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Wär Gott nicht mit uns diese Zeit BWV 14 / BC A 40
Fourth Sunday after Epiphany
With the words “Fine,” “Soli Deo Gloria” (To God alone the glory), and the year “1735,” Johann Sebastian Bach inscribed the last page of the composing score for his cantata Wär Gott nicht mit uns diese Zeit BWV 14 (Were not God with us in this time). With this, the cantata became the final entry in the annual cycle he had begun a decade earlier, known as the chorale cantatas.
There were several factors that caused the final gap in the series to be filled so remarkably late. One of them had to do with the church calendar: the fourth Sunday after Epiphany, for which the cantata is meant, appears only when Easter falls on April 8 or later. That circumstance was not present in 1725, when the third Sunday after Epiphany was followed immediately by Septuagesima Sunday, so that the cantor of St. Thomas did not need to prepare a cantata for the fourth Sunday after Epiphany. This was also true for 1728, 1731, and 1733. The possibility did arise in 1726, but Bach in the meantime had assembled a different cantata cycle, and on that Sunday he performed a work by his Meiningen cousin Johann Ludwig Bach. The next year, 1727, the fourth Sunday after Epiphany fell on February 2, the Feast of the Purification of St. Mary, and this higher-ranking occasion took precedence.
Other chances to make up the omission came in 1729 and 1730, but during this period Bach evidently was at work on yet another annual cycle, probably using texts by Christian Friedrich Henrici—a cycle that has been lost, for the most part. In this context, a chorale cantata would have seemed out of place. In 1732 the long-planned-for addition once again did not take place because Bach was away from Leipzig for an organ examination. In 1734 Easter fell on the very last possible day, April 25, when there were in fact six Sundays after Epiphany. Bach may have had a hard time handling such an unusual and challenging situation, and once again the addition to the chorale cantata annual cycle fell by the wayside.
The fate of the rather unobtrusive fourth Sunday after Epiphany and the long-futile effort to provide it with a chorale cantata bring into relief the professional responsibilities of the cantor of St. Thomas and their diversity and vicissitudes.
The Gospel reading for this much-discussed Sunday is found in Matthew 8 and recounts how Jesus calms a storm at sea. Matthew places this event on an unspecified “Meer” (ocean); according to the parallel account in the eighth chapter of Luke, the event involves the Sea of Galilee and a crossing in a southeast direction toward the Land of the Gadarenes. Matthew 8:23–27 reads:
And he entered into the ship, and his disciples followed him. And, behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves: and he slept. And his disciples came to him, and awoke him, saying, Lord, help us: we perish. And he said unto them, You of little faith, why are you so fearful? Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm.
But the men marveled, saying, What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him!
The main hymn for this Sunday, Martin Luther’s three-strophe chorale Wär Gott nicht mit uns diese Zeit, is closely related to this account. First printed in 1724, this hymn is an adaptation of Psalm 124. This psalm, a song of degrees of David, praises God as a helper in need:
Wo der Herr nicht bei uns wäre—so sage Israel—wo der Herr nicht bei uns wäre, wenn die Menschen sich wider uns setzen: so verschlängen sie uns lebendig, wenn ihr Zorn über uns ergrimmte; so ersäufte uns Wasser, Ströme gingen über unsre Seele. . . . Gelobet sei der Herr, daß er uns nicht gibt zum Raub in ihre Zähne! Unsere Seele ist entronnen wie ein Vogel dem Stricke des Voglers; der Strick ist zerrissen, und wir sind los. Unsre Hilfe steht im Namen des Herrn, der Himmel und Erde gemacht hat.
Were the Lord not with us—now may Israel say—were the Lord not with us, when men rise up against us: Then they would have swallowed us up living, when their wrath burned against us: Then the waters would have overwhelmed us, the stream would have gone over our soul. . . . Blessed be the Lord, who hath not given us as a prey to their teeth. Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers: the snare is broken, and we are escaped. Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
The first strophe of Luther’s verse appears without change in the cantata libretto:
Wär Gott nicht mit uns diese Zeit,
So soll Israel sagen
Wär Gott nicht mit uns diese Zeit,
Wir hätten müßen verzagen,
Die so ein armes Häuflein sind,
Veracht’ von so viel Menschenkind
Die an uns setzen alle.
Were God not with us at this time,
So shall Israel say,
Were God not with us at this time,
We would have had to despair,
We who are such a poor little band,
Despised by so many children of humankind,
Who all set upon us.
