Weekly Cantata

~ Memories, musings, and movie script fantasies inspired by Bach cantatas, along with recommendations for recordings

Weekly Cantata

Tag Archives: Christ among the Doctors

Discovering a recycled aria

06 Saturday Jan 2018

Posted by cantatasonmymind in Bach's life, Cantatas, Chorale cantatas 1724/1725, Epiphany, Leipzig

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Andreas Weller, BWV 114, BWV 124, BWV 154, BWV 8, Christ among the Doctors, Daniel Schreiber, Dürer, Fanie Antonelou, Jesus among the Doctors, Johannsen, Lena Sutor-Wernich, Matthias Horn, Sunday after Epiphany, Thomas Meraner

Dürer Jesus among the Doctors
Christ among the Doctors by Dürer, 1506. Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, Spain

It seems I have discovered something this week.

As far as I can tell, no other Bach scholar has ever pointed out that Bach recycled the 10-minute long, slow but impressive aria for tenor and flute from Cantata 114 (October 1, 1724), into a much faster paced, condensed piece of drama for tenor and oboe d’amore in Cantata 124 Meinen Jesum laß ich nicht for January 7, 1725.

This past October, I dedicated almost an entire post to that 10-minute long aria for tenor and flute. Listen to the aria here and read the post from October 7 here. The aria lived in my head for a long time after I wrote that post. I think it probably lived in Bach’s head longer: for the entire fall of 1724 and even into the Christmas season. Not even the timpani and trumpets of the New Year’s cantata would make it go way. He had to use it again, it was too beautiful for it to be only used once a year.

We don’t know. Perhaps Bach was simply a bit tired from all the composing, rehearsing, and performing of six cantatas in two weeks, and went looking for inspiration in his stack of previously composed cantatas.

There is a great live performance of Cantata 124 Meinen Jesum laß ich nicht by Solistenensemble Stimmkunst / Stiftsbarock Stuttgart under the direction of Kay Johannsen on YouTube. Watch it/listen to it here. Soloists are, in order of appearance: Thomas Meraner, oboe; Daniel Schreiber, tenor (movement 2); Andreas Weller, tenor (3); Matthias Horn, bass (4); Fanie Antonelou, soprano and Lena Sutor-Wernich, alto (5).

Find the German texts with English translations here, and the score here.

As I was listening to the tenor aria, I didn’t immediately realize it was based on the flute aria from Cantata 114. I just knew I had heard this music before, and I also was 100% certain the first line of text of the original had the word Jammertal in it*. I went searching for it online, but could not find it. So I decided to ask Eduard van Hengel. He emailed me back within a day, saying: “yes! BWV 114/2.” He has all Bach’s cantata librettos on his computer, so he could do a simple word search. Another result of Eduard’s word search: Jammertal shows up five times in Bach’s entire cantata oeuvre.

It is not so strange that Bach wanted to create a very dramatic tenor aria. He did the same on this Sunday one year earlier, in 1724, in Cantata 154. Learn more about that in my blog post from two years ago. It was all to illustrate the agony of Jesus’ parents when their teenage son didn’t think to tell them that he was going to stay behind in the Temple during their visit to Jerusalem.

Wieneke Gorter, January 6, 2018, YouTube link for the Johannsen recording updated January 11, 2020.

*This is usually how I find out about Bach’s recycling tricks, because I remember a word or two from the original text when I hear the recycled music. That is also how I realized that Bach might have been inspired by Telemann when writing Cantata 8.

Eardrums and perhaps a connection with Schütz

10 Sunday Jan 2016

Posted by cantatasonmymind in Cantatas, Epiphany, Leipzig

≈ Comments Off on Eardrums and perhaps a connection with Schütz

Tags

Bach, Bach Collegium Japan, BWV 154, BWV 32, cantatas, Caroline Weynants, Christ among the Doctors, Gerd Türk, Il Gardellino, James Gilchrist, Jesus among the Doctors, John Eliot Gardiner, Marcel Ponseele, Paolo Veronese, Peter Kooij, Robin Blaze, Sunday after Epiphany

Veronese_Jesus_Among_the_Doctors
Paolo Veronese: Jesus Among the Doctors, circa 1560, oil on canvas

Lutherans in the 18th century knew very well that on this Sunday, the first after Epiphany, they should fast-forward twelve years in Jesus’ life, to the story of his parents losing him on a trip to Jerusalem, and then finding him in the temple, conversing with the Doctors. This story often appeared on paintings from the 15th century onward, and the text from Luke was probably as familiar to the Leipzig congregation as the Christmas story :

48. Und da sie ihn sahen, entsetzten sie sich. Und seine Mutter sprach zu ihm: Mein Sohn, warum hast du uns das getan? Siehe, dein Vater und ich haben dich mit Schmerzen gesucht.

[48] And when they saw him, they were astonished. And his mother said to him : ‘My son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have looked for you with anxiety.’

