Thomas Braatz wrote (February 21, 2002):
BWV 195 - Provenance:
The autograph score and set of parts are in the BB (Staatsbibliothek Berlin). They originally came from the estate of CPE Bach, then went to the Singakademie in Berlin (C.Fr. Zelter [1758-1832] held the score personally for some time, but eventually both were purchased by the BB.)
The autograph designation on the set of parts:
Copulations Cantata / Dem Gerechten muß das Licht immer wieder / aufgehen / à / 4 Voci / 3 Trombe / Tamburi / 2 Hautbois è /Fiauti / 2 Violini / Viola / a / Continuo / di / Joh:Seb:Bach
Notice Bach’s misspelling of ‘Fiauti’ which should read ‘Flauti’ which then implies that he possibly used recorders instead of transverse flutes in the earliest version of this cantata, these parts later being changed to the latter instruments.
For the set of parts, 20 copiers were utilized, one of whom was Bach himself. As always, he copied out all the parts of the chorale.
The NBA editors surmise that Bach may have easily performed as many as 60 wedding cantatas (they list all the possible marriages that included the designation, “gantze Brautmeße,” these being the weddings that included ceremonial music on a grand scale.) Not all of these would have had Bach’s own compositions, and for those occasions where he did, he may have repeated or modified his own to make them suitable. What has come down to us is only a fraction of those that must have existed: BWV Anh. 14 exists only in text form, BWV 34a, and BWV 120a only exist partially. This leaves us with only BWV 195, BWV 196, BWV 197. All the remainder are irretrievably lost. It is also possible that he may have used BWV 9, BWV 93, BWV 97, BWV 99, BWV 100, BWV 111 since they have texts that might fit a wedding ceremony in a very general sense. Bach also has 3 special 4-pt. harmonizations that were used for “eine halbe Brautmeße,” for more modest wedding ceremonies: BWV 250 (Before the Ceremony), BWV 251 (After the Ceremony), and BWV 252 (After the Benediction.)
Date of Composition:
Since W. Rust (BG 13), the following hypotheses have been established:
a) Mvts. 1, 3, 5, are reworkings/adaptations of earlier compositions.
b) Mvts. 2, 4 (Recit) are original (having the latest date) for this cantata.
c) The cantata was ‘put together’ in great haste: Bach did not even get to set the 2nd pt. of the cantata text (After the Ceremony.) Bach replaced the 2nd pt. with a single verse of a chorale.
d) The score was written out later than the parts.
Concerning c): Smend discovered mvts. from BWV 30a “Angenehmes Wiederau” and its parody BWV 30 “Freue dich, erlöste Schar” contained mvts. that would fit the aria and choir mvts of the Pt. 2 text of BWV 195. The texts fit perfectly and no transposition was necessary.
Until the beginning of the last half century, the opinions held by important Bach scholars tended to assign the date, c. 1730, as a likely date (Terry, 1926) even suspected c. 1726 as a possible date, and they even considered that Bach was the author of the text. All of these conjectures were offered without any evidence to back up these contentions. With Smend’s theory, one aria and a mvt. for choir were used in BWV 30a, which has a definite date of composition: Sept 28, 1737. Accordingly the original version of BWV 195 would have to have had a date subsequent to 1737. There is a possibility that the cantata first attained its present form on 9/11 of 1741 for the wedding of a lawyer and mayor of Naumburg, Gottlob Heinrich Pipping, and his bride, Johann Eleonore Schütze, the daughter of the pastor at the St. Thomas Church in Leipzig. The references to “Gerechtigkeit” [“justice”] and “Tugend” [“virtue”] seem to fit this situation well. The marriage of such important individuals demanded a very special treatment of the music, where Bach would ‘pull out all the stops’ for this performance. An incomplete version of this cantata dates from 1742. There is even the possibility of a still later date, 1749, based on some rather skimpy evidence. Copier 2, who copied most of the parts for mvt. 3, made an inordinate number of mistakes (I count a total of 98 errors or omissions: a few wrong notes, some missing marks of articulation, particularly many phrase markings, and quite a number of missing lines to connect rhythmic groupings of notes. Copier 2 may have been Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach (born June 21, 1732.) In 1749 he would have been 17 years old. The score is the only example known where Bach composed on preprinted note paper. Perhaps the designated use of this paper was for another purpose. There may be some connection here with the printing of the KdF (BWV 1080). Bach’s handwriting is stiff and not at all characteristic of his usual style of notation. Also to be considered are the numerous errors that he simply left uncorrected (poor eyesight, or a hindrance in body movement?)