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Aergre dich, O Seele, nicht BWV 186 / BC A 108
Seventh Sunday after Trinity, July 11, 1723
This cantata, Ärgre dich, o liebe Seele, nicht BWV 186 (Do not be offended, O dear soul), belongs to that small group of church music compositions that Johann Sebastian Bach composed near the end of his time at Weimar. He revised these cantatas heavily in the first few months of his activity as cantor of St. Thomas School at Leipzig and integrated them with his Leipzig cantata repertoire.1 The reason for the transformations was the fact that the cantatas were written for the second to the fourth Sundays in Advent and could not be reused in Leipzig, where those three Sundays belonged to what was known as the tempus clausum, during which no musical performances took place in church. A text collection indicates what our cantata originally looked like. Published in Weimar and Jena in 1717 under the title Evangelische Sonn- und Fest-Tages-Andachten (Protestant Sunday and feast day devotions) by the Weimar chief consistory secretary, Salomon Franck, the print contains the cantata text Ärgre dich, o liebe Seele (Do not be offended, O dear soul) with the heading “Auf den dritten Advent-Sonntag” (On the third Sunday of Advent). In contrast to the Leipzig version, which has eleven movements, the Weimar version has only six. Following the opening chorus there are four arias, and the libretto concludes with a strophe from Ludwig Helmbold’s hymn Von Gott will ich nicht lassen (From God I will not leave), whose text begins “Darum ich schon dulde / Hie Widerwärtigkeit” (Therefore, if I even endure / Adversity here). Salomon Franck’s cantata libretto is closely bound to the Gospel reading for the third Sunday of Advent, the account in the eleventh chapter of Matthew of the imprisonment of John the Baptist. His reported question to Jesus, “Bist du, der da kommen soll?” (Are you the one who should come?), is quoted literally in the first aria of Franck’s libretto. The title line, “Ärgre dich, o liebe Seele, nicht” (Do not take offense, O dear soul), alludes to Jesus’s answer, which reads in part, “Selig ist, der sich nicht an mir ärgert” (Blessed is he who does not take offense at me).The transformation of the Advent cantata, probably composed in December 1716, to a cantata for the seventh Sunday after Trinity called for extensive revisions to the text to establish a connection to that Sunday’s Gospel reading, which is found in the eighth chapter of Mark. It gives an account of the feeding of the four thousand:
At that time, since many people were there and had nothing to eat, Jesus called his disciples to him and spoke to them: I feel sorry for these people, for they have now been with me for three days and have had nothing to eat; and if I allow them to leave me for home without having eaten, they shall faint by the way, for several have come from afar. His disciples answered him: From where shall we take bread here in the desert in order to satisfy them? And he asked them: How many loaves do you have? They spoke: Seven. And he ordered the people to sit on the earth. And he took the seven loaves, and gave thanks, and broke them, and gave them to his disciples to set before them, and they laid them before the people. And they had a few small fishes, and he gave thanks and commanded that they also be set before them. They ate and were filled, and they lifted the other pieces, seven baskets. And they were about four thousand who had eaten; and he released them. (1–9)
The Leipzig author who transformed Salomon Franck’s cantata text into a libretto for the seventh Sunday after Trinity remains unidentified. He left the Weimar opening movement unchanged:
Ärgre dich, o Seele, nicht
Daß das allerhöchste Licht,
Gottes Glanz und Ebenbild,
Sich in Knechtsgestalt verhüllt,
Ärgre dich, o Seele, nicht!
Do not take offense, O soul,
That the light of the Most High,
God’s gleam and true image,
Disguises itself in servant’s form.
Do not take offense, O soul!
The poet repeats a key word at the beginning of the ensuing recitative and thereby makes a quick transition to a description of the Gospel of Mark:
Die Knechtgestalt, die Not, der Mangel
Trifft Christi Glieder nicht allein,
Es will ihr Haupt selbst arm und elend sein.
The servant’s form, the need, the want
Affect not only Christ’s members.
Even their head himself wishes to be poor and needy.
It closes with these lines:
Wenn Armut dich beschwert,
Wenn Hunger dich verzehrt,
Und willst sogleich verzagen,
So denkst du nicht an Jesum, an dein Heil.
Hast du wie jenes Volk nicht bald zu essen,
So seufzt du: Ach Herr, wie lange willst du mein vergessen?
When poverty weighs you down,
When hunger consumes you
And you would immediately despair,
Then you do not think of Jesus, your salvation.
If you, like these people, do not eat soon,
You sigh: Ah, Lord, how long will you forget me?
Franck’s first aria underwent significant revision. Its original version begins with the questions referenced in Matthew, which John has Jesus convey:
Bist du, der da kommen soll,
Seelen-Freund, in Kirchen-Garten?
Mein Gemüt is zweifelsvoll,
Soll ich eines andern warten?
Are you the one who should come,
Soul’s friend, into the church garden?
My mind is full of doubt.
Should I wait for another?
In the Leipzig version, this becomes:
Bist du, der mir helfen soll,
Eilst du nicht, mir beizustehen?
Mein Gemüt ist zweifelsvoll,
Du verwirfts vielleicht mein Flehen.
If it is you who should help me,
Do you not hurry to stand beside me?
My mind is full of doubt.
Perhaps you reject my pleading.
A second interpolated recitative continues the reflection on the different ranks of bodily and spiritual nourishment:
Ach daß ein Christ so sehr
Vor seinen Körper sorgt!
Was ist er mehr?
Ein Bau von Erden,
Der wieder muß zur Erde werden,
Ein Kleid, so nur geborgt.
Ah, that a Christian so deeply
For his body cares!
What more is he
Than a structure of earth
That must again to earth return,
A garment that is only borrowed.
