(), 56, is a church cantata composed by Johann Sebastian Bach for the 19th Sunday after Trinity. It was first performed in Leipzig on 27 October 1726. The composition is a solo cantata () because, apart from the closing chorale, it requires only a single vocal soloist (in this case a bass). The autograph score is one of a few cases where Bach referred to one of his compositions as a . In English, the work is commonly referred to as the cantata. Bach composed the cantata in his fourth year as Thomaskantor; it is regarded as part of his third cantata cycle.
The text was written by Christoph Birkmann, a student of mathematics and theology in Leipzig who collaborated with Bach. He describes in the first person a Christian willing to "carry the cross" as a follower of Jesus. The poet compares life to a voyage towards a harbour, referring indirectly to the prescribed Gospel reading which says that Jesus travelled by boat. The person, at the end, yearns for death as the ultimate destination, to be united with Jesus. This yearning is reinforced by the closing chorale: the stanza "" ('Come, O death, you brother of sleep') from Johann Franck's 1653 hymn "", which uses the imagery of a sea voyage.
Bach structured it in five movements, alternating arias and recitatives for a bass soloist, and closing with a four-part chorale. He scored the work for a Baroque instrumental ensemble of three woodwind instruments, three string instrument parts and continuo. An obbligato cello features in the first recitative and an obbligato oboe in the second aria, resulting in different timbres in the four movements for the same voice part. The autograph score and the performance parts are held by the Berlin State Library. The cantata was published in 1863 in volume 12 of the (BGA). The (NBA) published the score in 1990. A critical edition was published by Carus-Verlag in 1999.
In his biography of Bach, Albert Schweitzer said the cantata placed "unparalleled demands on the dramatic imagination of the singer," who must "depict convincingly this transition from the resigned expectation of death to the jubilant longing for death." Beginning with a live broadcast in 1939, the cantata has been frequently recorded, with some soloists recording it several times. The closing chorale features in Robert Schneider's 1992 novel, , and its film adaptation, Brother of Sleep.
Background In 1723, Bach was appointed (director of church music) of Leipzig. The position gave him responsibility for the music at four churches, and the training and education of boys singing in the . Cantata music was required for two major churches, Thomaskirche and Nikolaikirche, and simpler church music for two smaller churches, Neue Kirche and Peterskirche.
Bach took office on the first Sunday after Trinity, in the middle of the liturgical year. In Leipzig, cantata music was expected on Sundays and feast days except for the "silent periods" () of Advent and Lent. In his first year, Bach decided to compose new works for almost all liturgical events; these works became known as his first cantata cycle. He continued the following year, composing a cycle of chorale cantatas with each cantata based on a Lutheran hymn.
Third Leipzig cantata cycle The third cantata cycle encompasses works composed during Bach's third and fourth years in Leipzig, and includes . One characteristic of the third cycle is that Bach performed more works by other composers, and repeated his own works. His new works have no common theme, as the chorale cantatas did. Bach demonstrated a new preference for solo cantatas, dialogue cantatas and cantatas dominated by one instrument (known as concertante cantatas). During the third cycle, he repeated performances of solo cantatas from his Weimar period based on texts by Georg Christian Lehms: , and . He used more texts by Lehms in the third cycle before turning to other librettists.
Bach's solo cantatas are modelled after secular Italian works by composers such as Alessandro Scarlatti. Like the models, even church cantatas do not contain Biblical text and very few close with a chorale. His writing for solo voice is demanding and requires trained singers. Richard D. P. Jones, a musicologist and Bach scholar, assumes that Bach "exploited the vocal technique and the interpretative skills of particular singers". Jones describes some of these solo cantatas, especially ; ; and ; as among Bach's "best loved" cantatas.
Although dialogue cantatas also appear earlier in Bach's works, all four dialogues between Jesus and the Soul ()—based on elements of the Song of Songs—are part of the third cycle. The only chorale cantata of the third cycle, , follows the style and sets all stanzas of a hymn unchanged; Bach rarely used this style in his chorale cantatas, except in the early , and later chorale cantatas.
Occasion, readings and text
Bach wrote the cantata for the 19th Sunday after Trinity, during his fourth year in Leipzig. The prescribed readings for that Sunday were from Paul's epistle to the Ephesians—"Put on the new man, which after God is created" ()—and the Gospel of Matthew: healing the paralytic at Capernaum (). For the occasion, Bach had composed in 1723 (Wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me?), and in 1724 the chorale cantata (Where shall I flee), based on Johann Heermann's penitential hymn .
Poet, theme and text Until 2015 the librettist was unknown (as for most of Bach's Leipzig cantatas), but in that year researcher Christine Blanken from the Bach Archive published findings suggesting that Christoph Birkmann wrote the text of . Birkmann was a student of mathematics and theology at the University of Leipzig from 1724 to 1727. During that time, he also studied with Bach and took part in cantata performances. He published a yearbook of cantata texts in 1728, (Sabbath Tithes Devoted to God), which contains several Bach cantatas—including . Birkmann has been generally accepted as the author of this cantata.
