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Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen, BWV 51

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Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen (Praise God in All Lands), BWV 51, is a cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. It is thought to date from around 1730, and is one of Bach's best known cantatas.

The piece is written for solo soprano, trumpet, violins, violas and continuo. It is one of only four sacred cantatas that Bach wrote for a soprano (if one excludes the arrangement made by Bach of the cantata for solo bass and oboe BWV 82, for flute and soprano BWV 82a) and no other vocal soloists (the others being Falsche Welt, dir trau ich nicht, BWV 52, Ich bin vergnügt mit meinem Glücke, BWV 84, and Mein Herze schwimmt im Blut, BWV 199). There are, however, several secular cantatas for solo soprano (BWV 202, BWV 204, BWV 209 and O holder Tag, erwünschte Zeit, BWV 210). Bach's manuscript indicates that it was written for the 15th Sunday after Trinity "et in ogni tempo" ("and at any time"). The latter phrase indicates the possibly special nature of the work, as the text has no real direct relevance to the scriptural lessons for that Sunday.

The prescribed readings for the Sunday were from the Epistle to the Galatians, Galatians 5:25–6:10, Paul's admonition to "walk in the Spirit", and from the Gospel of Luke, Matthew 6:23–34, from the Sermon on the Mount the demand not to worry about material needs, but to seek God's kingdom first.

The cantata is in four movements (or five, if the concluding Alleluja is considered a separate movement):

  1. Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen ("Praise God in all lands") - a da capo aria for the whole ensemble, with the soprano treated similarly to the solo instrument in a concertante work.
  2. Wir beten zu dem Tempel an ("We offer our prayers to the temple") - this is marked in the score as a recitative, but the highly melismatic nature of the vocal part is such that it might easily be called an arioso (something between a recitative and full-blown aria), with accompaniment from the strings. The text of this part is taken from Psalms 26 and 138.
  3. Höchster, mache deine Güte ("Highest, renew your goodness") - an aria accompanied by the continuo only.
  4. Sei Lob und Preis mit Ehren ("Laud, praise and honour") - A fantasy on the fifth stanza of Johann Gramann's chorale, "Nun lob, mein Seel, den Herren" (Bach used the same verse in a different setting to close his cantata Wir danken dir, Gott, wir danken dir, BWV 29), played by the strings and continuo, with the soprano singing the chorale as a cantus firmus. This leads without a break into a concluding "Alleluja" fugato in which the trumpet returns, bringing the cantata to a close on a particularly festive note.

The author of the text in the first and third movement is unknown; it may have been Bach himself.

Both the soprano part, which covers two octaves and calls for a high C in the first and last movements, and the solo trumpet part, which at times trades melodic lines with the soprano on an equal basis, are extremely virtuosic. There has been some speculation as to the identity of the singer for whom Bach wrote the cantata and for exactly what purpose it was written; women did not sing in church in Bach's day, yet the part is considered too complicated for most boy sopranos to capably handle. (In modern times, there have been a few attempts by early music ensembles to use a boy soprano as soloist, but the part is almost invariably assigned to an adult female singer.) No firm conclusion has been reached on the question. The trumpet part was probably written for Gottfried Reiche, Bach's chief trumpeter at Leipzig.

Recordings

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