Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the '' Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard wo ...
composed the
church cantata (The miserable shall eat),
75, in
Leipzig
Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...
for the first Sunday after
Trinity
The Christian doctrine of the Trinity (, from 'threefold') is the central dogma concerning the nature of God in most Christian churches, which defines one God existing in three coequal, coeternal, consubstantial divine persons: God th ...
and first performed it on 30 May 1723. The complex work in two parts of seven
movements each marks the beginning of his
first annual cycle of cantatas.
Bach
composed the cantata at a decisive turning point in his career. After various positions in churches and courts, he assumed his post of ''
Thomaskantor
(Cantor at St. Thomas) is the common name for the musical director of the , now an internationally known boys' choir founded in Leipzig in 1212. The official historic title of the Thomaskantor in Latin, ', describes the two functions of cantor a ...
'' in Leipzig on the first Sunday after Trinity, performing this cantata. He began the ambitious project of composing a new cantata for every occasion of the liturgical year.
The work is structured in an unusual layout of 14 movements in two symmetrical parts, to be performed before and after the sermon. The unknown poet begins his text with a quotation from
Psalm 22
Psalm 22 of the Book of Psalms (the hind of the dawn) or My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? is a psalm in the Bible.
The Book of Psalms is part of the third section of the Hebrew Bible, and a book of the Christian Old Testament. In the ...
and departs from its ideas on wealth and poverty, rich and poor, and illustrates the contrasts. The focus of the second part is on being poor or rich in spirit. Both parts are concluded by a
stanza of
Samuel Rodigast
Samuel Rodigast (19 October 1649 – 19 March 1708) was a German teacher and hymnwriter. He is remembered as the author of the hymn "Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan".
Life
Rodigast was born in Gröben near Jena. After attending the Gymnasium in ...
's
hymn
A hymn is a type of song, and partially synonymous with devotional song, specifically written for the purpose of adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity or deities, or to a prominent figure or personification. The word ''hy ...
"".
Background
Johann Sebastian Bach had served in several churches as and
organist
An organist is a musician who plays any type of organ. An organist may play solo organ works, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers or instrumental soloists. In addition, an organist may accompany congregational h ...
, and at the courts of
Weimar
Weimar is a city in the state of Thuringia, Germany. It is located in Central Germany between Erfurt in the west and Jena in the east, approximately southwest of Leipzig, north of Nuremberg and west of Dresden. Together with the neighbouri ...
and
Köthen, when he applied for the post of in
Leipzig
Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...
. He was 38 years old and had a reputation as an organist and organ expert.
He had composed church cantatas, notably the funeral cantata around 1708. In Weimar, he had begun a project to cover all occasions of the liturgical year by providing one cantata a month for four years, including works such as , and .
History and words
Bach composed the cantata for the
First Sunday after Trinity and first performed it in the service in the on 30 May 1723, to take up his position as .
From then he was responsible for the education of the
Thomanerchor
The Thomanerchor (English: St. Thomas Choir of Leipzig) is a boys' choir in Leipzig, Germany. The choir was founded in 1212. The choir comprises about 90 boys from 9 to 18 years of age. The members, called ''Thomaner'', reside in a boarding sch ...
, performances in the regular services in the , the , and .
He started a project of composing one cantata for each Sunday and holiday of the
liturgical year,
termed by
Christoph Wolff
Christoph Wolff (born 24 May 1940) is a German musicologist. He is best known for his works on the music, life, and period of Johann Sebastian Bach. Christoph Wolff is an emeritus professor of Harvard University, and was part of the faculty sinc ...
"an artistic undertaking on the largest scale".
The prescribed readings for the Sunday were from the
First Epistle of John
The First Epistle of John is the first of the Johannine epistles of the New Testament, and the fourth of the catholic epistles. There is no scholarly consensus as to the authorship of the Johannine works. The author of the First Epistle is ter ...
, "God is Love"
(), and from the
Gospel of Luke
The Gospel of Luke), or simply Luke (which is also its most common form of abbreviation). tells of the origins, birth, ministry, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ. Together with the Acts of the Apostles, it makes up a two-vol ...
, the parable of the
Rich man and Lazarus
The rich man and Lazarus (also called the parable of Dives and Lazarus or Lazarus and Dives) is a parable of Jesus from the 16th chapter of the Gospel of Luke. Speaking to his disciples and some Pharisees, Jesus tells of an unnamed rich man a ...
(). An unknown poet begins the cantata with a verse from a
psalm
The Book of Psalms ( or ; he, תְּהִלִּים, , lit. "praises"), also known as the Psalms, or the Psalter, is the first book of the ("Writings"), the third section of the Tanakh, and a book of the Old Testament. The title is derived f ...
