April 6, 2014 - Lent 5

Aus tiefer not schrei ich zu dir - Georg Bohm
Cantata No. 38: Wenn meine Trubsal als mit Ketten
                                                                              - J.S. Bach
Verily, Verily I Say Unto You - Thomas Tallis

Hymns: #665 Michael, #508 Nova Vita,
              #715 When Jesus Wept

The music this week is old. Very old. This is the one week in Lent that I am not playing Bach for the prelude or postlude, but instead we are singing a movement from cantata No. 38. Fear not though, I found a lovely chorale prelude by Georg Bohm (1661-1733) on Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir to play. Bohm was an organist and composer that is largely credited with developing the chorale partita, a piece which consists of a set of variations on a chorale tune for a solo keyboard instrument. In 1700 J.S. Bach traveled to Luneburg where Bohm served at the Johanniskirche and it is widely believed that Bach studied with Bohm between 1700 and 1702. This piece based on a chorale tune first published in the Teutch Kirchenampt is much cheerier than the Martin Luther tune of the same name. The first of two partitas is for manuals only and is a simple contrapuntal four part setting. The second places the chorale in the left hand fragmented against a swirling figuration in the right hand.

Cantata No. 38 is based on the familiar Martin Luther tune, Aus tiefer Not, or Out of the Depths.  This cantata for the twenty-first Sunday after Trinity has for its fifth movement a trio for soprano, alto and bass. The text is:

When my troubles like chains
link one misfortune to another,
then my Savior will rescue me,
so that it all suddenly falls from me.
How soon the morning of comfort appears
after this night of anguish and worry!

Which I think works very well as a glimpse of things to come in the next two weeks. The nice part about this verse is that despite the minor key and the mention of things that are bed, there is a great deal of hope which is something that we can’t do without during these last few days of Lent.

The communion anthem is Thomas Tallis’s (1505-1585) setting of John 6:53-56. In this modal piece Tallis plays around with tonal ambiguity leading us back and forth between minor and modal in this, mostly homophonic motet. Tallis’s use of text painting is evident in the second section when the voices alternate singing that “I [GOD] will raise him up at the last day. It is an honest and rather stark setting of the basics of the Eucharist. Something that I find is very important to think on during these few weeks as we search our hearts to make them fitting for his Kingdom. This is a good example of the beauty of how we worship.