Gott ist mein König
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Gott ist mein König (God is My King), BWV 71, is a cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach.
It was performed for the first time at the inauguration of the new city council at Mühlhausen on 1708-02-04. The librettist is unknown, although it was possibly assembled and partly written by minister Georg Christian Eilmar, who had also commissioned Bach to compose the cantata Aus der Tiefen rufe ich, Herr, zu dir which was written around the same time.
In 1708, Bach was the organist of the Divi Blasii church, and was composing very few works, although his works from this era prominently featured the organ. This was his first cantata for orchestra with a festive composition, which included trumpets and timpanis. Since Bach was instructed by the council to compose this work, it is also one of his very few paid commissioned works, since most of his other compositions formed part of his office.
It was so positively received that Bach was commissioned to compose another cantata for the next year's council inauguration; however, by 1709 Bach had moved to Weimar and the cantata was never written.
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[edit] Theme
Even though the cantata was composed for a secular occasion, it is counted under Bach's religious cantatas. Fittingly for the occasion, the texts can be interpreted as a meditation on the transition from old to new, together with freely-composed congratulations for the "new regiment" of office bearers.
The text mostly consists of Bible passages: the text of the first and fourth movements is taken from Psalm 74, the rest from 2 Samuel, Genesis, and Deuteronomy.
The second movement, Ich bin nun achtzig Jahr ("I am now eighty years [old]"), probably refers to Adolf Strecker, the former mayor who had just left office aged 83 years, and was written for solo organ. In the second movement, the Bible quotes are complemented by the sixth verse of Johann Heermann's hymn O Gott, du frommer Gott.
[edit] Composition
[edit] Importance
Gott ist mein König is one of the most significant early works of Bach. With its lack of recitatives, its arias and the short movements that flow into each other, it shows typical characteristics of traditional 17th century cantatas. It differs from the other extant cantatas from Bach's time in Mühlhausen by its elaborate instrumentation. Most well-known is probably the sixth movement, where a homophone choir performs the words of Psalm 74 Du wolltest dem Feinde nicht geben die Seele deiner Turteltauben ("O deliver not the soul of thy turtledove unto the multitude of the wicked") with great forcefulness and beauty.
Another noteworthy feature of this cantata is that it is Bach's first work printed into book form, paid for by the city council, and the only known cantata that was printed before the composer's death.
