Johann Sebastian Bach composed (Delightful rest, beloved pleasure of the soul), 170, a church cantata for the sixth Sunday after Trinity in Leipzig. It is a solo cantata for alto that he first performed on 28 July 1726.
Due to circumstances during Bach's first years as Thomaskantor in Leipzig, the cantata became his first extant contribution for the occasion, as part of his third cantata cycle. He took the text from Georg Christian Lehms' 1711 collection , which paraphrases the prescribed Gospel from the Sermon on the Mount. He set it in five movements, alternating arias and recitatives. A small Baroque ensemble features oboe d'amore and an obbligato organ besides strings and basso continuo.
History and words Bach composed the cantata in Leipzig for the Sixth Sunday after Trinity. The prescribed readings for the Sunday are from the Epistle to the Romans, "By Christ's death we are dead for sin" (), and from the Gospel of Matthew a passage from the Sermon on the Mount about better justice than the justice of merely observing laws and rules (). The text of the cantata is drawn from Georg Christian Lehms' (1711) and speaks of the desire to lead a virtuous life and so enter heaven and avoid hell.
Bach first performed the cantata on 28 July 1726. It is regarded as part of Bach's third cantata cycle. Its brevity, compared to the cantatas in two parts written before and after, such as , can be explained by assuming that in the same service another cantata Ich will meinen Geist in euch geben, JLB 7, by Johann Ludwig Bach was also performed.
Bach performed the cantata again around 1746. Bach's son Wilhelm Friedemann Bach performed the first movement around 1752 in Halle.
Music Structure and scoring
The cantata is one of three Bach cantatas written in Leipzig in the summer and autumn of 1726, in which an alto soloist is the only singer, the others being , and . It seems likely that Bach had a capable alto singer at his disposal during this period.
Bach structured the cantata in five movements, alternating arias and recitatives. He scored the work for an alto soloist and a small ensemble of oboe d'amore (Oa), two violins (Vl), viola (Va), obbligato organ (Org) and basso continuo (BC). Alfred Dürr gave the duration of the cantata as 24 minutes in his book .
In the following table of the movements, the scoring follows the . The keys and time signatures are taken from Dürr, using the symbol for common time (4/4).
Movements 1 The first aria, "" (Delightful rest, beloved pleasure of the soul), is a da capo aria in a pastoral rhythm. The musicologist Julian Mincham notes: "The first stanza is enigmatically poetic and its essence is an evocation of that peace and inner contentment". The Bach scholar Alfred Dürr describes the mood as contemplative, and the melody of the voice as expansive, on a background of repeated quavers in the instruments.
2 The first recitative, "" (The world, that house of sin, erupts only in hellish songs), is secco, only accompanied by the continuo. John Eliot Gardiner, who conducted the Bach Cantata Pilgrimage in 2000, describes the librettist as a "vigorous and impassioned wordsmith" who uses Baroque language to paraphrase the Gospel reading, and he credits Bach with following the "declamatory gesture and expressive nuance".
3 The second aria, "" (How the perverted hearts afflict me, which are so sorely, my God, set against you), is set without continuo, rare in Bach's compositions, and symbolic of the lack of direction in the lives of those who ignore the word of God. The organ plays the upper parts, while the violins and viola in unison form the lowest part. Gardiner notes that the two organ lines intertwine in fugal chromaticism for most of the aria, but turn to diatonic music for the mentioning of "Rach und Hass'" (revenge and hate) in the A section and "frech verlacht" (boldly flout) in the B section.
4 The second recitative, "" (Who should hereafter wish, indeed, to live here), is accompanied by the strings and continuo. The strings play mostly long chords but illustrate the words "" (to live with God, whose name is love) by more lively movement.
5 The final aria, "" (It sickens me to live longer, therefore take me away, Jesus!), is a triumphant song about turning away from the world and desiring heaven. The words "" (I feel revulsion) are expressed by an unusual tritone opening the melody. The voice is ornamented by figuration in the organ, which Bach set for flauto traverso for a performance in his last years.
Manuscripts and publication The manuscripts of both the score and parts survive. There is no extra part for the organ in the set of parts.
The first critical edition of the cantata, edited by Franz Wüllner, was published by the Bach Gesellschaft in 1886 as part of its complete edition of Bach's works. In the , the second edition of Bach's works, the cantata was published in 1993, edited by Reinmar Emans.
Carus published a critical edition in German and English as part of its in 2011, edited by Daniela Wissemann. In the 21st century, Bach Digital published high-resolution facsimile images of the manuscript parts from the first quarter of the 18th century.
Recordings The selection is taken from the listing provided by Bach Cantatas Website. Notable singers in the alto range recorded the cantata, male (as in Bach's time, also called altus or countertenor) and female (contralto or mezzo-soprano), including Alfred Deller, Maureen Forrester, Aafje Heynis, Jochen Kowalski, Nathalie Stutzmann, and Guillemette Laurens. In the following table, ensembles playing on period instruments in historically informed performance are marked by a green background under the header Instr.
References
Cited sources Bach Digital
Books
Online sources
External links
BWV 170 Vergnügte Ruh, beliebte Seelenlust, English translation, University of Vermont Vergnügte Ruh, beliebte Seelenlust, BWV 170: performance by the Netherlands Bach Society (video and background information)