Category Archives: After Easter

Bach’s busy spring of 1725

15 Saturday May 2021

Posted by in After Easter, Ascension, Bach's life, Cantatas, Leipzig, Trinity

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Trade Fair traffic entering Leipzig, 1820s.

If you don’t feel like reading a long blog post and just want to learn about this Sunday’s cantatas, please watch Rudolf Lutz’ wonderful lecture/improvisation from 2020 about Cantata 44 and 183 here. It is in English. Find my blog post about these same cantatas, highlighting completely different aspects of the pieces, here.

We tend to think that Christmas was the busiest time for Bach in Leipzig, writing cantatas for the three (!) Christmas Days, New Year’s Day, Epiphany, AND all the Sundays that fell in between those days. On the holidays, he would often perform the cantatas twice, once in the St. Nicholas Church, and once in the St. Thomas Church.

While working like this for two weeks in a row does sound crazy to us, we can still relate to it, because the Christmas season is often busy for most of us too.

But especially because of this wanting or needing to relate, I think we often forget that there was another period in the year for Bach in Leipzig that was equally busy: the time from Easter to Trinity. It was perhaps not as non-stop as the Christmas season, but it was much longer in time, and more laden with decision-making, so possibly more draining for the composer. We don’t know.

I would like to go back to my posts from the spring of 2018, when I was following Bach’s writing in the spring of 1725. Going forward, this year, I would like to keep following his cantata compositions from 1725. So let’s look at what this possibly exhausting period looked like for Bach in 1725. All the links in this following list refer to my own blog posts from 2018. The Easter Oratorio was rewritten from a previous work, but every single cantata Bach wrote after that was newly composed that year, 1725.

March 30, Good Friday: The second version of the St. John Passion, with a new opening chorus and several new arias.

April 1, Easter Sunday: First performance of the Easter Oratorio as well as a repeat performance of Cantata 4 Christ lag in Todesbanden (written much earlier in his career)

April 2, Easter Monday: Cantata 6 Bleib bei uns, denn es will Abend werden

April 8, First Sunday after Easter: Cantata 42 Am Abend aber desselbigen Sabbats

April 15, Second Sunday after Easter: Cantata 85 Ich bin ein guter Hirt

April 22, Third Sunday after Easter: Cantata 103 Ihr werdet weinen und heulen

This Third Sunday after Easter, or “Jubilate” Sunday, was also the start of a three-week-long Trade Fair in Leipzig, lasting until Exaudi Sunday (this Sunday). Leipzig had three such events each year (the others were at Michaelmas and at New Year’s). In the 18th century Leipzig had become the centre for trade with Russia, Poland, and England. During the fairs the population of the city would grow to 30,000. Bach did business himself too during these times. He for example timed the publication of his Clavierübung to coincide with these fairs. In addition to that, I imagine that he would have had visitors in his house, and that he was making time to meet with friends and colleagues who were in town during this time.

April 29: Cantata 108 Es ist euch gut, daß ich hingehe

May 6: Cantata 87 Bisher habt ihr nichts gebeten in meinem Namen

May 10, Ascension Day: Cantata 128 Auf Christi Himmelfahrt allein

May 13: Exaudi Sunday (this current Sunday): Cantata 183 Sie werden euch in den Bann tun

May 20, Pentecost / Whit Sunday: Cantata 74 Wer mich liebet, der wird mein Wort halten

May 21, Pentecost Monday / Whit Monday: Cantata 68 Also hat Gott die Welt geliebt

May 22, Pentecost Tuesday / Whit Tuesday: Cantata 175 Er rufet seinen Schafen mit Namen

May 27, Trinity Sunday: Cantata 176 Es ist ein trotzig und verzagt Ding

Wieneke Gorter, May 15, 2021

Good Shepherd Sunday and Memories of visiting Ravenna

17 Saturday Apr 2021

Posted by in After Easter, Cantatas, Chorale cantatas 1724/1725, Leipzig

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The Good Shepherd, mosaic in the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, Ravenna, 1st half of the 5th century

In the early summer of 2018, my husband, my kids, and me had the good fortune to be able to visit Italy for the first time in our lives. When I was growing up, we usually went to France in the summer vacation, as was normal for families from the Netherlands. I did have Latin in high school, but our class was very small, and trips to Rome where not the norm at that school. In college, I had somehow missed the choir tour to Italy, and had “only” gone on the ones to Spain (three times) and Portugal. So it was a very special treat to me to finally be able to go to Italy, and see several of the art works in real life.

