Tag Archives: Weimar

Wedding music for the 20th Sunday after Trinity, with a gorgeous soprano aria

30 Monday Oct 2017

Posted by in Cantatas, Leipzig, Trinity

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Bachsaal_Schloss_Koethen

The mirror-hall, now called “Bach hall” in Köthen, where Bach worked from 1717 to 1723.

A concert weekend, successful, but fueled almost exclusively by adrenaline; the overwhelming fatigue thus following; my favorite breakfast cook/violin practice coach/morning chauffeur/bedtime enforcer away on a business trip all week; much needed family hike on Saturday; me not being superwoman: It sometimes leads to a late blog post 🙂 Thank you for understanding.

The 1724 cantata for yesterday, Cantata 180 Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele (Adorn yourself, beloved soul) is full of luster, with an opening chorus, a tenor/flute aria and a soprano/orchestra aria that make me think of the orchestral suites Bach wrote at the court of Köthen between 1717 and 1723. With all this joy already from the beginning, it sounds like a wedding cantata.

The recording I appreciate most is the one by the Swiss J.S. Bach Foundation, because I feel they bring the most light into the opening chorus and the soprano aria, illustrate the “knocking” the best in the tenor aria, and the singers do a great job bringing out the text. Soloists: Maria Christina Kiehr, soprano; Jan Börner, counter-tenor; Julius Pfeifer, tenor; and Fabrice Hayoz, bass.  The entire recording is only available on Amazon, but worth the extra trouble to get it. This is not a plug for Amazon at all, but for the artists. It was their choice to make their recordings available this way, and not offer them on Spotify or YouTube (except for one single track per cantata).

If you prefer to listen on YouTube, this recording by McCreesh/Gabrieli Consort & Players is a good alternative. (Ann Monoyios, soprano; Angus Davidson, counter-tenor; Charles Daniels, tenor; Peter Harvey, bass). The soprano aria on this recording is fabulous, but because of some–to me–distracting issues with pronunciation and text-expression in other movements, I prefer the Bach Foundation recording overall.

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

Why all this luster in this cantata? In Bach’s time, the Gospel reading for this Sunday, the parable of the Wedding Banquet (Matthew 22: 1-14) was seen in relation to the union of the faithful with Christ, both during communion as well as during the heavenly banquet in the afterlife. If you then realize that that union between the soul of the faithful and Christ was in that time often compared to the marriage between bride and groom, it was not unusual to present something that sounds like wedding music on this communion Sunday.  Expressing the love-like relationship of Jesus and the soul was not a foreign concept for Bach. He did it beautifully in the duet in Cantata 21 from Weimar (read my post about that cantata here) and later also in Cantata 140 Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme.**

In addition to this important link to the Bible texts, I think Bach might have an ulterior motive to bring so much splendor in a cantata for a Communion Sunday. On those Sundays, the congregations in the Leipzig churches would have been larger, and more prominent (read: wish-to-be-seen) families would have been present. Having followed Bach’s cantata compositions in the order he wrote them in Leipzig for almost two years now, I am seeing this pattern around large events in Leipzig: important audience = time to show off his star players and singers and his composition skills.

In his lecture (in German, but the music examples are universal), Rudolf Lutz, the director of the J.S. Bach Foundation, points out all the musical elements that make the opening chorus so utterly joyful and full of splendor. If you start watching at 19 minutes, you can see/hear how he shows that the bass notes are already signs of happiness, similar to the way how Bach expresses that in his Magnificat from 1723 and his Cantata 140. He then goes on to explain how the recorders build a “dome” over all of it, and the unisono violins and viola express the utter pleasure of lovers, or as Lutz says: “I love you, I love you, I say it to you again! Oh! Ah!”

In the tenor aria Christ is knocking on the door of the believer. This is a reference to the Revelations chapter from the Bible. When Bach received the libretto for this cantata, he must have thought back to an earlier cantata in which this Bible text was quoted literally: Cantata 61 Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland from Weimar. In that cantata, the “Vox Christi” bass sings:

Siehe, ich stehe vor der Tür und klopfe an.
So jemand meine Stimme hören wird und die Tür auftun,
zu dem werde ich eingehen
und das Abendmahl mit ihm halten und er mit mir.

See, I stand before the door and knock.
If anyone will hear my voice
and open the door
I shall go in
and have supper with him and he with me.

