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Cantata BWV 135
Ach Herr, mich armen Sünder
Discussions - Part 4

Continue from Part 3

Discussions in the Week of June 8, 2014 (3rd round)

William L. Hoffman wrote (June 8, 2014):
Re: [BachCantatas] Cantata 135, “Ach Herr, mich armen Sünder”: Intro.

Bach’s first penitential Psalm chorale Cantata BWV 135, “Ach Herr, mich armen Sünder” (Ah Lord, poor sinner that I am), is the last of a series of four initial, unique chorale cantatas for the omnes tempore Trinity Time of the first three Sundays, using the popular Passion tune, known in English as “O sacred head now wounded.” Its features include a more progressive motet style in the opening chorale fantasia chorus with more complex treatment and saturation of the melody while dramatically combining the lost soul of the sinner with a strong sense of prayer and forgiveness. The internal two recitatives and two arias, a free paraphrase of repentant Psalm 6, Domine, ne in fuore (O Lord, rebuke me not in thine anger, KJV), feature highly dramatic or reflective passages in which the key Psalm phrases as mottos are directly quoted from Cyriakus Schneegaß’ six-stanza hymn setting. Bach’s most developed, concise and dramatic chorale cantata in the series, BWV 135, features unity and diversity, including another different, remarkable fantasia setting, with a different voice sounding the cantus firmus, within distinct groups of four varied chorale cantatas in the cycle, each unique among themselves. As Bach undertook his odyssey of popular chorale settings for the second half of then church year of teachings (initially based on Gospel parables), his thematic focus centered on the Trinity Time “Justification” and “Christian Life and Conduct” with increasing emphasis on confessional psalms that would appear again in later Trinity Time. The authorized chorales for each church year service are found in Bach’s hymnbook, Neu Leipziger Gesangbuch (NLGB), of 1682 by cantor Gottfried Vopelius.

Bach’s Chorale Cantata 135 for 3rd Sunday after Trinity, was first performed on June 25, 1724. The service Readings are the Epistle: 1 Peter 5:6-11 (Cast your cares upon God); Gospel: Luke 15:1-10 (Parable of the lost sheep). The cantata theme is found in the last verse of the Gospel (Luke 15:10): [10] “Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth ”(KJV). Lutheran Church Year, Readings for the Third Sunday after Trinity, Martin Luther German translation 1545, English translation Authorised (King James) Version (KJV) 1611, BCW
http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Read/Trinity3.htm, Psalm 6 text, http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+6&version=KJV.

The Introit is Psalm 25, Ad te, Domine levavi (Unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul; “Prayer about God’s reign, grace, and protection,” says Martin Petzoldt in Bach Kommanter, Vol. 1, Trinity Sundays1 On June 25, 1724, the sermon on the lessons after Cantata 135 was preached by subdeacon Justus Gotthart Rabener (1688-1731), substituting for Thomas Pastor Christian Weise (1671-1736), says Petzoldt (Ibid.: 86).

The six-stanza chorale text of Cyriakus Schneegaß, “Ach Herr, mich armen Sünder,” (1597), is found in the NLGB No. 246, Christian Life& Conduct, David Psalms Nos. 241-274. German text and Francis Browne English translation, BCW
http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Texts/Chorale069-Eng3.htm; Bach’s use: Cantata 135, Stanzas 1 and 6, Stanzas 2-5 paraphrased. The preferred associated melody of Hans Leo Hassler (1601) is “Befiehl du deine Wege I” (Zahn 5385a) or with text “Herlich tut mich verlangen,” see Chorale Melodies used in Bach's Vocal Works: BCW http://www.bach-cantatas.com/CM/Befiehl-du-deine-Wege.htm; Hassler BCW Short Biography, http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Hassler.htm. Source: secular, love song “Mein G’müt ist mir verwirret von einer Jungfrau zart” [“A young girl/woman (virgin) has tangled up all my thoughts and feelings”]. Chorale Cantata Sets & Distinctions

Bach in his chorale cantata cycle sought both unity and diversity, as various scholars have shown. The groups of cantatas in sets of four (perhaps designed for the published church libretto books, although none are extant from this cycle (1724-25), show both, as Julian Mincham observes in his Commentary.2 Of special note is Bach’s unique and distinctive treatment of the Passion Chorale, best known in English as “O sacred head now wounded” (O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden), as well as the techniques of hymn harmonization.