After three relaxing days in the mountains and three wonderful days in Venice, we traveled on to Ravenna. I had gone back and forth about including Ravenna in the itinerary. Would we want yet another stop? Was it worth it to have less time in Umbria as a result of the extra night in Ravenna?

In Venice, we had learned that visiting tourist attractions at 5 pm or later was the best way to avoid the busloads of tourists. So on the morning we left Venice, I emailed the guide in Ravenna I had been corresponding with in the weeks before that we might still want to visit the mosaics with her between 5 and 7 pm, if she was still free. If I could confirm after lunch time? She was fine with that. (Later we learned that the busiest time for the tour guides in Ravenna is the school year, when all the Italian kids come to learn about this important time and place in Italian (art) history, and that most of them are more flexible in the summer).

At 10:30 am, we did a reverse commute on the ferry from the Zattere in Venice’s Dorsoduro neighborhood to Fusina on the mainland, where our rental car had been parked for three nights. We drove to Chioggia and ate a delightful seafood lunch at a no-frills restaurant at the harbor there. Then we confirmed our time with the guide and drove the extremely boring road to Ravenna, still wondering if all this was worth it.

But our visit to the mosaics with the guide was one of the best and most peaceful experiences we had that entire vacation. There was no line at the ticket office, the mosaics were stunningly beautiful, the buildings practically empty that time of day, and our guide was extremely knowledgable and fun to be with (it was hard saying good-bye to her after the two hours). All four of us cherish our memories of that visit.

The most impressive monument to all of us was the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, because of how well preserved and vibrant the mosaics in that monument are. I had been using the mosaic of Jesus as “The Good Shepherd” already twice on this blog, and it was deeply moving to me to see it there in real life. So I’m featuring it again today.

Jesus as the Good Shepherd is the theme for this Second Sunday after Easter, and it appears in all three cantatas Bach wrote for this Sunday: BWV 104 from 1724, BWV 85 from 1725, and BWV 112 from 1731. I have yet to write about Cantata 112, but have written about Cantata 104 here in 2017, and about Cantata 85 here in 2016.

Wieneke Gorter, April 17, 2021.

Blessings during a crisis

24 Sunday May 2020

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French Alps at La Clusaz, photo by Luc Barrière.

In an effort to share some more personal thoughts with you, this has become quite a long post. If you prefer not to read it and go straight to the cantatas for this Exaudi Sunday, you can find my post about cantatas 44 and 183 here. It is a story with a wealth of information, gorgeous soprano arias, and recommendations for top-notch recordings. But since there’s always more to learn, I wanted to give some attention to Rudolf Lutz’ English spoken lecture about these cantatas. Find the link at the end of this post.

Over the past several months, while we’ve all been dealing with this global health crisis, I have often felt overwhelmed. Overwhelmed by piles of dishes, by potentially life changing decisions, by not knowing what my role is supposed to be in this crisis, but also by musicians and music organizations. While one is telling me to watch this YouTube video–available this week only!, another invites me to join a lecture on Zoom– please submit your questions ahead of time, yet another is showing me that singing while masked actually sounds pretty good (even though their images scare the * out of me), but wait … there’s a live Facebook Event STARTING NOW!

I understand the reasons behind it. An urge to share music with others, so strong they need to answer it or go insane. A fear of being forgotten by their patrons and thus losing even more income. Creative minds that keep exploring new possibilities. I also understand that there are probably millions of people for whom concert-going was their weekly bread, and that they are all eating this up. But it doesn’t calm me down.

My soul has been soothed much more by the images of sour dough rising, vegetable gardens being planned, blooming gardens, and nature. Two Instagram accounts I have especially enjoyed are those of Les Arts Florissants, who have been posting a wealth of pictures of William Christie’s gardens in France, and of Luc Barrière, a concert photographer who left Paris for the Alps before the strict lockdown happened in France. Yes, I know these are privileged people, and everyone can think of their living situations what they want. To me personally, these two accounts have given me examples of people taking care of themselves and slowing down, and that inspires me and calms me.