This recitative/arioso is accompanied by staccato continuo, illustrating the knocking. Bach uses this feature again in the continuo for this tenor aria from Cantata 180. Except this Christ is more impatient than the one from Cantata 61. For the rest it is pure blissful music, again putting Bach’s fabulous flute player in the spotlight. The theme of the flute part is likely based on the first three notes of the chorale melody. Julius Pfeifer does a great job singing this on the Bach Founation recording. Another fabulous recording of this aria is the one by Cristoph Prégardien on the Christophe Coin CD. Listen to it here.

Christophe Coin is, by the way, also the guest artist on the Bach Foundation recording of this cantata, doing a fabulous job playing violoncello piccolo in the soprano chorale.  If you really can’t or don’t want to listen to that recording on Amazon, you can still catch a bit of it on Youtube: their video of the soprano aria only, with Maria Christina Kiehr. Sublime interpretation by all, with levity, freedom, and abandon in the orchestra and superb singing by Kiehr. If you wonder where you know here voice from: she appears on many Savall recordings alongside Montserrat Figueras.

Wieneke Gorter, October 30, 2017

** Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme was really also a Trinity, almost Advent, cantata, but is nowadays better known as “The Wedding Cantata” (incorrectly suggesting that Bach wrote only one Wedding cantata) because of that subject matter.

Third Sunday after Easter in 1724

07 Sunday May 2017

Posted by in After Easter, Cantatas, Leipzig

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For this Jubilate Sunday (the third Sunday after Easter) in 1724, Bach did not write a new cantata the way he had done the previous two weeks*, but repeated one he had written in Weimar in 1714. That cantata: Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen was not any old cantata, but a composition Bach was most probably very proud of: he would later use the opening chorus as template for the Crucifixus in his Mass in B minor. Read all about this cantata and the recordings I recommend in this post I wrote last year.

Wieneke Gorter, May 7, 2017

*see this post about the first Sunday after Easter in 1724 and this one about the second Sunday after Easter in 1724

The Annunciation of Mary, March 25

25 Saturday Mar 2017

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The Annunciation, aka The Cestello Annunciation, 1489, by Botticelli. Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy.

In 1714, Palm Sunday fell on the same day as the Annunciation of Mary, March 25. The Annunciation was one of the three Marian feast days Luther kept on the calendar (the other two being the Purification of Mary, February 2, and the Visitation of Mary, July 2).

Thus it happened that in that year, in Weimar, Bach wrote a cantata that is mostly a Palm Sunday cantata, but can also work for the feast of the Annunciation, since that also celebrates the coming of Christ. I squeezed this cantata 182 Himmelskönig, sei willkommen into my post about Bach in Weimar I wrote last year. As I mentioned there, the cantata was repeated a few times in Leipzig, but never on Palm Sunday, as the Leipzig rules dictated that no music was performed during the period of Lent (the 40 days before Easter).

However, the Leipzig council made an exception for the Annunciation, so in 1724 Bach could perform this cantata during Lent, eight days before Palm Sunday, on Saturday March 25. As so often on holidays, there were two cantatas this day, one before the sermon, and one after. The other, newly written, piece for Saturday March 25, 1724, was more literally about the Annunciation: Siehe, eine Jungfrau ist schwanger (Behold, a Virgin is pregnant). The text of this cantata survived, and can be found here, but unfortunately the music is lost.

I still recommend the recording of cantata 182 by Montreal Baroque, but since I wrote my post last year, a terrific live video of the Sonata (instrumental opening) of this cantata has come out on the YouTube channel of Voices of Music, with two fabulous soloists: Hanneke van Proosdij on recorder and Rachel Podger on violin, so I would love to share that here as well. You can find that video here.

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

Wieneke Gorter, March 24, 2017.

Mary’s lament

14 Saturday Jan 2017

Posted by in Cantatas, Epiphany, Weimar

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marriage_cana_david

The Marriage at Cana, c. 1500, by Gérard David. Musée du Louvre, Paris. Mary pleads and worries, but Jesus says: “Woman, what have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come.”