Luther’s second strophe summarizes the middle part of the psalm text:
Auf uns ist so zornig ihr Sinn;
Wo Gott hätt das zugeben,
Verschlungen hätten sie uns hin
Mit ganzem Leib und Leben:
Wir wärn als die ein Flut ersäuft
Und über die groß Wasser läuft
Und mit Gewalt verschwemmet.
Their mind is so wrathful at us;
If God had allowed that,
They would have devoured us
With entire body and life.
We’d have been like those drowned by a flood,
Washed over by huge waves
And powerfully overwhelmed.
The unknown author of our cantata’s text developed two arias and a recitative from these few lines. In the first aria he relied only minimally on Luther’s chorale to depict a situation without the help of God:
Unsre Stärke sind zu schwach,
Unserm Feind zu widerstehen.
Stünd uns nicht der Höchste bei,
Würd uns ihre Tyrannei
Bald bis an das Leben gehen.
Our strength is too weak
To resist our enemy.
If the Most High had not stood with us,
Their tyranny would
Soon put our life at stake.
The recitative, on the other hand, is closely connected not only to Luther’s strophe but also to the psalm text on which it is based, as well as the Gospel reading:
Ja hätt es Gott nur zugegeben,
Wir wären längst nicht mehr am Leben,
Sie rissen uns aus Rachgier hin,
So zornig ist auf uns ihr Sinn,
Es hätt uns ihre Wut
Wie eine wilde Flut
Und als beschäumte Wasser überschwemmet,
Und niemand hätte die Gewalt gehemmet.
Yes, had God only allowed it
We would, long since, have been alive no more.
Out of thirst for revenge they would have dragged us off,
So wrathful is their disposition toward us.
Their rage would,
Like a wild flood
And like foaming waters, have overwhelmed us,
And no one could have impeded their might.
The ensuing aria takes up this chain of ideas—now, however, in the certainty of God’s protection:
Gott, bei deinem starken Schützen
Sind wir von den Feinden frei.
Wenn sich als wilde Wellen
Uns aus Grim entgegenstellen,
Stehn uns deine Hände bei.
God, through your strong defense
We are free of the enemies.
When they set themselves against us
Out of fury like wild waves,
Your hands stand beside us.
The cantata text closes with Luther’s third strophe and its image of the snare of sin that threatens to trap the winged soul:
Gott Lob und Dank, der nicht zugab,
Daß ihr Schlund uns möcht fangen.
Wie ein Vogel des Stricks kömmt ab,
Ist unsre Seel entgangen:
Strick ist entzwei, und wir sind frei;
Des Herren Name steht uns bei
Des Gottes Himmels und Erden.
Praise and thanks to God, who did not allow
That their maw might take us.
As a bird comes out of the snare
Our soul has escaped.
Snare is broken, and we are free;
The name of the Lord stands beside us,
The God of heaven and earth.
At the beginning of his composition of this highly concentrated text, instead of the expected wide-ranging, concerted arrangement of the chorale, Bach employs a dense motet texture for four voices and colla parte strings. In the manner of a motet, every phrase of the hymn is freely developed as a counterfugue, so that the phrase appears both in its original form as well as inverted. In this instance, the chorale melody is not entrusted to a voice but is heard, line by line, in an obbligato instrumental part comprising a horn and two oboes. The compositional idea presented here and its implementation forcefully raise the question as to a late style in Bach’s cantata oeuvre. Although we lack further examples that might allow a conclusive answer, it is tempting to consider a possible connection to Die Kunst der Fuge BWV 1080, that late work whose earliest drafts, according to our current knowledge, originated after 1740 but whose conception appears to date back to the 1730s—and thus in proximity to our cantata.
The first aria, heroic in tone, is demanding in a completely different way. Contrary to all custom, it joins the soprano with an obbligato brass instrument, identified in the composing score as “corno da caccia,” or what we call a French horn. However, in the performing part, it appears—as written by Bach himself—as “Corno par force.” Bach originally intended the part—challenging beyond all measure—for the trumpet but changed, before the first performance, to a horn. Who in 1735 could have mastered the uncomfortably high register on the valveless natural horn remains unknown; it likewise remains unknown in what manner and with what instrument an authentic performance could be accomplished today. Compared to the nearly unconquerable peaks of this movement, the second aria for bass and two obbligato oboes seems less distant from the familiar. Still, it deserves mention here that the unmistakably dance-like gesture of this movement cannot easily be assigned to a particular dance character, a circumstance that can perhaps be ascribed to its late date of origin and possibly indicating a turning away from clearly identifiable dance types, as one finds at every turn in works ten years older.