Johann Sebastian Bach Up joyous raise your song

Up joyous raise your song
to reach the stars of heaven,
ye voices, which in Zion sing in sweet accord.
But stay ye now,
for Christ the Son of God is coming,
and here we soon will see the gory of the Lord.

Come thou of man the Saviour,
child thou of a virgin born,
mortals over all the earth
bow down in awe at thy birth,
are amazed at thy birth.

In gentle fashion love endeavours
to lure the loved one, modestly.
As when a maiden shyly peering
her lover greets with glance endearing,
the loving hearts draw nigh to thee.

...

Schwingt freudig euch empor zu den erhabnen Sternen,
ihr Zungen, die ihr itzt in Zion fröhlich seid!
Doch haltet ein!
Der Schall darf sich nicht weit entfernen,
es naht sich selbst zu euch der Herr der Herrlichkeit.

Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland,
der Jungfrauen Kind erkannt,
des sich wundert alle Welt,
Gott solch Geburt ihm bestellt.

Die Liebe zieht mit sanften Schritten
sein Treugeliebtes allgemach.
Gleichwie es eine Braut entzücket,
wenn sie den Bräutigam erblicket,
so folgt ein Herz auch Jesu nach.

Zwingt die Saiten in Cythara
und lasst die süße Musica

...

Klaus Hofmann
Translation: David Kosviner

Bach’s cantata Schwingt freudig euch empor (Up joyous raise your song) (BWV 36) was ?rst heard in the form presented here on the First Advent Sunday of 1731, which was 2 December of that year, in the main church service at St. Nicholas Church in Leipzig. In the preceding years Bach must have performed it once for the same occasion but in a shorter version which consisted only of movements 1, 3, 5 and 7, and the hymn verse “Wie bin ich doch so herzlich froh” (What joy my Saviour brings to me) as the closing chorale. Even this earlier version of the work was no original composition but, with the exception of the closing chorale, was based on parody. The eponymous secular cantata BWV 36c, a congratulatory composition on the occasion of a teacher’s birthday composed in either spring or early summer of 1725, was its model.

Bach seems to have considered his composition as particularly successful for soon thereafter, in November 1725 or 1726, he used it in a – now missing – secular parody version whose text began with Steigt freudig in die Luft (Rise joyfully in the air) (BWV 36a), as birthday music for Princess

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