Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Thoughtfortheday (talk | contribs) at 15:38, 21 December 2015 (→Selected recordings: typo, wl). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Christ lag in Todes Banden
BWV 4
Chorale cantata by J. S. Bach
Resurrection of Jesus on the title page of a Luther Bible, 1769
Occasion	First Day of Easter
Chorale	"Christ lag in Todes Banden" by Martin Luther
Composed	1707 ?
Movements	8
Vocal	SATB soloists and choir
Instrumental	cornetto 3 trombones 2 violins 2 violas continuo

Christ lag in Todes Banden (Christ lay in death's bonds), BWV 4, is a cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. The title also appears as Christ lag in Todesbanden. It is one of Bach's earliest church cantatas, and was probably intended for a performance at Easter in 1707, related to his application for a post at Mühlhausen. It is an early work in a genre to which he later contributed complete cantata cycles for all occasions of the liturgical year. John Eliot Gardiner describes the work as Bach's "first-known attempt at painting narrative in music".

The cantata is a chorale cantata, a type of composition in which both text and music are based on a Lutheran hymn, in this case Martin Luther's hymn of the same name. In the format of chorale variations "per omnes versus" (for all stanzas), Bach used in each of the seven vocal movements the unchanged words of a stanza of the chorale, and its tune as a cantus firmus. After an opening sinfonia, the variations are arranged in symmetry: chorus – duet – solo – chorus – solo – duet – chorus, giving the forth stanza, about the battle of Life and Death the focal point. Although all movements are in the same key of E minor, Bach employs a variety of musical forms and means, intensifying the meaning of the text.

Christ lag in Todes Banden is Bach's first cantata for Easter, also his only extant original composition for the first day of the feast. He repeatedly performed it again, even as Thomaskantor in Leipzig, beginning in 1724 when he celebrated Easter there for the first time. Only the performance material from Leipzig is extant. It shows a scoring for four vocal parts, a string section of two violins, two violas and continuo, and a choir of cornetto and trombones doubling the voices at times. The scoring of the first performances was possibly similar, in the style of a "Choralkonzert" (chorale concerto) from the 17th century.

Gardiner calls Bach's setting of Luther's hymn "a bold, innovative piece of musical drama" and observes "Bach drawing on medieval musical roots (the hymn tune derives from the eleventh-century plainsong Victimae paschali laudes) and of his total identification with the spirit and letter of Luther's fiery, dramatic hymn".

Composition history

Christ lag in Todes Banden survives in a version from the 1720s when Bach held the position of Thomaskantor (director of church music) in Leipzig. He incorporated the work into his second cycle of Leipzig cantatas, the so-called chorale cycle based on Lutheran hymns, begun in 1724. This cantata fits the cycle in the sense that it is based on a chorale, but its style is different from the others and it is generally accepted that it was originally composed much earlier.

In the context of Bach's career, its style implies a date between 1707 and 1713, but the musical language looks back to the seventeenth century. Commentators find parallels with music by composers such as Purcell. Some of these parallels may be accidental in the sense that Bach would not have known the music in question. Bach's cantata shows similarities to a composition of Johann Pachelbel based on the same Easter chorale. There is no evidence that Pachelbel met Bach, but he was the teacher of Bach's brother Johann Christoph Bach, who in turn taught the young Johann Sebastian. Another of Pachelbel's works appears to be referenced in the early Bach cantata, ]] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help). There has been speculation that Bach wished to pay tribute to Pachelbel after his death in 1706.

There is documentary evidence suggesting that this Easter Sunday cantata was premiered in 1707. It is known that Bach performed a cantata of his own composition at Easter in 1707 as a part of his application for the post of organist of Divi Blasii church in Mühlhausen, and this may have been Christ lag in Todes Banden. He was then twenty-two years old. The work is generally seen as remarkably accomplished for this early stage of his career. He was already demonstrating similar ingenuity in keyboard music, but it is a significant milestone in his vocal music, being seven years before his sequence of Weimar cantatas, begun in 1714 with ]] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), and 17 years before he started a complete annual cycle of chorale cantatas in Leipzig in the middle of 1724 with ]] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help). There are, however, a few cantatas surviving from either the Mühlhausen period or, like this one, possibly from his years at Arnstadt, and these early works include some fine writing. Christoph Wolff suggests that Bach may have composed other early cantatas which he did not think worth preserving.

