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Subject Area: Music
Subject Area: Religion

Cantata VI.: Bleib’ bei uns, denn es will Abend werden 1 . Easter Monday (1736) - 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 VI.

Bleib’ bei uns, denn es will Abend werden1 . Easter Monday (1736)

lf1393-02_figure_073

Melody: “Danket dem Herrn, heut’ und allzeit”

Anon. 1594

(a)

The Alto melody of the above four-part setting, which Bach uses in the third movement (“Choral”), is associated also with the Hymns, “Ach bleib’ bei uns, Herr Jesu Christ,” “Wir danken dir, O frommer Gott,” and “Hinunter ist der Sonnenschein.” The Alto melody was in use at Leipzig in 1589, and the above four-part setting is found in Seth Calvisius’ Hymni sacri Latini et germanici (Erfurt, 1594). No doubt it is by him.

There are other harmonisations of the Alto melody in the Choralgesange, Nos. 1, 313. Organ Works, N. xvi. 10.

The words of the movement are the first and second stanzas of Nicolaus Selnecker’s Hymn, “Ach bleib’ bei uns, Herr Jesu Christ.”

The first stanza, which is a translation of Melanchthon’s “Vespera jam venit, nobiscum Christe maneto” (founded on St Luke xxiv. 29), first appeared as a broadsheet in 1579, with Nicolaus Herman’s “Danket dem Herrn.” The whole Hymn was first published in Selnecker’s Geistliche Psalmen (Nürnberg, 1611). Only stanzas iii-ix are by him.

Selnecker was born at Hersbruck in 1532. He was a favourite pupil of Melanchthon at Wittenberg, was appointed Court Preacher at Dresden 1557, Professor of Theology at Jena 1565 and, later, at Leipzig. He was a very prominent figure in ecclesiastical Germany and died at Leipzig in 1592:

  • * Ach bleib’ bei uns, Herr Jesu Christ,
  • Weil es nun Abend worden ist;
  • Dein gottlich Wort, das helle Licht,
  • Lass ja bei uns ausloschen nicht.
  • In dieser letzt betrubten Zeit
  • Verleih’ uns, Herr, Bestandigkeit,
  • Dass wir dein Wort und Sacrament
  • Rein behalt’n bis an unser End’.

  • B.G. i. 168.

Translations of the Hymn are noted in the Dictionary of Hymnology, pp. 1040, 1599.

Form. Soprano Unison Choral (Violoncello piccolo, Continuo)1 .

lf1393-02_figure_074

Melody: “Erhalt’ uns, Herr, bei deinem Wort”

Anon. 1543

(b)

The melody, “Erhalt’ uns, Herr, bei deinem Wort,” which Bach uses in the concluding Choral of the Cantata, was first published in Joseph Klug’s Geistliche Lieder zu Wittemberg (Wittenberg, 1543). It bears a close resemblance to the melody of Luther’s Hymn, “Verleih’ uns Frieden gnädiglich” (see Cantata 42), both being derived from the tune of the Antiphon, “Da pacem, Domine,” of which Luther’s “Verleih’ uns Frieden” is a translation. The similarity between the melodies is matched by the intimate association of the two Hymns. In many districts of Germany Luther’s stanza was sung immediately after the sermon, either by itself or with the Hymn, “Erhalt’ uns, Herr.”

Bach uses the melody also in Cantata No. 126. The sharpened fourth note of the tune in this movement is found in an early text (1593).

The words of the concluding Choral are the second stanza of Luther’s Hymn, “Erhalt’ uns, Herr, bei deinem Wort,” written, probably in 1541, for a service at Wittenberg against the Turks. Luther called the Hymn “Ein Kinderlied zu singen wider die zween Ertzfeinde Christi und seiner heiligen Kirchen, den Babst und Turcken.” The Hymn was first printed as a broadsheet at Wittenberg in 1542, and, with the tune, in Klug (see supra):

  • Beweis’ dein Macht, Herr Jesu Christ,
  • Der du Herr aller Herren bist:
  • Beschirm’ dein’ arme Christenheit,
  • Dass sie dich lob’ in Ewigkeit.

  • B.G. i. 176.

English translations of the Hymn are noted in the Dictionary of Hymnology, No. 353.

Form. Simple (2 Ob., Oboe da caccia, Strings, Continuo). Choralgesange, No. 79.

[1 ] English versions of the Cantata are published by Novello & Co., “Bide with us,” and Breitkopf & Haertel, “Stay with us, the evening approaches.”

[* ]Unverfalschter Liedersegen (Berlin, 1878), No. 207, gives the third line of stanza i as “Dein Wort, O Herr, das ewig Licht,” and “alln” for “Herr” in the second line of stanza ii.

[1 ] The movement is No. 5 of the Schubler Chorals (N. xvi. 10).