This page was created by James A. Brokaw II. The last update was by Angela Watters.
Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis BWV 21 / BC A 99
Third Sunday after Trinity, June 17, 1714
The cantor of St. Thomas School, Johann Sebastian Bach, presented the cantata Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis BWV 21.3 (I had much grieving) for the first time in Leipzig on June 13, 1723, the third Sunday after Trinity. This date, only a few weeks after his official assumption of office, marks an important shift in his production plans. In addition to new compositions of concerted church music, there were also reperformances of older works, cantatas that Bach had composed for Mühlhausen and, in particular, for Weimar and brought with him to Leipzig by way of Köthen. By all appearances, the Leipzig performance of our cantata was preceded by one at Hamburg (BWV 21.2) as part of Bach’s application (made from Köthen1) for the position of organist at St. Jacobi and thus took place in the autumn of 1720, according to our knowledge today. Bach was not awarded the Hamburg position; however, the cantata performance had a later, unexpected echo.In his journal, Critica Musica, published in 1725, the composer and influential music theorist Johann Mattheson mocked what in his view were unnecessary, irrational text repetitions in movements 2, 3, and 8 of Bach’s cantata. After taking issue with a work by the Halle music director Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow, Mattheson took aim at Bach’s “amusing” (kurzweillig) and, in his opinion, laughable diction as follows:
In order that good old Zachau [Handel’s teacher] might have company, and not be quite so alone, let us set beside him an otherwise excellent practicing musician of today, who for a long time does nothing but repeat: “I, I, I, I had much grief, I had much grief, in my heart, in my heart. I had much grief, etc., in my heart, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc. I had much grief etc., in my heart, etc., etc.” Then again: “Sighs, tears, sorrow, anguish (rest), sighs, tears, anxious longing, fear and death (rest) gnaw at my oppressed heart, etc.” Also: “Come, my Jesus, and refresh (rest) and rejoice with Thy glance (rest), come, my Jesus (rest), come, my Jesus, and refresh and rejoice . . . with Thy glance this soul, etc.”2
Mattheson’s biting ridicule does not appear to have bothered Bach. On the contrary, the cantata Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis seems to have had pride of place in his oeuvre. Evidence for this is seen not only in the note in his own hand on the title folder containing the performance materials, explaining that the work could be used “in ogni tempo” (at all times) of the church year, but also in the performances on important occasions: the application to Hamburg of 1720 and the start of reperformances of older cantatas in Leipzig in 1723. In his own hand, Bach entered yet another date worth mentioning: the indication of a performance on the third Sunday after Trinity 1714 in Weimar (BWV 21.1). This was a special situation insofar as the young Prince Johann Ernst, a gifted composer and violinist who had returned to Weimar a year earlier from a grand tour through many countries, was now about to leave again for the baths at Taunus to seek a cure for a steadily worsening ailment. According to the monthly rotation schedule, Bach was expected to perform a cantata in the castle church on June 17, 1714; this would be his final opportunity to offer the departing prince a note of consolation by way of a composition. The eighteen-year-old Prince Johann Ernst was probably the most important point of contact at court for the organist and concertmaster, older by ten years. Bach certainly had reason enough to present his patron with a representative church cantata before his departure—a departure that no one had any way of knowing would be forever.
The extensive, eleven-movement cantata was probably not newly composed for this occasion; it seems more likely that the Weimar production of 1714 was itself a reperformance. A predecessor of our cantata with ten or even eleven movements may itself have been preceded by one or more older versions, each with six movements, whose dates and occasions can only be sketchily guessed at. It seems unlikely that any of these dimly perceivable early versions were assigned to the third Sunday after Trinity,3 since neither the text in the form handed down to us nor the short version of the supposedly oldest components shows any relation to the Gospel reading for that Sunday. More likely is a connection to the Epistle from the fifth chapter of the first letter of Peter and its core phrase, “Alle eure Sorge werfet auf ihn; denn er sorget für euch” (7; Cast all of your cares upon him, for he cares for you).
In fact, this thought—sorrow and affliction, on the one hand, consolation and hope, on the other—courses through the entire text of the cantata. At its beginning stands a verse from Psalm 94: “Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis in meinem Herzen; aber deine Tröstungen erquicken meine Seele” (19; I had much affliction in my heart, but your consolations restore my soul). The free poetry that follows at first stays close to the keyword “Bekümmernis.” The first aria begins “Seufzer, Tränen, Kummer, Not” (Sighing, tears, trouble, need); the ensuing recitative laments God’s turning away from his child; the second aria compares the tears of affliction to a sea of mortal dangers. A verse from Psalm 42 provides temporary relief: “Was betrübst du dich meine Seele, und bist so unruhig in mir? Harre auf Gott; denn ich werde ihm noch danken, daß er meines Angesichtes Hilfe und mein Gott ist” (11; Why are you aggrieved, my soul, and so disquieted within me? Wait upon God, for I shall yet thank him, that he is the help of my countenance, and is my God). This concludes the first part of the cantata, to be performed before the sermon.