William Christie’s garden in Thiré, France, on March 28, 2020. Photo from Les Arts Florissants Facebook page.

Of course stress is not caused by the acts of other people, but by your own reaction to these acts, and fortunately most of the live streams can be watched again at a later time. So I have watched some of them at my own pace (while doing those dishes, folding laundry, or cleaning vegetables) and have realized that amidst the overwhelm there are blessings, because every now and then something new and marvelous emerges that would not have happened without this crisis.

For me, the absolute best example of this has been the series of “one man shows” by Rudolf Lutz, the artistic director of the J.S Bach Foundation in Switzerland. Every month, on the day his choir and orchestra would otherwise have given a concert for an audience, recorded live on video, he has live streamed an excellent and very witty lecture about that same cantata, brilliantly combined with organ improvisations on the music in the cantata, and the meaning behind the cantata. Without the crisis, his international online audience of Bach lovers would never have known what a talented improvisor he is. Without the crisis, he would never have held his lectures in English. (Until now his excellent cantata lectures were only accessible to German speakers, with only a handful of them subtitled in English).

Find Rudolf Lutz’ wonderful lecture/improvisation about Cantata 44 and 183 (from May 19) here. Find my blog post about these same cantatas (highlighting completely different aspects of the pieces!) here.

To learn more about Rudolf Lutz, read his bio here. Find his lecture/improvisation about Cantata 106 (from March 20) here, and about Cantata 4 (from April 17) here.

Rudolf Lutz, artistic director of the J.S. Bach Foundation.

Wieneke Gorter, May 24, 2020.

New roses and new videos

15 Friday May 2020

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Robin Blaze (photo by Dorothea Heise) and Shunske Sato (photo by Marco Borggreve).

Several things have changed since I wrote my post about Cantata 86 in May 2017.

I now have my own Westerland rose growing against the front of my house. The abundance of flowers, the range of color, and the glorious scent are daily blessings this time of year. And while in 2017 I still had to piece together my favorite recording of Cantata 86 from some of Gardiner’s and some of Koopman’s, there now is the fabulous live recording of the Netherlands Bach Society on YouTube, published on September 7, 2018. It even has two of my heros in the alto aria: Shunske Sato on violin and Robin Blaze singing countertenor. Other wonderful soloists on this recording: Marion Strijk, soprano; Daniel Johannsen, tenor; and Stephan MacLeod, bass.

Sato and Blaze present a very clear explanation of how Bach illustrates the “breaking” of the roses in the alto aria in this short video. Worth all the four and a half minutes of your time.

For the text and translations of cantata 86, please visit this page, and for the score, please go here.

Wieneke Gorter, May 15, 2020.

Westerland climbing rose on the front of my house, May 2020. The netting is to protect it from the deer that seek shelter in our backyard and try to forage in the front yard.

Good librettists and unusual wind instruments (3rd Sunday after Easter)

02 Saturday May 2020

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On left: Rembrandt as a Shepherd with a Staff and Flute, by Govert Flinck, 1636. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands. On right: singer with cornetto player, anonymous, 16th century.

In John 16:20, Jesus announces to his disciples that he is going to leave them, and that they will go through a period of hardship during which the rest of the world will mock them. For this 3rd Sunday after Easter, this is the story on which Bach and his librettists had to base their cantatas.

In 1714 in Weimar, Bach made this into a true lament, that he would later rewrite into the Crucifixus of his Mass in B Minor: Cantata 12 Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen.  

The librettist of this cantata (and of all other cantatas Bach wrote in Weimar) was Salomo Franck, librarian to the Duke of Weimar. Franck very cleverly portrays the “sorrow to joy”-theme of this cantata. The alto aria is a good example: after the Gospel quote in the recitative “Wir müssen durch viel Trübsal” (we have to go through tribulation) comes an upbeat aria illuminating how “Kreuz und Krone” (cross and crown) and “Kampf and Kleinod” (conflict and jewel) are always connected.

While I love everything about this cantata, my absolute favorite part is the tenor aria Sei getreu. Find out why in my blog post from 2016, where you can also find links to my favorite recordings of this cantata.

