1724, 'SIE WERDEN AUS SABA ALLE KOMMEN' PREMIERE

Today, The Grandma has been listening to some classical music. She has chosen Johann Sebastian Bach's Sie werden aus Saba alle kommen, the church cantata, that was premiered on a day like today in 1724.

Sie werden aus Saba alle kommen (They will all come forth out of Sheba), BWV 65, is a church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. He composed it in 1724 in Leipzig for Epiphany and first performed it on 6 January 1724 as part of his first cantata cycle.

Bach wrote the cantata to conclude his first Christmas season as Thomaskantor in Leipzig which had been celebrated with five cantatas, four of them new compositions, the Magnificat and a new Sanctus. The text by an anonymous author, who possibly supplied texts of two of the Christmas cantatas as well, combines the prescribed readings for the feast day, the prophecy from the Book of Isaiah and the gospel of Matthew about the Wise Men from the East. 

The librettist begins with a quotation from the prophecy, comments it by a stanza of the early anonymous Christmas carol Ein Kind geborn zu Bethlehem, says in a sequence of recitatives and arias that the prophecy was fulfilled in Bethlehem, concluding that the Christian should bring his heart as a gift. The cantata ends with a chorale, stanza 10 of Paul Gerhardt's hymn Ich hab in Gottes Herz und Sinn.

Bach festively scored the seven-movement cantata, for two vocal soloists (tenor and bass), a four-part choir and a Baroque instrumental ensemble of two horns, two recorders, two oboes da caccia, strings and basso continuo. All recitatives are secco, but the full orchestra plays for the opening chorus, the last aria and the closing chorale.

Bach wrote the cantata in 1724, in his first year as Thomaskantor (director of church music) in Leipzig, to conclude his first Christmas season on the Feast of Epiphany. For the celebrations on three days of Christmas, New Year's Day and the following Sunday, he had performed five cantatas, four of them new compositions, the Magnificat and a new Sanctus in D major.

The prescribed readings for the feast day were taken from the Book of Isaiah, the heathen will convert (Isaiah 60:1-6), and from the Gospel of Matthew, the Wise Men from the East bringing gifts of gold, myrrh and frankincense to the newborn Jesus (Matthew 2:1-12). The unknown poet of the cantata text may be the same as for BWV 40 and BWV 64 for the Second and Third Day of Christmas, a person theologically competent and poetically skilfull (sic), as the Bach scholar Klaus Hofmann writes.

More information: Bachipedia

The librettist begins with the final verse of the epistle reading, Isaiah's prophecy all they from Sheba shall come: they shall bring gold and incense. The poet juxtaposes the prediction by a chorale, stanza 4 of the old anonymous Christmas carol Ein Kind geborn zu Bethlehem (Puer natus in Bethlehem, A babe is born in Bethlehem, 1543), which describes the arrival of the Kön'ge aus Saba (Kings from Sheba), related to the epistle.

The first recitative proclaims that the gospel is the fulfillment of the prophecy and concludes that it is the Christian's duty to bring his heart as a gift to Jesus. This idea is the theme of the following aria. The second recitative equates the gifts of the contemporary Christian to those of the kings: Faith to the gold, Prayer to the incense, and Patience to the myrrh.

The last aria expresses that the devoted Christian offers his heart as a present. The cantata ends with a chorale. The text is not extant, but it is assumed to be stanza 10 of Paul Gerhardt's hymn Ich hab in Gottes Herz und Sinn.

Bach first performed the cantata for Epiphany on 6 January 1724. In his Christmas Oratorio of 1734, Bach dedicated Part VI, Herr, wenn die stolzen Feinde schnauben, to the topic and the occasion and first performed it on 6 January 1735.

Bach structured the cantata in seven movements. The opening chorus is followed by a chorale, then the two soloists sing a sequence of recitative and aria each, and work closes with a chorale.

Bach scored the cantata for two vocal soloists (tenor (T) and bass (B)), a four-part choir and a festive Baroque instrumental ensemble of two horns (Co), two recorders (Fl), two oboes da caccia (Oc), two violins (Vl), viola (Va), and basso continuo.

Bach employed a pair of horns before in his Christmas cantata Darzu ist erschienen der Sohn Gottes, BWV 40, and later in his cantata for Christmas 1724, Gelobet seist du, Jesu Christ, BWV 91, and later in Part IV of his Christmas Oratorio.

He wrote the title as J. J. Festo Epiphan: Concerto. à 2 Core du Chasse. 2 Hautb: da Caccia. / due Fiauti 2 Violini è Viola con 4 Voci, which means: Jesus help (Jesu Juva -a pre-fixed prayer to most of Bach's compositions). Feast of the Epiphany: concerto for 2 hunting horns. 2 oboes da caccia / two recorders 2 violins and viola with 4 voices.

More information: Bach Cantatas Webside

It's easy to play any musical instrument:
all you have to do is touch the right key
at the right time and the instrument will play itself.

Johann Sebastian Bach

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH AND THE BAROQUE MUSIC AGE

The Grandma arrives to L'Auditori, Barcelona

Today, The Grandma has gone to L' Auditori to listen to a concert in tribute to Johann Sebastian Bach. She hasn't gone alone because Tina Picotes, a great fan of classic music and Joseph de Ca'th Lon a great follower of Bach have gone with her.

Tina Picotes loves Bach, especially The Goldberg Variations while Joseph de Ca'th Lon is very interested in the Brandenburg Concertos since he discovered that one of these concertos was recorded in the Voyager 1.

Before going to the Auditorium, The Grandma has studied a new lesson of her Intermediate Language Practice manual (Grammar 39).

