establishing the dictum through proclamation, typical in serenades of the time, with a uniform structure of usually eight movements. Pairings in duet style with allegorical figures are found in both the internal recitatives, including scena, and designated arias. The works often close with a tutti gathering of all forces in da capo form, with the dialogue of two solosits in the B section and simple four-part chorus in the A section and repeat. The strings accompany the designated tutti movements while solo violin, oboe, or flute provides the usual obbligato accompaniment in the arias.
Between 1718 and 1721, Christian Friedrich Hunold (Menantes) b. 1681, who taught poetry and rhetoric at nearby Halle University, published many cantata texts in <Auserlesene und theils noch nie gedruckte Gedichte unterschiedener Berühmten und geschickten Männer> (Selected and in Some Case Not Yet Printed Poems by Distinguished Famous and Skilled Men). They are the source of Bach's first congratulatory birthday (December 10) and New Year's cantatas at the Köthen court. This collection of Hunold homage texts includes a lengthy ode of 80 alexandrines found by Spitta, "written in praise of Leopold for presentation to him by his Hofkapelle on Dec. 10, 1719 (his 25th birthday)," says Smend's <Bach in Köthen> (Appendix A, Eng. Ed. 1985). Five works are documented and dated as Hunold-Menantes texts to Bach Köthen Cantatas BWV 66a (12/10/18) and BWV 134a (1/1/19) (called "Serenatas"), and (no music surviving) to BWV Anh. 5 and 7, respectively a sacred work (12/10/18) and a "Pastoral dialogue" (12/10/20), and BWV Anh. 6 (5 movements, 1/1/20).
BCW Hunold biography: http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Hunold.htm. BCW for Cantata BWV 193a says: "Picander's text for BWV 193a may have been based on an earlier text by Christian Friedrich Hunold, which Bach set to music in Köthen where the original music for BWV 193 may have been composed." The movements are the opening chorus and two arias (da capo minuet and trio). In 1727, Picander expanded and parodied TownCouncil Cantata BWV 193, "Ihr Tore/Pforten zu Zion" into a birthday drama per musica, BWV 193a, Ihr hauser des Himmels, for Saxon Prince Augustus the Strong, his first such work for the Dresden Court. It is a dialogue with the characters Fama and Providencia. Both works were presented in August (3 for birthday, 25 for Town Council).
Significant is the element of dance in the five Hunold-texted works as well as another five composed after his death on August 6, 1721. The poet of the latter is unknown, possibly Johann Friedrich Helbig (1680 to 4/18/1722) court poet at Saxe-Eisenach who provided Telemann with texts to 168 church cantatas (OCC:JSB)
Bach's Köthen music survives in five serenades parodied as sacred cantatas in 1724 in Leipzig, Bach's first known efforts at text substitution: BWV 66 for Easter Monday, BWV 134 for Easter Tuesday, BWV 173 for Pentecost Monday, BWV 184 for Pentecost Tuesday, and BWV 194 for Trinity Sunday.
All five original serenades have dance-like character in their arias and closing tutti "choruses": BWV 194a, performance date uncertain (pastorale, gavotte, gigue, minuet); BWV 66a, 12/10/1718 (gigue-passapied, pastorale), BWV 173a, 12/10/1722 (gavotte, minuet, bourree, gavotte, polonaise), BWV 184a, ?1/1/1722 (minuet, polonaise, gavotte); and BWV 134a, 1/1/19 (gigue, minuet, gigue). Only some of the performing orchestral parts survive in the parts sets of the parodied sacred counterparts to BWV 184a and BWV 194a. Cantata BWV 194a (? 1/1/1721), has a French Overture and four arias derived from an instrumental dance suite, as well as BWV 184a (?1/1/1722), and BWV 173a (12/10/22).
