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Subject Area: Music
Subject Area: Religion

Cantata CXXXV.: Ach Herr, mich armen Sünder. Third 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 CXXXV.

Ach Herr, mich armen Sünder. Third Sunday after Trinity (c. 1740)

lf1393-02_figure_183

Melody: “Herzlich thut mich verlangen”

Hans Leo Hassler 1601

A Choral Cantata, on Cyriacus Schneegass’ Hymn on Psalm vi, “Ach Herr, mich armen Sünder,” first published in his Geistliche Lieder und Psalmen (Erfurt, 1597).

The melody, “Herzlich thut mich verlangen,” which Bach uses in the first and last movements of the Cantata, first occurs, as a secular song, in Hans Leo Hassler’s Lustgarten Neuer Teutscher Gesang (Nürnberg, 1601). In 1613 it was attached to Christoph Knoll’s (1563-1650) “Herzlich-thut mich verlangen,” and in 1656 to Paul Gerhardt’s “O Haupt voll Blut1 .” Christopher Demantius, in his Threnodiae (Freiberg, 1620), set it to Schneegass’ “Ach Herr, mich armen Sünder,” and the Hymn is still generally sung to it.

The melody occurs also in Cantatas 25, 135, 153, 159, 161; in the “St Matthew Passion,” Nos. 21, 23, 53, 63, 72; and in the “Christmas Oratorio,” Nos. 5, 64. There are other harmonisations of the tune in the Choralgesange, Nos. 157, 158. For the B flat which Bach substitutes for D at the eleventh note in the second part of the tune, and for the C natural in place of G at the penultimate note, there is early authority (1679 and 1694 respectively). Organ Works, N. xviii. 53.

(a)

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

  • Ach Herr, mich armen Sunder
  • Straf’ nicht2 in deinem Zorn;
  • Dein’n ernsten Grimm doch linder’1 ,
  • Sonst ist’s mit mir verlor’n.
  • Ach Herr, wollst mir vergeben
  • Mein’ Sund’ und gnadig sein,
  • Dass ich mag ewig leben,
  • Entfliehn der Hollenpein.

  • B.G. xxviii. 121.

Form. Choral Fantasia (Trombone, 2 Ob., Strings, Continuo). The cantus is with the Basses.

(b)

The words of the concluding Choral are the sixth stanza of the Hymn2 :

  • * Ehr’ sei in’s Himmels Throne
  • Mit hohem Ruhm und Preis,
  • Dem Vater und dem Sohne,
  • Und auch zu gleicher Weis’
  • Dem heil’gen Geist mit Ehren,
  • In alle Ewigkeit!
  • Der woll’ uns All’n bescheren
  • Die ew’ge Seligkeit.

  • B.G. xxviii. 136.

Form. Simple (Cornetto, 2 Ob., Strings, Continuo). Choralgesange, No. 156.

[1 ] See Bach’s Chorals, Part I, p. 8.

[2 ] 1597 Nicht straff.

[1 ] 1597 erlinder.

[2 ] The doxology used here is a later addition to the Hymn, which originally contained only five stanzas. It is found, as stanza vi of Schneegass’ Hymn, in the Dresden Gesangbuch Christlicher Psalmen und Kirchenlieder (Dresden, 1625).