Have you ever wondered on what principle the standard numbering of the Bach cantatas is based? (I'm not addressing the savants among you, who will thus have time to zip back to the faculty club for another Scotch-and-Campari.) Is it chronology of composition? Is it the cycle of the church year? Is it the astrological signs under which they were written? Nothing so logical as any of these. In 1850 was founded the Bach Gesellschaft (Society) in Leipzig, to publish the complete works of the old Cantor, in whom zealots like Schumann and Mendelssohn had reawakened lively interest. The first volume was to be the B Minor Mass, but they ran into a roadblock when the owner of the manuscript refused to let them borrow it for such a purpose, on the grounds that the Handel Society (London, 1843) had done quite enough for German musical art! So instead, ten unpublished cantatas from the Leipzig archives were edited and published as "Cantatas Nos. 1-10" in 1851. The rest followed in due time, numbering being in terms of publication sequence.
And here Helmuth Rilling is with No. 21, he also having adhered to no discernible sequential logic. In terms of length, 21 is a biggie--so big, that it is divided into two parts, viz. Part 1 and Part 2, running over forty minutes. The division, and the discrepancy in orchestration between the sections, has caused some scholars to speculate that Bach merely welded two cantatas together, but, as I mean to point out, the piece has too powerful a dramatic unity to permit one to take this notion seriously. So far as we know, the cantata was first performed on the third Sunday after Trinity, 1714, in Weimar, though there is a legend that Bach had it sung in Halle the year before and that he makes allusions to Handel's music in it in homage to Halie's great native son.
Though the work is specified as being (like Thomas More) for "all seasons," the text (anonymous, but perhaps by Salomo Franck) pretty clearly refers to the readings for the third Sunday after Trinity, which have to do with the parable of the lost sheep, and with putting one's trust in God. The first half, scored for oboe, strings, and continuo only, devotes most of its scope to painting a poignant and anguished picture of a soul lost in error. There is also a sense of desperate loneliness, intensified by the use of the solo oboe and solo voices. But in the final number (a choral prelude and fugue) the protagonist resolves to rely on God, and the first half ends in a restrained and somewhat inquisitive paean of praise. In Part II, God himself appears and in a highly operatic recitative-and-duet persuades the doubting soul that He will bestow peace and salvation to it. In a complex, not to say rather archaic, contrapuntal chorus with solos, based on the chorale "Wer nur den lieben Gott lasst walten", we are reminded that God does not forget us in time of affliction--the message being underlined by a foundation of four trombones. The tenor soloist sings a hymn of joy, and the work ends in a triumphant second choral prelude and fugue to the jubilation of trumpets and timpani--climaxing the upward rise from despair to exultation.
Herr Rilling here forsakes his usual two German choral groups for the Chamber Singers of our own Indiana University. Indiana has long had a first-class· music school, including an opera department that produces several full-fledged operas annually. Today's New York Times reports Italy's enchantment with the American high school and college musical organizations touring there. So the guest shot should surprise no one. Moreover, Rilling has added to his usual efficient soloists the brilliant young California soprano Arleen Auger, now a leading member of the Vienna State Opera and prima donna of several recent complete operatic recordings.