Most of the texts Bach had to work with in Leipzig were not nearly as good as Franck’s libretti. But there arguably was one exception: in 1725, between Easter and Pentecost, Bach set nine cantatas in a row to beautiful poetry by Christiane Mariana von Ziegler. Von Ziegler was a single woman who had known much sadness in her life already: her father was in prison, she was twice widowed, and had also lost all her four children. However, her family fortune was still intact and at her disposal, and the sad circumstances meant that she didn’t have to answer to a father or a husband. She thus enjoyed much more freedom than any other woman in Leipzig at the time, and could publish under her own name.

For the third Sunday in 1725, Bach wrote Cantata 103: Ihr werdet weinen und heulen on a libretto by Von Ziegler. This cantata also starts out very sad, but there is much “Freude” (joy) in the music. A sopranino recorder illustrates the “mocking” Jesus predicted, or does it? Read it all in my blog post from 2018, which also includes a link to the excellent introduction to this cantata (now with English subtitles!) by Rudolf Lutz of the J.S. Bach Foundation in Switzerland.

Wieneke Gorter, May 2, 2020.

The Good Shepherd (2nd Sunday after Easter)

26 Sunday Apr 2020

Posted by in After Easter, Cantatas, Chorale cantatas 1724/1725, Leipzig

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Jesus as “The Good Shepherd,” Catacomb of Priscilla, Rome.
Early Christian fresco, created between the late 2nd and the 4th century. To learn more about the Catacomb of Priscilla, watch this video on Youtube.

While I have been silent on this blog since Palm Sunday this year, of course Bach’s life in Leipzig was far from quiet. In fact, Easter was a time of non-stop work on cantata compositions for him, perhaps even more intense than the Christmas season.*

Today is the second Sunday after Easter, for which Bach wrote Cantata 104 in 1724, and Cantata 85 in 1725, all on the theme of Jesus as “The Good Shepherd.” I have updated the posts I wrote about those cantatas in 2016 and 2017, making sure all the links work, and adding a link to the live performance of Cantata 85 by the J.S. Bach Foundation. If you have some extra time, you can listen to the beautiful sub-group of cantatas Bach wrote after Easter in 1725: BWV 6, 42, and 85. Just follow in the links in my post about Cantata 85.

If you can afford to financially support the artists (especially important now, while they have no income from performances!) please consider purchasing their recordings. I have included links for that too in every post.

Wieneke Gorter, April 26, 2020.

*Before Christmas in Leipzig, he would have the four-week break of Advent, while before Easter he would have been busy rehearsing, rewriting, and performing whichever Passion he performed that year.

Pentecost 1725

20 Sunday May 2018

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The Descent of the Holy Ghost by Titian, circa 1545. Altarpiece in Santa Maria della Salute, Venice, Italy.

 

In Bach’s time, Pentecost was a three-day-long feast, as important in the church year as Christmas and Easter. Most of the Pentecost cantatas have trumpets, timpani, and more pull-out-all-the stops instrumentation, as was appropriate for  feast days. They don’t get performed often today, because Pentecost is not such an important feast anymore, and cantatas with Baroque trumpets and timpani are expensive.

In 1725 Bach performed the following cantatas. All these three cantatas are part of the series of nine cantatas on poetry by Christiana Mariana von Ziegler Bach wrote after Easter that year. Click on the links to find recordings on YouTube.

Sunday May 20, Whit Sunday, or First Day of Pentecost: Cantata 74 Wer mich liebet, der wird mein Wort halten.

Find the text of Cantata 74 here, and the score here.

Monday May 21, Whit Monday, or Second Day of Pentecost: Cantata 68 Also hat Gott die Welt geliebt, with the famous soprano aria Mein glaübiges Herze – gloriously sung by Peter Jelosits on the Harnoncourt recording.

Tuesday May 22, Whit Tuesday, or Third Day of Pentecost: Cantata 175 Er rufet seinen Schafen mit Namen. (complete cantata by the Bach Foundation).

Find the text of Cantata 175 here, and the score here.

Bach might have remembered from a year before that writing three cantatas in three days was going to be too much, so he reworked the opening of cantata 59 (a soprano-bass duet) from 1724 into an opening chorus for four voice parts and full orchestra in cantata 74 in 1725. He also transformed the bass-aria with violin solo from cantata 59 into a soprano aria with oboe da caccia in cantata 74.

