Ich will den Kreuzstab gerne tragen, BWV 56
Ich will den Kreuzstab gerne tragen, BWV56, is a church cantata which Johann Sebastian Bach composed for the 19th Sunday after Trinity. It was first performed in Leipzig on 27 October 1726, and is part of Bach's third cantata cycle. The composition is indicated as solo cantata while it requires only a single vocal soloist, in this case a bass. Bach rarely used the word cantata to refer to a composition: the autograph score of BWV56 is one of a few cases where he did.
The text, by Christoph Birkmann, describes the Christian life as a voluntary journey "carrying the cross" as a follower of Jesus. The words indirectly refer to the prescribed Gospel reading, which says that Jesus traveled by boat. The poet compares life to a sea voyage, and at the end yearns for death as the ultimate destination. This final desire for death is reinforced by the closing chorale: the stanza "Komm, o Tod, du Schlafes Bruder" from Johann Franck's 1653 hymn "Du, o schönes Weltgebäude", which also uses the imagery of a sea voyage.
Bach composed the cantata in his fourth year as Thomaskantor in Leipzig. It is structured in five movements, alternating arias and recitatives for a bass soloist and closing with a four-part chorale. He scored the work for a Baroque instrumental ensemble of three woodwind instruments, three string instruments and continuo. An obbligato cello features in the first recitative and an obbligato oboe in the second aria, resulting in different timbres in the four movements for the same voice part.
The cantata was recorded early and often. Albert Schweitzer wrote in his book about the composer, "This is one of the most splendid of Bach's works." The closing chorale appears in Robert Schneider's 1992 novel, Schlafes Bruder, and its film adaption Brother of Sleep.
Background
was appointed by the town of Leipzig as its Thomaskantor in 1723. The position made him responsible for the music at four churches, and the training and education of boys singing in the Thomanerchor. Cantata music was required for two major churches, Thomaskirche and Nikolaikirche, and simpler church music for two smaller churches: Neue Kirche and Peterskirche.Bach took office in the middle of the liturgical year, on the first Sunday after Trinity. In Leipzig, cantata music was expected on Sundays and feast days except for the "silent periods" of Advent and Lent. In his first year, Bach decided to compose new works for almost all liturgical events; these works became known as his first cantata cycle. He continued the following year, composing a cycle of chorale cantatas with each cantata based on a Lutheran hymn.
Third Leipzig cantata cycle
The third cantata cycle encompasses works composed during Bach's third and fourth years in Leipzig, and include Ich will den Kreuzstab gerne tragen. It differs from the first two cycles, using fewer extant compositions.One characteristic of the third cycle is that Bach performed more works by other composers in addition to repeating his own, earlier works. His new works have no common theme, as the chorale cantatas did. Bach demonstrated a new preference for solo cantatas, dialogue cantatas and cantatas dominated by one instrument. During the third cycle, he repeated performances of solo cantatas from his Weimar period based on texts by Georg Christian Lehms, Mein Herze schwimmt im Blut, BWV 199, and Widerstehe doch der Sünde, BWV 54. He Used other texts by Lehms before turning to other librettists.
Bach's solo cantatas are modeled after secular Italian works by composers such as Alessandro Scarlatti. Like the models, even church cantatas do not contain biblical text and very few close with a chorale. His writing for solo voice is demanding, and requires trained singers. Richard D. P. Jones, a musicologist and Bach scholar, assumes that Bach "exploited the vocal technique and the interpretative skills of particular singers". Jones describes some of these solo cantatas, especially Vergnügte Ruh, beliebte Seelenlust, BWV 170, Ich will den Kreuzstab gerne tragen and Ich habe genug, BWV 82, as among Bach's "most-beloved" cantatas.
Although dialogue cantatas also appear earlier in Bach's works, all four dialogues between Jesus and the Soul – based on elements of the Song of Songs – are part of the third cycle. The only chorale cantata of the third cycle, Lobe den Herren, den mächtigen König der Ehren, BWV 137, follows the omnes versus style and sets all stanzas of a hymn unchanged; Bach rarely used this style in his chorale cantatas, except in the early Christ lag in Todes Banden, BWV 4 and later chorale cantatas.
