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Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns hält, BWV 1128

February 12, 2024

Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns hält is a chorale fantasia for organ composed by Johann Sebastian Bach in the early 18th century, likely between 1705 and 1710.[1][2] The Zahn 4441a hymn tune for Justus Jonas's 1524 hymn "Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns hält", a paraphrase of Psalm 124 ("If it had not been the Lord who was on our side ..."), is the basis of the composition.[3][4][5]

The Schuke organ in the Divi Blasii at Mühlhausen: this organ, built in the 1950s, re-adopted Bach's 1708 specifications for the organ that was there until the 19th century. Likely Bach had the organ that was remodelled here by Johann Friedrich Wender according to the 1708 specifications (completed in 1709) in mind when writing the Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns hält chorale fantasia.[1][2]

A copy of the chorale fantasia resurfaced on 15 March 2008 at an auction of items from the collection of the 19th-century Bach scholar Wilhelm Rust.[3] The piece, until then known as BWV Anh. 71, could by this discovery be authenticated as Bach's and was reassigned the number BWV 1128.[6][7]

Context edit

 
First stanza of "Psalmus cxxiii", Justus Jonas's paraphrase of Psalm 124, in the Erfurt Enchiridion (1524).[8]

In the late 17th century, when he was not yet 15, Bach was already acquainted with the chorale fantasia genre, by such settings as Buxtehude's Nun freut euch, lieben Christen g'mein, BuxWV 210, and Reincken's An Wasserflüssen Babylon.[9] Apart from Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns hält, there is only one other known chorale fantasia for organ by Bach: Christ lag in Todesbanden, BWV 718, which was composed before c. 1715.[9][10][11] From mid 1707 Bach was organist at the Divi Blasii church in Mühlhausen.[12] Before that time he had been working in Arnstadt, where he played the Wender organ of the Neue Kirche.[12] After he moved to Weimar in mid 1708, he revisited Mühlhausen several times in the next few years, for instance supervising the remodelling of the organ of the Divi Blasii according to his design, which was completed in 1709, and performing cantatas he composed for council election in 1709 and 1710 (BWV 1138.1 and 1138.2).[12][13][14]

Time of origin edit

Stylistic analysis, conducted by, among others, Jean-Claude Zehnder, indicates that Bach composed Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns hält between c. 1705 and c. 1710, or, more narrowly, in the c. 1707–1708 period.[3][15] From what is known about the organs played by Bach around that time, the organ of the Divi Blasii, after completion of the changes initiated by Bach, appears to be the best fit for the composition's performance specifications and range, although it is assumed that Bach composed all his organ music so that it could be performed on more than one specific instrument.[3][12]

Hymn edit

Main article: Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns hält

Justus Jonas's paraphrase of Psalm 124, "Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns hält", was first published in the Erfurt Enchiridion (1524).[16] The hymn consists of eight stanzas of seven lines.[8] Its first stanza reads:

According to Stephan Blaut it is primarily the content of this first stanza which is illustrated by Bach's organ setting.[18] Several hymn tunes were composed for Jonas's hymn.[20] Bach's chorale fantasia is based on a setting of the hymn in bar form, first published in Wittenberg by Joseph Klug [de], in the second quarter of the 16th century (Zahn No. 4441a).[3][4][21][22]

Chorale fantasia genre edit

Main article: Chorale fantasia

In the chorale fantasia for organ, a genre as apparent in the 17th-century north German models by Buxtehude and Reincken which Bach knew, the melody of each line of a hymn stanza is treated separately: the treatment consisting of applying diverse techniques, such as echo, countermelodies and other embellishments or variations, to such fragments of the hymn tune, until all phrases of the chorale melody are treated consecutively.[9] Sections in which the phrases of the hymn tune are treated can be connected with transitional passages, for instance in the form of a coda.[9] This is different from a chorale fantasia type of movement in a vocal composition, where the phrases of the chorale melody are usually sung as a cantus firmus, against a backdrop of vocal and instrumental accompaniment and harmonisation, which usually also exhibits independent musical material, often in interludia between the phrases of the hymn. An example of such vocal chorale fantasia by Bach on the "Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns hält" hymn, also using the Zahn 4441a melody, is the opening chorus of his chorale cantata named after the hymn, Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns hält, BWV 178, composed in the 1720s.[3][23][24]

Music edit

Bach's composition consisting of 85 bars of organ music is based on the Wittenberg melody used for Jonas's hymn.[25] The large-scale fantasia is of moderate difficulty in four contrapuntal voices, and is scored for Rückpositiv, Oberwerk and Pedal.[3]

