This page was created by James A. Brokaw II. The last update was by Angela Watters.
Ich glaube, lieber Herr, hilf meinem Unglauben BWV 109 / BC A 151
Twenty-First Sunday after Trinity, October 17, 1723
This cantata, Ich glaube, lieber Herr, hilf meinem Unglauben BWV 109 (I believe, dear Lord, help my unbelief), originated in Bach's first year in office at Leipzig and is for the twenty-first Sunday after Trinity. The Gospel reading for the Sunday is found in John 4 and tells of the healing of the son of a royal official:And there was a royal official whose son lay ill at Capernaum. He heard that Jesus came from Judea into Galilee and went to him and asked him to come down and heal his son, for he was deathly ill. And Jesus said to him: When you do not see signs and miracles, then you do not believe. The royal official spoke to him: Lord, come down before my child dies! Jesus said to him: Go on your way, your son lives! The man believed the word that Jesus had said to him and went on his way. And as he left, his servants met him and announced to him and spoke: Your son lives. Then he inquired of them the hour when he began to improve. And they said to him: Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him. Then the father noticed that it was at the same hour in which Jesus had said to him: Your son lives. And he believed, with his entire house. That is now the second sign that Jesus did as he came from Judea to Galilee. (47–54)
The unidentified librettist of our cantata addresses the situation depicted here between fear and hope. However, he begins his libretto with a biblical passage taken not from the Sunday Gospel reading but from a parallel place in Mark 9, the account of the healing of one possessed: “Alle Dinge sind möglich dem, der da glaubt” (23; All things are possible for the one that believes). In reaction, the father of the sick boy cries: “Ich glaube, lieber Herr, hilf meinem Unglauben!” (24; I believe, dear Lord, help my unbelief!). The first recitative speaks of this plea for help, proceeding from a passage from Numbers 11, “Ist denn die Hand des Herrn verkürtzt?” (23; Has the Lord’s hand grown short?), and flows into an allusion to the song of thanksgiving by healed King Hezekiah in Isaiah 38: “Siehe, um Trost war mir sehr bange. Du aber hast dich meiner Seele herzlich angenommen, daß sie nicht verdürbe; denn du wirfst alle meine Sünden hinter dich zurück” (17; Behold, I was very anxious for consolation. You, however, have taken my soul warmly, that it not be corrupted, for you will cast all of my sins behind your back). The recitative text vividly formulates gnawing doubt; the thrice-repeated “Ach nein” lends it the sense of inner dialogue:
Des Herren Hand ist ja noch nicht verkürzt,
Mir kann geholfen werden.
Ach nein, ich sinke schon zur Erden
Vor Sorge, daß sie mich zu Boden stürzt.
Der Höchste will, sein Vaterherze bricht.
Ach nein! Er hört die Sünder nicht.
Er wird, er muß dir bald zu helfen eilen,
Um deine Not zu heilen.
Ach nein, es bleibet mir um Trost sehr bange;
Ach Herr, wie lange?
The Lord’s hand indeed has not grown short,
I can be saved.
Ah no, I already sink to the earth
From worry that casts me down to the floor.
The Most High is willing, his fatherly heart breaks.
Ah no! He does not hear the sinners.
He will, he must soon hasten to help you
In order to cure your distress.
Ah no, I remain very anxious for comfort;
Ah Lord, how long?
The associated aria intensifies this sequence of ideas and enriches it with a verse about the Messiah from Isaiah 42: “Das zerstoßene Rohr wird er nicht zerbrechen, und den glimmenden Docht wird er nicht auslöschen. Er wird das Recht wahrhaftig halten lehren” (3; The bruised reed he will not break, and the smoldering wick he will not quench. He will bring forth judgment in truth). However, in the aria text this promise is virtually turned into its opposite:
Wie zweifelhaftig ist mein Hoffen,
Wie wanket mein geängstigt Herz!
Des Glaubens Docht glimmt kaum hervor.
Es bricht dies fast zustoßne Rohr,
Die Furcht macht stetig neuen Schmerz.
How full of doubt is my hope,
How flutters my anxious heart!
