"Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit" (God's time is the very best time, BWV106), an actus tragicus, or mourning music, probably dating from 1707.
The texts are selections, elaborated possibly by Bach himself, from Psalms, Acts, Isaiah, St. Luck, a...
"Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit" (God's time is the very best time, BWV106), an actus tragicus, or mourning music, probably dating from 1707.
The texts are selections, elaborated possibly by Bach himself, from Psalms, Acts, Isaiah, St. Luck, and other Biblical sources.
An opening "Sonatina" for the ensemble of two recordes, two violas da gamba, and continuo sets the somber mood and the key of ??Major. Though seemingly independent, the sonatina is subtly related motivially to several of the subsequent numbers.
There follows a choral motet with solo episodes in archaic North German style that is most fitting, since the text expresses the old covenant of death as the irrevocable destiny of man.
The closing section of this motet is an ingenious three voice fugue over a walking bass on the words, "it is the old covenant: Man must die".
The new covenant of salvation in Christ is represented by what appears to be a dialogue between the departed soul(alto)and Savior(bass) in modern Italian style.
The alto begins. She signs a continuo aria, with quasi-ostinato accompaniment and imitations between voice and continuo. That is of a type founded frequently in seventeenth-century Italian chamber cantatas.
The final chorus is an orchestral and choral and choral elaboration of Seth Calvisiuse melody (1581) for the Reusner chorale.
Its last phrase is expanded into a double fugue climaxed by statement of this phrase in augment tation.
The young Bach seems to have been eager to display every trick of his craft in this work. Nevertheless, it glows throughout with a natural, energetic, and overflowing expressiveness.