The Parable of the Unworthy Wedding Guest attributed to Simon Kick, circa 1644. Oil on Canvas. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Every now and then, a cantata recording knocks my socks off. It happened this week. And since I need to keep this post short, I’ll leave the other five articles I had brewing in my mind on the shelf for the future, and I’ll just tell you about that one recording.
Tobias Berndt
It’s the Leipzig version of Cantata 162Ach! ich sehe, itzt, da ich zur Hochzeit gehe by Bach Akademie Stuttgart under the direction of Hans-Christoph Rademann, from their Vision Bach series, Volume 4. The opening movement gives me the good kind of stomach ache, thanks to gorgeous singing by Tobias Berndt, unparalleled corno da tirarsi playing by Anneke Scott, and this fantastic orchestra. Another highlight is the duet by alto Marie Henriette Reinhold and tenor Patrick Grahl, accompanied by a terrific continuo group.
Find this recording on YouTube or on Spotify in playlists created by me. To learn more about Bach Akademie Stuttgart’s Vision Bach series and how to purchase the CDs, read my post about their recording of Cantatas 105 and 46. Find the German texts with English translations here, and the score here.
Cantata 162 – A Short History
Bach wrote this cantata originally for the 20th Sunday after Trinity in 1716 in Weimar, setting texts by his favorite librettist there, court librarian Salomon Franck. Franck transforms the question “Am I dressed properly?” from the The Parable of the Unworthy Wedding Guest (Matthew 22:1-14, the Gospel for this Sunday) into “Have I made the right choices?”
Since Bach had limited performance space in the Duke’s chapel in Weimar, he composed this original piece for a small instrumental ensemble: strings, bassoon, and continuo, plus likely a solo wind instrument for the soprano aria (movement 3).*
Anneke Scott – The Queen of the Corno da Tirarsi
For the 1723 performance in Leipzig, Bach added a corno da tirarsi in the first and last movements. In his time, most probably the only person who could play the corno da tirarsi was Gottfried Reiche, because Bach stopped writing for this instrument after Reiche’s death in 1732.
Today, we are lucky to have more than one musician who can handle this instrument. I’m thinking of Alain de Rudder (Herreweghe), Toshio Shimada (Suzuki), and last but not least, Olivier Picon (J.S. Bach Foundation), who did important research on the instrument and initiated Egger’s reconstruction of the original. But for me, the Queen of the corno da tirarsi is Anneke Scott. I already talked about her fabulous performance in Cantatas 46 and 105 on Volume 3 of Rademann’s Vision Bach several weeks ago, and in this Cantata 162 she does it again! Her playing is simply stunning, I have never heard the corno da tirarsi played with such beautiful phrasing and sound quality as she does on these Vision Bach recordings.
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*For his recording in 1996 (Yumiko Kurisu, soprano; Yoshimichi Hamada, recorder) Masaaki Suzuki created a part for solo recorder, which has subsequently also been used by Lutz/J.S. Bach Foundation (Gerlinde Sämann, soprano; Annina Stahlberger, recorder) and for the performance discussed here by Rademann/Bach Akademie Stuttgart (Catalina Bertucci, soprano; Andreas Helm, recorder).
This week I returned from a wonderful vacation in the Scottish Highlands. While I miss the stunning nature and the friendly people, it was much easier to get back to writing than normally after a trip, because this fall I’m part of an all-women writer’s group. Two times a week we all log in to Zoom and then do our own writing for 2 hours and receive inspiring coaching by Jennifer Louden. The community and accountability work wonders for me, and I hope that after the group disbands in December, I will have sufficiently strengthened the commitment to myself to keep making time for my writing, and keep my standards at a realistic level.
Gli Angeli Genève’s Chorale Cantata Box
“The Complete Chorale Cantatas” by Gli Angeli Genève, released in 2025.
Continuing to highlight remarkable cantata recordings that came out over the past few years, this time I would like to put the spotlight on baritone Stephan MacLeod’s ensemble Gli Angeli Genève. And before you start giggling about about me featuring a Scottish conductor after coming back from a trip to Scotland, Stephan MacLeod is a native of Geneva!
In 2025, Gli Angeli Genève released “The Complete Chorale Cantatas”: nineteen CDs packaged together in a tastefully and thoughtfully designed cardboard album, with two paperback books, one with all the tracks and texts, the other with all the program notes. Both books have most of the information in English, German, and French. The only place an English translation is missing is in the cantata texts. Those only have French translations.
It’s of course not just this collection’s design that makes it an exceptional release. What stands out to me most are the musical introductions to each cantata. Each work is preceded by an organ prelude by Bach or one of his contemporaries on the same chorale that the cantata is based on, followed by the chorale itself, sung a capella by two or three singers. In today’s world where we listeners are not as familiar with these chorale tunes as listeners in Bach’s time were, this makes a huge difference in appreciating these cantatas.
Arp Schnittger Organ, Groningen, the Netherlands.
I applaud Gli Angeli Genève going through the extra trouble of recording these additional pieces after they had already recorded all the cantatas. The cantatas were recorded live over the course of 12 years, from 2011 to 2023, all in Geneva. The a capella chorale tunes were recorded in three different sessions spread out over 2024, in Geneva, Chaux-de-Fonds (also in Switzerland), and Groningen (the Netherlands). All the organ preludes were recorded in September 2024 on a historic organ from Bach’s time, the Arp Schnitger Organ in the Martinikerk (St. Martin’s church) in Groningen, the Netherlands. Organist Francis Jacob does a fabulous job on this beautiful instrument, and his registrations and notes for each of the pieces are included in one of the books included with the CD box.
Cantata 114 Ach, Lieben Christen, seid getrost for the 17th Sunday after Trinity
On to the cantata for this Sunday, Cantata 114Ach, lieben Christen, seid getrost, from 1724. It appears on CD 7 of Gli Angeli Genève’s “The Complete Chorale Cantatas” box. If you’re in Europe, you can purchase the box on jpc.de: you pay 160 euros instead of the original price of 200 euros. It’s also available on Amazon.de and Amazon.uk. If you’re outside of Europe you’ll have to rely on the streaming platforms. Find Cantata 114 here on Spotify, or here on YouTube (this is a playlist of the entire album (CD 7), just scroll down to the 9th track to start this cantata with the organ prelude).