, (verse 27 in the Luther Bible), "The meek shall eat and be satisfied: they shall praise the Lord that seek him: your heart shall live for ever", connecting the gospel to the
Old Testament as a starting point.
The later cantata for the same occasion, (Break your bread for the hungry), begins similarly with a quotation from the Old Testament. The poet expands on the contrast of "" (wealth and poverty, rich and poor) in fourteen elaborate
movements, arranged in two parts to be performed before and after the sermon. The poet expands the contrast of "" (wealth and poverty, rich and poor) Both parts are concluded by a
stanza of
Samuel Rodigast
Samuel Rodigast (19 October 1649 – 19 March 1708) was a German teacher and hymnwriter. He is remembered as the author of the hymn "Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan".
Life
Rodigast was born in Gröben near Jena. After attending the Gymnasium in ...
's
hymn
A hymn is a type of song, and partially synonymous with devotional song, specifically written for the purpose of adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity or deities, or to a prominent figure or personification. The word ''hy ...
"", stanza 2 in movement 7, stanza 6 in movement 14.
The autograph score is written neatly on non-Leipzig paper, probably while Bach still lived in
Köthen.
A Leipzig chronicle, "", reported the social event: "" (... performed ... with good applause his first music).
"Good applause" means "great approval"
rather than clapping of hands.
A different translation renders the note as "... the new Cantor and Director of the Collegium Musicum, Herr Johann Sebastian Bach, who has come hither from the Prince's court of Cöthen, produced his first music here with great success."
Music
Structure and scoring
The cantata is structured in two parts of seven movements each, to be performed before and after the sermon. It is scored for four vocal soloists (
soprano (S),
alto (A),
tenor
A tenor is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. The tenor's vocal range extends up to C5. The low extreme for tenors is wide ...
(T) and
bass (B)), a
four-part choir SATB,
trumpet
The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...
(Tr), two
oboe
The oboe ( ) is a type of double reed woodwind instrument. Oboes are usually made of wood, but may also be made of synthetic materials, such as plastic, resin, or hybrid composites. The most common oboe plays in the treble or soprano range.
...
s (Ob),
oboe d'amore (Oa), two
violin
The violin, sometimes known as a '' fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone ( string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument ( soprano) in the family in regu ...
s (Vl),
viola
; german: Bratsche
, alt=Viola shown from the front and the side
, image=Bratsche.jpg
, caption=
, background=string
, hornbostel_sachs=321.322-71
, hornbostel_sachs_desc=Composite chordophone sounded by a bow
, range=
, related=
*Violin family ...
(Va), and
basso continuo (Bc) including
bassoon.
The two parts of seven movements each are composed as the same arrangement of alternating
recitative
Recitative (, also known by its Italian name "''recitativo''" ()) is a style of delivery (much used in operas, oratorios, and cantatas) in which a singer is allowed to adopt the rhythms and delivery of ordinary speech. Recitative does not repeat ...
s and
aria
In music, an aria ( Italian: ; plural: ''arie'' , or ''arias'' in common usage, diminutive form arietta , plural ariette, or in English simply air) is a self-contained piece for one voice, with or without instrumental or orchestral accompa ...
s with a concluding chorale, only Part II is opened by a
sinfonia
Sinfonia (; plural ''sinfonie'') is the Italian word for symphony, from the Latin ''symphonia'', in turn derived from Ancient Greek συμφωνία ''symphōnia'' (agreement or concord of sound), from the prefix σύν (together) and ϕωνή (sou ...
instead of a chorus.
The duration is given as 35 minutes.
In the following table of the movements, the scoring follows the
Neue Bach-Ausgabe
The New Bach Edition (NBE) (german: Neue Bach-Ausgabe; NBA), is the second complete edition of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, published by Bärenreiter. The name is short for Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750): New Edition of the Complete W ...
. The
keys and
time signature
The time signature (also known as meter signature, metre signature, or measure signature) is a notational convention used in Western musical notation to specify how many beats (pulses) are contained in each measure (bar), and which note va ...
s are taken from
Alfred Dürr
Alfred Dürr (3 March 1918 – 7 April 2011) was a German musicologist. He was a principal editor of the Neue Bach-Ausgabe, the second edition of the complete works of Johann Sebastian Bach.
Professional career
Dürr studied musicology and Clas ...
, using the symbol for common time (4/4).
The instruments are shown separately for winds and strings, while the continuo, playing throughout, is not shown.
Movements
Bach marked the occasion, creating the opening chorus reminiscent of a
French overture
The French overture is a musical form widely used in the Baroque period. Its basic formal division is into two parts, which are usually enclosed by double bars and repeat signs. They are complementary in style (slow in dotted rhythms and fast in ...
