AS THE DEATH-BLOW STRIKES - Bach: Cantatas 124 and 32, at Epiphany I

Commentary No. 28 of The Bach Cantatas

Cantata 124 dates from the second cycle of 1725. The post bellum Lutheran hymn Meinen Jesum laß ich nicht (I do not let go of my Jesus) is introduced immediately in the first movement.

The lyricist, Christian Keimann, wrote the lyrics in Zittau, Saxony, as an apostrophe to the deceased Elector of the Free State, John George I. They date from 1658, ten years after the end of the Thirty Years’ War, which began as a civil war of religious opposites, and in which over five million persons perished. The melody is by a fellow citizen of Zittau, Andreas Hammerschmidt, who became one of the most popular composers of sacred music in the 17^th century. Presumably the intention is that the deceased Elector, in dying, declined to let go of Jesus.