This week, I watched a very good video by the Swiss Bach Foundation (Bachstiftung) about today’s cantata 155 Mein Gott, wie lang, ach lange? I found it very insightful, helpful, and even entertaining, but was struck by its Calvinist character and was a bit disappointed by the director’s statement that he doesn’t know why this cantata starts with a movement for solo soprano. When reading Gardiner’s and Van Hengel’s discussions of this cantata, I liked their suggestions that the soprano lament refers to  Mary’s role in the Bible story of this Sunday, the Marriage at Cana. It made sense to me. This cantata, from 1715 and repeated in 1724, contains references to the wine as well as to the fact that Jesus says to his mother: “my time has not come yet.”

While the Lutheran church in Bach’s time did not regard Mary as a saint, let alone a mediator between God and the people, she was still an important person in the faith, and thus probably also for Bach. The three Marian feast days*  Luther kept on the calendar were important holidays and Bach wrote cantatas for all of them. Also, Bach wrote this cantata 155 in his Weimar years, when he explored a large number of works by (Catholic) Italian composers.

Listen to Montreal Baroque’s recording of cantata 155 on YouTube through a playlist I created. With Monika Mauch, soprano; Franziska Gottwald, alto; Charles Daniels, tenor; Harry van der Kamp, bass; Anna Marsh, bassoon.

Read the German text with English translation of this cantata here, and find the score here.

The cantata is not so much a musical play with the soprano taking the role of Mary, but more a reference to her role in the Gospel story and an exploration of that theme: try to trust that everything will be okay in the end, try to not be in control all the time. The first movement has the character of a lament in music and text, you can picture the hand-wringing, the desperation. There is also the steady pedal point in the bass, similar to what Bach will use later in the opening chorus of the St. Matthew Passion.

However it is the second movement, not even sung by the soprano, and with text that is trying to urge her to “let go,” that secretly is the true lament, in the music that is. To hear or see this, the video by the Swiss Bach Foundation is terrific. They explain extremely well (with music examples) how the notes of the solo bassoon part form in fact a lament for three voices. watch from 12:10  By the way: the composition I had to think of when hearing the “lamento bass” was Monteverdi’s  Lamento della Ninfa

If you would like to explore other cantatas for this second Sunday after Epiphany, I invite you to read my post about cantata 3 from 1725 here. It is all about hidden messages in the music of a an extremely beautiful composition with an equally heart wrenching—but completely different—opening movement as this cantata 155.

Wieneke Gorter, January 14, 2017

*The Purification of Mary on February 2, The Annunciaton of Mary on March 25, and the Visitation of Mary on July 2.

Another boy soprano hero: Sebastian Hennig

17 Saturday Dec 2016

Posted by in Advent, Cantatas, Weimar

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Sebastian Hennig

I remember some of the cantatas my mother played on the turntable in our house more vividly than others. One of those is cantata 132 Bereitet die Wege, bereitet die Bahn!, written for the fourth Sunday of Advent in Weimar in 1715.

To understand this, it helps to know how the Christmas season was celebrated  in our household in The Netherlands in the 70s and 80s. Christmas didn’t feature in store windows or on television until after St. Nicholas (December 5). We would not have a Christmas tree in our house until December 16. And while at school we would sing Christmas carols in the last week before the break and have a “Christmas breakfast” on the last Friday, at home we would not have any real Christmas music, including Bach’s Christmas Oratorio until Christmas Day (more about this next week). Until then it was Advent cantatas only as far as Bach’s music was concerned. And since my mother was also a fan of Sebastian Hennig, the soprano soloist in the Leonhardt recording of cantata 132, she probably played this cantata pretty frequently in the last week before Christmas.

(for other boy sopranos from the Leonhardt/Harnoncourt recordings my mother admired, see my posts about Seppi Kronwitter in cantata 61, Peter Jelosits in cantata 44 and Peter Jelosits in cantata 59)

Listen to the Leonhardt recording of cantata 132 Bereitet die Wege, bereitet die Bahn! on Youtube. Find the text here, and the score here.

As a child, I was very impressed by the soprano aria at the start of this cantata too, but I also remember the “Wer bist du” words in the bass aria very well, sung by Max van Egmond on this Leonhardt recording. Except for the tenor aria (sung by Marius van Altena, qualified by my sometimes pretty judgmental mother as a “squeaky door tenor”) their recording of this cantata is unrivaled as far as I’m concerned. For a prettier sound in the tenor recitative, listen to Christoph Prégardien on the Koopman recording.

