In 1724 Johann Sebastian Bach composed the church cantata Meine Seel erhebt den Herren, 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.
Background
Late May 1723 Bach took office as Thomaskantor (Kantor at St. Thomas) and director musices (music director) in Leipzig. He remained in that office until his death in 1750. From the first Sunday after Trinity in 1723, that year falling on 30 May, to Trinity Sunday of the next year he presented a series of church cantatas known as his first cantata cycle. The cantatas of that cycle were often based on music he had composed before his Leipzig period. From the first Sunday after Trinity in 1724, that year falling on 11 June, he started his second cantata cycle with forty chorale cantatas composed to new librettos. Each of these librettos was based on the text of a known chorale, usually a Lutheran hymn, the tune of which was adopted by Bach in his setting.
The first weeks of the post Trinitatem (after Trinity) season included the Feast of John the Baptist (24 June) and the Feast of the Visitation (2 July). In Bach's time Protestant Leipzig observed three Marian feasts requiring . In the context of the liturgical year Visitation was the third of such occasions, after Purification, falling in the period of the Sundays after Epiphany, and Annunciation, falling around Easter. Several traditions regarding these Marian feasts, such as the selection of readings for the church services, were continued from the period before Leipzig had adopted Lutheranism. Cantatas with a text in the native language had, since the early 18th century, become the dominant genre of figural music in Reformed German regions. Practices rooted in older traditions included the occasional performance of a Latin Magnificat on occasions such as Marian Feasts or Christmas.
Meine Seel erhebt den Herren, BWV 10, for Visitation, is the fifth chorale cantata Bach presented in 1724. Its text is based on Luther's German translation of the Magnificat. The singing tune associated with that version of the Magnificat, a German variant of the tonus peregrinus, appears in Bach's composition.