Jauchzet, frohlocket! Auf, preiset die Tage, BWV 248 I
Jauchzet, frohlocket! Auf, preiset die Tage, BWV 248I, is a 1734 Christmas cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach that serves as the first part of his Christmas Oratorio. Bach was then Thomaskantor, responsible for church music at four churches in Leipzig, a position he had assumed in 1723. For the oratorio, the libretto by an unknown author followed the nativity of Jesus from the Gospel of Luke, interspersed with reflecting texts for recitatives and arias, and stanzas from Lutheran hymns.
The cantata is structured in nine movements. An extended choral introduction is followed by two scenes, each a sequence of four movements. Both scenes are composed of a quotation from the Gospel of Luke, a recitative reflecting the narration, an aria-like prayer or meditation, and a chorale setting a stanza from a Lutheran hymn. Bach scored the cantata for three vocal soloists, a four-part choir and a festive Baroque orchestra with trumpets, timpani, flutes, oboes and strings. A tenor soloist narrates the Biblical story in secco recitative, as the Evangelist. There are two chorales: a four-part setting of Paul Gerhardt's "Wie soll ich dich empfangen" and a closing score with an independent orchestra set to text for a stanza from Martin Luther's "Vom Himmel hoch, da komm ich her".
The opening movement and the two arias rely on secular cantatas composed for members of the Dresden court. The opening and one aria are based on Tönet, ihr Pauken! Erschallet, Trompeten! BWV 214, BWV214, which he had composed for the birthday of Maria Josepha of Saxony on 8 December 1733. The other aria is based on Laßt uns sorgen, laßt uns wachen, BWV 213, written for the 11th birthday of Crown Prince Friedrich Christian the same year.
Bach led the first performances with the Thomanerchor at the two main churches of Leipzig on 25 December 1734 during morning and vespers services.
Background
Since his appointment as director musices in Leipzig in 1723, Bach had been presenting church cantatas for the Christmas season in the Thomaskirche and Nikolaikirche, including the following Christmas Day cantatas:- 1723: Christen, ätzet diesen Tag, BWV 63, originally composed in 1714 as part of Bach's Weimar cantata cycle and adopted in his first cantata cycle after its presentation in Leipzig during the 1723–24 Christmas season;
- 1724: Gelobet seist du, Jesu Christ, BWV 91, part of the chorale cantata cycle;
- 1725: Unser Mund sei voll Lachens, BWV 110, part of Bach's third cantata cycle;
- 1728 : Ehre sei Gott in der Höhe, BWV 197a, a partly lost cantata of the Picander cycle of 1728–29.
Dresden court
In 1733, Augustus III of Poland, the Elector of Saxony succeeded his father, Augustus the Strong, as Elector of Saxony and took residence in Dresden. Bach hoped to become court composer, and dedicated Missa of 1733 to Augustus.One of Bach's secular cantatas, Laßt uns sorgen, laßt uns wachen, BWV 213, also known as Hercules am Scheidewege, on a libretto by Picander, was performed on, the 11th birthday of the son of the elector. He wrote a further cantata for the elector's wife, Maria Josepha, to honour her 34th birthday on 8 December: Tönet, ihr Pauken! Erschallet, Trompeten! BWV 214. It is also known as "Glückwunschkantate zum Geburtstage der Königin", although Maria Josepha was not crowned Queen of Poland until January 1734.
Three extended movements of are based on music from these two cantatas: the opening chorus follows the opening of Tönet, ihr Pauken!, and the alto and bass arias are derived from Laßt uns sorgen and Tönet, ihr Pauken!, respectively.
