N.B. A new performance of this chorale with "real" vocals can be found here: [ Ссылка ]

Chorale No. 315 of 1345
First performance: 30/12/1725 (Sunday after Christmas Day)
Verse text: Was willst du dich betrüben
Text source: 1st verse of "Was willst du dich betrüben" by Johann Heermann (1630)
Chorale melody: "Zeuch ein zu deinen Toren" by Johann Crüger (1653)
6th movement of cantata "Wo zween oder drei versammelt sind" (GWV 1108/25)
Scoring: SATB, Strings and Continuo

I originally chose to perform this because I did not have much time on my hands. It looked very quick and easy to digitise, being around 99% crotchets (quarter-notes) in all instrumental (strings and continuo only) and vocal parts. How wrong I was! This ~45 second long piece gave me a lot of headaches and I am pretty sure Graupner was having a good laugh when he wrote this. Here is the text:

Was willst du dich betrüben,
O meine liebe Seel?
Tu den nur herzlich lieben,
Der heißt Immanuel!
Vertraue ihm allein,
Er wird gut alles machen
Und fördern deine Sachen.
Wie dir's wird selig sein!

Translation (my attempt!):
Why all your idle moaning,
O you, my troubled soul?
With love, replace your groaning,
For the Emmanuel.
Place all your faith in him;
He will misfortune aright;
His works will bring you delight;
Give thanks and praises sing!

The chorale melody was originally published by Johann Crüger as melody for "Zieh ein zu deinen Toren" (No. 133 in the current hymnal of the Lutheran church in Germany - see e.g. [ Ссылка ]). However, in Darmstadt Graupner always used it for "Was willst du dich betrüben". Another example is here, from his 1742 cantata for the 3rd Sunday in Advent (GWV 1103/42): [ Ссылка ] However, in the present setting Graupner uses common rather than triple time. And this is where the fun and games start. The chorale starts with an upbeat on the last note of the third bar which is the 12th crotchet of the string introduction. Since the accompaniment does not start with an upbeat note, the only way to prepare for the singers entering at the moment they do is to phrase the strings in the introduction in triple time. Graupner does not leave any hints about this in his score or parts and the way I have chosen to do it (short long-long, short long-long) is probably one of several approaches one could take. However it sounds infinitely better than unphrased (which is what shocked me about this "simple" piece when I initially notated it). I have tried to be consistent with the phrasing throughout. The strings play six crotchets as intermissions between the chorale lines, the sixth note falling on a new upbeat for the singers. So I have phased these intermissions in triple time (like in the introduction). During the chorale lines I have phrased the accompaniment in pairs of crotchets. In that sense, the whole accompaniment is in triple time with hemiolae to get through the chorale lines. It is bizarre, and, as we saw with the setting of the same chorale in GWV 1103/42 (funky bass-line and jazz violin), probably was intended by Graupner to provide a "carefree" mood in line with the text.

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