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Subject Area: Music
Subject Area: Religion

Cantata XXIII.: Du wahrer Gott und Davids Sohn 1 . Quinquagesima (“Esto Mihi”) Sunday (1724) 2 - 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 XXIII.

Du wahrer Gott und Davids Sohn1 . Quinquagesima (“Esto Mihi”) Sunday (1724)2

lf1393-02_figure_097

Melody: “Christe, du Lamm Gottes”

Anon. 1557

In the concluding Choral Bach uses the melody and words of the Antiphon, “Christe, du Lamm Gottes.” Words and melody appear together in the Pfalz-Neuburg Kirchenordnung (Nürnberg, 1557), and obviously have a pre-Reformation association. The movement originally was the concluding number of the “St John Passion.”

Bach introduces the melody into the opening movement of Cantata 127. He has not used it elsewhere in the Cantatas, Oratorios, or Motetts. He made an arrangement of it, however (B.G. xli. 187), in five vocal parts (2 S’s.A.T.B.) with Continuo accompaniment, for the “Kyrie Eleison.” Organ Works, N. xv. 61.

The words of the Choral are a prose translation of the “Agnus Dei,” and are found in Low German in the Brunswick Kirchenordnung of 1528, and in High German in the Saxon Kirchenordnung of 1540:

  • * Christe, du Lamm Gottes,
  • Der du trägst die Sünd’ der Welt,
  • Erbarm’ dich unser!
  • Christe, du Lamm Gottes,
  • Der du tragst die Sund’ der Welt,
  • Erbarm’ dich unser!
  • Christe, du Lamm Gottes,
  • Der du tragst die Sünd’ der Welt,
  • Gieb uns dein’n Frieden!

  • B.G. v. (i) 117.

Translations of the Antiphon are noted in the Dictionary of Hymnology, p. 31.

Form. Choral Fantasia (Cornetto, 3 Trombones, 2 Ob., Strings, Continuo). Neither the Choralgesange nor Erk prints the melody.

Bach introduces the melody into the accompaniment of the Tenor Recitativo, “Ach, gehe nicht vorüber,” where the Violins and Oboes have it (B.G. v. (i) 104). He employs it in the same manner (Oboes and Horns) in the accompaniment of the “Kyrie” of the Mass in F major (B.G. viii. 3).

[1 ] An English version of the Cantata, “Thou very God, and David’s Son,” is published by Breitkopf & Haertel.

[2 ] First performed in 1724, the Cantata probably was composed at Cothen. See Spitta, ii. 350.