It's a defiant and despondent thing
| Bach cantata | |
|---|---|
| It's a defiant and despondent thing | |
| BWV: | 176 |
| Occasion: | Trinity |
| Year of origin: | 1725 |
| Place of origin: | Leipzig |
| Genus: | Church cantata |
| Solo : | SAB |
| Choir: | SATB |
| Instruments : | 2Ob Oc 2Vl Va Bc |
| text | |
| Christiana Mariana von Ziegler , Paul Gerhardt | |
| List of Bach cantatas | |
It is a defiant and despondent thing ( BWV 176) is a church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach . He composed it in Leipzig for the Sunday Trinity and performed it for the first time on May 27, 1725. This ended the second year of regular cantata compositions for the liturgy in Leipzig.
Story and words
Bach wrote the cantata for Trinity . The prescribed readings for Sunday were Rom 11,33–36 LUT and Joh 3,1–15 LUT , the meeting of Jesus and Nicodemus . In his second year in Leipzig, Bach consistently composed choral cantatas from the first Sunday after Trinity to Palm Sunday for his second cycle of cantatas , but at Easter he switched back to cantatas based on freer text. This included nine cantatas based on texts by the poet Christiana Mariana von Ziegler , including this last cantata of their collaboration. Bach later assigned them to his third cycle of cantatas.
The poet took the starting point of her ideas from the observation from the Gospel that Nicodemus came to Jesus in the night out of fear. She began her text with the paraphrase of a sentence from Jeremiah ( Jer 17,9 LUT ), which describes the human heart marked by contradictions, and transferred this to the situation of Christians in general. She continued with Nicodemus' thought that no one could act like Jesus if God were not with him. As the final chorale she chose the eighth stanza of Paul Gerhardt's hymn “Was all wisdom in the world” (1653), which is sung to the melody of “Christ our Lord came to Jordan”.
Bach first performed the cantata on May 27, 1725. It was the last cantata of his second year in office in Leipzig.
Occupation and structure
The cantata consists of three vocal soloists ( soprano , alto and bass ), four-part choir, two oboes , oboe da caccia , two violins , viola and basso continuo . The cantata contains six movements.
- Coro: It's defiant and despondent thing
- Recitativo (alto): I mean, really despondent
- Aria (soprano): Your otherwise popular glow
- Recitativo (bass): Do not be surprised, o master
- Aria (alto): Encourage your fearful and shy senses
- Chorale: So that we all at the same time
music
The opening chorus in C minor focuses on a chorus fugue without prelude, interlude or epilogue. A complex theme illustrates the opposing aspects of "defiant" and "despondent", "defiant" initially on a repeated high note that is achieved in a triad fanfare , "despondent" in chromatic sighs. The strings accompany the “defiant” part loudly, the “despondent” part softly, while the oboes support the singing parts. Klaus Hofmann remarks: "Overall, however, Bach found more pleasure in depicting defiance than in expressing despondency, probably not quite in the spirit of his lyricist."
The soprano aria “Your otherwise so brightly popular glow” is in great contrast a “light-footed gavotte ”, at times without a continuo.
In the following secco recitative , Nicodemus speaks for Christians in general. Bach added a modified sentence from the Gospel to the printed text, stating that “those who believe in you will not be lost”, and emphasized it with an arioso .
In the alto aria the trinity is underlined by three obbligato oboes, one of which is oboe da caccia, which play in unison .
The final chorale is a four-part chorale based on an old, modal melody for “Christ our Lord came to Jordan”.
Recordings (selection)
LP / CD
- The RIAS Bach Cantatas Project (1949–1952). Karl Ristenpart , RIAS Chamber Choir , RIAS Chamber Orchestra, Gerda Lammers, Lotte Wolf-Matthäus , Gerhard Niese. Audite, 1950.
- The Bach Cantata Vol. 39. Helmuth Rilling , Gächinger Kantorei , Bach-Collegium Stuttgart , Inga Nielsen , Carolyn Watkinson, Walter Heldwein. Hänssler, 1980.
