Jesus nahm zu sich die Zwölfe (Jesus gathered the
twelve to Himself), BWV 22,[a] is a church cantata by
Johann Sebastian Bach composed for Quinquagesima, the
last Sunday before Lent. Bach composed it as an
audition piece for the position of Thomaskantor in
Leipzig and first performed it there on 7 February
1723.
The work, which is in five movements, begins with a
scene from the Gospel reading in which Jesus predicts
his suffering in Jerusalem. The unknown poet of the
cantata text took ...(+)
Jesus nahm zu sich die Zwölfe (Jesus gathered the
twelve to Himself), BWV 22,[a] is a church cantata by
Johann Sebastian Bach composed for Quinquagesima, the
last Sunday before Lent. Bach composed it as an
audition piece for the position of Thomaskantor in
Leipzig and first performed it there on 7 February
1723.
The work, which is in five movements, begins with a
scene from the Gospel reading in which Jesus predicts
his suffering in Jerusalem. The unknown poet of the
cantata text took the scene as a starting point for a
sequence of aria, recitative, and aria, in which the
contemporary Christian takes the place of the
disciples, who do not understand what Jesus is telling
them about the events soon to unfold, but follow him
nevertheless. The closing chorale is a stanza from
Elisabeth Cruciger's hymn "Herr Christ, der einig Gotts
Sohn". The music is scored for three vocal soloists, a
four-part choir, oboe, strings and continuo. The work
shows that Bach had mastered the composition of a
dramatic scene, an expressive aria with obbligato oboe,
a recitative with strings, an exuberant dance, and a
chorale in the style of his predecessor in the position
as Thomaskantor, Johann Kuhnau. Bach directed the first
performance of the cantata during a church service,
together with another audition piece, Du wahrer Gott
und Davids Sohn, BWV 23. He performed the cantata again
on the last Sunday before Lent a year later, after he
had taken up office.
The cantata shows elements which became standards for
Bach's Leipzig cantatas and even the Passions,
including a "frame of biblical text and chorale around
the operatic forms of aria and recitative", "the fugal
setting of biblical words" and "the biblical narrative
... as a dramatic scena".
The cantata has five movements and is scored for three
vocal soloists (an alto (A), tenor (T) and bass (B)), a
four-part choir (SATB), and for a Baroque orchestra of
an oboe (Ob), two violins (Vl), viola (Va) and basso
continuo. The duration is given as c.?20 minutes.
Source: Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_nahm_zu_sich_die_Z
w%C3%B6lfe,_BWV_22).
In this, the second aria, again with strings, is a
dance-like movement in free da capo form, A B A'. The
unusually long text, of four lines for the A section
and two for the B section, results in Bach's solution
to repeat the end of the first line (my eternal good)
after all text of A, and then after the middle section
B repeat only the first line as A', thus ending A and
A' the same way. In this modified repeat, the voice
holds a long note on the word Friede ("peace"), after
which the same theme appears in the orchestra and again
in the continuo. The musicologist Tadashi Isoyama notes
the passepied character of the music, reminiscent of
secular Köthen cantatas. Mincham describes: "Bach's
expression of the joy of union with Christ can often
seem quite worldly and uninhibited", and summarises:
"The 3/8 time signature, symmetrical phrasing and rapid
string skirls combine to create a sense of a dance of
abandonment.".
I created this arrangement of the second Aria, "Mein
alles in allem, mein ewiges Gut" (My all in all, my
eternal good) for Classical (Acoustic) Guitar & Strings
(2 Violins, Viola & Cello).
PARTITION