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Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow Cantata XIX.: Es erhub sich ein Streit. Feast of St Michael the Archangel (1726) - Bach's Chorals, vol. 2 The Hymns and Hymn Melodies of the Cantatas and Motetts

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Subject Area: Music
Subject Area: Religion

Cantata XIX.: Es erhub sich ein Streit. Feast of St Michael the Archangel (1726) - 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 XIX.

Es erhub sich ein Streit. Feast of St Michael the Archangel (1726)

For the melody of the concluding Choral, “Ainsi qu’on oit le cerf,” see Cantata 13.

The words of the concluding Choral are the ninth stanza of the anonymous funerary Hymn, “Freu’ dich sehr, O meine Seele,” first published in Christopher Demantius’ Threnodiae (Freiberg, 1620), and set to Bourgeois’ melody in the second (1645) edition of Schein’s Cantional:

  • Lass’ dein’ Engel mit mir fahren
  • Auf Elias Wagen roth,
  • Und mein’ Seele wohl bewahren,
  • Wie1 Laz’rum nach seinem Tod.
  • Lass’ sie ruhn in deinem Schoos,
  • Erfull’ sie mit Freud’ und Trost,
  • Bis der Leib kommt aus der Erde,
  • Und mit ihr2 vereinigt werde.
  • B.G. ii. 288.

Translations of the Hymn into English are noted in the Dictionary of Hymnology, p. 395.

Form. Embellished (3 Trombe, Timpani, 2 Ob., Taille3 , Strings, Continuo). Choralgesange, No. 99.

Bach introduces the melody “Herzlich lieb hab’ ich dich, O Herr” into the fifth movement, the Tenor Aria “Bleibt ihr Engel,” as a Tromba obbligato (B.G. ii. 279). He had in mind the third stanza of the Hymn. See the Michaelmas Cantata No. 149 for melody and stanza.

[1 ] 1620 Mit. Bach’s version follows Schein.

[2 ] 1620 Mit Ehr wird.

[3 ] The Taille was a Tenor Bassoon.