Komm, du süße Todesstunde (Come, o sweet hour of
death), BWV 161, is a church cantata by Johann
Sebastian Bach. He composed it in Weimar for the 16th
Sunday after Trinity and first performed it on 6
October 1715.
On 2 March 1714 Bach was appointed concertmaster of the
Weimar court capelle of the co-reigning dukes Wilhelm
Ernst and Ernst August of Saxe-Weimar. As
concertmaster, he assumed the principal responsibility
for composing new works, specifically cantatas for the
Schlosskirche...(+)
Komm, du süße Todesstunde (Come, o sweet hour of
death), BWV 161, is a church cantata by Johann
Sebastian Bach. He composed it in Weimar for the 16th
Sunday after Trinity and first performed it on 6
October 1715.
On 2 March 1714 Bach was appointed concertmaster of the
Weimar court capelle of the co-reigning dukes Wilhelm
Ernst and Ernst August of Saxe-Weimar. As
concertmaster, he assumed the principal responsibility
for composing new works, specifically cantatas for the
Schlosskirche (palace church), on a monthly schedule,
aiming at a complete annual cycle within four years.
Bach wrote the cantata in 1715 for the 16th Sunday
after Trinity. According to the musicologist Alfred
Dürr and other sources it was first performed on 6
October 1715. The text for this and other cantatas of
1715 was written by Salomon Franck, published in
Evangelisches Andachts-Opffer in 1715. 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). In Bach's time
the story pointed immediately at the resurrection of
the dead, expressed in words of desire to die soon. The
closing chorale is the fourth verse of Christoph
Knoll's "Herzlich tut mich verlangen" (1611).
The first performance is dated as likely to have been
27 September 1716 by the publisher Carus-Verlag and
others. The cantata was performed again in Leipzig,
also for the feast of the Purification of Mary on 2
February.
The Phrygian chorale melody is the musical theme of the
cantata, appearing in movement 1 both in its original
form and also in the alto line derived from it. The
themes of both other arias (3 and 5) are also derived
from the same melody, uniting the music of the cantata.
The melody appears five times in chorales of Bach's St
Matthew Passion.
The tenor recitative (2) ends in an arioso when the
words paraphrase a Bible line of Phil 1:23, "Ich habe
Lust abzuscheiden und bei Christo zu sein" (I desire to
pasture soon with Christ. I desire to depart from this
world). The alto recitative (4) is accompanied by all
instruments, creating the images of sleep (in a
downward movement, ending in long notes), the waking up
(in fast movement upwards), and funeral bells in the
recorders and pizzicato of the strings. Movement 5,
marked aria by Franck, is set for four parts by Bach,
using homophony and like a song. The first part is not
repeated da capo, according to the last words "Dieses
sei mein letztes Wort" (May this be my last word). The
closing chorale is illuminated by a fifth part of the
two recorders playing in unison a lively
counterpoint.
Although the cantata was originally scored for alto and
tenor soloists, a four-part choir, two recorders, two
violins, viola, and basso continuo, I created this
arrangement for Winds (2 Flutes, Oboe, Bb Clarinet,
French Horn & Bassoon).
