Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
Cantata 'Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott' BMV 80, 1st, 2nd and 8th…
Cantata 'Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott' BMV 80, 1st, 2nd and 8th Movements (Bach)
Context
Late Baroque work, first performed on 31st October 1730 at St Thomas' Church in Leipzig where Bach was the musical director. It was composed to celebrate the Festival of the reformation - the celebration of Martin Luther's break with the Roman Catholic Church
The Lutheran Cantata was performed before the sermon and reflected the subject of the day conveyed in the preceding reading (in this case Revelations 14, vs 6-8)
This type of Cantata required vocal soloists, a small chorus, orchestra and continuo.
The full cantata is a multi-movement work, which besides chorus, recitatives arias and duets - includes a chorale for congregational use.
The text (in German) is taken from Martin Luther's hymn (known in English as 'A Stronghold Sure') for movements 1, 2, 5 and 8 and the remaining movements are settings of text by Salomo Franck.
In the second movement, the chorale tune and text (soprano) are heard alongside Franck's poetry (bass).
Instrumental Forces
Movement 1 is scored for four-part chorus (SATB), three oboes including a taille (akin to cor anglais); strings consisting of violins I and II, viola, cello and violone (similar in range to double bass); and continuo instruments (organ and cembalo (harpsichord))
Violins and viola double the soprano, alto and tenor lines but the cello 'shadows' the bass, sometimes elaborating in heterophony.
Movement 2 is a vocal duet for soprano and bass; the soprano is doubled by oboe, sometimes in heterophony.
Violins I, II and violas provide an obbligato line in unison (a prominent and essential independent melody), supported by continuo.
Movement 8, the chorale, requires SATB with each part doubled by instruments: soprano and alto by oboe d'amore and violins: tenor by taille and viola; bass by continuo instruments.
Notation
-
Movement 1 has one stave for each instrument and vocal part, with cello and cembalo sharing a stave, and violin and organ allotted another.
In movement 2, violins and violas are combined on the one stave.
The chorale in movement 8 is laid out in open score, with indications regarding instrumentation at the start.
No dynamics are given, as is usual in Baroque music.
Harmonic content is indicated by figured bass, a form of musical shorthand in which each number below the bass line refers to an interval above.
Tempo, Metre and Rhythm
No tempo indications are given, as performers were expected to rely on time signatures and the general character of the music to sense the speed.
Movement One is in a form of cut common time, but in this case the score was laid out with four (rather than two) minims per bar. This type of time signature indicated a brisk pace.
-
In movement 2, the 'moto perpetual' semiquavers with walking bass quavers and florid shorter values in vocal parts and oboe necessitates a relatively fast but controlled tempo.
In movement 8, a more moderate tempo is required. The Bach chorale typically relies heavily on flowing quavers in the lower parts. Notice that the pause marks indicate ends of phrases rather than the significant lengthening of notes.
-
Tonality
In movement 1, the chorale dominates throughout, meaning that the chorale's key (D major) is of major structural importance
For variety, however, other related keys are employed, for example: E Minor (bars 63-64), B minor (bars 65-66), F#minor (bars 67-68) and A major (bar 90)
In movement 2, also in D major, there are again modulations to closely related keys, e.g. A major (bar 27), B minor (bar 46)
Movement 8 provides insight into Bach's ingenious handling of a theme that could have been largely harmonised in D, e.g. perfect cadences in A major (bars 5 and 9) and imperfect cadence in E minor (bar 10)
Structure
-
Movement 1 takes each phrase in turn and presents it in a fugal working-out the vocal parts before rounding it off with a canonic version for oboes and violone.
Movement 2 uses ritornello form, i.e. a theme recurs at various points throughout the movement (upper strings), sometimes touching on different keys. Imposed on this scheme are statements of the chorale (soprano) with a different 'parallel' text in the bass
Movement 8: a nine line chorale, with repetitions (e.g. phrase 4 sues the same music as phrase 2, and phrase 9 has the same melodic line.
Texture
Movement One is contrapuntal, with imitative writing in the vocal parts in fugal style, and canon at the octave in oboes and violone, with a half-bar between the entries.
The texture is further complicated by the heterophony in the cello at bars 20-22, where is plays a more elaborate version of the vocal bass line.
Movement 2 is also contrapuntal with a ritornello theme in upper strings, supported by a walking bass, over which can be heard an embellished version of the chorale in the soprano (with heterophony in the oboe part) and an independent line in the solo bass part.
Movement 8 is homophonic, though the lower parts are rhythmically independent.
Melody
-
Movement 8 presents the chorale tune without elaboration. Notice its
- Powerful repeated notes
- Mainly conjunct movement with just the occasional leap
- Forceful descending scale at the end of the first section and again in the final phrase.
- Single note outside the scale of D major (G#)
In movement 1, each phrase is presented in turn. There is a very loose variation of the chorale melody in the vocal parts, a direct statement of the theme being reserved for oboes in canon with violone.
-
Other points to note:
Sequence, e.g cello in bar 1, movement 1
Chromaticism, movement 1, bars 97-99; word-painting to underline the guile of the devil.
The mixture of syllabic word-setting and grouping of two or three notes per syllable in the chorale.
-
The angular, almost instrumental writing for the bass singer, e.g. movement 2, bars 13-18.