Bach also wrote other settings of the tune, including two chorale preludes, BWV 625 and BWV 718. Bach repeatedly performed the cantata even much later as Thomaskantor in Leipzig, notably in 1724, his first Easter in Leipzig, and 1725, in the cycle of chorale cantatas. If he composed any other cantata for Easter Sunday it did not survive.

Readings and chorale

The prescribed readings for the feast day were from the First letter to the Corinthians ("Christ is our Easter lamb" – 1 Corinthians 5:6–8) and from the Gospel of Mark (the Resurrection of Jesus – Mark 16:1–8).

Luther's hymn "Christ lag in Todes Banden", first published in 1524, is the main Easter hymn in German Lutheranism, similar in importance to Gelobet seist du, Jesu Christ for Christmas. It stresses the struggle between Life and Death. The third stanza refers to the "sting of death", as mentioned in 1 Corinthians 15. The fifth stanza relates to the "Osterlamm", the Paschal Lamb. The sacrificial "blood" ("Its blood marks our doors") refers to the marking of the doors before the exodus from Egypt. The final stanza recalls the tradition of baking and eating Easter Bread, with the "old leaven" alluding again to the exodus, in contrast to the "Word of Grace", concluding "Christ would ... alone nourish the soul."

In contrast to most chorale cantatas that Bach composed later in Leipzig, the text of the chorale is kept unchanged.

Scoring and structure

Bach structured the cantata in eight movements: a sinfonia and seven movements corresponding to the stanzas of the hymn. The duration is given as 22 minutes.

The title of the original parts of the first Leipzig performance reads: "Feria Paschatos / Christ lag in Todesbanden / a.4. Voc: / Cornetto / 3 Trombon. / 2 Violini / 2 Viole / con / Continuo / Di Signore Joh.Seb.Bach". In this late version, Bach scored the work for four vocal parts (soprano (S), alto (A), tenor (T), and bass (B)), and a Baroque instrumental ensemble:

• a "choir" of cornetts (Ct) and three trombones (Tb) playing colla parte to reinforce the voices at times,
• two violins (Vl),
• two violas (Va)
• basso continuo.

The vocal parts can be sung by soloists or a choir; for example, Hier ist das rechte Osterlamm, described as a bass aria, is sometimes performed by the basses of the choir rather than a soloist. The work is a "Choralkonzert" (chorale concerto) in the style of the 17th century, different from the recitative and aria format which Bach began using for church cantatas in 1714.

The exact scoring of the first version is unknown, but it may have been similar to the surviving version. The string accompaniment is in line with the limited instrumental forces which Bach had at his disposal early in his career. Unlike some early cantatas by Bach (for example, Aus der Tiefen rufe ich, Herr, zu dir, BWV 131) no wind instrument is featured. Unusually, there are brass parts, which appear to have been added in the 1720s. The brass players form an instrumental choir of cornetts and three trombones. Possibly this use of brass reflects the original scoring, as it looks back to the 17th century polychoral tradition. One of the other early cantatas, ]] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), is also richly scored, evoking the type of choral writing which Heinrich Schütz developed from the Venetian polychoral style.

In the following table of the movements, the scoring and keys follow the Neue Bach-Ausgabe. The keys and time signatures are taken from the book on all cantatas by the Bach scholar Alfred Dürr, using the symbol for common time (4/4) and alla breve (2/2). The continuo, playing throughout, is not shown.

Movements of Christ lag in Todes Banden, BWV 4

No.	Title	Type	Vocal	Brass	Strings	Key	Time.
1	Sinfonia				2Vl 2Va	E minor
Versus 1	Christ lag in Todes Banden Helleluja	Chorus	SATB	Ct 3Tb	2Vl 2Va	E minor
Versus 2	Den Tod niemand zwingen kunnt	Aria Duetto	S A	Ct Tb		E minor
Versus 3	Jesus Christus, Gottes Sohn	Aria	T		2Vl	E minor
Versus 4	Es war ein wunderlicher Krieg	Chorus	SATB			E minor
Versus 5	Hier ist das rechte Osterlamm	Aria	B		2Vl 2Va	E minor	3/4
Versus 6	So feiern wir das hohe Fest	Aria Duetto	S T			E minor
Versus 7	Wir essen und leben wohl	Choral	SATB	Ct 3Tb	2Vl 2Va	E minor

Music

Tune

Luther's tune is based on the 12th-century Easter hymn "Christ ist erstanden" (Christ is risen), which relies both in text and melody on the sequence for Easter, "Victimae paschali laudes". A new version was published by Luther in 1524 and adapted by Johann Walter in his Wittenberg hymnal for choir, Eyn geystlich Gesangk Buchleyn (1524). Bach's version includes passing notes and modifications to conform rhythmic patterns to a regular time signature.

