Lexington Presbyterian Church
Post-Worship Treat
Sunday, January 23, 2022
William McCorkle plays the C. B. Fisk pipe organ, opus 128 (2007)
Johann Sebastian Bach: Machs mit mir, Gott, nach deiner Güt (Deal with Me, God, According to Your Kindness), BWV 957
This short hymn-based organ prelude is one of thirty-eight such compositions by J. S. Bacnh (1685-1750), discovered in an uncatalogued manuscript collection at Yale University n 1985. Known as the ‘Neumeister Chorales,’ after the compiler of the collection, about which modern scholars were aware, but which had been gone lost for years, these pieces, from the early years of the great Bach’s long compositional output, have added to scholarly knowledge and have enriched performers and listeners.
Machs mit mir, Gott, nach deiner Güt is a bright work in the style of a keyboard ‘invention,’ concluding with a simple statement of the hymn.
The opening stanza of the hymn text, typical of 18th-century hymns in which the soul longs for the joys of the life to come, is from a translation by Francis Browne (2008):
Deal with me, God, according to your kindness,
help me in my suffering;
when I call to you, do not deny me:
when my soul departs,
then take it , Lord, in your hand;
all is good, if the end is good.
Music score: © 1985 Yale University, New Haven
English transation: Francis Browne (2008; © Bach Cantatas Website
25 окт 2024
