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Subject Area: Music
Subject Area: Religion

Cantata CXXXIII.: Ich freue mich in dir. Feast of St John the Evangelist (Christmas) (1735-37) - 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 CXXXIII.

Ich freue mich in dir. Feast of St John the Evangelist (Christmas) (1735-37)

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Melody: “Ich freue mich in dir”

Bach’s MS. c. 1735

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Melody: “Ich freue mich in dir”

Bach’s version 1735-37

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Melody: “O stilles Gottes Lamm”

Konig’s version 1738

A Choral Cantata, on Caspar Ziegler’s Christmas Hymn, “Ich freue mich in dir,” first published in the Halle Geistreiches Gesang Buch (Halle, 1697).

Ziegler was born at Leipzig in 1621, and from 1655 was Professor of Law in the University of Wittenberg. He was distinguished as a lawyer, teacher, scholar, and poet. He died in 1690.

The melody, “Ich freue mich in dir,” which Bach uses in the opening and concluding movements of the Cantata, is one of two1 that occur for the first time in his Church Cantatas. That the tune is by Bach himself has been stated, and the following considerations support the conclusion. The tune is not found in any Hymn book of earlier date than the Cantata, i.e. 1735-37. The earliest sketch of it is in Bach’s autograph in the ms. of the fugal subject “pleni sunt coeli” of the Sanctus of the B minor Mass2 , upon which he was engaged in the period 1735-37. On the other hand, another version of the melody is found in the Harmonischer Lieder-Schatz, oder Allgemeines Evangelisches Choral-Buch, published in 1738 by Johann Balthasar König (1691-1758), “Director Chori Musices in Franckfurt am Mayn.” The tune is set there to Gottfried Arnold’s (1666-1714) Hymn, “O stilles Gottes Lamm,” while the first line of the melody is appropriated to another tune, set to the Hymn, “Ich will des Herren Zorn.” It is most improbable that Konig, actually Bach’s contemporary, would take liberties with the tune if it was Bach’s own composition. The melody, also, entirely lacks the Aria character which distinguishes Bach’s Hymn tunes from seventeenth and eighteenth century melodies. It is reminiscent, too, of the many reconstructions of Melchior Franck’s (?) “O grosser Gott von Macht” (1632) (see Cantata 46), and of the tune “O Gott, du frommer Gott” (1693) (see Cantata 24), whose composite construction has been noticed. Ziegler’s Hymn, “Ich freue mich in dir,” actually was published in 1697 to the melody, “O Gott, du frommer Gott,” and it was quite contrary to Bach’s practice in a Choral Cantata to set the Hymn to a new or unfamiliar tune. The balance of probability, therefore, is against Bach’s authorship of the tune.

The melody is not found elsewhere in the Cantatas, Oratorios, or Motetts.

(a)

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

  • Ich freue mich in dir
  • Und heisse dich willkommen,
  • Mein liebes Jesulein!
  • Du hast dir vorgenommen
  • Mein Bruderlein zu sein.
  • Ach, wie ein susser Ton!
  • Wie freundlich sieht er aus
  • Der grosse Gottessohn!

  • B.G. xxviii. 53.

Form. Choral Fantasia (Cornetto, 2 Ob. d’amore, Strings, Continuo).

(b)

The words of the concluding Choral are the fourth stanza of the Hymn:

  • Wohlan! so will ich mich
  • An dich, O Jesu, halten,
  • Und sollte gleich die Welt
  • In tausend Stucke spalten.
  • O Jesu! dir, nur dir,
  • Dir leb’ ich ganz allein;
  • Auf dich, allein auf dich,
  • O1 Jesu, schlaf’ ich ein.

  • B.G. xxviii. 80.

Form. Simple (Cornetto, 2 Ob. d’amore, Strings, Continuo). Choralgesange, No. 181.

[1 ] The other melody is “Alle Menschen mussen sterben.” See Cantata 162.

[2 ] B.G. xxviii. p. xxv. It is printed supra, p. 391.

[1 ] 1697 Mein.