Sunday Music: Bach Motet BWV 229
It is the fifth Sunday of Easter. Today’s Bach piece is a motet titled “Komm, Jesu, komm” (Come, Jesus, come):
Today’s Gospel reading is John 14:1-14:
Jesus Comforts His Disciples
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.”
Jesus the Way to the Father
Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”
Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”
Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves. Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.
The text of today’s piece is available here. It contains these words:
Come, Jesus, come, my body is weary,
my strengh wanes more and more,
I long for Your peace;
the sour path becomes too difficult for me!
Come, come, I will yield myself to You,
You are the true path,
truth and life.Therefore I enclose myself in Your Hands
and say goodnight to you, world!
Even though my lifetime rushes to its end,
my spirit is nevertheless prepared.
It shall float with its Savior,
since Jesus is and remains
the true path to life.
Happy listening! Soli Deo gloria.
That was a stunning performance. The venue is astonishing and it would have been an honor to have attended. What was the large guitar like string instrument being played?
mg (8cbc69) — 5/10/2020 @ 4:57 pmI honestly don’t know.
Patterico (115b1f) — 5/10/2020 @ 5:07 pmMy daughter connected with the text.
mg (8cbc69) — 5/10/2020 @ 5:24 pmMy wife always enjoys your sunday selections.
A theorbo. A baroque lute, with two pegboxes and 14 or more pairs of strings tuned in unison/(octave for the heavier ones?). Suitable here, since theos means “god”, but I don’t think that’s the etymology. Sometimes you need to use the instrument the music was written for. Andres Segovia had lute necks put on Spanish guitar bodies to play lute pieces but, well, he was Segovia.
nk (1d9030) — 5/10/2020 @ 7:09 pmWikipedia
In fact, Bach’s motets can be sung a capella. Several of them seem to have been written for the funerals of various Leipzig dignitaries.
Kishnevi (f0c334) — 5/10/2020 @ 7:20 pmI may still have a book from my dreamy youth, complete with full scale templates for every piece, on how to build a lute. I didn’t get very far. I was not so dreamy not to realize that it was something similar to “How To Paint The Mona Lisa”. I did learn a lot about shaping and bending wood and varnishes and temperas, though.
nk (1d9030) — 5/10/2020 @ 8:03 pmthanks, nk.
mg (8cbc69) — 5/11/2020 @ 12:57 amah, Segovia, the best classical guitar sound.