Depending on the date of Easter, in Lutheranism a variable number of Sundays (up to four) occurred between Epiphany and Septuagesima, the third Sunday before Ash Wednesday.
Readings:
Romans 12:1–6, the duties of a Christian
Luke 2:41–52, the finding in the Temple
(Bach's Lutheran church prescribed the same readings every year. They always consisted of a pair, a passage from a Gospel and a corresponding passage from an Epistle. A connection between the cantata text and the readings was necessary).
Cantata Studies:
Bach Cantatas Website | Simon Crouch | Emmanuel Music | Julian Mincham | Wikipedia | Eduard van Hengel (in Dutch) | Bach Companion (Oxford U.P.) | Bach: The Learned Musician (Wolff) | Music in the Castle of Heaven (Gardiner)
Readings:
Romans 12:1–6, the duties of a Christian
Luke 2:41–52, the finding in the Temple
(Bach's Lutheran church prescribed the same readings every year. They always consisted of a pair, a passage from a Gospel and a corresponding passage from an Epistle. A connection between the cantata text and the readings was necessary).
Cantata Studies:
Bach Cantatas Website | Simon Crouch | Emmanuel Music | Julian Mincham | Wikipedia | Eduard van Hengel (in Dutch) | Bach Companion (Oxford U.P.) | Bach: The Learned Musician (Wolff) | Music in the Castle of Heaven (Gardiner)
[William Holman Hunt (1860) - The Finding of the Saviour in the Temple]
Cantatas:
- Mein liebster Jesus ist verloren, BWV 154, 9 January 1724
Aria (tenor, strings): Mein liebster Jesus ist verloren Recitativo (tenor): Wo treff ich meinen Jesum an
Chorale: Jesu, mein Hort und Erretter
Aria (alto, oboi d'amore, strings, no continuo): Jesu, laß dich finden
Arioso (bass): Wisset ihr nicht, daß ich sein muß
Recitativo (tenor): Dies ist die Stimme meines Freundes
Aria (alto, tenor, oboi d'amore, strings): Wohl mir, Jesus ist gefunden
Chorale: Meinen Jesum laß ich nicht
"My dearest Jesus is lost"
Text & translation
Scored for alto, tenor and bass soloists, a four-part choir for the chorales only, two oboes d'amore, two violins, viola, and basso continuo.
A cantata without an opening chorus (although there are two chorales), but it compensates with three beautiful arias. Based on the readings for this Sunday about the finding of Jesus in the Temple. The cantata takes the parents' search for the lost infant Jesus as a symbol for the general situation of the soul that has lost Jesus. The first movement laments this loss, not in a chorus, but in a passionate tenor aria full of despair, accompanied only by sparse strings. This is followed by a simple chorale pleading for Jesus' return.
Next, the same plea is made in a gentle alto aria, the jewel of the cantata: "Jesus, let me find you. The bass, the voice of Christ, then responds in an arioso: "Do you not know that I must be in what is my Father's? An aria by the alto and tenor then expresses the joy of being found, followed by the final chorale.
Video: J.S. Bach Foundation (St. Gallen) - Workshop (in German) - Contemplation (in German) - Meinen Jesum laß ich nicht, BWV 124, 7 January 1725
Coro: Meinen Jesum laß ich nicht
Recitativo (tenor): Solange sich ein Tropfen Blut
Aria (tenor): Und wenn der harte Todesschlag
Recitativo (bass): Doch ach! welch schweres Ungemach
Aria (soprano, alto): Entziehe dich eilends, mein Herze, der Welt
Chorale: Jesum laß ich nicht von mir
"I shall not let my Jesus go"
Text & translation
Scored for four soloists, soprano, alto, tenor, and bass, a four-part choir, horn to play the cantus firmus with the soprano, oboe d'amore, two violins, viola, and basso continuo.
Bach composed this chorale cantata in Leipzig for the first Sunday after Epiphany, based on the hymn "Meinen Jesus laß ich nicht" by Christian Keymann. A year earlier, for the same occasion, Bach had written Mein liebster Jesus ist verloren, BWV 154, from the point of view of a person who had lost Jesus. The present cantata text is based on a chorale in six verses by Christian Keymann (1658). The text of the hymn begins, as in the earlier work, with an idea close to the Gospel: the Christian does not want to let go of Jesus, just as his parents did not want to lose their 12-year-old boy, but then the chorale pursues the idea of being united with Jesus after death.