Occasion and words
Bach wrote the cantata for the 19th Sunday after Trinity, during his fourth year in Leipzig. The prescribed readings for that Sunday were from Paul's epistle to the Ephesians – "Put on the new man, which after God is created" – and the Gospel of Matthew: healing the paralytic at Capernaum. For the occasion, Bach had composed Ich elender Mensch, wer wird mich erlösen, BWV 48 in his first cantata cycle for . In his second cycle he wrote the chorale cantata Wo soll ich fliehen hin, BWV 5 for, based on the penitential hymn "Wo soll ich fliehen hin" by Johann Heermann.Poet and theme
Until recently the librettist was unknown, but research by Christine Blanken published in 2015 suggests that Christoph Birkmann probably wrote the text of Ich will den Kreuzstab gerne tragen. Birkmann was a student of mathematics and theology at the University of Leipzig from 1724 to 1727. During that time, he also studied with Bach and appeared in cantata performances. Birkmann published a yearbook of cantata texts in 1728, Gott-geheiligte Sabbaths-Zehnden, which contains several Bach cantatas – including Ich will den Kreuzstab gerne tragen., the cantata's librettist
The librettist built on Erdmann Neumeister's text from "Ich will den Kreuzweg gerne gehen", which was published in 1711. Kreuzweg, the Way of the Cross, refers to the Stations of the Cross and more generally to the "cross as the burden of any Christian". Here Kreuzweg is replaced with Kreuzstab, which refers to a pilgrim's staff and a navigational instrument known as a cross staff or Jacob's staff. In the cantata's text, life is compared to a pilgrimage and a sea voyage.
Birkmann's text alludes to Matthew's gospel; although there is no explicit reference to the sick man, he speaks in the first person as a follower of Christ who bears his cross and suffers until the end, when "God shall wipe away the tears from their eyes". The cantata takes as its starting point the torments which the faithful must endure.
The text is rich in biblical references. The metaphor of life as a sea voyage in the first recitative comes from the beginning of that Sunday's Gospel reading: "There He went on board a ship and passed over and came into His own city". Affirmations that God will not forsake the faithful on this journey and will lead them out of tribulation were taken from and. The third movement expresses joy at being united with the saviour, and its text refers to : "Those that wait upon the Lord shall gain new strength so that they mount up with wings like an eagle, so that they run and do not grow weary". The theme of joy, coupled with a yearning for death, runs through the cantata.
The final lines of the opening aria are repeated just before the closing chorale. This uncommon stylistic device appears several times in the third cantata cycle.
Chorale
The final chorale is built around the sixth stanza of Johann Franck's hymn, "Du, o schönes Weltgebäude", which contains ship imagery: "Löse meines Schiffleins Ruder, bringe mich an sichern Port". The hymn was published in 1653 with a 1649 melody by Johann Crüger. Its words describe turning away from the beautiful building which is the world, longing only for Jesus. This phrase recurs, with slight variations, at the end of each stanza.First performance
Bach conducted the cantata's first performance on 27 October 1726. The recital was a week after he had performed another of his solo cantatas, Gott soll allein mein Herze haben, BWV 169, which also ends with a chorale.Music
Structure and scoring
The cantata is structured in five movements, with alternating arias, recitatives and a four-part chorale. Bach scored for a bass soloist, a four-part choir in the closing chorale, and a Baroque instrumental ensemble of two oboes, taille, two violins, viola, cello, and basso continuo. Except for the obbligato oboe in the third movement, the three oboes double the violins and viola colla parte. The title page of the autograph score reads: "Domin. 19 post Trinit. / Ich will den Xstab gerne tragen / a / 2 / Hautb. o Viol. / Viola o / Taille / 4 Voci / Basso solo / e / Cont. / di / J.S.Bach". The score begins with the line "", making it one of the few works Bach termed a cantata. Its length is reportedly 21 minutes.In the following table, the scoring follows the Neue Bach-Ausgabe. The keys and time signatures are from Alfred Dürr, and use the symbol for common time. The continuo, played throughout, is not shown.
Movements
Musicologist and Bach scholar Christoph Wolff wrote that Bach achieves "a finely shaded series of timbres" in Ich will den Kreuzstab gerne tragen. Each of the four solo movements are scored differently. All the instruments accompany the opening aria; only the continuo is scored for the secco recitative, an obbligato oboe for the central aria, and strings for the accompagnato recitative. All instruments return for the closing chorale.Schweitzer points out that Ich will den Kreuzstab gerne tragen is among the works in which Bach carefully marked the phrasing of the parts; others are the Brandenburg Concertos, the St Matthew Passion, the Christmas Oratorio and a few other cantatas, including Ich habe genug and O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort, BWV 60.