After an introductory section, the ornamented chorale appears in the right hand beginning with bar 12, proceeding verse by verse with interludes, chromaticism and echo sections. It concludes with a coda in a flurry typical of stylus phantasticus.[3]

Reception edit

Manuscripts edit

The first public record of the composition is in the 1845 estate auction of Johann Nicolaus Julius Kötschau who had been organist at St. Mary's in Halle. According to the auction record the manuscript was once owned by Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, Johann Sebastian's eldest son, and predecessor of Kötschau as organist in Halle. When Wilhelm Friedemann died in 1784 he left it along with other manuscripts, which included his Clavier-Büchlein, to his distant relative and student Johann Christian. When this Johann Christian died in 1814, Kötschau acquired these pieces from the estate auction. Kötschau later loaned the manuscript to Felix Mendelssohn, and then to the Leipzig publisher C. F. Peters.[3]

In the 1845 auction of Kötschau's estate, the manuscript, along with other Bach works, was acquired by Friedrich August Gotthold [de]. In 1852, to preserve his collection, Gotthold donated it to the Königsberg Library, where, 25 years later, Joseph Müller listed it in a catalogue describing "24 books of organ compositions by J. S. Bach," which contained as fascicle No. 5 "Fantasia Sopra il Corale Wo Gott der Herr nicht bey uns hält pro Organo à 2 Clav. e Pedale."[3]

Learning about the piece, Wilhelm Rust had the manuscript sent on a library loan to Berlin, where he copied it in 1877.[3] Rust, who had edited more than half of the volumes of the Bach Gesamtausgabe (BGA), resigned from the BGA project over conflicts, particularly with Philipp Spitta.[26] Rust shared his knowledge about the piece with Spitta's rival Bach biographer Carl Hermann Bitter, who listed "141. Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns hält. Fantasia sopra il Chorale. G-moll. (Königsberger Bibliothek.)" as a chorale prelude by Bach in Vol. IV of his second edition of J. S. Bach (Dresden 1880 / Berlin 1881).[3][27] After Rust's death in 1892, a large part of his collection went to a student of his, Erich Prieger.[3] Prieger's collection, in turn, was put up for auction after World War I in three sections, one of which, with 18th- and 19th-century Bachiana, went in 1924 to the Cologne book dealer M. Lempertz.[3]

The manuscript owned by Kötschau went lost in the Second World War. According to Hans-Joachim Schulze there is some hope it may have survived in a Russian library.[3] As the chorale fantasia did not get included in the BGA, Wolfgang Schmieder listed it as a doubtful work in the second Appendix (Anhang) of the 1950 first edition of the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis (BWV Anh. II 71), where it remained in subsequent versions of the catalogue that were printed in the 20th century.[3][6]

Parts of Prieger's collection, including some compositions by Rust and his copy of BWV Anh. II 71, went up for auction on 15 March 2008. The Rust items were acquired by the University and State Library of Halle, and finally the chorale fantasia was authenticated by Stephan Blaut and Michael Pacholke of Halle University, and got the BWV number 1128.[3]

Publication edit

On 10 June 2008 Ortus published the score, based on two 19th-century manuscript sources:[3]

Performance and recording edit

On 13 June 2008, Ullrich Böhme played BWV 1128 at the opening concert of the Bachfest Leipzig, which included Bach's cantata BWV 178 on the same chorale, sung by the Thomanerchor.[3] The same day a CD by Rondeau Production containing these two works was released.[3]