Readings and text
Bach composed Jauchzet, frohlocket! in 1734. The cantata forms Part I of his Christmas Oratorio, which was performed on six occasions during Christmas time, beginning with Part I on Christmas Day. The prescribed readings for the feast day were one from the Epistle to Titus, "God's mercy appeared", or Isaiah, "Unto us a child is born", and a second from the Gospel of Luke describing the nativity, annunciation to the shepherds and angels' song. The identity of the librettist is unknown; he may have been Picander, an earlier collaborator. After the opening chorus, the story is told following the Gospel of Luke, interspersed with reflecting recitatives, arias and chorales. Part I describes the nativity of Jesus until the child is born.The work is structured in nine movements. The text of the opening chorus is a free paraphrase of the beginning of Psalm 100. The chorus is followed by two groups of four movements each, following the pattern: reading / recitative / aria / chorale. Alfred Dürr notes that the theologian August Hermann Francke and others had recommended three steps when reading the Bible: reading / meditation / prayer, and sees a similar approach, with the chorale comparing to the amen confirming the prayer.
The tenor soloist narrates from Martin Luther's translation of the Bible in recitative as the Evangelist. The choir sings two chorales, a four-part setting of Paul Gerhardt's "Wie soll ich dich empfangen" and a setting for choir and independent orchestra of the 13th stanza from Martin Luther's "Vom Himmel hoch, da komm ich her", to close the cantata. In the seventh movement, a recitative is combined with the sixth stanza of Luther's hymn "Gelobet seist du, Jesu Christ".
First performance
Bach led the first performance during a morning rendition at the Nikolaikirche in 1734. The libretto was printed and bears the title of the oratorio, Oratorium, welches die Heilige Weyhnacht über in beyden Haupt-Kirchen zu Leipzig musiciret wurde. Anno 1734. The title for Jauchzet! frohlocket! reads: "Am 1sten Heil. Weynachts-Feyertage. Frühe zu St. Nicolai, und Nachmittage zu St. Thomas".Music
Scoring and structure
Bach structured the cantata in nine movements, beginning with an extended chorus. The other eight movements contain a Gospel reading in a tenor secco recitative, a meditative, accompanied recitative, a prayer-like aria, and an affirming chorale. It features three vocal soloists, a four-part choir and a Baroque instrumental ensemble of three trumpets, timpani, two traversos, two oboes, two oboes d'amore, two violins, viola and basso continuo. A typical performance lasts 29 minutes.The following scoring adheres to the Neue Bach-Ausgabe. The keys and time signatures are taken from Dürr and use the symbol for common time. The continuo, played throughout, is not shown.
Movements
1
The text of the opening chorus is "Jauchzet, frohlocket! Auf, preiset die Tage", translated by Richard D. P. Jones as "Shout for joy, exult, rise up, praise the day!" and by Pamela Dellal as "Celebrate, rejoice, rise up and praise these days". It is an extended complex ternary form. Unusually for Bach's music, it opens with the timpani alone. The trumpets then enter, followed by strings and woodwinds. This sequence follows the secular model Tönet, ihr Pauken, where the text asks the instruments to enter in this order: "Tönet, ihr Pauken! Erschallet, Trompeten! Klingende Saiten, erfüllet die Luft! Singet itzt Lieder, ihr muntren Poeten,". The extended instrumental ritornello presents the musical material of the whole movement in changing instrumental colours. The first measures explore the D major triad in different colours of instrumental sounds.The voices enter in unison, imitating at first timpani then trumpets. In the following section, the vocal lines are mostly homophonic and sometimes imitative, while the instrumental forces drive the movement. With the text "Lasset das Zagen, verbannet die Klage", the voices, now in imitation, dominate while the instruments accompany. The second section is a modified repetition of the first.
The middle section also comprises two passages. "Dienet dem Höchsten mit herrlichen Chören" is an imitative section in B minor, accompanied only by the strings. "Laßt uns den Namen des Herrschers verehren!" is set mostly in homophony with strings and woodwinds. After the middle section, the beginning A is repeated in full.
The musicologist Markus Rathey notes that in the secular model, Tönet, ihr Pauken, Bach had not initially thought of beginning with the timpani alone, but arrived at the present version in a later revision. Rathey suggests that Bach sought a more dramatic way to begin with reduced force and let the music increase, in keeping with his endeavor to transfer operatic features from Dresden to Leipzig. Rathey observes that listeners at the time may have interpreted the dominant trumpets as royal instruments, here three trumpets and timpani, corresponding to the obbligato trumpet in the aria "Großer Herr und starker König", which addresses the newborn as both king and saviour.