The librettist built on Erdmann Neumeister's text from "", which was published in 1711. , the Way of the Cross, refers to the Stations of the Cross and more generally to the "cross as the burden of any Christian". Here is replaced with , which can refer to both a pilgrim's staff (or bishop's crosier) and a navigational instrument known as a cross staff or Jacob's staff. Birkmann had an interest in astronomy and knew the second meaning from his studies. In the cantata's text, life is compared to a pilgrimage and a sea voyage.
Birkmann's text alludes to Matthew's Gospel; although there is no explicit reference to the sick man, he speaks in the first person as a follower of Christ who bears his cross and suffers until the end, when (in the words of ) "God shall wipe away the tears from their eyes". The cantata takes as its starting point the torments that the faithful must endure.
The text is also rich in other biblical references. The metaphor of life as a sea voyage in the first recitative comes from the beginning of that Sunday's Gospel reading: "There He went on board a ship and passed over and came into His own city" (Matthew 9:1). Affirmations that God will not forsake the faithful on this journey and will lead them out of tribulation were taken from and .
The third movement expresses joy at being united with the Saviour, and its text refers to : "Those that wait upon the Lord shall gain new strength so that they mount up with wings like an eagle, so that they run and do not grow weary". The theme of joy, coupled with a yearning for death, runs through the cantata.
The final lines of the opening aria ("There my Saviour himself will wipe away my tears") are repeated just before the closing chorale. This uncommon stylistic device appears several times in Bach's third cantata cycle.
On the title page, Bach replaced the word "" with the Greek letter χ, a rebus he used to symbolise the paradox of the Cross.
Chorale The final chorale is a setting of the sixth stanza of Johann Franck's "", which contains ship imagery: "" ("Release the rudder of my little ship, bring me to the secure harbour"). The hymn was published in 1653 with a 1649 melody by Johann Crüger. Its text describes (in the first person) renouncing the beautiful dwelling place of the world (""), only longing so dearly for the most cherished Jesus (""). This phrase recurs, with slight variations, at the end of each stanza.
First performance Bach conducted the cantata's first performance on 27 October 1726. The soloist may have been Johann Christoph Samuel Lipsius. The performance followed another of his solo cantatas the previous Sunday, , which also, unusually for a solo cantata, ends with a chorale.
Music Structure and scoring The cantata is structured in five movements, with alternating arias, recitatives and a four-part chorale. Bach scored for a bass soloist, a four-part choir () in the closing chorale, and a Baroque instrumental ensemble of two oboes (Ob), taille (Ot), two violins (Vl), viola (Va), cello (Vc), and basso continuo. Except for the obbligato oboe in the third movement, the three oboes double the violins and viola colla parte. The title page of the autograph score reads: "Domin. 19 post Trinit. / Ich will den Xstab gerne tragen / a / 2 / Hautb. o Viol. / Viola o / Taille / 4 Voci / Basso solo / e / Cont. / di / J.S.Bach". The score begins with the line "" ("J.J. Sunday 19 after Trinity, Cantata for solo voice, and instruments"), making it one of the few works Bach termed a cantata. It is 21 minutes long.
In the following table, the scoring follows the (New Bach Edition). The keys and time signatures are from Alfred Dürr, and use the symbol for common time. The continuo, played throughout, is not shown.
Movements Musicologist and Bach scholar Christoph Wolff wrote that Bach achieves "a finely shaded series of timbres" in . The four solo movements are scored differently: all instruments accompany the opening aria; only the continuo is scored for the secco recitative, an obbligato oboe adds colour to the central aria, and strings intensify for the accompagnato recitative. All instruments return for the closing chorale.
In his biography of Bach, Albert Schweitzer points out that is among the few works in which Bach carefully marked the phrasing of the parts; others are the Brandenburg Concertos, the St Matthew Passion, the Christmas Oratorio and a few other cantatas, including and , BWV 60.
1
The opening aria begins with "" ("I will my cross-staff gladly carry, it comes from God's beloved hand.").
The German text with Henry Drinker's English translation reads:
It is in bar form (AAB pattern), with two (A) followed by an (B). The first begins with a for full orchestra—with the theme initially heard in the second oboe and violin parts—anticipating in counterpoint the rising and falling motif of the bass soloist. An augmented second C♯ emphasises the word , followed by descending sighing figures symbolising the bearing of the cross.
John Eliot Gardiner, who conducted the Bach Cantata Pilgrimage in 2000, described the beginning of the bass melody as a musical rebus, or conjunction of two words, -, with the upward part "a harrowing arpeggio to a sharpened seventh (of the sort Hugo Wolf might later use)", and the downward part as "six and a half bars of pained descent to signify the ongoing burden of the Cross". After the soloist sings a series of melismatic lines, groups of strings and oboes are introduced as counterpoint, echoing motifs from the opening . The refrain is again taken up in the second stollen, but with significant variations due to the differing text: "It leads me after my torments to God in the Promised Land". After a repeat of the opening , the final contains the words, "There at last I will lay my sorrow in the grave, there my Saviour himself will wipe away my tears" ("").