Christ lag in Todes Banden is a chorale cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. Bach is believed to have written it in 1707 for a performance in Mühlhausen. It is based on Martin Luther’s hymn of the same name, the main hymn for Easter in the Lutheran church.
About Christ lag in Todes Banden, BWV 4 in brief
Christ lag in Todes Banden is a chorale cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. Bach is believed to have written it in 1707 for a performance in Mühlhausen. It is based on Martin Luther’s hymn of the same name, the main hymn for Easter in the Lutheran church. All movements are in E-minor, and Bach achieves variety and intensifies the meaning of the text through many musical forms and techniques. It was Bach’s first cantata for Easter – in fact, his only extant original composition for the first day of the feast. Bach went on to complete many other works in the same genre, contributing complete cantata cycles for all occasions of the liturgical year. The composition shows similarities to a composition of Johann Pachelbel based on the same hymn. Bach’s early cantatas are not for Sunday occasions, but for special occasions such as weddings and funerals. Bach was a professional organist aged 22, employed from 1703 in Arnstadt as the organist of the New Church. At age 18, he had inspected the new organ built by Johann Friedrich Wender, was invited to play one Sunday, and was hired to play the organ on the third tier of a theatre-like church. Bach had studied in Lübeck with Dieter Buxhude, with whom he had worked on works by Dieterichtehude. Bach started to use the cantata format associated with Neumeister that he started use for church use in 1714. The cantata was most likely composed for an application for a more important post at the more important church in Divi Blortei Blasii, in the town of Arnstadt, but was not for the exception of the Divi Blautei Blosii church in the 17th century.
The score reflects the resources at Bach’s disposal, it was old-fashioned and exemplifies a 17th-century Choralkonzert style; the lost scoring of the earlier performances was perhaps similar. According to the musicologist Martin Geck, many details of the score reflect \”organistic practice\”. In Arnstadt the Kantor Heindorff was responsible for church music in the Upper Church and the New church where Bach was the organists. He would appoint a choir prefect for vocal music for both churches. He typically conducted music for the Upper and New Church, and would appoint an organist to conduct the choir in the Newchurch. The New Church was the exception to the rule, with Bach conducting both churches at the same time. Bach later twice performed it as Thomaskantor in Leipzig, beginning in 1724 when he first celebrated Easter there. Only this second version survives. It’s scored for four vocal parts and a Baroque instrumental ensemble with two components, an instrumental \”choir\” of cornetto and three trombones doubling the choral voices, and a string section of two violins, two violas, and continuo.
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