ExclusiveBach: Cantata “Jesus, who are my soul”, BWV. 078- 7. Lord, I believe; save weak me

【Classical music and nature 古典音樂小站】Johann Sebastian Bach: Cantata ''Jesus, who are my soul'', BWV. 78 - 7. "Lord, I believe; save weak me". This beautiful piece was preserved by European Archive. It has Creative Commons license (Public Domain Mark 1.0 Universal) and is provided through www.musopen.org.

The autograph score of the cantata is lost. In 1750, Anna Magdalena Bach inherited the first set of parts, which was largely copied by Johann Andreas Kuhnau and Christian Gottlob Meißner under Bach's supervision. It is held by the Bach Archive. It was not until after 1735 that the flute parts for movements 1 and 7 were added for a performance.

The first complete edition of Bach's works, the Bach Society Edition, first published the cantata in 1870. The Thomaskantor Wilhelm Rust was the editor of this volume. It was published in the Neue Bach-Ausgabe in 1958, edited by Werner Neumann, with a critical report in 1959.

In 1756, Johann Daube wrote in his tract on basso continuo (the constant bass in Baroque music) that Bach had mastered this art “to the highest degree”, and that his accompaniment could bring life to an upper voice even if it had none of its own. The opening chorus of this cantata invites you to train your ear more towards the lower orchestral voices: the cello and double bass, and also the organ and harpsichord, as their part in this first movement is constructed on a single chromatically descending line. This means it resembles a chaconne; a musical form in which a short bass line is continually repeated, serving as a foundation for a string of new variations in the upper voices. In this case, Bach takes a slightly freer approach. The bass line recurs very often at various pitches, not only in the bass instruments, but also in the oboes, the singers, and subsequently in the violins. In fact, this whole movement is an ode to the bass.

Afterwards, the lower voices suddenly attract attention in all sorts of ways. In the duet for soprano and alto, Bach has separated the cello and keyboard instruments, for example, from the double bass. The first group is more active, while the double bass plays a calmer, plucked variation. This creates a many-hued bass sound. In the despairing recitative for the tenor, the basso continuo sounds like a harmonic labyrinth. After the tenor aria (once again with a plucked bass part!), Bach actually turns the whole string orchestra in the recitative for bass into a direct derivative of the basso continuo. After all this, our attention in the final aria and the chorale is probably more evenly distributed between the melody and the bass part. And for those who can’t get enough of the bass – take a look at the background report, in which singer and bass soloist Matthew Brook talks about his part in this cantata.

Bach also used the passacaglia theme from the opening chorus in BWV 4 (Christ lag in Todesbanden) and BWV 12 (Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen) and the Crucifixus from ‘Mass in B Minor’.

Source: Bachvereinigung.nl

Lyrics:

Lord, I believe; help/save weak me;
Yes, let me not despair;
You, you can make me stronger
When sin and death vex13 me.
I will trust in your goodness
Until, joyfully, I will see
You, Lord Jesus, after the [end-time] battle,14
In sweet eternity.

The video was captured by Simone Schlegel and edited by Wenjing Ma.




#classicalmusic, #Music, #古典音樂, #klassischemusik, #GJWexclusive, #Switzerland, #Schweiz, #Natur, #Nature, #KlassischeMusikundNatur, #ClassicalMusicAndNature, #古典音樂小站,