Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland

I don’t feel that the Advent/Christmas season has properly started unless I’ve played a CD that I was given a few years ago. It contains Bach’s Advent cantatas BWV36, BWV61 and BWV62 nicely performed by Collegium Vocale Gent and Philippe Herreweghe plus soloists. (Harmonia Mundi HMC901605)

All three cantatas feature the chorale Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland in various arrangements. This isn’t quite the usual four-square Lutheran chorale melody; the flattened seventh three notes in, the non-standard cadence at the end of the second line and the repetition of the first line as the last one betray its ultimate origin in a plainchant melody. One of the points of interest of the CD is following the ways Bach eases over these irregularities, for example by sharpening the seventh or making the penultimate note of the second line an inessential one.

There’s a discussion of the melody with a number of quotations from Bach on the Bach cantatas site. Past visitors to Taizé might associate it with the Lord’s Prayer (in one of Bach’s harmonisations!)