Overview

The cantata begins with an instrumental sinfonia. The seven stanzas are treated in seven movements as chorale variations "per omnes versus" (for all stanzas), with the melody always present as a cantus firmus. The strings are in five parts: two violins, two violas and continuo (a combination described by Richard Taruskin as "archaic"). The sequence of the seven stanzas shows symmetry: chorus – duet – solo – chorus – solo – duet – chorus. Unlike Bach's later cantatas, all movements are in the same key, E minor. All stanzas end on the word Halleluja.

John Eliot Gardiner, who conducted the Bach Cantata Pilgrimage in 2000, calls Bach's setting of Luther's hymn "a bold, innovative piece of musical drama" and observes "Bach drawing on medieval musical roots (the hymn tune derives from the eleventh-century plainsong "Victimae paschali laudes") and of his total identification with the spirit and letter of Luther's fiery, dramatic hymn". Bach could follow "Luther’s ideal in which music brings the text to life". The musicologist Julian Mincham remarks: "The variety of ideas and range of inventiveness is incredible but never disguises the presence of the chorale."

Sinfonia

The cantata begins with an instrumental sinfonia that introduces the first line of the melody, a work in the style of an overture to a contemporary Venetian opera sinfonia, with chordal passages and occasional polyphony.

Versus 1

The first stanza, "Christ lag in Todes Banden" (Christ lay in death's bonds) is treated as a chorale fantasia. The soprano sings the cantus firmus in unadorned long notes, while the lower voices sing free counterpoint. A figure in the violins known as suspiratio (sigh) reflects "Christ’s suffering in the grip of death". The style recalls the 16th-century stile antico, although the harmony and orchestral writing is of Bach's time. The final Halleluja is faster and in motet style.

Versus 2

The second stanza, Aria Duetto, is a duet of soprano and alto, "Den Tod niemand zwingen kunnt" (No one could defeat death), over an ostinato continuo. It deals with "humanity helpless and paralysed as it awaits God’s judgement against sin". Bach has the music almost freeze on the first words "den Tod" (death), and the word "gefangen" (imprisoned) is marked by a sharp dissonance of the soprano and alto.

Versus 3

The third stanza, "Jesus Christus, Gottes Sohn" (Jesus Christ, God's Son), is a trio of the the tenor, two obbligato violins and continuo. The tenor sings the chorale melody almost unchanged. The violins illustrate first how Christ slashes at the enemy. The music stops completely on the word "nichts" (naught). The violins then present in four notes the outline of the cross, and finally the tenor sings a joyful "Halleluja" to a virtuoso violin accompaniment.

Versus 4

The fourth stanza, "Es war ein wunderlicher Krieg, da Tod und Leben rungen" (It was a strange battle, that death and life waged), is the center of the symmetrical structure. It is sung by the four voices, accompanied only by the continuo. The alto sings the cantus firmus, transposed by a fifth to B-Dorian, while the other voices follow each other in a fugal stretto with entries just a beat apart, until they fall away one by one. In the final Halleluja in all four voices, the bass descends nearly two octaves.

Versus 5

Stanza five, "Hier ist das rechte Osterlamm" (Here is the true Easter-lamb), is sung by the bass alone, accompanied at first by a descending chromatic line in the continuo. For every line of the stanza,the bass sings a chorale tune, then repeats the words in counterpoint to the part of the tune repeated in the strings, sometimes transposed. Taruskin describes this: "With its antiphonal exchanges between the singer and the massed strings ... this setting sounds like a parody of a passacaglia-style Venetian opera aria, vintage 1640". The bass sings the final victorious Hallelujas, spanning two octaves.