Find the German texts with English translations for Cantata 114 here, and the score here. I have previously published two articles about this cantata on this blog, in 2017 and 2020. The one from 2017 includes a detailed listening guide and the one from 2020 shares a few more recordings.
Coming back to the musical introductions I mentioned above, sopranos Aleksandra Lewandowska and Sarah van Mol sing a 17th-century anonymous setting of the chorale. I love their voices together and I could listen to their a capella chorale singing all day. If you have time, check out their rendition of “Lobe den Herren, den mächtigen König der Ehren” preceding Cantata 137 on CD 5 of this same box. Goose bumps!
However, what I love most about Gli Angeli Genève’s recording of this cantata is the opening chorus, with exquisite phrasing by the orchestra, and beautiful transparency in the chorus. The two-on-a-part singing works really well in this case!
Thomas Hobbs
Tenor Thomas Hobbs and flutist Alexis Kossenko do a terrifyingly beautiful job in the tenor aria. This is the slowest I’ve ever heard this aria performed, but again, it works. In this tempo, the “sighs” in the flute part really make me think of sobs, fitting for an illustration of “Jammertale” (vales of tears). I still also really love the J.S. Bach Foundation/Lutz’ recording with flutist Marc Hantaï and tenor Georg Poplutz. When you regard this aria’s text, Wo wird in diesem Jammertale vor meinen Geist die Zuflucht sein? (Where in this vale of tears will there be a refuge for my spirit?) I feel that Thomas Hobbs focuses more on illustrating the vale of tears, while Georg Poplutz expresses the problem of where to turn to.
But let’s not forget the soprano and alto solos! The soprano solo consists of a verse of the chorale with an exciting continuo accompaniment, performed convincingly here by sopranos Alexandra Lewandowska and Anne-Kathryn Olsen. It’s fun for me to hear Anne-Kathryn sing, because she and I chatted online during the Covid pandemic about her working in Europe as an American soprano, and about San Francisco Bay Area audiences versus European audiences (it’s not what you think). Her voice also sounds fabulous together with Alexandra Lewandowska’s, so I guess Alexandra is good at selecting fellow singers 🙂
Anne-Kathryn OlsenAlexandra Lewandowska
Now we can all go in peace.
As almost always in a Bach cantata, there is a turning point where the text and music move from misery to glory. In this cantata this happens in the alto aria. Bach illustrates the at the same time victorious and peaceful text with a joyful orchestra accompaniment with oboe solos, beautifully played by Emmanuel Laporte, and a virtuoso part for the singer. And what better countertenor to sing this than Alex Potter? Now we can all go in peace.
More cantatas for this 17th Sunday after Trinity
One year later, for this same 17th Sunday after Trinity, Bach wrote Cantata 148Bringet dem Herrn Ehre seines Namens. Please find my previous posts about this cantata here. Since last year, there’s been a beautiful new recording out on Youtube, performed by the J.S. Bach Foundation under the direction of Rudolf Lutz, with two of my favorite soloists, countertenor Alex Potter and tenor Daniel Johannsen. Find it here.
For this past Sunday, the 11th after Trinity, I would love to share Bach Akademie Stuttgart’s recording of Cantata 179 Siehe zu, daß deine Gottesfurcht nicht Heuchelei sei and Cantata199 Mein Herze schwimmt im Blut. 303 years ago, these two cantatas were performed during the same church service in Leipzig, Cantata 179 before the sermon, and Cantata 199 after the sermon. The absolute highlight of this recording for me is tenor Daniel Johannsen’s fabulous singing throughout Cantata 179, not just in his two solo movements, but also in the choruses. In addition, soprano Miriam Feuersinger’s moving rendition of solo cantata 199 on this recording is not to be missed. Keep reading to find out why this cantata is Feuersinger’s personal favorite.
Read more about the Vision Bach project and this Volume 3 album in last week’s post. You can purchase this album on Amazon or Arkiv Music if you are in the USA, or on jpc if you are in Europe. Please consider purchasing to support the artists! Also available on Spotify and YouTube.
Spotlight on tenor Daniel Johannsen
For Cantata 179 Siehe zu, daß deine Gottesfurcht nicht Heuchelei sei, find the score here, and the German text with English translations here.
In my previous posts about this cantata, I mostly wrote about the stunning fugue in the opening chorus. Learn all about it in my posts from 2016 and 2023. But today’s spotlight is on tenor Daniel Johannsen, who illustrates the text in the tenor recitative and aria like no other.
Johannsen’s father was a Protestant pastor and his mother was a religion teacher, so from a very young age, he was familiar with the power of telling a story. He has degrees in both vocal performance and church music, and I believe this all contributes to his exceptional communication of the texts in Bach’s sacred music.
My aunt and Daniel Johannsen outside the Thomaskirche
Over the past fifteen years or so, Johannsen has recorded a great number of Bach’s hymns, cantatas, and oratorios with The Netherlands Bach Society , the J.S. Bach Foundation, and Bach Akademie Stuttgart. The Bach cantata YouTube boom came too late for my mother, who passed away in 2010, but my mother’s oldest sister, also a great Bach fan, as well as a theologian and retired minister, is an avid viewer of those performances. This past June I had the great fortune to visit Bachfest Leipzig together with her. We got to hear Daniel Johannsen sing three times in the Thomaskirche. After the first concert, with the J.S. Bach Foundation under the direction of Rudolf Lutz, my aunt said: “it doesn’t matter that we sit with our back to the performers here, because I know his voice so well from all the videos, I see him in my mind when I hear him sing.” Lutz’s concerts moved her to tears, especially because of the soloists’ communication of the texts. How lucky we were that Daniel took the time after his last Bachfest concert to pose for a photo with my aunt.