Another characteristic of the Köthen serenades is the demanding music for both the vocal soloists and the orchestra. Wolff points out (JSB:TLM, p. 198) the solos and elaborate duets in the form of allegorical dialogues between Fame and Fortune in BWV 66a, and Divine Providence and Time in BWV 134a. The lost pastoral dialogue, Cantata BWV Anh. 7 has three allegorical figures in Hunold's text: the shepherdess Sylvia, the huntsman Phillis, and the shepherd Thyrsis. This 10-movement work (no music survives) alternating recitatives and arias, including a terzett and a closing tutti, was probably performed on December 10, 1720, and was Hunold's last collaboration with Bach. Wolff also notes the challenging orchestral music for four-part strings and pairs of oboes or flutes (Bach's first use in place of recorders). There is no surviving music or texts for New Year's Cantatas BWV Anh. 197 (?1/1/1718), and BWV Anh. 8 (?1/1/1723), a "Musicalisches Drama." No texts survive or documentation of court payments for the special double date of December 10 and 11, 1721, respectively Leopold's birthday and marriage to Anhalt-Bernburg Princess Frederica Henrietta (Bach's so-called "Amusa").
Beyond the recognized 10 works which survive as music or text or both, Smend attempted to establish the authenticity of other Leipzig cantata movements as having been composed originally in Köthen. As evidence, he showed the Köthen characteristics of dance style, dialogue form, and exacting obbligato woodwind solos.
Bach scholars are divided about Smend's thesis (p. 34) that Bach composed two works for each annual December 10 birthday and January 1 New Year's event: the extant secular serenades for the court as well as sacred works performed at the Köthen Calvinist St. Agnes Church. Wolff accepts the idea of sacred works while Alfred Dürr in <Cantatas of JSB> (p. 20) rejects the principle. The Hunold text of only one sacred church piece survives, BWV Anh. 5, "Lobet den Herrn, alle seine Herrscharen" (Praise the Lord, all his assembled lords (Ps. 103:21), 12/10/1718. No original or parodied music has been found. It has the sacred form of opening chorus dictum, here based on Psalm 119-175, followed by three pairs of alternating recitatives and solo arias with text both psalmic and celebratory instead of classical and arcadian allusions. In contrast, the secular serenades like BWV 66a, presented on the same day as Anh. 5 (Saturday, Dec. 10, 1718), usually have allegorical dialogue, a scena, and a closing tutti movement.
"The dramatic aspsect of the serenata often results in duet passages which not only take a distinctive textual form . . . but also derive from it their peculiar musical design," says Dürr (p. 22). "Moreover, a reciprocal relationship - so abundantly cultivated in Cöthen is unmistakable, for example, in the division of the choir in BWV 66a and BWV 134a into concertists and ripienists." Thus, in the opening and middle section of the da capo tutti, the dialogue ripienists should be preserved, OVPP, in the sacred version.
Some sacred music extant in Leipzig has been traced back to Köthen-period origin or usage repeated from Weimar. Four Weimar cantatas were reperformed between 1717 and 1723, based on surviving additional parts Smend found. Two, the Pentecost Cantata BWV 172, and undesignated ("per ogni tempo") Cantata BWV 21, may have been for Bach's Hamburg test or probe, Dec. 23, 1720. The other two cantatas are BWV 132, for the 4th Sunday in Advent, which Bach never revised or presented in Leipzig, and BWV 199, with Lehms libretto, for the 11th Sunday after Trinity.
