Praise the Lord, the Mighty King of Honor, BWV 137
| Bach cantata | |
|---|---|
| Praise the Lord, the mighty King of Honor | |
| BWV: | 137 |
| Occasion: | 12. Sunday after Trinity |
| Year of origin: | 1725 |
| Place of origin: | Leipzig |
| Genus: | cantata |
| Solo : | SATB |
| Choir: | SATB |
| Instruments : | 3Tr Ti 2Ob 2Vl Va Bc |
| AD : | about 15 minutes |
| text | |
| Joachim Neander | |
| List of Bach cantatas | |
Praise the Lord, the mighty King of Honor ( BWV 137) is a church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach . He composed the choir cantata in Leipzig in 1725 for the 12th Sunday after Trinity and performed it for the first time on August 19, 1725.
Story and words
Bach composed the choral cantata in Leipzig in 1725 for the 12th Sunday after Trinity in his third year in Leipzig. He added it to his second cycle of cantatas, in which a cantata for this Sunday was missing.
The prescribed readings for Sunday were 2 Cor 3, 4–11 LUT , Paul on the “clarity of the spirit”, and Mk 7,31–37 LUT , the healing of a deaf and mute. The cantata text is the five-stanza song by Joachim Neander Praise the Lord, the mighty King of Honor (1680). The general song of praise and thanks is not directly related to the readings. In contrast to almost all of the chorale cantatas of the second cycle, Bach kept the words unchanged. This and the festive instrumentation with trumpets and kettledrums lead John Eliot Gardiner to assume that the cantata was also played in the church service for the council election. In 1729 Bach used the final chorale, transposed to D major, to complete the wedding cantata Herr Gott, Ruler of all things, BWV 120a .
Occupation and structure
The cantata is festively occupied with four soloists, soprano , alto , tenor and bass , four-part choir, three trumpets , timpani , two oboes , two violins , viola and basso continuo .
- Coro: Praise the Lord, the mighty King of Honor
- Aria (old): Praise the Lord who rules everything so gloriously,
- Aria (soprano, bass): Praise the gentleman who prepares you artificially and delicately
- Aria (tenor): Praise the gentleman who visibly blessed your stand
- Chorale: Praise the Lord, what is in me, praise the name!
music
As Alfred Dürr and Gardiner observe, not only the text, but also the melody of the chant is present in all movements. The cantata is structured symmetrically. In the corner movements the melody is in the soprano, in movement 2 it is sung by the alto, in movement 4 it plays the trumpet as a cantus firmus to the aria . In the central and most intimate movement, a duet of soprano and bass, the beginnings of the themes of the voices and the accompanying instruments are derived from their beginnings. The bar melody reaches its climax after an unusual tunnel of five bars at the beginning of the swan song, which Bach emphasizes in various ways.
In the opening choir , trumpets, oboes and strings play a concerto , the soprano sings the cantus firmus, prepared by the lower voices in an imitation movement about the instrumental motifs . The words "Come together, psalteries and harps, wake up" are emphasized by a homophonic phrase.
In movement 2 a violin accompanies the ornate chorale melody. Bach adopted this sentence in his Schübler chorales , but based on the Advent text “Are you now, Jesus, from heaven down on earth”.
In great contrast to the C major and G major is the central duet in E minor , in which the two obbligato oboes also duet. In an unusual way, the first vocal section is heard three more times, only the words “In wie viel Not” are interpreted by a chromatic departure.
Movement 4 is in A minor , but the trumpet also plays the cantus firmus in C major. In a similar way, Bach later embedded the Phrygian chorale in a concerto in D major in the final chorus of his Christmas Oratorio . The independent vocal part also quotes sections of the chorale melody a few times. The words "Remember" are emphasized by a different meter.
Bach set the final chorale splendidly for four voices and three independent trumpet parts.