Rademann and Feuersinger on the couch with Maul and Schrammek
Miriam Feuersinger, Michael Maul, Bernhard SchrammekRudolf Lutz, Miriam Feuersinger, Hans-Christoph Rademann
Another reason why these two cantatas are special to me this summer is because of the Maul und Schrammek talk show I attended during Bachfest Leipzig. Miriam Feuersinger was the first guest on Michael Maul’s and Berhnard Schrammek’s couch, and when they asked her what her favorite Bach cantata is, she didn’t have to think twice: it’s Cantata199 Mein Herze schwimmt im Blut. She explained that this cantata has been a great help to her during a difficult time in her life, and she loves the composition’s “theologische Aussagekraft” (theological expressiveness, theological meaning).
For Cantata199 Mein Herze schwimmt im Blut, find the score here, and the German text with English translations here.
Ach, Hans-Christoph, mach wie immer: mach was Schönes!
Later, during that same talk show, when Lutz and Rademann had joined Feuersinger on the couch, Rademann told a story that made me laugh. He recounted a time he felt somewhat stuck: he no longer knew how to direct the opening chorus of Cantata 179, because of the negation in the first line of the text. He telephoned Jos van Veldhoven (artistic director of the Netherlands Bach Society from 1983 to 2018) to ask him for advice. Jos van Veldhoven’s responded with a simple solution: “Ach, Hans-Christoph, mach wie immer: mach was Schönes!” (“Oh, Hans-Christoph, just do what you always do: make it beautiful!”).
I visited Bachfest Leipzig again this year, from Tuesday evening, June 17, through Sunday, June 22, attending eight concerts in six days. Read my highlights below, and please subscribe to this blog so you don’t miss future posts. I joined a festival trip to Merseburg, took walks, caught up with friends from all over the world, and met some new fellow Bach lovers. For me, the camaraderie has almost become a more important reason to return each year than the concerts.
That said, next year’s cantata programming is not to be missed, with Herreweghe AND Lutz AND Rademann, so if you would like to attend you should probably get organized – my tips for that at the end of this post.
Summer in Leipzig
June is the perfect time of year in this city. People are out on café terraces everywhere, and walking in the streets. Then there’s the summer green: entire rose bushes for sale on the street in the middle of the center, and linden trees in bloom wherever you go. The scent of linden delights me, and I learned something new about them this year, thanks to our Bachfest tour guide Anna-Sylvia Goldammer on the organ trip to Merseburg: Leipzig has apparently always been full of linden trees! The latin word for Leipzig, Lipsi, was derived from the Slavic word for linden tree, lipa. Most of downtown, inside the ring, is car-free, with only taxis and necessary vehicles allowed in. This makes it feel safe and, dare I say it, more walkable than Amsterdam.
The free performances can be the most meaningful
Inspired by a seatmate on the trip to Köthen last year, I attended more of the free or almost-free performances this year. You can still fully enjoy the camaraderie with other Bach fans and hear beautiful music without spending a fortune. There are no assigned seats for the church services, so as long as you line up early, you can enjoy the best view for free.
This year I had missed the free performances on the market square, but on Saturday morning, June 21, I was so lucky to attend an unforgettable, absolutely exquisite rendition of the duet from Cantata 79 Gott der Herr ist Sonn und Schild by soprano Miriam Feuersinger and baritone Tobias Berndt during the “Mette” (morning service) in the Nikolaikirche. The Sunday morning service in the Thomaskirche was special too. The service was a reconstruction of what a church service in Bach’s time would have been like (I could write an entire blog post about that!), I got to hear Johannes Lang play the organ, Tomáš Král sing the bass arias in Cantata 20 O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort, and tenor Patrick Grahl sing not only the tenor aria in that cantata but also the cantor-bits in the service as well as the reading from the New Testament (yes this was sung, beautiful!). But I also happened to sit and sing (in the congregational singing) next to the 80-year-old father of choir director Maria Küstner. With great determination he had climbed all the stairs to the balcony, even though he was walking with a cane. When after the service I thanked him for his clear and confident singing, he told me that decades ago, on frequent car trips between Leipzig and Berlin, he would sing Luther’s “Wir glauben all an einen Gott” (one of the Lutheran chorales we had just sung in the service) to keep himself and the family awake. I forgot to ask him if this was still during GDR time, but it might very well have been.
Catching up with David Chin
This year I also finally had the opportunity to have lunch with David Chin, director of Bachfest Malaysia and creator of the excellent documentary Encountering Bach which I have referenced already a few times on this blog. We started conversations on Facebook during the Covid pandemic after David published his first episodes of the documentary, then met in person at the Thüringer Bachwochen in 2022, but only managed to say a few quick hellos at last year’s Bachfest. So grateful it worked out to talk this year!
Concert highlights: Alex Potter and David de Winter
Alex Potter in the Nikolaikirche on June 17. Photo courtesy of Sascha Wolff.
I had only just arrived to Leipzig on Tuesday June 17. I had not even unpacked yet, but I had a chance to hear “Missa Miniatura,” Elina Albach’s adaptation of Bach’s Mass in B Minor again, and I am a big fan of that production. So I ate a quick dinner and made it to the Nikolaikirche just in time. Alex Potter’s stunning rendition of the Agnus Dei at this concert was definitely a highlight of this Bachfest for me. In order to have a bit more acoustic, he had climbed up a few steps so he stood directly under an arch in the Nikolaikirche. Thanks to Sascha Wolff for capturing that moment on photo. After this aria I felt “we can now all die happily.” The other aria that transported me to a similar state of bliss was David de Winter’s “Der Ewigkeit saphirnes Haus” from Cantata 198 Laß, Fürstin, laß noch einen Strahlwith Solomon’s Knot on Friday, June 20, in the Evangelisch-Reformierte Kirche. I had never heard this aria sung so beautifully.
Bach’s “50 best cantatas” by Lutz, Herrewege, and Rademann, Vox Luminis, Koopman, and Gardiner in 2026 – how to get organized
Disclaimer: I’m not getting paid to write this. Below is a reflection of my personal opinion and personal interpretation of the information that is available at the time of writing this blog post. I do not accept responsibility if your experience is different. I just thought it might be helpful to curate the information from various websites for you.
