The church year from Trinity to Advent is simply numbered as Trinity I, Trinity II, and so on. This is the second Sunday after Trinity.
There are no major church festivals in this second part of the church year. Instead, questions of faith and doctrine are explored.
This Sunday continues the previous Sunday's injunction to give charity to the hungry (BWV 75) by demonstrating brotherly love in action (BWV 76).
Readings:
1 John 3:13–18, "Whoever doesn't love, remains in Death" (of brotherly love)
Luke 14:16–24, Parable of the great supper
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 Invitation to the Great Banquet, Jan Luyken]
Cantatas:
- Die Himmel erzählen die Ehre Gottes, BWV 76, 6 June 1723
Part I
1. Coro: Die Himmel erzählen die Ehre Gottes
2. Recitativo (tenor): So lässt sich Gott nicht unbezeuget!
3. Aria (soprano): Hört, ihr Völker, Gottes Stimme
4. Recitativo (bass): Wer aber hört, da sich der größte Haufen
5. Aria (bass): Fahr hin, abgöttische Zunft!
6. Recitativo (alto): Du hast uns, Herr, von allen Straßen
7. Chorale: Es woll uns Gott genädig sein
Part II
8. Sinfonia
9. Recitativo (bass): Gott segne noch die treue Schar
10. Aria (tenor): Hasse nur, hasse mich recht
11. Recitativo (alto): Ich fühle schon im Geist
12. Aria (alto): Liebt, ihr Christen, in der Tat!
13. Recitativo (tenor): So soll die Christenheit
14. Chorale: Es danke, Gott, und lobe dich
"The Heavens declare the Glory of God"
Text & translation
Scored for soprano, alto, tenor and bass, a four-part choir SATB, trumpet, two oboes, oboe d'amore, two violins, viola, viola da gamba and basso continuo.
A long piece in two symmetrical parts, the second cantata Bach wrote in Leipzig was obviously intended to impress the congregation and his employers. The cantata opens with a brilliant fugal chorus based on the words of Psalm 19: "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth his handiwork".
In movements 2 (recitative) and 3 (a sweet aria for soprano), the text develops the idea of the universe praising God's creation. The soprano aria is a graceful movement in gavotte rhythm toward God's throne.
The following two movements, a recitative and a bass aria, lament those who did not respond to God's invitation, so that He had to invite people "from the streets". It is a direct call to banish the tribe of idolaters. Part I concludes with a haunting version of Martin Luther's chorale, "Es woll uns Gott genädig sein," accompanied by a mournful trumpet.
Part II begins with an intimate sinfonia based on one of the trio sonatas for organ (BWV 528). The tenor aria illustrates the "masochistic" "Hate me, then, hate me with all your might, o hostile race!" with chromatic leaps and intermittent rests.
The heavenly alto aria with oboe d'amore and viola da gamba is the musical climax of the cantata. It reminds us of the unifying love that is a consequence of Christ's death and brings a sense of peace and introspection. The third verse of Luther's chorale concludes the work.
Video: Opening Chorus by Academy Baroque Soloists
Audio: Ton Koopman - Ach Gott, vom Himmel sieh darein, BWV 2, 18 June 1724
Coro: Ach Gott, vom Himmel sieh darein
Recitativo (tenor, continuo): Sie lehren eitel falsche List
Aria (alto, violin solo): Tilg, o Gott, die Lehren
Recitativo (bass, strings): Die Armen sind verstört
Aria (tenor): Durchs Feuer wird das Silber rein
Chorale: Das wollst du, Gott, bewahren rein
"O God, look down from Heaven"
Text & translation
Scored for three vocal soloists (alto, tenor and bass), a four-part choir, four trombones, two oboes, two violins, viola, and basso continuo.
Cantata based on Martin Luther's chorale "Ach got vom hymel syhe dareyn," a hymn that deserves its place alongside "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God" as one of the most influential hymns of the Reformation. The website of the Netherlands Bach Society (about the organ chorale BWV 741, based on the same hymn) says: “'Oh Lord, have mercy. Your word is doubted everywhere and we, the faithful, are so few!' This is the despondent message of one of the earliest hymns written in German by Luther, in 1524, and adapted from Psalm 12. He took the melody from a love song from the early fifteenth century, Begierlich in dem Herzen mein, which is equally dispirited in mood. A lover yearns silently for his loved one, who has no idea of his suffering. Although the lover does want his loved one to know, a solution to his dilemma does not present itself. The sad key of this song, the long disused Phrygian mode, was ideally suited to Luther’s text."
