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Johann Sebastian Bach composed the
church cantata A church cantata or sacred cantata is a cantata intended to be performed during Christian liturgy. The genre was particularly popular in 18th-century Lutheran Germany, with many composers writing an extensive output: Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel, ...
(The miserable shall eat), 75, in Leipzig for the first Sunday after Trinity and first performed it on 30 May 1723. The complex work in two parts of seven
movement Movement may refer to: Common uses * Movement (clockwork), the internal mechanism of a timepiece * Motion, commonly referred to as movement Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * "Movement" (short story), a short story by Nancy Fu ...
s 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'' 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 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 In poetry, a stanza (; from Italian language, Italian ''stanza'' , "room") is a group of lines within a poem, usually set off from others by a blank line or Indentation (typesetting), indentation. Stanzas can have regular rhyme scheme, rhyme and ...
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 "".


Background

Johann Sebastian Bach had served in several churches as and organist, and at the courts of Weimar and Köthen, when he applied for the post of in Leipzig. 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, 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 The liturgical year, also called the church year, Christian year or kalendar, consists of the cycle of liturgical seasons in Christian churches that determines when feast days, including celebrations of saints, are to be observed, and whi ...
, termed by Christoph Wolff "an artistic undertaking on the largest scale". The prescribed readings for the Sunday were from the First Epistle of John, "God is Love" (), and from the Gospel of Luke, the parable of the Rich man and Lazarus (). An unknown poet begins the cantata with a verse from a psalm, (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 The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The ...
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
movement Movement may refer to: Common uses * Movement (clockwork), the internal mechanism of a timepiece * Motion, commonly referred to as movement Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * "Movement" (short story), a short story by Nancy Fu ...
s, 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 In poetry, a stanza (; from Italian language, Italian ''stanza'' , "room") is a group of lines within a poem, usually set off from others by a blank line or Indentation (typesetting), indentation. Stanzas can have regular rhyme scheme, rhyme and ...
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 "", 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 A soprano () is a type of classical female singing voice and has the highest vocal range of all voice types. The soprano's vocal range (using scientific pitch notation) is from approximately middle C (C4) = 261  Hz to "high A" (A5) = 880&n ...
(S),
alto The musical term alto, meaning "high" in Italian (Latin: ''altus''), historically refers to the contrapuntal part higher than the tenor and its associated vocal range. In 4-part voice leading alto is the second-highest part, sung in choruses by ...
(A), tenor (T) and
bass Bass or Basses may refer to: Fish * Bass (fish), various saltwater and freshwater species Music * Bass (sound), describing low-frequency sound or one of several instruments in the bass range: ** Bass (instrument), including: ** Acoustic bass gui ...
(B)), a four-part choir SATB, trumpet (Tr), two oboes (Ob),
oboe d'amore The oboe d'amore (; Italian for "oboe of love"), less commonly , is a double reed woodwind musical instrument in the oboe family. Slightly larger than the oboe, it has a less assertive and a more tranquil and serene tone, and is considered the me ...
(Oa), two violins (Vl), viola (Va), and
basso continuo Basso continuo parts, almost universal in the Baroque era (1600–1750), provided the harmonic structure of the music by supplying a bassline and a chord progression. The phrase is often shortened to continuo, and the instrumentalists playing th ...
(Bc) including
bassoon The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family, which plays in the tenor and bass ranges. It is composed of six pieces, and is usually made of wood. It is known for its distinctive tone color, wide range, versatility, and virtuo ...
. The two parts of seven movements each are composed as the same arrangement of alternating recitatives and arias with a concluding chorale, only Part II is opened by a sinfonia 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 Wo ...
. The
keys Key or The Key may refer to: Common meanings * Key (cryptography), a piece of information that controls the operation of a cryptography algorithm * Key (lock), device used to control access to places or facilities restricted by a lock * Key (map ...
and time signatures are taken from Alfred Dürr, 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 f ...
, with a slow first section in dotted rhythm and a fast
fugue In music, a fugue () is a contrapuntal compositional technique in two or more voices, built on a subject (a musical theme) that is introduced at the beginning in imitation (repetition at different pitches) and which recurs frequently in the c ...
. He chose the same form one year later to begin his second annual cycle of chorale cantatas with . The composition can also be seen as a prelude and fugue on a large scale. The
prelude Prelude may refer to: Music *Prelude (music), a musical form *Prelude (band), an English-based folk band *Prelude Records (record label), a former New York-based dance independent record label *Chorale prelude, a short liturgical composition for ...
is again in two sections separated by a short interlude, in the way of a
motet In Western classical music, a motet is mainly a vocal musical composition, of highly diverse form and style, from high medieval music to the present. The motet was one of the pre-eminent polyphonic forms of Renaissance music. According to Margar ...
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 Subject ( la, subiectus "lying beneath") may refer to: Philosophy *''Hypokeimenon'', or ''subiectum'', in metaphysics, the "internal", non-objective being of a thing **Subject (philosophy), a being that has subjective experiences, subjective cons ...
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 Suite may refer to: Arts and entertainment *Suite (music), a set of musical pieces considered as one composition ** Suite (Bach), a list of suites composed by J. S. Bach ** Suite (Cassadó), a mid-1920s composition by Gaspar Cassadó ** ''Suite' ...
of French dance movements, the tenor a Polonaise, the soprano aria a Minuet, the alto aria a Passepied and the bass aria a Gigue. 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 on the same chorale melody. The tune is played by the trumpet which was silent throughout Part I, as the cantus firmus against a
polyphonic Polyphony ( ) is a type of musical texture consisting of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody, as opposed to a musical texture with just one voice, monophony, or a texture with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords, h ...
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 Historically informed performance (also referred to as period performance, authentic performance, or HIP) is an approach to the performance of Western classical music, classical music, which aims to be faithful to the approach, manner and style of ...
are marked by green background.


References


Sources

*
Die Elenden sollen essen, BWV 75; BC A 94 / Sacred cantata (1st Sunday after Trinity)
Bach Digital
BWV 75 Die Elenden sollen essen
English translation, University of Vermont
BWV 75 Die Elenden sollen essen
text, scoring, University of Alberta * Brian Robins
Cantata No. 75, "Die Elenden sollen essen," BWV 75
Allmusic * Luke Dahn
BWV 75.7=75.14
bach-chorales.com


External links


Die Elenden sollen essen, BWV 75
performance by the Netherlands Bach Society (video and background information) {{DEFAULTSORT:Elenden Sollen Essen, Die Church cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach Psalm-related compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach 1723 compositions