O heilges Geist- und Wasserbad, BWV 165
O heilges Geist- und Wasserbad, 165, is a church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. He composed it in Weimar for Trinity Sunday and led the first performance on 16 June 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, the court chapel in the ducal Schloss. O heilges Geist- und Wasserbad was his first cantata for Trinity Sunday, the feast day marking the end of the first half of the liturgical year. The libretto by the court poet Salomo Franck is based on the day's prescribed gospel reading about the meeting of Jesus and Nicodemus. It is close in content to the gospel and connects the concept of the Trinity to baptism.
The music is structured in six movements, alternating arias and recitatives, and scored for a small ensemble of four vocal parts, strings and continuo. The voices are combined only in the closing chorale, the fifth stanza of Ludwig Helmbold's hymn "", which mentions scripture, baptism and the Eucharist, in a summary of the cantata's topic. Based on the text full of Baroque imagery, Bach composed a sermon in music, especially in the two recitatives for the bass voice, and achieved contrasts in expression. He led the first performance, and probably another on the Trinity Sunday concluding his first year as Thomaskantor in Leipzig on 4 June 1724.
Background
On 2 March 1714 Bach was appointed of the Weimar of the co-reigning dukes Wilhelm Ernst and Ernst August of Saxe-Weimar. The position was created for him, possibly on his demand, giving him "a newly defined rank order" according to Christoph Wolff.From 1695, an arrangement shared the responsibility for church music at the between the Kapellmeister Samuel Drese and the Georg Christoph Strattner, who took care of one Sunday per month while the served on three Sundays. The pattern probably continued from 1704, when Strattner was succeeded by Drese's son Johann Wilhelm. When Konzertmeister Bach also assumed the principal responsibility for one cantata a month, the Kapellmeister's workload was further reduced to two Sundays per month.
The performance venue on the third tier of the court church, in German called , has been described by Wolff as "congenial and intimate", calling for a small ensemble of singers and players. Performers of the cantatas were mainly the core group of the, formed by seven singers, three leaders and five other instrumentalists. Additional players of the military band were available when needed, and also town musicians and singers of the gymnasium. Bach as the concertmaster probably led the performances as the first violinist, while the organ part was played by Bach's students such as Johann Martin Schubart and Johann Caspar Vogler. Even in settings like chamber music, Bach requested a strong continuo section with cello, bassoon and violone in addition to the keyboard instrument.
Monthly cantatas from 1714 to 1715
While Bach had composed vocal music only for special occasions until his promotion, the regular chance to compose and perform a new work resulted in a program into which Bach "threw himself wholeheartedly", as Christoph Wolff notes. In his first cantata of the series, Himmelskönig, sei willkommen, BWV 182, for the double feast of Palm Sunday and Annunciation, he showed his skill in an elaborate work in eight movements, for four vocal parts and at times ten-part instrumental writing, and presenting himself as a violin soloist.The following table of works performed by Bach as concertmaster between 1714 and the end of 1715 is based on tables by Wolff and Alfred Dürr. According to Dürr, O heilges Geist- und Wasserbad is the eleventh cantata composition of this period. The works contain arias and recitatives, as in contemporary opera, while earlier cantatas had concentrated on biblical text and chorale. Some works, such as Widerstehe doch der Sünde, BWV 54, may have been composed earlier.
