Komm, Du Süße Todesstunde, BWV 161

Johann Sebastian Bach composed the church cantata (Come, you sweet hour of death), 161, in Weimar for the 16th Sunday after Trinity, probably first performed on 27 September 1716.

Bach had taken up regular cantata composition two years before when he was promoted to concertmaster at the Weimar court, writing one cantata per month to be performed in the , the court chapel in the ducal ''Schloss''. The text of , and of most other cantatas written in Weimar, was provided by court poet Salomon Franck. He based it on the prescribed gospel reading about the young man from Nain. His text reflects on longing for death, seen as a transition to a life united with Jesus. The text includes as a closing chorale the fourth stanza of the hymn "" by Christoph Knoll.

The cantata in six movements opens with a sequence of alternating arias and recitatives leading to a chorus and a concluding chorale. The chorale tune, known as "", appears in the first movement, played by the organ, and musical motifs of the arias are derived from it, providing an overall formal unity to the composition. Bach scored the work for two vocal parts (alto and tenor), a four-part choir, and a Baroque chamber ensemble of recorders, strings and continuo. In the alto recitative (movement 4), accompanied by all instruments, Bach creates the images of sleep, of waking up, and of funeral bells, the latter in the recorders and pizzicato of the strings. Bach expanded the final measures of the recitative (''"so schlage doch"'') to a full length aria for tenor (''Ach, schlage doch bald, selge Stunde'') in the cantata ''Christus, der ist mein Leben'', BWV 95, which he composed in 1723 in Leipzig.

While the libretto was published in a collection in 1715, Bach probably did not perform it until 27 September 1716, due to a period of public mourning of six months in the Duchy of Weimar from August 1715. Bach revived the cantata when he was ''Thomaskantor'' in Leipzig, but not for his cantata cycles, which included three new works for the 16th Sunday after Trinity. He performed with minor changes between 1737 and 1746. He also assigned it to the occasion of Purification, a feast with a similar topic.

Background

Born in 1685, Bach established his reputation as an outstanding organist while in his teens. He moved to Weimar in 1708 to take up a position as court organist to the co-reigning dukes Wilhelm Ernst and Ernst August of Saxe-Weimar. He had already begun to compose cantatas at his previous posts at Arnstadt and Mühlhausen, and his reasons for moving included disappointment with the standard of singing at the churches where he had worked. He was appointed concertmaster of the Weimar court capelle on 2 March 1714. In that position, he assumed principal responsibility for composing new works. Specifically, he was tasked with providing cantatas for the ''Schlosskirche'' (palace church) on a monthly schedule, which would result in a complete annual cycle for the liturgical year within four years. While Bach had composed vocal music only for special occasions until his promotion, the chance to regularly compose and perform a new work resulted in a program into which Bach "threw himself wholeheartedly", as the Bach scholar Christoph Wolff notes.

Cantatas of 1716

The cantatas which were probably first performed in 1716 used texts by the Weimar court poet Salomon Franck, published in his collections (1715) and (1717). Fewer cantatas have survived from this period than from the years before; possibly some were lost, and possibly some proposed cantatas were never written, reflecting Bach's loss of interest.

From the start of the liturgical year on the first Sunday in Advent, Bach composed prolifically. He wrote works for three consecutive Sundays in Advent, prompted probably by the death of the Kapellmeister Johann Samuel Drese on 1 December 1716. When Bach's hope to become Drese's successor was not realized, he ceased to compose cantatas for the Weimar court.

These works were performed by Bach as concertmaster in 1716, according to Wolff and Alfred Dürr, an authority on Bach's cantatas:

Readings and text

Bach wrote for the 16th Sunday after Trinity. The prescribed readings for that Sunday were from the Epistle to the Ephesians, about the strengthening of faith in the congregation of Ephesus (), and from the Gospel of Luke, about the raising from the dead of the young man from Nain (). In Bach's time the story pointed at the resurrection of the dead, expressed in words of desire to die soon.

Franck's text was published in in 1715. He included as the closing chorale the fourth stanza of the hymn "" (1611) by Christoph Knoll. Franck wrote a libretto full of biblical references, including (in the first movement) "feeding on honey from the lion's mouth", based on . Dürr summarizes that Franck wrote "a deeply felt, personal confession of longing for Jesus". The Bach scholar Richard D. P. Jones notes that the cantata is "one of the most richly inspired of all Bach's Weimar cantatas", and sees the text as a part of the inspiration, with its "mystical longing for union with Christ".

