While most of Bach’s cantatas in Weimar were performed in the castle’s chapel, the Himmelsburg, sometimes the Duke would visit the St. Peter und Pauli (St. Peter and Paul) church, also called the Stadtkirche (city church), and nowadays also called the Herder Kirche. It might have been for political reasons, or because of wanting to hear a certain preacher. Whatever the Duke’s motivation was on Easter 1715, it is clear from the orchestration of cantata 31 Der Himmel Lacht, die Erde Jubilieret that it cannot have been performed on the small organ loft of the castle’s chapel. (Lucky for all those musicians, they didn’t have to climb the 65 feet / 20 meters Bach climbed every day to play organ there).

Listen to cantata 31 by Harnoncourt on YouTube

Listen to cantata 31 by Harnoncourt on Spotify

After the first performance in Weimar on April 21, 1715, Bach performed this cantata at least two more times in Leipzig. This might have been because of writing or revising the Passions for Good Friday, he didn’t have time to write something new (he also recycled cantata 4 a couple of times), but let’s just say he really liked them.

In the fabulous opening sinfonia, one can clearly hear that Bach had been studying Vivaldi’s music and also that the start of the Christmas Oratorio (written much later, in Leipzig) was conceived already here in Weimar. At one point in the cello part, there is a reference to the brilliant writing in cantata 18 from two months earlier that same year.

Whether the sinfonia was meant to function as an “entrada” for the Duke and his entourage into the church or not, it needs to be that slow for me, that I can at least picture a ceremonial entrance happening while this music is being performed. That desire combined with strong nostalgic emotions I have when listening to this cantata, I can only recommend the Harnoncourt recording of this.

The nostalgia is of course not for  the sometimes struggling brass instruments in the opening movement. (It was not easy in the early 70s to play  historic trumpet. But those guys paved the way. And who knows, maybe that’s why Harnoncourt takes the tempo so much slower than Historical Performance conductors do that nowadays). The nostalgia is for the fabulous Peter Jelosits. In my memory this cantata got played  more often in our house than just on Easter Sunday and I truly grew up with his voice. In this cantata he gets to sing the soprano part in the five-part (!) opening chorus by himself for several measures, which is pure heaven, and he sings a fabulous aria as well. In the liner notes it only says “soloist of Wiener Sängerknaben,” but if you compare it with this recording, it is clearly him.

About the aria (the before-last movement of the cantata): after the super-happy opening chorus celebrating the resurrection and -in the subsequent movements- reflections on what Christ’s passion and resurrection mean for man, it is by now time  to turn back to the always present death, and the trust that Jesus will not leave the believer’s side. By this time Bach had already buried two of his children, and his employer was also a very devout Lutheran, so this was entirely appropriate, as dark and heavy as it might seem to us today.

So Bach already presents a “deathbed chorale” in this aria, in the melody of the upper strings, while of course the soprano voice part sings different words.  We can assume that the congregation at this church in Weimar as well as Duke Wilhelm-Ernst knew this chorale so well they could hear these words in their head:

Wenn mein Stündlein vorhanden ist, und ich soll hinfahren meine Strasse, geleite mich, Herr Jesu Christ, mit Hilf mich nicht verlasse : den Geist an meinem letzten End befehl ich, Herr, in deine Händ ; du wirst ihn wohl bewahren.

When the hour of my death is at hand And I must travel on my way Accompany me, Lord Jesus Christ, With your help do not abandon me: At my final end my spirit I entrust, Lord, in your hands; You will preserve it well.

This same tune then comes back in the closing chorale, using the original text, albeit the very last verse of it.

The entire German text of this cantata with English tranlations can be found here.

Wieneke Gorter, March 27, 2016

From 1708-1717, Bach worked at the court of the Dukes of Saxony-Weimar. Two dukes, an uncle and his nephew, co-reigned the Duchy and the town, each from their own castle: the uncle, Wilhelm Ernst, from his impressive Wilhelmsburg (pictured above); the nephew, Ernst August, from his Rote Schloss (Red Palace, so called for the red window frames in the otherwise grey colored castle). The uncle was a devout Lutheran and amateur preacher, while the nephew was much more interested in chamber music. Though the complex of buildings seems quite isolated in the image above, it was actually in town.

Bach moved to Weimar from Mühlhausen with his wife Maria Barbara. They lived in an apartment on the town square, a short walk from the Wilhelmsburg, but directly around the corner from the Red Palace. Their first child was born that same year, and Maria Barbara’s older, unmarried sister Friedelena Margaretha joined them a year later, in  1709, probably to help run the household. As far as we know she stayed with the Bach family until her death in 1729 (see my post about the Bach family in Leipzig).

