Johann Sebastian Bach
Cantata „Aus der Tiefen rufe ich, Herr, zu Dir“ BWV 131
Cantata „Himmelskönig, sei willkommen“ BWV 182 (first
Weimar version)
Arcis-Vocalisten München
Regine Jurda, alto · Maximilian Kiener, tenor · Franz Schlecht, bass
Barockorchester L’Arpa Festante · Thomas Gropper, conductor
TThe Arcis-Vocalisten München consist of circa 50
members, all professionally trained, complemented
by students from the Academy of Theater and Music
in Munich. All have extensive experience in renowned
Munich and Bavarian ensembles. Professor Thomas
Gropper, the ensemble’s Artistic Director, is known
not only from his vocal and teaching activities, but
also as moderator and speaker at the Bavarian Radio
Broadcasting Company.
This CD consists of two early cantatas by J.S.
Bach. “Aus der Tiefen rufe ich, Herr, zu Dir” is probably
the earliest existing Bach cantata. It was written in
1707/08 while Bach was an organist in Mühlhausen.
BWV 182, “Himmelskönig, sei willkommen” was
Bach’s first commissioned work at the Weimar court,
where he had to compose one cantata each month. It
was first performed on Palm Sunday of 1714
J.S. Bach (1685–1750)
Cantatas bwv 131 and 182
Earl y master y
The cantatas selected for this recording are
two of Bach’s early works: Cantata bwv
131 “Aus der Tiefen”, which is possibly the earliest
of Bach’s cantatas to survive and which is
likely to have appeared in 1707 or 1708 during
Bach’s time as an organist at Mühlhausen;
while the cantata bwv 182 “Himmelskönig, sei
willkommen”, written for Palm Sunday (= 25
March) 1714, was the first such work for the
court at Weimar. Thus the two works show
characteristics of the young Bach: for example,
bwv 131 does not consist of separate movements
but rather of sections that merge into
one another, indicating a proximity to other
genres such as the “geistliches Konzert” and
chorale settings. Typical of the 17th century
cantata form, we hear the serial principle of
the motet, as it were, transposed to the cantata.
It is possible that small physical spaces (such
as the castle church at Weimar) and a manageably
sized ensemble led to less cluttered
music, but Bach nevertheless added the use of
solo instruments to an orchestration designed
to reinforce the choral singers, thus lending an
individual sound character to each cantata. The
recorder features in bwv 182, while in bwv 131
the oboe is given prominence. It is in bwv 182
that Bach’s exploration of the modern Italian
forms of the time – including opera – begins
to bear fruit: Da-capo arias are to be found
alongside echoes of the concert practice specially
created in the style of Vivaldi.
“Meine Seele wartet auf den
Herrn ”
No definitive order for the movements of the
cantata bwv 131 (“Aus der Tiefe”), probably
written for a service of repentance, can now be
established, and the version of today’s performance
is only an approximation. It is no longer
certain what the occasion for the composition
was. Alfred Dürr suggests a major fire that had
raged in Mühlhausen shortly before, destroying
parts of the town centre. It is interesting
that the task of writing this cantata was given
to Bach not by his senior at the Divi Blasii
Church, Superintendant Frohne, but rather
by Georg Christ, pastor of the Marienkirche.
It is known that as a Lutheran, Frohne tended
towards an orthodox point of view and had a
somewhat skeptical attitude towards more lavish
church music. The textual basis of bwv 131 is
made up entirely of Biblical and chorale material
and contains no added or arbitrarily written
verse. For this reason and because of the
clear, concisely symmetrical formal structure,
parallels can be drawn with the funeral cantata
“Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit“ (bwv 106),
also written in Mühlhausen and also known as
the Actus tragicus. Its text is taken from Psalm
130 (complete) and verses 2 and 5 of “Herr
Jesu Christ, du höchstes Gut“ by Bartholomäus
Ringwaldt, composed in 1588.
Structure: For each a chorus at the beginning,
in the middle and at the end, and
in between (second and fourth movement),
a solo movement each with chorale strophe.
The choral movements follow the principle of
a prelude and fugue adapted for vocal music,
with a more or less clear introduction and a
fugue section; the arias have not yet assumed
the da-capo form.
The orchestral prelude exposes the motif
of the first choral section, “Aus der Tiefen“,
with an air of melancholic sighing, and the
choir leads on with an accentuated call to
God (“ruf ich, Herr“). A playful choral fugue
ensues (Vivace, “lass deine Ohren merken“),
structured around the recurring cry, “Herr,
höre meine Stimme“. After this movement,
the “Stimme meines Flehens“ is given form by
the choir and orchestra in figures that directly
evoke sighing.
In the second movement Bach combines
the voice of the bass soloist with the chorale
“Erbarm dich mein in solcher Last“ as a
cantus firmus in the sopranos; the oboe adds
figures and motivic correspondences. In the
fourth movement we hear the tenor soloist
with a chorale in the altos, where an ostinato
motif in the continuo provides cohesion.
The introduction of the central choral section
is only five bars long, broad and blocky,
interrupted by brief interjections from the alto
and tenor, and the choir cries out: “Ich harre
des Herren!” This leads to the equally calm
choral fugue, “meine Seele harret“, via motifs
that touch it directly – the long spun-out and
syncopated line on “harret“ and the confidently
sighing “und ich hoffe“; the violin and oboe
create figures above, joined later by the violas.
