Oh God, how many a heartache, BWV 3
| Bach cantata | |
|---|---|
| Oh God, how many a heartache | |
| BWV: | 3 |
| Occasion: | 2nd Sunday after Epiphany |
| Year of origin: | 1725 |
| Place of origin: | Leipzig |
| Genus: | Choral cantata |
| Solo : | SATB |
| Choir: | SATB |
| Instruments : | Co Tb 2Oa 2Vl Va Bc |
| text | |
| Martin Moller , unknown | |
| List of Bach cantatas | |
Oh God, how many Herzeleid ( BWV 3) is a church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach . He composed the choir cantata in Leipzig for the second Sunday after Epiphany and performed it for the first time on January 14, 1725.
Story and words
Bach wrote the cantata Oh God, like many a heartache in his second year in office in Leipzig for the second Sunday after Epiphany (apparition of the Lord). The prescribed readings for the Sunday were Romans 12.6 to 16 LUT , "We have different gifts," and John 2,1-11 LUT , the wedding at Cana .
The cantata is based on the hymn in 18 stanzas published by Martin Moller in 1587. In the middle stanzas it is a repositioning of the medieval Latin hymn " Jesu dulcis memoria ", which is attributed to Bernard von Clairvaux and which sings about Jesus as comforter and helper in need.
An unknown poet retained the wording of stanzas 1, 2 and 18. He used 1 and 18 as movements 1 and 6 of the cantata, expanded the verbatim stanza in movement 2 to include thoughts from stanzas 3 to 5, rewrote stanza 6 for movement 3, verses 7 to 14 for movement 4, verses 15 and 16 for Movement 5. He did not try to connect the cantata text with the gospel.
The song is sung to a melody from "Herr Jesu Christ, mein Lebens Licht", which first appeared in 1455 in Wolflin Lochamer's song book in Nuremberg .
Bach first performed the cantata on January 14, 1725.
Occupation and structure
The cantata is made up of four vocal soloists ( soprano , alto , tenor and bass ), four-part choir, horn (corno da caccia), trombone, two oboe d'amore , two violins , viola and basso continuo .
- Coro: Oh God, how many a heartache
- Recitativo e chorale (soprano, alto, tenor, bass, choir): How difficult it is to be flesh and blood
- Aria (bass): I feel terrible and tormented
- Recitativo (tenor): It may sap my body and soul
- Aria Duetto (soprano, alto): When worries come over me
- Chorale: Keep my heart pure in faith
music
In the opening choir, it is not the soprano singing the cantus firmus , as in most choral cantatas , but the bass, reinforced by the trombone. Bach had already tried this out in his fourth chorale cantata for Leipzig, Oh Herr, mich armen Sünder (BWV 135), after he had entrusted the song melody in the second chorale cantata to the alto and in the third to the tenor. The plaintive mood of this opening choir is expressed by the “elegiac tones” of the oboes d'amore, which are taken over by the upper voices, and by motifs of sighs in the strings.
The following recitative combines the chorale melody, which is sung in four parts by the choir, with inserted sections of text that are performed by the soloists. The chorale lines are each introduced by a joyful ostinato motif derived from the song melody.
The bass aria, accompanied only by the continuo, savor the contrast between “hell fear” and “joy heaven” when the “immeasurable pain” dissolves into “light fog”.
In the duet for soprano and alto in light E major , the voices are embedded in a dense quartet texture of the instruments, as Christoph Wolff notes. The final chorale is a simple four-part movement.
Recordings
- Bach Aria Group - Cantatas, Arias & Choruses. Brian Priestman, Bach Aria Group Chorus & Orchestra , Lois Marshall , Maureen Forrester , Richard Lewis, Norman Farrow. Vox, late 1960s?
- JS Bach: The Cantata Work - Sacred Cantatas Vol. 1. Nikolaus Harnoncourt , Vienna Boys Choir , Chorus Viennensis , Concentus Musicus Vienna , Soloist of the Vienna Boys Choir, Paul Esswood , Kurt Equiluz , Max van Egmond . Teldec , 1970.
- The Bach Cantata Vol. 22. Helmuth Rilling , Gächinger Kantorei , Bach-Collegium Stuttgart , Arleen Augér , Gabriele Schreckenbach, Lutz-Michael Harder , Philippe Huttenlocher . Hänssler, 1980.
- Bach Edition Vol. 12 - Cantatas Vol. 6. Pieter Jan Leusink , Holland Boys Choir , Netherlands Bach Collegium , Ruth Holton, Sytse Buwalda, Knut Schoch , Bas Ramselaar. Brilliant Classics, 1999.
- Bach Cantatas Vol. 19: Greenwich / Romsey. John Eliot Gardiner , Monteverdi Choir , English Baroque Soloists , Joanne Lunn, Richard Wyn Roberts, Julian Podger, Gerald Finley . Soli Deo Gloria, 2000.
- JS Bach: Complete Cantatas Vol. 15. Ton Koopman , Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra & Choir , Sandrine Piau , Bogna Bartosz, Paul Agnew, Klaus Mertens . Antoine Marchand, 2001.
- JS Bach: Cantatas Vol. 29. Masaaki Suzuki , Bach Collegium Japan , Dorothee Mields , Pascal Bertin, Gerd Türk, Peter Kooij . UP, 2004.
literature
- Alfred Dürr : Johann Sebastian Bach: The Cantatas. Bärenreiter, Kassel 1999, ISBN 3-7618-1476-3 and Deutscher Taschenbuchverlag, Munich 1995, ISBN 3-423-04431-4 .
- Werner Neumann : Handbook of the cantatas by JS Bach , 1947. 5th edition. Breitkopf and Härtel, Leipzig 1984, ISBN 3-7651-0054-4 .
- Hans-Joachim Schulze : The Bach Cantatas: Introductions to all of Johann Sebastian Bach's cantatas . Evangelische Verlags-Anstalt, Leipzig; Carus-Verlag, Stuttgart 2006 (Edition Bach-Archiv Leipzig), ISBN 3-374-02390-8 (Evang. Verl.-Anst.), ISBN 3-89948-073-2 (Carus-Verlag).
- Christoph Wolff , Ton Koopman : The world of Bach cantatas . Verlag JB Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2006, ISBN 978-3-476-02127-4 .
Web links
- Cantata BWV 3 Oh God, how many a heartache : sheet music and audio files in the International Music Score Library Project
- Cantata BWV 3 Oh God, how many a heartache. at Bach Cantatas (English)
- Oh God, how many a heartache on the private website bach.de
- BWV 3 Oh God, how many Herzeleid Text, structure and composition on the personal homepage of Walter F. Bischof at the University of Alberta
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e Alfred Dürr : The cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach . tape 1 . Bärenreiter, 1971, OCLC 523584 , p. 178-179 .
- ↑ a b c Klaus Hofmann : Oh God, how many Herzeleid, BWV 3 (PDF; 2.6 MB) bach-cantatas.com. Pp. 16-17. 2005. Retrieved January 17, 2013.
- ↑ a b Christoph Wolff : The transition between the second and the third yearly cycle of Bach's Leipzig cantatas (1725) ( en , PDF) S. 2, 4. 2001. Retrieved on January 17, 2013.
- ↑ John Eliot Gardiner : Cantatas for the Second Sunday after Epiphany / Old Royal Naval College Chapel, Greenwich ( en , PDF; 85 kB) bach-cantatas.com. S. 2. 2006. Retrieved January 17, 2013.
- ↑ Julian Mincham: CHAPTER 35 BWV 3 Oh God, how many a heartache ( s ) jsbachcantatas.com. 2010. Retrieved January 17, 2013.
