Step on the path of faith
| Bach cantata | |
|---|---|
| Step on the path of faith | |
| BWV: | 152 |
| Occasion: | Sunday after Christmas |
| Year of origin: | 1714 |
| Place of origin: | Weimar |
| Genus: | Church cantata |
| Solo : | SB |
| Instruments : | Fl Ob Vm Vg Bc |
| text | |
| Salomon Franck | |
| List of Bach cantatas | |
Step on the faith path ( BWV 152) is a church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach . He composed it in Weimar for the Sunday after Christmas and performed it for the first time on December 30, 1714.
Story and words
Bach wrote the cantata for the Sunday after Christmas in the year he was appointed concertmaster at the court of Johann Ernst von Sachsen-Weimar . The prescribed readings in 1723 were Gal 4,1–7 LUT , “Through Christ we are of age and free from the law”, and Lk 2,33–40 LUT , the words of Simeon and Hanna to Mary. The gospel follows on from the song of Simeon.
The cantata text was written by the court poet Salomon Franck , who published it in Evangelisches Andachts-Opffer in 1715 . The Gospel refers to Isa 8,14-15 LUT , "a stone of stumbling block and a rock of offense", and to Ps 118,22 LUT , "The stone which the builders rejected has become the corner stone". The poet goes into this, mentions that God laid the foundation stone and that man should not be offended by it. Jesus is addressed as the stone that surpasses all precious stones. The cantata text is structured as a dialogue between Jesus and the soul and ends with a love duet.
Bach first performed the cantata on December 30, 1714. Another performance probably took place on December 29, 1726 in Leipzig .
Occupation and structure
The cantata is set for two vocal soloists ( soprano and bass ), recorder , oboe , viola d'amore , viola da gamba and basso continuo . Bach wrote in the score: “Concerto à 1 flaut. 1 skin b. 1 viola d'Amour. 1 viola da gamba. Sopr. È Basso coll 'Organo “.
- Sinfonia
- Aria (bass): Step on the path of faith
- Recitativo (bass): The Savior is set
- Aria (soprano): stone that overrides all treasures
- Recitativo (bass): The wise world is annoyed
- Duetto (soprano, bass): How should I embrace you, dearest of souls?
music
The cantata is intimate chamber music for only two voices (soprano and bass) and four solo instruments. Christoph Wolff describes the “colorful and delicate cast”. The opening sinfonia in two sections is reminiscent of a French overture , which Bach had significantly introduced a few weeks earlier in Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, BWV 61 . The theme of the fugue is similar to that in Bach's organ fugue BWV 536. The fugue is one of the few instrumental fugues in Bach's cantatas.
The first aria is sung by the bass, who invites you to enter the path of faith. It is accompanied by an obbligato oboe and illustrates the image of the path through scale figures. The recitative consists of two sections, corresponding to the juxtaposition “Böse Welt” - “Blessed Christ”, in recitative and arioso . The words "to the case" are indicated by a decimal jump downwards. The second aria, sung by the soprano, seems like a prayer. The middle section is only four measures long, the da capo is shortened. The singing voice is accompanied by a recorder and viola d'amore.
The final duet, a love duet of Jesus and the soul, is divided into sections, which are framed by parts of the ritornello . Each section contains first a dialogue, then a canon as an image of the unity.
Recordings
- LP / CD
- JS Bach: Cantatas 18 152. Jürgen Jürgens , Leonhardt Consort , Agnes Giebel , Jacques Villisech . Telefunken , 1964.
- Bach cantatas, Vol. 3: BWV 63, 40, 152. Diethard Hellmann , Bach Orchestra Mainz , Agnes Giebel , Jakob Stämpfli . DdM-Records Mitterteich, late 1960s?
- The Bach Cantata Vol. 64. Helmuth Rilling , Gächinger Kantorei , Bach-Collegium Stuttgart , Arleen Augér , Wolfgang Schöne . Hänssler, 1976.
- JS Bach: The Cantata Work, Volume 37: BWV 152–156. Nikolaus Harnoncourt , Concentus Musicus Vienna , soloist of the Tölzer Knabenchor, Thomas Hampson . Teldec , 1985.
- JS Bach: Cantatas. Jérôme Lejeune , Ricercar Consort , Greta de Reyghere , Max van Egmond . Teldec, 1985.
- JS Bach: Complete Cantatas Vol. 2. Sound Koopman , Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra , Barbara Schlick , Klaus Mertens . Antoine Marchand, 1995.
- JS Bach: Cantatas Vol. 5 - Cantatas from Leipzig 1723 - BWV 18, 143, 152, 155, 161. Masaaki Suzuki , Bach Collegium Japan , Midori Suzuki , Peter Kooij . UP , 1997.
- Bach Edition Vol. 15 - Cantatas Vol. 14. Pieter Jan Leusink , Netherlands Bach Collegium , Ruth Holton , Bas Ramselaar . Brilliant Classics, 2000.
- Bach Cantatas Vol. 16: New York / For the Sunday after Christmas. John Eliot Gardiner , English Baroque Soloists , Gillian Keith , Peter Harvey . Soli Deo Gloria, 2000.
- Bach: Dialogue Cantatas · Dialogue cantatas. Rainer Kussmaul , Berlin Baroque Soloists , Dorothea Röschmann , Thomas Quasthoff . Deutsche Grammophon , 2007.
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, 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. JB Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2006, ISBN 978-3-476-02127-4 .
Web links
- Cantata BWV 152 : Sheet music and audio files in the International Music Score Library Project
- Cantata BWV 152 "Step on the path of faith" in bach-cantatas (English)
- “Step on the faith path” BWV 152 on the Bach website
- BWV 152 Step on the path of faith Text, structure and composition on Walter F. Bischof's personal homepage at the University of Alberta
- BWV 152 in Bach's handwriting on Bach digital
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d Christoph Wolff : "Tritt auf die Glaubensbahn" BWV 152 (PDF) 1995, p. 16 (accessed on December 19, 2012).
- ↑ Christine Blanken: A Cantata-Text Cycle of 1728 from Nuremberg: A preliminary report on a discovery relating to JS Bach's so-called 'Third Annual Cycle' , in: Understanding Bach 10, pp. 9-30 (PDF)