, with a slow first section in dotted rhythm and a fast
fugue. He chose the same form one year later to begin his second annual cycle of
chorale cantata A chorale cantata is a church cantata based on a chorale—in this context a Lutheran chorale. It is principally from the German Baroque era. The organizing principle is the words and music of a Lutheran hymn. Usually a chorale cantata includes m ...
s with . The composition can also be seen as a
prelude and fugue
{{Unreferenced, date=June 2019, bot=noref (GreenC bot)
The prelude and fugue is a musical form generally consisting of two movements in the same key for solo keyboard. In classical music, the combination of prelude and fugue is one with a long his ...
on a large scale. The
prelude is again in two sections separated by a short interlude, in the way of a
motet according to the different ideas of the text. In the fugue on the words "Euer Herz soll ewiglich leben" (your heart shall live for ever),
the
subject is developed three times, again separated by interludes.
Four of the recitatives are "secco", accompanied only by the continuo, but the first one of each part is "accompagnato", brightened by the strings.
In the arias, the voice and the instruments mostly share the themes. The arias can be considered as a
suite of French dance movements, the tenor a
Polonaise
The polonaise (, ; pl, polonez ) is a dance of Polish origin, one of the five Polish national dances in time. Its name is French for "Polish" adjective feminine/"Polish woman"/"girl". The original Polish name of the dance is Chodzony, meani ...
, the soprano aria a
Minuet
A minuet (; also spelled menuet) is a social dance of French origin for two people, usually in time. The English word was adapted from the Italian ''minuetto'' and the French ''menuet''.
The term also describes the musical form that accomp ...
, the alto aria a
Passepied
The passepied (, "pass-foot", from a characteristic dance step) is a French court dance. Originating as a kind of Breton branle, it was adapted to courtly use in the 16th century and is found frequently in 18th-century French opera and ballet ...
and the bass aria a
Gigue
The gigue (; ) or giga () is a lively baroque dance originating from the English jig. It was imported into France in the mid-17th centuryBellingham, Jane"gigue."''The Oxford Companion to Music''. Ed. Alison Latham. Oxford Music Online. 6 July 20 ...
.
In the last aria, the trumpet opens the setting and then accompanies the bass in virtuoso figuration, adding splendour to the words "" (My heart believes and loves).
The music of the two stanzas of the chorale
is identical. The tune is not a simple four-part setting as in most of Bach's later cantatas, but the voices are embedded in a concerto of the orchestra, led by violin I and oboe I.
The instrumental theme is derived from the first line of the chorale tune.
The sinfonia beginning Part II, rare in Bach's cantatas, is especially remarkable because it is a
chorale fantasia
Chorale fantasia is a type of large composition based on a chorale melody, both works for organ, and vocal settings, for example the opening movements of Bach's chorale cantatas, with the chorale melody as a cantus firmus.
History
Chorale fantas ...
on the same chorale melody.
The tune is played by the trumpet which was silent throughout Part I, as the
cantus firmus
In music, a ''cantus firmus'' ("fixed melody") is a pre-existing melody forming the basis of a polyphonic composition.
The plural of this Latin term is , although the corrupt form ''canti firmi'' (resulting from the grammatically incorrect tre ...
against a
polyphonic string setting, emphasizing once more "Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan" (What God does is well done).
Recordings
The entries of the following table are taken from the list of recordings is provided by Bach Cantatas Website.
Ensembles playing on period instruments in
historically informed performance are marked by green background.
References
Sources
*
Die Elenden sollen essen, BWV 75; BC A 94 / Sacred cantata (1st Sunday after Trinity)Bach Digital
Bach Digital (German: ), developed by the Bach Archive in Leipzig, is an online database which gives access to information on compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach and members of his family. Early manuscripts of such compositions are a major foc ...
BWV 75 Die Elenden sollen essenEnglish translation,
University of Vermont
The University of Vermont (UVM), officially the University of Vermont and State Agricultural College, is a public land-grant research university in Burlington, Vermont. It was founded in 1791 and is among the oldest universities in the United ...
BWV 75 Die Elenden sollen essentext, scoring,
University of Alberta
The University of Alberta, also known as U of A or UAlberta, is a Public university, public research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It was founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford,"A Gentleman of Strathcona – Alexande ...
* Brian Robins
Cantata No. 75, "Die Elenden sollen essen," BWV 75Allmusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databa ...
* Luke Dahn
BWV 75.7=75.14bach-chorales.com
External links
Die Elenden sollen essen, BWV 75 performance by the
Netherlands Bach Society
The Netherlands Bach Society ( nl, Nederlandse Bachvereniging) is the oldest ensemble for Baroque music in the Netherlands, and possibly in the world. The ensemble was founded in 1921 in Naarden to perform Bach's ''St Matthew Passion'' on Good Frid ...
(video and background information)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Elenden Sollen Essen, Die
Church cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach
Psalm-related compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach
1723 compositions