Johann Sebastian Bach - Cantatas BWV 10,12,13 / Meine Seel erhebt den Herren; Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen; Meine Seufzer, meine Tranen / Bach-Ensemble, Helmuth Rilling / Hänssler Classic Audio CD 1998 / CD 92.004

UPC 4010276015048

In 1724 Johann Sebastian Bach composed the church cantata Meine Seel erhebt den Herren, BWV 10, as part of his second cantata cycle. Taken from Martin Luther's German translation of the Magnificat canticle ("Meine Seele erhebt den Herren"), the title translates as "My soul magnifies the Lord". Also known as Bach's German Magnificat, the work follows his chorale cantata format.

Bach composed Meine Seel erhebt den Herren for the Feast of the Visitation (2 July), which commemorates Mary's visit to Elizabeth as narrated in the Gospel of Luke, 1st chapter, verses 39 to 56. In that narrative the words of the Magnificat, Luke 1:46–55, are spoken by Mary. Traditionally, Luther's translation of the biblical text is sung to a German variant of the tonus peregrinus or ninth psalm tone, concluding with a doxology, translated from the Gloria Patri, on the same tune. Bach based his BWV 10 cantata on Luther's German Magnificat and its traditional setting, working text and melody into the composition as he had done with Lutheran hymns in other chorale cantatas.

By early July 1724 Bach was more than a month into his second year as Thomaskantor in Leipzig. BWV 10 is the fifth of 40 chorale cantatas he started that year. The outer movements of the cantata are set for mixed choir and an orchestra consisting of trumpet, two oboes, strings and continuo. Luther's translation of Luke 1:46–48 is the text of the first movement. The canticle's doxology is the text of the last movement. The five middle movements are a succession of arias and recitatives, with, between the fourth and sixth movement, a duet for alto and tenor. Soprano and bass each have one aria, and the two recitatives are sung by the tenor. The text of the arias and recitatives is paraphrased and expanded from Luke 1:49–53 and 55. The text of the duet is Luther's translation of Luke 1:54. The melody associated with Luther's German Magnificat appears in movements 1, 5 and 7.

The music of two of the cantata's movements was published in the 18th century: an organ transcription of the duet was published around 1748 as one of the Schübler Chorales, and the closing chorale was included in C. P. E. Bach's 1780s collection of his father's four-part chorales. The entire cantata was published in the first volume of the 19th-century first complete edition of Bach's works. In 20th- and 21st-century concert and recording practice the cantata is often combined with other German-language cantatas, but also several times with settings of the Latin Magnificat, by Bach and other composers.

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