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Erforsche mich, Gott, und erfahre mein Herz BWV 136 / BC A 111
Eighth Sunday after Trinity, July 18, 1723
The title line of this cantata, which originated in 1723, comes from a verse from Psalm 139, dealing with God’s omniscience and constant presence. At its close Psalm 139 reads: “Erforsche mich, Gott, und erfahre mein Herz; prüfe mich und erfahre, wie ichs meine. Und siehe, ob ich auf bösem Wege bin, und leite mich auf ewigem Wege” (23–24; Examine me, God, and know my heart; try me and know my thoughts. And see whether I am on a false way, and lead me on the eternal way). The image of the false and the eternal ways and the tests of conscience and faith spoken about in the psalm text are the Hebrew Bible counterpart to the Gospel reading for the eighth Sunday after Trinity. This is found in Matthew 7 at the close of the Sermon on the Mount; it contains the warning against false prophets:Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. By their fruits shall you recognize them. Can one gather grapes from among the thorns or figs from thistles? Thus any good tree brings forth good fruit, but a bad tree brings forth bad fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bring forth good fruit. Any tree that does not bring forth good fruit is cut down and thrown in the fire. Therefore, by their fruit you shall recognize them. Not all of those who say to me: Lord, Lord! enter the kingdom of heaven, rather those who do the will of my Father in heaven. Many will say to me on that day: Lord, Lord! Have we not prophesied in your name, have we not in your name driven the devil out, have we not in your name done many good things? Then I will attest to them: I have not ever recognized you; go away from me all, you evildoers! (15–23)
The unknown librettist of our cantata did not take up the image of the false prophets in sheep’s clothing in his libretto. With that, an obvious possibility eluded the composer: that of depicting the situation by means of a musical labyrinth. Bach’s famous contemporary Georg Philipp Telemann did not let this possibility get away. Several years after the work’s performance at the Preachers’ Church in Erfurt, the Erfurt organist and authority on music Jacob Adlung reported on the quality of Telemann’s composition and various occurrences at its performance:
It was still more curious when in 1744 Telemann had his annual cycle of cantatas engraved in copper in Nuremberg and in the same on the eighth Sunday after Trinity depicted the false prophets in sheep’s clothing using a complete circle of fifths, from B-flat through all twelve major keys. The change from the b to the cross [flat to the sharp] he made quite correctly on the G-flat, which he replaced with F-sharp. . . . How the performance ran for us in the Preachers’ [Church] is not necessary to say; anyone can easily imagine from the reports (1) that no one among us tries out the music to be played beforehand; (2) that among the assistants most are not well versed in matters relating to music theory; (3) that in the entire choir, no one—other than myself—had ever heard or seen anything relating to modulations along the circle of fifths. And so, when it was over, one after another came and asked, What was that, then? But the question came too late. Those truly were false prophets; and perhaps, if not four hundred, in any case a rather considerable number of genuine prophets of Baal—cf. Kings 1, Chapter 18[:22–40]—their disharmony depicted their fear and doubt, as the long knife of Elijah lay against their throats.1
Bach’s librettist did not choose the beginning of the Sunday Gospel reading as his point of departure; instead, he chose a verse from Psalm 139. In the first freely versified text, an extended recitative, he dedicates himself all the more intensively to the image of the good and the terrible fruits. Beginning with an allusion to Genesis, the text reads:
Ach daß der Fluch, so dort die Erde schlägt,
Auch derer Menschen Herz getroffen!
Wer kann auf gute Früchte hoffen,
Da dieser Fluch bis in die Seele dringet,
So daß sie Sündendornen bringet
Und Lasterdisteln trägt.
Doch wollen sich oftmals die Kinder der Höllen
In Engel des Lichtes verstellen;
Man soll bei dem verderbten Wesen
Von diesen Dornen Trauben lesen.
Ein Wolf will sich mit reiner Wolle decken.
Alas, that the curse that there strikes the earth
Has also struck the heart of humankind!
Who can hope for good fruit
When this curse penetrates the soul
So that it brings thorns of sin
And carries thistles of vice.
Yet often the children of hell would disguise themselves
As angels of light;
One should, with our corrupted nature,
Gather grapes from these thorns.
A wolf would cover itself with pure wool.
The ensuing aria text inveighs against hypocrisy:
Es kömmt ein Tag,
So das Verborgne richtet,
Vor dem die Heuchelei erzittern mag.
Denn seines Eifers Grimm vernichtet,
Was Heuchelei und List erdichtet.