Wieneke Gorter, December 17, 2016

Third Sunday in Advent: Two adorable infants and a reconstruction of cantata 186a

10 Saturday Dec 2016

Posted by in Advent, Cantatas, Weimar

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madonna_meadow

Madonna with the Christ Child and St. John the Baptist, also known as Madonna of the Meadow, by Raphael, 1506. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

For those of you who already saw this on the third Sunday of Advent 2016: please keep reading, because I considerably revised this post, clarifying the information about the reconstruction and including one more painting 🙂

Growing up, I had a cousin. She was almost exactly six  months older than me. My baby photo album holds several pictures of the two of us together, me a helpless baby, her an infant who could already sit up by herself. I’m always touched by those photos. Not just because they make me think of the cousin I lost when we were both 19, but also because they represent how fast a baby grows up, and how soon the “older” baby can be of help and entertainment for the younger one, and how adorable it is to see that.

Many painters were aware of this cuteness factor too. Especially in the Renaissance, the concept of a one-year-old John playing with or helping a six-month-old Jesus in Madonna and Child paintings became an extremely popular subject, starting with  Leonardo da Vinci. Raphael in particular painted several variations on this theme, including the Alba Madonna, La belle jardinière, Aldobrandini Madonna, Madonna della seggiola, and the Madonna dell’Impannata. The tradition continued well into the 17th century, see this beautiful example from 1658 by Francisco de Zurbarán in the San Diego Museum of Art:

Zurbaran_Madonna_and_Child

Why is all this relevant to Advent? Well, on this third Sunday of Advent, many Christian churches read about John the Baptist, as they believe John was Jesus’ forerunner. Because of a mention in the Gospel of Luke, the Catholic church in the very early Middle Ages determined that St. John’s birthday must have been exactly six months before Christmas — and decided to celebrate this on June 24th.*  You can read more about this in my post about the Feast of St. John.

As far as we know, Bach wrote only one cantata for this Sunday, the third Sunday of Advent. It is the one listed in the BWV catalog as Cantata 186a, Ärgre dich, o Seele, nicht, first performed in Weimar on Sunday December 13, 1716. No original music score is left of this cantata. However, thanks to Bach’s librettist, Weimar court poet Salomo Franck, who published the full libretto for this cantata in a poetry volume in 1717, we do have the original text of 186a.

And, it is not hard to make an educated guess as to what the music would have been.

On July 9, 1723, for the 7th Sunday after Trinity in Leipzig, Bach expanded the music of the 1716 Weimar cantata with four additional recitatives and two chorales (per his usual template for reviving Weimar cantatas for Leipzig), and we do have that music: it is Cantata 186, also with the title Ärgre dich, o Seele, nicht.**

To reconstruct the original 1716 Weimar Advent version, or Cantata 186a, one would have to eliminate all the recitatives Bach added in 1723 as well as both chorales, superimpose different texts on some of the arias, and select alternative music for the original closing chorale. There have been a few performances of these kind of reconstructions, but unfortunately there are no recordings of those.

So I invite you listen to Bach Collegium Japan playing this music via my playlist on Spotify. To imagine the original texts superimposed over this music, and learn why I selected this particular closing chorale, please keep reading.

Opening chorus: This has the same text in 1716 as in 1723. We should imagine a smaller ensemble singing this though, as the maximum number of singers in the Weimar chapel was 7. This opening chorus is again a beautiful example of how Bach provides an “entrada” for the Duke as well as an opportunity for himself to show off his skills with the “fashionable” music, the way he almost always did in the Weimar cantatas.***

Ärgre dich, o Seele, nicht,
Daß das allerhöchste Licht,
Gottes Glanz und Ebenbild,
Sich in Knechtsgestalt verhüllt,
Ärgre dich, o Seele, nicht!		 Do not be confounded, o soul,
because the all-highest light,
God’s radiance and very image,
is concealed in the form of a servant;
do not be confounded!

