A Music for the Sixth Sunday
after Pentecost

Proper 9, Year C, July 4, 2010

Cantor and soloist:
Chris Riggs

Mass Setting:
Missa de Sancta Maria Magdalena, Healey Willan

Voluntary

Opening Hymn 657:
Love divine, all loves excelling, Hyfrydol

Psalm 30
The congregation chants each half-verse of the psalm beginning at the asterisk *

At the Offertory—
Cantata 35, Geist und Seele (movt. 7), J.S. Bach

Ich wünsche nur bei Gott zu leben,
Ach! wäre doch die Zeit schon da,
Ein fröhliches Halleluja
Mit allen Engeln anzuheben.
Mein liebster Jesu, löse doch
Das jammerreiche Schmerzensjoch
Und laß mich bald in deinen Händen
Mein in martervolles Leben enden.

I wish to live with God alone,
Ah, if only the time were already here
to raise a joyful Hallelujah
with all the angels.
My dearest Jesus, lift
the sorrowful yoke of suffering
and soon in Your hands
let me end my tormented life.
Text: Georg Christian Lehms, 1711

Offertory Hymn 544:
Jesus shall reign where’er the sun, Duke Street

During Communion—Cantata 35, Geist und Seele (movt. 4) Joh. Seb. Bach
Gott hat alles wohlgemacht.
Seine Liebe, seine Treu
Wird uns alle Tage neu.
Wenn uns Angst und Kummer drücket,
Hat er reichen Trost geschicket,
Weil er täglich für uns wacht.
Gott hat alles wohlgemacht.

God has made everything well.
His love, his faithfulness
is renewed for us daily.
When fear and grief oppress us,
He has sent us lavish comfort,
since He watches over us daily.
God has made everything well.
Text: Georg Christian Lehms, 1711

Communion Hymn 321:
My God, thy table now is spread, Rockingham

Closing Hymn 539:
O Zion, haste, thy mission high fulfilling, Tidings

Voluntary

Music Notes:

Johann Sebastian Bach’s (1685-1750) Cantata BWV 35, Geist und Seele wird verwirret, was written in 1726 for the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity. The solo cantata was composed for an unnamed—but obviously very talented—male alto (countertenor) as was, presumably, the cantata BWV 170, Vergnügte Ruh, written just two months earlier.

The choice of organ as an obbligato instrument in both works would have made performance and coaching much easier, ensuring that two of the most important components (the vocal solo and organ part) were well-rehearsed ahead of the performances. In all probability it was Bach himself (and not his son Friedemann, who at fifteen was away studying violin in Merseburg with Graun, nor Emmanuel, who at eleven was probably too young) who played the organ obbligato.

But can this really offer a satisfactory explanation for why he wrote in an unusual style that, in Vivaldian manner, seems to ape other instruments rather than exploit the true palette and sonic characteristics of a typical church organ? The occasional danger of swamping the alto soloist was one reason why a small continuo organ was probably used. But this doesn’t explain the violin-like writing for the organ.

In the fourth movement, Gott hat alles wohlgemacht, (heard today during communion) only a single line for the organ is notated in the autograph score. Whereas those for voice and bass are in Kammerton, the middle line appears in Chorton, clear proof that Bach intended the organ to play just this line and not the basso continuo. Yet the writing displays features of a typical cello piccolo obbligato in terms both of tessitura and characteristic string crossing patterns. Nevertheless, the sinfonias that introduce each half of the cantata are genuinely solistic and seem to derive from the outer movements of a lost concerto for violin, oboe or harpsichord, for which a nine-bar fragment for harpsichord has survived.

The final movement, Ich wünsche nur bei Gott zu leben (heard today at the offertory) and originally scored for 3 oboes, strings and solo organ, is a tour-de-force romp in 3/8 tempo. As is typical of the Lutheran theology of Bach’s day, this “joyful Hallelujah with all the angels” is nevertheless a supplication that Jesus “lift the sorrowful yoke of suffering” allowing us to be placed in his hands to “end [our] tormented life.” Understanding that Bach was constantly surrounded by the reality of immortality (losing his first wife in 1720 and ten of his children to premature death), the composer’s keen hope for joyful finality is understood.

-- Owen Burdick

A Music for the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

Music Notes:

A Music for the Sixth Sunday
after Pentecost