This page was created by James A. Brokaw II. The last update was by Elizabeth Budd.
Ich liebe den Höchsten mit ganzem Gemüte BWV 174 / BC A 87
Pentecost Monday, June 6, 1729
Within the scope of Bach’s vocal works, his cantata Ich liebe den Höchsten mit ganzem Gemüte BWV 174 (I love the Most High with all my mind) is thought to have originated rather late. This judgment can be understood in two respects. First, Bach composed the work near the end of his sixth year in office as cantor of St. Thomas. While this may not seem late in view of the next two decades of his life, it does in relation to his intense production of cantatas in his first three years in Leipzig. Second, “relatively late” can be related literally to Bach’s creative situation in June 1729. The second day of Pentecost, for which our cantata was written, fell on the sixth of June that year. A note in the performing parts for our cantata says that they were completed on June 5—indeed, quite late.The heavy workload for the Thomaskantor and his chorus during the high feast days of the church year may often have resulted in similar narrow-margin situations. Many times, the composer was forced to seek strategies to keep his workload manageable without allowing any decline in quality. Drawing upon existing works or parts of compositions was the usual procedure here. With regard to the cantata Ich liebe den Höchsten mit ganzem Gemüte, this approach was also an obvious one, because the text of the first movement does not provide an occasion for an elaborate, festive ensemble piece. This in turn has to do with the character of the Gospel reading for the feast day, found in the third chapter of John, which concerns Jesus’s conversation with Nicodemus and formulates serious concerns about faith at the beginning:
Also hat Gott die Welt geliebt, daß er seinen eingeborenen Sohn gab, auf daß alle, die an ihn glauben, nicht verloren werden, sondern das ewige Leben haben. Denn Gott hat seinen Sohn nicht gesandt in die Welt, daß er die Welt richte, sondern daß die Welt durch ihn selig werde. Wer an ihn glaubt, der wird nicht gerichtet; wer aber nicht glaubt, der ist schon gerichtet, denn er glaubt nicht an den Namen des eingebornen Sohnes Gottes. (16–17)
For God so loved the world that he gave his only son in order that all who believe in him shall not be lost but rather have eternal life. For God has not sent his son into the world that he might condemn it; but that the world through him might be saved. Whoever believes in him shall not be judged; whoever, though, does not believe, he is already condemned, for he does not believe in the name of the only son of God.
The text of our cantata takes up the statement “Also hat Gott die Welt geliebt.” It was written by the Leipzig postal secretary and well-known amateur poet Christian Friedrich Henrici as part of his complete annual cycle of cantata texts. Henrici began to publish this project in the early summer of 1728. He provided the first installment with a foreword that reads: “In honor of God, in response to the desire of good friends, and to promote much devotion, I have decided to prepare the present cantatas. I have undertaken this plan even more happily, since I may flatter myself that perhaps whatever is lacking in poetic charm will be replaced by the loveliness of the incomparable Herr Music Director Bach and that these songs will resound in the most important churches of devout Leipzig.”1 We cannot know whether the cantor of St. Thomas School felt obligated by this broad hint to set the entire annual cycle to music. Hardly ten of the sixty odd possible compositions have survived, mostly from 1728 and 1729. One of them is our cantata for the second day of Pentecost.
Its relatively short text begins with an aria and recitative that formulate the response of the individual believer to the announcement in the Gospel reading:
Ich liebe den Höchsten von ganzem Gemüte,
Er hat mich auch am höchsten lieb.
Gott allein
Soll der Schatz der Seelen sein,
Da hab ich die ewige Quelle der Güte.
I love the Most High with all my mind,
He loves me to the highest degree.
God alone
Shall be the treasure of the soul.
There I have the eternal source of goodness.
The recitative goes into the connection between God’s love and the act of redemption:
O Liebe, welcher keine gleich,
O unschätzbares Lösegeld!
Der Vater hat des Kindes Leben
Vor Sünder in den Tod gegeben
Und alle, die das Himmelreich
Verscherzet und verloren,
Zur Seligkeit erkoren.
Also hat Gott die Welt geliebt.
Mein Herz, das merke dir
Und stärke dich mit diesen Worten;
Vor diesem mächtigen Panier
Erzittern selbst die Höllenpforten.
O love, of which none is like,
O invaluable ransom!
The father has given his child’s life
For sinners unto death delivered,
And all whom the heavenly kingdom
Has trifled with and lost,
He has elected for salvation.
