Nach dir, Herr, verlanget mich
Encyclopedia
BWV
The Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis is the numbering system identifying compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach. The prefix BWV, followed by the work's number, is the shorthand identification for Bach's compositions...
150 (For Thee, O Lord, I long) is an early Lutheran choral
Choir
A choir, chorale or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform.A body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus...
cantata
Cantata
A cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir....
by Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
composed for an unknown occasion. It is scored for soprano
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
, alto, tenor
Tenor
The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...
and bass
Bass (voice type)
A bass is a type of male singing voice and possesses the lowest vocal range of all voice types. According to The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, a bass is typically classified as having a range extending from around the second E below middle C to the E above middle C...
soloists, choir
Choir
A choir, chorale or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform.A body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus...
and a small orchestra
Orchestra
An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...
of two violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
s, bassoon
Bassoon
The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band and chamber music literature...
obbligato, and basso continuo. It is unique among Bach’s cantatas in its sparse orchestration and in the independence and prominence of the chorus, which is featured in four out of seven movements. The libretto
Libretto
A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...
alternates between Biblical
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
verses and free poetry (a rarity among Bach’s early cantatas). The text of movements 2, 4, and 6 is from Psalm 25 (vv. 1, 2, 5, 15). The author of the poetry is unknown.
History
Although the exact date is not known, this is one of Bach's earliest surviving cantatas. It may date from Bach's late years employed in ArnstadtArnstadt
Arnstadt is a town in Ilm-Kreis, Thuringia, Germany, situated on the Gera River. It is one of the oldest towns in Thuringia and is nicknamed Das Tor zum Thüringer Wald, The Gate to the Thuringian Forest....
(where he was up to 1707) or his early years in Weimar
Weimar
Weimar is a city in Germany famous for its cultural heritage. It is located in the federal state of Thuringia , north of the Thüringer Wald, east of Erfurt, and southwest of Halle and Leipzig. Its current population is approximately 65,000. The oldest record of the city dates from the year 899...
(from 1708). The Zwang catalogue (which lists the cantatas chronologically) dates it as the sixth of the surviving cantatas by Bach (composed 1708-1709), and places Aus der Tiefen rufe ich, Herr, zu dir, BWV 131 composed in 1707 as the earliest. The first performance would have probably been in Mühlhausen
Mühlhausen
Mühlhausen is a city in the federal state of Thuringia, Germany. It is the capital of the Unstrut-Hainich district, and lies along the river Unstrut. Mühlhausen had c. 37,000 inhabitants in 2006.-History:...
.
Form
The duration of the cantata is about 17 minutes. It is in seven movementsMovement (music)
A movement is a self-contained part of a musical composition or musical form. While individual or selected movements from a composition are sometimes performed separately, a performance of the complete work requires all the movements to be performed in succession...
, alternating choruses and aria
Aria
An aria in music was originally any expressive melody, usually, but not always, performed by a singer. The term is now used almost exclusively to describe a self-contained piece for one voice usually with orchestral accompaniment...
s. There are no recitative
Recitative
Recitative , also known by its Italian name "recitativo" , is a style of delivery in which a singer is allowed to adopt the rhythms of ordinary speech...
s, no da capo
Da capo
Da Capo is a musical term in Italian, meaning from the beginning . It is often abbreviated D.C. It is a composer or publisher's directive to repeat the previous part of music, often used to save space. In small pieces this might be the same thing as a repeat, but in larger works D.C...
repeats, and there is no chorale
Chorale
A chorale was originally a hymn sung by a Christian congregation. In certain modern usage, this term may also include classical settings of such hymns and works of a similar character....
tune. Bach makes extensive use of choral fugue
Fugue
In music, a fugue is a compositional technique in two or more voices, built on a subject that is introduced at the beginning in imitation and recurs frequently in the course of the composition....
s and imitative polyphony
Polyphony
In music, polyphony is a texture consisting of two or more independent melodic voices, as opposed to music with just one voice or music with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords ....
, often shifting the tempo and character of the music within movements very quickly to accommodate a new musical idea with each successive phrase of text.
