This tag was created by James A. Brokaw II. The last update was by Elizabeth Budd.
Tue Rechnung! Donnerwort BWV 168 / BC A 116
Ninth Sunday after Trinity, July 29, 1725
In the context of Bach’s vocal works, this cantata, Tue Rechnung! Donnerwort BWV 168 (Settle the account! Word of thunder), seems a bit difficult to place. With a fair degree of certainty, it can be assigned to 1725, an eventfully creative year that began in the midst of the stylistic unity of Bach’s chorale cantata project but whose further course after the project’s premature conclusion presents an image that is at once colorful if not—regarding the cantatas—entirely systematic.Following several possible performances of cantatas by Telemann in June and July, in late July Bach abruptly went back to an annual cycle of cantata texts printed in Weimar in 1715: the Evangelisches Andachts-Opffer (Protestant devotional offering), by Salomon Franck. As concertmaster at the Weimar court chapel, Bach had set many libretti from this collection to music after the duke’s wishes. Now, a decade later, he went back to this collection—perhaps of his own volition, perhaps of necessity—and came upon what is clearly a rather problematic source text. Franck’s cantata libretto for the ninth Sunday after Trinity takes up the associated Gospel reading, in this case, the account in Luke 16 of the unrighteous steward.
He, however, spoke to his disciples: There was a rich man who had a steward of whom it was rumored that he had wasted his goods. And he called him and spoke to him: How is it that I hear this of you? Give me an account of your stewardship, for henceforth you cannot be my steward! The steward said to himself: What shall I do? My lord has taken away my job; I cannot dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I am resolved to do that, if I am now discharged from my job, so that they take me into their homes. And he called all debtors to his lord and spoke to the first one: How much do you owe my lord? He spoke: A hundred casks of oil. And he spoke to him: Take your letter, sit down quickly, and write fifty. Then he spoke to the other: You, however, how much do you owe? He said a hundred bushels of wheat. And he said to him: Take your letter and write eighty. And the lord praised the unrighteous steward that he had dealt cleverly; for the children of this world are more clever than the children of the light in their generation. And I say to you: make friends with unrighteous mammon so that when you fail they may take you into the eternal dwellings. (1–9)
This rather conflicted parable and its moral, as well as several related biblical passages, have taken on an interpretation as Sacrum commercium, or “heavenly business,” in which Jesus as the “heavenly storekeeper” takes the debts of people upon himself, tears up the promissory notes, and then, as mediator between God and humanity, pays ransom for sinful humankind.
Franck’s cantata text is concerned with sin as debt and the difficulty of debt cancellation. In accordance with tradition, the threat of divine judgment assumes its appropriate place at the start of the first aria:
Tue Rechnung! Donnerwort,
Das die Felsen selbst zerspaltet,
Wort, wovon mein Blut erkaltet!
Tue Rechnung! Seele, fort!
Ach, du mußt Gott wiedergeben
Seine Güter, Leib und Leben.
Tue Rechnung, Donnerwort!
Settle the account! Word of thunder
That splits mountain crags themselves,
Word that chills my blood!
Settle the account! Soul, go forth!
Ah, you must return to God
His goods, body, and life.
Settle the account, word of thunder!
According to recent research, a possible source for this text may be the collection Evangelischer Hertzens-Spiegel by the Rostock theologian Heinrich Müller, printed posthumously in 1679. Part of the text for the exegesis of the Gospel lesson for the ninth Sunday after Trinity reads:
Wir sitzen auff Rechnung
Und müssen augenblicklich gewärtig seyn
Daß diß Donner-Wort erschalle: Thue Rechnung . . .
Fordert es Gott nicht ehe
So fordert er es gewiß in der letzte Todes-Stunde
Da muß die Seele an die Rechen-Bank
Und Antwort geben.
We hold a promissory note
And must appear the moment
That this word of thunder resounds: Settle the account . . .
If God does not demand it before,
Then he certainly demands it in the final hour of death,
When the soul must go to the ledger
And give an answer.
But a hymn strophe from Geistliche Singekunst by Johannes Olearius, printed in Leipzig in 1671, is also a possible model:
Thu Rechnung! Gott will ernstlich von dir haben,
Thu Rechnung, spricht der Herr, von allen deinen Gaben,
Thu Rechnung, fürchte Gott, du mußt sonst plötzlich fort,
Thu Rechnung, denke stets an diese Donner-Wort.
