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

Alles nur nach Gottes Willen BWV 72 / BC A 37

Third Sunday after Epiphany

The Gospel reading for the third Sunday after Epiphany in Matthew 8 describes the healing of a leper and a man afflicted with gout. The beginning reads as follows:

As he however came down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him. 
    And, behold, there came a leper and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if you will, can you make me clean. And Jesus put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. (1–3)


Similar narratives are found in the Gospels of Mark and Luke.

The text of our cantata, which takes up this account, is found in the collection Evangelisches Andachts-Opffer (Protestant devotional offering), printed in 1715 by the Weimar court poet and chief consistory secretary Salomon Franck. His poems, intended primarily for the royal Weimar court chapel, were set to music in 1715 and 1716 by Johann Sebastian Bach, as well as, perhaps, Weimar music director Johann Samuel Drese and his son Johann Wilhelm Drese. The four-week rotation, arranged by the court for the purpose of division of labor, meant that only a fraction of the libretti was available to Bach for composition. However, he must have kept a printed cycle “for all cases,” so to speak, and brought it with him to Köthen and then to Leipzig. Bach fell back upon the somewhat dated cantata texts in 1725 for the cantata Tue Rechnung! Donnerwort BWV 168 (Settle the account! Word of thunder), as well as, half a year later, Alles nur nach Gottes Willen BWV 72 (All only according to God’s will). 

Like several other cantata poets of the time, Salomon Franck did not make a particularly close connection to the Gospel reading for the third Sunday after Epiphany. Philipp Spitta, the important Bach biographer of the late nineteenth century, praised Franck’s text for its “blessed satisfaction . . . which arises from the awareness that everywhere one is in the hand of a loving God” and the “trusting, childlike intimacy of poignant power.”1 

In fact, there is a certain simplicity in the line of thought found in Franck’s text. Nowhere is complete surrender to God’s will questioned or even troubled by doubt. Instead, the poet merely tries to revive his faith again and again through the change of perspective. At no point is the naive overall character jeopardized. Even in the first movement, he is fixated:

Alles nur nach Gottes Willen,
So bei Lust als Traurigkeit,
So bei gut als böser Zeit.
Gottes Wille soll mich stillen
Bei Gewölk und Sonnenschein.
Alles nur nach Gottes Willen!
Dies soll meine Losung sein.

All only according to God’s will,
In joy as well as sorrow,
In good as well as evil times.
God’s will shall calm me
In clouds and sunshine.
All only according to God’s will!
This shall be my motto.


The following movement, written by Franck as a recitative and composed by Bach as recitative and arioso, paraphrases the proclamation “Herr, so du willt” (Lord, as you will) from the Gospel reading of the Sunday. The poet finds nine different continuations and interpretations, the last of which reads:

Herr, so du willt, so sterb ich nicht,
Ob Leib und Leben mich verlassen,
Wenn mir dein Geist dies Wort ins Herze spricht.

Lord, if you will, I shall not die,
Though body and life have forsaken me,
If your spirit speaks these words to me in my heart.


The ensuing aria speaks of confidence in Jesus to lead one on the right path:

Mit allem, was ich hab und bin,
Will ich mich Jesu lassen,
Kann gleich mein schwacher Geist und Sinn
Des Höchsten Rat nicht fassen;
Er führe mich nur immer hin
Auf Dorn- und Rosenstraßen.

With everything that I have and am,
I will leave myself to Jesus,
Though if my weak spirit and mind
Cannot grasp the highest’s counsel;
May he lead me only ever onward
On paths of thorns and roses.


Jesus’s utterance “Ich will’s tun” (I will do it) stands in the center of the last recitative-aria pair. At its beginning the recitative reads:

So glaube nun!
Dein Heiland saget: Ich wills tun!
Er pflegt die Gnadenhand
Noch willigst auszustrecken,
Wenn Kreuz und Leiden dich erschrecken.

So now have faith!
Your savior says: I will do it!
He is wont to stretch out the hand of grace
Most willingly
When cross and suffering terrify you.


But this threat, barely hinted at, is immediately revoked and replaced with the serenity of child-like trust:

Mein Jesus will es tun, er will dein Kreuz versüßen.
Obgleich dein Herze liegt in viel Bekümmernissen,
Soll es doch sanft und still in seinen Armen ruhn,
Wenn ihn der Glaube faßt; 
Mein Jesus will es tun!

My Jesus will do it, he will sweeten your cross. 
Although your heart lies amid much affliction,
It shall nevertheless rest gently and quietly in his arms
Whenever faith takes hold of it;
My Jesus will do it!


The cantata text closes with the first strophe of the hymn Was mein Gott will, das g’scheh allzeit (Whatever my God wills, may that happen always).

The opening movement of the cantata belongs to a relatively small number of choral pieces in Bach’s oeuvre whose structure depends neither on a chorale melody as backbone nor on fugue at one place or another. Here unity is achieved chiefly by two resounding chords that are heard first instrumentally and later attached to the exclamation “Alles.” A similar function is played by hammering tone repetitions, now in this voice, then in that one, or in several voices at the same time, and assigned to the title phrase “Alles nur nach Gottes Willen.” These two elements combine for sufficient stability to contain the various competing centrifugal forces emerging in the course of the movement: the lively virtuosity of the violins, the oboes, and even the basso continuo; the vivid word painting of concepts such as “Traurigkeit” (sorrow), “böse Zeit” (evil time), and “Gewölk und Sonnenschein” (clouds and sunshine); and the affirming canonic structures with “Gottes Wille soll mich stillen” (God’s will shall calm me).

The ensuing complex of movements is given to the alto voice. Beginning with a brief recitative, it intensifies quickly to an expressive arioso on the phrase “Herr, so du willt” and then changes immediately to a fast tempo in order to present “Mit allem, was ich hab und bin, / Will ich mich Jesu lassen.” Although structured overall as a quartet movement, at least half of the aria proves to be an instrumental trio, in which the violins bring their figural agility to full effect, even as the continuo holds its own as much as possible.

The soprano aria, following the brief bass recitative, is delicately worked and discreetly dance-like. Above a texture of the strings that is now chordally grounded, now finely woven, the soprano voice and oboe conduct an expressive dialogue, doing full justice musically to the phrase “Mein Jesus will es tun, er will dein Kreutz versüßen.”

After this flight of fancy, it costs the closing chorale movement some effort to bring us back to the levels of reality.


Footnotes

  1. Spitta (1899, 2:415–16).—Trans.

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