Meine Seufzer, meine Tränen (My sighs, my tears), BWV
13,[a] is a church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. He
composed it in Leipzig for the second Sunday after
Epiphany and first performed it on 20 January 1726.
The cantata is opened by an aria, a lamento accompanied
by soft recorders and the dark sound of the oboe da
caccia which leads frequently. It is a da capo form,
but the middle section is again divided in two parts.
In it, the voice shows the "Weg zum Tod" (road to
death) by se...(+)
Meine Seufzer, meine Tränen (My sighs, my tears), BWV
13,[a] is a church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. He
composed it in Leipzig for the second Sunday after
Epiphany and first performed it on 20 January 1726.
The cantata is opened by an aria, a lamento accompanied
by soft recorders and the dark sound of the oboe da
caccia which leads frequently. It is a da capo form,
but the middle section is again divided in two parts.
In it, the voice shows the "Weg zum Tod" (road to
death) by several downward steps. Dürr points out that
this composition "illustrates how the imagination of
the Baroque musician is particularly fired by texts
dealing with sighing and pain". The following short
secco recitative ends as an arioso on the words
"vergeblich flehen" (plead in vain). In the chorale,
the woodwinds play the cantus firmus in unison with the
alto voice, while the strings play independent
figuration in F major, illustrating hope, although the
text says that hope is not yet in sight. John Eliot
Gardiner terms it "confident diatonic harmonies" as an
"optimistic, wordless answer" to the voice's "prayer
for comfort".
A second expressive recitative leads to a second aria,
which is accompanied by violin I and the recorders,
playing in unison an octave higher. The lamenting text
of the beginning "Ächzen und erbärmlich Weinen"
(groaning and pitiful weeping) is stressed by intervals
such as augmented second, diminished fifth and
diminished seventh. The ritornello has two distinctly
different parts, a lamenting section and a hopeful one,
full of fast runs and passages. In the middle section,
the text "wer gen Himmel siehet" (he who looks towards
heaven) is accented by an octave leap upwards in the
voice and upwards runs in the instruments, contrasting
the downward line in movement 1. The closing chorale is
a four-part setting of the melody of "O Welt, ich muss
dich lassen" by Heinrich Isaac, which is featured twice
in Bach's St Matthew Passion in movements 10 (Ich
bin's, ich sollte büßen) and 37 (Wer hat dich so
geschlagen).
The cantata in six movements is intimately scored for
four soloists, soprano, alto, tenor, and bass, a
four-part choir in the closing chorale, two recorders,
oboe da caccia, two violins, viola, and basso
continuo.
Source: Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meine_Seufzer,_meine_Tr%
C3%A4nen,_BWV_13).
I created this arrangement of the closing Chorale: "So
sei nun, Seele, deine" (Therefore take hold of
yourself, my soul) for String Quartet (2 Violins, Viola
& Cello).