| Date | Occasion | BWV | Incipit | Text source |
| Annunciation, | 182 | Himmelskönig, sei willkommen, BWV 182 | Franck? | |
| Jubilate | 12 | Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen, BWV 12 | Franck? | |
| Pentecost | 172 | Erschallet, ihr Lieder, erklinget, ihr Saiten! BWV 172 | Franck? | |
| Third Sunday after Trinity | 21 | Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis, BWV 21 | Franck? | |
| Seventh Sunday after Trinity | 54 | Widerstehe doch der Sünde, BWV 54 | Lehms | |
| Eleventh Sunday after Trinity | 199 | Mein Herze schwimmt im Blut, BWV 199 | Lehms | |
| First Sunday in Advent | 61 | Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, BWV 61 | Neumeister | |
| Sunday after Christmas | 152 | Tritt auf die Glaubensbahn, BWV 152 | Franck | |
| ? | Oculi | 80a | Alles, was von Gott geboren, BWV 80a | Franck |
| Easter | 31 | Der Himmel lacht! Die Erde jubilieret, BWV 31 | Franck | |
| Trinity | 165 | O heilges Geist- und Wasserbad | Franck | |
| Fourth Sunday after Trinity | 185 | Barmherziges Herze der ewigen Liebe, BWV 185 | Franck | |
| ? | 16th Sunday after Trinity | 161 | Komm, du süße Todesstunde, BWV 161 | Franck |
| 20th Sunday after Trinity | 162 | Ach! ich sehe, itzt, da ich zur Hochzeit gehe, BWV 162 | Franck | |
| 23rd Sunday after Trinity | 163 | Nur jedem das Seine, BWV 163 | Franck |
Topic and text
Trinity Sunday
Bach composed O heilges Geist- und Wasserbad for Trinity Sunday, the Sunday concluding the first half of the liturgical year. The prescribed readings for the day were from the Epistle to the Romans, "What depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God", and from the Gospel of John, the meeting of Jesus and Nicodemus.In Leipzig, Bach composed two more cantatas for the occasion which focused on different aspects of the readings, Höchsterwünschtes Freudenfest, BWV 194, first composed for the inauguration of church and organ in Störmthal on 2 November 1723, Es ist ein trotzig und verzagt Ding, BWV 176 and the chorale cantata Gelobet sei der Herr, mein Gott, BWV 129. Scholars debate if Bach performed on Trinity Sunday of 1724, which fell on 4 June, Höchsterwünschtes Freudenfest or O heilges Geist- und Wasserbad or both.
Cantata text
The libretto was written by the court poet, Salomon Franck, and published in Evangelisches Andachts-Opffer in 1715. The opening refers to Jesus' words in John 3:5: "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." The second movement, a recitative, reflects upon birth in the Spirit as baptism through God's grace: "". Movement 3, an aria for alto, considers that the bond has to be renewed throughout life, because it will be broken by man, reflected in movement 4. The last aria is a prayer for the insight that the death of Jesus brought salvation, termed "". The cantata concludes with the fifth stanza of Ludwig Helmbold's hymn of 1575, "", mentioning scripture, baptism and the Eucharist. Bach used the eighth and final stanza, "Erhalt uns in der Wahrheit", to conclude his cantata Gott der Herr ist Sonn und Schild, BWV 79.Salomon expresses his thought in Baroque style rich in imagery. The image of the serpent is used in several meanings: as the serpent which seduced Adam and Eve to sin in paradise, as the symbol which Moses erected in the desert, and related to the gospel's verse 14: "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up".
Performance and publication
Bach led the first performance of the cantata on 16 June 1715. The performance material for Weimar is lost. Bach performed the work again as Thomaskantor in Leipzig. Extant performance material was prepared by his assistant Johann Christian Köpping. The first possible revival is the Trinity Sunday of Bach's first year in office, 4 June 1724, also the conclusion of his first year and first Leipzig cantata cycle, because he had assumed the office on the first Sunday after Trinity the year before. Bach made presumably minor changes.The cantata was published in the Bach-Ausgabe, the first edition of Bach's complete works by the, in 1887 in volume 33, edited by Franz Wüllner. In the second edition of the complete works, the Neue Bach-Ausgabe, it appeared in 1967, edited by Dürr, with a Kritischer Bericht following in 1968.
Music
Scoring and structure
The title on the copy by Johann Christian Köpping is: "Concerto a 2 Violi:1 Viola. Fagotto Violoncello S.A.T.e Basso e Continuo / di Joh:Seb:Bach". The cantata in six movements is scored like chamber music for four vocal soloists, a four-part choir in the closing chorale, two violins, viola, bassoon, cello and basso continuo. The bassoon is called for, but has no independent part. The duration is given as about 15 minutes.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.