References edit

  1. ^ a b Kuznik 2008, p. 23.
  2. ^ a b Blaut & Schulze 2008, pp. 30–32.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Kuznik 2008.
  4. ^ a b Zahn 1890, p. 75.
  5. ^ Psalms 124:1 (KJV translation)
  6. ^ a b "Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns hält BWV 1128; BWV Anh. 71; Emans 195". Bach Digital. Leipzig: Bach Archive; et al. 14 February 2019.
  7. ^ Blaut & Schulze 2008.
  8. ^ a b "Psalmus cxxiii" in Erfurt Enchiridion (1524)
  9. ^ a b c d Blaut & Schulze 2008, p. 21.
  10. ^ "D-B Mus.ms. Bach P 281, Faszikel 2". Bach Digital. Leipzig: Bach Archive; et al. 15 June 2020.
  11. ^ RISM 467300788
  12. ^ a b c d Blaut & Schulze 2008, pp. 30–31.
  13. ^ Eidam 2001.
  14. ^ Wolff 2002.
  15. ^ Blaut & Schulze 2008, pp. 30, 32.
  16. ^ Terry 1917, p. 453.
  17. ^ Terry 1917, p. 454.
  18. ^ a b Blaut & Schulze 2008, p. 22.
  19. ^ Terry 1917, pp. 569–570, 498.
  20. ^ Zahn 1890, pp. 75–76.
  21. ^ Blaut & Schulze 2008, pp. 21–22.
  22. ^ Terry 1917, pp. 280, 453.
  23. ^ Terry 1917, pp. 453–454.
  24. ^ "Wo Gott, der Herr, nicht bei uns hält BWV 178". Bach Digital. Leipzig: Bach Archive; et al. 17 August 2020.
  25. ^ . Echo Musikproduction. Archived from the original on 5 January 2009. Retrieved 26 January 2009.
  26. ^ Reinmar Emans and Sven Hiemke. "Editionen der Werke Johann Sebastian Bachs" pp. 227–260 in Musikeditionen im Wandel der Geschichte edited by Reinmar Emans and Ulrich Krämer. Walter de Gruyter, 2015. ISBN 3110434350, pp. 247–248
  27. ^ Karl Hermann Bitter. Johann Sebastian Bach, second revised edition. Berlin: Baensch, 1881. Vol. 4, p. 250