Anyone reading this who has visited Bachfest in the last few years: please feel free to add your own advice in the comments. Thank you!
Next year’s cantata programming at the festival is going to be a hit parade of the “50 best cantatas” (chosen by the audience, read more about the how and why in this interview with festival director Michael Maul by blogger Rick Fulkner) with two concerts each by Herreweghe, Lutz, Koopman, Gardiner, Rademann, and Vox Luminis. Here are my tips to get organized:
If you already know you want to attend all 12 cantata concerts (= two concerts per day, six days in a row, of two to three cantatas each, each cantata preceded by a motet by Schütz or Schein), you can purchase your “packet” here. You’ll go through two seat selection screens, one to select your seat for the Thomaskirche (the screen doesn’t specify this, but it is the seatmap that has the stage at the bottom, and “Südempore” on the right), and, once you have clicked the checkout button, another one for the Nikolaikirche (not specified either, but this is the map that has the stage at the top and 1. Empore and 2. Empore).
Please note for Thomaskirche:
For concerts with choir and orchestra, the performers are located on the organ loft of the Sauer-organ (the bottom of the seating map).
The majority of the pews downstairs, where the sound is likely best, have their backs to the performers. Many people don’t mind this, but it surprised me. Thus, if it is important for you to see the performers, choose a premium seat (yellow on the map) on one of the balconies, where the sound is wonderful too.
Some seats on the Empore (balconies) have partially blocked views of the performers due to large pillars, even the premium seats are not all equal, so don’t get your hopes up too much.
Please note for Nikolaikirche:
The sound is good everywhere in the church, but most seats on the balconies have limited leg space, so keep that in mind if you are tall, since these cantata concerts will be pretty long. The Bach Museum shop sells cute portable cushions for making your church pew seat more comfortable, see picture on the left, pillow folded in half. I also saw people who traveled with inflatable pillows.
If you want to pick and choose, only want to go to one concert per day, or don’t want to commit to spending a thousand euros just yet, mark your calendar:
November 11, 2025: Advance sales start for Patrons of the Bachfest/Bach-Archiv Leipzig and for members of the Neue Bachgesellschaft.
Become a patron of the Bachfest here (access to VIP seating for three concerts or more, depending on level of giving).
Become a member of the Neue Bachgesellschaft here (no special seating, just the earlier access to ticket sales).
November 25, 2025: Regular ticket sales start.
Where to stay: People I met had good experiences at Innside (hotel directly across the ring from the Thomaskirche, in a nice neighborhood), Motel One (close to the Nikolaikirche), and Adina Apartment Hotel (apartments close to the Nikolaikirche, 24-hour reception, pool, restaurant, bar). I myself stayed in Apartmenthotel Quartier M. which I loved because of the excellent organic supermarket on the ground floor of the same building, the good price, and the short walking distance to the Thomaskirche.
Merry Christmas! Below are my recommendations for recordings of Bach’s chorale cantatas for the Christmas season, written in 1724/1725, as well as a link to the video of this year’s wonderful live performance by the Netherlands Bach Society of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, written in 1734/1735. Before I get to that, I wanted to share a personal story. (If you want to “jump to the recipe,” just scroll down three paragraphs to the next header).
As regular readers of this blog know, Christmas morning for me = “Jauchtzet, frohlocket,” the first entrance of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio*. But ten days ago, during the first-ever Christmas Oratorio concert of my life as a chorus member, I couldn’t sing those words.
I had unwittingly set myself up for it, because I had just done two things to remember my late mother. It was very cold in the church, and I had lent one of my mother’s scarves to a friend who was singing next to me. As we were getting on stage, I told her: “this scarf has been in many a Bach concert, because my mother used to sing in a Bach choir too.” And then I showed her how I had copied my mother’s signature from her old piano reduction to the new one I was using now.
So while I had been completely fine during all the rehearsals, now with the audience there and those memories, the first notes of the timpani made me choke up. Fortunately, that first soprano entrance is low and doubled by many other voices, so nobody noticed. And I was fine for the rest of the concert, and thoroughly enjoyed getting to sing cantatas 1, 2, 5, and 6 of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with a good orchestra and great soloists.
Do you have special memories associated with Bach’s or other Christmas music? Please let me know in the comments. Here are my recommendations for recordings:
Christmas Cantatas from Bach’s Chorale Cantata cycle, 1724/1725
Christmas Day: Cantata 91 Gelobet seist du, Jesu Christ by the J.S. Bach Foundation/Rudolf Lutz, with Monika Mauch – Soprano; Margot Oitzinger – Alto; Bernhard Berchtold – Tenor; and Peter Kooji – Bass. Find the score here, and English translations here.
Second Christmas Day: Cantata 121 Christum wir sollen loben schon by Concerto Copenhagen/Lars Ulrik Mortensen, with Maria Keohane – Soprano; Alex Potter – Alto; Jan Kobow – Tenor; and Matthew Brook – Bass. Find the score here, and English translations here.
Third Christmas Day: Cantata 133 Ich freue mich in dir by Concerto Copenhagen/Lars Ulrik Mortensen, with Maria Keohane – Soprano; Alex Potter – Alto; Jan Kobow – Tenor; and Matthew Brook – Bass. Find the score here, and the English translations here.
Maria Keohane
Sunday after Christmas: Cantata 122 Das neugeborene Kindelein by Collegium Vocale Gent/Philippe Herreweghe, with Vasiljka Jezovsek – Soprano; Sarah Connolly – Alto; Mark Padmore – Tenor; and Peter Kooij – Bass. Find the score here, and the English translations here.
New Year’s Day: Cantata 41 Jesu nun sei gepreiset by the J.S. Bach Foundation/Rudolf Lutz, with Julia Doyle – Soprano; Antonia Frey – Alto; Florian Sievers – Tenor; and Stephan MacLeod – Bass. Find the score here, and the English translations here.
Jan 6, Epiphany: Cantata 123 Liebster Immanuel, Herzog der Frommen by Montréal Baroque/Eric Milnes, with Matthew White, alto; Charles Daniels, tenor; and Harry van der Kamp, bass. Find the score here, and the English translations here.
From Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, 1734/1735
Bart Aerbeydt and Milo MaestriLucia GiraudoDaniel Johannsen
All photos above by Donald Bentvelsen. Find him on Instagram at @bentvel.
I highly recommend the video of the most recent live performance by the Netherlands Bach Society under the direction of Lars Ulrik Mortensen. They performed cantatas 1, 4, 5, and 6 of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio in the Netherlands earlier this month. I attended the concert in Naarden on December 11, the video below is from the performance in Utrecht, two days later. The choir could have been a bit larger for my personal taste, but for the rest I absolutely loved this performance, with text-focused singing by all soloists, and fabulous and sensitive playing by the instrumentalists, allowing for musical dialogues with the singers. I especially enjoyed the contributions by tenor Daniel Johannsen, oboist Rodrigo Lopez-Paz (photo in my previous post), violinist Lucia Giraudo, and horn players Bart Aerbeydt and Milo Maestri. I very much ejoyed reading the program booklet, especially the the interview with director Lars Ulrik Mortensen.
Read the English program book for this performance here. Read a bit more on the fifth cantata from this same performance in my previous post.
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Best wishes for the New Year,
Wieneke Gorter, December 23, 2024.
* if you don’t know the story, please find it here.
Evangelischer Lieder-Commentarius (Evangelical Hymn Commentary) by Johann Martin Schamel from 1724: an annotated hymnal, published to commemorate the bi-centenary of Luther’s first hymnals. From left to right: the title page; page 89 with the first four verses of Luther’s hymn “Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland,” with lower-case letters and asterisks referring to footnotes; page 91 with the footnotes.
Please open this post in your internet browser (just click on the title at the top) to see the images placed the correct way – thank you!
Today’s cantata – Happy 1st Advent!
Warning: If you don’t feel like reading science journalism, and just came here to listen to a beautiful cantata, I got you: here is Cantata 62Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland in an excellent new live performance by the J.S. Bach Foundation under the direction of Rudolf Lutz. I especially love the opening chorus as well as the tenor aria, sung from memory by Benedikt Kristjánsson (read more about him in my post about the Bachfest in Leipzig this past summer). Other soloists are Lisa Andres, soprano; Antonia Frey, alto; and Peter Harvey, bass.
Find the German text with English translation here, and the score here.
A special exhibition in Eisenach
A month ago, I traveled to Eisenach (Bach’s birthplace in Germany) to catch the last days of a special exhibition at the Bachhaus on the double anniversary of Luther’s hymns (500 years) and Bach’s chorale cantatas (300 years) and the connection between the two. I got to see in real life many hymnals that were in use during Bach’s time. What struck me right away was how small and narrow they are! They were truly meant to be held in one hand (so one could leaf through it with the other hand). This is of course exactly what Luther envisioned when he published the very first German-language hymnals in 1524: that churchgoers could read and sing along during the church service, and also easily use the hymnals at home and at school. This photo gives a good idea of their size compared to a larger book:
Luther’s “Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland”
“Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland” in the Erfurter Enchiridion from 1524.
While most of the hymnals were displayed as in the photo above, the two oldest and rarest, on loan from libraries in Regensburg and Strasbourg, were hidden behind thick felt flaps to protect them from the light. One of these, Luther’s Erfurter Enchiridion (Erfurter Handbook) from 1524, lay opened to his Advent hymn “Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland,” the hymn Bach used two hundred years later, for Cantata 62Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland for the first Sunday of Advent. Luther based this hymn on the then still well-known “Veni redemptor gentium” from the 4th century, closely translating the latin, and only slightly altering the melody.
Publications commemorating the bi-centenary of Luther’s hymnals in 1724 likely influenced Bach
Bach scholars have always wondered why Bach wrote an entire cycle of cantatas based on hymns. Some offer that his first cycle of cantatas (1723/1724) must have been too complicated for his audience (the Leipzig churchgoers) and that Bach, or possibly his employers, thus came up with something extremely familiar (the hymns) as a common thread for the second cycle of cantatas. Others say that the ability of the boy sopranos must have been so bad, judging by letters Bach later wrote to complain about this, that he switched to chorale cantatas so the choir sopranos would only have to sing the well-known chorale melody while the altos, tenors, and basses would sing more complicated parts.
While none, a combination, or part of these hypotheses might be true, recent research by Dutch theologian Dr. Lydia Vroegindeweij provides us with a third theory: Bach was very likely influenced by a strong movement in Lutheran Germany in the first quarter of the 18th century for the preservation and clarification of the original Lutheran hymns. His choice of 1724 as the year to start a cycle of chorale cantatas would thus not have been a coincidence at all, but a way to help commemorate the centenary of Luther’s first hymnals. The most important figures in this movement operated in Bach’s circle of friends and colleagues and of course Bach was a great admirer of Luther, having Luther’s entire oeuvre of writings in his library. So he would have been more than interested to support the efforts to preserve and better explain Luther’s hymns.
Specifically, Lydia makes a strong case that Bach and/or his anonymous librettist must have consulted Johann Martin Schamel’s Evangelischer Lieder-Commentarius (see the caption heading this post) for the recitative and aria texts for several if not all of his chorale cantatas. She has pointed out that many chorale cantata texts correspond to Schamel’s explanations, use the exact same words, or even follow Schamel’s suggestion to combine Luther’s psalm in question with another one (as is the case in Cantata 38, read more here).
As Lydia explains in a podcast she now has on a Dutch radio station, Luther’s hymn “Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland” especially needed clarification, because in an effort to make the text rhyme and stay as close as possible to the original “Veni redemptor gentium,” Luther had made the text so compact that it had puzzled many hymnologists and clergy.
How does Bach illustrate Schamel’s explanations of this particular hymn?
In the first stanza (the literal text of the opening chorus), Schamel puts (a) after the word “Nun” (now) and explains [freely translated]: “As if it meant: Oh come now, you promised! Instead, it is the poetic style, and is not meant as if the Savior had yet to come into the world. But he comes to believers daily, again and again, each time as a new step of grace.” This concept of “again and again” and the “steps” are clearly present in the music of the opening chorus of Cantata 62.
