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Commentaries on the Cantatas of Johann Sebastian Bach: An Interactive Companion

Ach Gott, wie manches Herzeleid BWV 58.2 / BC A 26b

Sunday After New Year

The Sunday after the New Year does not appear in the church calendar every year, since, as a glance at New Year’s Day itself and Epiphany on January 6 shows, that Sunday can only occur on January 2 through January 5. This is significant for our cantata insofar as it is part of what is known as Bach’s chorale cantata cycle, which originated between 1724 and 1725—although the cantata was not composed in early 1725. In neither 1725 nor 1726 did the church calendar include a Sunday after New Year, and so the cantata was composed almost two years after the end of the chorale cantata cycle and performed on January 5, 1727, filling the open slot. This circumstance may explain several oddities about the work. 

Peculiarities are found in the text in particular. It does indeed contain a chorale strophe at the beginning and at the end, but the strophes come from different hymns—not from the same chorale as usual. Although not typical for Bach’s chorale cantatas, both chorales do make use of the same melody. However, neither of the two chorales can be used as a principal hymn for the Sunday after New Year. In addition, the text deviates from the norm in that both chorale strophes have interpolations and thus present a mixture of traditional chorale text and more recent free versification. While such textual interleaving is typical for dialogue cantatas, it is not a common procedure among the choral movements in the chorale cantata cycle. Finally, the three movements that consist entirely of free poetry—two recitatives and an aria—cannot be regarded as paraphrases of chorale strophes, as are typical of the cantata cycle; instead, they are texts that are mainly based on the Gospel reading for the Sunday after New Year.

The reading is found in the second chapter of Matthew and describes the flight to Egypt. At the beginning it reads:

And when they were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and stay all there until I bring you word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him.
    And he stood up and took the young child and his mother by night, and escaped into Egypt and stayed there until the death of Herod that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of by the Lord through the prophet, saying, “Out of Egypt have I called my son.” (13–15)


In keeping with this Gospel reading, hymns for the Sunday after the New Year deal with the cross, challenge, and persecution. This is also true for Martin Moller’s chorale of 1587, whose first stanza is found at the cantata’s beginning. The interwoven free poetry answers each line of this lament with words of comfort:

Ach Gott, wie manches Herzeleid
    Nur Geduld, Geduld mein Herze,
Begegnet mir zu dieser Zeit!
    Es ist eine böse Zeit.
Der schmale Weg ist Trübsals voll,
    Doch der Weg zur Seligkeit
Den ich zum Himmel wandern soll.
    Führt zur Freude nach dem Schmerze.

O God, how many a heartache
    Just patience, patience my heart
Meets me at this time!
    It is an evil time.
The narrow path is full of tribulation,
    Yet the way to salvation
That I should walk to heaven
    Leads to joy after the pain.

This advice is expanded upon by the recitative that follows:

Verfolgt dich gleich die arge Welt,
So hast du dennoch Gott zum Freunde,
Der wider deine Feinde
Dir stets den Rücken hält.

Though the evil world persecutes you now,
You nonetheless have God as a friend
Who against your enemies
Always is at your back.

Next an allusion to the reading in the Gospel of Matthew serves as evidence for God’s help in distress:

Und wenn der wütende Herodes,
Das Urteil eines schmähen Todes
Gleich über unsern Heiland fällt,
So kommt der Engel in der Nacht,
Der lässet Joseph träumen,
Daß er den Würger soll entfliehn,
Und nach Ägypten ziehen.

And though the raging Herod
Passes a sentence of an ignominious death
Immediately on our savior,
Then an angel comes in the night
Who lets Joseph dream
That he should flee the murderer
And go to Egypt.


In closing, the promise is recalled that the Lord made to Joshua with the words “Ich will dich nicht verlassen noch von dir weichen” (I will not fail you nor forsake you) and that appears in Hebrews 13:15 with the formulation “Ich will dich nicht verlassen noch versäumen” (I will never leave nor forsake you): 

Gott hat ein Wort, das dich vertrauend macht.
Er spricht: Wenn Berg und Hügel niedersinken,
Wenn dich die Flut des Wassers will ertrinken,
So will ich dich nicht verlassen noch versäumen.

