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Subject Area: Music
Subject Area: Religion

Cantata LXXVII.: Du sollst Gott, deinen Herren, lieben. Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity ( c. 1725) - 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 LXXVII.

Du sollst Gott, deinen Herren, lieben. Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity (c. 1725)

lf1393-02_figure_151

Melody: “Dies sind die heil’gen selin Gebot’ ”

Anon. 1524

lf1393-02_figure_152

Melody: “In Gottes Namen fahren wir”

Anon. 1536

(a)

The opening Chorus of the Cantata introduces a Choral melody that does not appear elsewhere in the Cantatas, Oratorios, or Motetts. The movement is a Chorus upon the words, “Du sollst Gott, deinen Herren, lieben von ganzem Herzen, von ganzer Seele, von allen Kraften, von ganzem Gemüthe, und deinen Nächsten als dich selbst” (“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbour as thyself,” St Luke x. 27). As Spitta comments1 , Bach called to mind the continuation of the Scripture text: “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” He therefore enforces the text by the melody of Luther’s Hymn, “Dies sind die heil’gen zehn Gebot’ ” (“These are the sacred ten commandments”). While the Chorus is worked out in quavers from the first line of the melody, the lesser commandment is stated by the Tromba da tirarsi, which announces the tune in crotchets, while the greater commandment is emphasised by the Organ, treating the melody in minims as a cantus firmus.

The melody is an adaptation of the tune of the song, “In Gottes Namen fahren wir.” Reconstructed for Luther’s Hymn, the tune was published both in the Erfurt Enchiridion of 1524 and in Johann Walther’s Geystliche gesangk Buchleyn at Wittenberg in the same year. The reconstruction of the tune may be attributed to Walther.

There is a harmonisation of the tune in the Choralgesange, No. 66. Organ Works, N. xv. 103; xvi. 42, 47.

Form. Choral Fantasia (Tromba da tirarsi, Strings, Continuo)1 .

(b)

For the melody of the concluding Choral, “Ach Gott, vom Himmel sieh’ darein,” see Cantata 2.

Bach’s ms. lacks a text here2 and the words of the Choral were selected as appropriate by Carl Friedrich Zelter (1758-1833). They are the eighth stanza of the Hymn, “Wenn einer alle Ding verstünd,” published in Das Hannoverische ordentliche, vollstandige Gesangbuch (Lüneburg, 1657), attributed to David Denicke:

  • Du stellst, mein Jesu, selber dich3
  • Zum Vorbild wahrer Liebe:
  • Gieb mir auch Gnad’ und Kraft, dass ich4
  • Gott und den Nachsten liebe5 ;
  • Dass ich bei1 Allem, wo ich kann,
  • Stets lieb’2 und helfe Jedermann
  • Nach deinem Wort und Weise3 .

  • B.G. xviii. 254.

Form. Simple4 . Choralgesänge, No. 6.

[1 ] Vol. ii. 430.

[1 ] See Spitta, ii. 430, on the relation of the movement to the Organ Chorals. He regards it as a development between the earlier Orgelbuchlein (N. xv. 103) and the later Clavierubung (N. xvi. 42) Preludes.

[2 ] Spitta, ii. 429, remarks that the ms. indicates haste and lack of leisure.

[3 ] 1657 Herr Jesu, du stellst selber dich.

[4 ] 1657 Verleih, das dem zu folge ich.

[5 ] 1657 Die lieb am nechsten ube.

[1 ] 1657 in.

[2 ] 1657 Lieb, trew.

[3 ] 1657 Wie ich mirs wunsch, erweise.

[4 ] The Score does not indicate the instrumentation.