St. John's Day can refer to two different church feasts and two different persons with the same name: those celebrating the birth of John the Baptist (late 1st century BCE - 28/36 CE) and those celebrating John the Evangelist (6 - c. 100 CE). The latter is dedicated to the author of the Gospel of John and is celebrated on December 27 in Roman Catholic, Lutheran, and Anglican churches. The former is dedicated to John the Baptist, a Jewish itinerant preacher who was considered a forerunner of Jesus, and is celebrated on Midsummer Day (June 24) in the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Lutheran, and Anglican churches. It is this last feast that concerns us here.
[John the Baptist, by Lucas Cranach the Elder, c. 1551]
The Nativity of John the Baptist on June 24 comes three months after the celebration of the Annunciation on March 25, when the angel Gabriel told Mary that she would conceive the Holy Spirit and that her cousin Elizabeth was in her sixth month of pregnancy. It also falls six months before the Christmas celebration of the birth of Jesus. So these feasts are connected. The Nativity of John the Baptist is one of the oldest feasts of the Christian Church, first mentioned in 506 CE. The existence of the historical man “John the Baptist” is attested extra-biblically by the Roman-Jewish historian Flavius Josephus.
The sole biblical account of the birth of John the Baptist comes from the Gospel of Luke. John's parents, Zechariah, a Jewish priest, and Elizabeth, were without children and both were beyond the age of child-bearing. One time when Zechariah served in the Temple in Jerusalem, the archangel Gabriel appeared to him and announced that he and his wife would give birth to a child, and that they should name him "John." However, because Zechariah did not believe the message of Gabriel, he was rendered speechless until the time of John's birth. At that time, his relatives wanted to name the child after his father, but Zechariah wrote, "His name is John", whereupon he recovered his ability to speak. Following Zechariah's obedience to the command of God, he was given the gift of prophecy, and foretold the future ministry of Jesus. This prophecy forms the text of the Benedictus canticle.
Within Christian theology, John the Baptist was understood to be preparing the way for Jesus. According to Lutheranism, baptism – in addition to communion and penance – belongs to the three sacraments introduced by Jesus and thus to the sacred rites practiced by Lutherans after the Reformation. For Bach, too, the covenant with God formed through baptism was the cornerstone of his identity as a Christian. The Nativity of St John the Baptist therefore constitutes one of the most important feasts of the church year
St Johns Day coincides with the pre-Christian festival of Midsummer Day, in ancient folklore one of the great "charmed" festivals of the year. All over Europe "Saint John's fires" are lighted on mountains and hilltops on the eve of his feast. The hill fires were believed to chase away witches and evil spirits; on the other hand, medicinal plants plucked at this time were thought to be more effective than usual.
The date of Midsummer Day finds symbolical expression in John's statement "He must increase, but I must decrease" - which is symbolized in the fact that the "sun begins to diminish at the summer solstice and eventually increases at the winter solstice."
St John's birth is often shown in art, especially from Florence, whose patron St John is. The scene in the fresco cycle of the life of John in the Tornabuoni Chapel in the church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence is probably the most famous, created by Domenico Ghirlandaio and his workshop between 1485 and 1490 (see photo above). In Florence, this feast was an occasion for dramatic representations of the Baptist's life and death and was marked by processions, banquets, and plays, culminating in a fireworks show that the entire city attended.
Readings:
Epistle: Isaah 40: 1-5 (the voice of the preacher in the desert)
Gospel: Luke 1: 57-80 (the birth of John the Baptist and the Benedictus of Zechariah)
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)
Cantatas:
- Ihr Menschen, rühmet Gottes Liebe, BWV 167, 24 June 1723
Aria (tenor): Ihr Menschen, rühmet Gottes Liebe
Recitative (alto): Gelobet sei der Herr Gott Israel
Duet aria (soprano, alto): Gottes Wort, das trüget nicht
Recitative (bass): Des Weibes Samen kam
Chorale: Sei Lob und Preis mit Ehren
"You People, Glorify God's Love"
Text and translation
Scored for four vocal soloists (soprano, alto, tenor and bass), a four-part choir only in the closing chorale, clarino, oboe da caccia, oboe, two violins, viola, and basso continuo. The clarino only doubles the melody of the chorale.
Bach composed Ihr Menschen, rühmet Gottes Liebe in his first year in Leipzig for St. John's Day, soon after he had taken up his position as Thomaskantor. He had delivered an ambitious cantata in 14 movements, Die Elenden sollen essen, BWV 75, in the first service as cantor on 30 May 1723. In comparison, his first cantata for a saint's feast day in five movements is small scale.
The prescribed readings for the Sunday were from the Book of Isaiah, "the voice of a preacher in the desert" (Isaiah 40:1–5), and from the Gospel of Luke, the birth of John the Baptist and the Benedictus of Zechariah. The unknown poet took some phrases from the Gospel, such as the beginning of movement 2, "Gelobet sei der Herr Gott Israel" (Praise be to the Lord God of Israel), as in the canticle. The poetry follows the thought that Jesus, born of a woman, is predicted to redeem sins, which are represented by the image of the serpent. The poetry concludes with the request to sing praises like Zechariah, fulfilled in the closing chorale, the fifth stanza of Johann Gramann's "Nun lob, mein Seel, den Herren" (1549).
Starts not with a chorus, but with a fine, flowing tenor aria. Possibly Bach looked at the canticle of Zechariah as an individual's song of praise. The aria is accompanied only by strings, partly violin solo, partly in a dense setting with all strings. The following recitative for alto, which refers to John and Jesus on the path to salvation, ends in an arioso to the final lines "to please with grace and love and to lead them to the kingdom of heaven in true repentance."