At first, from 1708 to 1714, Bach worked as a chamber musician for both the uncle and the nephew, but also as organist in the beautiful chapel in the Wilhelmsburg, the castle of the older Duke. The chapel was called the Himmelsburg for a painting depicting the “opening of the heavens” in the ceiling of the chapel, right above the organ loft.  The organ loft was about 65 feet (or 20 meters, or four two-story houses) above the floor of the chapel (!).

It was here in Weimar that Bach perfected his organ playing skills and that he started studying Vivaldi’s music and incorporating Italian and French composition styles into his instrumental music. Bach was also good friends with the organist of the St. Peter und Pauli (St. Peter and Paul) church, also called the Stadtkirche (town church), and nowadays known as the Herderkirche. So while he must have practiced on the organ every day, it is possible that he did not have to climb all those stairs to the organ in the Himmelsburg every time, but also used the organ in the Peter and Paul church. For a picture of the inside of this church, see my post Easter in Weimar 1715.

In 1713 Bach went to advise the city of Halle regarding the building of a new organ, and was informally offered the post of organist there. Upon his return to Weimar, he told the Duke that he was in negotiations with Halle. When he finally received the official offer from the city of Halle, he didn’t like the terms and rejected it. The Halle authorities then got so angry, suggesting that he had led them on all that time, that they wrote to Duke Wilhelm Ernst, that Bach probably had only applied for the post in Halle so he could get a raise in Weimar. Wilhelm Ernst’s response to this was to not only double Bach’s salary, but also offer him the position of Konzertmeister (leader of the orchestra). They agreed that Bach would write a church cantata every month, for which he could use any musician from either palace.**

Whenever these cantatas were performed in the Himmelsburg, all musicians would have to stand in the small organ loft. It was a pretty small space, that only fit 7 singers and 5 instrumentalists.***

A beautiful example of the cantatas written for this space is cantata 182 Himmelskönig, sei wilkommen!  (written for March 25, 1714, when Palm Sunday and the feast of the Annunciation fell on the same day). I recommend the recording by Montreal Baroque of this cantata. Listen here on Spotify, or here on YouTube. Their one-on-a-part performance features fabulous singing all around (soprano Monika Mauch, countertenor Matthew White, tenor Charles Daniels, bass Harry van der Kamp). This cantata was repeated a couple of times in Leipzig, but never on Palm Sunday, as the Leipzig rules dictated that no music was performed on that day, it still being within the period of Lent (the 40 days before Easter).

Find the text of cantata 182 here, and the score here.

Many of Bach’s Weimar cantatas (for example cantata 21 Ich hatte viel Bekummernis, 18 Gleichwie der Regen und Schnee vom Himmel fällt, and 61 Nun Komm der Heiden Heiland) start with an elaborate instrumental ouverture or sinfonia. This is probably not just because Bach was eager to try out the Italian and French composition styles he had studied, but also for the simple reason that while these cantata openings were being performed, the Duke and his entourage would slowly walk into the chapel and take their seats.

When the post of  Kapellmeister (head of the court musical establishment) opened up in 1716, Bach was passed, in favor of an incompetent candidate. It is possible that Wilhelm Ernst had done this on purpose, to punish Bach for spending too much time with his nephew in the Red Palace. Furious, Bach asked to be dismissed. (When in the employment of royalty, one couldn’t just quit). In turn, Wilhelm Ernst had Bach jailed for four weeks in a fortress before he accepted his dismissal and Bach could move to Köthen.

Wieneke Gorter, March 26, 2016, updated April 5, 2020.

** There were two boy sopranos, one male alto, two tenors, and two basses on the list of musicians employed by the Dukes, but Bach could also use boy singers from the local gymnasium, where his own former principal from Ohrdruf was now the rector.

*** On feast days the cantatas were sometimes performed in the town church, see my post about Easter in Weimar 1715.

My apologies for not posting anything this past weekend. The other aspects of my life need(ed) my attention, time, and energy.

While you wait for my future posts, please watch this video about Bach’s life and work. It’s a BBC documentary, aka the film version of Gardiner’s book about Bach, with Gardiner actually visiting all the villages and cities where Bach lived and worked, and showing lots of historical documents in the Bach Archives in Leipzig.

To come later this month:

Sunday March 20: Palm Sunday: Cantata 182 Himmelskönig, sei willkommen

Sunday March 27: Easter Sunday: Cantata 31 Der Himmel lacht! Die Erde jubilieret

Wieneke Gorter, March 3, 2016