Wieneke Gorter, May 20, 2018.

Exaudi Sunday 1725

13 Sunday May 2018

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P1030690

For today, Exaudi Sunday, or the sixth Sunday after Easter, or the Sunday after Ascension, in 1725 Bach wrote Cantata 183 Sie werden euch in den Bann tun. When I started listening to this cantata I realized I had already written about this one, recommending a golden recording by Bach Collegium Japan, and highlighting the beautiful, unusual instrumentation of this cantata. You can read that post here.

It was a pleasant discovery on a day where I thought I still needed to write two posts (including the belated one for Ascension Day). I can actually spend some time outdoors with my family now. But at the same time it is a bit shocking to me that I’ve apparently now written so many blog posts that I don’t necessarily remember all of them! Up until now I knew if I had written about a cantata or not. It probably means that it is time for me to slow down some more, and then create a good index on this website …

Wieneke Gorter, May 13, 2018.

Ascension Day 1725

13 Sunday May 2018

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giotto_ascension

The Ascension of Our Lord by Giotto di Bondone, 1305. Fresco in the Capella Scrovegni, Padua, Italy.

In the Netherlands, where I grew up, most people have a four-day weekend for Ascension Day (Thursday May 10 this year as well as in 1725). The traditional thing to do was go for a long bike ride very early in the morning on the Thursday, and then spend the rest of the weekend doing the first serious gardening of the season, putting annuals in the ground, filling window boxes, etc.

Here in the United States, Ascension Day goes by unnoticed, nobody gets that Thursday day off, never mind the four-day weekend. And here in California we already started gardening a while ago. So, while still digging out from an extremely busy several weeks/months, I forgot about it. I only remembered when my sister, who lives in France, told me they were away for the long weekend.

Following Bach’s writing in 1725, the cantata for Ascension Day 1725 is Cantata 128 Auf Christi Himmelfahrt allein. It has a fantastic bass solo with trumpet (the designated instrument to illustrate “heaven”) and a beautiful alto-tenor duet.

My favorite recording of this cantata is from 1993 by Gardiner, with Robin Blaze, countertenor; Christoph Genz, tenor; and Reinhard Hagen, bass. Unfortunately the name of the trumpet player is not published. Listen to it here on Spotify. This recording is not available on YouTube. Please note that this is a completely different interpretation than Gardiner’s crazy high tempo recording from 2012 (a “make-up” recording for the missing one from the Cantata Pilgrimage cycle from 2000).

If you don’t have access to Spotify, you can listen to Harnoncourt’s 1983 recording here on YouTube, with soloists René Jacobs, coutertenor; Kurt Equiluz, tenor; Max van Egmond, bass; and Friedemann Immer, natural trumpet.

Find the text of Cantata 128 Auf Christi Himmelfahrt allein here, and the score here.

While the opening chorus is very similar to the great chorale fantasias from January 1725, this cantata is not a true “chorale cantata” anymore. By this time, after Easter 1725, Bach doesn’t follow the same structure that he religiously adhered to for all his cantatas from Trinity, June 11, 1724 to the Annunciation, March 25, 1725. None of the cantatas after March 25 have the chorale tune or text throughout the entire cantata: the closing chorale is a different one than the chorale in the opening chorus, and the inner recitatives and arias are no longer based on the text of the chorale from the opening chorus either.

This cantata is the fourth in the series of nine consecutive cantatas on poetry by Christiana Mariana von Ziegler (103, 108, 87, 128, 183, 74, 68, 175, and 176). Because Von Ziegler’s texts were published, we can see how many changes Bach made to her texts. In the case of this cantata, the most striking change is Bach deleting the planned recitative between the bass aria and the alto-tenor duet. It seems that Bach wanted to increase the musical contrast between the two movements, while at the same time clarifying the connection of the text from one movement (bass aria) to the next (alto-tenor) duet.

Thus he adds Von Ziegler’s original recitative text to the text of the bass aria, starting with an extra line “wo mein Erlöser lebt.” The line doesn’t rhyme with anything, and Von Ziegler must not have been happy with this. However, this way Bach can repeat the instrumental opening of the aria after what was originally the recitative text, and create more contrast between the movements.