More information: Phrasal Verbs 1

Johann Sebastian Bach (31 March [O.S. 21 March] 1685-28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the Baroque period. He is known for instrumental compositions such as the Art of Fugue, the Brandenburg Concertos, and the Goldberg Variations as well as for vocal music such as the St Matthew Passion and the Mass in B minor. Since the 19th-century Bach Revival he has been generally regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time.

The Bach family already counted several composers when Johann Sebastian was born as the last child of a city musician in Eisenach. After becoming an orphan at age 10, he lived for five years with his eldest brother Johann Christoph Bach, after which he continued his musical development in Lüneburg.

More information: Biography

From 1703 he was back in Thuringia, working as a musician for Protestant churches in Arnstadt and Mühlhausen and, for longer stretches of time, at courts in Weimar—where he expanded his repertoire for the organ—and Köthen—where he was mostly engaged with chamber music.

From 1723 he was employed as Thomaskantor, cantor at St. Thomas, in Leipzig. He composed music for the principal Lutheran churches of the city, and for its university's student ensemble Collegium Musicum.

Johann Sebastian Bach

From 1726 he published some of his keyboard and organ music. In Leipzig, as had happened in some of his earlier positions, he had a difficult relation with his employer, a situation that was little remedied when he was granted the title of court composer by King Augustus III of Poland in 1736.

In the last decades of his life he reworked and extended many of his earlier compositions. He died of complications after eye surgery in 1750 at the age of 65.

Bach enriched established German styles through his mastery of counterpoint, harmonic and motivic organisation, and his adaptation of rhythms, forms, and textures from abroad, particularly from Italy and France. Bach's compositions include hundreds of cantatas, both sacred and secular.

He composed Latin church music, Passions, oratorios, and motets. He often adopted Lutheran hymns, not only in his larger vocal works, but for instance also in his four-part chorales and his sacred songs. He wrote extensively for organ and for other keyboard instruments. He composed concertos, for instance for violin and for harpsichord, and suites, as chamber music as well as for orchestra. Many of his works employ the genres of canon and fugue.

More information: BBC

Throughout the 18th century Bach was mostly renowned as an organist, while his keyboard music, such as The Well-Tempered Clavier, was appreciated for its didactic qualities. The 19th century saw the publication of some major Bach biographies, and by the end of that century all of his known music had been printed. Dissemination of scholarship on the composer continued through periodicals and websites exclusively devoted to him, and other publications such as the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis and new critical editions of his compositions. 

His music was further popularised through a multitude of arrangements, including for instance the Air on the G String, and of recordings, for instance three different box sets with complete performances of the composer's works marking the 250th anniversary of his death.

Bach's musical style fits in the conventions of his day, which is the final stage of the baroque style. The specifics of his style lie with characteristics such as his skill in contrapuntal invention and motivic control and his talent for writing tightly woven music of powerful sonority. From an early age, he imbued himself with the compositions of his contemporaries and of prior generations, all of what was available from European composers, such as the French, the Italian, and those from all parts of Germany, and there is little of it that didn't appear in his own music.

Johann Sebastian Bach

Religious music was at the centre of Bach's output for much of his life. The hundreds of sacred works he created are usually seen as manifesting not just his craft but a truly devout relationship with God. He had taught Luther's Small Catechism as the Thomaskantor in Leipzig, and some of his pieces represent it. The Lutheran chorale was the basis of much of his work. In elaborating these hymns into his chorale preludes, he wrote more cogent and tightly integrated works than most, even when they were massive and lengthy. 

The large-scale structure of every major Bach sacred vocal work is evidence of subtle, elaborate planning to create a religiously and musically powerful expression. For example, the St Matthew Passion, like other works of its kind, illustrated the Passion with Bible text reflected in recitatives, arias, choruses, and chorales, but in crafting this work, Bach created an overall experience that has been found over the centuries since to be both musically thrilling and spiritually profound.

Bach published or carefully compiled in manuscript many collections of pieces that explored the range of artistic and technical possibilities inherent in almost every genre of his time except opera. For example, The Well-Tempered Clavier comprises two books, each of which presents a prelude and fugue in every major and minor key, displaying a dizzying variety of structural, contrapuntal and fugal techniques.

More information: NPR

Throughout the 18th century, the appreciation of Bach's music was mostly limited to distinguished connoisseurs. The 19th century started with the first biography of the composer being published and ended with the completion of the publication of all of Bach's known works by the Bach Gesellschaft. A Bach Revival had started from Mendelssohn's performance of the St Matthew Passion in 1829. Soon after that performance, Bach started to become regarded as one of the greatest composers of all times, if not the greatest, a reputation he has retained ever since. A new extensive Bach biography was published in the second half of the 19th century.

In the 20th century, Bach's music was widely performed and recorded, while the Neue Bachgesellschaft, among others, published research on the composer. Modern adaptations of Bach's music contributed greatly to his popularisation in the second half of the 20th century. Among these were the Swingle Singers' versions of Bach pieces and Wendy Carlos' 1968 Switched-On Bach, which used the Moog electronic synthesiser.

By the end of the 20th century, more classical performers were gradually moving away from the performance style and instrumentation that were established in the romantic era: they started to perform Bach's music on period instruments of the baroque era, studied and practised playing techniques and tempi as established in his time, and reduced the size of instrumental ensembles and choirs to what he would have employed.

The BACH motif, used by the composer in his own compositions, was used in dozens of tributes to the composer from the 19th century to the 21st.

More information: Interlude

It's easy to play any musical instrument:

all you have to do is touch the right key at the right time

and the instrument will play itself.

Johann Sebastian Bach