This tag was created by James A. Brokaw II. The last update was by Angela Watters.
Ich elender Mensch, wer wird mich erlösen? BWV 48 / BC A 144
Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity, October 3, 1723
This cantata, Ich elender Mensch, wer wird mich erlösen? BWV 48 (O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me?), for the nineteenth Sunday after Trinity, originated in Bach’s first year in Leipzig. The Sunday Gospel reading is found in Matthew 9 and tells of Jesus’s healing of a man sick with palsy:And he entered the boat and crossed back over and came into his own city. And behold, they brought him a man sick with palsy, lying on a bed. As now Jesus saw their faith, he spoke to the one sick with palsy: Be of good cheer, my son; your sins are forgiven. And see, several of the lawyers spoke among themselves: This man blasphemes God! However, as Jesus saw their thoughts, he said: Why do you think such evil in your hearts? What is easier to say: Your sins are forgiven, or to say: Stand up and walk? But so that you know that the son of man has the power to forgive sins on earth (he said to the one sick with palsy): Stand up, pick up your bed, and go home! And he stood up and went home. As the people saw that, they marveled and praised God, who had given such power to men. (1–8)
The unidentified librettist of our cantata interprets the account of the healing in the traditional fashion, letting illness stand for sin and restoration to health for salvation. To begin his libretto, he chooses a verse from Romans 7: “Ich elender Mensch, wer wird mich erlösen vom Leibe dieses Todes?” (24; O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me out of the body of this death?). In the first recitative and its self-accusations, the librettist illustrates the struggle between spirit and the flesh, described earlier in Paul's letter:
O Schmerz, o Elend, so mich trifft,
Indem der Sünden Gift
Bei mir in Brust und Adern wütet:
Die Welt wird mir ein Siech- und Sterbehaus,
Der Leib muß seine Plagen
Bis zu dem Grabe mit sich tragen.
Allein die Seele fühlet den stärksten Gift,
Damit sie angestecket;
Drum, wenn der Schmerz den Leib des Todes trifft,
Wenn ihr der Kreuzkelch bitter schmecket,
So treibt er ihr ein brünstig Seufzen aus.
O pain, O misery that afflict me,
As sin’s poison
Rages in my breast and veins:
The world becomes for me a house of sickness and death,
The body must bear its torments
With it to the grave.
The soul alone feels the strongest poison,
With which it is infected;
Therefore, when pain strikes the body of death,
When the cup of the cross tastes bitter to the soul,
The cup drives from the soul a fervent sigh.
The intensification of rhetoric at the end of the recitative, a peroration that recalls the opening dictum even as it invokes the bitter cup of the cross, is answered not by an aria as expected but by a chorale, a strophe from a hymn by Martin Rutilius, Ach Gott und Herr:
Solls ja so sein
Daß Straf und Pein
Auf Sünde folgen müssen,
So fahr hie fort
Und schone dort
Und laß mich hie wohl büßen.
Should indeed it be so
That punishment and pain
Must follow sin,
Then carry on here
And spare me there
And let me here truly repent.
Only now does the expected aria follow, announced by the recitative as “ein brünstig Seufzen” (a fervent sigh). It compares the fate of the sinful body to the destruction of the city of Sodom, but its true concern is the salvation of the soul:
Ach lege das Sodom der sündlichen Glieder,
Wofern es dein Wille,
Zerstörer darnieder!
Nur schone der Seele und mache sie rein,
Um vor dir ein heiliges Zion zu sein.
Ah, lay down the Sodom of my sinful limbs,
If it be your will,
Destroyed!
Only spare my soul and make it pure,
That it may be a sacred Zion before you.
At this point, the way is prepared for a return to the Sunday Gospel reading and the elucidation of its meaning. In addition, the librettist includes a verse from Psalm 88, a prayer when facing a serious challenge and grave, life-threatening danger: “Herr, ich rufe dich an täglich; ich breite meine Hände aus zu dir. Wirst du denn unter den Toten wunder tun, oder werden die Verstorbenen aufstehen und dir danken?” (9–10; Lord, I call upon you daily; I stretch out my hands to you. Will you then perform miracles among the dead, or will the deceased arise and thank you?). The second recitative of our cantata relates both Gospel reading and psalm verse to Jesus in equal measure:
Hier aber tut des Heilands Hand
Auch unter denen Toten Wunder.
Scheint deine Seele gleich erstorben,
Der Leib geschwächt und ganz verdorben,
Doch wird uns Jesu Kraft bekannt:
Er weiß im geistlich Schwachen
Den Leib gesund, die Seele stark zu machen.
But here the savior’s hand
Works wonders even among the dead.
If your soul seems to have died,
The body weakened and quite ruined,
Yet Jesus’s power is made known to us:
In the spiritually weak he knows how
To make the body healthy, the soul strong.
The aria that follows begins with the text “Vergibt mir Jesus meine Sünden, / So wird mir Leib und Seel gesund” (Forgive me, Jesus, my sins / That my body and soul may be healed). The final strophe of the 1620 chorale Herr Jesu Christ, ich schrei zu dir (Lord Jesus Christ, I cry out to you) completes the cantata’s conceptual course.
In Bach’s composition, the eloquent lament of the New Testament dictum takes on an unusual, indeed singular form. Embedded in an instrumental texture in which sorrowful sigh motives predominate, the voices go on in seemingly endless invocations, first in alternating two- and four-part textures and ultimately in four parts exclusively. Imitative writing and canonic structures are found everywhere; they illuminate the universal meaning and relevance of the lamenting question. These musical events are commented upon by a chorale melody performed line by line by instruments. The sixteenth-century melody Wenn mein Stündlein vorhanden ist (When my little hour [the moment of death] is at hand) is performed by trumpets and imitated at the interval of the lower fourth by the oboes. Consequently, the overall form of the opening movement can be designated as a chorale arrangement. More significant than this rather outward aspect, however, is the effect of multitextuality created by the instrumental quotation of the chorale. The “Ich elender Mensch, wer wird mich erlösen?” from Romans is combined with a text brought to mind by the chorale melody, whether it be the ancient funeral hymn Wenn mein Stündlein vorhanden ist or Herr Jesu Christ, ich schrei zu dir, found among Kreuz- und Trostlieder (Hymns of the cross and consolation), whose last strophe concludes the cantata libretto.
The first recitative seems chromatically burdened, as does the four-part chorale that follows it. The alto aria is unexpectedly cheerful; it is not easy to associate this musically accentuated course with the metaphor of “Sodom der sündlichen Glieder” (Sodom of my sinful limbs). On the other hand, the connection between text and music is much more successful and convincing in the second aria, in which the tenor is joined by the string instruments together with both oboes. Dance-like elements are incorporated in this movement as well, together with a metric puzzle in which the
4 meter frequently alternates with
2 .
The four-part closing chorale does not simply form the end of this singular work; it also builds a bridge back to the opening movement and recalls the importance of the chorale quotation there, intensified by canonic techniques.