Cantata No.51 in C major: Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen BWV 51

Aria: Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen

Recitative: Wir beten zu dem Tempel an –

Aria: Höchster, mache deine Güte

Chorale: Sei Lob und Preis mit Ehren –

Aria: Alleluja

No one know exactly how many cantatas Bach wrote. As Cantor of St Thomas’s he was expected to provide one for every Sunday and feast day, perhaps as many as sixty a year, and, according to his son Carl Philip Emanuel, he completed enough for five cycles. That would amount to 300 cantatas for Leipzig alone – in which case, since less than 200 cantatas actually exist, more than a third of them have been lost. But, whatever the precise number, those that survive would represent a prodigious investment of creative energy on Bach’s part even if he hadn’t had so much else to compose, often on a large scale, and to perform at the same time.

Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen, one of the most brilliant and at the same time one of the most economical of the church cantatas, was written “for the fifteenth Sunday after Trinity or any other occasion,”probably in 1730. It takes the form of a solo motet, not unlike that Mozart’s Exsultate Jubilate of 1773 except that a chorale is inserted before the final Alleluja. The question of who would have sung the virtuoso solo part at a time when female voices were forbidden in Leipzig has been a perennial problem. It is scarcely likely that any boy singer, even at a time when voices broke a few years later than they do now, could have achieved such artistry as is required here – not just by the top Cs but also by the intricate, almost instrumental line. The vivacious opening da capo aria in C major sets the voice against an obbligato trumpet and then, when the trumpet takes a deserved rest in the A minor middle section, against a similarly challenging violin part. No ordinary recitative, Wir beten zu dem Tempel an, develops from its comparatively conventional beginning into subtly detailed vocal symbolism and elaborate arioso. The following A minor aria, Höchster, mache deine Güte, is remarkable not only for its melodic beauty but also for the coloratura element in its wide intervals and sustained runs.

In the absence of a chorus, Bach presents the chorale melody, largely unadorned in C major, as a cantus firmus for the solo soprano while resourceful violins weave a fantasy round it. Following without a break, but in quicker tempo, the Allelujah once again sets the voice in virtuoso competition with the solo trumpet, which is not easily outshone.