Settle the account! God will gravely demand of you,
Settle the account, says the Lord, of all of your gifts,
Settle the account, fear God, you must otherwise go suddenly,
Settle the account, think always on this word of thunder.
The second movement of Franck’s cantata text is an extended recitative that is full of self-accusation and that discusses the failed management of entrusted resources. The accumulation of nouns is typical of Franck’s writing style:
Es ist nur fremdes Gut,
Was ich in diesem Leben habe;
Geist, Leben, Mut und Blut
Und Amt und Stand ist meines Gottes Gabe,
Es ist mir zum Verwalten
Und treulich damit hauszuhalten
Von hohen Händen anvertraut.
They are but borrowed goods
That I have in this life;
Spirit, life, courage, and blood
And post and status are the gifts of my God
For me to administer
And manage faithfully,
Entrusted to me from lofty hands.
And at the close:
Ich rufe flehentlich:
Ihr Berge fallt! Ihr Hügel decket mich
Vor Gottes Zorngerichte
Und vor dem Blitz von seinem Angesichte!
I call pleadingly:
You mountains, fall! You hills, cover me
Before God’s rageful judgment
And before the lightning of his countenance!
The following aria works with commercial categories; it compares sin and guilt with capital and interest:
Kapital und Interessen,
Meine Schulden groß und klein
Müßen einst verrechnet sein.
Alles, was ich schuldig blieben,
Ist in Gottes Buch geschrieben
Als mit Stahl und Demantstein.
Principal and interest,
My debts, great and small,
Must one day be accounted for.
All that I still owe
Is written in God’s book
As if with steel and diamond.
At this point, the last recitative must go far afield from these piled-up debts and their repayment and salvation through “the blood of the lamb” up to the demand from the Gospel lesson to “make friends with unrighteous mammon”:
Indessen, weil du weißt,
Daß du Haushalter seist,
So sei bemüht und unvergessen,
Den Mammon klüglich Anzuwenden,
Den Armen wohlzutun,
So wirst du, wenn sich Zeit und Leben enden,
In Himmelshütten sicher ruhn.
Meanwhile, since you know
That you are a steward,
Take trouble and do not forget
To use money wisely,
To benefit the poor,
So that you, when time and life end,
Will rest securely in heavenly dwellings.
And the final aria reaffirms:
Hertz, zerreiß des Mammons Kette,
Hände, streuet Gutes aus!
Machet sanft mein Sterbebette,
Bauet mir ein festes Haus,
Das im Himmel ewig bleibet,
Wenn der Erde Gut zerstäubet.
Heart, rip loose the chains of mammon,
Hands, sow good things!
Make my deathbed soft,
Build for me a secure house
That remains in heaven eternally
When earthly goods turn to dust.
Dotted rhythms in the high string instruments and a rumbling figure in the bass characterize the first aria, whose varied scenario ranges from the thrice-given warning “Tue Rechnung!” to the graphic depiction of shattered mountain crags, culminating in the “Donnerwort” passage, performed multiple times with instruments in unison. Two oboi d’amore are assigned to the first recitative; following the intensification in the text, they climb from providing simple harmonic support at the beginning to ultimately reach the level of tone painting. The associated aria, a trio for tenor, basso continuo, and obbligato oboe, exhibits a distinctly dancelike character. Much imagination would be needed to establish a connection between the regularly structured, twice twelve-bar instrumental ritornello in the manner of a minuet and the text’s relatively unwieldy paean to “capital and interest.”
The last aria, however, in which soprano and alto join with the basso continuo, is more transparent. Here the instrumental part moves with a characteristic rhythmic sequence whose stubborn repetition at various pitch levels manifests the demand “Herz, zerreiß des Mammons Kette” (Heart, rip loose the chains of mammon). On the one hand, the deliberate, canonic leading of the voices fosters an emphatic presentation of the text; on the other hand, by way of its strict formal principle, it suggests the seriousness of the good intentions expressed here—they cannot be shaken, even “Wenn der Erde Gut zerstäubet” (When earthly goods turn to dust). The closing chorale takes up this thought, which is based on one of the two sixteenth-century melodies for the chorale “Wenn mein Stündlein vorhanden ist” (When the hour of my death is at hand).