Ach Herr, mich armen Sünder, BWV 135

O Lord, me, a poor sinner ( BWV 135 ) is a church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. He composed it in Leipzig in 1724 for the 3rd Sunday after Trinity. It is the fourth cantata of his second annual cycle of cantatas in which he wrote choral cantatas.

History and words

Bach composed the cantata in Leipzig in 1724 for the 3rd Sunday after Trinity as the fourth cantata of his second annual cycle and led them on 25 June 1724 for the first time, after Christ our Lord came to the Jordan, on St. John.

The prescribed readings for the Sunday were 1 Peter 1:5-11 LUT, " Cast away all your worries on him because he cares for you ", and Lk 15.1 to 10 LUT, the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin. The cantata is based solely on the chorale O Lord, me, a poor sinner (1597 ) by Cyriac Schneegass, which is the penitential Psalm 6 umdichtete to six stanzas. An unknown poet kept the first and the last verse literally and edited in the middle four stanzas to a sequence of the same number of alternating recitatives and arias. The references to the readings are loose, the consolation of the Lord (set of 3) and the destruction of the enemies (set of 5 ) refer to the Epistle joy over one sinner who repents, is mentioned in the Gospel, has reference to Bußchoral.

Scoring and structure

The cantata is set for three soloists, alto, tenor and bass, four -part choir, zinc, trombone, two oboes, two violins, viola and basso continuo.

Music

The opening chorus is a chorale fantasy as in the chorale cantatas of the previous weeks. Bach put in the first cantata of the cycle, the cantus firmus of the chorale melody in the soprano, in this fourth album is by alto and tenor bass turn. Christoph Wolff sees the input choirs of the first four cantatas of the cycle, a group that performs aware of various forms of choral imagination. On a French Overture ( BWV 20), a motet ( BWV 2) and an Italian Concerto ( BWV 7) follows a web of vocal and instrumental polyphony, where all voices contain motifs of the chorale melody. John Eliot Gardiner noted that the four sets represent a fascinating and varied collection. Bach used the melody, originally a love song, which he described as the first hymn began later in his Christmas Oratorio, How shall I receive thee, and several times in his St. Matthew Passion, for example, O Sacred Head, Now Wounded. All eight lines shall be implemented only instrumental, vocal then. The instrumental performance is without continuo, a trio of oboe I and oboe II against the cantus firmus of the unison strings. In stark contrast to this high-lying set of the four-part choral writing is dominated by the cantus firmus in the bass, which is reinforced by trombone and continuo. The strings play colla parte with the other voices. On the words "that I may live forever " is widened to a three-fold slower pace of the cantus firmus.

The tenor recitative rapid tone sequences illustrate the "fast flooding" the tears of the repentant sinner. It ends with a literal retained line of the hymn, " Oh, Lord, how so long?". In the tenor aria, which is accompanied by two oboes, form falling sevenths sinking to his death from. The text " For in death is all silent" is illustrated by long pauses. The alto recitative begins me a line of the hymn, "I'm tired of sighing ", which is shown as a variation of the first line of the chorale melody. The bass aria is a call, "Depart all ye workers of iniquity ." The strings play a powerful phrase of two bars that is repeated twice in the lower register and then rises nearly three octaves. On issues such as this is a remark in the obituary of Bach, written by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach and Agricola, and in 1754 published the melodies of Bach referred to as strange and peculiar concerns. The cantata closes with a simple four-part chorale setting, where the soprano is amplified by zinc.

Recordings

• JS Bach: Cantatas BWV 29 & BWV 135 Wolfgang Gönnenwein, South German Madrigal Choir, German Bach Soloists, Emmy Lisken, Petre Munteanu, Johannes Hoefflin, Jakob Stämpfli. Cantate, 1963.
• Bach Cantatas Vol 3 - Ascension Day, Whitsun, Trinity. Karl Richter, Munich Bach Choir, Munich Bach Orchestra, Anna Reynolds, Peter Schreier, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. Archiv Produktion, 1975.
• The Bach Cantata Vol 40 Helmuth Rilling, Gächinger Kantorei, Bach-Collegium Stuttgart, Helen Watts, Adalbert Kraus, Philippe Huttenlocher. Hänssler, 1979.
• JS Bach: The cantatas - Sacred Cantatas Vol 7 Gustav Leonhardt, Hannover Boys Choir, Collegium Vocale Gent, Leonhardt Consort, René Jacobs, Marius van Altena, Max van Egmond. Teldec, 1983.
• Bach Edition Vol 2 - Cantatas Vol 11, Pieter Jan Leusink, Holland Boys Choir, Netherlands Bach Collegium, Sytse Buwalda, Knut Schoch, Bas Ramselaarm Brilliant Classics, 1999.
• JS Bach: Complete Cantatas Vol 6 Ton Koopman, Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra & Choir, Annette Markert, Christoph Prégardien, Klaus Mertens. Antoine Marchand, 2000.
• Bach Cantatas Vol 2: Paris / Zurich / For the 2nd Sunday after Trinity / For the 3rd Sunday after Trinity. John Eliot Gardiner, Monteverdi Choir, English Baroque Soloists, Robin Tyson, Vernon Kirk, Jonathan Brown. Soli Deo Gloria, 2000.
• JS Bach: Cantatas Vol 29 ( Cantatas from Leipzig 1725). Masaaki Suzuki, Bach Collegium Japan, Pascal Bertin, Gerd Türk, Peter Kooij. BIS, 2004.
• JS Bach: Cantatas for the Complete Liturgical Year Vol 2: "Those who can only love God prevail " - Cantatas BWV 177-93 - 135 Sigiswald Kuijken, La Petite Bande, Siri Thornhill, Petra Noskaiová, Christoph Genz, Jan van der crabbing. Accent, 2005.

• O Lord, me, a poor sinner. Rudolf Lutz, choir and orchestra of the JS Bach Foundation Jan Börner, Hans Jörg Mammel, Klaus Haeger. Emmanuel Wiemer ( reflection). DVD. Gallus Media, 2011.