This page was created by James A. Brokaw II. The last update was by Angela Watters.
Ein ungefärbt Gemüte BWV 24 / BC A 102
Fourth Sunday after Trinity, June 20, 1723
Barely a month after assuming office as cantor of St. Thomas School in Leipzig, Johann Sebastian Bach composed the cantata Ein ungefärbt Gemüte BWV 24 (An undyed spirit) and performed it on June 20, 1723. On the same day he also performed Barmherziges Herze der ewigen Liebe BWV 185 (Merciful heart of eternal love), a cantata had composed eight years earlier in Weimar. It is likely that one work was performed before the sermon, the other afterward. Both works are for the fourth Sunday after Trinity and would have been performed in St. Thomas, according to the traditional alternation of church music between St. Nicholas and St. Thomas. The Gospel reading for the Sunday is found in Luke 6, not far from the version in Luke of the Sermon on the Mount. It is preceded by Jesus’s admonition, “Und wie ihr wollet, daß euch die Leute tun sollen, also tut ihnen gleich auch ihr” (And as you would be treated by others, then treat others the same), which is elaborated upon in the Gospel reading:Therefore be merciful, as also your Father is merciful. Judge not, so will you also not be judged. Condemn not, so you will not be condemned. Forgive, so you will be forgiven. Give, so that you will be given to. A full, pressed-down, shaken, and overflowing measure will be given you in your lap; for even with the rule with which you measure, you will be measured again. And he spoke to them a parable: Can a blind person show the way to the blind? Will not both fall into the pit? The disciple is not over his master; if the disciple is like his master, then he is complete. Why, though, do you see a splinter in your brother’s eye, and you are not aware of the beam in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, stand still, Brother, I will take the splinter out of your eye—and you do not see the beam in your own eye? You hypocrite, first pull the beam out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly how to pull the splinter from your brother’s eye. (36–42)
Integrity and hypocrisy: these are at the heart of the cantata text that Bach took from an annual cycle of cantata libretti published in 1714 in Frankfurt am Main under the title Geistliche Poesien mit untermischten biblischen Sprüchen und Choralen auf alle Sonn- und Festtagen (Spiritual poems with interspersed biblical sayings and chorales for all Sundays and feast days). The author of this collection was Erdmann Neumeister, later main pastor in Hamburg and principal librettist for Georg Philipp Telemann, who once called him the “most famous and the only good poet in spiritual affairs.” The title Geistliche Poesien mit untermischten biblischen Sprüchen und Choralen indicates the problems of the “gemischter Textform” (mixed text) and perhaps Neumeister’s initial reluctance to accept it. Easily a decade earlier, Neumeister had had something quite different in mind: spiritual poetry in place of traditional church music texts. Free poetry and personal testimony were to replace the mixture of biblical passages, chorale strophes, and now and then free poetry and employ modern forms borrowed from opera: recitative and aria. Since then, this concept had been realized only in part, as conservative forces from clerical and church music circles were able to successfully resist a ban on biblical passages and chorale strophes. At this point, Neumeister felt himself compelled to accept the compromise and pay tribute to the mixture of freely versified recitatives and arias as well as Bible text, established at the latest in 1704.
Neumeister’s cantata text for the fourth Sunday after Trinity begins—to cite the title of his collection—with “geistliche Poesien” (sacred poetry). The first aria begins:
Ein ungefärbt Gemüte
Von deutscher Treu und Güte
Macht uns vor Gott und Menschen schön.
A varnished spirit
Of German faithfulness and goodness
Makes us beautiful before God and humankind.
It continues with unwavering dogmatism:
Der Christen Tun und Handel,
Ihr ganzer Lebenswandel
Soll auf dergleichen Fuße stehn.
The conduct and dealings of Christians,
Their entire way of life,
Should stand on this same footing.
The recitative that follows is also laid out as a homily: “Die Redlichkeit ist eine von den Gottesgaben” (Integrity is one of God’s gifts), it begins, after which the inadequacy of human nature is lamented, and the laudable “Bahn der Tugend” (path of virtue) is urged:
Verlangst du Gott zum Freunde,
So mache dir den Nächsten nicht zum Feinde
Durch Falschheit, Trug und List.
Ein Christ
Soll sich der Taubenart bestreben
Und ohne Falsch und Tücke leben.
Mach aus dir selbst ein solches Bild,
Wie du den Nächsten haben willt.
