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Subject Area: Music
Subject Area: Religion

Cantata LX.: O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort. Twenty-fourth Sunday after Trinity (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 LX.

O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort. Twenty-fourth Sunday after Trinity (1732)

(a)

The melody of the opening movement is Johann Schop’s “Wach auf, mein Geist,” reconstructed by Johann Cruger for Rist’s Hymn, “O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort” (see Cantata 20).

The words of the Choral are the first stanza of Rist’s Hymn:

  • O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort,
  • O Schwert, das durch die Seele bohrt,
  • O Anfang sonder Ende!
  • O Ewigkeit, Zeit ohne Zeit,
  • Ich weiss vor grosser Traurigkeit
  • Nicht, wo ich mich hinwende1 ;
  • Mein ganz erschrock’nes Herze bebt2 ,
  • Dass mir die Zung’ am Gaumen klebt.

  • B.G. xii. (ii) 171.

Form. A Dialogus between Alto and Tenor, the Alto having the melody (Corno, 2 Ob. d’amore, Strings, Continuo).

lf1393-02_figure_131

Melody: “Es ist genug”

Johann Rodolph Ahle 1662

(b)

The melody of the concluding Choral is Johann Rodolph Ahle’s setting of Burmeister’s “Es ist genug; so nimm, Herr, meinen Geist.” The tune was first published, with the Hymn, in Part III (1662) of Ahle’s Neuer Geistlicher Arien, So mit 1, 2, 3, oder 4, Stimmen (Muhlhausen, 1660-64).

Ahle, born at Mühlhausen in 1625, was Organist of the Blasiuskirche and Burgomaster there. He died in 1673. He was a very prolific composer of “geistliche Arien,” and collaborated especially with Burmeister.

The melody does not occur elsewhere in the Cantatas or Oratorios.

The words of the concluding Choral are the fifth stanza of Franz Joachim Burmeister’s “Es ist genug,” which was published, with the melody, in 1662 (supra).

Burmeister was born, probably in 1633, at Lüneburg. He was appointed Deacon of St Michael’s Church there in 1670 and held the post until his death in 1672. He was a friend of Johann Rist, who admitted him to his Order of Elbe Swans in 1660:

  • Es ist genug: Herr, wenn es dir gefällt,
  • So spanne mich doch aus.
  • Mein Jesus kommt: nun gute Nacht, O Welt!
  • Ich fahr’ in’s Himmelshaus;
  • Ich fahre sicher hin mit1 Frieden,
  • Mein grosser2 Jammer bleibt darnieden.
  • Es ist genug.

  • B.G. xii. (ii) 190.

Form. Simple (Corno, 2 Ob. d’amore, Strings, Continuo). Choralgesange, No. 91.

[1 ] 1642 hin mich wende.

[2 ] 1642 Hertz erbebt.

[1 ] 1662 inn.

[2 ] 1662 feuchter.