Erschallet, ihr Lieder, erklinget, ihr Saiten! BWV 172
Erschallet, ihr Lieder, erklinget, ihr Saiten!, , is a church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach, composed in Weimar for Pentecost Sunday in 1714. Bach led the first performance on 20 May 1714 in the Schlosskirche, the court chapel in the ducal Schloss. Erschallet, ihr Lieder is an early work in a genre to which he later contributed complete cantata cycles for all occasions of the liturgical year.
Bach was appointed Konzertmeister in Weimar in the spring of 1714, a position that called for the performance of a church cantata each month. He composed Erschallet, ihr Lieder as the third cantata in the series, to a text probably written by court poet Salomon Franck. The text reflects different aspects of the Holy Spirit. The librettist included a quotation from the day's prescribed Gospel reading in the only recitative, and for the closing chorale he used a stanza from Philipp Nicolai's hymn "Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern".
The work is in six movements, and scored for four vocal soloists, four-part choir, three trumpets, timpani, oboe, bassoon and a string orchestra of two violins, two violas, and basso continuo. The orchestra for the holiday occasion is festive compared to the two works previously composed in Weimar. The cantata opens with a chorus, followed by the recitative, in which words spoken by Jesus are sung by the bass as the vox Christi. A bass aria with trumpets addresses the Trinity, and a tenor aria then describes the Spirit that was present at the Creation. This is followed by an intimate duet of the Soul and the Spirit, to which an oboe plays the ornamented melody of Martin Luther's hymn "Komm, Heiliger Geist, Herre Gott" and a solo cello provides the bass line. The theme of intimacy between God and Man is developed further in the following chorale, after which Bach specified an unusual repeat of the opening chorus.
While Bach served as Thomaskantor – director of church music – in Leipzig from 1723, he performed the cantata several times, sometimes in a different key and with changes in the scoring. Musicologists agree that he loved the cantata's Gospel text, "If ye love me ...", and the Pentecost hymn used in the duet, setting both the text and the hymn several times. John Eliot Gardiner writes that Bach "particularly valued" this cantata. It contains features that he used again in later compositions of cantatas, oratorios and his masses, for example movements with three trumpets and timpani in a triple meter for festive occasions, and duets as a symbol of God and man.
Background
Bach is known as a prolific composer of cantatas. When he assumed the position as Thomaskantor in Leipzig in 1723, he began the project to write church cantatas for the occasions of the liturgical year – Sundays and feast days – a project that he pursued for three years.Bach was appointed organist and chamber musician in Weimar at the court of the co-reigning dukes in Saxe-Weimar, Wilhelm Ernst and his nephew Ernst August on 25 June 1708. He had composed sacred cantatas before, some during his tenure in Mühlhausen from 1706 to 1708. Most were written for special occasions and were based mainly on biblical texts and hymns. Examples include: Aus der Tiefen rufe ich, Herr, zu dir, BWV 131; the early chorale cantata Christ lag in Todes Banden, BWV 4 for Easter; Gott ist mein König, BWV 71, to celebrate the inauguration of the new city council on 4 February 1708; and the Actus Tragicus for a funeral.
In Weimar, Bach first concentrated on the organ, composing major works for the instrument, including the Orgelbüchlein, the Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565, and the Prelude and Fugue in E major, BWV 566. Christoph Wolff suggests that Bach may have studied musical material belonging to the,, and that he copied and studied works by Johann Philipp Krieger, Christoph Graupner, Georg Philipp Telemann, Marco Giuseppe Peranda and Johann David Heinichen in the period from 1711 to 1713. In early 1713 Bach composed his first cantatas in the new style that included recitatives and arias: the so-called Hunting Cantata, BWV 208, as a homage cantata for Christian, Duke of Saxe-Weissenfels, celebrated on 23 February, and possibly the church cantata for Sexagesima Gleichwie der Regen und Schnee vom Himmel fällt, BWV 18, on a text by Erdmann Neumeister.
In 1713, he was asked to apply for the position of music director of the in Halle, succeeding Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow. Zachow had taught the young George Frideric Handel, and composed many church cantatas in the new style, adopting recitatives and arias from the Italian opera. Bach was successful in his application for the position, but declined after Duke Wilhelm Ernst increased his salary and offered him a promotion.