1
The opening aria begins with "Ich will den Kreuzstab gerne tragen, er kömmt von Gottes lieber Hand". It is in bar form, with two stollen followed by an abgesang. The first stollen begins with a ritornello for full orchestra, anticipating in counterpoint the rising and falling motif of the bass soloist, and mounts with an augmented second marking the word Kreuzstab, followed by descending sighing figures signalling the bearing of the cross. John Eliot Gardiner, who conducted the Bach Cantata Pilgrimage in 2000, describes the beginning of the bass melody as a musical pun on the word Kreuzstab, with the upward part "a harrowing arpeggio to a sharpened seventh ", and the downward part as "six and a half bars of pained descent to signify the ongoing burden of the Cross".After the soloist sings a series of melismatic lines, three groups of strings and oboes are introduced as counterpoint and echoing response in a score with motifs from the opening ritornello. The refrain is again taken up in the second stollen, but with significant variations due to the differing text: "It leads me after my torments to God in the Promised Land". After a repeat of the opening ritornello, the final abgesang contains the words, "There at last I will lay my sorrow in the grave, there my Savior himself will wipe away my tears." Declamatory triplets, spanning the bass register, are responded to in the accompaniment by sighing motifs. A reprise of the orchestral ritornello ends the aria.
2
In the second movement, the recitative "Mein Wandel auf der Welt ist einer Schiffahrt gleich", the sea is evoked by the accompanying cello line. Albert Schweitzer noted that Bach was often inspired by a single word to create an image of waves, and recommended augmenting the cello with a viola and bassoon to give more weight to the image. According to Gardiner, the style is reminiscent of older music and the assuring words "Ich bin bei dir" are a "whispered comfort".3
The third movement, the da capo aria "Endlich, endlich wird mein Joch wieder von mir weichen müssen", illustrates a passage from Isaiah. The lively and joyous concertante is written as a duet for solo oboe, bass soloist and continuo, and is full of elaborate coloraturas in the solo parts. According to Gardiner, in the aria "one senses Bach bridging the gap between living and dying with total clarity and utter fearlessness".4
The fourth movement, "Ich stehe fertig und bereit, das Erbe meiner Seligkeit mit Sehnen und Verlangen von Jesus Händen zu empfangen", is a recitativo accompagnato with strings. It begins as a declamatory recitative, with sustained string accompaniment. After seven bars the time signature changes from 4/4 to 3/4, resuming a simple, calm version of the second half of the abgesang from the first movement and repeating words related to the Book of Revelation in a triplet rhythm. Gardiner describes this change: "... now slowed to adagio and transposed to F minor, and from there by means of melisma floating effortlessly upwards, for the first time, to C major".5
The final four-part chorale, "Komm, o Tod, du Schlafes Bruder", with the orchestra doubling the vocal parts, is regarded as an inspired masterpiece. Death is addressed as a brother of sleep and asked to end the voyage of life by loosening the rudders of a small boat and bringing it to safe harbour, marking the end of the cantata's metaphorical journey.Komm und führe mich nur fort;
Löse meines Schiffleins Ruder,
Bringe mich an sichern Port!
Es mag, wer da will, dich scheuen,
Du kannst mich vielmehr erfreuen;
Denn durch dich komm ich herein
Zu dem schönsten Jesulein.
Come and lead me hence now forth;
Loosen now my small bark's rudder,
Bring thou me secure to port!
Others may desire to shun thee,
Thou canst all the more delight me;
For through thee I'll come inside
To the fairest Jesus-child.
The melody was written by Johann Crüger and published in 1646. Bach set the tune in a four-part setting, BWV 301, and introduced dramatic syncopation for the beginning "Komm". At the end of the penultimate line, torment and dissonance are transformed into glory and harmony and illuminate the words "Denn durch dich komm ich herein / zu dem schönsten Jesulein". Gardiner notes that it is Bach's only setting of Crüger's melody, which recalls the style of his father's cousin Johann Christoph Bach. Psychologist and gerontologist Andreas Kruse notes that the chorale conveys the transformation and transition from earthly life to an eternal harbour. He compares the setting to "Ach Herr, laß dein lieb Engelein", the closing chorale of Bach's St John Passion, which is focused on sleep and awakening. Both settings end their works with "impressive composure".