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Jesu, der du meine Seele BWV 78 / BC A 130
Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity, September 10, 1724
Johann Sebastian Bach wrote the cantata Jesu, der du meine Seele BWV 78 (Jesus, you who my soul) for the fourteenth Sunday after Trinity in his second year of service as cantor of St. Thomas School in Leipzig. In accordance with his concept of the second annual cycle of cantatas, it is tailored textually and musically to a specific church hymn. Johann Rist wrote the poem “Jesu, der du meine Seele” in 1641; not until 1662 was it paired with a melody associated with Georg Philipp Harsdörffer’s hymn Wachet doch, erwacht, ihr Schläfer. Johann Rist was born near Hamburg in 1607, became a pastor in Wedel, Schleswig-Holstein, in 1635, and in his day was known as the “Nordischer Apoll, Fürst aller Poeten, großer Cimberschwan” (Northern Apollo, Prince of All Poets, Great Swan of the Elbe). In 1660, seven years before his death, he founded an academy for poetry known as Elbschwan-Orden (Order of the Elbe Swan), whose goal was to overcome the excessive floridness of the poetry of his era and return to simplicity. Of his over 650 sacred poems, hardly any of which have fewer than ten strophes, only a handful have been preserved in collections, among them O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort, Ermuntre dich, mein schwacher Geist, and Werde munter, mein Gemüte. Johann Rist’s hymn Jesu, der du meine Seele (also found with the melody Alle Menschen müssen sterben) is not among the hymns for the fourteenth Sunday after Trinity. Instead, it is found in hymn collections beneath the rubric “Von der Buße und Beichte” (Of penance and confession) or “Sonderbare Trost-Lieder” (Exceptional songs of consolation) with the subheading ““Herzliches Buß- und Bet-Lied eines Sünders, an seinen allerliebsten Herrn Jesum, um Verzeihung seiner viel- und mannigfaltigen Sünden.” (Sincere Penitent and Prayer Song of a Sinner, to His Most Beloved Lord Jesus, for Forgiveness of His Many and Multifarious Sins).We do not know who reshaped the twelve-strophe hymn to become a seven-movement cantata libretto. The arranger was faced with the task of producing a source text in the mold of Bach’s chorale cantatas, in which opening and closing strophes were adopted without change. The other chorale strophes were recast in the form of recitatives and arias, wherein shorter or longer quotations of the original chorale were possible or even desirable. Further, a connection to the Gospel reading of the day needed to be produced. The reading, found in Luke 17, gives the account of the healing of the ten lepers.
Elements of this lesson were included in the cantata text, although its connection to the fourteenth Sunday of Trinity is not clear-cut. Instead, its character is derived from Rist’s hymn; hence, it stands much closer to the Passion than to the healing of the ten lepers.
The very first strophe of Rist’s chorale—and the first movement of the cantata—evokes the mood of the Passion story:
Jesu, der du meine Seele
Hast durch deinen bittern Tod
Aus des Teufels finstern Höhle
Und der schweren Seelennot
Kräftiglich herausgerissen
Und mich solches lassen wissen
Durch dein angenehmes Wort,
Sei doch itzt, o Gott, mein Hort!
Jesus, you who my soul,
Have through your bitter death,
Out of the devil’s dismal cave
And heavy affliction of the soul,
Powerfully torn out
And let me know this
Through your propitious word,
Be even now, O God, my refuge!
The second movement of the cantata, a freely versified aria, contains only a subtle allusion to the chorale text, whose second strophe begins with the words “Treulich hast du ja gesuchet / Die verlorenen Schäfelein” (Truly you have sought / The lost little sheep). The concern of the Sunday Gospel reading is ever present in the aria:
Wir eilen mit schwachen, doch emsigen Schritten,
O Jesu, o Meister, zu helfen zu dir.
Du suchest die Kranken und Irrenden treulich.
Ach höre, wie wir
Die Stimmen erheben, um Hilfe zu bitten!
Es sei uns dein gnädiges Antlitz erfreulich.
We hasten with weak yet diligent steps,
O Jesus, O Master, for help to you.
You seek the ill and erring faithfully.
Ah hear how we
Lift our voices to pray for help.
May your gracious countenance be encouraging to us.
In the third movement, a recitative, one finds the procedure often seen in Bach’s chorale cantatas in which verses from the chorale are included literally in the recitative and are interleaved with lines of free poetry, all while overarching rhyme schemes and grammatical correspondences are inseparably woven together. The remarkable aspect of this recitative is that, of its seventeen lines of text, six come from Johann Rist’s chorale—but they are taken from three different strophes. Two lines each go back to the beginning of the fourth strophe, the middle of the fifth, and the end of the sixth. Corresponding to their chorale strophes, they are placed, respectively, in the beginning, the middle, and the end of the recitative.