Versus 6

Stanza six, "So feiern wir das hohe Fest" (So we celebrate the high festival), is a duet for soprano and tenor accompanied only by the ostinato continuo. It is a dance of joy: the word "Wonne" (joy) is rendered in figuration that Gardiner finds reminiscent of Purcell. Bach incorporates the solemn rhythms of the French overture into this verse, reflecting the presence of the word feiern (celebrate) in the text. It may be the first time that Bach used these rhythms.

Versus 7

Bach's first setting of the final stanza, "Wir essen und leben wohl" (We eat and live well), is lost; it may have been a repeat of the opening chorus. In Leipzig, he supplied a simple four-part setting.

Publication

The cantata was published by Breitkopf & Härtel in 1851, in volume I of the first edition of Bach's complete works by the Bach-Gesellschaft, edited by Moritz Hauptmann. In the Neue Bach-Ausgabe, the second complete edition of Bach's works, in a historical-critical edition, Dürr edited both the early version and the Leipzig version.

Transcriptions

In the 1930s a number from Christ lag in Todesbanden, "Jesus Christus, Gottes Sohn" (movement 4), was arranged for orchestra and recorded by Leopold Stokowski. Stokowski was well-known in the twentieth century for transcribing Bach for symphony orchestra, and in particular for his version of the Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565, used in the film Fantasia. Stokowski's orchestrations are notable for their bold use of instrumental colour. He appears to have made a second Christ lag in Todesbanden arrangement from one of the chorale preludes.

There are recordings of his Christ lag in Todesbanden from two conductors who studied with him, José Serebrier and Matthias Bamert.

Selected recordings

An outstanding work among Bach's cantatas, it has been recorded early and often; as of 2015, the Bach-Cantatas website lists 82 different complete recordings, the earliest dating from 1931. Before the Second World War, when there were few Bach cantatas on disc, it was recorded twice under the direction of Nadia Boulanger, a 1937 version recorded in Paris and a 1938 version recorded in Boston. Although Boulanger decided to concentrate on teaching, she had a notable career as a performer of early music, and in 1937 she made pioneering recordings of Monteverdi madrigals with a group of singers including the tenor Hugues Cuénod, who was featured in her second recording of the cantata.

There are a number of recordings from the decades immediately after the war. Robert Shaw recorded the cantata in 1946 and again in 1959. Günther Ramin conducted the Thomanerchor in 1950, the anniversary of Bach's death. The same year, Fritz Lehmann conducted the choir of the Musikhochschule Frankfurt with soloists Helmut Krebs and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. Karl Richter and his Münchener Bach-Chor recorded it first in 1958.

Nikolaus Harnoncourt recorded Christ lag in Todes Banden in 1971 in a historically informed performance with original instruments and male singers (the top two lines are sung by boys and the countertenor Paul Esswood). This was at the start of the first project to record all Bach's sacred cantatas, "J. S. Bach - Das Kantatenwerk" on Teldec. Christ lag in Todes Banden has since been included in the other "complete sets", conducted by Rilling, Gardiner, Koopman, Leusink, and Suzuki.

The entries in the following sortable table are taken from the listings by Aryeh Oron on the Bach-Cantatas website. Some recordings rely on choir without (or with few) solo voices. Choirs are roughly marked as large by red background to One voice per part (OVPP) by green background, orchestras from large (red) to period instruments in historically informed performances (green).

Recent performances

In 2000 the cantata was performed at Eisenach, in the church where Bach was baptised, as part of the Monteverdi Choir's Bach Cantata Pilgrimage (the live recording was released in 2007). The Monteverdi Choir also performed the cantata in 2013 in the Royal Albert Hall. This performance, which had audience participation, was part of a nine-hour "Bach marathon".

The cantata was successfully staged by English Touring Opera in 2012. It was paired with the opera The Emperor of Atlantis and arranged by Iain Farrington for the same instrumental forces as the opera (chamber ensemble including instruments not available to Bach such as saxophone).

Notes

1. "BWV" is Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis, a thematic catalogue of Bach's works.

