Classical Music | Music for Duo

Recorded on 04/08/2009, uploaded on 06/16/2009

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit, BWV 106  ("God's time is the best of times")    Johann Sebastian Bach  (arranged by György and Márta Kurtág)

Gottes Zeit is die allerbeste Zeit, also known as Actus tragicus, is one of Bach's earliest and, today, most important cantatas. Likely composed in 1708 while Bach served as organist in Mühlhausen, it is almost for certainly intended as a funeral work, possibly for Bach's own uncle Tobias Lämmerwirt. The text is a compilation of verses from the Old and New Testament, as wells as selected verses from the chorales of Martin Luther and Adam Reusner, all expounding on the nature of death.

The cantata is scored modestly for two recorders, two viola da gambas and continuo along with the usual four part chorus. The selection of orchestral instruments gives the work a dark tone throughout. In this sense, it is analogous to the opening movement of Johannes Brahms's Ein Deutsches Requiem, written for the death of his own mother, in which the violins are tacet, shifting influence to the upper woodwinds and violas and thus creating a darker sound. Whether Brahms was influenced by Bach in this matter is difficult to tell, but it is no doubt interesting that both employed similar means in compositions both dealing with death.

The opening movement of Bach's cantata is a gentle sonatina for the orchestra. The recorders echo their mournful melodic lines over a simple, sonorous accompaniment from the strings and continuo. The sonatina gives way to a chorus announcing the theme of the cantata—that for all men life and death occur in God's own good time. A fugal chorus then follows expounding on the life of man and his days on Earth, however, the sense of his mortality is not absent. The following movements for solo voice and the choral movement that stands at the center of the cantata continue to expound on this theme, lamenting the brevity of man's life but also reminding us that all men must eventually die. Finally, a movement on Reusner's chorale melody In dich hab' ich gehoffet, Herr! ("In you have I put my trust, Lord") and a fugue on the word "Amen" bring the cantata to a close.     Joseph DuBose