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Am Abend aber desselbigen Sabbaths BWV 42 / BC A 63
Quasimodogeniti, April 8, 1725
This cantata is for the first Sunday after Easter, named Quasimodogeniti, derived from the introit “Quasi modo geniti infantes” (1 Peter 2:2), which can be translated as “just as the newly born [desire the sincere milk of the word].” The Gospel reading for this Sunday is found in the twentieth chapter of John:
On the evening, however, of the same first day of the week, as the disciples were gathered and the doors were locked out of fear of the Jews, Jesus came and entered their midst and spoke to them: Peace be with you! And as he had said that, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples became happy, that they had seen the Lord. Then Jesus, however, spoke to them: Peace be with you! Just as the Father has sent me, so I send you. And as he had said that, he blew upon them and spoke to them: Receive the Holy Spirit! Whichever of you release your sins, unto them are they released; and whichever of you retain them, unto them they are retained. (19–23)
The unknown librettist of our cantata placed the start of this reading at his text’s very beginning: “Am Abend aber desselbigen Sabbaths, da die Jünger versammlet waren und die Türen verschlossen waren aus Furcht für den Juden, kam Jesus und trat mitten ein.” The first freely versified movement, an aria, picks up on this passage with a timeless universalization:
Wo zwei und drei versammelt sind
In Jesu teuren Namen,
Da stellt sich Jesus mitten ein
Und spricht darzu das Amen.
Denn was aus Lieb und Not geschieht,
Das bricht des Höchstens Ordnung nicht.
Where two and three are gathered
In Jesus’s precious name,
There Jesus appears in their midst
And says to them “Amen.”
For what happens out of love and need
Does not break the dispensation of the Most High.
The numbers “two and three,” an allusion to the situation of early Christianity, and the rather incidental mention in the Gospel reading of “fear of the Jews” give the librettist a reason to point to the dangers faced by the faithful. To this end he makes use of the first strophe of a hymn composed by Jacob Fabricius around 1635, in the midst of the Thirty Years’ War, that vividly depicts the desperate conditions of his era:
Verzage nicht, o Häuflein klein,
Obschon die Feinde willens sein,
Dich gänzlichzu verstören
Und suchen deinen Untergang
Davon dir wird recht angst und bang:
Es wird nicht lange währen.
Do not despair, O little group
Although your enemies are of the will
To destroy you completely
And seek your downfall,
Of which you are most anxious and distressed;
It will not last long.
The ensuing recitative and aria movement pair paraphrases the entry (Eintreten)—in the word’s multiple meanings1—of Jesus, in which only the beginning is jarring:
Man kann hiervon ein schön Exempel sehen
An dem, was zu Jerusalem geschehen;
Denn da die Jünger sich versammlet hatten
In finstern Schatten,
Aus Furcht für denen Juden,
So trat mein Heiland mitten ein,
Zum Zeugnis, daß er seiner Kirche Schutz will sein.
Drum laßt die Feinde wüten.
One can in this see a fine example
Of what happened in Jerusalem;
For when the disciples had gathered
In dark shadows
Out of fear of those Jews,
So my savior entered their midst
To testify that he will be the defense of his church.
Therefore, let the enemies rage!
The aria text that follows, although not exactly inspired, attempts to further develop the idea that Jesus “wants to be protector of his church”:
Jesus ist ein Schild der Seinen,
Wenn sie die Verfolgung trifft.
Ihnen muß die Sonne scheinen
Mit der güldnen Überschrift:
Jesus ist ein Schild der Seinen,
Wenn sie die Verfolgung trifft.
Jesus is a shield for his own
When persecution strikes them.
For them, the sun must shine
With the golden heading:
Jesus is a shield for his own
When persecution strikes them.
Martin Luther’s German version of the ancient Da pacem, Domine (Give peace, O Lord) rounds out the cantata text. As in the cantata Erhalt uns, Herr, bei deinem Wort BWV 126 (Uphold us, Lord, by your word), performed two months previously, Johann Walter’s supplemental strophe of 1566 is given along with Luther’s single strophe, which includes the authorities in the prayer for intercession:
Verleih uns Frieden gnädiglich,
Herr Gott, zu unseren Zeiten;
Es ist ja doch kein andrer nicht,
Der für uns könnte streiten,
Denn du, uns’r Gott, alleine.