God has a word that makes you trusting.
He says: Though mountain and hillside sink,
Though the floodwaters would drown you,
I will not leave or forsake you.

The image of “Berg und Hügel” goes back to Isaiah 54:10, which reads: “For the mountains shall retreat, and the hills collapse; but my kindness shall not retreat from you.” The only completely freely versified aria in the cantata libretto expresses contentment even in suffering:

Ich bin vergnügt in meinem Leiden,
Denn Gott ist meine Zuversicht.
Ich habe sichern Brief und Siegel,
Und dieses ist der feste Riegel,
Den bricht auch selbst die Hölle nicht.

I am content in my suffering,
For God is my confidence.
I have under secure letter and seal,
And this is the stout bar
That even hell cannot break.

The way out of persecution in this life is suggested by a recitative:

Kann es die Welt nicht lassen,
Mich zu verfolgen und zu hassen,
So weist mir Gottes Hand
Ein andres Land.
Ach könnt es heute noch geschehen,
Daß ich mein Eden möchte sehen.

Though the world cannot desist
From persecuting and hating me,
Yet God’s hand shows to me
Another country.
Oh, could it happen yet today
That I might see my Eden.

The libretto closes with a chorale strophe taken from Martin Behm’s 1610 hymn O Jesu Christ, meins Lebens Licht (O Jesus Christ, light of my life). And here again, as in the first movement, freely versified words of faith respond to each line of the lament in the traditional chorale text:

Ich hab für mir ein schwere Reis
    Nur getrost, getrost, ihr Herzen,
Zu dir ins Himmels Paradeis,
    Hier ist Angst, dort Herrlichkeit!
Da ist mein rechtes Vaterland,
    Und die Freude jener Zeit
Daran du dein Blut hast gewandt.
    Überwieget aller Schmerzen.

I have a difficult journey ahead of me
    Only have faith, faith, you hearts,
To you in heavenly paradise,
    Here is anguish, there glory!
There is my true homeland,
    And the joy of that time
On which you have spent your blood.
    Outweighs every pain.

In composing this text, Johann Sebastian Bach continued the seventeenth-century tradition of the musical dialogue. While his score does not identify the interlocutors by name, it can be concluded by analogy to several works of previous years that the soprano embodies Anima, the Soul, and the bass Jesus. Accordingly, the soprano assumes the lamenting chorale melody in the opening movement, and the bass provides comforting counsel. The instrumental part is so characterized by painful half-tone steps and rhythm that progresses with difficulty that a lengthy coloratura on the key word “Freude” seems like an alien object in this context. Continued words of comfort by the bass in the recitative are followed by the soprano aria “Ich bin vergnügt in meinem Leiden,” a movement that was later added to the cantata. In its place originally was an aria in 12/8 meter, for which only the bass accompaniment part has survived. Whether this lost aria was also conceived for soprano, whether it made use of the same text, what instruments took part other than the basso continuo: none of these questions are answerable any longer. The substitute aria for soprano and solo violin, composed in about 1733, fluctuates between a kind of weary cheerfulness—conditioned by the keywords “Zufriedenheit” (contentment) and “Zuversicht” (faith)—and a fraught chromaticism, above all in the instrumental parts, that points to the darker side of existence. The soprano recitative that follows transitions to the more regulated form of the arioso with the exclamation “Ach, könnt es heute noch geschehen!” (Oh, could it happen even today!) and thus can express a longing for “Eden” and then lead to the concluding duet. In spite of the text beginning “Ich hab für mir ein schwere Reis,” the reigning mood here is of an unstoppable momentum and exuberant certainty of victory whose impetuousness is articulated by the upward-striving motives of the accompaniment. 

 

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