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Gott der Herr ist Sonn und Schild BWV 79 / BC A 184
Reformation Day, October 31, 1725
The cantata Gott der Herr ist Sonn und Schild BWV 79 (God the Lord is sun and shield) is for the festival of Reformation. This festival commemorates the posting of the theses in Wittenberg on October 31, 1517, which, according to tradition, was the initial spark of the Reformation, led by Martin Luther. Johann Sebastian Bach first encountered this feast day tradition, essentially restricted to the territory of Electoral Saxony, in 1723 after moving from Köthen to Leipzig. In 1667, 150 years after the posting at Wittenberg, the elector of Saxony, Johann Georg II, decreed October 31 to be a half holiday thenceforth, independent of the day of the week.An occasion for composing an appropriate cantata evidently did not arise in Bach’s Leipzig period until 1724. A year later, he composed the cantata Gott der Herr ist Sonn und Schild for October 31, 1725. The musical opulence of this work is quite striking, so much so that it does not entirely seem to fit the traditional arrangements for what was only a half holiday. Whether extramusical factors were at work here cannot be said at present. In any case, it is worth noting that Bach had completed a visit to Dresden just a few weeks earlier that attracted considerable attention. A newspaper in Hamburg reported in late September 1725: “When the Capell-Director from Leipzig, Mr. Bach, came here recently, he was very well received by the local virtuosos at court and in the city since he is greatly admired by all of them for his musical adroitness and art. Yesterday and the day before, in the presence of the same, he performed for over an hour on the new organ in St. Sophia’s Church preludes and various concertos, with intervening soft instrumental music [Doucen Instrumental-Music] in all keys.”1 One would scarcely go wrong in assuming that this gathering with musician friends of the court chapel, the performance on the new Silbermann organ, and the applause of cognoscenti all had their effect in subsequent weeks on the work of the Thomaskantor, recently returned to Leipzig.
There are other grounds for advancing such a hypothesis: the libretto Bach chose for his Reformation cantata is of a fairly normal type and exhibits scarcely any features out of the ordinary. Instead, it follows a model whose originator has not yet been identified but whose unmistakable profile suggests a common origin—and this despite appearing at different times during Bach’s earliest years at Leipzig. Characteristic for this group of cantata texts is a six-movement scheme that begins with a passage from the Hebrew Bible followed by the sequence aria–chorale in the first part of the cantata, presumably to be performed before the sermon, and the sequence recitative–aria–chorale in the second part.
The text of our cantata fills this scheme with ideas that revolve around purity of doctrine, prayers for protection against enemies, and thanksgiving and praise for mercy granted. The libretto begins with a verse from Psalm 84: “Gott der Herr ist Sonn und Schild. Der Herr gibt Gnade und Ehre, er wird kein Gutes mangeln lassen den Frommen” (11; God the Lord is sun and shield. The Lord gives grace and honor, he will not allow the pious to lack for any good thing). The first aria further develops the ideas of “sun and shield”:
Gott ist unsre Sonn und Schild.
Darum rühmet dessen Güte
Unser dankbares Gemüte,
Die er für sein Häuflein hegt,
Denn er will uns ferner schützen,
Ob die Feinde Pfeile schnitzen
Und ein Lästerhund gleich billt.
God is our sun and shield.
Therefore, our grateful spirit
Praises the goodness he shows
For his little band of men,
For he will protect us further,
Though the enemies sharpen arrows
And the dog of blasphemy roars.
Whether the rather powerful rhyme at the end of the last line2 is actually the work of the librettist or whether it is the result of Bach’s intervention must await the discovery of the text’s original. The third movement—and the first chorale—is the opening strophe of Martin Rinckart’s 1636 hymn Nun danket alle Gott (Now thank the God of all).
With the outcry “Gottlob, wir wissen den rechten Weg zur Seligkeit” (Praise God, we know the right way to salvation), the lone recitative begins with self-assurance but a bit later moderates its tone slightly:
Weil aber viele noch
Zu dieser Zeit
An fremdem Joch
Aus Blindheit ziehen müssen,
Ach so erbarme dich
Auch ihrer gnädiglich,
Daß sie den rechten weg erkennen
Und dich bloß ihren Mittler nennen.