Recordings
- Bach Made in Germany Vol. 1 - Cantatas VII. Günther Ramin , St. Thomas Choir , Gewandhaus Orchestra , soloists of the St. Thomas Choir, Helmut Krebs , Franz Kelch , Eterna 1953
- JS Bach: Cantatas BWV 137 & BWV 190. Hans Thamm , Windsbacher Knabenchor , Consortium Musicum, Teresa Żylis-Gara , Ingeborg Ruß, Peter Schreier , Franz Crass , EMI 1966
- Les Grandes Cantates de JS Bach Vol. 27. Fritz Werner , Heinrich Schütz Choir Heilbronn , Pforzheimer Chamber Orchestra , Ingeborg Reichelt , Barbara Scherler, Friedrich Melzer, Bruce Abel, Erato 1973
- Bach Cantatas Vol. 4 - Sundays after Trinity I. Karl Richter , Munich Bach Choir , Munich Bach Orchestra , Edith Mathis , Julia Hamari , Peter Schreier , Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau . Archive production , 1977.
- The Bach Cantata Vol. 10. Helmuth Rilling , Gächinger Kantorei , Bach-Collegium Stuttgart , Arleen Augér , Gabriele Schreckenbach , Adalbert Kraus , Walter Heldwein. Hänssler, 1982.
- Bach Made in Germany Vol. 4 - Cantatas IV. Hans-Joachim Rotzsch , Thomanerchor , Neues Bachisches Collegium Musicum , Arleen Augér , Ortrun Wenkel , Peter Schreier , Theo Adam . Eterna, 1982.
- JS Bach: Das Kantatenwerk - Sacred Cantatas Vol. 2. Nikolaus Harnoncourt , Tölzer Knabenchor & Chorus Viennensis , Concentus Musicus Wien , soloist of the Tölzer Knabenchor, Paul Esswood , Kurt Equiluz , Albert Hartinger . Teldec , 1983.
- Bach Edition Vol. 19 - Cantatas Vol. 10. Pieter Jan Leusink , Holland Boys Choir , Netherlands Bach Collegium , Marjon Strijk, Sytse Buwalda, Knut Schoch , Bas Ramselaar. Brilliant Classics, 2000.
- Bach Cantatas Vol. 6: Koethen / Frankfurt. John Eliot Gardiner , Monteverdi Choir , English Baroque Soloists , Katharine Fuge, Robin Tyson, Christoph Genz , Peter Harvey . Soli Deo Gloria, 2000.
- JS Bach: Complete Cantatas Vol. 18. Ton Koopman , Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra & Choir , Johannette Zomer, Christoph Prégardien , Klaus Mertens . Antoine Marchand, 2002.
- JS Bach: Cantatas Vol. 40. Masaaki Suzuki , Bach Collegium Japan , Yukari Nonoshita, Robin Blaze , Makoto Sakurada, Peter Kooij . UP, 2007.
- Praise the Lord, the mighty King of Honor. Rudolf Lutz , choir and orchestra of the JS Bach Foundation , Miriam Feuersinger , Claude Eichenberger, Johannes Kaleschke, Markus Volpert. Martin Johann Stähli (reflection). DVD. Gallus Media, 2010.
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 . Breitkopf and Härtel, Wiesbaden 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 .
Web links
- Praise the Lord, the Mighty King of Honor, BWV 137 : Sheet Music and Audio Files in the International Music Score Library Project
- Cantata BWV 137 Praise the Lord, the mighty King of Honor by Bach Cantatas (English)
- Praise the Lord, the mighty King of Honor on the Bach website
- BWV 137 Praise the Lord, the Mighty King of Honor Text, structure and composition on the personal homepage of Walter F. Bischof at the University of Alberta
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e John Eliot Gardiner : Cantatas for the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity / Jakobskirche, Köthen ( English , PDF; 127 kB) monteverdiproductions.co.uk. 2007. Retrieved September 7, 2011.
- ↑ Julian Mincham: Chapter 3 BWV 137 Praise the Lord, the mighty King of Honor ( English ) jsbachcantatas.com. 2010. Retrieved September 9, 2011.