“In his notes for Ton Koopman's complete recordings of the cantatas (vol 2, p 11) Christoph Wolff remarks that Bach seems to have consciously striven for the maximum of variety within small groups of cantatas composed close to each other. He cites, as examples, two sets of four works: Cs 78, 99, 8, and 114 (Trinity +14-18) and 91,121, 26 and 116 (Christmas).

“The first four works of the cycle, Cs 20, 2, 7 and 135 also form a related grouping, perhaps less bound together by their similarities than by the overt distinctiveness of their chorale fantasias. That of C 135 is like none of the previous three. Here there are no echoes of the pretensions of the C 20 French Overture and no connections to the barren motet style of C 2 or the Italianate concerto rhapsody of C 7. This movement is an extraordinary filigree of vocal and instrumental counterpoint framing the articulation of the Passion Chorale melody, itself doubtless familiar to devotees of the St Matthew Passion and the Christmas Oratorio. (Bach also made use of it on several other occasions e.g. Cs 161 and 159).

Even more extraordinarily, this work was presented just one day after C7 (Wolff p 275-6: see chapter 4). How was it possible for Bach to produce these vast musical edifices at such speed? It beggars belief that, on top of his other duties he composed and rehearsed Cs 7 and 135 in less than one week! This gives weight to the view that he may have been planning this cycle and even beginning to compose some of the cantatas whilst still completing his first year at Leipzig. The fact that he was reusing so many of his earlier works at that time may have enabled him to devote his attention to the forward planning of his most coherent body of ‘well regulated' music.

Chorale.

Readers who come anew to this cantata can do no better than begin by listening to the chorale. Whilst likely to be known to most Bach lovers, nevertheless it may be that not everyone is familiar with Bach's various harmonisations of it. Its ambiguous tonality clearly intrigued him; it can be harmonized entirely in the major mode (see the St Matthew Passion, no 23) or begin in the major and end in the minor. It can begin on the tonic chord of the key and end on the dominant as, indeed, it does in the four-part harmonisation at the end of this cantata. However, and this must surely be a stroke of innovation so far ahead of its time that it was not caught up with by other composers until the end of the Nineteenth Century, the chorale/fantasia both begins and ends on the dominant, the unfinished chord of the key!

This is originality of quite breathtaking proportion and demonstrates the extent to which Bach was pushing back the boundaries of tonal practice. This is not a composer working within clearly delineated conventions; it is an artist who is developing a 'second practice' in much the way that Monteverdi had done a century earlier. (A further example of Bach’s deviation from tonal norms will later be seen in the concluding movement of C 68 (chapter 49) which begins in one key and ends in another!)

Chorus/fantasia.

Having familiarized (or, more probably, re-familiarised) ourselves with the chorale melody, let us examine the first movement. It is, as we have now come to expect, a complex chorus with the phrases of the chorale sin long notes by one of the four voices; this time it is the turn of the basses (the only other cantata of the cycle to place the chorale in the lowest part is C 3, chapter 35).

Here we have unfolding before us another huge movement with the feeling of a tone poem or free-form fantasia. But this is illusory. This chorus is as tightly constructed as any that come before or after it; arguably as focused and economical as that beginning C 2 but in different ways and for different purposes. The overall structure is that of the Italian ritornello in which the orchestra declaims the opening statement and separates the various phrases of the chorale. There is however, no final orchestral passage, choir and instruments ending together. As we shall continue to note, the limited tonal range of the chorale sets Bach challenges for his large scale structural planning, although he does manage cadences in related keys of C major (bars 84-5) and Em (117-8). The extended orchestral passages also provide hints of other linked keys and further tonal variety.>>

Motet Treatment in Chorale Cantata Fantasias

Interestingly, the opening chorale fantasia of Cantata 135 “returns to the motet style” of the opening of chorale Cantata BWV 2, “Ach Gott, vom Himmel sieh darein,” presented a week earlier on the 2nd Sunday after Trinity, June 18, 1724, observes Richard D. P. Jones in The Creative Development of Johann Sebastian Bach, Volume II: 1717-1750.3 In Cantata 2 it was an old-fashion 2/2 alle breve German motet with col legno accompanying brass quartet. Here the motet “style is very different,” says Jones, in elaborate polyphonic style. “It might me described as a chorale motet with instrumental introduction and interludes. All parts, whether vocal or instrumental, are saturated with the chorale melody.” A single trombone here plays the cantus firmus. “The penitential text, a paraphrase of Psalm 6, suggests that the basset cantus (unison strings) might represent the lost soul of the sinner; the bass cantus (with continuo), the solid foundation of prayer and the assurance of forgiveness.” “Not long afterwards,” Jones continues (Ibid.: 148), in Nimm von uns, Herr, du treuer Gott, BWV 101 [10th Sunday after Trinity, BCW Discussion Week of August 3], “Bach went a step further, combining traditional chorale-motet style in the vocal texture, with independent instrumental music in his ‘modern’, descriptive vein.” Varied Form & Chorale Treatment

