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Ach! Ich sehe, itzt, da ich zur Hochzeit gehe BWV 162 / BC A 148
Twentieth Sunday after Trinity, October 25, 1716
This cantata, Ach! Ich sehe, itzt, da ich zur Hochzeit gehe BWV 162 (Ah! I see, now, as I go to the wedding), is from Bach’s Weimar period and originated in connection with his obligation, beginning in early 1714, to compose and perform a new cantata for the Weimar court chapel every month. If this task at first required him to be constantly on the lookout for appropriate texts, this difficulty was resolved in late 1714 when Salomon Franck, secretary to the Weimar High Consistory and designated librettist of church texts, placed an entire annual cycle of cantata libretti at Bach’s disposal. Published in mid-1715 under the title Evangelisches Andachts-Opffer (Protestant devotional offering), this collection provided Johann Sebastian Bach with a trustworthy and reliable foundation for his composition of cantatas for a long time. However, he was unexpectedly forced to cease production only a few months later. On August 1, 1715, Prince Johann Ernst of Saxe-Weimar, only nineteen years of age, died in Frankfurt am Main after a long illness. As a result, a period of national mourning was decreed, and even church music fell silent for several weeks.1 Contrary to earlier assumptions, our cantata was therefore not first performed on November 3, 1715, but in the following year on October 25, 1716. Neither the heading, nor the content of Franck’s libretto, nor Bach’s performance materials leaves any doubt that the work is intended for the twentieth Sunday after Trinity.
The libretto takes up the Sunday Gospel reading, found in Matthew 22, which relates the parable of the royal wedding. It begins with the statement “the kingdom of heaven is like a king who made a wedding feast for his son” (2) and continues with refusals and excuses by the invited guests, physical attacks upon the emissaries of the king, and his retaliation.
Salomon Franck’s cantata libretto first takes up the beginning of the Gospel text and focuses on the decision whether to accept or refuse the divine invitation. In its characterization of the question of conscience, the aria at the beginning employs a device typical of Franck, an accumulation, rich in contrast, of simple and compound nouns:
Ach! Ich sehe,
Itzt, da ich zur Hochzeit gehe,
Wohl und Wehe,
Seelengift und Lebensbrot,
Himmel, Hölle, Leben, Tod,
Himmelsglanz und Höllenflammen
Sind beisammen.
Jesu, hilf, daß ich bestehe!
Ah! I see
Now, as I go to the wedding,
Weal and woe,
Poison of the soul and bread of life,
Heaven, hell, life, death,
Brilliance of heaven and flames of hell
Are together.
Jesus, help, that I endure them!
The verbose recitative that follows asks whether too much honor is being paid to people:
O großes Hochzeitfest,
Darzu der Himmelskönig,
Die Menschen rufen läßt!
Ist denn die arme Braut,
Die menschliche Natur, nicht viel zu schlecht und wenig,
Daß sich mit ihr der Sohn des Höchsten traut?
O großes Hochzeitfest,
Wie ist das Fleisch zu solcher Ehre kommen,
Daß Gottes Sohn
Es hat auf ewig angenommen?
O great wedding feast,
To which the king of heaven
Lets humankind be called!
Is the poor bride, then,
Human nature, not much too low and insignificant,
For the Son of the Most High to marry her?
O great wedding feast,
How has human flesh come to such honor
That God’s Son
Has eternally taken it upon himself?
At the end of this movement, the parable of the wedding meal is decrypted:
Wie herrlich ist doch alles zubereitet!
Wie selig ist, den hier der Glaube leitet,
Und wie verflucht ist doch, der dieses Mahl verachtet!
How gloriously is everything prepared!
How blessed is the one faith leads here,
And how cursed is the one who scorns this meal!
Salomon Franck puts his biblical erudition on display with his formulation in the middle of the movement: “Der Himmel ist sein Thron, / Die Erde dient zum Schemel seinen Füßen” (Heaven is his throne, / Earth serves as his footstool), thereby alluding to the beginning of Isaiah 66: “So says the Lord: Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: What manner of house is it that you would build for me, or what is the place where I shall rest?” (1). The associated aria paraphrases motives from the main hymn of the twentieth Sunday after Trinity, Johann Franck’s Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele (Adorn thyself, O dear soul) of 1632. Its fourth strophe begins: “Ach wie hungert mein Gemüte, / Menschenfreund, nach deiner Güte” (Ah, how my mind hungers, / Friend of humankind, for your goodness); the seventh strophe uses the salutation “Jesu, wahres Brot des Lebens” (Jesus, true bread of life). The conclusion of Franck’s aria text clearly alludes to this:
Jesu, Brunnquell aller Gnaden,
Labe mich elenden Gast,
Weil du mich berufen hast!