There will come a day
That will judge what is hidden,
Before which hypocrisy may tremble.
For the wrath of his vengeance will annihilate
What hypocrisy and deceit have contrived.
Yet suddenly the vengeance of the old covenant is transformed into the forgiveness of the new: “Die Himmel selber sind nicht rein” (The heavens themselves are not pure), begins the last recitative, alluding to a place in Job 15:15, and continues:
Wie soll es nun ein Mensch vor diesem Richter sein?
Doch wer durch Jesu Blut gereinigt,
Im Glauben sich mit ihm vereinigt,
Weiß, daß er ihm kein hartes Urteil spricht.
How then shall a person before this judge stand?
Yet whoever is purified through Jesus’s blood,
United with him in faith,
Knows that he will pronounce no harsh judgment upon him.
The associated aria describes the purifying power of the blood of Jesus Christ:
Uns treffen zwar der Sünden Flecken,
So Adams Fall auf uns gebracht.
Allein, wer sich in Jesu Wunden,
Dem großen Strom voll Blut gefunden,
Wird dadurch wieder rein gemacht.
We are indeed struck by the stains of sin
That Adam’s fall brought upon us.
He alone, who has found in Jesus’s wounds
The great stream full of blood,
Will thereby again be made pure.
The concluding chorale makes the same point, although with different words: the ninth strophe from Johannes Heermann’s 1630 chorale Wo soll ich fliehen hin (Whither shall I flee?).
Bach’s composition of this concentrated source text exhibits several remarkable features that have not been definitively explained. The opening movement on the psalm text is, indeed, composed as a choral fugue, as expected and customary. But the brightness of the A major key, the tranquility of the fugue theme, the serenity of the
8 meter: all these factors stand in a peculiar tension to the seriousness of the text. This raises the question whether this movement might originally have been created for a different text. In any case, the piece underwent a second (or actually perhaps a third) retexting shortly before 1740, when Bach used it as the conclusion of the Cum Sancto Spiritu for his Mass in A Major BWV 234.
The first aria for alto and obbligato oboe d’amore awakens less doubt that its text and music originated together. The repetition of the opening theme three times, each at a higher pitch, and again at the entrance of the voice is an appropriate means to allow the “Es kömmt ein Tag” (There will come a day) to appear as a final warning. The passage “seines Eifers Grimm” (the wrath of his vengeance) is sharply differentiated in tempo and meter—another indication of the original relationship between text and composition.
The second aria movement is different. While the text is in the plural, this is not a compelling reason to compose the text as a duet. The rather playful figuration of the obbligato part, comprising two violins in unison, is again only distantly compatible. To consider a revision of an older piece in this case is certainly not far-fetched.
The fact that the closing chorale movement on the melody Wo soll ich fliehen hin is in five parts rather than four—a violin in its upper range provides counterpoint to the chorale melody—poses more questions that remain open, since it points more to the style of Bach’s Weimar cantatas than to that of the cantatas of Leipzig.
Footnotes
- “Noch curiöser war es, als Telemann im Jahr 1744 seinen Jahrgang von Kirchenstücken zu Nürnberg in Kupfer stechen ließ, und in demselben am 8ten Sonntage nach Trinitatis die falschen Propheten in Schaafskleidern durch einen völligen Quinten-Cirkel vorstellete, aus B dur alle 12 harte Tonarten. Die Vertauschung des b mit dem Creuz bringt er ganz recht an bey Ges, welches er in Fis verkehrt. . . . Wie die Aufführung bey uns zum Predigern damals abgelaufen, ist nicht nötig zu sagen; ein jeder kann sich solches vorstellen, welcher berichtet ist, 1. daß man bey uns nichts vorher probirt, was zu musiciren ist; 2. daß unter den Helfers-Helfern die mehresten nicht weit kommen sind, was die Theorie der Musik betrifft; 3. daß bey dem ganzen Chor keiner war, außer mir, welcher von Cirkelgängen iemals etwas gehört oder gesehen. Daher, als es vorbey, kam bald dieser, bald jener und fragte: was war denn das? Aber die Frage war zu spät. Das waren recht falsche Propheten; und vielleicht, wo nicht 400, doch eine ziemlich beträchtliche Anzahl wirklicher Baalspfaffen — vgl. 1. Buch der Könige, Capitel 18 — deren Anarmonie vorstellete ihre Angst und Verzweifelung, da des Elias Würgemesser ihnen schon an der Kehle saß” (Adlung [1758] 1953).↵