Lydia says: “Schamel substantiates this with a reference to John 14:23. This corresponds with Luther’s own explanation of this verse in the Calov Bible [which Bach was also familiar with, and added to his own library in 1733]. There Luther also talks about daily contact, and about Jesus who would like to live with people in their houses and share a meal with them.”
The emphasis in this cantata is placed more on the sacred miracle of the human birth and less on the “coming”. This “Wunder” (miracle/wonder) is even more celebrated in the tenor aria. Lydia says: “The aria emphasizes that God encompasses the whole world with that kind of miracle and that we can only admire that grace.”
And the prize for the best interpretation of the tenor aria goes to …
When two years ago Lydia and I searched for the best interpretation of the tenor aria, i.e. the one that really emphasizes the “wonder,” our prize went to Jan Kobow on the Gardiner recording from 2000. Listen to it here. Kobow does a beautiful job expressing the wonder, not only in the first phrase, but also in the B-section when he sings “o, Wunder”. He also makes a striking contrast between those wondrous and quiet-making aspects of the miracle and the stronger, more convinced text of “Herrscher.”
However, now that I’ve heard and seen Benedikt Kristjánsson sing on the recording with the J.S. Bach Foundation, his singing strikes me as the perfect illustration of “God encompasses the whole world with that kind of mystery.”
Further reading
If you would like to do your own reading and interpreting of Schamel’s commentary, you can find it here (in German). If you would like to subscribe to Lydia’s newsletter, you can do so here. Also, please don’t forget to subscribe to my blog – just fill in your email address here below, and you will receive an email every time I post a new story. Thank you!
Wieneke Gorter, November 30, 2024.
About Weekly Cantata
I am a bilingual writer, publicist, choral singer, art and nature lover, foodie, happy wife, and blessed mother of two. I started this blog in 2016, inspired by my late mother’s love for Bach’s cantatas. After 23 years in the San Francisco Bay Area, I’m now back in the Netherlands.
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For this Sunday in 1723, the 12th after Trinity, Bach wrote Cantata 69a Lobe den Herrn, meine Seele. In my post from 2016 I remarked how unusual it was for Bach to use trumpets on such a “normal” Sunday, and imagined his father-in-law being in town for a visit. But this week I heard two better arguments.
In his podcast, Bach scholar Michael Maul suggests that after the incredibly serious and sad music of the past three Sundays, Bach might have realized that the Leipzig churchgoers needed to hear something more upbeat. This might sound trivial, but if you look at Bach’s passions, he knew very well when a change in mood was needed and mastered that skill like a great opera composer or playwright. In addition to this good reason, I was also convinced by theologian Karl Graf in the J.S. Bach Foundation’s lecture about Cantata 69a, because he reminded me that the Bible story on which this cantata is based is that of Christ healing a deaf mute. Graf points out that in the time of the Bible, but also still in Bach’s time, a deaf mute would not only have been excluded from society, but would also have been considered a person without faith. Thus, the rejoicing by chorus and trumpets is not only an illustration of the praise the crowd gives after witnessing the miracle, but especially of this person finding faith.
A quarter century later, in 1748, Bach recycled this cantata during the same time of year, but for a completely different occasion: the installation of the new Town Council, or “Ratswahl.” The “Ratswahl” was always on the first Monday after August 24 (the feast of St. Bartholomew); which in 1748 fell on Monday, August 30. Bach must have written about 27 Ratswahl cantatas, but only six have survived.
I have listed Bach’s changes in 1748 here below, expanding on a table created by Eduard van Hengel. I’ve included links for live video recordings of both cantatas (just click on the link at the top of each column).
Live video recording by the J.S. Bach Foundation, Rudolf Lutz, conductor. With Mirjam Berli, soprano; Alex Potter, alto; Raphael Höhn, tenor; Dominik Wörner, bass.
Live recording by the Netherlands Bach Society, Peter Dijkstra, conductor. With Miriam Feuersinger, soprano; Alex Potter, alto; Thomas Hobbs, tenor; Peter Kooij, bass.
Please find the German texts with English translations here, and the score here
Please find the German texts with English translations here, and the score here
Opening Chorus
Opening Chorus, unchanged
Soprano recitative, 11 measures
Ach, dass ich tausend Zungen hätte! Ach wäre doch mein Mund Von eitlen Worten leer! Ach, dass ich gar nichts redte, Als was zu Gottes Lob gerichtet wär! So machte ich des Höchsten Güte kund; Denn er hat lebenslang so viel an mir getan, Dass ich in Ewigkeit ihm nicht verdanken kann.
Soprano recitative, 18 measures
Wie groß ist Gottes Güte doch! Er bracht uns an das Licht, Und er erhält uns noch. Wo findet man nur eine Kreatur, Der es an Unterhalt gebricht? Betrachte doch, mein Geist, Der Allmacht unverdeckte Spur, Die auch im kleinen sich recht groß erweist. Ach! möcht es mir, o Höchster, doch gelingen, Ein würdig Danklied dir zu bringen! Doch, sollt es mir hierbei an Kräften fehlen, So will ich doch, Herr, deinen Ruhm erzählen.
Tenor aria in C Major with recorder and oboe da caccia
Meine Seele, Auf, erzähle, Was dir Gott erwiesen hat! Rühmet seine Wundertat, Laßt ein gottgefällig Singen Durch die frohen Lippen dringen!
Alto aria in G Major with violin and oboe
Meine Seele, Auf! erzähle, Was dir Gott erwiesen hat! Rühme seine Wundertat, Laß, dem Höchsten zu gefallen, Ihm ein frohes Danklied schallen!
Alto recitative with continuo only, 18 measures
Gedenk ich nur zurück, Was du, mein Gott, von zarter Jugend an Bis diesen Augenblick An mir getan, So kann ich deine Wunder, Herr, So wenig als die Sterne zählen. Vor deine Huld, die du an meiner Seelen Noch alle Stunden tust, Indem du nur von deiner Liebe ruhst, Vermag ich nicht vollkommnen Dank zu weihn. Mein Mund ist schwach, die Zunge stumm Zu deinem Preis und Ruhm. Ach! sei mir nah Und sprich dein kräftig Hephata, So wird mein Mund voll Dankens sein.