- JS Bach: The Cantata Work, Volume 41 - BWV 175–179. Gustav Leonhardt , Knabenchor Hannover , Collegium Vocale Gent , Leonhardt-Consort , soloist of the Knabenchor Hannover, Paul Esswood , Max van Egmond . Telefunken , 1988.
- Bach Edition Vol. 15 - Cantatas Vol. 8. Pieter Jan Leusink , Holland Boys Choir , Netherlands Bach Collegium , Ruth Holton, Sytse Buwalda, Bas Ramselaar. Brilliant Classics, 2000.
- Bach Cantatas Vol. 27: Blythburgh / Kirkwell / For Whit Tuesday / For Trinity Sunday. John Eliot Gardiner , Monteverdi Choir , English Baroque Soloists , Ruth Holton, Daniel Taylor, Peter Harvey . Soli Deo Gloria, 2000.
- JS Bach: Complete Cantatas Vol. 15. Ton Koopman , Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra & Choir , Johannette Zomer, Bogna Bartosz, Klaus Mertens . Antoine Marchand, 2001.
- JS Bach: Cantatas Vol. 35 (Cantatas from Leipzig 1725) - BWV 74, 87, 128, 176. Masaaki Suzuki , Bach Collegium Japan , Yukari Nonoshita, Robin Blaze , Peter Kooij . UP, 2007.
DVD
- It's a defiant and despondent thing. Cantata BWV 176. Rudolf Lutz , choir and orchestra of the JS Bach Foundation , Monika Mauch (soprano), Terry Wey (alto), Manuel Walser (bass), velvet introductory workshop and reflection by Christina von der Au . Gallus Media, 2014.
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 JSBachs . 1947. 5th edition. 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 2006, ISBN 3-374-02390-8 ; Carus-Verlag, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-89948-073-2
- Christoph Wolff , Ton Koopman : The world of Bach cantatas Verlag JB Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2006, ISBN 978-3-476-02127-4
- Christina Aus der Au : «God is relationship, movement and community». Reflection on the text of the cantata BWV 176. "It is a defiant and despondent thing". On the occasion of the performance in Teufen AR on May 24, 2013. JS Bach Foundation , 2013.
Web links
- Cantata BWV 176 : Sheet music and audio files in the International Music Score Library Project
- Materials of BWV "It is deceitful above all things" 176 the project Bach Digital of the Bach Archive in Leipzig
- Cantata BWV 176 “It's a defiant and despondent thing” by Bach Cantatas (English) history, instrumentation, sources for text and music, translations into several languages, recordings and discussion
- "It's a defiant and despondent thing" on the private website bach.de
- BWV 176 It is a defiant and despondent thing 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 , 4th Edition, Volume 1, Deutscher Taschenbuchverlag, 1981, ISBN 3-423-04080-7 .
- ↑ What all wisdom in the world / Text and Translation of Chorale ( en ) bach-cantatas.com. 2006. Retrieved May 25, 2013.
- ↑ a b Christoph Wolff : The transition between the second and the third yearly cycle of Bach's Leipzig cantatas (1725) ( en , PDF) 1999, pp. 2, 5 (accessed on May 21, 2013).
- ↑ a b c d Klaus Hofmann : It's a defiant and despondent thing, BWV 176 (PDF; 1.4 MB) bach-cantatas.com. Pp. 14-15. 2007. Retrieved May 21, 2013.
- ↑ John Eliot Gardiner : Cantatas for Trinity Sunday / St Magnus Cathedral, Kirkwall ( en , PDF; 103 kB) bach-cantatas.com. Pp. 8-10. 2008. Retrieved May 25, 2013.
- ↑ Julian Mincham: Chapter 50 BWV 176 It's a defiant and despondent thing / The human spirit may be both defiant and disheartened ( en ) jsbachcantatas.com. 2010. Retrieved May 25, 2013.
- ↑ Chorale Melodies used in Bach's Vocal Works / Christ our Lord came to Jordan ( en ) bach-cantatas.com. Retrieved May 25, 2013.
- ↑ PDF ( Memento of the original from March 11, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the publisher's website.