He also adds two more lines at the end of that bass aria:

So schweig, verwegner Mund,
Und suche nicht dieselbe zu ergründen!

Thus making it more clear how the text of this movement is related to the next movement.

Below is an overview of all the changes Bach made in this particular libretto, courtesy of Eduard van Hengel.

Wieneke Gorter, May 13, 2018.

text comparison
BACH

1. Auf Christi Himmelfahrt allein
Ich meine Nachfahrt gründe
Und allen Zweifel, Angst und Pein
Hiermit stets überwinde;
Denn weil das Haupt im Himmel ist,
Wird seine Glieder Jesus Christ
Zu rechter Zeit nachholen.

2. Ich bin bereit, komm, hole mich!
Hier in der Welt
Ist Jammer, Angst und Pein;
Hingegen dort, in Salems Zelt,
Werd ich verkläret sein.
Da seh ich Gott
von Angesicht zu Angesicht,
Wie mir sein heilig Wort verspricht.

3. Auf, auf, mit hellem Schall
Verkündigt überall:
Mein Jesus sitzt zur Rechten!
Wer sucht mich anzufechten?
Ist er von mir genommen,
Ich werd einst dahin kommen,
Wo mein Erlöser lebt.
Mein Augen werden ihn
in größter Klarheit schauen.
O könnt ich im voraus
mir eine Hütte bauen!
Wohin? Vergebner Wunsch!
Er wohnet nicht auf Berg und Tal,
Sein Allmacht zeigt sich überall;
So schweig, verwegner Mund,
Und suche nicht dieselbe zu ergründen!

4. Sein Allmacht zu ergründen,
Wird sich kein Mensche finden,
Mein Mund verstummt und schweigt.
Ich sehe durch die Sterne,
Dass er sich schon von ferne
Zur Rechten Gottes zeigt.

5. Alsdenn so wirst du mich
Zu deiner Rechten stellen
Und mir als deinem Kind
Ein gnädig Urteil fällen,
Mich bringen zu der Lust,
Wo deine Herrlichkeit
Ich werde schauen an
In alle Ewigkeit.

 Christiana Mariana von Ziegler

1. Auf Christi Himmelfarth allein
ich meine Nachfarth gründe
und allen Zweifel, Angst und Pein,
hiermit stets überwinde:
Denn weil das Haupt im Himmel ist,
wird seine Glieder JEsus Christ
zu rechter Zeit nachhohlen.

2. Ich bin bereit, komm hohle mich.
Hier in der Welt
Ist nicht, als Jammer, Angst und Pein;
Hingegen dort in Salems Zelt
Wird ich verklähret seyn.
Da seh ich dich
von Angesicht,
Wie mir dein heilges Wort verspricht.

3. Auf! Jubiliert mit hellen Schall,
Verkündiget nun überall,
Mein JEsus sitzt zur Rechten,
Wer sucht mich anzufechten?
Wird er mir gleich weggenommen,
Wird ich doch dahin auch kommen.
………………………………………..
Mein Auge wird ihn einst
in gröster Klarheit schauen.
O! könt ich schon allda
mir eine Hütte bauen;
Jedoch vergebner Wunsch,
Er wohnet nicht auf Berg und Thal.
Sein Allmacht zeigt sich überall.
………………………………………………..
………………………………………………….

4. Dein Allmacht zu ergründen,
Wird sich kein Mensche finden,
Mein Mund verstummt und schweigt
Ich sehe durch die Sterne,
daß er sich schon von ferne
Zur Rechten seines Vaters zeigt.

5. Alsdenn so wirst du mich
zu deiner Rechten stellen,
und mir als deinen Kind
ein gnädig Urtheil fällen,
mich bringen zu der Lust,
wo deine Herrlichkeit
ich werde schauen an
in alle Ewigkeit.

Third Sunday after Easter, 1725

22 Sunday Apr 2018

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christ_taking_leave_of_the_apostles
Christ Taking Leave of the Apostles by Duccio di Buoninsegna, between 1308 and 1311. Tempera on wood. Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena, Italy.

2020 update:  If you can afford to financially support the artists, please consider purchasing your favorite recording. Just click on the Amazon or iTunes link at the end of the paragraph that describes the recording.

