Alles nur nach Gottes Willen, BWV 72
Alles nur nach Gottes Willen, 72, is a church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. He composed it in Leipzig in 1726 for the third Sunday after Epiphany and first performed it on 27 January 1726. It is part of his third cantata cycle and concluded the Christmas season. Bach later used the opening chorus for the Gloria of his Missa in G minor, BWV 235.
Bach composed the cantata in his third year as, setting a libretto which Salomon Franck, his librettist at the ducal court in Weimar, had published in 1715. It is structured in six movements, an opening chorus, two pairs of recitative and aria, and a closing chorale, taken from "", published by Albert, Duke of Prussia in 1547. The cantata is scored for three soloists, a four-part choir, and a Baroque instrumental ensemble of two oboes, strings and basso continuo.
History and text
Bach composed Alles nur nach Gottes Willen in his third year as Thomaskantor in Leipzig for the Third Sunday after Epiphany. The prescribed readings for the Sunday were taken from the Epistle to the Romans, rules for life, and from the Gospel of Matthew, the healing of a leper.The cantata text was written by Salomon Franck, who was Bach's librettist when they both worked for the ducal court in Weimar. Franck published it in Evangelisches Andachts-Opffer in 1715, whereas Bach composed the music much later. Ulrich Leisinger, who edited the work for Carus, argues that if Bach had already composed it in Weimar, he might have used it in his first year in Leipzig, but he wrote a new cantata for the occasion then, Herr, wie du willt, so schicks mit mir, BWV 73. Bach had turned to older texts for the complete Christmas and Epiphany season of 1725/26, beginning with Unser Mund sei voll Lachens, BWV 110, for Christmas Day to a text published by Georg Christian Lehms in 1711, and several more from the same collection. Ihr, die ihr euch von Christo nennet, BWV 164, is a comparable example of Bach turning to a text by Franck late.
The closing chorale "" was written by Albert, Duke of Prussia in 1547. The chorale theme by Claudin de Sermisy first appeared in print in the collection of secular songs Trente et quatre chansons in 1528. Bach had used the chorale before as the base for his chorale cantata Was mein Gott will, das g'scheh allzeit, BWV 111, composed for the same occasion in 1725.
Bach led the Thomanerchor in the cantata's first performance on 27 January 1726. He later used the opening chorus for the Gloria of his Missa in G minor, BWV 235.
Music
Scoring and structure
Bach structured the cantata in six movements. Bach scored the work for three vocal soloists, alto and bass ), a four-part choir, and a Baroque instrumental ensemble of two oboes, two violins, two obbligato violins, viola and basso continuo. The duration of the cantata is given as 20 minutes.In the following table of the movements, the scoring follows the Neue Bach-Ausgabe. The keys and time signatures are taken from Alfred Dürr, using the symbol for common time. The continuo, playing throughout, is not shown.
Movements
Although Franck had marked the first movement as an aria, Bach composed it as a chorus, opened by a ritornello dominated by runs of two measures in the violins, finally also in the continuo. The voices pick up the runs on the word "", soprano first, and imitate each other one measure after the other, resulting in a complex image of "all". A rather quiet middle section on the words "" in canonic imitation is accompanied by the orchestra, the following words "" are illustrated by runs as in the beginning, but starting in a low range by the bass. The first and last section end with the choir embedded in the ritornello.In his arrangement for the Gloria of the Missa, Bach dropped the first ritornello, adapted the words "" to the first section, "" to the middle section, and "" to the last section.
The first recitative begins as a secco, but develops to an arioso on the words "", which are repeated nine times with a different continuo line, culminating in "" the following line is again secco.
The following aria begins immediately with the voice, to ensure a connection between recitative and aria, then follows an unusual ritornello, a fugue with the two violins and the continuo.
In the second aria, more like a song and dance, the instruments play a ritornello and repeat it after a short sung passage: "". In the following main section the voice is embedded in the ritornello. The words of the middle section "" are sung in the minor mode. After the following ritornello the soloist repeats once more as a final statement, "".
The closing chorale is a four-part setting.
Manuscripts and publication
The manuscripts of the score are extant, held by the Berlin State Library, but its original title page is lost as well as a replacement that C. P. E. Bach made in 1750. Most original parts survived, also at the Berlin State Library, but a figured bass part is lost. Duplicate violin parts are held by the Berlin University of the Arts, and a figured bass part is kept by the Bach House Eisenach.The first critical edition of the cantata, edited by Wilhelm Rust, was published by the Bach Gesellschaft in 1870 as part of its complete edition of Bach's works. In the Neue Bach-Ausgabe, the second edition of Bach's works, the cantata was published in 1997, edited by Peter Wollny. Carus published a critical edition in German and English as part of its Stuttgarter Bach-Ausgaben in 1997, edited by Ulrich Leisinger. In the 21st century, Bach Digital published high-resolution facsimile images of the manuscript parts from the first quarter of the 18th century.