For the Bass aria, imagine this Advent text instead of the Trinity 7 text you hear (changes in bold type):

Bist du, der da kommen soll,
Seelen-Freund, in Kirchen-Garten?
Mein Gemüt ist Zweifels-voll,
Soll ich eines andern warten!
Doch, o Seele, zweifle nicht.
Lass Vernunft dich nicht verstricken,
Deinen Schilo, Jacobs Licht,
Kannst du in der Schrift erblicken!		 Are You He, who should come,
Friend of souls, to the Church’s garden?
My spirit is full of doubt,
perhaps I should wait for someone else!
Yet, o soul, do not doubt.
Do not let reason beguile you.
Your Messiah, Jacob’s light,
is visible to you in the scripture.(translation of original text by me, unchanged words courtesy of bach-cantatas.com website)

For the Tenor aria,  imagine this Advent text instead of the Trinity 7 text you hear (changes in bold type):

Messias läßt sich merken
Aus seinen Gnaden-Werken.
Unreine werden rein.
Die geistlich Lahme gehen,
Die geistlich Blinde sehen
Den hellen Gnaden Schein.		 The Messiah lets Himself be seen
in His works of grace.
The impure become purified.
Those lame of spirit will walk,
Those blind of spirit will see
the clear brilliance of the mercy.(translation of original text by me, unchanged words courtesy of bach-cantatas.com website)

There is only one word change in the Soprano aria: In the last line the 1716 text is “des Lebens Wort” instead of “das Lebenswort” from 1723.

Die Armen will der Herr umarmen
The Lord will embrace the poor
Mit Gnaden hier und dort;
With his mercy here and there;
Er schenket ihnen aus Erbarmen
Out of his compassion he sends to them
Den höchsten Schatz, das Lebenswort.
His greatest treasure, the word of life.

Enjoy Miah Persson’s beautiful voice and interpretation. If you would like to hear and more about her, read my post about cantata 179. Cantata 179 appears on the same album by Bach Collegium Japan as this cantata 186.

Soprano-alto duet: This is the original text from 1716, unchanged in 1723. The text promises the believer the crown (die Krone) of the everlasting life, but only if he stays faithful (getreu) and only in the afterlife, when free of the body (wenn des Leibes frei).

Laß, Seele, kein Leiden
My soul, let no sorrow
Von Jesu dich scheiden,
Separate you from Jesus
Sei, Seele, getreu!
Be faithful, my soul!
Dir bleibet die Krone
The Crown weight you
Aus Gnaden zu Lohne,
Is your reward through grace
Wenn du von Banden des Leibes nun frei.
When you will be free from the body’s prison.

In Weimar in 1716, for the closing chorale Bach used the 8th verse of Von Gott will ich nicht lassen from 1563, based on the French tune Une jeune fillette from 1557. Since this is not the same melody as Es ist das Heil uns kommen her Bach used in 1723 it is very plausible that both chorales from the 1723 version are new, in text as well as in music. So in an effort to reconstruct the 1716 version,  we need to think of a different solution for the music than the tune from 1723. A good fit would be a simple setting of the Von Gott will ich nicht lassen chorale, the way Bach would set for example verse 5 of this chorale as closing movement of cantata 73 in 1723 or 1724. So that’s why, for now, I’ve included that music (from a Herreweghe recording) in the Spotify playlist. The text would be this:

Darum ob ich schon dulde
Hie Wiederwärtigkeit,
wie ich auch wohl verschulde,
kommt doch die Ewigkeit,
ist aller Freuden voll,
die ohne alles Ende,
dieweil ich Christum kenne,
mir widerfahren soll.		 Therefore, even if I endure
unpleasantness here,
as I have well deserved,
eternity is coming
filled with all joy;
this for ever
will befall me
while I acknowledge Christ.

All translations of existing text and closing chorale courtesy of bach-cantatas.com website, translations of changed texts by me.

© Wieneke Gorter, December 10, 2016, revised December 15, 2017.

* Luke 1:36 (about the Annunciation) mentions that the angel Gabriel also informed Mary that her cousin Elizabeth was already six months pregnant. The June 24 date was most probably also chosen to give a Christian meaning to already existing Pagan Midsummer celebrations. The Feast of St. John being celebrated on June 24 shows up in records as early as the year 506.

**I discussed this 1723 version of the cantata here, and recommended the recording by Bach Collegium Japan with soprano Miah Persson, alto Robin Blaze, tenor Makoto Sakurada, and bass Peter Kooij.

***Read more about Bach’s Weimar cantatas in my posts about cantata 182, 12, 147, and 21

Many things to be proud of

26 Saturday Nov 2016

Posted by in Advent, Cantatas, Leipzig, Weimar

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giotto-entry-into-jerusalem

The Entry into Jerusalem by Giotto, ca. 1305. Fresco in the Scrovengni Chapel, Padua, Italy.

