Ich lebe, mein Herze, zu deinem Ergötzen (I live, my
heart, for your delight), BWV 145, is a church cantata
for Easter by Johann Sebastian Bach. He composed it in
Leipzig and likely first performed it in 1729.
The cantata is extant only in a later copy. The text of
five movements for the Third Day of Easter ("den
dritten Osterfesttag") was published in Picander's
annual volume of cantatas of 1728, therefore a first
performance on 19 April 1729 seems likely.
The prescribed readings for the feast day were from the
Acts of the Apostles, the sermon of Paul in Antiochia
(Acts 13:26–33), and from the Gospel of Luke, the
appearance of Jesus to the Apostles in Jerusalem (Luke
24:36–47). The five movements on Picander's text seem
rather short for the purpose, therefore Alfred Dürr
suggests that Bach might have added a sinfonia, as in
two cantatas of the period, BWV 174 and BWV 188,
admitting that there is no source to substantiate it.
Instead, in the copy the five Picander movement are
preceded by two movements, a four-part of the first
stanza of Caspar Neumann's chorale "Auf, mein Herz, des
Herren Tag" (ca. 1700), and then the first movement
from a cantata by Georg Philipp Telemann, "So du mit
deinem Munde bekennest Jesum", a paraphrase of Romans
10:9. The beginning of the latter is the title of the
copy. The two movements may have been added after
Bach's death to make the cantata fit to be performed on
Easter Sunday. Picander did not refer to the specific
readings for the Third Day of Easter in his text.
According to Klaus Hofmann, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
expanded the cantata by the two additional movements in
Hamburg (after 1768) and set the first movement
himself. According to Christoph Wolff, the cantata may
have been compiled by Carl Friedrich Zelter for the
Sing-Akademie zu Berlin. The closing chorale is the
fourteenth and final stanza of Nikolaus Herman's Easter
hymn "Erschienen ist der herrlich Tag".
The first added movement is a four-part setting of the
chorale stanza. The Telemann movement is in two parts,
a duet and a choral fugue, with strings and instruments
colla parte and a partly independent trumpet. In
Telemann's cantata, it was preceded by an instrumental
introduction on the same theme.
The music on Picander's text begins in movement 3, a
duet with obbligato violin. The tenor expresses the
position of Jesus "Ich lebe, mein Herze, zu deinem
Ergötzen" (I live, my heart, for your pleasure),
whereas the soprano answers as the believer: "Du
lebest, mein Jesu, zu meinem Ergötzen" (You live, my
Jesus, for my pleasure). The movement resembles duets
of Bach's secular cantatas and is possibly the parody
of an unknown work. It is unusual that Bach has the
tenor represent the voice of Jesus. The following secco
recitative ends as an arioso to stress the words "Mein
Herz, das merke dir!" (My heart, take note!), a thought
picked up in the following bass aria, the movement with
the richest instrumentation, all instruments but the
viola. It has the character of a dance in even periods
and may also be a parody of a secular work. The cantata
is closed by a four-part setting of the last stanza of
the Easter chorale "Erschienen ist der herrlich
Tag".
Although this cantata was scored for three vocal
soloists (soprano, tenor and bass), a four-part choir,
trumpet, flauto traverso, two oboe d'amore, two
violins, viola and basso continuo, I created this
arrangement for Flute, Strings (2 Violins & Viola) &
Concert (Pedal) Harp. |
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PARTITION