Du Friedefürst, Herr Jesu Christ, BWV 116 by Johann Sebastian Bach
Du Friedefürst, Herr Jesu Christ, BWV 116, is a church cantata that Johann Sebastian Bach first performed in Leipzig on 26 November 1724, the 25th Sunday after Trinity, which closed that church year. It belongs to his second annual cycle, the chorale cantatas, in which each work grows out of one Lutheran hymn. Here the hymn is Jakob Ebert's seven-stanza Du Friedefürst, Herr Jesu Christ of 1601, a prayer to Christ as the Prince of Peace. Bach keeps the hymn's first and last stanzas intact, words and melody alike. The first becomes an opening chorale fantasia in which the soprano sings the melody, reinforced by a brass instrument; the last is a plain four-part chorale. Between them, the inner stanzas are paraphrased as alternating arias and recitatives. The alto aria, Ach, unaussprechlich ist die Not (Alas, the agony is unspeakable), gives an oboe d'amore the role of an equal partner. The trio for soprano, tenor and bass is rare in Bach's cantatas: three voices with only the continuo beneath them. The mood is sober without being bleak. The texts ask for peace in a time of fear and judgment, and Bach frames them with two choral movements in A major, so the work begins and ends in the light of the hymn. Recordings run from about a quarter of an hour to nearly twenty minutes, short enough to hear in one sitting and to come back to.
Über Du Friedefürst, Herr Jesu Christ, BWV 116
Du Friedefürst, Herr Jesu Christ, BWV 116, is a church cantata that Johann Sebastian Bach first performed in Leipzig on 26 November 1724, the 25th Sunday after Trinity, which closed that church year. It belongs to his second annual cycle, the chorale cantatas, in which each work grows out of one Lutheran hymn. Here the hymn is Jakob Ebert's seven-stanza Du Friedefürst, Herr Jesu Christ of 1601, a prayer to Christ as the Prince of Peace.
Bach keeps the hymn's first and last stanzas intact, words and melody alike. The first becomes an opening chorale fantasia in which the soprano sings the melody, reinforced by a brass instrument; the last is a plain four-part chorale. Between them, the inner stanzas are paraphrased as alternating arias and recitatives. The alto aria, Ach, unaussprechlich ist die Not (Alas, the agony is unspeakable), gives an oboe d'amore the role of an equal partner. The trio for soprano, tenor and bass is rare in Bach's cantatas: three voices with only the continuo beneath them.
The mood is sober without being bleak. The texts ask for peace in a time of fear and judgment, and Bach frames them with two choral movements in A major, so the work begins and ends in the light of the hymn. Recordings run from about a quarter of an hour to nearly twenty minutes, short enough to hear in one sitting and to come back to.