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Subject Area: Music
Subject Area: Religion

Cantata XXVII.: Wer weiss, wie nahe mir mein Ende 2 . Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity (1731) - 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 XXVII.

Wer weiss, wie nahe mir mein Ende2 . Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity (1731)

(a)

For the melody of the opening Chorus, “Wer nur den lieben Gott lässt walten,” see Cantata 21. The Choral words of the opening Chorus are the first stanza of the funerary Hymn, “Wer weiss, wie nahe mir mein Ende,” written by Emilie Juliane Countess of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt.

The authoress was born in 1637, married her cousin, the Count of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, and died in 1706. About 600 hymns are attributed to her. The Hymn “Wer weiss” was published, to the above melody, in the Rudolstadt Hymn book of 1682 (Appendix, 1688) and in M. Joh. Heinrich Haveckers . . . Kirchen-Echo (Leipzig, 1695). Its authorship is also claimed by Georg Michael Pfefferkorn (1645-1732):

  • Wer weiss, wie nahe mir mein Ende?
  • Hingeht die Zeit, herkommt der Tod.
  • Ach, wie geschwinde und behende
  • Kann kommen meine Todesnoth!
  • Mein Gott, ich bitt’ durch Christi Blut,
  • Mach’s nur mit meinem Ende gut.

  • B.G. v. (i) 219.

Translations of the Hymn into English are noted in the Dictionary of Hymnology, p. 330.

Form. Choral Fantasia. The Chorus (S.A.T.B.) is intersected by Recitativo passages accompanying the orchestral ritornelli (2 Ob., Corno, Strings, Continuo)1 .

lf1393-02_figure_101

Melody. “Welt, ade! ich bin dein mude”

Johann Rosenmuller 1682

lf1393-02_figure_102

pian. adagio

lf1393-02_figure_103

forte allegro

(b)

The melody of the concluding Choral was composed by Johann Rosenmuller for the Hymn, “Welt, ade! ich bin dein müde” (1649).

Rosenmüller was born at Pelsnitz in Saxony in 1619. In 1642 he was assistant master in St Thomas’ School, Leipzig, and a pupil of Tobias Michael, Cantor there. In 1651 he was appointed Organist of St Nicolas’ Church, Leipzig. Imprisoned in 1655 for a grave offence, he lived thereafter in Hamburg and Italy. In 1674 he was appointed Kapellmeister at Wolfenbüttel, and died there in 1684.

The five-part setting of the melody which Bach uses here was published by Gottfried Vopelius in his Neu Leipziger Gesangbuch (Leipzig, 1682 [1681]1 ). Vopelius was born in 1645, at Herwigsdorf, near Lobau, became Cantor of St Nicolas’, Leipzig, in 1675, and died in 1715.

Bach uses the melody also in Cantata 158.

The words of the concluding Choral are the first stanza of Johann Georg Albinus’ funerary Hymn, “Welt, ade! ich bin dein müde.” The Hymn was written in 1649 for the funeral of the daughter of Abraham Teller, Archidiaconus of St Nicolas’.

Albinus was born at Unter-Nessa, Saxony, in 1624. He was educated at Leipzig and in 1653 was appointed Rector of the Cathedral School, Naumburg. In 1657 he became pastor of St Othmar’s Church there. He died in 1679. The Hymn was published first as a broadsheet in 1649 and later in the Brandenburg Neu-Vollstandigers Gesang-Buch (Bayreuth, 1668) and Geistliches Neuvermehrtes Gesang-Buch (Schleusingen, 1672):

  • Welt, ade! ich bin dein müde,
  • Ich will nach dem Himmel zu,
  • Da wird sein der rechte Friede
  • Und die ew’ge, stolze Ruh.
  • Welt, bei dir ist Krieg und Streit,
  • Nichts denn lauter Eitelkeit;
  • In dem Himmel allezeit
  • Friede, Freud’ und Seeligkeit.

  • B.G. v. (i) 244.

Translations of the Hymn into English are noted in the Dictionary of Hymnology, p. 37.

Form. Simple (2 Ob., Corno, Strings, Continuo). Choralgesänge, No. 350. Erk, No. 134, prints Vopelius’ 1682 version1 .

[2 ] English versions of the Cantata are published by Novello & Co., “O teach me, Lord, my days to number,” and Breitkopf & Haertel, “Who knows, how near my latter ending?”

[1 ] See p. 44 supra.

[1 ] The melody and Bass had appeared three years earlier in Johann Quirsfeld’s Geistlicher Harffen-Klang (Leipzig, 1679).

[1 ] See Spitta, ii. 452 n.