Variety of form, particularly in the opening chorale fantasia is paramount in the first four cantatas, where Bach blends old-style motet and contemporary concerto. The entrance of the cantus firmus in the four different voices, usually found in the soprano, offers further distinction in both chorales of Bar repeat opening, and non-repeat, with some variety in line length and rhyme scheme. Bach conveniently chose hymns of six stanzas, the most common, enabling full treatment of the internal paraphrased alternating recitatives and arias.

Another common trait in the first four chorale cantatas is Bach’s use of direct quotations from the chorale paraphrased internal stanzas set as arias and recitatives, chosen as mottos to reinforce the meaning of the hymn that speaks more to the Trinity Time themes of the Church than to the Sundays’ Gospel (and Epistle lessons), framed in the first four Sundays to teaching parables. Bach’s uses of direct quotes varies considerably in the four chorale cantatas, depending on the meaning of the hymn: “Ach Herr, mich armen Sünder” (Ah Lord, poor sinner that I am) is a free paraphrase of Psalm 6, Domine, ne in fuore (O Lord, rebuke me not in thine anger, KJV).

“The most important theme is found at the end of the Gospel reading,” Luke 15:1-10 (Parable of the lost sheep, observes Alfred Dürr in his The Cantatas of J. S. Bach.4 It is Luke 15:10: “Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth ”(KJV). “Thus the repentance of the sinner is the subject of the chorale and accordingly of Bach’s cantata too,” says Dürr. Cantata 135 is the first of the penitential chorale cantatas, based on a Penitential psalm, Psalm 6. Throughout the setting of the chorale Bach makes special adjustments in his treatment of the melody in the differently worded stanzas while repeating the direct quotes of key paraphrases from Psalm 6 in the internal paraphrased two recitatives and two arias, Dürr observes. Bach preserves the symmetrical near-pallindrome mirror form of all four cantatas but here sets only two longer arias (Cantata 135 runs only 17 minutes) while putting greater emphasis on the extended recitatives and the framing of the Psalm hymn quotations, quoted by Dürr in Movement 3 (“embellished last line of chorale”) and Movement 4 (“expressive transformation, first chorale line”). Cantata 135 movements, scoring, initial text, key, time signature:5

1. Chorus two-part (SATB; Trombone (C.f.), Oboe I/II, Violino I/II, Viola, Continuo: A. “Ach Herr, mich armen Sünder / Straf nicht in deinem Zorn” (Ah Lord, poor sinner that I am / do not punish me in your anger); B. “Ach Herr, wollst mir vergeben / Mein Sünd und gnädig sein” (Ah Lord, if only you would forgive, / my sin and be gracious); e minor ¾. 2. Recitative (Tenor, Continuo): “Ach heile mich, du Arzt der Seelen” (Ah heal me, you physician of souls) Ich bin sehr krank und schwach); last measure, Stanza 2, Line 8, “Ach, du Herr, wie so lange?” (Ah, Lord, why so long?), paraphrase of Psalm 6:3b, “but thou, O Lord, how long?” (KJV). 3. Aria through-composed three parts (Tenor; Oboe I/II, Continuo): 16 measure opening ritornello, A. “Tröste mir, Jesu, mein Gemüte” (Console, Jesus, my mind); B. “Denn im Tod ist alles stille / da denkst man deiner nicht;” (In death all is silent, / there is no one to think of you), Stanza 3, lines 5-6, paraphrase of Psalm 6:5, For in death there is no remembrance of thee: in the grave who shall give thee thanks?; C. “Liebster Jesu, ist's dein Wille, / So erfreu mein Angesicht!” (Dearest Jesus, if it is your will, / then bring joy to my face!), “embellished last line of chorale”; C Major, ¾ sarabande style 4. Recitative (Alto, Continuo): arioso Stanza 4, line 1 (“expressive transformation, first chorale line”), “Ich bin von Seufzen müde” (I am weary with my sighs); secco, “Mein Geist hat weder Kraft noch Macht” (my spirit has neither strength nor might); g minor to a minor; 4/4. 5. Aria free da-capo (Bass; Violino I/II, Viola, Continuo): A. “Weicht, all ihr Übeltäter” (Go away, all you evildoers), Stanza 5, line 1 (paraphrase Psalm 6:8, “Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity”); B. “Er lässt nach Tränen und nach Weinen / Die Freudensonne wieder scheinen; (after tears and weeping he allows / the sun of joy to shine again); a minor; 2/2. 6. Chorale (SATB; Cornetto e Oboe I/II e Violino I col Soprano, Violino II coll'Alto, Viola col Tenore, Continuo: “Ehr sei ins Himmels Throne” (Let there be honour on the throne of heaven); e minor 4/4. Initial Chorale Cantatas& Passion Chorale