In 1725, between Easter and Pentecost, Bach set nine cantatas in a row to beautiful poetry by Christiane Mariana von Ziegler: Cantatas 103, 108, 87, 128, 183, 74, 68, 175, and 176. Read more about this multi-talented female librettist, arts benefactor, and fellow Lutheran “preacher” in this post.

The first cantata in this series is Cantata 103: Ihr werdet weinen und heulen, for the third Sunday after Easter in 1725.

My favorite overall recording of this cantata is by Herreweghe, with vocal soloists Damien Guillon, Thomas Hobbs, and Peter Kooij, and Jan Van Hoecke on flauto piccolo. Listen to their opening chorus here on YouTube. Listen to the entire recording by Herreweghe here on Spotify. If you like this recording, please purchase it on Amazon or iTunes.

However for the best energy and intensity in the tenor aria, I prefer Mark Padmore on the Gardiner recording. Listen to their interpretation of the tenor aria here on Spotify. If you like this recording, please purchase it on Amazon or iTunes.

Robin Blaze’s singing and Dan Laurin’s playing in the alto aria on the Bach Collegium Japan recording is exceptional, and perhaps more moving than Damien Guillon’s on the Herreweghe recording. Listen to that aria here on Spotify. And it is a good problem for me, not being able to choose between countertenors 🙂 If you like this recording, please purchase it on Amazon or iTunes.

Find the texts & translations here, and the score here.

Two noteworthy things about this cantata are the dramatic change from sadness to joy, and the use of the sopranino recorder, or “flauto piccolo” in the opening chorus and the alto aria.

The sadness on this “Jubilate” Sunday is because of the Gospel story for this Sunday: Jesus announces to his disciples that he is going to leave them, and that they will go through a period of hardship during which the rest of the world will mock them. Other cantatas Bach wrote for this Sunday are Cantata 12 Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen and Cantata 146 Wir müssen durch viel Trübsal. But in the alto recitative (fourth movement), the turning point is announced: “dass meine Traurigkeit in Freude soll verkehret werden” (that my sorrow will be turned to joy). Bach makes a big deal here of illustrating the word “Freude” and then does that again, even more exuberantly in the tenor aria that follows: there the illustration of the word “Freude” is six measures and almost 100 notes long.

Since his arrival in Leipzig, Bach had used recorders in cantatas quite often see this image by Nik Tarasov, but this is only the third time he writes for sopranino recorder, or “flauto piccolo.” The first time was on October 8, 1724, in Cantata 96 Herr Christ der einige Gottessohn, and the second time on March 25, 1725, in Cantata 1 Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern.

In both cases, Bach used the sopranino part to illustrate the word “Morgenstern” (Morning Star) in the text, creating an extra constellation over the highest notes of the sopranos with the even higher notes of the recorder. It is not completely clear why Bach uses the sopranino this time, in Cantata 103. There are theories that the instrument is meant to illustrate the “mocking” of the outside world. But, as Bach always paints the entire story of a cantata already in the opening chorus, I think he perhaps might have used the recorder to convey the message of “there will be joy at the end” in the otherwise very sad opening chorus. But who knows, his reason for using the instrument might simply have been that the virtuoso player was in town again, since it was around the time of the big Easter Trade Fair that Bach was writing this music.

Whatever the reason, it is very likely that there was only one person in 1725 among Bach’s colleagues who could play this. When Bach performed the piece again in later years, he changed the accompanying instrument in the alto aria to violin. There are also parts for a transverse flute. Herreweghe, Koopman, and Suzuki use a sopranino recorder in the alto aria, while Gardiner uses violin, and Ponseele (on the Il Gardellino recording) uses transverse flute.

To learn more about this cantata, you can now (2020) watch the excellent introduction (“Workshop”) by Rudolf Lutz of the J.S. Bach Foundation here on YouTube. The J.S. Bach Foundation just added English subtitles this video, so it is now also accessible to those who don’t understand German.

To read more about Bach’s use of recorders, I recommend this article in two parts by Nik Tarasov: Part I, about Bach in Mühlhausen, Weimar, and Köthen, and Part II, about Bach in Leipzig.

Wieneke Gorter, April 22, 2018, updated April 27 & May 2, 2020.