49. Und er sprach zu ihnen: Was ist’s, daß ihr mich gesucht habt? Wisset ihr nicht, daß ich sein muß in dem, was meines Vaters ist?

[49] And he said to them : ‘How is it that you looked for me?Did you not know that I must be in that which is my father’s?’

In cantata 154 Mein liebster Jesus ist verloren (from 1724, written 3 days after Sie werden aus Saba alle kommen) Bach doesn’t set the scripture literally, except for one of Jesus’ lines of text. He doesn’t let Jesus’ parents talk (as for example Schütz had done 75 years before in his Mein Sohn, warum hast du uns das getan? from Symphoniae Sacrae III) but instead it is “man” in general who thinks he has lost Jesus, and is later happy to have found him again. However, the loss of a child as well as the fear of it happening is something that Bach could relate to, and that drama is palpable in the opening tenor aria.

Listen to cantata 154 by Bach Collegium Japan on Spotify (fabulous singing by Robin Blaze and Gerd Türk)

For those without access to Spotify, listen to cantata 154 by Kuijken on YouTube

Find the German text with English translations here, and the score here.

For the rest this cantata feels almost like a little opera, with the very pretty alto aria asking Jesus to please not hide in the clouds, followed by the appearance of Jesus speaking “Wisset ihr nicht, daß ich sein muß in dem, was meines Vaters ist?” and then the exuberant alto/tenor duet rejoicing in the fact that Jesus has been found. Bach uses two special and wonderful orchestrations in this cantata. In the alto aria he uses a “high continuo” with violins and harpsichord to accompany the voice and the oboes, most probably to illustrate purity and innocence.  And in the alto/tenor duet Bach brings both the violins of the tenor aria and the oboes from the alto aria together, the first violin and first oboe playing the same part, the second violin and the second oboe also playing the same part, as an additional illustration of the happy reunion and the last two lines of text of the duet:

Ich will dich, mein Jesu, nun nimmermehr lassen,
I want never again to abandon you, my Jesus,
Ich will dich im Glauben beständig umfassen.
I want to embrace you constantly in faith.

John Eliot Gardiner, in his terrific liner notes with his recording (scroll down to page 6), states that on the text “O Donnerwort in meinen Ohren” (O thunderous word in my ears) in the opening tenor aria, the orchestra should evoke “ear drumming.” (If you would like to listen to this Gardiner interpretation with tenor James Gilchrist, you can find that here on YouTube). Gardiner also points out that this tenor aria is a cousin to Peter’s Ach, mein Sinn! aria from the St. John Passion. That passion would not be performed until Good Friday of that year, 1724, but in his book Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven Gardiner suggests that Bach was probably working on the passion, and might have been preparing the people in Leipzig for it. This included introducing them to Jesus (even a twelve-year-old one) as a bass voice. This might explain why Bach somewhat unnaturally “interjects” Jesus’ text “Wisset ihr nicht, daß ich sein muß in dem, was meines Vaters ist?” in between the alto aria and the tenor recitative in this cantata.

With cantata 32 Liebster Jesu, mein Verlangen (from 1726), Bach steps even further away from the literal story of this Sunday. It is now not even “man” anymore who has lost Jesus and then finds him again, but the “soul” in the form of a soprano voice, and Jesus. Herreweghe’s first oboist, Marcel Ponseele, recorded a handful cantatas with his own ensemble Il Gardellino and I was excited to find out that they also recorded cantata 32. Beautiful job by soprano Caroline Weynants and of course Marcel Ponseele himself in the pretty opening aria.

Listen to the entire recording of cantata 32 by Il Gardellino on Spotify

Listen to the entire recording of cantata 32 by Il Gardellino on YouTube

Click here for the German text with English translation of cantata 32

Click here for a vocal score for cantata 32

In closing, some food for thought: Bach incorporates the text of Psalm 84 Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen in the fourth movement of Cantata 32 in the soprano voice. Knowing that Schütz also used that same Psalm text at the end of his  Mein Sohn, warum hast du uns das getan?, I wonder if Bach knew that particular Schütz piece and used it as inspiration for this cantata and, who knows, perhaps also for cantata 154, since that one is so operatic, shall we say Schütz-like, in nature and structure …

Wieneke Gorter, January 10, 2016, links updated January 11, 2020.

Recent Posts

  • Second Sunday after Epiphany
  • Third Christmas Day
  • Angels — we can use some this week
  • Advent Goodies, Part II
  • Light in Dark Times (and a compelling melody for Bach)

Archives

  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 267 other followers

Categories

  • 1723 Trinity season special series
  • Advent
  • After Easter
  • Bach's life
  • Cantatas
  • Chorale cantatas 1724/1725
  • Christmas
  • Easter
  • Epiphany
  • Köthen
  • Leipzig
  • Septuagesima
  • Trinity
  • Weimar

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Website Powered by WordPress.com.

Cancel