Resist sin

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bach cantata
Resist sin
BWV: 54
Occasion: 7. Sunday after Trinity / Oculi?
Year of origin: 1714
Place of origin: Weimar
Genus: Church cantata
Solo : A.
Choir: -
Instruments : 2Vl 2Va Bc
text
Georg Christian Lehms
List of Bach cantatas

Resist sin ( BWV 54) is a church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach . He wrote the solo cantata for alto in Weimar , probably for the 7th Sunday after Trinity on July 15, 1714.

Story and words

Bach wrote the cantata in the year of his appointment as concertmaster at the court of Johann Ernst von Sachsen-Weimar for the 1st Advent . Alfred Dürr suspects that he composed it for the 7th Sunday after Trinity and performed it for the first time on July 15, 1714 in the castle church. The prescribed readings for Sunday were as Epistle Rom 5: 19-23  LUT , “Death is the wages of sin; but the gift of God is eternal life "and as the Gospel Mk 8.1–9  LUT , the feeding of the 4000. Georg Christian Lehms wrote the cantata text for the Sunday Oculi, the third Sunday of the Passion, and published it in 1711 in God-pleasing Church- Opffer . The theme is the warning against the temptation of sin, which makes it close to the readings of both Oculi and the 7th Sunday after Trinity, but not the Gospels. The first line of the third stanza literally quotes 1 John 3.8  LUT .

Some Bach researchers assume that the cantata was intended for Oculi on March 1, 1714. It is the first of four solo cantatas for alto. The other three were written in 1726, Mind and Soul are Confused , Enjoyed Peace, Popular Soul Desire and God alone should have my heart, two of which are also based on texts by Lehms. In Bach's time, the cantatas were sung by a boy alto, today mostly by a woman's voice or a counter tenor .

Occupation and structure

The cantata is made up of chamber music with alto , two violins , two violas and basso continuo .

  1. Aria: Resist sin
  2. Recitativo: the kind of wicked sins
  3. Aria: Whoever commits sin is of the devil

music

The first aria , Resist Sin , is a da capo aria that begins with a surprising dissonance and leaves the key of E flat major open to the cadence in bar 8. Dürr sees in it the call to resistance and compares it with the beginning of the recitative See, I'm standing at the door , a call to vigilance in Bach's Advent cantata Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, BWV 61 , which was also composed in 1714.

The recitative The Kind of Wicked Sins is secco, accompanied by the continuo. The words "This is only an empty shadow and a whitewashed grave" are illustrated in "pale" harmonies. Bach emphasizes the closing words as Arioso and illustrates in "She is like a sharp sword that drives us through body and soul" the swung sword through fast runs in the continuo.

The last aria, Whoever Sins Is From the Devil, is also a da capo aria, but it also shows elements of a four-part fugue for the voice, the violins in unison , the violas in unison and the continuo.

Bach used the music of the first aria again in his Markus Passion .

Recordings

A remarkable recording is the only recording of a Bach cantata by Glenn Gould with the countertenor Russell Oberlin , 1962. Gould themselves played a Harpsipiano, a wing which has been processed to such a harpsichord (English harpsichord to sound).

LP / CD
DVD
  • Resist sin. Cantata BWV 54. Markus Forster (alto), orchestra of the JS Bach Foundation , Rudolf Lutz (conductor and organ). With an introductory workshop and reflection by Thomas Sprecher. 1 DVD. Gallus Media, St. Gallen 2009.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. a b c Klaus Hofmann: BWV 54: Resist sin (PDF; 3.6 MB) bach-cantatas.com. 1996. Retrieved July 19, 2012.
  2. a b c Julian Mincham: Chapter 66 BWV 54 Resist sin ( English ) jsbachcantatas.com. 2010. Retrieved July 20, 2011.