Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis

As Concertmaster to the dukes of Weimar, Bach was required to compose a new sacred cantata each month for the Himmelsburg, the ornate ducal palace church. Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis in meinem Herzen (I had much grief in my heart) ranks among the finest of all Bach’s cantatas, hallmarked by the composer’s deeply affecting response to grief. Cast in two substantial parts, it was first performed on the third Sunday after Trinity in June 1714. Bach may have performed the piece again in Hamburg shortly after his first wife’s death in 1720 and certainly revised it in Leipzig three years later. After the opening “Sinfonia”, images of earthly fear and pain run through the following fugal chorus. These grow in dramatic force in the arias “Seufzer, Tränen, Kummer, Not” (“Sighs, tears, grief, distress”) for soprano, and “Bäche von gesalznen Zähren” (“Streams of salty tears”) for tenor. The cantata is further distinguished by the impassioned and ultimately consoling dialogues between the Soul and Jesus, the exquisite combination of biblical words and hymn verses of “Sei nun wieder zufrieden, meine Seele” (“Be at peace now, my soul”), and the closing choral song of praise to God’s son, the “Lamb that was slain”. About J.S. Bach’s Cantatas Although Bach seldom used the word, “cantata” has become the accepted term for the multi-movement church pieces and celebratory secular works composed in large numbers by Bach and his contemporaries. Bach himself wrote more cantatas than anything else, mostly during two bursts of creativity between 1713 and 1716 in Weimar, and 1723 and 1729 in Leipzig. Around 200 works survive in a wide range of styles but usually including a chorus, solo arias, linking (speech-like) recitatives and a hymn (chorale). Bach probably completed five annual cycles of church cantatas for regular Sunday worship, festivals and celebrations. Because they were occasional pieces for court and public entertainment, fewer secular cantatas survive, though some were later revised for church use.