The Lord is my faithful shepherd
| Bach cantata | |
|---|---|
| The Lord is my faithful shepherd | |
| BWV: | 112 |
| Occasion: | Misericordias Domini |
| Year of origin: | 1731 |
| Place of origin: | Leipzig |
| Genus: | Choral cantata |
| Solo : | SATB |
| Choir: | SATB |
| Instruments : | 2Co 2Oa 2Vl Va Bc |
| text | |
| Wolfgang Meuslin | |
| List of Bach cantatas | |
The Lord Is My Faithful Shepherd ( Bach Works Directory 112) is a church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach . He composed the choir cantata in Leipzig in 1731.
Story and words
Bach wrote the cantata for the Sunday Misericordias Domini , the second Sunday after Easter. The prescribed readings were 1 Pet 2,21-25 LUT , Christ as an example, and John 10,11–16 LUT , Jesus as a good shepherd . With this cantata, Bach added to his second cycle of choral cantatas, which he had started on the first Sunday after Trinity in 1724. For the period after Easter 1725 he had not composed any chorale cantatas in that year.
The text of the cantata is unchanged that of the hymn of Wolfgang Meuslin , a paraphrase of Psalm 23 (1530). The song is sung by Nikolaus Decius (1522) to the melody of Alone God in the Heights . It is not the song with the same opening line by Cornelius Becker , sung to the same melody that Bach had used for the same occasion in the two previous cantatas, Du Shepherd Israel, hear and I am a good shepherd . Its content, the Lord as good shepherd, was traditionally interpreted as referring to Jesus and thus corresponds to the gospel. This allowed Bach to use it unchanged as text.
Bach first performed the cantata in the Nikolaikirche (Leipzig) on April 8, 1731.
Occupation and structure
The cantata is occupied by four soloists, soprano , alto , tenor and bass , four-part choir, two horns , two oboes d'amore , two violins , viola and basso continuo . The cantata contains five movements.
- Chorale: The Lord is my faithful shepherd
- Aria (Alt): He shows me to the pure water
- Recitativo (bass): And whether I walk in the dark valley
- Duetto (soprano, tenor): You prepare a table for me
- Chorale: good and mercy
music
In the opening choir, a chorale fantasy , the melody of the German Gloria, alone God in the heights be honor, is embedded in an independent orchestral concert. The movement begins with horn signals derived from the chorale melody, then the horns play a concert with the strings, which are amplified by oboes. The cantus firmus is in the soprano, while the lower voices are imitating. John Eliot Gardiner compares the movement with the introductory cantatas of the two previous cantatas on the same occasion and notices that this paints a more royal picture of the good shepherd. Both Alfred Dürr and Klaus Hofmann suspect that the music was originally not composed for the text by the Shepherd, but for the Gloria . Bach had already written a chorale fantasy on this melody in Ascension Day alone .
The internal movements of the cantata use the lyrics unchanged, but their music is independent of the song melody. The alto aria is accompanied by the obbligato oboe d'amore. It is in the pastoral 6/8 time and consists of two similar parts. The steady flow of the oboe melody can be interpreted as the “pure water” that the text mentions, the steps in the continuo as steps “on the right road”.
The central movement begins as an arioso , accompanied by the continuo, and describes hiking “in the dark valley”. The second part is a dramatic recitative with strings. which initially expresses “persecution, suffering, tribulation” in a broken melodic line against held chords , then the protection “Your staff and stick comfort me”.
The following duet shows the joy of God's table in a dance, a bourrée .
The cantata is concluded by a four-part choral movement in which the instruments play colla parte .
Recordings
- JS Bach: Cantatas BWV 112 & BWV 185. Hans Grischkat , Schwäbischer Singkreis Stuttgart , Bach Orchestra Stuttgart , Claire Fassbender-Luz , Hetty Plümacher , Klaus Stemann , Hermann Werdermann. Renaissance / Baroque / Joker, 1951.
- JS Bach: Cantata BWV 112. Günther Ramin , Thomanerchor , Gewandhausorchester , Elisabeth Meinel-Asbahr , Lotte Wolf-Matthäus , Gert Lutze , Johannes Oettel . Eterna, 1954.
- East German Revolution. Hans-Joachim Rotzsch , Thomanerchor, Gewandhausorchester, Regina Werner , Gerda Schriever , Peter Menzel , Hermann Christian Polster . MUSHROOM, ca.1975.