Bach performed this cantata 61 Nun komm der Heiden Heiland in Leipzig on November 28, 1723, as a “rerun” of the first performance in Weimar in 1714. Why did he not write a new cantata? The prevailing scholarly answer is that Bach was giving himself a break from composing in between the three-week frenzy of cantatas 60, 90, and 70 and the new works (including a Magnificat) he was planning for the Christmas days.  I think Bach was proud of his Weimar cantatas, and I believe he wanted to show off the special features in this cantata to his colleagues and to the thousands of Lutherans that he knew would flock to the Leipzig churches on holidays.

I myself am proud of having followed Bach’s cantata writing of 1723 every week for the entire Trinity season. After all this listening and reading, I see a pattern in Bach reviving some of his Weimar cantatas on Leipzig feast days*, and I now look at cantata 61 Nun komm der Heiden Heiland in a new way.

This cantata had already been in my top five because of the moving interpretation of the soprano aria by Seppi Kronwitter (soprano) and Nikolaus Harnoncourt (cello) on the Harnoncourt recording from 1976. My mother loved this aria and played this recording many times, and I have fond memories of listening to it with her.

Harnoncourt-cello

I had always found the bass recitative that precedes it very charming, with the musical illustration of the knocking on the door, but not more than that.  I had seen this recitative in the context of all the Bach cantatas and passions that I knew, and had compared it with other typical Bach “Vox Christi” writing for bass. But those were all written after November 28, 1723.  So now, after having tried to place myself in the shoes of the Leipzig congregations for the entire 1723 Trinity season, I am fully aware that they had not heard a “Vox Christi” at all in any of the cantatas leading up to this one.** And thus I finally realize how it must not have been charming, but truly moving to them to hear this announcement presented in this way, on the first Sunday they started looking forward to the birth of Christ.

In the text of the recitative, Jesus says: “See, I am in front of your door! I’m knocking!” The librettist means the door of the believer’s heart, in which he’s planning to live. The pizzicato in the strings, as well as the staccato and the intervals in the voice part illustrate the knocking, and the dissonances at the beginning only resolve until the final “klopfe an.” The form of this recitative is highly unusual, and perhaps also something Bach wanted to show off in Leipzig.

However Bach’s greatest source of pride was probably the opening chorus of this cantata. To understand this, we need to do a mini music history class. First, in the 4th century, Ambrosius created the hymn Veni Redemptor Gentium, beautifully sung here on this video by Giovanni Vianini, director of the Schola Gregoriana Mediolanensis in Milan, Italy. Then, in 1524, Luther turned that hymn into Nun komm der Heiden Heiland, which sounds like this and which all Lutherans in Bach’s time knew very well.

In Weimar Bach had come into contact with French and Italian court music, and had adopted the habit of writing almost every opening chorus or opening sinfonia of his cantatas as a royal “entrada,” to show off his skills in French ouverture writing as well as to please the Duke.

So now Bach needed/wanted to merge the timeless hymn with a fashionable French ouverture. And the result is stunning. Or, as Eduard van Hengel says: Bach wrote “brilliant fusion” at the age of 29. Listen to this in the recording by Philippe Herreweghe on YouTube (Sybilla Rubens, soprano; Christoph Prégardien, tenor; Peter Kooij, bass).

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

The first line of the hymn is sung one voice part at a time, an illustration of the Bible reading for this Sunday: the people greeting the messiah who is riding into Jerusalem. The second line is then sung as a simple four-part hymn, while the instrumental parts keep playing the first part of the ouverture. The third line becomes a mini motet in the fast and happy (“Gai”) middle part of the ouverture, in 3/4. 

The fourth line of text is then again a simple four-part setting on the third part of the ouverture.

For the closing chorale, Bach chose the last two lines of Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern as melody. And again he marries the chorale tune beautifully with the instrumental writing.

Wieneke Gorter, November 26, 2016, updated December 1, 2019.

*Read more about this in my post about the feast of St. John the Baptist on June 24, The Visitation on July 2, and last week’s post about cantata 70. Read how proud Bach was of his Weimar cantatas in this post about cantata 12.

** unless they had a really good memory, and were present at Bach’s “audition” in February 1723. There is a Vox Christi in Cantata 22 which he presented at that time, but didn’t repeat in Leipzig until that same time in the church year in 1724.