Bachkantaten BWV 1, 2, 6 and 8

Johann Sebastian Bach’s surviving independent cantatas number over 200 sacred cantatas, with at least several dozen that are considered lost. His earliest cantatas date from 1707, the year he moved to Muhlhausen. However, most of Bach’s church cantatas date from his first years as Thomaskantor and director of church music in Leipzig, a position he took up in 1723. Bach's cantatas usually require four soloists and a four-part choir, but he also wrote solo cantatas (i.e. for one soloist singer) and dialogue cantatas for two singers. The words of Bach's cantatas, almost always entirely in German, consist mostly of 18th-century poetry, Lutheran hymns and dicta. 
 
Peter Wollny (Director of the Bach Archive), Michael Maul (Director of BachFest), and Sir Eliot Gardiner (President of the Bach Archive) have selected the most famous sacred cantatas composed by J.S. Bach in December 2018. I shall highlight all 33 of them by their BWV numbering in the following months. The initial four are listed today. 
 
In addition to the church cantatas composed for occasions of the liturgical year, Bach wrote sacred cantatas for functions like weddings or Ratswahl (the inauguration of a new town council). His secular cantatas, around 50 known works, less than half of which surviving with both text and music, were written for academic functions of the University of Leipzig, or anniversaries and entertainment among the nobility and in society, some of them Glückwunschkantaten (congratulatory cantatas) and Huldigungskantaten (homage cantatas).
 
In the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis (BWV), Wolfgang Schmieder assigned them each a number within groups: 1–200 (sacred cantatas), 201–216 (secular cantatas), and 217–224 (cantatas of doubtful authorship). Since Schmieder's designation, several of the cantatas he thought authentic have been redesignated as "spurious." However, the spurious cantatas retain their BWV numbers. 
 
A typical Bach cantata of his first year in Leipzig follows the scheme: Opening chorus, Recitative, Aria, Recitative (or Arioso), Aria and Chorale. Typically Bach employs soprano, alto, tenor and bass soloists and a four-part choir, (SATB). He sometimes assigns the voice parts to the dramatic situation, for example soprano for innocence or alto for motherly feelings. The bass is often the vox Christi, the voice of Jesus, when Jesus is quoted directly.
 
BWV 1: Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern 
How beautifully shines the morning star  is celebrated each year on 25th March at the Feast of the Annunciation in Leipzig. The lesson and gospel passage for this day are closely related. The lesson – Isaiah 7, verses 10-14, contains the traditional prophecy related to the birth of Christ: ‘Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Imman’uel’ (i.e. “God with us’ ). The gospel passage, after Luke 1, verses 26-38, tells how the Angel Gabriel announces to the Virgin Mary that she will give birth to the Messiah. The hymn on which the cantata is based is one of the most beautiful in the rich stock of the Evangelical Church and is by the poet and composer Philipp Nicolai (1556-1608). In 1725 the Feast of the Annunciation fell on Palm Sunday, the Sunday before Easter. The gospel relates how on this day Jesus entered Jerusalem to the acclaim of the people. For this – in terms of content – somewhat expanded feast of Mary the choice of hymn could not have been more appropriate. Not only does the hymn-like quality of both the text and the melody infuse the entire cantata, but also the content of the hymn (which was actually intended for the Feast of the Epiphany on 6th January) is ideally suited to the occasion. Admittedly, in the best Protestant tradition – and particularly relevant in view of the reference to Palm Sunday – a feast of Mary is thereby reinterpreted to some extent as a feast of Jesus. Nicolai’s words are filled with the expression of abundant love for Jesus, and Bach’s librettist reworks the middle strophes almost in the spirit of an Advent-like anticipation of joy by focusing our attention on Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem. 
 
BWV 2: Ach Gott, vom Himmel sieh darein
Oh God, look down from heaven is a chorale cantata for the second Sunday after Trinity in 1724. First performed on 18 June in Leipzig, it is the second cantata of his chorale cantata cycle. The prescribed readings for the Sunday were from the First Epistle of John, "He that loveth not his brother abideth in death" (1 John 3:13–18), and from the Gospel of Luke, the parable of the great banquet (Luke 14:16–24). The cantata is based on the chorale in sixth stanzas"Ach Gott, vom Himmel sieh darein", a paraphrase of Psalm 12 by Martin Luther, published in 1524 in the Achtliederbuch, the first Lutheran hymnal. In the format of Bach's chorale cantata cycle, the words of the hymn are retained unchanged in the outer movements, here the first and the sixth, while an unknown contemporary librettist transcribed the ideas of the inner stanzas in poetry for recitatives and arias, which matched the style of Bach's cantatas of the first cycle. Bach first performed the cantata on 18 June 1724.
 
Bach structured the cantata in six movements, setting the chorale tune in a chorale fantasia in the opening movement, and in a four-part setting in the closing movement. The two choral movements frame alternating recitatives and arias of three vocal soloists. Bach also used a four-part choir, and a Baroque instrumental ensemble of a choir of trombones, two oboes, strings and continuo. He set the first movement in "archaic" motet style, but the arias in “modern” concertante style, only occasionally reminiscent of the chorale tune.
 