Bach was promoted to on 2 March 1714, an honour that entailed performing a church cantata monthly in the : With the appointment, he received the title Konzertmeister and new privileges: Circumstances were favourable: Bach enjoyed a "congenial and intimate" space in the court chapel, called , and a professional group of musicians in the court capelle. He was inspired by a collaboration with the court poet Salomon Franck, who provided the texts for most of his church cantatas, capturing a "pure, straightforward theological message" in "elegant poetic language". The first two cantatas Bach composed in Weimar based on Franck's texts were Himmelskönig, sei willkommen, BWV 182, for Palm Sunday, which coincided with the Annunciation that year, and Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen, BWV 12 for Jubilate Sunday. One month after Erschallet, ihr Lieder, Bach performed Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis, BWV 21, on the third Sunday after Trinity, again on a text by Franck. Erschallet, ihr Lieder, the third cantata in this series, is the first cantata for a feast day.
Occasion and words
Erschallet, ihr Lieder is the third of the Weimar cantatas. It was the first composed for a feast day, Pentecost Sunday, Pentecost being a high holiday along with Christmas and Easter. The prescribed readings for the feast day are taken from the Acts of the Apostles, on the Holy Spirit, and from the Gospel of John, in which Jesus announces the Spirit who will teach, in his Farewell Discourse. As in many Bach cantatas, the libretto is compiled from Bible text, contemporary poetry and chorale. The poetry is attributed to Salomon Franck, although the verses are not included in his printed editions. Several of Bach's early stylistic mannerisms appear here, such as a biblical quotation in a recitative second movement rather than in a first choral movement, arias following each other without a recitative in between, and dialogue in a duet.Franck's text shows elements of early Pietism: the expression of extreme feelings, for example "O seligste Zeiten!" in the opening chorus, and a "mystical demeanour", for example in the duet of the Soul and the Spirit united. In the middle section of the first movement, Franck paraphrases the Gospel text, which says in verse 23 that God wants to dwell with man, to "". The words for the recitative are the quotation of verse 23 from the Gospel of John, "". Movement 3 addresses the Trinity and movement 4 the Spirit that was present at the Creation. Movement 5 is a duet of the Soul and the Spirit, underlined by an instrumental quote from Martin Luther's Pentecost hymn "", which is based on the Latin hymn "". Movement 6 is a chorale, verse four of Philipp Nicolai's hymn "". Nicolai's "" continues the theme of unity between Soul and Spirit.
Performances and theme
With Bach's appointment to concert master and his regular monthly cantata compositions, he achieved permission to hold rehearsals in the church, to ensure high performance standards: "the rehearsing of the pieces at the home has been changed, and it is ordered that it must always take place at the , and this is also to be observed by the ". The orchestra at his disposition consisted of the members of the court cappelle, three leaders, five singers and seven instrumentalists, augmented on demand by military musicians, town musicians and choristers from a gymnasium.Bach conducted the first performance of Erschallet, ihr Lieder on 20 May 1714. His son Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach remembered that he often conducted and played first violin: "he played the violin cleanly and penetratingly, and thus kept the orchestra in better order than he could have done with the harpsichord". The parts for the first performance are lost, but the score and performing material for later performances have survived. Bach performed the cantata again, possibly in Köthen between 1717 and 1722, and several times as in Leipzig. For the performance on 28 May 1724, he changed the instrumentation slightly and transposed the work from C major to D major. He reverted to C major for a performance on 13 May 1731. An organ part for a later performance of movement 5 is extant.
John Eliot Gardiner remarked that Bach "particularly valued" this cantata, and that it set "a pattern for his later approaches to the Pentecostal theme". Bach set the Gospel text of the recitative in a choral movement in other cantatas for Pentecost – Wer mich liebet, der wird mein Wort halten, BWV 59, and Wer mich liebet, der wird mein Wort halten, BWV 74.
Music
Scoring and structure
In the Weimar version, Bach scored the cantata four vocal soloists, alto, tenor and bass ), a four-part choir, and an orchestra of three trumpets, timpani, recorder or flauto traverso, oboe d'amore, two violins, two violas, bassoon, cello, and basso continuo. It is a festive, rich instrumentation for the holiday, whereas the previous two cantatas in Weimar had not employed brass instruments. Bach used the French string orchestra with two viola parts, as in most cantatas until 1715, when he started to prefer the Italian scoring with one viola. In Weimar, a recorder or flauto traverso doubled the first violin an octave higher; in the first Leipzig performance it was a flauto traverso. A part for obbligato organ replacing oboe and cello in movement 5 was adopted in an even later performance. The work is about 25 minutes long. In the Weimar version and the 1724 version, Bach requested a repeat of the opening chorus, by adding after the chorale.In the following table of the movements, the scoring follows the Weimar version of the Neue Bach-Ausgabe, and the abbreviations for voices and instruments the list of Bach cantatas. The keys are given for the Weimar version. The time signature is provided using the symbol for common time.