- JS Bach: Das Kantatenwerk, Episode 28. Nikolaus Harnoncourt , Vienna Boys Choir , Tölzer Knabenchor , Concentus Musicus Vienna , soloist of the Tölzer Knabenchor, Paul Esswood , Kurt Equiluz , Ruud van der Meer . Teldec , 1979.
- The Bach Cantata, Vol. 9. Helmuth Rilling , Gächinger Kantorei , Bach-Collegium Stuttgart , Inga Nielsen , Gabriele Schreckenbach , Aldo Baldin , Walter Heldwein . Hänssler, 1981.
- Bach Cantatas Vol. 23: Arnstadt / Echternach / For the 1st Sunday after Easter (Quasimodogeniti) / For the 2nd Sunday after Easter (Misericordias Domini). John Eliot Gardiner , Monteverdi Choir , English Baroque Soloists , Katharine Fuge , William Towers , Norbert Meyn , Stephen Varcoe . Soli Deo Gloria, 2000.
- Bach Edition Vol. 21 - Cantatas Vol. 12. Pieter Jan Leusink , Holland Boys Choir , Netherlands Bach Collegium , Ruth Holton , Nico van der Meel , Bas Ramselaar . Brilliant Classics, 2000.
- JS Bach: Complete Cantatas, Vol. 20. Ton Koopman , Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra & Choir , Sandrine Piau , Bogna Bartosz , Christoph Prégardien , Klaus Mertens . Antoine Marchand, 2003.
- JS Bach: Cantatas Vol. 52 - Wake up, the voice calls us, Cantatas 29, 112, 140 (Cantatas from Leipzig 1730s-40s (I)). Masaaki Suzuki , Bach Collegium Japan , Hana Blažíková , Robin Blaze , Gerd Türk , Peter Kooij . UP, 2011.
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 . Breitkopf and Härtel, Leipzig 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 and Ton Koopman : The world of Bach cantatas. JB Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2006, ISBN 978-3-476-02127-4 .
Web links
- The Lord is my Faithful Shepherd : Sheet Music and Audio Files in the International Music Score Library Project
- Cantata BWV 112 Sources at Bach Digital of the Bach Archive Leipzig
- Cantata BWV 112 "The Lord is my faithful shepherd" History, cast, sources for text and music, translations into several languages, recordings and discussion on the private website Bach Cantatas (English)
- “The Lord is my loyal shepherd” on the private website bach.de.
- BWV 112 “The Lord is my faithful shepherd” Text and line-up on Walter F. Bischof's personal homepage
- Practical edition (PDF) in the choir archive
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e Alfred Dürr : The Cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach , 4th Edition, Volume 1, Deutscher Taschenbuchverlag, 1981, ISBN 3-4230-4080-7 , pp. 209-211.
- ↑ The Lord is my faithful shepherd / Text and Translation of Chorale ( English ) bach-cantatas.com. Retrieved November 14, 2012.
- ↑ Christoph Wolff : On the cantatas of the Picander year and the early 1730s (PDF; 5.3 MB) bach-cantatas.com. Pp. 14, 20. Retrieved April 9, 2013.
- ↑ Lars Kessner: 274 - The Lord is my faithful shepherd . In: Gerhard Hahn , Jürgen Henkys (Hrsg.): Liederkunde zum Evangelisches Gesangbuch . No. 13 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2007, ISBN 978-3-525-50337-9 , pp. 69–75 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
- ↑ Chorale Melodies used in Bach's Vocal Works / alone God in the Höh sei Her / The German Gloria (in excelsis Deo) ( English ) bach-cantatas.com. Retrieved April 9, 2013.
- ↑ a b c Klaus Hofmann : The Lord is my faithful shepherd, BWV 112 (PDF; 1.8 MB) bach-cantatas.com. Pp. 12-13. 2012. Retrieved April 9, 2013.
- ↑ a b c d John Eliot Gardiner : Cantatas for the Second Sunday after Easter (Misericordias Domini) / Basilique St Willibrord, Echternach ( English , PDF; 115 kB) bach-cantatas.com. Pp. 14-15. 2007. Retrieved April 9, 2013.
- ↑ a b Julian Mincham: Chapter 54 BWV 112 The Lord is my true Shepherd / The Lord is my true Shepherd ( English ) jsbachcantatas.com. 2010. Retrieved April 9, 2013.
