St Asaph Choral Society

Cantata BWV 147 Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben - Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 - 1750)

The Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary which falls on the 2nd July each year is no longer celebrated to the same degree as it was in Bach's day, for he composed at least two cantatas specific to the feast - BWV 147, Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben in 1723, which we perform tonight, and BWV 10, Meine Seel ehebt den Herren in 1724. A third cantata for this feast day, BWV189 Mein Seele ruehmt und preist, formerly attributed to Bach, is now regarded as spurious and probably by the composer Georg Melchior Hoffmann.

The feast commemorates the incident recounted in St. Luke Chapter 1, vv 39 - 45 when the pregnant Mary visited her elderly cousin Elisabeth, who had herself become pregnant well beyond the accepted age for childbearing. The tenor recitative Gebendeiter Mund! refers to their meeting when Elisabeth felt her unborn child leap for joy within her womb at the presence of his Saviour.

As Cantor of the Thomasschule in Leipzig and director of music in the two principal churches and the university church (the post to which he was appointed on 5th May 1723 as the appointing committee's third choice) Bach's daily workload was immense. It was his duty to provide music for all the Sundays and Principal Festival days of the Church Year, some 59 occasions. He composed five Masses (the Lutheran Masses) and five complete annual cycles of cantatas; an astonishing total of 295 cantatas - but in order not to repeat himself too often, he also had to copy the works of other composers! BWV147 is in fact a reworking of his own 1716 cantata for the 4th Sunday in Advent. The mere physical feat of writing down his cantatas, oratorios, clavier and instrumental music - he wrote not only the scores but also copied a good many of the parts himself - is so tremendous that one can hardly understand how Bach could do all this and also undertake all his teaching and conducting responsibilities as well.

There are many accounts in musical histories of the length and complexity of the Lutheran Mass in Leipzig in the early eighteenth century. Even before Bach's time Leipzig was an important centre of Lutheranism with a strong musical heritage. Bach developed this through, among other things, greater demands on his musicians, particularly the instrumentalists, which is very evident from the obbligato writing in the cantatas.

The cantatas served a particular purpose in the Lutheran liturgy - to underline the Gospel for the day. Luther, who initiated the Hauptgottesdienst, the principal service, almost followed the order of a Roman Mass - beginning with a Kyrie and a Gloria in Excelsis sung by the choir. After this the Epistle was read, a hymn suitable for the occasion sung by the congregation and then the Gospel was sung from the altar. It is at this point that the Cantata was sung, the libretto of which was based as far as possible on the gospel text. This was followed by a sermon, lasting at least one hour, and then the concluding part of the cantata, or a second cantata, was sung before the Holy Communion which brought the service to an end.