With the beginning of the second part, the genre changes. Jesus and the soul hold a dialogue4 clearly inspired by the Song of Songs, and the classic search theme must be included:
After this recitative dialogue, the two join together in a duet that, in the diction typical of the Song of Songs poetry of the Baroque, ends with these lines:Ach Jesu, meine Ruh,
Mein Licht, wo bleibest du?
O Seele sieh! Ich bin bei dir.
Bei mir? Hier ist ja lauter Nacht.
Ich bin dein treuer Freund,
Der auch im Dunkeln wacht,
Wo lauter Schalken seind.
Ah Jesus, my repose,
My light, where do you tarry?
O soul, look! I am with you.
With me? Here it is surely darkest night.
I am your loyal friend,
Who keeps watch also in the darkness,
Where true rogues are.
The last aria exhibits the same meter and nearly the same vocabulary. Beforehand, however, there appears another psalm passage, connected to two chorale strophes. Psalm 116 provides the verse “Sei nun wieder zufrieden, meine Seele, denn der Herr tut dir Guts” (May you once again be at peace, my soul, for the Lord has done for you good things); the two strophes are from Georg Neumark’s 1657 hymn Wer nur den lieben Gott läßt walten (Whoever only lets the dear God rule). The text abruptly concludes with a passage from the fifth chapter of the Revelation of St. John: “Das Lamm, das erwürget ist, ist würdig zu nehmen Kraft und Reichtum und Weisheit und Stärke und Preis und Lob. . . . Lob und Ehre und Preis und Gewalt sei unserm Gott von Ewigkeit zu Ewigkeit. Amen. Alleluja” (12–13; The Lamb, which was slain, is worthy to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and glory and blessing.... Tribute and honor and praise and power to our God from eternity to eternity. Amen. Alleluia).Ach Jesu, durchsüße mir Seele und Herze
Entweichet, ihr Sorgen, verschwinde, du Schmerze.
Ah Jesus, sweeten my soul and heart
Flee, you cares, vanish, you pains.
Bach’s composition matches the diversity of the source texts; indeed, it seems intended to unify the heterogeneity. A stately sinfonia in the mold of a slow concerto movement begins with an oboe and solo violin in expressive dialogue. Its sorrowful effusions form a transition to the first choral movement, whose two contrasting sections seem to prefigure the overall course of the entire cantata. Close canonic structures, which are symbolic of multitude, and striking dissonances of the second, which are in the style of Italian concertos of the era, characterize the first section with its boundless, intensifying “Bekümmernis.” Only in the last third of the movement, where consolation is at issue, do things brighten with a more lively tempo and relaxed diction. Sorrow and doubt predominate once again in the following three movements. The motivically uniform soprano aria is full of torment, with its expressive dialogue between oboe and voice. In contrast, the tenor aria develops a Baroque abundance with its comparison of “Tränenbächen” (streams of tears) and a “Meer voller Trübsal” (sea of affliction), strengthened by the full complement of strings. The choral movement on the verse from Psalm 42 provides a calming conclusion to the first part. With its fragmented structure and concluding fugue, it strongly recalls Bach’s compositional style of the Mühlhausen period around 1707 and thereby strengthens the hypothesis of an early origin.
A significantly more modern formal world opens with the beginning of the cantata’s second half in the duet movements for soprano and bass, traditionally assigned to the soul and Jesus. The same is true for the lively, animated tenor aria in the next to last position. On the other hand, the severe chorale motet “Sei nun wieder zufrieden” (May you once again be at peace) is again indebted to an older style. In two expositions, of which the second is intensified by colla parte instrumentation, the motet connects its psalm text to the melody and text of the hymn Wer nur den lieben Gott läßt walten. The magnificent concluding movement probably belonged originally to another composition, the rest of which is lost. It combines a slow opening part in which voices and instruments alternate in blocklike fashion with a quick fugue. In the combination of fugal voice exchange procedure and concerto form, it carries out a thrilling, gradual intensification that culminates in an abrupt “Alleluia” conclusion that seems to anticipate the finale of Mozart’s Symphony no. 39 in E-flat Major, K. 543.
In all, the cantata Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis seems intentionally to present a cross section of the work of Johann Sebastian Bach, barely thirty years old, that draws upon all registers of his abilities as a representational work for application, even at the cost of unity. This brimming abundance could explain the appearance of the cantata at important stations of the composer’s life in 1714, 1720, and 1723, just as it demonstrates the high estimation of the work held by the composer himself, his contemporaries, and posterity.