Musical Moments #7 - Osterkantate (Easter Cantata)

“Music hath caught a higher pace than any virtue that I know.  It is the arch-reformer; it hastens the sun to its setting; and it invites him to his rising.”
–Henry David Thoreau

Today's Piece: Osterkantate (Easter Cantata)
Ernst Wilhelm Wolf (1735-1791)

Ernst Wilhelm Wolf by age nine was recognized as a gifted harpsichord player, and his stature as a prominent musician grew significantly during Wolf’s lifetime.  He was educated in the German towns of Eisenach, Gotha, and Jena and lived in Naumburg and then Leipzig before moving to Weimar, where he spent the rest of his life.  Wolf admired both the music of J.S. Bach and his son, Carl Phillipe Emmanuel Bach, and Wolf’s friendship with the latter lasted a lifetime. One can easily hear the Bach family’s musical influence in this cantata. 

Felix Mendelssohn selected and conducted a performance of Osterkantate in 1833 at a festival in Düsseldorf, and the American Moravians also knew of and performed the work. 

Sung in German, the last part of the cantata features a soprano solo by Mary Wilson, followed by a traditional chorale, and ending with the chorus and women’s trio. The solo text questions where the resurrected Christ has “lingered unseen” with the chorus responding, “Jesus, my redeemer lives.”  And while the last section provides some lively choral writing, I find the ethereal Hallelujah most compelling and surprising.  

The Moravian Music Foundation, Bach Festival Society, and Rollins College combined forces in 2015 to perform the only known recording of this work. 

–John V. Sinclair, Artistic Director and Conductor

 “God sent his singers upon earth with songs of sadness and of mirth.”
–Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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Listen on Spotify (Track 10, 11, and 12)