—Gib unsern Fürsten und all’r Obrigkeit
Fried und gut Regiment,
Daß wir unter ihnen
Ein geruhig und stilles Leben führen mögen,
In aller Gottseligkeit und Ehrbarkeit.
Amen.
Grant us peace graciously,
Lord God, in our times;
There is certainly none other
Who could do battle for us
Than you, our God, alone.
—Grant our princes and all authorities
Peace and good government
That we, under them,
May lead a peaceful and tranquil life
In all godliness and honor.
Amen.
Bach composed this musically serviceable though not consistently superior libretto in early 1725. In addition to its first performance on April 8 of that year, there is evidence of two further performances, one on April 1, 1731. In a printed booklet of the text, the libretto appears beneath the heading “Am Sonntag Quasimodogeniti. In der Kirche zu Sankt Thomae” (On Sunday Quasimodogeniti. In the church of St. Thomas). About a decade later, the cantata was heard for a third time with hardly any change.
The cantor of St. Thomas School had some difficulties to overcome when he began composing the work in 1725. He started an ensemble movement entitled “Concerto” for two oboes and strings, only to break off work after seven measures. It remains uncertain whether the sketch was meant for an independent instrumental movement or as an introduction to an arioso. Bach now chose the title “Concerto da Chiesa” (Concerto for the church) for the work in progress and set an expansively conceived sinfonia in D major at its beginning, in which oboes and bassoon on one side and string instruments on the other concertize in a lively and carefree polychoral manner. The usual separated positioning of instruments in St. Thomas would have intensified this opposition with a certain degree of depth of field. The beginning of the first recitative, with its turn to the parallel key of B minor, effects an abrupt change out of bucolic tranquility into the middle of a dangerous situation, “die Türen verschlossen waren aus Furcht für den Juden.” Tone repetitions in the bassoon as part of the continuo illustrate an inner agitation in which the heart beats in the throat, so to speak.
But the expected climax fails to occur; the ensuing movement is a broad Adagio that allows the woodwinds to outweigh the strings in a calm serenity that ultimately includes the voices as well. Just as the opening sinfonia seems to be based on a fast instrumental movement of an otherwise lost concerto, the dominant instrumental part of this opening aria gives rise to the suggestion that the composer may have drawn upon an older work. First of all, one might consider parts of the slow movement of such a work, into which sections of the vocal part were woven in later—a common procedure for the cantor of St. Thomas. More recent studies, however, point to an aria from that “Serenata” composed at Köthen in 1718 for the birthday of Prince Leopold,2 which had already supplied substantial portions of the 1724 Easter cantata Erfreut euch, ihr Herzen BWV 66. The text in question here, beginning “Beglücktes Land von süßer Ruh und Stille” (Happy land of sweet rest and tranquility), matches the opening and closing sections of our aria completely.3 In any case, the more lively middle part of the aria is newly composed; its beginning is marked by a meter change from
4 to
8 , and the instruments fall silent, with the exception of the continuo.
As is common in Bach’s cantatas, the chorale strophe in the middle of the work is not set in four parts but is arranged as a solo. In the case of “Verzage nicht, o Häuflein klein,” expressive melismas dominate in the two voices, soprano and tenor, against a threatening counterpoint in the bass consisting of stubborn, repeated notes, while the chorale melody arises only now and then in echoes. In spite of the promise stated in the text, “Es wird nicht lange währen,” the eerie and agonizing bass figuration still holds sway at the end. The jarring change of mood between the second and third movements is repeated between the third and fourth. A final change is signaled by the self-confident bass recitative and, in particular, its associated aria, which seems sure of victory. With boldly striding passages and expansive arpeggios in the accompanying violins, this aria shows itself to be of the genre “aria mit heroischen Affekten” (aria with heroic affect). The concluding “Verleih uns Frieden gnädiglich,” a four-part setting of a pre-Reformation melody, leaves no trace of fearfulness or concern.