Readings:
Acts 8:14–17, "The Holy Spirit in Samaria"
John 10:1–10, "The Good Shepherd"
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)
[The Good Shepherd,
by Jean-Baptiste de Champaigne]
Cantatas:
- Erwünschtes Freudenlicht, BWV 184, 30 May 1724
Rezitativ T: Erwünschtes Freudenlicht
Arie (Duett) S A: Gesegnete Christen, glückselige Herde
Rezitativ T: So freuet euch, ihr auserwählten Seelen!
Arie T: Glück und Segen sind bereit
Choral: Herr, ich hoff je, du werdest die in keiner Not verlassen
Chor: Guter Hirte, Trost der Deinen
"Desired light of joy"
Text & translation
Scored for three vocal soloists (soprano, alto and tenor, a four-part choir, two transverse flutes, two violins, viola, and basso continuo.
This cantata was probably based on an earlier secular New Year's cantata (BWV 184a) composed in Köthen. Two other possible occasions have been suggested for the secular model: the birthday of Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Köthen on December 10, 1720, and the wedding of Leopold and Friederike Henriette of Anhalt-Bernburg on December 11, 1721.
Bach scholar Alfred Dürr has noted many similarities with BWV 173: both are adaptations of secular cantatas, both were written at Pentecost in Bach's first year in Leipzig, and both were re-performed in 1731. While the underlying cantata for Erhöhtes Fleisch und Blut has survived (the congratulatory cantata Durchlauchtster Leopold, BWV 173a), that of BWV 184 is largely lost, with only a few instrumental parts surviving. It was a duet cantata with several dance movements.
The prescribed Scripture readings for this feast day come from the Acts of Luke, the Holy Spirit in Samaria, and from the Gospel of John, the Good Shepherd. The words with which a gracious monarch is sung by his grateful subjects on his birthday need not differ so much from those for a hymn to the Good Shepherd. The poet who added a new text to the existing music is unknown. He may have retained the wording of the beginning of the opening recitative and continued to describe Jesus as the shepherd of his "blessed flock. "Joyful Light" in the title may have originally been "Leopold. As Eduard van Hengel remarks, "The long recitatives, the music of which Bach retained in its entirety, were usually filled in a tribute cantata with rather gratuitous lists of the ruler's favors, and Bach's Leipzig librettist had obvious difficulty filling the obligatory number of lines with any substantial content". To emphasize the ecclesiastical character of BWV 184, Bach replaced the penultimate part of BWV 184a, a recitative, with a chorale (the last verse of the hymn O Herre Gott, dein göttliches Wort by Anarg zu Wildenfels); Erwünschte's Freudenlicht thus ends, as is customary in secular cantatas, with a final chorus rather than a chorale.
Courtly in tone, the duet, aria, and final chorus are in the form of a minuet, polonaise, and gavotte. The opening recitative is sung by the tenor and accompanied by two traversos. The movement may have been taken from the secular cantata. The "desired light" is represented by a rising flute music that is repeated throughout the movement (like the flames mentioned in the story of Pentecost). The movement ends with an arioso.
This is followed by a dancing pastoral duet between soprano and alto, with a great melody in the flutes, the musical heart of the cantata. The movement was probably a pastoral in the underlying secular cantata and fits the image of the Good Shepherd and his flock. People may have even danced to the secular cantata composed in Köthen.
A secco recitative is followed by a pleasant tenor aria that sings of Jesus as the bringer of a golden age. Formally, it is a trio sonata for voice, violin, and basso continuo in an adapted ternary form.
The penultimate movement is a four-part setting of a chorale verse: Herr, ich hoff je, du werdest die in keiner Not verlassen. This is unusual for Bach, as his church cantatas usually use the chorale as the final movement.
The final chorus is a bucolic gavotte, essentially a soprano and bass duet, with the chorus joined by the choir in the refrain. The two traversos are again in unison throughout. Bach reused the music of this movement at the end of BWV 213, which was performed for the birthday of Crown Prince Frederick Christian on September 5, 1733.
An appropriate pastoral atmosphere pervades the entire cantata.
Video: J.S. Bach Foundation (St. Gallen) - Workshop (in German) - Contemplation (in German) - Er rufet seinen Schafen mit Namen, BWV 175, 22 May 1725
Recitativo (tenor): Er rufet seinen Schafen mit Namen
Aria (alto): Komm, leite mich
Recitativo (tenor): Gott will, o ihr Menschenkinder
Aria (tenor): Es dünket mich, ich seh dich kommen
Recitativo (alto, bass): Sie vernahmen aber nicht
Aria (bass): Öffnet euch, ihr beiden Ohren
Chorale: Nun, werter Geist, ich folg dir
"He calls His sheep by name"
Text & translation
Scored for three vocal soloists (alto, tenor and bass), a four-part choir only in the closing chorale, two trumpets, three recorders, two violins, viola, violoncello piccolo and basso continuo.
This cantata is notable for the rare use of three recorders in the two opening movements and the final chorale, giving the music a pastoral quality appropriate to the text. It is part of a cycle of nine works, based on texts by the Leipzig patrician daughter Christiane Mariana von Ziegler, with which Bach covered the period between the unexpected termination of his chorale project at Easter of that year and Trinity Sunday. They are characterized not only by their colorful instrumentation, but also by the fact that they are based on readings from the Gospel of John, so that they should be seen in the context of Bach's St. John Passion.
The cantata is divided thematically into two parts, the first dealing with Jesus as the Good Shepherd and the sheep who hear his voice, and the second (beginning with the bass recitative in the fifth movement) with those who don't listen to that voice.
The opening tenor recitative, with its initial tonic pedal point in the continuo and the flowing recorder accompaniment, suggests a serene mood appropriate to the text. This musical structure is continued in the next alto aria, which adopts the gentle rhythm of a pastorale but emphasizes the longing for greener pastures through expressive chromatic lines. .
The tenor aria with violoncello piccolo is borrowed from a secular cantata, BWV 173a, and is usually considered an awkward fit for the new text. The central recitative for alto and bass is the first movement accompanied by the strings. It begins with the Gospel quotation, "They did not hear what he said to them," sung by the alto as the evangelist, and leads to an arioso on the final warning not to overhear Jesus' words, which "may be for your good."
This warning is reinforced by a rousing pair of trumpets in the bass aria, which recalls the death of Jesus: "Jesus has sworn to you that he has killed the devil, death". The trumpets are silent in the middle section, which is about the gifts of Jesus, "grace, sufficiency, abundant life".
The chorale is repeated from the cantata for Pentecost, Wer mich liebt, der wird mein Wort halten, BWV 59. The melody of the Pentecost hymn "Komm, Heiliger Geist, Herre Gott" is scored for four voices and three independent recorder parts instead of the strings in the earlier version, thus returning to the scoring of the beginning of the cantata. A great and brilliant harmonization.
Video: J.S. Bach Foundation (St. Gallen) - Workshop (in German) - Contemplation (in German)