Wer sich selbst erhöhet, der soll erniedriget werden
(Whoever exalts himself, will be abased / KJV: For
whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased), BWV 47, is
a church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. He wrote the
cantata in his fourth year in Leipzig for the 17th
Sunday after Trinity. It is regarded as part of his
third annual cycle of cantatas. The prescribed readings
for the Sunday were from the Epistle to the Ephesians,
the admonition to keep the unity of the Spirit
(Ephesians 4:1–6), a...(+)
Wer sich selbst erhöhet, der soll erniedriget werden
(Whoever exalts himself, will be abased / KJV: For
whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased), BWV 47, is
a church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. He wrote the
cantata in his fourth year in Leipzig for the 17th
Sunday after Trinity. It is regarded as part of his
third annual cycle of cantatas. The prescribed readings
for the Sunday were from the Epistle to the Ephesians,
the admonition to keep the unity of the Spirit
(Ephesians 4:1–6), and from the Gospel of Luke,
healing a man with dropsy on the Sabbath (Luke
14:1–11). The poet Johann Friedrich Helbig
(1680–1722) was a court poet at the ducal court of
Saxe-Eisenach from 1718. He published an annual cycle
of cantatas in 1720, Aufmunterung der Andacht
(Encouragement of Devotion), which included this
cantata. It is the only cantata text of Helbig which
Bach composed. It is not known whether he knew the
publishing or rather a composition of Georg Philipp
Telemann, who composed several of Helbig's texts in
Eisenach. The poet takes the final line from the Gospel
as a starting point (movement 1) and then concentrates
on the warning of pride, leading to a prayer for
humility. The closing chorale is the eleventh and final
stanza of the hymn "Warum betrübst du dich, mein
Herz", which Bach had used in 1723 in his cantata Warum
betrübst du dich, mein Herz, BWV 138.
The opening chorus is the most elaborate of the five
movements. Bach used for the long ritornello music from
his organ prelude in C minor (BWV 546), transposed to G
minor. The oboes play a motif, rising in sequences,
which becomes a vocal theme of a fugue, illustrating
the haughty self-exaltation in the first half of the
Gospel text. A countersubject moves in the opposite
direction to illustrate the self-humiliation. The fugue
is concluded by a homophonic "summary". The sequence of
fugue and summary is repeated. Finally, the complete
ritornello is repeated like a da capo, but with the
voices additionally embedded, stating the complete text
once more in homophony.
The soprano aria was originally accompanied by an
obbligato organ, as was, three weeks later, the aria
Ich geh und suche mit Verlangen, BWV 49. In a later
performance of the cantata, Bach assigned the obbligato
part to a violin. The da capo aria depicts humility in
the first section, pride in the middle section, in
rough rhythm both in the voice as in the obbligato,
whereas the continuo plays the theme from the first
section to unify the movement. John Eliot Gardiner
describes the "harsh, stubborn broken chords" as
illustrating arrogance. The only recitative,
accompanied by the strings, is the central movement.
Gardiner observes that Bach's "autograph score shows,
for example, how he sharpened the rhythm of the word
"Teufelsbrut" (devil's brood) to make its impact more
abrupt and brutal." The second aria is in three parts,
but without a vocal da capo. Oboe and violin are equal
partners to the bass voice in a prayer for humility.
The closing chorale is set for four parts in utmost
humility.
The cantata in five movements is scored for two vocal
soloists (soprano and bass), a four-part choir, two
oboes, two violins, viola, organ obbligato and basso
continuo.
Source: Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wer_sich_selbst_erh%C3%B
6het,_der_soll_ern...).
I created this arrangement of the opening Chorus: "Wer
sich selbst erhöhet, der soll erniedriget werden"
(Whoever exalts himself, will be abased) for Winds
(Flute, Oboe, English Horn, Bb Clarinet, French Horn &
Bassoon) and Strings (2 Violins, Viola & Cello).
SHEET MUSIC