Remnants from Köthen works can be found in Leipzig sacred Cantatas BWV 32, BWV 145, BWV 154, BWV 190, and BWV 193, based upon stylistic or literary influences, according to Smend. The arias from the two cantatas for Epiphany Sundays, BWV 32 and BWV 154, may have been developed in Köthen. Alfred Dürr in <Cantatas of JSB> points out that passages in Cantata BWV 32 show the influence of the Hunold dialogue libretti written for the Köthen Court, as well as a concerto movement in the opening aria and two dance movements in the other two arias. Yet the music survives with the Lehms text so that Dürr concludes that Bach radically transformed the music in Leipzig in 1726. The Town Council Cantata 193 is accepted that its chorus and two arias originated in Köthen. Dürr (p. 21) rejects Smend's hypothesis for the other cantatas
Later source-critical research casts doubt on some of Smend's original conclusions, especially <Bach in Köthen> editor Stephen Daw's annotations, 34 years after Smend's original publication, in the English edition of 1985 (Concordia Pub. House, St. Louis MO). Cantata BWV 145 is a pastiche put together with a Telemann chorus and Picander text for Easter Tuesday 1729. Cantata BWV 190 is a New Year's Day festival piece.
Here is the original Köthen birthday serenade, based upon the surviving original Hunold Text and parodied music in Cantata BWV 66:
BIRTHDAY: BWV 66a, Der Himmel dacht auf Anhalts Ruhm und Glück, serenade; Köthen Prince Leopold birthday, 12/10/1718 (no performing materials extant), original text and parody music survive: BWV 66, Erfreut euch, ihr Herzen, Easter Monday, 4/10/1724
Literature: NBA KB I/35, Cantatas for Princes (Dürr 1964); Smend <Bach in Köthen> (1985, 86-92)
Text: Hunold (Menantes) "Auserlesene" II (Halle 1718/21): Fortune (A), Fame (T); Eng. trans. below, BCW, Phillip Z. Ambrose: http://www.uvm.edu/~classics/faculty/bach/BWV66a.html
Movements: 3 recits, 3 arias, scena, chorus
1. (Rec.) Fortune: Since heaven cared for Anhalt's fame and bliss. (=66/2)
2. Aria, Fortune: Waft hence, ye breezes, your glad jubilation, (66/3) (da capo, pastorale)
3. (Scena: rec.-aso.-rec.) Fame/Fortune: Fame rec. Great wisdom on the throne to see; Fame aso. Both might and high rank put in trust; Fame-Fortune dialogue rec., {I will/Thou canst} therefore in this {my/thy} honor-chariot (66/4)
4. Aria, Fame-Fortune duet): I'll leave then {now; I would/not; thou shouldst} all earth be telling (66/5) (da capo)
5. (Rec.) Fortune-Fame: How far hast thou with Anhalt's fame divine, (music lost)
6. Aria, Fortune: O happy land of sweet repose and quiet! (music lost) (da capo)
7. (Rec.) Fortune-Fame: Now worthy Prince! God who adorns his purple,
8. "Aria" (Tutti): Let sun shine forever, (=66/1) (da capo, gigue-passepied)
For the 1724 parody adaptation, Bach moved the closing tutti chorus to the traditional opening dictum
position, probably adding the solo trumpet part, then followed the original order with the sequence of opening paired recitative and aria, and the paired dialogue recitative-arioso-recitative scena and dialogue aria. He then closed the sacred parody with an appropriate Easter chorale, dispensing with the serenade's two dialogue recitatives flanking a solo aria. Bach's first Leipzig cantata parody was for Easter Monday, April 10, 1724.
