Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott, BWV 80
Cantata for the Reformation Festival
Soloists: Soprano, alto, tenor, bass
Chorus (S-A-T-B)
Orchestra: 2 oboes, 2 oboes d’amore, oboe da caccia, 3 trumpets, timpani, strings, continuo
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Chorus
Aria with chorale (soprano, bass)
Recitative and arioso (bass)
Aria (soprano)
Chorale (chorus in unison)
Recitative (tenor)
Duet (alto, tenor)
Chorale
Program Notes by Martin Pearlman
Bach's great chorale cantata Ein feste Burg, BWV 80 went through a number of stages before it reached the form in which we hear it most often today. The earliest version, which he wrote in Weimar in 1715, is lost, but it is known to have been more modest than the piece that we have today. Among other things, that early version would not have had the work's two biggest choral movements, and its smaller orchestra would not have included trumpets and timpani and may even have had only one oboe.
Then in 1723, Bach, who was then a church cantor in Leipzig, reworked the cantata for use in the Reformation Festival on October 31. In doing so, he added a chorale at the beginning, though not yet the grand choral movement that we have now. He also added a major chorale movement in the middle of the cantata, based on a verse of the hymn that speaks of going bravely through a world filled with devils. The chorus in that movement sings the hymn tune in a resolute unison, while the orchestra surrounds it with music of devilish abandon. Altogether there were now four movements that incorporated Luther's chorale tune "Ein' feste Burg," giving the cantata an arc that progressed through four verses of the hymn.
Some years later (the exact date is uncertain), Bach again revised the cantata for a Reformation Festival, this time composing the work's crowning achievement, the complex and lengthy opening chorus based on the same hymn by Luther that was woven through the rest of the cantata. The orchestration was also filled out with oboes, as well as the lower instruments of that family, oboes d'amore and oboe da caccia.
But trumpets and timpani were still not part of the orchestra for this work, and they never were during Bach's lifetime. It was his son Wilhelm Friedemann who added them to the two large choruses approximately a decade after his father's death. It was a procedure that Bach himself had performed on some of his works, and it added a brilliance to the sound of the cantata as it is heard in most performances today.
Boston Baroque Performances
Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott, BWV 80
March 25, 1995
NEC’s Jordan Hall, Boston, MA
Martin Pearlman, conductor
Soloists:
Dominique Labelle, soprano
Pamela Dellal, mezzo-soprano
Frank Kelley, tenor
Sanford Sylvan, baritone