Music for the Ninth Sunday
after Pentecost

Proper 12, Year C, July 25, 2010

Cantor and soloist:
Chris Kelly

Mass Setting:
Missa de Sancta Maria Magdalena, Healey Willan

Voluntary

Opening Hymn 488:
Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart, Slane

Psalm 85
The congregation chants each half-verse of the psalm beginning at the asterisk *

At the Offertory—
Cantata TWV 1.875, Ich weiss (movt. 1), Georg Philipp Telemann

Ich weiß, daß mein Erlöser lebt,
Er lebt und mir zur Freude.
Laß sein, daß ich im Leide,
In Arbeit, Müh und Plage
Viel Stunden meiner Tage
Muß auf der Welt verschmerzen;
Blüht doch der Trost im Herzen.

I know that my redeemer lives,
He lives and gives me joy.
Let it be that I in suffering,
Toil, trouble and torment
Must for many hours of my days
Bear in the world;
My trust in him remains yet in my heart.
Text: Erdmann Neumeister

Offertory Hymn 709:
O God of Bethel, by whose hand, Dundee

During Communion—
Cantata TWV 1.875, Ich weiss (movt. 3,) Geo. Phil. Telemann

Gott Lob, daß mein Erlöser lebt,
Er lebt, so wird mein Leben
Im Tode mir gegeben.
Drum will ich freudig sterben,
Die Freude dort zu erben,
Die mir im Engel-Orden
Von ihm vermachet worden.

Praise God that my redeemer lives,
He lives, so is my life
In death given to me.
Therefore will I die in joy,
The joy there to inherit
That for me in the ranks of angels
Has been prepared by him.
Text: Erdmann Neumeister

Communion Hymn 341:
For the bread which you have broken, Omni die

Closing Hymn 613:
Thy kingdom come, O God!, St. Cecilia

Voluntary

Music Notes:

The Easter Cantata for solo voice, violin and continuo, Ich weiss, dass mein Erlöser lebt (I know that my Redeemer lives) was attributed to Johann Sebastian Bach in a manuscript copied out in the middle of the nineteenth century that has since been lost. Cantata BWV 160 is now known to be by Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767) and has therefore been relegated to Anhang III of the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis. Based on this lost manuscript the editors of the first published edition of Bach’s works included it in a volume published in 1886 and, identified as by Bach, assigned the catalog number BWV 160. By the time Telemann’s catalog was compiled in the 1950s, however, it was clear that Telemann, and not Bach, was the composer of Ich weiss. Fortunately, it has reappeared in the catalogue of Telemann’s complete works as TWV 1:875. There is a currently available recording of this solo tenor cantata by Markus Schäger on Naxos (8.557615). Listening to this recording, I find it hard to understand why it was ever attributed to Bach! It is, however, a tuneful and attractive work and if you’re interested in the periphery of Bach’s works it’s well worth seeking out.

We must remember that Telemann was one of the most prolific composers ever. No less a master than Bach himself declared that Telemann was the finest composer alive—he was also Godfather to Bach’s second son, Carl Philipp Emanuel. At ten Telemann could play four instruments and had written arias, motets and instrumental works. At Leipzig University he founded a collegium musicum; at 21 he became musical director of the Leipzig Opera; at 23 he took on a post as church organist. The next year he moved to Žary, as court Kapellmeister, where he wrote French-style dance suites, sometimes tinged by local Polish and Moravian folk music, and cantatas. In 1708 he went in the same capacity to the Eisenach court and in 1712 to Frankfurt as city music director. As Kapellmeister of a church there, he wrote at least five cantata cycles and works for civic occasions, while his duties as director of a collegium musicum drew from him instrumental works and oratorios. Four year’s Bach’s senior, Telemann outlived him by seventeen years; at the time of Telemann’s death at age 86, Haydn was 35 and Mozart was 11. It is difficult to realize just how prolific Telemann was: for while it is almost unimaginable that Bach wrote over 200 sacred cantatas, with an estimated 100 more that are lost—it is completely unfathomable that Telemann wrote 1043!

Telemann composed in all the forms and styles current in his day; he wrote Italian-style concertos and sonatas, French-style overture-suites and quartets, German fugues, cantatas, Passions and songs. Some of his chamber works, for example the quartets in the Musique de table, are in a conversational, dialogue-like manner that is lucid in texture and elegant in diction. Whatever style he used, Telemann’s mature music is easily recognizable as his own, with its clear periodic structure, its clarity and its ready fluency. Though four years senior to Bach and Handel, he used an idiom more forward-looking than theirs and in several genres can be seen as a forerunner of the Classical style.

-- Owen Burdick

Music for the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost

Music Notes:

Music for the Ninth Sunday
after Pentecost