EASTER MONDAY: BWV 66, Erfreut euch, ihr Herzen; chorus/parody
4/10/1724 (Cycle 1); repeats 3/26/1731, ?4/11/1735 (time of surviving score)
Parody of BWV 66a, Der Himmel dacht auf Anhalts Ruhm und Glück, 12/10/1718, Köthen Prince Leopold birthday
Sources: (1) score ? 1735 (DS P.73, CPEB Berlin Sing. Akad.); (2) parts set (lost, ?WFB)
Literature: BGA XVI (Rust 1868), NBA KB I/10 (Dürr 1956), Whittaker I: 533-43, Robertson 109f, Young 101ff; Dürr 274-78, 798
Text: ?Bach; chorale (6) "Christ ist erstanden" (Christ is arisen, S. 3); Gospel, Lk. 24:32n, str, bc
Forces: dialogue, alto=Fear, tenor=Hope; bass, 4 vv, tp., 2 ob., bn., str., bc
Movements: chorus, chorale, 2 arias (B, AT), recit. (B), scena (AT)
Mvt. 1: Chorus (tutti): Rejoice, ye hearts, yield, ye pains (=66a/8) (da capo, gigue-passepied)
Mvt. 2: Recitative (B, str): Broken is the grave and herewith our need (=66a/l)
Mvt. 3: Aria (B, tutti): Let to the highest a thanks-song resound (=66a/2) (da capo, pastorale)
Mvt. 4: Scena (rec., aso., rec.; AT, vn.): In Jesus life joyful to be in our breast (=BWV 66a/3)
Mvt. 5: Aria (Duet) (AT, vn.): I fear, indeed, to the grave's darkness (=66a/4 with changes) (da capo)
Mvt. 6: Chorale (?tutti): Allelujah, of this shall we all be glad (new, Leipzig)
Bach preserved the original serenade dialogue form, substituting the alto Fear in place of Fortune and the tenor Hope in place of Fame. Particularly in the parodied, instructive recitatives, Bach took the opportunity to substitute sacred Easter references in place of Hunold's profane language. Julius Mincham in his recent and thorough BCW essay on Cantata BWV 66, http://www.jsbachcantatas.com/documents/chapter-48-bwv-66.htm , in the second paragraph speaks to the original form: "Indeed the 'discourse' nature of these texts should alert us to their secular genesis. This approach seems to have been less common in the conservative Leipzig churches than in secular congratulatory or wedding pieces perhaps because of their operatic implications. Bach did compose four dialogue cantatas for Christ and the Soul at a later stage but they were not common in the first cycle and completely absent from the second."
Thus, in order to preserve the "discourse" dialogue nature and structure of his available Köthen serenades, Bach parodied the recitatives as well as the madrigalian paired arias and tutti ensembles. This wasn't simply Bach hastily cobbling a wholesale, perfunctory text underlay of embarrassing self-plagiarism, as 19th century Bach scholars simply assumed. Easter Monday Cantata BWV 66, "Erfreut euch, ihr Herzen" (Rejoice, ye hearts), was a template, a model, for Bach's four later feast day parodies. Indeed, something successful and pleasing bears repeating and Bach performed again all five Köthen-origin cantatas in the Easter season of both 1731 and (perhaps) 1735.
Bach made one change in the vocal music. He transposed the opening Fortune (Glückseligkeit Anhalts) recitative and aria pair down an octave from alto to bass to add another solo voice to the cantata, Smend points out (p. 51). Dürr notes that the original two allegorical figures "Fortune" and "Fame" are designated in the 1724 original sacred version as "Schwachheit" (Weakness) and "Zuversicht" (Confidence), becoming "Furcht" (Fear) and "Hoffnug" (Hope) in 1731. This final characterization, says Dürr, is based on the Gospel reading, "But we HOPED that he would redeem Israel" (Luke 24:21) and "Certain women have FRIGHTENED us" ("Luke
24:22).
The original Fortune and Fame duet passages should be retained in the Cantata BWV 66 performances of the opening da capo chorus vocal and middle sections and "no doubt should be sung by soloists," says Dürr
(p. 277). "The middle section, by comparison with the outer (A section) ones, brings a reduction not only in sonority but in tempo ('andante')."
The discourse or dialogue form is entirely appropriate for adaptation to a cantata for Easter Monday, since the Gospel reading is from Luke 23:13-35, the Disciples' "Walk to Emmaus" journey or pilgrimage. In Bach's time, this event symbolized conversation strengthening the Lutheran concept of discipleship through witness in the immediate post-Resurrection or "in-between" time. In his Epistle address to the Roman house of Cornelius, The Apostle Peter says, "We are witnesses of all things that he did" (Act 10:39), the beginning of proclamation, evangelism, going fourth into the world.