The prelude to the final movement clearly
shows the motet-based thinking of early
Bach. Each section of text is given a new
treatment in tempo, motif and compositional
technique. The call of Israel is comes slowly
and in block-like chords; while “hoffe auf den
Herrn” is more fluid, with lively activity in the
oboe and violin, freely polyphonic. “Denn
bei dem Herrn
in die Gnade” is calm once
more, homophonic, with its characteristic
oboe. “Und viel Erlösung bei ihm“ comes in
rapid movement, again polyphonic and richly
decorated. The final fugue, “und er wird Israel
erlösen“, begins accompanied by the continuo,
but the other instruments gradually enter to
heighten the event together with the choir,
bringing this early masterwork by Bach to a
magnificent conclusion.
A problem for today‘s performance practice
is the divergence between “choir pitch“
and “concert pitch“. Concert pitch – introduced
from France – was not entirely possible
on older organs, since their pipe lengths
did not allow them to be properly retuned to
the new pitch. To compensate, Bach usually
gave his woodwind instruments a part written
higher before 1723; then in Leipzig, from
1723, he wrote the organ part lower. This dual
notation has sometimes led to ambiguities
about Bach‘s true intentions. Our cantata bwv
131 is performed today from a G minor version
or ransposed into A minor. We selected
A minor after lengthy considerations; firstly
because problems would otherwise be encountered
in the oboe part that would prevent
some deep notes from being reached, and also
because the choral parts would sound low and
dull, which seems detrimental to the work in
spite of its character.
“So lasset uns gehen
in Salem der Freuden ”
When Bach was appointed Konzertmeister at
the Weimar court in 1714, one of his duties
was to compose a new cantata each month.
The first of these was performed three weeks
later on Palm Sunday, “Himmelskönig, sei
willkommen“, bwv 182. The writer of the draft
text was Salomon Franck, who was employed
as the ducal librarian and the controller of the
coin collection, with the rank of a secretary
of the High Consistory in Weimar. This left
him sufficient time to join the order of poets
of the Fruitbearing Society (Fruchtbringende
Gesellschaft) and to compose numerous texts
for spiritual and secular cantatas between
1694 and his death in 1725. Alfred Dürr sees
Franck as perhaps the most gifted and original
poetic talent that Bach worked with, and
emphasizes the richness of his fantasy and the
depth of feeling in his texts.
Following on from the Gospel for Palm
Sunday, the passage of Jesus‘ entry into Jerusalem
(Matt. 21:1–9), the introductory sinfonia
greets the Savior; Bach selects (as he
did for the first setting of “Nun komm, der
Heiden Heiland“ bwv 61 for the first day of
Advent, on which the same Gospel is read!)
the rhythm and air of a French overture, such
as was customarily performed in the Parisian
operatic tradition when the King entered and
took his place in the royal box. What applied
there to an earthly king here represents the
King of Heaven. Bach achieves an intensification
by having the strings begin pizzicato and
only play broad notes at the end. In the following
da-capo choral section (movement 2)
the choir begins with a so-called permutation
fugue, which avoids free interludes (otherwise
typical in instrumental fugues) and constantly
sets up counterpoints to one another. After a
canonical and imitative section (“lass auch uns
dein Zion sein“) the A section ends homophonically.
Two canonic choral sections (“du
hast uns das Herz genommen“) make up the
B section.
As occurs in a good sermon, Franck and
Bach relate the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem
to the individual Christian and his heart; Jesus
should also have a dwelling place there. The
solo sections that follow the introductory chorus,
numbers 3–6, describe this first from the
perspective of Jesus and then from that of the
believer.
The Biblical expression, “Siehe, ich komme“
(third movement) begins as a recitative
but after a few bars becomes an arioso – a development
that Bach liked to work with in his
early years. Here, as in other comparable situations,
he selects a bass for the “vox Christi“.
The powerful bass aria “Starkes Lieben“ (4th
movement), accompanied only by strings,
praises Jesus, who has come down from the
throne of God to make himself a sacrifice. The
extended alto aria, “Leget euch dem Heiland
unter”, which corresponds with the flute (5th
movement), appeals to Christians to place
their hearts at the feet of the Savior like a
piece of stained clothing, just as the people
spread their clothes before him as he entered
Jerusalem. At this point the strongly lyrical
and mystical side of the poetry can be seen,
which lends it an inclination towards pietism.
The continuo aria of the tenor, “Jesu, lass durch
Wohl und Wehe” (6th movement) was surely,
with its forceful expression, a modern and unfamiliar
element to ears of that time; even in
times of distress the believer must remain at
Christ’s side.
In some of the original performance parts
there is an indication that after this aria the
introductory chorus should be sung again to
form the ending. However, it is generally undisputed
that this plan was discarded at the
first performance and Bach added two new
choral sections. The first of these was the chorale
setting “Jesu, deine Passion” (7th movement),
set in Pachelbel’s style, i.e. new choral
lines are prepared imitatively in the lower
voices before they appear in long notes in the
soprano. Here again Bach follows a model
while taking a different direction by creating
anticipations of the chorale lines according to
their emotional content: using coloratura to
signal joy and with heartfelt syncopations in
“Meine Seel auf Rosen geht”. In the final choral
movement, “Nun lasset uns gehen in Salem
der Freuden” (8th movement), the wages
of heaven are shown that Christ has reaped
through Jesus’ passion: the way to the City of
God. In structural terms this chorus links back
to the introductory chorus. Light and lively,
in a dance-like triple time, the flute accompanies
the choir; only during the suffering that
is to be found on this path does the harmony
briefly fail.
Thomas Gropper
Translation: tolingo translations