Die Himmel erzählen die Ehre Gottes (English: The
heavens are telling the glory of God), BWV 76, is a
church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. He composed
the church cantata in Leipzig for the second Sunday
after Trinity within the liturgical year and first
performed it on 6 June 1723.
Bach composed the cantata at a decisive turning point
in his career. Moving from posts in the service of
churches and courts to the town of Leipzig on the first
Sunday after Trinity, 30 May 1723, he bega...(+)
Die Himmel erzählen die Ehre Gottes (English: The
heavens are telling the glory of God), BWV 76, is a
church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. He composed
the church cantata in Leipzig for the second Sunday
after Trinity within the liturgical year and first
performed it on 6 June 1723.
Bach composed the cantata at a decisive turning point
in his career. Moving from posts in the service of
churches and courts to the town of Leipzig on the first
Sunday after Trinity, 30 May 1723, he began the project
of composing a new cantata for every occasion of the
liturgical year. He began his first annual cycle of
cantatas ambitiously with Die Elenden sollen essen, BWV
75, in an unusual layout of 14 movements in two
symmetrical parts, to be performed before and after the
sermon. Die Himmel erzählen die Ehre Gottes has the
same structure.
Similar to the opening chorus of BWV 75, Bach sets the
psalm in two sections, comparable to a prelude and
fugue on a large scale. An instrumental concerto unites
the complete "prelude", the trumpet "calls" to tell the
glory of God. The fugue in C major is a permutation
fugue, which develops the subject twice, starting with
the voices, up to a triumphal entrance of the trumpet,
similar in development to the first chorus of Wir
danken dir, Gott, wir danken dir, BWV 29, composed much
later and used twice in the Mass in B minor. Joseph
Haydn later set the same words, also in C major, in his
oratorio The Creation.
In the first recitative the strings accompany the
voice, most keenly in motifs in the arioso middle
section, in Gardiner's words "to evoke the spirit of
God moving upon the face of the waters". Trumpet and
bass voice are used to convey the call "to banish the
tribe of idolaters", while the strings possibly
illustrate "the hordes of infidels". The last
recitative leads in an arioso to the chorale. In the
chorale, Bach has the violin play an obbligato part to
the four-part setting of the voices and separates the
lines by interludes, with the trumpet anticipating the
line to follow. The continuo plays ostinato a motif
which is derived from the first line of the
chorale.
Whereas Part I begins with a trumpet announcing
("erzählen") God's glory, Part II starts on an
intimate chamber music scale with oboe d'amore and
viola da gamba, concentrating on "brotherly devotion"
(brüderliche Treue). A sinfonia in E minor for these
two instruments is reminiscent both of Bach's
compositions for the court in Köthen and of a French
overture, marked "adagio", then "vivace". Bach used the
music of this movement later in his organ trio, BWV
528. Gardiner calls the movement "in effect a sonata da
chiesa". The tenor aria illustrates the "masochistic"
"Hate me, then, hate me with all your might, o hostile
race!" by a first dissonant entry on an ostinato bass
line full of chromatic, leaps and interrupting rests.
Oboe d'amore and viola da gamba return to accompany the
last aria, and "the sombre qualities of both voice and
instruments create a feeling of peace and
introspection". The music of the closing chorale is
identical to that of Part I.
Although originally scored for four vocal
soloists—soprano, alto, tenor and bass—a four-part
choir, trumpet, two oboes, oboe d'amore, two violins,
viola, viola da gamba and continuo, I created this
arrangement for String Quartet (2 Violins, Viola &
Cello).