Sources edit

External links edit

February 12, 2024
gott, herr, nicht, hält, 1128, gott, herr, nicht, hält, chorale, fantasia, organ, composed, johann, sebastian, bach, early, 18th, century, likely, between, 1705, 1710, zahn, 4441a, hymn, tune, justus, jonas, 1524, hymn, gott, herr, nicht, hält, paraphrase, psa. Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns halt is a chorale fantasia for organ composed by Johann Sebastian Bach in the early 18th century likely between 1705 and 1710 1 2 The Zahn 4441a hymn tune for Justus Jonas s 1524 hymn Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns halt a paraphrase of Psalm 124 If it had not been the Lord who was on our side is the basis of the composition 3 4 5 The Schuke organ in the Divi Blasii at Muhlhausen this organ built in the 1950s re adopted Bach s 1708 specifications for the organ that was there until the 19th century Likely Bach had the organ that was remodelled here by Johann Friedrich Wender according to the 1708 specifications completed in 1709 in mind when writing the Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns halt chorale fantasia 1 2 A copy of the chorale fantasia resurfaced on 15 March 2008 at an auction of items from the collection of the 19th century Bach scholar Wilhelm Rust 3 The piece until then known as BWV Anh 71 could by this discovery be authenticated as Bach s and was reassigned the number BWV 1128 6 7 Contents 1 Context 1 1 Time of origin 1 2 Hymn 1 3 Chorale fantasia genre 2 Music 3 Reception 3 1 Manuscripts 3 2 Publication 3 3 Performance and recording 4 References 5 Sources 6 External linksContext edit nbsp First stanza of Psalmus cxxiii Justus Jonas s paraphrase of Psalm 124 in the Erfurt Enchiridion 1524 8 In the late 17th century when he was not yet 15 Bach was already acquainted with the chorale fantasia genre by such settings as Buxtehude s Nun freut euch lieben Christen g mein BuxWV 210 and Reincken s An Wasserflussen Babylon 9 Apart from Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns halt there is only one other known chorale fantasia for organ by Bach Christ lag in Todesbanden BWV 718 which was composed before c 1715 9 10 11 From mid 1707 Bach was organist at the Divi Blasii church in Muhlhausen 12 Before that time he had been working in Arnstadt where he played the Wender organ of the Neue Kirche 12 After he moved to Weimar in mid 1708 he revisited Muhlhausen several times in the next few years for instance supervising the remodelling of the organ of the Divi Blasii according to his design which was completed in 1709 and performing cantatas he composed for council election in 1709 and 1710 BWV 1138 1 and 1138 2 12 13 14 Time of origin edit Stylistic analysis conducted by among others Jean Claude Zehnder indicates that Bach composed Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns halt between c 1705 and c 1710 or more narrowly in the c 1707 1708 period 3 15 From what is known about the organs played by Bach around that time the organ of the Divi Blasii after completion of the changes initiated by Bach appears to be the best fit for the composition s performance specifications and range although it is assumed that Bach composed all his organ music so that it could be performed on more than one specific instrument 3 12 Hymn edit Main article Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns halt Justus Jonas s paraphrase of Psalm 124 Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns halt was first published in the Erfurt Enchiridion 1524 16 The hymn consists of eight stanzas of seven lines 8 Its first stanza reads Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns halt Wenn unsre Feinde toben Und er unsrer Sach nicht zufallt Im Himmel hoch dort oben Wo er Israels Schutz nicht ist Und selber bricht der Feinde List So ist s mit uns verloren If God were not upon our side When foes around us rage Were not Himself our Help and Guide When bitter war they wage Were He not Israel s mighty Shield To whom their utmost crafts must yield We surely must have perished Justus Jonas 17 18 translated by Catherine Winkworth 19 According to Stephan Blaut it is primarily the content of this first stanza which is illustrated by Bach s organ setting 18 Several hymn tunes were composed for Jonas s hymn 20 Bach s chorale fantasia is based on a setting of the hymn in bar form first published in Wittenberg by Joseph Klug de in the second quarter of the 16th century Zahn No 4441a 3 4 21 22 Chorale fantasia genre edit Main article Chorale fantasia In the chorale fantasia for organ a genre as apparent in the 17th century north German models by Buxtehude and Reincken which Bach knew the melody of each line of a hymn stanza is treated separately the treatment consisting of applying diverse techniques such as echo countermelodies and other embellishments or variations to such fragments of the hymn tune until all phrases of the chorale melody are treated consecutively 9 Sections in which the phrases of the hymn tune are treated can be connected with transitional passages for instance in the form of a coda 9 This is different from a chorale fantasia type of movement in a vocal composition where the phrases of the chorale melody are usually sung as a cantus firmus against a backdrop of vocal and instrumental accompaniment and harmonisation which usually also exhibits independent musical material often in interludia between the phrases of the hymn An example of such vocal chorale fantasia by Bach on the Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns halt hymn also using the Zahn 4441a melody is the opening chorus of his chorale cantata named after the hymn Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns halt BWV 178 composed in the 1720s 3 23 24 Music editBach s composition consisting of 85 bars of organ music is based on the Wittenberg melody used for Jonas s hymn 25 The large scale fantasia is of moderate difficulty in four contrapuntal voices and is scored for Ruckpositiv Oberwerk and Pedal 3 After an introductory section the ornamented chorale appears in the right hand beginning with bar 12 proceeding verse by verse with interludes chromaticism and echo sections It concludes with a coda in a flurry typical of stylus phantasticus 3 Reception editManuscripts edit The first public record of the composition is in the 1845 estate auction of Johann Nicolaus Julius Kotschau who had been organist at St Mary s in Halle According to the auction record the manuscript was once owned by Wilhelm Friedemann Bach Johann Sebastian s