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 Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow Cantata LVI.: Ich will den Kreuzstab gerne tragen 1 . Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity (1731 or 1732) - 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 LVI.: Ich will den Kreuzstab gerne tragen 1 . Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity (1731 or 1732) - 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 LVI.

Ich will den Kreuzstab gerne tragen1 . Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity (1731 or 1732)

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Melody: “Du, O schones Weltgebaude”

Johann Cruger 1649

The melody and words of the concluding Choral are from Johann Franck’s Hymn, “Du, O schönes Weltgebaude.” The melody was first published, with the first stanza only of Franck’s Hymn (but with the first line as, “Du geballtes Weltgebäude”), in Johann Crüger’s Geistliche Kirchen-Melodien (Leipzig, 1649).

The melody does not appear elsewhere in the Cantatas or Oratorios. Another harmonisation of it is in the Choralgesange, No. 71.

The words of the concluding Choral are the sixth stanza of Franck’s Hymn. The complete text of it was first published, along with the melody, in Christoph Runge’s edition of Crüger’s Praxis Pietatis Melica (Berlin, 1653):

  • Komm, O Tod, du Schlafes Bruder,
  • Komm, und führe mich nur fort;
  • Lose meines Schiffleins Ruder,
  • Bringe mich an1 sichern Port.
  • Es mag, wer da will, dich scheuen,
  • Du kannst mich vielmehr erfreuen;
  • Denn durch dich komm’ ich hinein2
  • Zu dem schonsten Jesulein.

  • B.G. xii. (ii) 104.

Translations of the Hymn into English are noted in the Dictionary of Hymnology, p. 387.

Form. Simple (2 Ob., Taille3 , Strings, Continuo). Choralgesange, No. 72.

[1 ] An English version of the Cantata, “I with my cross-staff gladly wander,” is published by Breitkopf & Haertel.

[1 ] 1653 in.

[2 ] 1653 herein.

[3 ] The Taille was a Tenor Bassoon.