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Commentaries on the Cantatas of Johann Sebastian Bach: An Interactive Companion

Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns hält BWV 178 / BC A 112

Eighth Sunday after Trinity, July 30, 1724

This cantata, Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns hält BWV 178 (Were God the Lord not to stay with us), belongs to Johann Sebastian Bach’s annual cycle of chorale cantatas; it originated in late July 1724. It is assigned to the eighth Sunday after Trinity; accordingly, its text and melody draw upon one of the main hymns for this Sunday, a chorale of the same name by Justus Jonas of 1524. This chorale is a paraphrase of Psalm 124, traditionally known as “Danksagung für Gottes Beistand in der Not” (Thanksgiving for God’s assistance in time of need) or also as “Trost-Psalm, daß der allmächtige Gott der Kirchen einiger Schutz-Herr sei” (Consolation psalm, that the almighty God may be the lord protector of the church). It appears beneath the heading “Ein Lied Davids, in höhern Chor” (A song of ascents of David):

Were the Lord not with us, so says Israel, were the Lord not with us when the people set against us, then they would have swallowed us alive when their wrath raged over us, then the waters would have drowned us, streams would have gone over our souls; the waters would have gone all too high over our souls. Praised be the Lord that he has not given us as prey to their teeth. Our souls are escaped like a bird the snare of the fowler. The snare is torn, and we are free. Our help stands in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth. (Psalm 124:1–8)


Martin Luther paraphrased this rather short psalm as the three-strophe chorale Wär Gott nicht mit uns diese Zeit (Were God not with us at this time), while Justus Jonas, working with the same source text, created his chorale of eight strophes, Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns hält. The unidentified librettist, active in Bach’s circle exactly two hundred years later, drew upon all eight strophes of Jonas’s chorale for his cantata libretto. As usual, the opening strophe remained unchanged:

Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns hält,
Wenn unsre Feinde toben,
Und er unser Sach nicht zufällt
Im Himmel hoch dort oben,
Wo er Israel Schutz nicht ist
Und selber bricht der Feinde List,
So ists mit uns verloren.

Were God the Lord not to stay with us
When our enemies rage,
And if he does not support our cause
In heaven there high above,
If he is not Israel’s protector
And himself thwarts the enemy’s deceit,
Then all is lost with us.


Similarly, the fourth strophe, “Sie stellen uns wie Ketzern nach” (They persecute us as heretics), was adopted literally for the cantata’s fourth movement. The cantata’s closing chorale is formed by the last strophes, “Die Feind sind all in deiner Hand” (The enemies are all in your hands) and “Den Himmel und auch die Erden” (Both heaven and earth).

The second and fifth strophes underwent an expansion often seen in Bach’s chorale cantatas, in which the librettist interpolated freely invented recitative verses among the chorale verses. In his fifth strophe, Justus Jonas took up and intensified the psalmist’s images of the predators’ teeth and the fowlers’ snares:

Auf sperren sie den Rachen weit,
Und wollen uns verschlingen.
Lob und Dank sei Gott allezeit;
Es wird ihn’ nicht gelingen.
Er wird ihrn Strick zerreißen gar
Und stürzen ihre falsche Lahr.
Sie werden’s Gott nicht wehren.

They open wide their jaws
And want to swallow us.
Praised and thanked be God forever;
They will not succeed.
He will tear their snares asunder
And destroy their false teaching.
Against God they will have no defense.


The librettist tries to strengthen the text further by inserting his recitative verses, meant to form a coherent whole with the older text:

Auf sperren sie die Rachen weit,
    Nach Löwenart mit brüllenden Getöne;
    Sie fletschen ihre Mörderzähne
Und wollen uns verschlingen.
    Jedoch
Lob und Dank sei Gott allezeit;
    Der Held aus Juda schützt uns noch —
Es wird ihn’ nicht gelingen.
    Sie werden wie die Spreu vergehen,
    Wenn seine Gläubigen wie grüne Bäume stehen.
Er wird ihrn Strick zerreißen gar
Und stürzen ihre falsche Lahr.
    Gott wird die törichten Propheten
    Mit Feuer seines Zornes töten
    Und ihre Ketzerei verstören.
Sie werden’s Gott nicht wehren.

They open wide their jaws
    Like lions with roaring sounds,
    They bare their murderous teeth.
And want to swallow us.
    However,
Praised and thanked be God forever;
    The hero from Judah protects us still.
They will not succeed.
    They will perish like chaff
    When his faithful stand like green trees.
He will rip their snares asunder
And destroy their false teaching.
    God will the foolish prophets
    With the fire of his wrath kill
    And destroy their heresy.
Against God they will have no defense.