When the old Bach Society published the cantata "Ach Gott, vom Himmel sieh darein" as BWV 2 in 1851, they knew that this cantata was intended for a second Sunday after Trinity, but they could not yet know that Bach had composed this cantata in 1724, as the second cantata of his second cantata cycle!
As Eduard van Hengel mentions on his interesting (Dutch-language) Bach-cantatas website: "Bach himself, convinced of the weight of his extensive project, marked its start (= the start of his second, chorale cantata cycle) with several grand gestures, the meaning of which one wonders whether his audience had reached. He uses the first four chorale cantatas to establish stylistic stakes: he successively designs the chorale fantasies with which they begin as a solemn French Overture (first Sunday after Trinity, BWV 20), an old-fashioned motet (second, BWV 2), a concerto in Italian style (third, BWV 7) and a more common chorale fantasy (fourth, BWV 135); in these first four chorale cantatas he assigns the cantus firmus successively to the soprano, alto, tenor and bass. Bach asked his librettist - about whose identity we still have to speculate - to maintain the first and last verse of the chorales used unchanged for an opening choir and a closing chorale, and to paraphrase the 'inner verses' into recitative and aria texts. The lyricist draws the attention of churchgoers to the fact that these 'free' texts are also based on the chorales known to them by regularly quoting several lines from them literally."
The theme of the text is how false doctrine and evildoers are confronted
and subjugated by the truth, power, and authority of the word of God. With its lament about man's turning away from God, the cantata was well suited to the Gospel reading, the parable of the Last Supper.
The cantata is scored for unusual forces: ATB, four-part choir, four trombones, two oboes, strings, and continuo. There are six movements. In the choruses of the first and last movements (which use the original words of the hymn, already 200 years old in Bach's time), the style of the music is deliberately archaic, like an old-fashioned chorale motet, with the trombones doubling the voices - flaunting their traditionally authoritative status. Bach often used such archaic music when he was dealing with a serious subject - and for Bach, nothing was more serious than Luther. There is an austere beauty to the first chorus, which takes the form of a dense chorale motet a la Pachelbel; the altos, doubled by the oboes, sing the chorale melody in long notes as a cantus firmus.
The text of the tenor recitative laments the teaching of false doctrine, rails against the idolatrous gang, and decries man's futile attempts to base his salvation on his own puny efforts: "They are like the tombs of the dead, which, though outwardly beautiful, contain only decay and stench, and show nothing but filth".
The alto aria, too, is a condemnation of heresy ("Destroy, O God, the doctrines that pervert Thy Word"), but it is surprisingly benign given the text, perhaps reflecting Bach's generally optimistic outlook (it is the only movement in the major mode in this cantata). With its contemporary concertante style and violin obbligato playing lively figurations, the alto aria also stands in jarring contrast to what has gone before.
After an accompanied bass recitative that ends in an arioso (in which God responds to the cries of the sinners), there follows a powerful da capo aria for tenor that stresses the need for patience in suffering ("Through fire, silver is purified") - a calm and serene acceptance of circumstances, with fire as a poetic image of purification - signifying the re-conversion of the Christian purified by the cross. Gardiner notes that the instrumental music suggests "fluid movement or the flow of molten metal," recalling Bach's interest in coins and precious metals.
The final chorale has a dissonant harmonization to represent the separation of heresies from God's truth in tonal terms. As Julian Mincham concludes: "These heresies surround us, but God still looks upon us with pity and has the power to heal us."
As mentioned above, the anonymous melody of the hymn was also used by Bach for his organ prelude BWV 741 - a disturbing composition by a very young Bach with a wealth of sounds from the deepest regions of the organ (listen also to the interview with organist Leo van Doeselaar).
By the way, the original hymn melody was used by many composers, such as Schütz, Pachelbel, Sweelinck, Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, Mendelssohn and even Mozart (in his Zauberflöte!) in a variety of compositions.
Video: J.S. Bach-Foundation (St. Gallen) - Workshop (in German) - Contemplation (in German)