eldest son and predecessor of Kotschau as organist in Halle When Wilhelm Friedemann died in 1784 he left it along with other manuscripts which included his Clavier Buchlein to his distant relative and student Johann Christian When this Johann Christian died in 1814 Kotschau acquired these pieces from the estate auction Kotschau later loaned the manuscript to Felix Mendelssohn and then to the Leipzig publisher C F Peters 3 In the 1845 auction of Kotschau s estate the manuscript along with other Bach works was acquired by Friedrich August Gotthold de In 1852 to preserve his collection Gotthold donated it to the Konigsberg Library where 25 years later Joseph Muller listed it in a catalogue describing 24 books of organ compositions by J S Bach which contained as fascicle No 5 Fantasia Sopra il Corale Wo Gott der Herr nicht bey uns halt pro Organo a 2 Clav e Pedale 3 Learning about the piece Wilhelm Rust had the manuscript sent on a library loan to Berlin where he copied it in 1877 3 Rust who had edited more than half of the volumes of the Bach Gesamtausgabe BGA resigned from the BGA project over conflicts particularly with Philipp Spitta 26 Rust shared his knowledge about the piece with Spitta s rival Bach biographer Carl Hermann Bitter who listed 141 Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns halt Fantasia sopra il Chorale G moll Konigsberger Bibliothek as a chorale prelude by Bach in Vol IV of his second edition of J S Bach Dresden 1880 Berlin 1881 3 27 After Rust s death in 1892 a large part of his collection went to a student of his Erich Prieger 3 Prieger s collection in turn was put up for auction after World War I in three sections one of which with 18th and 19th century Bachiana went in 1924 to the Cologne book dealer M Lempertz 3 The manuscript owned by Kotschau went lost in the Second World War According to Hans Joachim Schulze there is some hope it may have survived in a Russian library 3 As the chorale fantasia did not get included in the BGA Wolfgang Schmieder listed it as a doubtful work in the second Appendix Anhang of the 1950 first edition of the Bach Werke Verzeichnis BWV Anh II 71 where it remained in subsequent versions of the catalogue that were printed in the 20th century 3 6 Parts of Prieger s collection including some compositions by Rust and his copy of BWV Anh II 71 went up for auction on 15 March 2008 The Rust items were acquired by the University and State Library of Halle and finally the chorale fantasia was authenticated by Stephan Blaut and Michael Pacholke of Halle University and got the BWV number 1128 3 Publication edit On 10 June 2008 Ortus published the score based on two 19th century manuscript sources 3 Source A Rust s copy of 8 September 1877 Source B a copy made by Ernst Naumann sometime after 1890 kept in the Bach Archiv Leipzig Performance and recording edit On 13 June 2008 Ullrich Bohme played BWV 1128 at the opening concert of the Bachfest Leipzig which included Bach s cantata BWV 178 on the same chorale sung by the Thomanerchor 3 The same day a CD by Rondeau Production containing these two works was released 3 References edit a b Kuznik 2008 p 23 a b Blaut amp Schulze 2008 pp 30 32 a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Kuznik 2008 a b Zahn 1890 p 75 Psalms 124 1 KJV translation a b Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns halt BWV 1128 BWV Anh 71 Emans 195 Bach Digital Leipzig Bach Archive et al 14 February 2019 Blaut amp Schulze 2008 a b Psalmus cxxiii in Erfurt Enchiridion 1524 a b c d Blaut amp Schulze 2008 p 21 D B Mus ms Bach P 281 Faszikel 2 Bach Digital Leipzig Bach Archive et al 15 June 2020 RISM 467300788 a b c d Blaut amp Schulze 2008 pp 30 31 Eidam 2001 Wolff 2002 Blaut amp Schulze 2008 pp 30 32 Terry 1917 p 453 Terry 1917 p 454 a b Blaut amp Schulze 2008 p 22 Terry 1917 pp 569 570 498 Zahn 1890 pp 75 76 Blaut amp Schulze 2008 pp 21 22 Terry 1917 pp 280 453 Terry 1917 pp 453 454 Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns halt BWV 178 Bach Digital Leipzig Bach Archive et al 17 August 2020 Bach Choralfantasie BWV 1128 Org Echo Musikproduction Archived from the original on 5 January 2009 Retrieved 26 January 2009 Reinmar Emans and Sven Hiemke Editionen der Werke Johann Sebastian Bachs pp 227 260 in Musikeditionen im Wandel der Geschichte edited by Reinmar Emans and Ulrich Kramer Walter de Gruyter 2015 ISBN 3110434350 pp 247 248 Karl Hermann Bitter Johann Sebastian Bach second revised edition Berlin Baensch 1881 Vol 4 p 250Sources editBlaut Stephan Schulze Hans Joachim 2008 Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns halt BWV 1128 Quellenkundliche und stilistische Uberlegungen Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns halt BWV 1128 source related and stylistic considerations In Wollny Peter ed Bach Jahrbuch 2008 Bach Yearbook 2008 Bach Jahrbuch in German Vol 94 Neue Bachgesellschaft Leipzig Evangelische Verlagsanstalt pp 11 32 doi 10 13141 bjb v2008 ISBN 978 3 374 02668 5 ISSN 0084 7682 via Qucosa de Eidam Klaus 2001 Ch V The True Life of Johann Sebastian Bach New York Basic Books ISBN 0 465 01861 0 Kuznik Joel H December 2008 BWV 1128 A recently discovered Bach organ work PDF The Diapason 99 22 22 23 HTML version without illustrations description of the Muhlhausen organ and page numbers a href Template Cite journal html title Template Cite journal cite journal a External link in code class cs1 code postscript code help CS1 maint postscript link Terry Charles Sanford 1917 Bach s Chorals Vol II The Hymns and Hymn Melodies of the Cantatas and Motetts Cambridge University Press Wolff Christoph 2002 At the Blasius Church in Muhlhausen Johann Sebastian Bach The Learned Musician Norton p 111 ISBN 9780199248841 Zahn Johannes 1890 Die Melodien der deutschen evangelischen Kirchenlieder Vol III Gutersloh Bertelsmann a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a External link in code class cs1 code volume code help External links edit Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns halt BWV 1128 at MusicBrainz information and list of recordings Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns halt BWV 1128 Scores at the International Music Score Library Project Free download of BWV 1128 recorded by James Kibbie on the 1736 Erasmus Bielfeldt organ in St Wilhadi Stade Germany Portal nbsp Classical Music Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns halt BWV 1128 amp oldid 1151222625, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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