In contrast to the cantata strophes that were adopted literally or expanded by means of interpolations, two of the source texts—which became the two arias—were quite freely paraphrased. In the third movement, a rather incidental comparison in Jonas’s chorale involving “Meereswellen” (ocean waves) is the occasion for a depiction of a wildly turbulent ocean scene and shipwreck. The connection between the sixth movement and the chorale source text is closer. Jonas’s sixth strophe speaks of everlasting grace and concludes:

Vernunft kann das nicht fassen.
Sie spricht: Es ist nun all’s verlorn,
Da doch das Kreuz hat neugeborn,
Die deine Hilf erwarten.

Reason cannot grasp that.
It says: All is now lost,
Even as the cross has born anew
Those who await your help.


Clearly inveighing against the Enlightenment tendencies of his time, the librettist rhymes:

Schweig, schweig nur, taumelnde Vernunft,
Sprich nicht: Die Frommen sind verlorn,
Das Kreuz hat sie nur neu geborn.
Denn denen, die auf Jesum hoffen, 
Steht stets die Tür der Gnaden offen;
Und wenn sie Kreuz und Trübsal drückt,
So werden sie mit Trost erquickt.

Silence, but silence, staggering reason,
Do not say: The devout are lost.
The cross has only given them new birth.
For those who hope in Jesus
The door of grace stands ever open;
And when they are by cross and affliction oppressed,
Then they shall be with solace refreshed.


In accordance with our expectations and experience, Bach’s composition is chiefly characterized by its wide-ranging opening movement, in which as usual the chorale is presented phrase by phrase. As in most cases, the chorale melody is presented by the soprano in large note values, while the other voices are interwoven with it harmonically and contrapuntally, and the orchestra takes on the task of providing a solid foundation to unify the entire movement. It is worth noting that this determinant orchestral component, with its dotted rhythms, disjointed harmonic progressions, and agitated figures, is derived not from the chorale’s title line but from the verse that follows it, “Wenn unsre Feinde toben” (When our enemies rage). Accordingly, the chorus alternates between a rather measured harmonic texture—at the beginning, for example—and the tumult of battle sketched out in the text. Independently of the course of the libretto, this texture is assigned not only to the second but also to the fourth and last strophes of the chorale.

The musical course of the second movement is as varied as the events in the first one, with its linking of strict chorale bicinia1 and freely performed recitative. The third movement, the cantata’s first aria, the bass and the basso continuo are joined by a sonorous obbligato part, which is mostly in the lower register and is made up of the violins in unison. The “wilden Meereswellen” (wild ocean waves) in the text are so vividly depicted by the obbligato part’s uninhibited, flowing motion that the other two parts are drawn into its play of sound.

The fourth movement is a rigorously constructed, motivically unified chorale arrangement: two oboi d’amore and the basso continuo form a largely imitative trio, while the tenor presents the original fourth strophe section by section. The fifth movement is unified by other aspects of setting. Like the second movement, it consists of interleaved lines of chorale and freely versified recitative. While the chorale verses are heard in four-part texture, different solo voices perform interpolated lines of recitative. Common to both components, heterogeneous as they are, is the basso continuo, whose harmonically variable yet rhythmically statically maintained motive, with its upward-striving broken chords, signals a continuing and permanent danger. 

Disjointed phrases, unstable harmony, and prolix melodies in the strings and voice determine the character of the tenor aria, which seems intended to depict only the first line of text, “Schweig, schweig nur, taumelnde Vernunft” (Silence, but silence, tottering reason), in spite of the consoling support in the rest of the text. Clearly set apart from this is the simple, unassuming closing chorale on a melody that harks back to the era before the Reformation.

After the death of Johann Sebastian Bach, the cantata Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns hält, along with many of its sister works, became part of the inheritance of Bach’s oldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann, who performed it at least once at his post, the Market Church in Halle. He later loaned his manuscript possessions to the Göttingen music historian Johann Nikolaus Forkel, who—in his own words—would copy “several of the most exquisite pieces of all.”2 In 1803, almost two decades after the death of the oldest Bach son, Forkel wrote: “As a result I now have only two pieces on the chorales: ‘Es ist das Heil uns kommen her’ etc. and ‘Wo Gott der Herr nicht bey uns hält.’ Both pieces are extraordinarily beautiful.”3

Footnotes

  1. In the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras, a bicinium was a composition for only two parts and was often used to teach counterpoint.—Trans.
  2.  “einige der allervorzüglichster Stücke.”—Trans.
  3.  “Ich besitze demnach jetzt nur zwei Stücke über die Choräle: Es ist das Heil uns kommen her etc. etc. und: Wo Gott der Herr nicht bey uns hält. Beyde Stücke sind außerordentlich schön.”—Trans.

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