Chorale Cantata BWV 135 was the culmination of Bach’s first four such unique works beginning his second cycle for omnes tempore Trinity Time 1724, observes John Eliot Gardiner in his 2010 liner notes to his Soli Deo Gloria 2000 recordings of the Bach Cantatas.6 During an extraordinary period of creativity, Bach produced four astounding works in three weeks, concluding with the popular Passion chorale in a free paraphrase setting of the penitential Psalm 6. Here the individual sinner seeks spiritual reprieve in a series of graphic recitatives and arias, through healing, relief, and redemption.

<<Bach’s only other cantata for this Sunday, BWV 135 Ach Herr, mich armen Sünder, was composed and presumably rehearsed in June 1724, before he travelled to Gera to test the organ there, which means that he never actually supervised or performed it himself. This short, pithy, penitential cantata is the fourth in his second Leipzig cycle, part of an impressive sequence that begins with BWV 7, with its violin concerto-like opening fantasia and the cantus firmus in the tenor, and continues with BWV 20, with its Froverture beginning and cantus firmus in the soprano, and last week’s BWV 2, opening in old motet style, with the cantus firmus in the alto. Together they make a fascinating and contrasted portfolio of choral fantasia openings.

In the opening tableau Bach intertwines two oboes over a plain unison presentation of the Passion chorale tune in the upper strings (no bass line as yet!) before they too get caught up in the oboe’s tracery. Then the basses enter with the theme in diminution, played by cello, bass, bassoon and bass trombone. It all adds up to a slow, ritualistic portrayal of a penitential sinner seeking reprieve and is deeply affecting, especially at the point where Bach piles on the agony with a succession of self-incriminating first inversions: ‘Mein Sünd, mein Sünd, mein Sünd...’. The mood continues in the tenor recitative (No.2), imploring the ‘physician of souls’ to heal the sick and weak sinner. Balm is offered in the tenor aria with two oboes, with its description of how everything in death is silence (‘alles stille... stille... stille’). An alto recitative begins adagio, like an aria, ‘I am weary with sighing’, and goes on: ‘my spirit has neither strength nor power, for all night long... I lie bathed in sweat and tears. I almost die with worry, and sorrow has aged me’, words that struck me as being painfully appropriate to our current funding dilemma. And I could identify with the magnificently defiant bass aria, with the first Violins behaving like virtuoso storm petrels – ‘Weicht, all ihr Übeltäter!’ (‘Begone, all you evildoers!’). This is superb angry music, with Bach fuming at the delinquent malefactors (he met enough of them in his

professional life). He concludes with a rousing ‘Glory to God’, to the same Passion chorale by Cyriakus Schneegaß (1597).>> © John Eliot Gardiner 2010; From a journal written in the course of the Bach Cantata Pilgrimage, John the Baptist Chorales

‘Prayer for Mercy from Repentant Sinner’ Bach’s first four chorale cantatas provide a wealth of musical experience through “systemic alternation,” observes scholar Klaus Hofmann’s 2005 liner notes to the Masaaki Suzuki BIS just completed complete Bach cantatas.7 Each of the 40 chorale cantatas has “its own mistakable profile,” Hofmann observes, in a “prayer for mercy from a repentant sinner.” Of special note is Bach’s presentation of the Passion chorale on three levels in the opening chorus fantasia, followed by two dramatic recitatives and two emotionally-charged arias, concluding with ultimate comfort.

