Johann Sebastian Bach composed the church cantata Komm, du süße Todesstunde in Weimar for the 16th Sunday after Trinity, probably first performed on 27 September 1716. Bach had taken up regular cantata composition two years before when he was promoted to concertmaster at the Weimar court. He based it on the prescribed gospel reading about the young man from Nain. Bach scored the work for two vocal parts, a four-part choir, and a Baroque chamber ensemble of recorders, strings and continuo.
About Komm, du süße Todesstunde, BWV 161 in brief
Johann Sebastian Bach composed the church cantata Komm, du süße Todesstunde in Weimar for the 16th Sunday after Trinity, probably first performed on 27 September 1716. Bach had taken up regular cantata composition two years before when he was promoted to concertmaster at the Weimar court. He based it on the prescribed gospel reading about the young man from Nain. The text includes as a closing chorale the fourth stanza of the hymn \”Herzlich tut mich verlangen\” by Christoph Knoll. Bach scored the work for two vocal parts, a four-part choir, and a Baroque chamber ensemble of recorders, strings and continuo. In the alto recitative, accompanied by all instruments, Bach creates the images of sleep, of waking up, and of funeral bells, the latter in the recorders and pizzicato of the strings. Bach expanded the final measures of the recitative to a full length aria for tenor in the cantata Christus, der ist mein Leben, BWV 95, which he composed in 1723 in Leipzig. From the liturgical year on, Bach composed prolifically for three consecutive Sundays in Advent, probably prompted by the death of Samuel Drese on 1 December 1716, according to the Bach scholar Alfred Dürr. The works were performed by Bach as concertmaster for the court. The prescribed readings for that Sunday were prescribed from that from the prescribed Sunday in Advent: The Epistle to the Corinthians, the Gospel of Matthew, and the Sermon on the Mount, the Lesser Antipode.
The cantatas which were probablyFirst performed in 1716 used texts by the Weimer court poet Salomon Franck, published in his collections Evangelisches Andachts-Opffer and Evangelische Sonn- und Festtages-Andachten. Fewer cantat as have survived from this period than from the years of 1708-1716, possibly reflecting Bach’s loss of interest in liturgical music. He also assigned it to the occasion of Purification, a feast with a similar topic. He performed it with minor changes between 1737 and 1746. The libretto was published in a collection in 1715, but Bach probably did not perform it until 27 September1716 due to a period of public mourning of six months in the Duchy of Weimar from August 1715. Bach’s cantata cycles included three new works for the16th Sunday of Trinity, which included a new cantata for the Purification feast, which was held in 1737-1746. He also wrote a cantata called Komm for the Epistle to the Antipode, for the 16th Sunday of Advent, which took place in 1738-1740. He died on 1 January 1749, and his last cantata was Komm Du Süß Todes Stunde, which was performed on 1 December 1716.
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