The opening chorus is a gentle minuet, and the oboe d'amore takes a virtuosic concertante lead. The soprano and horn present the cantus firmus line by line, a melody by Andreas Hammerschmidt, who collaborated with Keymann on chorales. The lower voices are set mostly in homophony, while the orchestra plays its own themes in the introduction, interludes, and accompaniment.
A short secco recitative leads to a dramatic tenor aria, "And when the dreaded stroke of death," which has a violent staccato accompaniment - a persistent four-note drumming in the strings - but also a delicious oboe melody.
In another secco recitative, the phrase "after my completed course" is represented by an octave scale. A duet of soprano and alto, accompanied only by the continuo, moves like a dance in simple periods of four measures (with sparse accompaniment - mainly a solo cello - as it sings about withdrawing from the world). The cantata concludes with the final verse of the chorale in four-part harmony.
Video: Kay Johannsen / Mailander Kantorei - Liebster Jesu, mein Verlangen, BWV 32, 13 January 1726
Aria (soprano): "Liebster Jesu, mein Verlangen" for soprano, oboe, strings, and continuo.
Recitativo: "Was ists, dass du mich gesuchet?" for bass and continuo.
Aria (basso): "Hier, in meines Vaters Stätte" for bass, solo violin, and continuo.
Recitativo (dialogue): "Ach! heiliger und großer Gott" for soloists, strings, and continuo.
Duetto (soprano, basso): "Nun verschwinden alle Plagen" for soloists, oboe, strings, and continuo.
Chorale: "Mein Gott, öffne mir die Pforten" for choir, oboes, strings, and continuo.
"Dearest Jesus"
Text & translation
Scored for soprano and bass soloist, a four-part choir only in the chorale, oboe, two violins, viola and basso continuo.
The Dialogue Cantata (Concerto in Dialogo), composed by Bach for the first Sunday after Epiphany and premiered on January 13, 1726, as part of his third Leipzig cantata cycle, uses a text by Georg Christian Lehms, a court poet in Darmstadt, published in 1711. Lehms created a dialogue from the prescribed gospel, the Finding in the Temple. In contrast to the Gospel narrative of a parent missing a son, an allegorical soul (soprano) longs for Jesus (bass). This adaptation places the motifs of loss and anxious search in a broader context, allowing the listener to empathize with the Soul. In addition, the dialogue draws on medieval mysticism and imagery from the Song of Songs. Since Lehms did not provide a closing chorale, Bach chose the twelfth and final verse of Paul Gerhardt''s hymn "Weg, mein Herz, mit den Gedanken". This is sung to the melody of "Freu dich sehr, o meine Seele," which Louis Bourgeois codified when he arranged the Geneva Psalm 42 in his collection of Pseaumes octante trios de David (Geneva, 1551).
This delicate cantata opens with a poignant aria, featuring a prominent oboe solo, in which the soul expresses its longing for the absent Jesus. The accompanying Gospel text tells the story of the 12-year-old Jesus, who, after running away from his parents, is found several days later in the temple talking with the wise men. The first aria evokes an intense lament in which the soprano and oboe intertwine, conveying Mary's despair at her inability to locate her son - while symbolizing the wandering soul.
The response comes not from the young Jesus but from the mature Christ in a recitative followed by a lyrical bass aria. This extended aria is marked by a virtuoso violin accompaniment.
Jesus and the Soul are then reunited in a dialogic recitative, in which the Soul responds with a paraphrase of the opening line of Psalm 84, "Wie lieblich ist doch deine Wohnung," a text set by both Heinrich Schütz and Johannes Brahms, the latter as the central movement of Ein deutsches Requiem. Bach interprets the text as an evocative arioso with a pulsating string accompaniment, the two voices never singing at the same time.
The union of Christ and the soul is finally celebrated in a duet for soprano and bass, with significant oboe and violin accompaniment, structured as a dance, specifically a gavotte.
The hymn "Weg, mein Herz, mit den Gedanken" gracefully concludes the cantata.
Video: Netherlands Bach Society - Interview with soprano Monika Mauch and bass Stephan McLeod /
J.S. Bach Foundation (St. Gallen) - Workshop (in German) - Contemplation (in German)