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 Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow Cantata CXXVII.: Herr Jesu Christ, wahr'r Mensch und Gott. Quinquagesima (Esto Mihi) Sunday ( 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 CXXVII.: Herr Jesu Christ, wahr’r Mensch und Gott. Quinquagesima (“Esto Mihi”) Sunday ( 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 CXXVII.

Herr Jesu Christ, wahr’r Mensch und Gott. Quinquagesima (“Esto Mihi”) Sunday (c. 1740)

lf1393-02_figure_176

Melody: “On a beau son maison bastir”

Louis Bourgeois 1551

A Choral Cantata, on Paul Eber’s funerary Hymn, “Herr Jesu Christ, wahr’r Mensch und Gott,” written in 1557, and first published in the Hamburg Enchiridion Geistliker Leder und Psalmen D. Mar. Luth. (Hamburg, 1565).

The melody appears first in the Geneva Psalter, Pseaumes octante trois de David, mis en rime Francoise (Geneva, 1551), where it is set to Psalm cxxvii. In Lutheran Hymn books it is generally associated with Eber’s Hymn. Psalm cxxvii, included in the Geneva Psalter of 1551, was one of the thirty-four recently translated by Theodore Beza. The melody must therefore be assigned to Louis Bourgeois (see Cantata 13).

The melody does not occur elsewhere in the Cantatas, Oratorios, or Motetts. For the first note of the first line and last note of the second in Bach’s version there is late sixteenth century authority (Calvisius’ Hymni sacri Latini et germanici, Erfurt, 1594).

(a)

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

  • Herr Jesu Christ, wahr’r Mensch und Gott,
  • Der du litt’st Marter, Angst und Spott,
  • Für mich am Kreuz auch endlich starbst,
  • Und mir dein’s Vaters Huld erwarbst,
  • Ich bitt’ durch’s bittre Leiden dein;
  • Du woll’st mir Sunder gnädig sein!

  • B.G. xxvi. 135.

Translations of the Hymn into English are noted in the Dictionary of Hymnology, p. 319.

Form. Choral Fantasia (2 Fl., 2 Ob., Strings, Continuo).

As Quinquagesima heralds the season of the Passion, Bach introduces into the orchestral accompaniment of the movement the melody, “Christe, du Lamm Gottes” (see Cantata 23), the Strings and Wind instruments playing alternate lines of it1 .

(b)

The words of the concluding Choral are the eighth stanza of Eber’s Hymn:

  • Ach Herr, vergieb all’ unsre Schuld,
  • Hilf, dass wir warten mit Geduld,
  • Bis unser Stundlein kommt herbei,
  • Auch unser Glaub’ stets wacker sei,
  • Dein’m Wort zu trauen festiglich,
  • Bis wir einschlafen seliglich.

  • B.G. xxvi. 160.

Form. Simple (2 Fl., 2 Ob., Strings, Continuo). Choralgesänge, No. 147.

[1 ] See Spitta, iii. 101, on the form of the movement.