Ich bin matt, schwach und beladen,
Ach! erquicke meine Seele,
Ach! wie hungert mich nach dir!
Lebensbrot, das ich erwähle,
Komm, vereine dich mit mir!
Jesus, wellspring of all graces,
Refresh me, your wretched guest,
For you have called me!
I am faint, weak, and burdened.
Ah! Refresh my soul,
Ah! How I hunger after you!
Bread of life, which I choose,
Come, unite with me!
While the first three cantata movements address the overall content of the Sunday Gospel reading, the fourth, again a recitative, picks out a detail from its close: the fate of the guest who, without the essential clothing, wanted to take part in the meal:
Mein Jesu, laß mich nicht
Zur Hochzeit unbekleidet kommen,
Daß mich nicht treffe dein Gericht;
Mit Schrecken hab ich ja vernommen,
Wie du den kühnen Hochzeitgast,
Der ohne Kleid erschienen,
Verworfen und verdammet hast!
My Jesus, let me not
Come to the wedding improperly attired
So that I do not face your judgment;
With horror I have learned
How that rash wedding guest
Who appeared without suitable attire
Was cast out and condemned by you!
This culminates in the plea:
Ach schenke mir des Glaubens Hochzeitkleid;
Laß dein Verdienst zu meinem Schmucke dienen,
Gib mir zum Hochzeitkleide
Den Rock des Heils, der Unschuld weiße Seide.
Ah, give me the wedding dress of faith;
Let your merit serve as my adornment,
Grant me as wedding garment
The robe of salvation, the innocence of white silk.
The white silk of innocence and the purple blood of Christ—a combination often used by Franck—are the proper adornment: “So werd ich würdiglich das Mahl des Lammes schmecken” (Then shall I worthily taste the supper of the lamb). The last freely versified cantata movement, again in the form of an aria, is filled with the certainty of faith:
In meinem Gott bin ich erfreut!
Die Liebesmacht hat ihn bewogen,
Daß er mir in der Gnadenzeit
Aus lauter Huld hat angezogen
Die Kleider der Gerechtigkeit.
Ich weiß, er wird nach diesem Leben
Der Ehre weißes Kleid
Mir auch im Himmel geben.
In my God I am delighted!
Love’s power has stirred him
So that in this time of grace
Out of pure benevolence he has dressed
Me in the garments of righteousness.
I know that after this life
The white robe of honor
He will give even me in heaven.
This anticipates the close of the libretto, the seventh strophe of the 1652 chorale Alle Menschen müßen sterben (All people must die):
Ach ich habe schon erblicket
Diese große Herrlichkeit.
Itzund werd ich schön geschmücket
Mit dem weißen Himmelskleid;
Mit der güldnen Ehrenkrone
Steh ich da für Gottes Throne,
Schaue solche Freude an,
Die kein Ende nehmen kann.
Ah, I have already glimpsed
This great glory.
Now I shall be beautifully adorned
With the white robe of heaven;
With the golden crown of honor
I shall stand before God’s throne,
Shall see such joy
As can have no end.
As so often, Bach’s composition of this libretto places the greatest emphasis on the first movement. Here, voices and instruments unite in a sophisticated polyphonic fabric in which the foreboding head motive of the bass is ever present. Its text begins “Ach, ich sehe” (Ah, I see); its characteristic intervals are a downward leap of the fifth and upward leap of the sixth. In the second aria, voice and basso continuo unite in a stately pastorale movement in
8 meter. However, little more can be said about this aria; it belongs to the group of movements in Bach’s oeuvre, happily few in number, for which one or more obbligato instrumental parts have gone missing. How many instruments were involved and which instruments might have carried the parts: these things have not yet been reliably determined. The third aria of our cantata, the duet “In meinem Gott bin ich erfreut!” has no instrumental part other than the basso continuo; in this case, however, the setting can be seen to match the goals of the composer. What he was after here was a cheerful round dance in which the voice would predominate. The sparingly harmonized closing chorale uses a melody that appears only very rarely, from Alle Menschen müßen sterben, which may have circulated mostly in Thuringia. This “provincial variant,” however, did not hinder the cantata’s repeated performance in Leipzig in October 1723.