Music for the Thirteenth Sunday
after Pentecost

Proper 16, Year C, August 22, 2010

Cantor and Soloist:
Marshall Macomber

Today’s Mass Setting:
Missa de Sancta Maria Magdalena Healey Willan

Voluntary

Opening Hymn 521:
Put forth, O God, thy Spirit’s might, Chelsea Square

Psalm 71:1-6
The congregation chants each half-verse of the psalm beginning at the asterisk *

At the Offertory—
Cantata 137, Lobe den Herren (mvt. 4,) Johann Sebastian Bach

Lobe den Herren, der deinen Stand sichtbar gesegnet,
Der aus dem Himmel mit Strömen der Liebe geregnet;
Denke dran,
Was der Allmächtige kann,
Der die mit Liebe begegnet.

Praise the Lord, who surely blesses your condition,
who from heaven rains down streams of love;
consider this,
what the Almighty can do,
who comes to meet you with love.

Text: Lobe den Herren, den mächtigen König der Ehren, Joachim Neander 1680

Offertory Hymn 411:
O bless the Lord, my soul, St. Thomas (Williams)

During Communion—
Cantata 161, Komm, du süße Todesstunde (mvt. 3), J. S. Bach

Mein Verlangen
Ist, den Heiland zu umfangen
Und bei Christo bald zu sein.
Ob ich sterblich' Asch und Erde
Durch den Tod zermalmet werde,
Wird der Seele reiner Schein
Dennoch gleich den Engeln prangen.

My longing
is, to embrace my Savior
and to be with Christ soon.
Although to mortal ash and earth
I shall be ground through death,
the pure radiance of my soul
will then blaze like the angels.

Text: Salomon Franck, Weimar, 1715

Communion Hymn 334:
Praise the Lord, rise up rejoicing, Alles ist an Gottes Segen

Closing Hymn 493:
O for a thousand tongues to sing, Azmon

Voluntary

Music Notes:

Johann Sebastian Bach’s (1685-1750) Cantata BWV 137 Lobe den Herren, den mächtigen König der Ehren was written in Leipzig in 1725 for the 12th Sunday after Trinity Sunday. (Its premiere, therefore, occurred on August 19, 1725.) Today, at the offertory, we hear the fourth movement, the tenor aria Lobe den Herren, der deinen Stand. This aria dispenses with an obbligato instrument; the continuo bass performs that function while simultaneously delivering harmonic support. The trumpet emerges quite unexpectedly with an unadorned version of the famous chorale. Is it a reminder of the last trumpet? Does it symbolize God in His heaven, showering, as the text suggests, his blessings upon those below?

Conjecture of course, but what is surely beyond argument is the fact that the image to have caught Bach’s attention is that of the cascading blessings, which the Almighty showers upon us. The continuo line portrays this picture very clearly; falling scales and other ideas constructed form the well-known ‘joy’ motive infusing the movement with energy and imitating the physical actions described.

The chorale is strongly major and the trumpet performs the well-known melody unchanged in C major. But the movement is actually in the key of A minor! This does not produce the dissonances one might think because Bach cunningly moves the tenor and continuo harmonies into C major so as to be concordant with the chorale melody. But the third chorale phrase can be harmonized in a minor context and that is what Bach does. This produces a subtle effect of musical shading and it would surely have had symbolic significance. Might it have implications of the solemn voice of the Lord, heard above, yet remaining outside the realms of mortals on earth?

Composed in Weimar for the Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity, which fell on September 27, 1716, Bach’s Cantata No. 161 Komm, du susse Todesstunde (Come, Sweet Death) sets a text by Salomon Franck with the text of the closing movement taken from a chorale by Christoph Knoll from 1611. The cantata is scored for alto and tenor soloists, chorus, a pair of flutes, strings, and basso continuo.

Cantata 161 is one of the great treasures of Bach’s Weimar years. There is perhaps no other cantata that is more characteristic of the warmth and openness that typifies all of the music from this youthful period. During communion today we will hear the third movement, the tenor aria Mein Verlangen ist, den Heiland zu umfangen (My longing is, to embrace my Savior). The text expresses the craving for death, the keen desire to embrace the Savior and the pure soul gleaming like the wings of angels.

Here the “longing” of the text is hypnotically underscored by the unforgettable half-step motive in the strings. The aria achieves a kind of ecstatic melancholy unique in Bach—the opening sighing figures suggest peaceful resignation, and are followed by descending scales of eighth notes, as if pointing the way towards an open and welcoming grave. The emphasis upon the word verlangen is further heightened by an extended melisma that concludes the opening section.

In the middle section the soloist concerns himself with images of crushing death and earthly ashes, set against the reiterated sighing figure on the upper strings. But the greatest impression is created by the most extended of melismas on the word prangen (the resplendence of the angel’s glory to which we aspire).

--Owen Burdick

Music for the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Music Notes:

Music for the Thirteenth Sunday
after Pentecost