Throughout the day-long Easter Monday Walk to Emmaus, there is a sense of personal discovery, revelation, opportunity and commitment. The 20th Century Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhöffer speaks eloquently of this in his <The Cost of Discipleship>, of taking up the practice of unconditional, unquestioning "followship," especially in the pursuit of "costly grace" instead of "cheap grace." Today, mainline Protestant churches, particularly the Methodists, have an "Upper Room" renewal movement four-day program called, "Walk to Emmaus."
The original Köthen serenade BWV 66a may have opened with a sinfonia, possibly later used to open Cantata BWV 42, "But in the evening of the same Sabbath, for the First Sunday in Easter (Quasimodogeniti) in the 1725 second cycle, according to Joshua Rifkin as cited in Dürr (p. 296). Norman Carrell in <Bach the Borrower> (1967, pp. 118, 185, said the sinfonia must have been written for a (lost) cantata which dealt with the walk to Emmaus." W. Gillies Whittaker in <Cantatas of JSB> I: 296, says the sinfonia, originpossibly as a Köthen double-chorus da capo concerto, "is a heavenly picture of evening. The throbbing chords remind one of the first chorus of (Cantata) No. 6, "Abide with us, for the Evening is far spent." It is possible that Bach in 1724 planned to retain this six-minute-long sinfonia in D Major, in the same key as Cantata 66a, but set it aside because Cantata 66, even without the omitted three movements from Cantata 66a, was too long, running a half an hour. While there is no "Lost Emmaus Cantata" there exist a sinfonia with a link to Köthen and a serenade later used for the Easter Monday Walk to Emmaus.
Since Bach in 1724 already had on hand virtually all the music and original text of Cantata BWV 66, he easily could have assembled the new text, possible using the services of Picander and Pastor Christian Weiß Sr. It would have been relatively easy to assemble the printed textbooklets containing cantatas for the three-day Easter Festival to the Second Sunday After Easter (Misericordia Domini), delivered to the printer no later than four weeks before Easter Sunday. Two such libretti booklets exists for that early Easter season period of five services in 1724 (first cycle) and in 1731 (BWV 31, BWV 66, BWV 134, BWV 42, and newBWV 112). For the initial 1724 cycle, Bach already had on hand the texts of repeat Weimar Easter Sunday, Cantatas BWV 4 and 31, and duplicated the parody process for Cantata BWV 134 for Easter Tuesday using the same resource team as BWV 66 for Easter Monday. For the first two Sundays following Easter, Bach composed new cantatas BWV 76 and BWV 104, possibly to texts of Christian Weiß Sr.
Bach would have repeated this same libretto process for succeeding Easter festivals, since he had much material already on hand and would rely on reperformances of his as the cantatas of Telemann and J.L. Bach.
Bach presented the following works on Easter Mondays:
EASTER MONDAY (NBA KB I/10 Dürr 1956)
Gospel, Luke 23:13-35 (Walk to Emmaus); Epistle , Acts 10:34-41 (Peter preaches Christ)
Date (Cycle) BWV
Title Type/
Notes
4/10/1724 (1) 66 Erfreut euch, ihr Herzen chorus/parody
4/2/1725 (2) 6 Bleib
bei uns, es will Abend werden chorus/not chorale cantata, borrowed material
4/22/1726(3) [JLB10] Es ist aus der Angst und Gericht by J.L. Bach
4/18/1729 (Anh.190, P.29) Ich bin ein Pilgrim auf die Welt fragments survive
3/26/1731 (66) Erfreut euch, ihr
Herzen repeat
4/11/1735 (66) Erfreut euch, ihr Herzen repeat
c1736-39 (6) Bleib bei uns, es will Abend werden repeat
Bach presented the following works for Easter Tuesdays:
EASTER TUESDAY (NBA KB I/10, Dürr 1956)
Gospel, Luke 24:36-47 (Jesus appears to disciples); Epistle, Acts 13:26-33 (Paul: Christ risen)
Date (Cycle) BWV
Title
Type
/Notes
4/11/1724 (1) BWV 134I Ein Herz, das seinen Jesum lebend weiß Chorus/parody
4/3/1725 (2) (?4) Christ lag in Todesbanden repeat
and (?158) Der Friede sei mit dir solo SB/ borrowed
4/23/1726 (3) (JLB11) Er machet uns ledenbid solo, J.L. Bach
?4/19/1729 (4) 145, P.30 Ich lebe, mein Herz, in deinem Ergötzen chorus/borrowed
3/27/1731 (BWV 134II) Ein Herz, das seinen Jesum lebend weiß repeat, revised
