Meinen Jesum laß ich nicht, BWV 124
Meinen Jesum laß ich nicht, 124, is a church cantata written by Johann Sebastian Bach. He composed it in Leipzig for the first Sunday after the Epiphany and first performed it on 7 January 1725. It is based on the hymn "" by Christian Keymann.
The cantata is part of Bach's chorale cantata cycle, the second cycle during his tenure as that began in 1723. In the style of the cycle, an unknown poet retained the outer stanzas for framing choral movements and paraphrased the inner stanzas into four movements for soloists, alternating recitatives and arias. Bach scored the work for four vocal soloists, a four-part choir and a Baroque instrumental ensemble of a horn to play the cantus firmus with the soprano, oboe d'amore, strings and basso continuo.
History, hymn and words
Bach wrote the chorale cantata in his second year in Leipzig for the First Sunday after Epiphany. The prescribed readings for the Sunday were taken from the Epistle to the Romans, speaking of the duties of a Christian, and from the Gospel of Luke, the finding in the Temple.A year earlier, Bach had reflected the same occasion in Mein liebster Jesus ist verloren, BWV 154, from the point of view of a person who had lost Jesus. The 1725 cantata text is based on the 1658 chorale in six stanzas by Christian Keymann. The text of the hymn begins, as in the former cantata, with an idea close to the Gospel: the Christian does not want to let go of Jesus, as his parents had wished not to lose their 12-year-old boy. The chorale then pursues the thought of being united with Jesus after death. In the format of the chorale cantata cycle, an unknown poet retained the hymn's first and last stanzas for choral movements, and paraphrased the inner stanzas to a sequence of as many recitatives and arias.
Bach led the Thomanerchor in the first performance of the cantata on 7 January 1725, one day after Liebster Immanuel, Herzog der Frommen, BWV 123, for Epiphany.
Music
Structure and scoring
Bach structured Meinen Jesum laß ich nicht in six movements. Both the text and the tune of the hymn are retained in the outer movements, a chorale fantasia and a four-part closing chorale. Bach scored the work for four vocal soloists, alto, tenor and bass ), a four-part choir, and a Baroque instrumental ensemble of a horn to reinforce the chorale melody, oboe d'amore, two violin parts, a viola part, and basso continuo.In the following table of the movements, the scoring, keys and time signatures are taken from Alfred Dürr's standard work Die Kantaten von Johann Sebastian Bach. The continuo, which plays throughout, is not shown. The duration is given as 17 minutes.
Movements
1
In the opening chorus, "", the soprano and the horn present line by line the cantus firmus, a melody by Andreas Hammerschmidt, who collaborated with Keymann on chorales. The lower voices are set mostly in homophony, while the orchestra plays its own themes in introduction, interludes and accompaniment. The character of the movement is a minuet, and the oboe d'amore takes a virtuosic concertante leading part. The phrase "" is illustrated by all three lower voices holding a note for three measures as if clinging to it. John Eliot Gardiner noted the "gentle, almost naïve tone of voice to reflect the submissive character of the text".2
A short secco recitative expresses "".3
A tenor aria, "", is accompanied by an obbligato oboe d'amore, while the strings play "a persistent four-note drumming" to express "" in the face of death. Dürr compared these repetitions to similar figures in the alto recitative "", movement 49 of Bach's Christmas Oratorio, Part V.4
In another secco recitative, "", the term "" is pictured by a scale spanning an octave.5
A duet of soprano and alto, "", is accompanied by the continuo. It moves like a dance in simple periods of four measures.6
The cantata is closed by the final chorale stanza, "", in a four-part setting.\header
\layout
global =
soprano = \relative c
alto = \relative c
tenor = \relative c'
bass = \relative c
verse = \lyricmode
\score
\score