But because many still
To this day
Yoked to unbelievers
Must pull out of blindness,
Ah, then have mercy
Upon them with grace too,
That they recognize the right way
And name you alone as their mediator.
The associated aria displays even less self-assuredness:
Gott, ach Gott, verlaß die Deinen
Nimmermehr,
Laß dein Wort uns helle scheinen,
Obgleich sehr
Wider uns die Feinde toben,
So soll unser Mund dich loben.
God, O God, forsake those of yours
Nevermore,
Let your word shine brightly for us.
Although furiously
Against us do our enemies rage,
Yet shall our mouths praise you.
Even so, the last strophe of Ludwig Helmbold’s hymn Nun laßt uns Gott dem Herren (Now let us to God the Lord) provides a calming conclusion:
Erhalt uns in der Wahrheit,
Gib ewigliche Freiheit,
Zu preisen deinen Namen
Durch Jesum Christum. Amen.
Preserve us in the truth,
Grant freedom eternally
To praise your name
Through Jesus Christ. Amen.
Bach’s composition gives the psalm verse at the beginning a setting of unanticipated dimensions. The opening movement comprises no fewer than 147 measures, with nearly a third of the total taken up with the instrumental introduction, in which at first the horns and drums dominate with a characteristically melodic theme before a fugue theme with hammering pitch repetitions enters to take the lead. At the end of this expansive introduction, the two themes are partially connected with one another. Subsequently, they alternate with each other several times while the chorus goes its own way, so to speak, freely and undeterred, with radiant chordal textures. The possibility of fugal intensification, foreshadowed by the opening sinfonia, is realized by the voices only after the middle of the movement, and then only for a limited time. Unity over the course of the movement is achieved above all by the overarching thematic material rather than the setting; on the contrary, diversity is the order of the day, a downright exuberant and overflowing multiplicity of ideas and combinations. It almost seems as if the compositional approach took on a life of its own, as if the composer, so to speak, let the opening movement get out of hand. A glance at Bach’s holograph composing score seems to confirm this impression. The paper he initially prepared for the movement originally comprised sixteen pages, which would largely have been taken up with the opening movement. However, it became clear that Bach had miscalculated. He had to include another folio from his stock, and then yet another, so that the score finally spanned twenty-four pages instead of the sixteen planned originally.
The other five movements needed to be much more concentrated. In the aria “Gott ist unser Sonn und Schild” a single obbligato instrument is assigned to the alto voice—in the first version an oboe, in later performances a flute. In contrast, the first chorale movement includes the entire festive ensemble, and the usual four-part texture is expanded via the addition of horns led independently and drums. Astonishingly, their obbligato parts are identical with the brass parts that open the first movement; this cannot conceivably be a coincidence. Bach must have composed the chorale—the third movement written into the composing score—in his head before starting work on the first movement.
After a brief bass recitative, the second aria movement shows itself to be the opposite of the overflowing opening movement: here, the soprano and bass voices begin without any instrumental introduction; they move largely in parallel with each other. The solo violin, which only plays interludes at first, is only gradually allowed to participate equally. In the closing chorale movement, the brass instruments are once again allowed to move independently, but to a much more modest degree than in the preceding chorale, which must be regarded as the nucleus of the entire cantata.
In spite of the extraordinary difficulty of the brass parts, the cantata Gott der Herr ist Sonn und Schild was performed again on at least one occasion, most likely October 31, 1730. Several years later, Bach used the opening chorus and both arias in his Latin masses in A major (BWV 234) and G major (BWV 236). The opening chorus and duet became the Gloria and Domine Deus in the Mass in G Major; the alto aria became the Quoniam in the Mass in A Major. With a view to making the music easier to perform, Bach gave up the original brilliant setting for horns and drums and gave some of that music to the voices and some to the oboes.