<<The cantata “Ach Herr mich amen Sünder” was performed in Leipzig a week after Ach Gott, vom Himmel sieh darein (BWV 2) on the third Sunday after Trinity, 25th June 1724, and was the fourth work in the chorale cantata year. The previous day, on the feast of John the Baptist (24th June), Bach had presented the third cantata, Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam (BWV 7). These three works were connected with the first piece in the series - O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort (BWV 20), performed on 11th June, the first Sunday after Trinity - by a common cyclical element relating to the opening choruses. In the first cantata the cantus firmus had been in the soprano, in the second it was in the alto. In the third the tenor and in the fourth the work performed here the bass. Obviously this pattern could not be taken any further, and neither did it lend itself to constant repetition; at any rate, in future, Bach was to prefer to keep the cantus firmus in the soprano. It does, however, show how consciously and deliberately Bach intended right from the outset – to vary the relatively rigid basic conception of the chorale cantata year by means of systematic alternation. Bach did in fact succeed in giving each of the forty introductory choruses of the chorale cantata year its own, unmistakable profile. This particular cantata is based on a once popular hymn of the same name by the Thuringian theologian Cyriakus Schneegaß (1546-1597). The text is a reworking of Psalm 6, a prayer for mercy from a repentant sinner. The melody, written by the highly regarded organist and composer Hans Leo Hassler (1564-1612) for a love song (Mein G'milt ist mir verwirret) soon came to be associated with the sacred text 'Herzlich tut mich verlangen', but has become better known - not least thanks to Bach's St. Matthew Passion with the words 'O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden' by Paul Gerhardt (1607-1676). The relationship of Schneegaß’s text to the gospel reading for that day - Luke 15, 1-10, the parable of the lost sheep - is not especially close and is evidently based exclusively on the last verse of the gospel passage: 'there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth'. In the introductory chorus here, as often in the cantatas that followed, Bach's self-imposed principle of variation led him to adopt a solution that is without parallel in the sacred music of the era. Quite contrary to his usual practice, Bach changes the melody from the normal common time to 3/4, and writes an uncommonly dense thematic setting. The hymn melody can be said to appear on three different levels: most plainly as a cantus firmus in the choir's bass line, strengthened by the trombones, broadly and with greatly extended note values at the end of each line. Alongside this (and the first to be heard), it is present in the instrumental prelude and interludes from the unison strings, on each occasion preparing the ground for the choral entry by playing the line of the chorale that is about to be sung. In addition, however, the beginning of the hymn, its first five or six notes in shorter note values (quavers instead of minims and crotchets) is constantly present contrapuntally in the two oboes, then also in the strings and in the three choral parts that do not have the cantus firmus (soprano, alto and tenor). In all of this, Bach's approach to sonority is especially remarkable -- his well-considered omission of the oboes at each choral entry and the strict restriction of the continuo to a supporting role for the bass cantus firmus. Because the continuo is otherwise silent, the bass entries thus seem all the more effective.

The ensuing tenor recitative has a recognizably dramatic emphasis. Expressive words such as 'krank' ('ill'), 'schwach' ('weak' ),'jämmerlich' ('severely' ) und' Kreuz' ('cross') are stressed partly by the harmonies and partly by special melodic devices. Bach employs self-explanatory rhetorical musical figures on the words 'schnellen Fluten' ('rapid floods'), 'abwärts rollen' ('run down') and Schrecken' ('fear'). The tenor aria is, as so often in Bach's cantatas of this period, the foremost soloistic display piece in the work, its vocal line effectively combined with an oboe duo. Although this has the feel of 'absolute' music, it also serves to interpret the text - with particular success at the words 'ist alles stille' ('all is quiet'), with dramatic general pauses. As emotionally charged as the tenor recitative, the alto recitative with its suggestive depiction of sighing, weariness and grief; we feel a proximity to the operas of the era. The same applies to the bass aria that follows in which, introduced by m lively passage for the first violin, the vocal line has a passionate violence in rejecting the 'Ubelteter' ('evildoers'). All the more striking, then, is the peace that arrives shortly before the end, with a quotation of the hymn melody to the words 'mein Jesus tröstet mich' ('My Jesus will comfort me'). All the drama disappears in the festive four-part final chorale in praise of the Holy Trinity.>> © Klaus Hofmann 2005 Dance Style Aria & Borrowed Materials