References

1. ^ Dellal, Pamela. "BWV 4 – Christ lag in Todesbanden". Emmanuel Music. Retrieved 31 March 2015.
2. ^ Gardiner, John Eliot (2007). "Cantatas for Easter Sunday, Easter Monday and Easter Tuesday / Georgenkirche, Eisenach" (PDF). Bach-Cantatas. pp. 4–8. Retrieved 16 April 2011.
3. ^ Isoyama, Tadashi (1995). "Cantata No. 4: Christ lag in Todes Banden (BWV 4)" (PDF). Bach-Cantatas. pp. 6–7. Retrieved 23 September 2015.
4. ^ Dürr, Alfred; Jones, Richard D. P. (2006). The Cantatas of J. S. Bach: With Their Librettos in German-English Parallel Text. Oxford University Press. pp. 11, 262–266. ISBN 0-19-929776-2.
5. Wolff, Christoph (1994). "Christ lag in Todes Banden, BWV 4" (PDF). Bach-Cantatas. pp. 10, 15–16. Retrieved 23 September 2015.
6. Wolff, Christoph (2000). Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician. W. W. Norton & Company. p. 280. ISBN 0-393-04825-X.
7. Grob, Jochen (2014). "BWV 4 / BC A 54a" (in German). s-line.de. Retrieved 23 September 2015.
8. Bischof, Walter F. "BWV 4 Christ lag in Todes Banden] text, scoring". Retrieved 13 September 2015.
9. ^ "Chorale Melodies used in Bach's Vocal Works / Christ ist erstanden". Bach-Cantatas. Retrieved 13 September 2010.
10. ^ Dickey, Timothy Dickey. "Cantata No. 4, "Christ lag in Todes Banden", BWV 4 (BCA 54)". Allmusic. Retrieved 23 September 2015.
11. Traupman-Carr, Carol (2002). "Cantata BWV 4, Christ lag in Todes Banden". The Bach Choir of Bethlehem. Retrieved 23 September 2014.
12. ^ Taruskin, Richard (2010). Music in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. The Oxford History of Western Music. Vol. 2. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 343–347. ISBN 978-0-19-538482-6.
13. Dürr, Alfred (1981). Die Kantaten von Johann Sebastian Bach (in German). Vol. 1 (4 ed.). Deutscher Taschenbuchverlag. pp. 230–234. ISBN 3-423-04080-7.
14. Mincham, Julian (2010). "Chapter 42 BWV 4 & BWV 42, each commencing with a sinfonia". jsbachcantatas.com. Retrieved 16 April 2010.
15. Heidelberg 2014.
16. "Bach, Johann Sebastian". Arnold Schönberg Center. Retrieved 21 December 2015.
17. Bach digital 1707 2014.
18. Bach digital 1724 2014.
19. "Leopold Stokowski / Bach Cantatas & Other Vocal Works / Recordings of Stokowski's Arrangements by other conductors". Bach-Cantatas. Retrieved 15 December 2015.
20. "Leopold Stowkowski Transcriptions, arrangements and original compositions by Leopold Mankowski". Bach-Cantatas. Retrieved 15 December 2015.
21. Bamert's 1993 recording with the BBC Philharmonic described the piece as "Chorale from the 'Easter Cantata' BWV4".
22. ^ Oron, Aryeh (2015). "Cantata BWV 4 Christ lag in Todesbanden". Bach-Cantatas. Retrieved 23 September 2015.
23. Oron, Aryeh; Arbiteman, Y. (2010). "Hugues Cuénod (Tenor)". Bach-Cantatas. Retrieved 28 October 2015.
24. Hewett, Ivan (2013). "Bach Marathon, Albert Hall, Review". Retrieved 4 May 2015.
25. Church, Michael (October 2012). "The Emperor of Atlantis/Christ lag in Todesbanden, English Touring Opera, Linbury Studio, London". The Independent. Retrieved 3 May 2015.
26. "English Touring Opera to perform" (Press release). English Touring Opera. Retrieved 3 May 2015.

Bibliography

• Free scores by Christ lag in Todesbanden, BWV 4 at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)
• "Christ lag in Todes Banden (early version) BWV 4; BC A 54a / Chorale cantata (1st Easter Day)". Leipzig University. 2014. Retrieved 21 December 2014.
• "Christ lag in Todes Banden (leipzig version) BWV 4; BC A 54a / Chorale cantata (1st Easter Day)". Leipzig University. 2014. Retrieved 21 December 2014.

Online Sources

• "No. 171–180". Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg. Retrieved 8 April 2013.

External links

• John Eliot Gardiner, Monteverdi Choir, 22 June 2014 on YouTube

• Cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach
• 1707 compositions
• Music for Easter
• Compositions in E minor