BWV 6: Bleib bei uns, denn es will Abend werden
Stay with us, for evening falls is composed it in Leipzig in 1725 for Easter Monday and first performed it on 2 April 1725. The prescribed readings for the feast day were from the Acts of the Apostles, the sermon of Peter (Acts 10:34–43), and from the Gospel of Luke, the Road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13–35).The text by an anonymous librettist begins with a line from the gospel, and includes as the third movement two stanzas from Philipp Melanchthon's hymn "Ach bleib bei uns, Herr Jesu Christ", one stanza written by Nikolaus Selnecker. The text ends with the second stanza of Martin Luther's hymn "Erhalt uns, Herr, bei deinem Wort." The libretto, of rather dry and didactic quality, is focused on the contrast between light and dark, viewing Jesus as the light of a sinful world. The author was possibly a theologian, who alluded to the Book of Revelation in the last aria. Bach structured the cantata in six movements and scored it for four vocal soloists, a four-part choir and a Baroque instrumental ensemble of oboes, strings and continuo.
 
BWV 8: Liebster Gott, wenn werd ich sterben?
Dearest God, when will I die? It is a church chorale cantata for the 16th Sunday after Trinity, part of Bach's second cantata cycle. The prescribed readings for the Sunday were from the Epistle to the Ephesians, praying for the strengthening of faith in the congregation of Ephesus (Ephesians 3:13–21), and from the Gospel of Luke, the raising from the dead of the young man from Nain (Luke 7:11–17). The text of the cantata is a reflection on death, based on "Liebster Gott, wann werd ich sterben", a Lutheran hymn in five stanzas which Caspar Neumann wrote around 1690. Bach adapted Daniel Vetter's setting of this hymn, composed in the early 1690s and first printed in 1713, in the cantata's first and last movements. The opening movement is a chorale fantasia, an extensive instrumental piece, punctuated by the four-part choir, who sing line by line from the first stanza of Neumann's hymn. The last movement, the closing chorale, is a version of Vetter's 1713 four-part setting Liebster Gott, borrowed and reworked by Bach. The four other movements of the cantata, a succession of arias and recitatives, were composed by Bach for vocal and instrumental soloists. The anonymous libretto for these movements is an expanded paraphrase of the second to fourth stanzas of Neumann's hymn. 
 
Bach performed it for the first time on 24 September 1724 in St. Nicholas Church in Leipzig. The cantata is scored for SATB singers, four wind instruments, strings and continuo. 

​Here are four albums:
 
Bach J.S.: Cantatas Volume 34. BWV 1, 126 & 127. Masaaki Suzuki with Carolyn Sampson (soprano), Robin Blaze (counter-tenor), Gerd Türk (tenor) & Peter Kooij (bass), and Bach Collegium Japan. Release Date: 26 Feb 2007. Label: BIS. Catalogue No: BISSACD1551. Hi-Res FLAC (Lossless, 44.1 kHz, 24 bit).
Award:
Penguin Guide, Rosette.
 
Bach J.S.: Cantatas Volume 29. BWV 2, 3, 38, & 135. Maasaki Suzuki with Dorothee Mields (soprano), Pascal Bertin counter-tenor), Gerd Türk (tenor), Peter Kooij (bass), and Bach Collegium Japan. Release Date: 3 Jan 2006. Label: BIS. Catalogue No: BISSACD1461. Hi-Res FLAC (Lossless, 44.1 kHz, 24 bit).
 
Bach J.S.: Cantatas Volume 36. BWV 6, 42, 103 & 108. Masaaki Suzuki with Yukari Nonoshita (soprano), Robin Blaze (counter-tenor), James Gilchrist (tenor) & Dominik Wörner (bass), and Bach Collegium Japan. Release Date: 28 Aug 2007. Label: BIS. Catalogue No: BISSACD1611. Hi-Res FLAC (Lossless, 44.1 kHz, 24 bit).
 
Bach J.S.: Cantatas Volume 24. BWV 8, 33, & 113. Masaaki Suzuki with Yukari Nonoshita (soprano), Robin Blaze (counter-tenor), Gerd Türk (tenor), Peter Kooij (bass), and Bach Collegium Japan. Release Date: 3 May 2004. Label: BIS. Catalogue No: BISCD1351. Hi-Res FLAC (Lossless, 44.1 kHz, 24 bit).

References:
Ach Gott, vom Himmel sieh darein, BWV 2. (2024, August 21). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ach_Gott,_vom_Himmel_sieh_darein,_BWV_2

Bach Cantata. (2024, October 27). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bach_cantata

Bleib bei uns, denn es will Abend werden, BWV 6. (2024, June 10). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleib_bei_uns,_denn_es_will_Abend_werden,_BWV_6

Hofmann, K. (2006). Johann Sebastian Bach. Bach Collegium Japan. Maasaki Suzuki. Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern, Cantatas 1, 126, 127. BIS Records AB. 

​Liebster Gott, wenn werd ich sterben, BWV 8. (2024, October 2). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebster_Gott,_wenn_werd_ich_sterben,_BWV_8

​Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern, BWV 1. (2024, January 12). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wie_schön_leuchtet_der_Morgenstern,_BWV_1