Bach Kantaten No. 49 - Rudolf Lutz - Audio CD (Arrives in 50 days)

BWV 117 “Sei Lob und Ehr dem höchsten Gut” (Give laud and praise the highest good): Cantata BWV 117lacks a conventional libretto;; instead, it is a setting of the entire nine verses of a chorale text by Johann Jakob Schütz from 1673. The text required Bach to set the line “Gebt unserm Gott die Ehre!” (Give to our God due honour!) a full nine times, a task he no doubt undertook with pleasure. Indeed, the words are a German translation of the declaration of faith “Soli Deo Gloria” that Bach inscribed on his fair copy of the St Matthew Passion.• BWV 106 “Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit” (God's own time is the very finest time): Albert famously said he would gladly forgo the rest of Bach's cantata oeuvre for more compositions of this kind. Indeed, the way this work unites the selected scriptures and musical devices of funeral service represents both musical world literature and the pinnacle of tradition. In its poetic precision, it is perhaps the greatest musical “novella” of his oeuvre.• BWV 154 “Mein liebster Jesus ist verloren” (My precious Jesus now hath vanished): In BWV 154, the troubling narrative of the search for the twelve-year-old Jesus by his frantic parents and his eventual discovery in the temple among the scribes brings the theme of “distance from God” to the fore. As the composition progresses, the desperate search gives way to an assured sense of closeness, prompted by the key phrase “Know ye then not that I must be there where my Father's business is?” (bass arioso no. 5): the voice of a friend, as emphasised in the cantata text. The cheerfulness of the ensuing alto-tenor duet and the conciliatory final chorale render the crisis of faith and trust completely forgotten – a brief musical psychogram of pure listening pleasure.

Label: Js Bach Stiftung | Origin: Holland