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Jesus schläft, was soll ich hoffen? BWV 81 / BC A 39
Fourth Sunday after Epiphany, January 30, 1724
The cantata Jesus schläft, was soll ich hoffen? BWV 81 (Jesus sleeps, what hope have I?) is for the fourth Sunday after Epiphany, a date that appears only when Easter Sunday falls on April 8 or later in the church calendar—on average, every three years. Such was the case in 1724, during Johann Sebastian Bach’s first year as cantor of St. Thomas in Leipzig. Scholars long assumed that the present cantata must have been assigned to January 30 of that year, and source studies in the twentieth century solidified this conclusion. A printed text discovered in the former Imperial Library in St. Petersburg in 1970 provided the final confirmation.1 The booklet to be used by a congregation member bears the title Texts for Leipzig Church Music, on the Second, Third, Fourth Sundays after the Revealing of Christ, the Feast of the Purification of Mary, and the Sundays Septuagesimae, Sexagesimae, Estomihi, as well as the Feast of the Annunciation of Mary 1724.2 Among the cantata texts to be consulted during performance, Jesus schläft, was soll ich hoffen? also appears beneath the heading “On the fourth Sunday after the Revealing of Christ. In the Church of St. Thomas.”3
The libretto, the work of an unknown author, closely follows the Gospel reading for the Sunday. Found in Matthew 8, it recounts a sea journey taken by Jesus and his disciples that briefly brought them into danger. The Evangelist Matthew places this event on an unspecified “ocean”; according to the parallel account in Luke 8, it involves the Sea of Galilee and a crossing in a southeasterly direction toward the Land of the Gadarenes. In Matthew 8:23–27 the passage reads:
And he entered into the ship, and his disciples followed him. And, behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves: and he slept. And his disciples came to him and awoke him, saying, Lord, help us: we perish. And he said unto them, You of little faith, why are you so fearful? Then he arose and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm. But the men marveled, saying, What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him!
In the first cantata movement, an aria, the poet describes the slumber of Jesus as an existential danger for the individual in which sleep is perceived as a complete absence, in the sense of the “search motif ”:4
Question after question follow in the next movement as well, a recitative, alluding to the first verse of Psalm 10, which reads: “Herr, warum trittst du so ferne, verbirgst dich zur Zeit der Not?” (Lord, why do you walk so far away, do you hide yourself in time of trouble?). The recitative derived from this reads:
Jesus schläft, was soll ich hoffen?
Seh ich nicht
Mit erblaßtem Angesicht
Schon des Todes Abgrund offen?
Jesus sleeps, what hope have I?
Do I not see,
With pale countenance,
The abyss of death already open?
Herr, warum trittst du so ferne?
Warum verbirgst du dich zur Zeit der Not,
Da alles mir ein kläglich Ende droht?
Ach, wird dein Auge nicht durch mein Not beweget,
So sonsten nie zu schlummern pfleget?
Lord, why do you walk so far away?
Why do you hide yourself in time of trouble,
When everything threatens me with a miserable death?
O, does not my distress move your eye,
Which otherwise is never wont to sleep?
With an allusion to the Star of Bethlehem it continues:
Du wiesest ja mit einem Stern
Vordem den neubekehrten Weisen,
Den rechten Weg zu reisen,
Ach, leite mich durch deiner Augen Licht,
Weil dieser Weg nichts als Gefahr verspricht.
You certainly pointed with a star,
Before the newly converted Wise Men,
The right way to journey.
O lead me through the light of your eyes,
For this way promises only peril.
What danger awaits is depicted by the second aria, which compares the turbulent sea to “Belial’s streams,” a torrent that threatens to wash the human soul into the abyss of hell, should the soul’s firm grasp of faith be lost:
Whether this truly means that the Christian should stand in the storm “wie Wellen” (like waves) remains a mystery known only to Bach and his librettist. In any case, the word “Wellen” stands in Bach’s autograph score, in the original performance part for the singer, as well as in the printed text just mentioned. However, the substitution of a word suggesting greater strength of resistance, “Felsen” (crags), for example, is by no means forbidden.5Die schäumende Wellen von Belials Bächen
Verdoppeln die Wut.
Ein Christ soll zwar wie Wellen [wie Felsen?] stehn,
Wenn Trübsalswinde um ihn gehn,
Doch suchet die stürmende Flut
Die Kräfte des Glaubens zu schwächen.
The foaming waves of Belial’s streams
Redouble their fury.
A Christian should stand like waves [like crags?]
When the winds of tribulation swirl about him.