- Sinfonia
- [chorus] Nach dir, Herr, verlanget mich
- [soprano aria] Doch bin und bleibe ich vergnügt
- [chorus] Leite mich in deiner Wahrheit
- [alto/tenor/bass trio] Zedern müssen von den Winden
- [chorus] Meine Augen sehen stets zu dem Herrn
- [chorus (ciaccona)] Meine Tage in dem Leide
The sinfonia and the opening choral movement are both based on the motive of an octave leap followed by five descending half steps. This chromatic figure, sometimes dubbed the “lamento bass”, has been utilized by composers as early as Monteverdi as a musical representation of anguish, pain, and longing. Movement five is one of only a handful of vocal trios to be found in Bach’s oeuvre, as well as the only movement in the cantata in the major mode, shifting from B minor to D major. The final movement is a chaconne
Chaconne
A chaconne ; is a type of musical composition popular in the baroque era when it was much used as a vehicle for variation on a repeated short harmonic progression, often involving a fairly short repetitive bass-line which offered a compositional outline for variation, decoration, figuration and...
built on a ground bass that goes through a series of modulations
Modulation (music)
In music, modulation is most commonly the act or process of changing from one key to another. This may or may not be accompanied by a change in key signature. Modulations articulate or create the structure or form of many pieces, as well as add interest...
. The theme of this closing movement was adapted by Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...
for the Finale of his Symphony No. 4
Symphony No. 4 (Brahms)
The Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 98 by Johannes Brahms is the last of his symphonies. Brahms began working on the piece in 1884, just a year after completing his Symphony No...
.
Recordings
- Les Grandes Cantates de J.S. Bach Vol. 28, Fritz WernerFritz WernerFritz Werner was a German choral conductor, church music director, conductor, organist and composer...
, Heinrich-Schütz-Chor Heilbronn, Württembergisches Kammerorchester HeilbronnWürttembergisches Kammerorchester HeilbronnThe Wurttemberg Chamber Orchestra Heilbronn is one of the renowned German Chamber Orchestras, located in Heilbronn .The Orchestra was founded by Prof...
, Ingeborg ReicheltIngeborg ReicheltIngeborg Reichelt is a German soprano singer. She is known for singing works of Johann Sebastian Bach.- Biography :...
, Barbara ScherlerBarbara ScherlerBarbara Scherler is a German classical mezzo-soprano and contralto singer in opera and concert. She was a member of the Deutsche Oper Berlin and active in performances and recordings of operas of the 20th century....
, Friedrich Melzer, Bruce AbelBruce Abel-Biography:Abel studied singing at the Juilliard School of Music in New York City under Hans Heinz, where he excelled in studies of French art songs and German lieder. He won a Fulbright Fellowship in 1962 which enabled him to pursue further studies in the lieder and oratorio repertoire in...
, EratoErato RecordsErato Records is a record label founded in 1953 to promote French classical music. In 1992 it became part of Warner Bros. Records. In 1999 Erato launched a subsidiary Detour Records....
1973 - J.S. Bach: Complete Cantatas Vol. 1, Ton KoopmanTon KoopmanTon Koopman is a conductor, organist and harpsichordist.Koopman had a "classical education" and then studied the organ , harpsichord and musicology in Amsterdam...
, Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra & ChoirAmsterdam Baroque Orchestra & ChoirThe Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra & Choir is a Dutch early-music group based in Amsterdam.The Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra & Choir was created in two stages by the conductor, organist and harpsichordist Ton Koopman. He founded the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra in 1979 and the Amsterdam Baroque Choir in...
, Barbara SchlickBarbara SchlickBarbara Schlick is a German soprano who is particularly admired for interpretations of the concert literature of the baroque era.-Career:...
, Kai WesselKai WesselKai Wessel is a German countertenor and a teacher at the Hochschule für Musik Köln.- Professional career :Kai Wessel started singing in school choirs and as a boy soprano at the Christus-Kirche of Hamburg-Wandsbek and received lessons on piano, organ and oboe...
, Guy de MeyGuy de MeyGuy de Mey is a Belgian tenor from Sint-Niklaas. He studied with Stella Dalberg, Erna Spoorenberg, Sir Peter Pears and Eric Tappy....
, Klaus MertensKlaus MertensKlaus Mertens is a German bass and bass-baritone singer who is known especially for his interpretation of the complete works of Johann Sebastian Bach.-Professional career:Klaus Mertens took singing lessons while attending school...
. Antoine Marchand 1994