Organ music for the Fifth Sunday in Lent

Prelude
An Wasserflüssen Babylon [BWV 653b]– J.S. Bach (1685-1750)

Postlude
Aus Teifer Noth [BWV 686] – J.S. Bach

In the final decade of his life, Bach prepared a collection of eighteen chorale preludes from a body of material originally composed in the years 1710-1714. It is thought by a number of Bach's modern biographers that this was part of a wider project in which Bach created an encyclopaedic body of the chorale preludes in the form of publications (Clavierübung III, published 1739, and the six 'Schubler' chorales, published 1748) and collections in manuscript (Orgelbüchlein, the eighteen 'Leipzig' chorales) which together represented Bach's mastery of the full diversity of styles and compositional techniques for this genre of organ music. In these chorales Bach was engaging in a double retrospective view. First, he was looking back to the compositional methods of previous generations while demonstrating his awareness of newer ideas. Second, he was looking back at his own development as an acknowledged master of his art and selecting what he understood to be his best work.
Today we will hear two chorale settings from this late-life project. Both chorales have a retrospective character by calling for double-pedalling, where each foot plays a fully-developed independent part, which evoked Bach's predecessors in the German virtuoso organ tradition. Each chorale is based on a Lutheran paraphrase from the Psalms, and it is worth noting that these seem to be the only chorales Bach set with a double-pedal part. Another features of these chorale settings is the use of imitative counterpoint, where the accompanying parts prefigure each phrase of the chorale melody before it is played on the solo stop.
An Wasserflüssen Babylon sets a chorale based on Psalm 137, By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept, when we remembered you, O Jerusalem. This chorale is an earlier version of the setting in the final copy of the Leipzig chorales, and differs very significantly from the final version included in modern editions. This psalm of exile and lament speaks of the inability of the Jewish exiles to sing the songs of Zion in Babylon, and in Luther's paraphrase it inspired settings from composers prior to Bach that made use of double pedalling: a famous example is a fantasia by Johann Adam Reincken (1643-1722), which inspired Bach around the time he composed this chorale prelude. Each line of the chorale is anticipated before the entry of the solo stop, while the steady quaver movement of the accompaniment evokes the flowing water of the Euphrates.
Aus Teifer Noth is based on Luther's paraphrase of Psalm 130, Out of the depths have I cried unto thee. Bach published this setting as part of Clavierübung III in 1739, where it stands at the centre of a series of settings of liturgical and catechetical chorales. Aus Tiefer Noth is cast in six parts, two for each hand and two for the pedals, with the chorale melody placed in the upper pedal part. Each phrase of the chorale is anticipated by the accompanying parts, and leads to a wide variety of melodic shapes that convey the sense of lament, and the passage of the voice of prayer to God.