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 Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow Cantata CXV.: Mache dich, mein Geist, bereit 1 . Twenty-second Sunday after Trinity ( c. 1740) - 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 CXV.: Mache dich, mein Geist, bereit 1 . Twenty-second Sunday after Trinity ( 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 CXV.

Mache dich, mein Geist, bereit1 . Twenty-second Sunday after Trinity (c. 1740)

lf1393-02_figure_168

Melody: “Straf mich nicht in deinem Zorn”

Anon. 1694

A Choral Cantata, on Johann Burchard Freystein’s Hymn, “Mache dich, mein Geist, bereit,” first published in the Halle Geistreiches Gesang-Buch (1698).

Freystein was born at Weissenfels in 1671. He was educated at Leipzig and Jena Universities, practised at Dresden as a lawyer, and died there in 1718.

The melody of the opening and concluding movements was first published in the Hundert ahnmuthig- und sonderbahr geistlicher Arien (Dresden, 1694). It is set there to Johann Georg Albinus’ Hymn, “Straf mich nicht in deinem Zorn.” From 1712 it was also associated with Freystein’s Hymn in the Hymn books.

Bach has not used the melody elsewhere. He had recent (1715) authority for the variations he introduces into bars 3 and 4 of the original tune.

(a)

The words of the opening movement of the Cantata are the first stanza of Freystein’s Hymn:

  • * Mache dich, mein Geist, bereit,
  • Wache, fleh’ und bete,
  • Dass dich nicht die bose Zeit
  • Unverhofft betrete;
  • Denn es ist
  • Satans List
  • Über viele Frommen
  • Zur Versuchung kommen.

  • B.G. xxiv. 111.

Translations of the Hymn into English are noted in the Dictionary of Hymnology, p. 397.

Form. Choral Fantasia (Corno, Flauto, Oboe d’amore, Strings, Continuo).

(b)

The words of the concluding Choral are the tenth stanza of Freystein’s Hymn:

  • * Drum so lasst uns immerdar
  • Wachen, fliehen, beten,
  • Weil dir Angst, Noth und Gefahr
  • Immer naher treten;
  • Denn die Zeit
  • Ist nicht weit,
  • Da uns Gott wird richten
  • Und die Welt vernichten.

  • B.G. xxiv. 132.

Form. Simple (Corno, Flauto, Oboe d’amore, Strings, Continuo). Choralgesange, No. 312.

[1 ] An English version of the Cantata, “Christian stand with sword in hand,” is published by Breitkopf & Haertel.