If you want God as a friend,
Then do not make an enemy of your neighbor
Through falsity, deception, and cunning.
A Christian
Should strive for the nature of the dove
And live without guile and deception.
Make of yourself such a figure
As you would have for your neighbor.
The previously mentioned dictum of Jesus “Und wie ihr wollet, daß euch die Leute tun sollen, also tut ihnen gleich auch ihr” can be included under the heading “interspersed biblical passage”; in any case, Neumeister chooses the parallel passage from Matthew “Alles nun, das ihr wollet, das euch die Leute tun sollen, das tut ihr ihnen” (Everything, then, that you should wish people to do to you, do that to them). The ensuing free poetry, again a recitative, now takes aim at hypocrisy:
Die Heuchelei
Ist eine Brut, die Belial gehecket.
Wer sich in ihre Larve stecket,
Der trägt des Teufels Liberei.
Hypocrisy
Is a brood spawned by Belial.
Whoever hides behind its mask,
He wears the devil’s livery.
“Liberei” means “livery,” the uniform worn by a servant. “Manch teuflisch Ungeheuer” (Many a devilish monster), it reads later,
Sieht wie ein Engel aus.
Man kehrt den Wolf hinein,
Den Schafspelz kehrt man raus.
Looks like an angel.
If one turns the wolf inside,
One turns the sheep’s clothing out.
Once again, this alludes to a saying by Jesus from the seventh chapter of Matthew: “Sehet euch vor vor den falschen Propheten, die in Schafskleidern zu euch kommen, inwendig aber sind sie reißende Wölfe” (15; Carefully look out for the false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing; inside they are ravenous wolves). The last aria depicts the poet’s ideal image:
Treu und Wahrheit sei der Grund
Aller deiner Sinnen,
Wie von außen Wort und Mund,
Sei das Herz von innen.
Gütig sein und tugendreich
Macht uns Gott und Engeln gleich.
May faith and truth be the foundation
Of all your thoughts.
As word and mouth are from without,
So may the heart be within.
To be kind and rich in virtue
Makes us like God and angels.
Neumeister’s cantata libretto closes with the first strophe of Johannes Heermann’s chorale O Gott, du frommer Gott (O God, you righteous God) from 1630.
From our current perspective it is hard to believe that this source text was able to inspire a composer. Bach’s contemporaries may have seen the matter differently; in any case, there is documentation of fairly frequent cantata performances using this text. In the early 1720s it was heard in a composition by Georg Philipp Telemann in Saxon Grimma, in 1723 in nearby Leipzig, in 1733 in Weissenfels, and at an as yet undetermined time in Anhalt-Zerbst. In 1741 Johann Friedrich Fasch, Bach’s competitor for the St. Thomas cantorate, set Neumeister’s text to music once again. Telemann’s composition, for Frankfurt am Main in 1722, though obviously composed much earlier, found widespread acclaim, like much of his cantata compositions.
Bach may have been in something of a tight situation as he took up Neumeister’s text. It is a model of poetry well suited to music not because of its content but rather because of its skillful handling of verse meter. Still, the Thomaskantor was able to get several things out of this libretto. The tuneful, cheerful melody of the opening aria may be aimed at the keyword “Gemüt” (spirit); the concise unisons of the strings, with their hammering pitch repetitions, can be taken as tone symbols for loyalty and constancy. In the recitative that follows, Bach emphasizes the closing admonition by transitioning to an arioso: “Mach aus dir selbst ein solches Bild, / Wie du den Nächsten haben willt.” The choral movement on the passage from Matthew 7 is the summit and center of the cantata. Beginning freely, the orchestra entering now obbligato, now responding, it coalesces to a double fugue that begins soloistically, reaches its greatest intensity in a passage with six real parts, and closes with a retreat to free writing.
Following the philippic of the bass, embedded in chords in the strings against “Heuchelei” and “Wölfe in Schafspelze,” the tenor and two oboes join in an aria praising “Treu und Wahrheit” (faith and truth). As is so often the case with Bach, a densely worked imitative texture is itself meaningful. In the perfection it strives for, this musical quality embodies a virtue, in this case, “Treu und Wahrheit.” That the “speaking” head motive of the aria is ever present and at times employed as a kind of Devise1—with a sidelong glance at the practices of contemporary opera—confirms these observations from this point of view. A chorale arrangement on the melody O Gott, du frommer Gott of the late seventeenth century closes the cantata.