?4/12/1735 (BWV 134III) Ein Herz, das seinen Jesum lebend weiß repeat, revised |
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Douglas Cowling wrote (July 18, 2010):
William L. Hoffman wrote:
< It would have been relatively easy to assemble the printed textbooklets containing cantatas for the three-day Easter Festival to the Second Sunday After Easter (Misericordia Domini), delivered to the printer no later than four weeks before Easter Sunday. >
Do we have particular evidence for the printing of the libretto booklets? |
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Julian Mincham wrote (July 18, 2010):
Douglas Cowling wrote:
< Do we have particular evidence for the printing of the libretto booklets? >
There's a mention in Wolff's book JSB the Learned Musician in the context of Stübel's death p 278. Also in the recent book on von Zeigler. |
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Ed Myskowski wrote (July 25, 2010):
Douglas Cowling wrote:
< In the pre-Reformation calendar, each festival was marked with an 3octave2 - eight days of equal lavish celebration. Scholars have noted that even before the Reformation, the full octaves had atrophied to a 3short octave2 of three days - Bach1s Three Days. >
There is a Jamaican expression, hotter than nine-day love, which surely derives from the Anglican (blended with African) tradition?!
Which I hereby submit, is nothing more than on octave plus the preceding Saturday. Could you call that a *novena*? I recall doing several, of the spiritual (and other) variety. Those were the days!
As best I remember, a novena went from sundown on Friday to sundown on the second succeeding Sunday. Octave plus one? Even Bach might have been worn out by that workload.
Apologies for the late reply. Honeymoon? |
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Ed Myskowski wrote (July 25, 2010):
Douglas Cowling wrote:
< Do we have particular evidence for the printing of the libretto booklets? >
There is particular evidence for the printing (and sale!) of libretto booklets, but not for these particluar dates?
On the one hand, it is a question as to why there are not more surviving copies of the text booklets. On another hand, why is it so hard to find a copy of last Tuesdays newspaper, not very many days later?
On line? Check that out some several centuries hence. |
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Ed Myskowski wrote (July 25, 2010):
William L. Hoffman wrote:
< Schulze even proposed, as scholars have increasingly accepted in the past 20 years, that the opportunistic and calculating Bach increasingly conceived music for such Leipzig civic purposes as birthdays, funerals and town council installations while simultaneously planning to utilize the same music through vocal parody in his Christological Cycle. >
This is contradictory to the occasional suggestion that Bach had a special divine inspiration, which in turn endorses Lutheranism, as a specific variant of Christianity. To put the logic in reverse: the music is so good, the underlying theology must be correct.
I did not yet get through all of Wills comments on parody. I will try to do so.
My favorite examples of parody remain Luther (and others?) taking the French chansons damour across the Rhine, and substituting less amorous, more spiritual (specifically Christian) texts.
In contemporary (21st C.) American English, we call this technique: bait and switch. We also call parody a form of humor, not a formal musical technique employed by Bach, analogous to earlier French guys writing masses to love songs. Or vice versa? |
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Ed Myskowski wrote (July 25, 2010):
Douglas Cowling wrote:
< The most ancient novena was the nine days between Acension Day and Pentecost which were given over to prayer to the Holy Spirit. The devotion gradually accrued to other feast days. Some of Mozart' church music was intended for Marian novenas. >
Aha! Thanks for that clarification. Astute readers of the liturgical calendar will note the defined nine day interval, within the moveable, Easter related portion of the year.