The following duet, accompanied by an obbligato oboe da caccia, achieves a dense sound as the instrument and voice appear in the same pitch, often homophonically.
The last recitative (by bass) also ends in an arioso when it comes to calling for praise. The bass sings the words “and sings a song of praise to him” to the melody of the following chorale. The final chorale, a general song of praise, is not a simple four-part movement, as is the rule in Bach's later church cantatas. Rather, Bach uses all instruments and all voices together for the first time, with the voices embedded in an orchestral concerto. The oboe reinforces the violin, the baroque trumpet only appears in this movement and reinforces the cantus firmus. The structure of the movement points ahead to the final movements in Bach's Christmas Oratorio and Ascension Oratorio.
Video: Bach Collegium Zürich - Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam, BWV 7, 24 June 1724
Coro: Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam
Aria (Bass): Merkt und hört, ihr Menschenkinder
Recitativo (Tenor): Dies hat Gott klar mit Worten
Aria (Tenor): Des Vaters Stimme ließ sich hören
Recitativo (Bass): Als Jesus dort nach seinen Leiden
Aria (Alt): Menschen, glaubt doch dieser Gnade
Choral: Das Aug allein das Wasser sieht
"Christ Our Lord Came to the Jordan"
Text and translation
Scored for three vocal soloists (alto, tenor and bass), a four-part choir (SATB), two oboes d'amore, two solo violins (the second one only introduced in a later performance), two violins, viola and basso continuo.
This chorale cantata is based on the seven stanzas of Martin Luther's hymn "Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam", about baptism, which is treated based on biblical accounts, beginning from Christ's baptism by John the Baptist in the river Jordan. The first and last stanza of the chorale were used for the outer movements of the cantata, while an unknown librettist paraphrased the inner stanzas of the hymn into the text for the five other movements. The seven-movement cantata begins with a chorale fantasia and ends, after a sequence of alternating arias (by bass, tenor and alto) and recitatives, with a final chorale as a four-part setting.
In the opening chorus, the tenor has the melody as a cantus firmus, while the other voices sing free counterpoint. This movement has been compared to an Italian violin concerto, in which the vocal parts function as solo passages. The rocking melody of the violin resembles the waves of the Jordan River.
The first aria is accompanied only by the continuo. The characteristic five-note rapid motif, repeated in the cello, always flows downward, as if to represent the pouring of the baptismal waters.
The following recitative is given to the tenor as an evangelist, narrating the biblical command to baptize. The beautiful central aria is also sung by the tenor, accompanied by two violins - like a trio (three is a symbol of the Holy Trinity). It has been said that the music "describes, through its pair of soaring violins, the circling flight of the Holy Spirit as a dove" (Gardiner).
The next recitative is for the bass, as the Vox Christi, speaking of Jesus after his passion and resurrection. The beautiful final aria is sung by the alto, accompanied by two oboes d'amore, and begs people to accept God's grace and not perish in the pit of hell. The final chorale, "Das Aug allein das Wasser sieht" in which the instruments play colla parte, is a summary of Luther's teaching on baptism. The text is rather strange: the water for baptism is not water, it says, but is in fact "the red flood of Christ's blood," which heals all the damage inherited from Adam...
Video: J.S. Bach Foundation (St. Gallen) - Workshop (in German) - Contemplation (in German) / Johannsen - Freue dich, erlöste Schar, BWV 30, (between 1738 and 1742)
Teil I
Coro: Freue dich, erlöste Schar
Rezitativ (Bass): Wir haben Rast
Arie (Bass): Gelobet sei Gott, gelobet sein Name
Rezitativ (Alt): Der Herold kömmt und meldt den König an
Arie (Alt): Kommt, ihr angefochtnen Sünder
Choral: Eine Stimme lässt sich hören
Teil II
Recitative (bass): So bist du denn, mein Heil, bedacht
Arie (Bass): Ich will nun hassen
Rezitativ (Sopran): Und obwohl sonst der Unbestand
Arie (Sopran): Eilt, ihr Stunden, kommt herbei
Rezitativ (Tenor): Geduld, der angenehme Tag
Coro: Freue dich, geheilgte Schar
"Rejoice, redeemed flock"
Text and translation
Scored for four vocal soloists (soprano, alto, tenor, bass), a four-part choir, two traversos, two oboes, oboe d'amore, concertato violin, accompanying strings (two violin parts and one viola part) and basso continuo.
This very late cantata (c. 1738) is a reworking of the secular, laudatory cantata BWV 30a, a serenata to welcome a new landlord. It was a good idea by Bach to use this very fine music again and turn it into a cantata to welcome Christ's prophet (but without the trumpets and drums). The cantata is in twelve movements, divided in two parts, to be performed before and after the sermon. The over-all mood of the cantata is joyful and relaxed, with a dance-like character appearing in the arias.
The opening chorus of Part I has a rondo design and syncopated rhythms. The brilliant bass aria is characterized by triplet figures and includes full string accompaniment in roulades. The alto aria is remarkable for its binary-form ritornello and almost swinging final cadence; structurally, the movement is a gavotte. Part I concludes with the cantata's only chorale (newly composed).
Part II opens with the cantata's only recitativo accompagnato, for bass with oboes and continuo (also newly composed). This prepares a bass aria, which opens with a 'scotch snap' (or Lombard rhythm) that repeats throughout the movement.
After a secco soprano recitative follows a soprano aria in operatic style with chromatic bass and gigue rhythms. The piece concludes with a repetition of the opening chorus on a different text.
Video: J.S. Bach Foundation (St. Gallen) - Workshop (in German) - Contemplation (in German)