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Subject Area: Music
Subject Area: Religion

Cantata LVII.: Selig ist der Mann. Feast of St Stephen (Christmas) ( c. 1740) - 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 LVII.

Selig ist der Mann. Feast of St Stephen (Christmas) (c. 1740)

lf1393-02_figure_128

Melody: “Hast du denn, Liebster, dein Angesicht”

Anon. 1665

The melody of the concluding Choral is generally associated with Joachim Neander’s Thanksgiving Hymn, “Lobe den Herren, den mächtigen König der Ehren,” and was appropriated for it by him in his Glaub- und Liebesubung (Bremen, 1680). The tune originally appeared in Part II of the Stralsund Ernewertes Gesangbuch, Darinnen 408 Geistreiche Psalmen und Lieder (Stralsund, 1665), set to “Hast du denn, Liebster, dein Angesicht gäntzlich verborgen,” upon which Ahashuerus Fritsch modelled his Hymn (infra). Zahn suggests a secular origin for the tune.

There is early eighteenth century authority for Bach’s treatment of the second part of the tune.

The melody occurs also in Cantata 137 and in the unfinished Cantata U 3, “Herr Gott, Beherrscher aller Dinge.” Organ Works, N. xvi. 14 (“Kommst du nun, Jesu, vom Himmel herunter”). Bach’s treatment of bars 1 and 2 after the middle double-bar is not uniform. In the two following bars (3 and 4) his melody is invariable and is found in 1708.

The words of the concluding Choral are the sixth stanza of Ahashuerus Fritsch’s Hymn-dialogue between Christ and the Soul, “Hast du denn, Jesu, dein Angesicht gäntzlich verborgen.” The Hymn, based upon an earlier model (supra), was first published (without the melody) in Fritsch’s Zwey und Siebenzig neue Himmel-susse Jesus-Lieder (Jena, 1668).

Fritsch was born at Mücheln, near Merseburg, in 1629. He became Chancellor and President of the Consistory at Rudolstadt, and died there in 1701:

  • Richte dich, Liebste, nach meinem Gefallen und glaube,
  • Dass ich dein Seelenfreund immer und ewig verbleibe,
  • Der dich ergötzt
  • Und in den Himmel versetzt
  • Aus dem gemarterten Leibe.

  • B.G. xii. (ii) 132.

Form. Simple (2 Ob., Taille1 , Strings, Organ, Continuo). Choralgesänge, No. 231.

[1 ] The Taille was a Tenor Bassoon.