Blessed is the man
| Bach cantata | |
|---|---|
| Blessed is the man | |
| BWV: | 57 |
| Occasion: | 2nd Christmas Day |
| Year of origin: | 1725 |
| Place of origin: | Leipzig |
| Genus: | cantata |
| Solo : | SB |
| Choir: | SATB |
| Instruments : | 2Ob 2Vn Va Bc |
| text | |
| Georg Christian Lehms | |
| List of Bach cantatas | |
Blessed is the man ( BWV 57) is a church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach . He composed it in Leipzig in 1725 for Christmas Day , which is also St. Stephen's Day , and performed it for the first time on December 26, 1725.
Story and words
Bach wrote the cantata in his third cantata cycle in 1725 for Christmas Day, which was celebrated that year as the feast of the martyr Stephen . The prescribed readings were Acts 6,8–7,22 LUT , Acts 7,51–59 LUT , the stoning of Stephen, and Mt 23,34–39 LUT , the lamentation over Jerusalem. The cantata poet Georg Christian Lehms included all readings and expanded them with further biblical references. The first sentence is based on Jak 1,12 LUT , the crown mentioned in it is Greek stephanos . Lehms wrote the text as a dialogue between "Jesus" and "Anima" (soul). He saw a stanza from Johann Heermann's praise of God as the final chorale , the hour has come , but instead Bach chose the 6th stanza from Ahasverus Fritsch's Have you, Jesus, completely hidden your face , called "Soul Conversation with Christ", all around To continue dialogue.
Occupation and structure
The cantata is made up of chamber music with two soloists ( soprano and bass ), two oboes , two violins , viola and basso continuo . A four-part choir is only required in the final chorale. The oboes play with the strings in the framework movements.
- Aria (bass): Blessed is the man
- Recitativo (soprano): Oh! this sweet consolation
- Aria (soprano): I wanted death, death
- Recitativo (soprano, bass): I hold out my hand
- Aria (bass): Yeah, yeah, I can beat the enemies
- Recitativo (soprano, bass): Peace and life lie in my lap
- Aria (soprano): I am quickly ending my earthly life
- Chorale: Judge yourself, dearest, as I please and believe
music
The music of the dialogue is more dramatic than in most of Bach's church cantatas. Most of the recitatives are secco and drive the action. In the first aria, tones sustained over several bars dominate the words blessed and proven , which illustrate eternal duration. The second aria musically forms a sensation denied as unreal: the desperate longing of the soul for death (not as perfection, but as annihilation), which it would only be left with without the (actually given) love of Jesus. Bach draws the opposing affects with an upward line that ends in a sudden leap down a ninth , as well as with a turn in a light major in the line “if you, my Jesus, did not love me”.
The third aria shows Jesus as the victor, through fanfares in broken triads. The figure of the solo violin in the last aria can be interpreted as the "stormy falling into the arms of Jesus" ( Alfred Dürr ). After a mystical connection has been reached in the second part of this aria, “My Savior, I die with the greatest desire”, no da capo is possible; the aria ends with the question “what are you giving me?” which is answered by the chorale.
Recordings
- LP / CD
- Willem Mengelberg - Volume 1 (JS Bach). Willem Mengelberg , Concertgebouw Orchestra , Jo Vincent , Max Kloos . Mengelberg Edition, 1940.
- Bach Made in Germany Vol. 1 - Cantatas I. Günther Ramin , Thomanerchor , Gewandhausorchester Leipzig , Agnes Giebel , Johannes Oettel . Berlin / Leipzig Classics, 1951.
- JS Bach: Cantata No. 140, Cantata No. 57. Karl Ristenpart , Choir of the Saarbrücken Conservatory, Saarland Chamber Orchestra , Ursula Buckel , Jakob Stämpfli . Club Français du Disque, 1962.
- Les Grandes Cantates de JS Bach Vol. 13. Fritz Werner , Heinrich Schütz Choir Heilbronn , Pforzheimer Chamber Orchestra , Agnes Giebel , Barry McDaniel . Erato, 1963.
- Bach Cantatas Vol. 15: New York. John Eliot Gardiner , Monteverdi Choir , English Baroque Soloists , Joanne Lunn , Peter Harvey . Soli Deo Gloria, 2000.
- JS Bach: Complete Cantatas Vol. 18. Sound Koopman , Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra & Choir , Sibylla Rubens , Klaus Mertens . Antoine Marchand, 2002.
- Bach: Dialogue Cantatas - dialogue cantatas. Rainer Kussmaul , RIAS Chamber Choir , Berlin Baroque Soloists , Dorothea Röschmann , Thomas Quasthoff . Deutsche Grammophon , 2007.
- JS Bach: Cantatas Vol. 43. Masaaki Suzuki , Bach Collegium Japan , Hana Blažíková , Peter Kooij . UP , 2008.
- Christmas cantatas (BWV 57,91,122,151) Sigiswald Kuijken , La Petite Bande , Gerlinde Sämann , Petra Noskaiová , Jan van der Crabben , Christoph Genz . Accent, 2010
- Bach Cantatas No. 6. BWV 57, 73, 140 . Rudolf Lutz , choir and orchestra of the JS Bach Foundation , Julia Neumann , Antonia Frey , Nicolas Savoy , Ekkehard Abele . (BWV 57). Susanne Frei, Makoto Sakurada , Markus Volpert . (BWV 73). Nuria Rial , Bernhard Berchtold , Markus Volpert. (BWV 140). Gallus Media, 2012.
- JS Bach: Dialog Cantatas for Soprano & Bass - BWV 32, 57, 58 with Hana Blažíková , Dominik Wörner , Kirchheimer BachConsort under the direction of Alfredo Bernardini . cpo, 2016.
- DVD
- Blessed is the man who endures temptation . Cantata BWV 57. Rudolf Lutz, choir and orchestra of the JS Bach Foundation, Julia Neumann, Antonia Frey, Nicolas Savoy, Ekkehard Abele, Samt introductory workshop and reflection by Annemarie Pieper . Gallus Media, St. Gallen 2011.
literature
- Alfred Dürr: Johann Sebastian Bach: The Cantatas. Bärenreiter, Kassel 1999, ISBN 3-7618-1476-3 .
- Werner Neumann : Handbook of JS Bach's Cantatas , 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 / Carus-Verlag, Stuttgart 2006 (Edition Bach-Archiv Leipzig) ISBN 3-374-02390-8 (Evang. Verl.-Anst.), ISBN 3-89948-073-2 (Carus-Verl .)
- 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 57 : Sheet music and audio files in the International Music Score Library Project
- Cantata BWV 57 "Blessed is the man" in bach-cantatas (English)
- "Blessed is the man" on the Bach website
Individual evidence
- ↑ That was the case every other year in Leipzig during Bach's time; In the intervening years, December 26th was celebrated as the second Christmas holiday (Günther Stiller, Johann Sebastian Bach and the Leipzig worship life of his time , Kassel (Bärenreiter) 1970, p. 46).
- ↑ to the melody of Praise the Lords, the mighty King of Honor
