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Subject Area: Music
Subject Area: Religion

Cantata XL.: Dazu ist erschienen der Sohn Gottes 1 . Feast of St Stephen (Christmas) ( c. 1723) - 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 XL.

Dazu ist erschienen der Sohn Gottes1 . Feast of St Stephen (Christmas) (c. 1723)

lf1393-02_figure_111

Melody: “Wir Christenleut’ ”

Caspar Fuger the younger 1593

(a)

The words and melody of the third movement are from Caspar Fuger’s Christmas Hymn, “Wir Christenleut’.” The melody, which is found in ms. 1589 associated with the Hymn, may be attributed to Caspar Fuger, the younger1 , and was first published in Martin Fritzsch’s Gesangbuch. Darinnen Christliche Psalmen unnd Kirchen Lieder (Dresden, 1593).

Bach uses the melody also in Cantatas 110 and 142, and in the “Christmas Oratorio,” No. 35. Organ Works, N. xv. 36; xix. 28.

The Hymn, attributed to the elder Caspar Fuger, was probably written about 1552, and was published first in Drey schöne Newe Geistliche Gesenge (1592). The words are the third stanza of the Hymn:

  • Die Sund’ macht Leid;
  • Christus bringt Freud’,
  • Weil er zu Trost2 in diese Welt gekommen3 .
  • Mit uns ist Gott
  • Nun in der4 Noth
  • Wer ist, der uns als5 Christen kann verdammen?

  • B.G. vii. 377.

Translations of the Hymn into English are noted in the Dictionary of Hymnology, p. 401.

Form. Simple (2 Ob., Corno, Strings, Continuo). Choralgesange, No. 379.

lf1393-02_figure_112

Melody: “Meine Hoffnung stehet feste”

Anon. 1680

lf1393-02_figure_113

Melody: “Bleiches Antlitz, sei gegrusset”

Friedrich Funcke 1686

lf1393-02_figure_114

Melody: “Einen guten Kampf hab’ ich”

Anon. 1713

(b)

The words and melody of the sixth movement are from Paul Gerhardt’s “Schwing’ dich auf zu deinem Gott.” The Hymn was first published, to another tune, in Johann Crüger’s 1653 (Berlin) edition of his Praxis Pietatis Melica.

The melody which Bach uses in this movement is found, in identical form, as No. 144 of the second Part of Johann Sebastian Bachs vierstimmige Choralgesänge gesammlet von Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach (Berlin and Leipzig, 1769). According to the Choralgesange, No. 305, the tune is a slight reconstruction (“etwas umgebildet”) of a melody (Zahn, iv. No. 6295a) published in the second Part of Daniel Vetter’s Musicalische Kirch- und Hauss-Ergotzlichkeit (Leipzig, 1713) in association with Heinrich Albert’s (1604-51) “Einen guten Kampf hab’ ich.” Bach’s and Vetter’s forms clearly are related. But Bach’s text is still closer to a melody which occurs in Joachim Neander’s (1650-80) Glaub- und Liebesübung (Bremen, 1680), set to his own “Meine Hoffnung stehet feste.” Described by Neander as a “bekannte Melodie,” the apparent original of it is found in the Lüneburgisches Gesangbuch (Lüneburg, 1686), set to Johann Rist’s “Bleiches Antlitz, sei gegrüsset.” The tune there bears the initials “F. F.,” i.e. Friedrich Funcke, who was born in 1642, was Cantor of St John’s Church, Lüneburg, 1664-94, and died 1699. Bach’s melody therefore must either accept Funcke as its author, or the two tunes must be held derivatives of an original now lost. In any case the ascription of the tune to Bach is inaccurate.

The melody does not occur elsewhere in Bach’s works.

The words of the sixth movement of the Cantata are the second stanza of Paul Gerhardt’s Hymn:

  • Schuttle1 deinen Kopf und sprich:
  • Fleuch, du alte Schlange!
  • Was erneurst du deinen Stich,
  • Machst mir angst und bange?
  • Ist dir doch der Kopf zerknickt,
  • Und ich bin durch’s Leiden
  • Meines Heilands dir entruckt2
  • In den Saal der Freuden.

  • B.G. vii. 387.

Form. Simple (Corno, 2 Ob., Strings, Continuo). Choralgesange, No. 305.

lf1393-02_figure_115

Melody: “Freuet euch, ihr Christen alle”

? Andreas Hammerschmidt 1646

(c)

The words of the concluding Choral are from Christian Keimann’s Christmas Hymn, “Freuet euch, ihr Christen alle,” published, with the tune, in Part IV of Andreas Hammerschmidt’s Musicalischer Andachten Geistlicher Moteten undt Concerten (Freiberg, 1646).

Andreas Hammerschmidt, the composer (?) of the melody, was born at Brux in Bohemia in 1612. He received his musical education from Stephen Otto, Cantor at Schandau, and in 1635 became Organist of St Peter’s Church, Freiberg (Saxony). From thence he went (1639) to Zittau as Organist of St John’s Church, and died there in 1675.

Bach has not used the melody elsewhere.

The words of the concluding Choral are the fourth stanza of Keimann’s Hymn. Keimann was born in 1607 at Pankratz in Bohemia. In 1634 he was appointed Co-rector, and in 1638 Rector, of the Gymnasium at Zittau. He died in 1662. The Hymn is said to have been written at Christmas 1645. The fourth stanza may refer to the opening of the Peace Congresses at Münster and Osnabruck which concluded the Thirty Years’ War:

  • Jesu, nimm dich deiner Glieder
  • Ferner in Genaden an;
  • Schenke, was man bitten kann,
  • Zu erquicken deine Bruder:
  • Gieb der ganzen Christenschaar
  • Frieden und ein sel’ges Jahr!
  • Freude, Freude uber Freude!
  • Christus wehret allem Leide.
  • Wonne, Wonne uber Wonne
  • Er ist die Genadensonne.

  • B.G. vii. 394.

An English translation of the Hymn is noted in the Dictionary of Hymnology, p. 614.

Form. Simple (Corno, 2 Ob., Strings, Continuo). Choralgesange, No. 105.

[1 ] An English version of the Cantata, “To this end appeared the Son of God,” is published by Breitkopf & Haertel.

[1 ] See Bach’s Chorals, Part I, p. 51.

[2 ] 1592 uns.

[3 ] 1592 ist kommen.

[4 ] 1592 dieser.

[5 ] 1592 jetzt uns.

[1 ] 1653 Schutte.

[2 ] 1653 entzuckt.