Tenor recitative with strings 26 measures
Der Herr hat große Ding an uns getan. Denn er versorget und erhält, Beschützet und regiert die Welt. Er tut mehr, als man sagen kann. Jedoch, nur eines zu gedenken: Was könnt uns Gott wohl Bessres schenken, Als dass er unsrer Obrigkeit Den Geist der Weisheit gibet, Die denn zu jeder Zeit Das Böse straft, das Gute liebet? Ja, die bei Tag und Nacht Vor unsre Wohlfahrt wacht? Laßt uns dafür den Höchsten preisen; Auf! ruft ihn an, Dass er sich auch noch fernerhin so gnädig woll erweisen Was unserm Lande schaden kann, Wirst du, o Höchster, von uns wenden Und uns erwünschte Hilfe senden. Ja, ja, du wirst in Kreuz und Nöten Uns züchtigen, jedoch nicht töten.
Bass aria
Bass aria, unchanged
Closing chorale with instruments doubling the vocal lines
Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan, Darbei will ich verbleiben. Es mag mich auf die rauhe Bahn Not, Tod und Elend treiben: So wird Gott mich Ganz väterlich In seinen Armen halten. Drum lass ich ihn nur walten.
Closing chorale with separate parts for trumpets and timpani
Es danke, Gott, und lobe dich Das Volk in guten Taten. Das Land bringt Frucht und bessert sich, Dein Wort ist wohl geraten. Uns segne Vater und der Sohn, Uns segne Gott, der Heilge Geist, Dem alle Welt die Ehre tut, Für ihm sich fürchten allermeist, Und sprecht von Herzen: Amen!
Wieneke Gorter, August 27, 2023.
About Weekly Cantata
I am a bilingual writer, publicist, choral singer, art and nature lover, happy wife, and blessed mother of two. I started this blog in 2016, inspired by my late mother’s love for Bach’s cantatas. After 23 years in the San Francisco Bay Area, I’m now back in the Netherlands.
Please join my readers from all over the world and subscribe to this blog! Simply fill in your email address and you’ll receive an email every time I’ve published a new post. Thank you so much / Vielen Dank / Merci mille fois / 감사합니다 / 谢谢 / ありがとう / Mille grazie / Muchas gracias / Muito obrigado / Takk / Terima kasih / Dankuwel!
Jeremiah Lamenting the Destruction of Jerusalem by Rembrandt van Rijn, 1630. Oil on panel. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Click here for more information about this painting.
Continuing with Bach’s 1723 cantata cycle, next up is Cantata 46 Schauet doch und sehet, ob irgend ein Schmerz sei, written for the 10th Sunday after Trinity (August 1st in 1723).
My favorite recording of this cantatais still the one by Herreweghe from 2012, which you can find here on YouTube via a playlist I created. However if you’d like to see all the special instruments in action, I highly recommend the J.S. Bach Foundation’s live video registration, with a tromba da tirarsi (slide trumpet) and recorders* in the opening chorus, a Baroque trumpet in the bass aria, and an oboe da caccia (hunting oboe, also new for Bach in Leipzig) as well as the recorders in the alto aria.
Scholars agree that last week’s Cantata 105 and this week’s Cantata 46 Schauet doch und sehet, ob irgend ein Schmerz sei, can be seen as a pair within Bach’s works from that first summer in Leipzig. Here’s why:
The stunning opening choruses of these two cantatas are both written as if they were a Prelude and Fugue for organ. Bach would later use the Prelude part of Cantata 46’s opening chorus as the Qui tollis for his Mass in B Minor.
Both cantatas contain a “floating aria.” With this I mean an aria without the usual fundament of a basso continuo (organ or harpsichord and cello), of which Bach’s most famous exemple is the Aus Liebe aria from his St. Matthew Passion. Bach included such an aria for the first time in last week’s Cantata 105 (the soprano aria Wir zittern und wanken) and one appears again in this week’s Cantata 46 (the alto aria Doch Jesus will auch bei der Strafe).
Bach uses a da tirarsi brass instrument in both: a corno da tirarsi in 105 and a tromba da tirarsi in 46 (read last week’s post for more information about these).
I have written about some of these aspects of Cantata 46 before, but I never really paid much attention to the text. I needed Karl Graf, the theologian participating in the lecture about this cantata by the J.S. Bach Foundation**, to point out that the text of this cantata refers to two destructions of Jerusalem, in 586 BC by the Babylonians, and in 70 AD by the Romans.
Jeremiah the Prophet laments the 586 BC massacre in his Lamentations of Jermiah, a collection of poetry from the Old Testament, from which Bach’s librettist takes the words for the opening chorus.
Jesus predicts the destruction by the Romans in 70 AD, and weeps about it, in Luke 19: 41-48, which was the official reading for this 10th Sunday after Trinity in Bach’s church. Bach and his librettist mix the two parts of the Bible, because in their minds it is all the same, history unfortunately repeats itself. The bass aria paints one of the most dramatic pictures ever in a Bach cantata, and the text of the alto recitative warns that Leipzig could be next! Fortunately, as usual in a Bach cantata, there’s the promise of salvation, and a lightening of the mood in the music as well, this time in the form of the pastoral alto aria.
Throughout the Renaissance and Baroque, Catholic and Anglican composers have set the Lamentations of Jeremiah to music for the Tenebrae services of Holy Week. A notable example are those by Jan Dismas Zelenka, Bach’s colleague at the Catholic court in nearby Dresden. Zelenka wrote his Lamentations of Jeremiah the Prophetfor Holy Week in 1722, so roughly 1,5 years before Bach wrote his Cantata 46. While Bach and Zelenka knew each other and Bach had friends in the Dresden court orchestra, I truly don’t know if Bach was aware of Zelenka’s setting of the Lamentations prior to August 1st 1723. There are some interesting similarities between the compositions, for example Zelenka also opting for a pastoral scene towards the end, but that’s food for another blog post! For now I just like to think that Bach wrote his own Lutheran version of the Lamentations with this Cantata 46.