The second aria, whose text begins “Das Blut, so meine Schuld durch- streicht / Macht mir das Herze wieder leicht” (The blood that cancels out my sin / Makes my heart light again) and closes with “So stehet Jesus mir zur Seite, / Daß ich beherzt und sieghaft sei” (Then Jesus stands at my side, / So that I am valiant and victorious) turns out to be a very free paraphrase of the sixth and seventh strophes of Rist’s chorale, whose beginning and end, respectively, read “Jesu, du hast weggenommen / Meine Schulden durch dein Blut” ( Jesus, you have taken away / My debt through your blood) and “Ach, so hilf, Herr Jesu, siegen, / O du meine Zuversicht, / Laß mich ja verzagen nicht” (Ah, then help me, Lord Jesus, to be victorious, / O you who are my assurance, / Do not let me despair). Like the first recitative, the second also combines several strophes of the chorale source text. It begins:
Die Wunden, Nägel, Kron und Grab,
Die Schläge, so man dort dem Heiland gab,
Sind ihm nunmehro Siegeszeichen
The wounds, nails, crown, and grave,
The blows they gave the savior there
Are now his signs of victory
This goes back to the beginning of the eighth chorale strophe:
Deine rotgefärbte Wunden,
Deine Nägel, Kron und Grab,
Deine Schenkel fest gebunden,
Wenden alle Plagen ab.
Your red-stained wounds,
Your nails, crown, and grave,
Your tightly bound thighs
Ward off all troubles.
Afterward, the contents of the ninth strophe—the threatening judgment and the savior’s act of redemption—are recounted, and at the end of the recitative the conclusion of the tenth chorale strophe is quoted literally. The next to last cantata movement, again an aria, is a paraphrase of the next to last chorale strophe: “Nun ich weiß, du wirst mir stillen / Mein Gewissen, das mich plagt” (Now I know you will quiet / My conscience, which torments me). The aria text begins: “Nun du wirst mein Gewissen stillen, / So wider mich um Rache schreit” (Now you will quiet my conscience, / Which cries against me for vengeance). Rist’s concluding strophe, “Herr, ich glaube, hilf mir Schwachen” (Lord, I believe; help me in my weakness), forms the conclusion of the cantata libretto.
In every conceivable way, Bach’s composition does justice to this wide-ranging and meaningful text. This applies in particular to the opening movement, in which Bach enriches his usual approach to the chorale cantatas by adding a new dimension. The chorale cantus firmus in one of the choral voices; motet-like counterpoint in the other voices; a unified orchestral part that enhances overall coherence: all these elements are found here. In addition, the entire movement is arranged as a kind of passacaglia above a continuously recurring pattern in the bass. At the heart of this pattern is a chromatic descent through the interval of the fourth. Rich in tradition, it is known as the lamento bass. It is found throughout Bach’s oeuvre, from the early Capriccio in B-flat Major BWV 992, up to the composer’s very last period in the Crucifixus of the Mass in B Minor BWV 232, in the Three- Part Invention in F Minor BWV 795, and in the famous chaconne from the Partita no. 2 for Solo Violin BWV 1004. To couple this lamento bass with a chorale melody while including occasional harmonic modulations, the possibility of contrary motion, and the transposition to an upper voice requires a mastery of artistic means that few of Bach’s contemporaries could have shown.
The other movements have a hard time holding their own against this weighty opening movement. With imitation and parallel voice leading in the two high voices, coupled with the busy, continuous figuration of the basso continuo, the playfully cheerful duet, “Wir eilen mit schwachen doch emsigen Schritten,” provides a contrast that was probably unavoidable. The dramatic impetus of the first recitative is unusual; its active melody and heavily drawn harmonies would not be out of place in Passion music. In contrast, the aria for tenor and obbligato flute, “Das Blut, so meine Schuld durchstreicht,” brings about a brightening of mood; its character is rather more in keeping with the second verse, “Macht mir das Herze wieder leicht.”
The bass recitative, “Die Wunden, Nägel, Kron und Grab,” proves itself a worthy counterpart to the opening movement. Its harmonic wealth and graphic interpretation of the text culminate in the last twelve measures in a way that anticipates the Last Supper scene in the St. Matthew Passion. Like the preceding tenor aria, the superficial concertante bass aria, “Nun du wirst mein Gewissen stillen,” is an element of encouragement and consolation. It is followed by a four-part closing chorale, which avoids any depiction of “sin,” “death,” or “despair.”