Performances

Bach led the first performance, but its date has been debated. Dürr concluded initially (in the first edition of his book ''Die Kantaten von Johann Sebastian Bach'' of 1971) that the cantata was first performed on 6 October 1715, but this date fell in a period of public mourning in Weimar. In August 1715 the brother of Duke Ernst August died, only 18 years old, and the duke proclaimed six months of mourning in the Duchy of Weimar. Cantata performances were resumed sooner, with the 21st Sunday after Trinity on 10 November 1715. Now, the first performance of the work is generally accepted as the same occasion the following year, when the 16th Sunday after Trinity fell on 27 September 1716, by Wolff, the publisher Carus-Verlag, and Dürr in the revised and translated edition of 2006. Richard D. P. Jones notes in his book ''The Creative Development of Johann Sebastian Bach'' that "technical novelties" also suggest that the cantata was composed in 1716, according to a recent study.

In 1723, his first year as ''Thomaskantor'' in Leipzig, Bach composed a new cantata for the 16th Sunday after Trinity, . A year later he wrote a chorale cantata for his second cantata cycle, , and for his third cantata cycle there he composed . He revived in Leipzig, but only later, in a version dated sometime between 1737 and 1746, with minor changes to the scoring. He even performed it for a different liturgical occasion, the feast of the Purification of Mary on 2 February. The prescribed readings for the Purification included Simeon's canticle ''Nunc dimittis'' (), which with its line "now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace" has a similar theme.

Music

Structure and scoring

The cantata is structured in six movements: a series of alternating arias and recitatives leads to a chorus and a concluding chorale. As with several other cantatas based on words by Franck, it is scored for a small ensemble: alto soloist (A), tenor soloist (T), a four-part choir and a Baroque chamber ensemble of two recorders (Fl), two violins (Vl), viola (Va), organ (Org) and basso continuo (Bc). The title page reads simply: "Auf den sechzenden Sontag nach Trintatis" (For the sixteenth Sunday after Trinity). The duration is given as 19 minutes.

One structural element is the anticipation of the closing chorale in the first movement, where the chorale melody is used as a cantus firmus. Bach also used this approach to unify the structure in two other Weimar cantatas, , and . He later used the juxtaposition of a chorale cantus firmus against vocal music on a grand scale in his ''St Matthew Passion'', in both the opening chorus and the movement concluding Part I. The use of recorders in is reminiscent of the early cantata ''Actus tragicus'', .

At the Leipzig performances of the cantata, the first verse of the chorale was probably sung by a soprano, instead of using an instrumental rendition of the chorale tune in the first aria. The cantata was transposed from C major to E-flat major at Leipzig, where the recorders may have been replaced by transverse flutes.

In the following table of the movements, the scoring and keys are given for the version performed in Weimar in 1716. The keys and time signatures are taken from Dürr, using the C symbol for common time (4/4). The instruments are shown separately for winds and strings, while the continuo, playing throughout, is not shown.

Movements

A Phrygian chorale melody, well known as the melody of "", provides the musical theme of the cantata, appearing in movement one in both its original form and the alto line derived from it. The themes of the two other arias are taken from the same melody, providing formal unity. The same melody appears five times in chorales of Bach's ''St Matthew Passion''.

1

The opening aria for alto, "" ("Come, o sweet hour of death" or "Come, thou sweet hour of parting") is accompanied by the recorders. They move in the ritornello in parallel thirds and sixths. The organ serves not only as a bass instrument but supplies the chorale melody. In Weimar, Bach seems to have expected the congregation to know the words of the first stanza of Knoll's hymn.

Herzlich tut mich verlangen
Nach einem selgen End,
Weil ich hie bin umfangen
Mit Trübsal und Elend.
Ich hab Lust abzuscheiden
Von dieser bösen Welt,
Sehn mich nach himml'schen Freuden,
O Jesu, komm nur bald!

I yearn from my heart
for a peaceful end,
since here I am surrounded
by sorrow and wretchedness.
I wish to depart
from this evil world,
I long for heavenly joys,
O Jesus, come quickly!