God so loved the world,
My heart, take note of that,
And fortify yourself with these words:
Before this mighty standard
Even the gates of hell themselves tremble.
The second aria transforms this into an invitation to a confession of faith:
Greifet zu,
Faßt das Heil, ihr Glaubenshände.
Jesus gibt sein Himmelreich
Und verlangt nur das von euch:
Gläubt getreu bis an das Ende.
Reach out,
Take the salvation, you hands of faith.
Jesus gives his heavenly kingdom
And requests only this of you:
Believe faithfully until the end.
The ensuing chorale strophe, taken from a hymn written in 1671 by Martin Schalling, gathers together the sequence of ideas of the text. Its beginning reads as follows:
Herzlich lieb hab ich dich,
O Herr,
Ich bitt, du wollst sein von mir nicht fern
Mit deiner Hülf und Gnaden.
Die ganze Welt erfreut mich nicht,
Nach Himm’l und Erden frag ich nicht,
Wenn ich dich nur kann haben.
Truly do I love you,
O Lord,
I pray you will not be far from me
With your help and grace.
The entire world delights me not,
Of heaven and earth I ask nothing
If only I can have you.
For the textual reasons described earlier, Bach placed a festive concerto movement at the beginning of his cantata. Essentially, this is the opening movement of a G major concerto for strings (BWV 1048) that originated before 1720 in Köthen or even earlier in Weimar. It was included in the famous dedication score to the margrave of Brandenburg in early 1721 and is thus part of the Brandenburg Concertos. Bach expanded the concerto, already wide-ranging and challenging, was expanded, with the addition of two horns and three oboes, the latter supported by more string instruments. Sometimes with full parts, sometimes with simplified excerpts from structural parts, and occasionally with newly composed, independent parts, the additional instruments enrich the musical events in density of counterpoint and sonorous opulence. A significant event underlies this sudden profusion of new musical riches: a few weeks earlier, through a clever gambit, the cantor of St. Thomas was able to engage one of Leipzig’s two Collegia Musica and thus fortify his performance forces for church music. The fact that the cantata sinfonia, a musically enriched version of the opening movement of the third Brandenburg concerto, requires a minimum of twenty-one performers speaks for itself, as does the observation that the opulent setting bears unmistakable similarities to the arrangements of Italian instrumental concertos offered at that time by the Dresden Hofcapelle, a famous ensemble always admired by Bach.
The inner cheer of the alto aria distinguishes itself clearly from the outward brilliance of the instrumental introduction. The restrained animation of the
8 meter, the characteristic rhythmic pattern of the siciliano, and the pastoral coloration of the two obbligato oboes are fully commensurate with the core idea of the text: “Ich liebe den Höchsten mit ganzem Gemüte.”
In the two succeeding movements, the strings that were entrusted with leading roles in the sinfonia come to the fore. Three each of violins and violas as well as the basso continuo accompany the tenor recitative “O Liebe, welcher keine gleich” with three-voice chords. In spite of this apparently uncomplicated compositional task, Bach seems to have expended great effort on this recitative; his autograph score is virtually littered with corrections. The texture of the aria “Greifet zu, faßt das Heil, ihr Glaubenshände” is reduced to only three parts. The solo violins and violas unite to form one of those sonorous, melodic, and intensively declamatory obbligato parts. These are often found in Bach’s cantatas composed in Weimar after 1714, and they provide excellent counterpoint to the voice, in this case, the bass.
In the concluding four-part chorale on the sixteenth-century melody Herzlich lieb hab ich dich, o Herr (Sincerely do I love you, O Lord), all participants once more join together, including the ripienists, who fell silent during the solo movements; only the brass instruments are not employed, as a result of their range, which is limited to the natural scale. At any rate, a recollection of the pomp of the opening movement would be out of place here.
Footnotes
- “Gott zu Ehren, dem Verlangen guter Freunde zur Folge und vieler Andacht zur Beförderung habe ich mich entschlossen, gegenwärttige Kantaten zu verfertigen. Ich habe solches Vorhaben desto lieber unternommen, weil ich mir schmeicheln darf, daß vielleicht der Mangel der poetischen Anmuth durch die Lieblichkeit des unvergleichlichen Herrn Capell-Meisters, Bachs, dürfte ersetzet, und dieser Lieder in den Haupt-Kirchen des andächtigen Leipzigs angestimmet werden” (BD II:180 [no. 243]).—Trans.↵