Yet the storming flood seeks
To weaken the powers of faith.
If the evangelist’s narrative up to now has served as a kind of foil for the reflections without being itself the object of depiction, it speaks directly with the words of Jesus in Matthew and names the source of all evils: “Ihr Kleingläubigen, warum seid ihr so furchtsam?” (You of little faith, why are you so fearful?). And now the heart of the scene can appear in an aria as Jesus enters as rescuer amid the storm at sea:
Schweig, aufgetürmtes Meer!
Verstumme, Sturm und Wind!
Dir sei dein Ziel gesetzt,
Damit mein auserwähltes Kind
Kein Unfall je verletzet.
Silence, towering ocean!
Quiet, storm and wind!
Let your goal be so restricted
That my chosen child
By no accident is injured.
A brief recitative expresses the gratitude of those rescued:
Wohl mir, Jesus spricht ein Wort,
Mein Helfer ist erwacht,
So muß der Wellen Sturm, des Unglücks Nacht
Und aller Kummer fort.
Blessed am I, Jesus speaks a word,
My helper is awakened;
So must the wave’s storm, the night of misfortune,
And all tribulation be gone.
The cantata text closes with the second strophe from Johann Franck’s hymn of 1650, Jesu, meine Freude ( Jesus, my joy):
Johann Sebastian Bach’s composition of this text is as rich in contrasts as it is in imagery, and it exploits its possibilities fully. The alto aria “Jesus schläft, was soll ich hoffen?” develops in a region of tension between outer calm and increasing inner agitation. The chordal texture of the strings suggests a familiar scene of slumber as they sound in their deep register, brightened by a pair of recorders at the upper octave and combined with restful repeated notes in the basso continuo, as well as long sustained tones in the vocal part, but they are countered by the constant presence of sigh motives, the entrance of sharp dissonances, and the disjunct questions of the voice. The tenor recitative that follows takes up its lamenting tone and intensifies it to an ardent plea.Unter deinem Schirmen
Bin ich vor dem Stürmen
Aller Feinde frei.
Laß den Satan wittern,
Laß den Feind erbittern,
Mir steht Jesus bei.
Ob es itzt gleich kracht und blitzt,
Ob gleich Sünd und Hölle schrecken,
Jesus will mich decken.
Beneath your shelter
I am free from the storms
Of all enemies.
Let Satan prowl about,
Let the enemy grow enraged,
Jesus stands with me.
Though it now thunders and lightnings,
Though now sin and hell terrify me,
Jesus will shelter me.
In the aria that follows, a depiction of nature unclouded and cheerful is briefly evoked by the virtuoso competition between the voice and the cascading passagework of the string texture, led by the first violins. After only a few measures, sharper dissonances make clear that these are not just any “foaming waves” but the dangerous rapids of “Belial’s streams.” Despite three ruminative pauses, the breakneck momentum in this aria retains the upper hand. A change is first heard with the words of Jesus from the Gospel reading. Performed by the bass, the vox Christi, it unfolds with impressive repeated motives that follow in quick succession between voice and accompanying parts in a musical progression that, if not truly fugue, is strongly related to the spirit of fugue and appropriate to the severe question, “Ihr Kleingläubigen, warum seid ihr so furchtsam?”
The aria “Schweig, aufgetürmtes Meer,” derived from the Gospel text, is also given to the bass. The turbulence of the elements, expressed in massive repeated unisons in the strings, is countered by the voice with similar effects, supported by the calming timbre and more restful motion of the two oboi d’amore. The last freely versified movement, expressing thanks for the rescue of body and soul, is also given to the alto voice, which at the cantata’s begin- ning was trapped by fear and doubt. As resolute and collected as it began, the cantata ends with a four-part setting of the melody Jesu, meine Freude.
Footnotes
- Hobohm (1973).↵
- Texte / Zur Leipziger / Kirchen-Music, / Auf den / Andern, dritten, vierdten Sonntage / nach der Erscheinung Christi, / Das / Fest Mariä Reinigung, / Und die Sonntage / Septuagesimae, Sexagesimae, / Esto mihi, / Ingleichen / Auf das Fest / der Erscheinung Mariä 1724. // Leipzig, / Gedruckt bei Immanuel Tietzen. ↵
- “Am vierdten Sonntag nach der Erscheinung Christi. In der Kirche zu St.Thomae.”—Trans.↵
- The soul’s search for Jesus in the Christian reading of the Song of Songs.—Trans.↵
- The St. Petersburg pamphlet indeed reads “Wellen.” The alternative was suggested by Wustmann (1982, 48).—Trans.↵