Cantata No. 161: Komm, du suesse Todesstunde, BWV 161 [Later version]: Cantata/ Oratorio, Keyboard Accompaniment, Vocal Score

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) composed Cantata No. 161: Komm, du süße Todesstunde (Come, Sweet Hour of Death), BWV 161 in Weimar in 1716, during his tenure as concertmaster at the ducal court, where his duties included the regular composition of cantatas for services in the Schlosskirche. The work belongs to the remarkable group of sacred cantatas from Bach's Weimar years that already demonstrate the expressive and technical mastery of his mature style. Written for the Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity, the cantata sets a libretto by the Weimar court poet Salomon Franck based upon the day's Gospel, Luke 7:11-17, recounting Christ's raising of the widow's son at Nain. Rather than narrating the biblical episode directly, Franck meditates upon death as a welcome passage from earthly suffering to union with Christ, while the concluding chorale uses the fourth stanza of Christoph Knoll's Herzlich tut mich verlangen. Its six movements (1. Aria (alto): Komm, du süße Todesstunde; 2. Recitative (tenor): Welt, deine Lust ist Last; 3. Aria (tenor): Mein Verlangen ist, den Heiland zu umfangen; 4. Recitative (alto): Der Schluß ist schon gemacht; 5. Chorus: Wenn es meines Gottes Wille; 6. Chorale: Der Leib zwar in der Erden) are scored in the original Weimar version for alto and tenor soloists, SATB chorus, two recorders, strings, and continuo, with the chorale melody familiar today from O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden woven into the opening aria and returning in the closing chorale, giving the entire work an unusual degree of musical and theological unity. The cantata received its first performance on September 27, 1716, in the chapel of the ducal palace at Weimar, and Bach later revived and modified it in Leipzig, where the instrumentation was modernized, including the substitution of transverse flutes for the original recorders. Evidence points to a Leipzig performance probably on September 16, 1725, although the later version also became associated with the Feast of the Purification of Mary. Today, Cantata No. 161: Komm, du süße Todesstunde, BWV 161 is regarded as one of the most beautiful and distinctive of Bach's surviving Weimar cantatas, particularly admired for the extraordinary serenity with which it treats the subject of death, the tolling-bell effect created by pizzicato strings, and the integration of the chorale melody throughout the work. Although less universally familiar than Bach's best-known Leipzig cantatas, it maintains an established presence in Bach festivals, complete cantata cycles, recordings, and historically informed performance. Reprint of the keyboard reduction and edition by Bernhard Todt of the later version. German text with English preface.