Bach wrote four cantatas for Pentecost, and also five for Whit Monday and Whit Tuesday. I listened to these over the weekend (CDs 23 and 24 of the set). The CD photo for Whit Monday is of a girl in Jaipur India, and the other photo is of a child in Ghazni Afghanistan.
The Whit Monday cantatas are “Erhohtes Fleisch und Blut” (BWV 173, “Exalted flesh and blood”), “Also hat Gott die Welt geliebt” (BWV 68, “God so loved the world”), and “Ich liebe den Hochsten von ganzem Gemute” (BWV 174, “I love the Almighty with all my heart”). Conductor John Eliot Gardiner describes ways that BWV 173 was transformed from earlier music written for a former employer, Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Köthen. The happy dance music of some of the earlier music becomes music for the granting of the Spirit of God to the Gentiles and the love of God who gives his blessings to us.
A sanctified soul
sees and tastes the goodness of the Lord.
Praise, sing, tune your strings,
to propagate God’s goodness!
BWV 68 has a text by a writer Bach turned to on other occasions, Christiane Mariane von Ziegler. Although the title is from the happy John 3:16, Ziegler's text continues with John 3:18 and “the chilling choice between salvation or judgement in the present life,” as Gardiner writes. “The second day of Pentecost may have been a time of rejoicing... but in postulating this bald division of the world into believers and sceptics, Bach left the congregation with food for thought.”
Bach makes use of the first movement of Brandenburg Concerto #3 (BWV 1048) as prelude for BWV 174, apparently (according to Gardiner) to make use of good instrumentalists available for the original occasion and giving the Whit Monday a wonderful celebration.
I love the Almighty with all my heart,
He loves me also exceedingly.
God alone
shall be the soul’s treasure,
where I have the eternal source of goodness....
And even if my heart should break,
you are still my trust,
my salvation and my heart’s comfort,
who hath redeemed me through His blood.
For the Whit Tuesday performance, Gardiner augments the two surviving cantatas with that same concerto. He comments that the three violins, three violas, and three cellos of the concerto provides a trinitarian association that Bach perhaps didn’t realize when he wrote the piece.
In the cantata “Erwünschtes Freudenlicht” (BWV 184, “Longed-for light of joy”), Bach (and his unknown librettist) combined images of the Good Shepherd in John 10 with the granting of the Holy Spirit in Samaria in Acts 8. We gain a vision of Christ’s eternal presence for us with an overall pastoral beauty.
Good shepherd, comfort of Thy people,
grant us only Thy life-giving word!
Let Thy gracious countenance shine brightly,
remain our God and refuge,
who through almighty hands
shall guide our steps to life!
The title of the other Whit Tuesday cantata, “Er rufet seinen Schafen mit Namen” (BWV 175, “He calleth His own sheep by name”) alerts us that the music will also have a bucolic atmosphere. But we also experience the unhappiness of the “sheep” when the Shepherd seems to be missing.
Where can I find Thee?
Ah, where are Thou hidden?
O, show Thyself soon to me!
I long for Thee.
Dawn, O long-awaited morning!
In the notes for Whit Monday, Gardiner comments that Bach re-used some of his own previous works for later cantatas---not always, but he did so with these pieces. "Secular" music written earlier for the rulers of Weimar (the Margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt) and Köthen became used for church cantatas. Some scholars have fussed about this, but for Gardiner, it was a way that "Bach could express homage to a prince and homage to God in essentially the same way. Music – his music – was there to bridge the divide between worldly and divine glory."
A few years ago I listened to an interview with The Who's Peter Townshend, who said he was intrigued with the idea that the meaning of life could be expressed by a musical note. I thought of that again in this context: the meaningful bridge between divine and secular sovereignty is…. music.
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