The wick of faith barely smolders.
This bruised reed nearly breaks,
Fear continually creates new pain.
The faith described here, while weak, visibly gains the upper hand in the ensuing recitative-aria movement pair, first and foremost through the miraculous healing described in the Sunday Gospel reading:
O fasse dich, du zweifelhafter Mut,
Weil Jesus itzt noch Wunder tut!
Die Glaubensaugen werden schauen
Das Heil des Herrn;
Scheint die Erfüllung allzufern,
So kannst du doch auf die Verheißung bauen.
O compose yourself, you doubt-filled spirit,
For Jesus even now performs miracles!
The eyes of faith will see
The salvation of the Lord;
If its fulfillment seems all too distant,
You can indeed build upon the promise.
The aria confirms:
Der Heiland kennet ja die Seinen,
Wenn ihre Hoffnung hilflos liegt.
Wenn Fleisch und Geist in ihnen streiten,
So steht er ihnen selbst zur Seiten,
Damit zuletzt der Glaube siegt.
The Savior indeed knows those who are his
When their hope lies helpless.
When flesh and spirit struggle within them,
He himself stands at their side,
So that at last faith is victorious.
In a catechetical manner, a strophe from Lazarus Spengler’s 1524 chorale Durch Adams Fall ist ganz verderbt, previously published as Ein geistlich Lied Vom Fall und Erlösung des menschlichen Geschlechts (A sacred hymn of the fall and redemption of the human race), summarizes what has been said:
Wer hofft in Gott und dem vertraut,
Der wird nimmer zuschanden,
Denn wer auf diesen Felsen baut,
Ob ihm gleich geht zuhanden
Viel Unfalls hie, hab ich doch nie
Den Menschen sehen fallen,
Der sich verläßt auf Gottes Trost;
Er hilft sein’ Gläubgen allen.
Whoever hopes in God and trusts in him,
He will never be put to shame,
For whoever builds upon this rock,
Though many accidents
May befall him here, I have never
Seen the person fall
Who relies upon God’s consolation;
He helps his faithful all.
In his Bach monograph of 1880, Philipp Spitta calls the opening movement of our cantata a “quite remarkable chorus”: “It expresses the sentiment of doubt and wavering in a way which is as unmistakable as it is masterly, for the parts wander about separately and, as it were, aimlessly, and only combine into compact figures now and then, and for a short while.”1 Little needs to be added to this, even if one need not necessarily share Spitta’s understanding of a mere “feeling” for wavering and doubt. In fact, closed musical developments have a certain value owing to their scarcity, at least as far as the vocal part is concerned. The apprehensive entry of individual voice parts predominates, to be joined by the others, which for the most part just as soon fall silent and await the next appeal. The orchestral part strives for a certain coherence, with its characteristic motives dominated by yearning leaps of the sixth. Bach may have noticed afterward that because of the deliberate instability of the vocal part and its high technical demands, the instrumental component of the texture could use an additional revaluation. He therefore added a part for French horn, which is useful for stabilization, although it causes headaches for scholars even today because it still remains unclear how the demanding pitch sequences are to be mastered using a valveless natural horn.
Of the two arias, the first, for tenor and strings, is characterized by jagged rhythms and harmonic progressions that seem to search in vain for a solid foothold. Key concepts of the text—fear and pain, anxiety and doubt—dominate the entire movement and do not allow the music’s flow a moment’s rest. On the other hand, calm and certainty radiate from the second aria, whose setting for alto and two oboes, simply with regard to timbre, draws the strongest possible contrast to the first aria. The steady quarter-note motion of the basso continuo emphasizes the minuet character and allows the three upper voices complete freedom to develop. “Lombard rhythm” syncopations are fairly evenly divided across the movement and create a sense of animation to which the basso continuo must occasionally adapt.
The cantata does not close with the usual four-part chorale but rather with a wide-ranging chorale arrangement. With its independent, motivically unified instrumental part and chorale melody presented in large note values by the soprano, supported harmonically by the other voices, this movement anticipates the annual cycle of chorale cantatas, begun in 1724.