The close describes the teachings of Jesus as “geistlich Manna” (spiritual manna), leading into an allusion to the thirty-fourth psalm:
Drum, wenn der Kummer gleich das Herze nagt und frißt,
So schmeckt und sehet doch, wie freundlich Jesus ist.
Therefore, when affliction gnaws and devours the heart,
Then taste and see how friendly Jesus is.
The associated aria follows this train of thought, however, only after significant changes in wording. The Advent version makes reference to the “Messias” announced by John. This language is, of course, absent from the Leipzig version:
Mein Heiland läßt sich merken
In seinen Gnadenwerken.
Da er sich kräftig weist,
Den schwachen Geist zu lehren,
Den Matten Leib zu nähren,
Dies sättigt Leib und Geist.
My savior makes himself apparent
In his works of grace,
Where he powerfully shows how
To teach the weak in spirit
To nourish the feeble body.
This satisfies body and spirit.
A strophe from the 1524 chorale by Paul Speratus, Es ist das Heil uns kommen her (Salvation has come to us), closes the first part of the cantata.
If the first part emphasizes the importance of salvation as opposed to the needs of the body, the second part—to be performed after the sermon—turns to the vanity and pride of the world and contrasts them to the words of Jesus. Thus the first recitative begins:
Es ist die Welt die große Wüstenei;
Der Himmel wird zu Erz, die Erde wird zu Eisen,
Wenn Christen durch den Glauben weisen,
Daß Christi Wort ihr größter Reichtum sei.
The world is a great wilderness;
The heavens turn to brass, the earth turns to iron
When Christians show through faith
That Christ’s word shall be their greatest wealth.
Following this preparation, the associated aria in Salomon Franck’s version was adopted in the Leipzig cantata without change:
Die Armen will der Herr umarmen
Mit Gnaden hier und dort;
Er schenket ihnen aus Erbarmen
Den höchsten Schatz, das Lebenswort.
The poor would the Lord embrace
With grace here and there.
He gives them out of mercy
The highest treasure, the word of life.
The last recitative also fits this tone. It begins: “Nun mag die Welt mit ihrer Lust vergehen” (Now may the world with its pleasures pass away); remarkably, this programmatic line has no rhyme partner. For its core idea, the movement draws upon a verse from Psalm 119:
In Jesu Wort liegt Heil und Segen.
Es ist ihres Fußes Leuchte und ein Licht auf ihren Wegen.
In Jesus’s word lies salvation and blessing.
It is a lamp for their feet and a light upon their paths.
The final aria is once again the unrevised poetry of Salomon Franck:
Laß, Seele, kein Leiden
Von Jesu dich scheiden,
Sei, Seele, getreu!
Dir bleibet die Krone
Aus Gnaden zu Lohne,
Wenn du von Banden des Leibes nun frei.
Let, soul, no suffering
Separate you from Jesus.
Soul, be true!
For you the crown remains
Your reward of grace
When you are free of the fetters of the body.
Another strophe from Paul Speratus’s chorale Es ist das Heil uns kommen her concludes the cantata.
Bach’s composition of this wide-ranging source text proves to be a remarkable mixture of older and more recent movements. The opening chorus and four arias show evidence of their Weimar origin both in the nature of their texts and in the characteristics of their musical style. The four recitatives and the closing chorale movements of the first and second parts were all added to the composition in Leipzig.
The multipartite construction within a single movement so often found in Bach’s Weimar compositions—normally coupled with a colorful set of musical ideas—also characterizes the first movement of our cantata. Following a quite densely woven instrumental introduction, the voices enter in dissonant intervals, projecting the text “Ärgre dich” almost too literally. The instruments immediately follow suit, but then the chorus immediately thickens to a fugal texture, performing the admonition “Ärgre dich, o Seele, nicht” penetratingly and with gravity. By contrast, the other lines of text are granted an episodic role.
In the first aria, the voice is accompanied only by the basso continuo; in accordance with the original version of the text, the assignment of the vocal part to the bass is to be understood in terms of John the Baptist. In the Weimar version of the second aria, the tenor voice was accompanied by an oboe da caccia, whose dark, sonorous coloration evokes an unpretentious image of the Messiah as presented by the text. The Leipzig score prescribes violin and oboe for this instrumental part, thereby implying that the entire texture is transposed up an octave. In view of this truly awkward range, especially for the woodwind instrument, one suspects that Bach might have undertaken revisions afterward; unfortunately, there are no indications of what the results might have been.
In the third aria, “Die Armen will der Herr umarmen,” the soprano is accompanied by the unison violins, mostly in their middle and lower registers. As so often, the frequent chromaticism in this obbligato part does not stand for pain and suffering but for “Erbarmen” (mercy), the key word of the third line of text. The last aria, a duet for soprano and alto accompanied by all the strings and woodwinds, exhibits a dance character. The key of C minor and density of texture correspond to the text and forbid any thought of happy relaxation.
An extensive chorale arrangement closes the second half of the cantata, as it does the first half. In no way is it a “simple four-part setting”; instead, it shows its kinship to the opening movements of the chorale cantatas from Bach’s second year at Leipzig.
Footnotes
- The editors of BWV3 have concluded that “an alleged Weimar version [of BWV 186] recognized by BWV2 can only be traced back to the printed text of 1717 for the third Sunday after Advent. A group of three Advent cantatas for the year 1716 does not accord with the stipulations at Weimar for a new cantata every month (cf. BD II [no. 66]). BWV 70.1 is already documented for the second Sunday after Advent. The style, with Choreinbau (choral embedding), and the autograph manuscript speak for 1723 as the time of origin” (BWV3, 232 [no. 186]).—Trans.↵