Chorale No. 210 of 1345
Music: Christoph Graupner (1683-1760)
First performance: 07/06/1722 (1st Sunday after Trinity)
Verse text: Da wird sein das Freudenleben
Text source: 4th verse of Alle Menschen müßen sterben (Johann Rosenmüller or Johann Georg Albinus, 1652)
Chorale melody: Jesu, der du meine Seele (Christoph Anton, 17th Century)
6th movement of cantata Ehre Lust und Pracht der Welt (GWV 1142/22)
Scoring: SATB, 2 oboes, strings and continuo
Today I feature the chorale which ends Christoph Graupner's cantata "Ehre Lust und Pracht der Welt" ("Glory, pleasure and splendour of the world") for the first Sunday after Trinity in 1722. It is set for SSATB, two oboes, strings and continuo.
The chorale text comes from the hymn "Alle Menschen müßen sterben (Some day we must all die). According to bach-cantatas.com there is some debate about whether the text is by the composer Johann Rosenmüller (who wrote some really fine music and is enjoying his own revival at present) or by Johann Georg Albinus. In any case, it seems the text was written for a funeral held in Leipzig in 1652.
4. Da wird sein das Freudenleben,
Da viel tausen Seelen schon
Sind mit Himmelsglanz umgeben,
Dienen Gott für seinem Thron,
Da die Seraphinen prangen
Und das hohe Lied anfangen:
Heilig, heilig, heilig heißt
Gott der Vater, Sohn und Geist.
Translation (Slightly modified from that by Francis Browne on bach-cantatas.com)
4. There will come the joyful life,
Where many thousand souls already,
Surrounded with heavenly splendour,
Serve God before his throne,
Where the Seraphim are resplendent,
And begin the lofty song:
"Holy holy holy all,
God the Father, son, and spirit."
Here is another, syllabic translation by Catherine Winkworth (appears in her Chorale book for England from 1863)
There is joy beyond our telling
Where so many saints are gone;
Thousand thousands there are dwelling,
Worshipping before the throne:
There the seraphim adoring
Brightly shine, are ever calling:
"Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord!
Three in One for aye adored!"
The melody used by Graupner appears to have been composed by Christoph Anton in the first half of the 17th century. There is a detailed discussion of this melody (in the context of Bach's numerous settings of it) here: [ Ссылка ]
Graupner's seems to be in a highly experimental mood here and in his accompaniment tinkers with a minimalist approach (I think I already mentioned in an earlier video description that I consider him to be the first minimalist composer).
Bar 2 is repeated 15 times exactly (plus 2 times in a slight varied forms). Bar 3 is repeated 8 times (plus 1 time in a varied form). That means that 26 bars of this 46 bar piece are identical (or nearly identical) to bar 2 or bar 3. Moreover, the remaining music is directly derived from the material in these two bars. For instance, 11 bars are basically versions of bar 2 in a different key. It should be stressed, that this is by no means an ostinato accompaniment (we have seen Graupner's interest in ostinato forms already). Despite the simplicity of the building materials, the texture of Graupner's construction in this chorale does vary somewhat because he sees his two oboes independent of the strings. They play almost entirely triplets, while the strings play no triplets at all. Also the oboes dive in and out of the music, stopping at various moments for a few beats (and some breath!). The only connection between the oboes and strings is the dotted figure introduced by the oboes at the start of their first bar. The strings pick this up in the second half of the chorale and at one point (bar 31) they "call" to the oboes with this figure and the oboes answer with it. In the final line of the work, Graupner develops this figure further to bring us to the climax of the piece. At the very end, the cheeky man teases us with the only varied playing of bar 3 (up till now it was performed without change as the 1 bar "interlude" between each line of the chorale): while the oboes play the same, he writes an explicit staccato accompaniment in the strings and, for the first and only time in this figure the continuo joins in. Rather than every other instance of this music, which was just a three part texture with the upper stings in unison, for the final two bars he expands to 6 parts, just to draw a line under the work at the end!
