Bereitet die Wege, bereitet die Bahn, BWV 132
composed the church cantata Bereitet die Wege, bereitet die Bahn, 132, in Weimar in 1715 for the fourth Sunday of Advent and led the first performance on 22 December 1715.
Bach had taken up regular cantata composition a year before when he was promoted to concertmaster at the Weimar court, writing one cantata per month to be performed in the Schlosskirche, the court chapel in the ducal Schloss. Bereitet die Wege, bereitet die Bahn was his first cantata for the fourth Sunday in Advent. The libretto by the court poet Salomo Franck is related to the day's prescribed gospel reading, the testimony of John the Baptist. Franck derives from it thoughts about baptism as a preparation of the individual Christian who is addressed as a limb of Christ.
Bach structured the music in six movements of alternating arias and recitatives, and scored it for a small ensemble of four vocal parts, oboe, strings and continuo. The voices are combined only in the closing chorale, the fifth stanza of Elisabeth Cruciger's hymn "Herr Christ, der einig Gotts Sohn". The music of the chorale, which was possibly on a different sheet, is lost but can be replaced by a setting of the same stanza in a different cantata. In his composition, Bach follows Franck's Baroque imagery closely, illustrating for example the baptismal water.
History and words
On 2 March 1714 Bach was appointed concertmaster of the Weimar court capelle of the co-reigning dukes Wilhelm Ernst and Ernst August of Saxe-Weimar. As concertmaster, he assumed the principal responsibility for composing new works, specifically cantatas for the Schlosskirche, on a monthly schedule. He wrote this cantata for the Fourth Sunday in Advent, dating it himself.The prescribed readings for the Sunday were from the Epistle to the Philippians, "Rejoice in the Lord alway", and from the Gospel of John, the testimony of John the Baptist. The cantata text was written by the court poet Salomon Franck, published in the collection Evangelisches Andachts-Opffer in 1715. He included the fifth stanza of Elisabeth Cruciger hymn "Herr Christ, der einig Gotts Sohn". Franck paraphrases in the first aria the passage from the Book of Isaiah which is quoted in the prescribed gospel, "Bereitet dem Herrn den Weg". The same passage from Isaiah appears in the beginning of Handel's Messiah. Franck also refers to the baptism as a way of preparation. The individual Christian is addressed as a limb of Christ.
Bach led the first performance of the cantata on 22 December 1715 in the ducal chapel. He could not revive the work in Leipzig because tempus clausum was observed there during Advent. The cantata was first published in 1881 in the Bach Gesellschaft edition, edited by Wilhelm Rust.
Structure and scoring
Bach structured the cantata in six movements, alternating arias and recitatives, concluded by a chorale. As in several other cantatas on words by Franck, it is scored for a small ensemble of four vocal soloists, alto, tenor and bass ), and a Baroque instrumental ensemble of oboe, two violins, viola, cello and basso continuo including bassoon. A choir is only needed for the chorale, if at all. The title of the autograph score reads: "Dominicâ 4 Adventus XstiConcerto. / Bereitet die Wege, bereitet die Bahn. / â 9. / 1 Hautbois. / 2 Violini / 1 Viola / Violoncello. / S:A:T:B: / col Basso per l'Organo / di / GSBach". The duration is given as 22 minutes. The music of the chorale is lost; it may have been noted in a simple setting on a separate sheet, as in the similar case of Nur jedem das Seine, BWV 163, composed four weeks earlier. For practical purposes the same verse, closing Ihr, die ihr euch von Christo nennet, BWV 164, in 1725, may be used.
In the following table of the movements, the scoring follows the Neue Bach-Ausgabe, and the abbreviations for voices and instruments the list of Bach cantatas. The keys and time signatures are taken from the Bach scholar Alfred Dürr, using the symbol for common time. The instruments are shown separately for winds and strings, while the continuo, playing throughout, is not shown.