The Marian emphasis of the novena was very pronounced in my personal experience, but the emphasis on the Holy Spis in fact more (theo)logical. One of these years we may get it right, and together. Or just keep making music. |
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Douglas Cowling wrote (July 25, 2010):
Ed Myskowski wrote:
< Astute readers of the liturgical calendar will note the defined nine day interval, within the moveable, Easter related portion of the year. >
Consideration of the patterns of the church year is not some pious attempt to justify the "religious truth" of Bach's music, but a verifiable historical framework which shaped Bach's compositional method, indeed the very genres in which he worked.
Much has been written about the universal, supra-religious monumentality of the Mass in B Minor. Yet Stauffer has shown quite convincingly that monumental mass settings were a staple in Dresden. Bach's mass, far from being timeless and unperformable, had a practical, historical context. Whether it's demanding chorale-prelude miniatures used as introductory "intonations" or Sanctus settings without introductions because they sequed from chant, the liturgical background is as essential component as the development of the da capo aria.
Example abound. Christmas Midnight Mass was not a popular liturgy in the Renaissance: the vast majority of music was performed on Christmas Day. However, in 17th century France, midnight mass became popular and Charpentier wrote a mass and organ works based on carols. The historical matrix is very specific.
The 40 Hours devotion, which involved three days of masses, vespers and litanies became wildly popular in late 18th century Austria. Mozart was commissioned to write some of his most stirring choral music for this liturgical genre. The liturgy tells us nothing about Mozart's spiritual life, but it provides an historical context which is essential to our understanding of the music. |
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Ed Myskowski wrote (July 26, 2010):
Douglas Cowling wrote:
< Consideration of the patterns of the church year is not some pious attempt to justify the "religious truth" of Bach's music, but a verifiable historical framework which shaped Bach's compositional method, indeed the very genres in which he worked. >
I agree 100%, sorry if any of my brief asides were not carefully stated.
(1) Doug has been a major contributor of information relating to the evolution of the liturgical calendar over a dozen and more centuries, the distinctions among various sects, the specifics of Bach in Leipzig, and the subtle (or not so) relations among various German districts in the 18th C.
(2) Some BCML correspondents (certainly not Doug) have suggested from time to time that sharing Bachs 18th C. beliefs, in the 21st C., leads to the maximum appreciation of his music. IMO, that is patently absurd. However, it is not a point raised in the current commentas, and I would have done better not to reference it at all.
To repeat for emphasis, that is not a viewpoint Doug has ever expressed, nor that I have attributed to him. |
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Marva Watson wrote (July 27, 2010):
[To Ed Myskowski & others] I appreciate all of the background information I can get when reading the posts, even personal opinions and comments. It is helpful to me in formulating a picture of musical history in that time period. I did not grow up familiar with the Lutheran calendar and events so I learn a lot when this extra information is included. I then feel like I can sift through it and filter out what is important and useful to me. Please keep posting all information even if you think it may not be terribly relevant. |
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Ed Myskowski wrote (July 30, 2010):
Marva Watson wrote [In response to an exchange between Doug Cowling and Ed Myskowski]:
< I appreciate all of the background information I can get when reading the posts, even personal opinions and comments. It is helpful to me in formulating a picture of musical history in that time period. I did not grow up familiar with the Lutheran calendar and events so I learn a lot when this extra information is included. >
Thank you for the encouragement. Most of Bachs sacred works were created and performed in accordance with a liturgical calendar which was specific to his time and place. That was new to me, a few years ago when I joined BCML. I have enjoyed learning, and listening to the music in relation to its liturgtical setting. I know a lot of folks who would simply say If it sounds good, I like it.
On BCML, some of us propose: if I like it, it must sound good? |
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Continue on Part 4 |
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