Wieneke Gorter, August 11, 2023.
*It is the first time Bach uses recorders in Leipzig, but it is an instrument he often uses to portray sorrow.
**If you understand German or don’t mind automatically generated subtitles on YouTube, you can watch the extremely informative lecture about Cantata 46 here. It doesn’t just feature Rudolf Lutz and Karl Graf, but also Bach Scholar Michael Maul from the Bach-Archiv Leipzig.
Olivier Picon with a natural horn on the left, and corno da tirarsi on the right
I’m in movie script mode again and jumping back 300 years, to the summer of 1723 in Leipzig. I believe that when moving to Leipzig, Bach couldn’t wait to meet the town’s famous brass player, Gottfried Reiche (1667-1734). I imagine that throughout the summer of 1723, these two creative geniuses would have frequently been “geeking out” about Reiche’s exciting innovation in brass instruments: the corno da tirarsi (or slide horn, on the right in the picture above), for which Bach most probably started writing around Trinity 4 in 1723 (about a month before today’s cantata).
As far as we know Reiche owned the one and only specimen and was the only one who knew how to play it. Scholars consider it very likely that he had the instrument specially made for him, in order to play more complicated music on a horn than one could at the time on a natural horn.
I have written about the corno da tirarsi before.However, I never fully realized how incredibly special that instrument must have been at the time, what the exact difference was with regular horns at the time, and how it works. Ironically, as a result of musicians being stuck at home during the pandemic, there are now some excellent educational videos on youtube, which explain all of this much better than I could ever do in writing.
So here goes with the lesson:
For an excellent demonstration of the limitations of natural horns before 1750, please watch the first three and a half minutes of this video by Todd Wiliams from the USA.
Then watch this video by Anneke Scott from the UK, about the corno da tirarsi as reconstructed by Egger.
Thank you Todd Williams and Anneke Scott! If you would like to show your appreciation for Anneke’s efforts, you can buy her a coffee on this website.
Gottfried Reiche
There is no doubt in my mind that Bach had already heard about Leipzig’s highly skilled senior Stadtpfeiffer (town piper) Gottfried Reiche before moving to Leipzig in May of 1723. Bach came from a family of town pipers, and in 1721 he married into a family of which every male member was a trumpet player (just sit with that for a few seconds). Reiche was of the same generation as Bach’s father-in-law Johann Caspar Wilcke (c. 1660–1733), and both had been trained in Weissenfels, which Olivier Picon qualifies as “probably the most important city in trumpet playing tradition in Germany at that time” in his 2010 thesis about the corno da tirarsi. I can imagine the animated discussions at both the Bach and the Wilcke family gatherings. Reiche’s virtuosity as well as his unusual instruments* must have been a frequent subject!
Now we come to today’s Cantata 105 Herr, gehe nicht ins Gericht mit deinem Knecht.(Enter not into judgement with Thy servant, O Lord.) It is one of my favorite cantatas, and Bach’s first** Leipzig cantata with a significant solo part for the corno da tirarsi, in the tenor aria. For the educational purpose of this blog as well as for the excellent rendition of the tenor aria I would like to feature the live video by the J.S. Bach Foundation, with Olivier Picon (pictured at the top of this post) playing the corno da tirarsi in the opening chorus, the tenor aria, and the closing chorale. Other soloists are Sibylla Rubens, soprano; Jan Börner, alto; Bernhard Berchtold, tenor; and Tobias Wicky, bass.
Picon initiated the reconstruction of the corno da tirarsi by the Swiss brass instrument firm Egger, which Anneke Scott also refers to in her video. Picon’s thesis from 2010, documenting the reconstruction as well as meticulously analyzing all cantatas that might have possibly been written for this instrument, is still the main source for scholars when discussing the corno da tirarsi. In this work, Picon also shares that Cantata 105 is his favorite cantata to play on the instrument.
Read the German text with English translations of Cantata 105 here, and find the score here.
Of course there’s much more to this cantata than just the unusual instrumentation. In 2021, also as part of a pandemic project, I wrote a post for California Bach Society highlighting all the ways in which this cantata foreshadows the St. Matthew Passion. Please find that post here.
I welcome your questions, comments, or words of encouragement below in the comment-section.
Wieneke Gorter, August 6, 2023.
*Reiche apparently was also the owner and player of another unique instrument, the tromba da tirarsi, or slide trumpet. **Cantata 24 for the 4th Sunday after Trinity 1723 also features a solo part that might have been meant for the instrument, but opinions about this vary, and even Picon suggests the opening chorus might be played on a tromba da tirarsi (slide trumpet) and the closing chorale on a natural horn.
Merry Christmas! My sincere apologies if you are somewhere in the world where it is not Christmas Morning anymore.
I have two new videos for you today, that will last you until January 6, just in case I don’t manage to write another blog post between now and then.
The J.S. Bach Foundation has released all six cantatas of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio to YouTube. They released these on CD and DVD for purchase last year, but have now made them available to everyone. You can find that video recording here.
What is even better: they also made the effort to provide English subtitles for Rudolf Lutz’ lecture about Part I of the Oratorio, for Christmas Day. You can find that video here. I highly recommend watching this to better understand the meaning of the music, to learn how Bach reworked some of his secular cantatas into this Oratorio, and that he perhaps planned to do that all along.
There is also a good video of parts I, II, III, and VI of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio by Bach Akademie Stuttgart. The setting in which they perform is less festive looking than the beautiful Baroque church of the J.S. Bach Foundation, but it’s also well done. You can find it here.
If you would like to read and listen more, here’s an overview of my previous blog posts for this First Christmas Day:
Our Christmas Morning, from 2016, talks about how my mother used to wake my sister and me up with Bach’s Christmas Oratorio.
Three Days of Christmas, from 2017, gives you the three cantatas Bach wrote in 1724, all three brand-new, no reworking there.