Besides the initial use of penitential psalms Cantata 135 is just the second chorale cantata to use dance style arias in a form where most chorales are set in 4/4 meter, with occasional exploration in ¾ time. The initial Cantata 135 through-composed tenor aria (Mvt. 3) with poignant oboes, “Tröste mir, Jesu, mein Gemüte” (Console, Jesus, my mind) is set in ¾ sarabande style. On the previous day (Saturday, June 24) for the Feast of John the Baptist, Cantata BWV 7, “Christ, unser Herr, zum Jordan ka” (Christ our Lord came to the Jordan), the tenor aria (Mvt. 4), with violin concertante, “Des Vaters Stimme ließ sich hören” (The Father’s voice makes itself heard); is set in 9/8 (¾) gigue character. The tenor aria in Cantata 135 may have involved borrowed materials, also a rarity in the chorale cantatas, observes W. Gillies Whittaker in The Cantatas of Johann Sebastian Bach.8 Whittaker suggests that “the original text must have been akin to the present words, as the character of the music is appropriate and the imagery of many of the verbal clauses is apposite.” Whittaker also points out that Bach’s second cycle contains only 16 cantatas with solo adapted materials (Ibid.: II:38), and this is primarily in the Easter Season of mostly Mariane von Ziegler modern dramatic cantatas.

FOOTNOTES

1 Petzoldt, Bach Kommentar: Die geistlichen Kantaten des 1. Bis 27. Trinitas-Sontagges, Vol. 1; Theologisch Musikwissenschaftlicke Kommentierung der Geistlichen Vokalwerke Johann Sebastan Bachs, Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2004, Trinity +3, 69; BWV 135 text 83-87; notes 86-89). 2 Mincham, The Cantatas of Johann Sebastian Bach: A listener and student guide, Revised 2014;
http://www.jsbachcantatas.com/documents/chapter-5-bwv-135.htm.
3 Jones, JSB Creative Development, “Music to Delight the Spirit” (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013: 147f).
4 Dürr, Cantatas of JSB, revised and translated by Richard D. P. Jones (Oxford University Press: New York, 2005: 414).
5 Cantata 135, BCW Details and Discography,
http://www.bach-cantatas.com/BWV135.htm. Scoring, Soloists: Alto, Tenor, Bass; 4-part Chorus; Orchestra: 2 oboes, 2 violins, viola, continuo, which includes trombone (in the opening chorus) and horn (in the closing chorale). Score Vocal & Piano [1.28 MB], http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Scores/BWV135-V&P.pdf; Score BGA [1.62 MB], http://www.bach-cantatas.com/BGA/BWV135-BGA.pdf. References: BGA XXVI (Cantatas 121-130, Wilhelm Rust, 1878), NBA: I/16 KB (Cantatas Trinity +3, Paul Brainard, 1984), Bach Compendium BC A 100, Zwang K 77.
6 Gardiner notes
http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Pic-Rec-BIG/Gardiner-P02c[sdg165_gb].pdf; BCW Recording details, http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Performers/Gardiner-Rec2.htm#P2.
7 Hofmann liner notes,
http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Pic-Rec-BIG/Suzuki-C29c[BIS-SACD1461].pdf; BCW Recording details, http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Performers/Suzuki-Rec2.htm#C29.
8 Whittaker, Sacred & Secular Cantatas (Oxford University Press: London, 1958: II,120).

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To Come: Chorales for the Third Sunday after Trinity, especially confessional Psalms as chorale cantatas, and the Passion Chorale.

Aryeh Oron wrote (June 10, 2014):
Cantata BWV 135 - Revised & Updated Discography

The discography pages of Cantata BWV 135 “Ach Herr, mich armen Sünder” for alto, tenor, bass; 4-part chorus; 2 oboes, 2 violins, viola, continuo, which includes trombone (in the opening chorus) and horn (in the closing chorale) on the BCW has been revised and updated. See:
Complete Recordings (11): http://www.bach-cantatas.com/BWV135.htm
Recordings of Individual Movements (9): http://www.bach-cantatas.com/BWV135-2.htm
The revised discography includes many listening/watching options to recordings directly from the discography pages, just below the recording details.

I believe this is the most comprehensive discography of this choral cantata. If you are aware of a recording of BWV 135 missing from these pages, or want to correct/add details of a recording already presented on the BCW, please do not hesitate to inform me.

William L. Hoffman wrote (June 11, 2014):
Early Trinity Time Chorales

See: Motets & Chorales for 3rd Sunday after Trinity

 

Cantata BWV 135: Ach Herr, mich armen Sünder for 3rd Sunday after Trinity (1724)
Discography: Details & Complete Recordings | Recordings of Individual Movements
Discussions: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4


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