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Subject Area: Music
Subject Area: Religion

Cantata V.: Wo soll ich fliehen hin. Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity (1735) - Johann Sebastian Bach, Bach’s Chorals, vol. 2 The Hymns and Hymn Melodies of the Cantatas and Motetts [1917]

Edition used:

Bach’s Chorals. Part I: 2 The Hymns and Hymn Melodies of the Cantatas and Motetts, by Charles Sanford Terry (Cambridge University Press, 1915-1921). 3 vols. Vol. 2.

Part of: Bach’s Chorals, 3 vols.

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Cantata V.

Wo soll ich fliehen hin. Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity (1735)

lf1393-02_figure_071

Melody: “Venus du und dein Kind”

Anon. 1574

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Melody: “Auf meinen lieben Gott”

Anon. 1609

A Choral Cantata, on Johann Heermann’s Lenten Hymn, “Wo soll ich fliehen hin,” first published in his Devoti Musica Cordis (Leipzig, 1630), to the melody, “Auf meinen lieben Gott.”

The melody which Bach uses in the first and last movements was generally sung to Heermann’s Hymn, “Wo soll ich fliehen hin.” By prescriptive right it belongs to the Hymn, “Auf meinen lieben Gott,” which was published in 1607 (see Cantata No. 188) and received the melody two years later. Heermann’s Hymn was not published until 1630 (see supra), and received its own proper melody in 1679 (see Cantata 163). B.G. xxxiii. Pref. xxi, follows Spitta in attributing the melody, “Auf meinen lieben Gott,” to Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706). The tune, however, has a secular origin and is found in association with the song, “Venus du und dein Kind,” in 15741 . Bartholomäus Gesius used the tune for the Hymn, “Man spricht: Wen Gott erfreut,” in his Ein ander new Opus Geistlicher Deutscher Lieder (Frankfort a. Oder, 1605), and Melchior Vulpius associated it with the Hymn, “Auf meinen lieben Gott,” in his Ein schon geistlich Gesangbuch (Jena, 1609).

The melody also occurs in Cantatas 89, 136, 148, and 188. Bach adopts a reconstruction of the melody published by Johann Hermann Schein in his Cantional, Oder Gesangbuch Augspurgischer Confession (Leipzig, 16272 ). Organ Works, N. xvi. 4; xix. 32.

(a)

The words of the opening movement are the first stanza of the Hymn:

  • Wo soll ich fliehen hin,
  • Weil ich beschweret bin
  • Mit viel und grossen Sunden?
  • Wo soll1 ich Rettung finden?
  • Wenn alle Welt herkame,
  • Mein’ Angst sie nicht wegnahme.

  • B.G. i. 127.

An English translation of the Hymn is noted in the Dictionary of Hymnology, p. 506.

Form. Choral Fantasia (Tromba da tirarsi, 2 Ob., Strings, Continuo2 ).

(b)

The words of the concluding Choral are the eleventh stanza of the Hymn:

  • Fuhr’ auch mein Herz und Sinn
  • Durch deinen Geist dahin,
  • Dass ich mog’ alles meiden,
  • Was mich und dich kann scheiden,
  • Und ich an deinem Leibe
  • Ein Gliedmass ewig bleibe

  • B.G. i. 150.

Form. Simple (Tromba da tirarsi, 2 Ob., Strings, Continuo). Choralgesange, No. 28.

The melody also appears in the Oboe part in the Alto Recitativo, “Mein treuer Heiland” (B.G. i. 142).

[1 ] Zahn, vol. ii. No. 2160.

[2 ] The title of the second edition of Schein’s work (see Part I, p. 32, of Bach’s Chorals) varies in details from that of the first.

[1 ] 1630 kan.

[2 ] See Spitta, iii. 101, on the form of the movement.