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Ich habe genung BWV 82 / BC A 169
Purification of Mary, February 2, 1727
The cantata Ich habe genung BWV 82 (I have enough) is among the very few true solo cantatas composed by Johann Sebastian Bach. It is for the first Marian feast in the church year, the Purification of Mary. This feast, celebrated since the seventh century, concerns the codes of conduct for those who have recently given birth, as recorded in Leviticus 12. This is also the basis for the Gospel reading of the day, found in Luke 2:22–32, the presentation of the infant Jesus in the temple. Verse 22 reads: “And as the days of her purification according to the law of Moses were accomplished, they brought him to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord.” Following a discussion of the animal sacrifice customary for this occasion, verses 25–32 continue:At first glance, most music texts for this feast do not seem to have anything to do with a feast in honor of Mary. Almost all of them focus on the words of Simeon: the fulfillment of his dearest wish for an encounter with the savior and his longing for death. The unknown poet responsible for the text of our cantata holds fast to this tradition as well.1 Even in the first aria, obviously spoken by Simeon, one can see in which direction he plans to channel his thoughts:And behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; and this man was righteous and devout, and waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. And it was revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he should not see death before he had seen the Christ of the Lord. And he came, prompted by the Spirit, into the temple. And when the parents brought the infant Jesus into the temple to do for him as one does according to the law, he took him in his arms and praised God and said: Lord, now let your servant depart in peace, as you have said; for my eyes have seen your savior, which you have prepared before all peoples, a light to enlighten the Gentiles, and for the glory of your people Israel.
Beginning with the second movement, a recitative, the longing for a blessed departure from this world is generalized; hence, Simeon is spoken about in the third person:Ich habe genung,
Ich habe den Heiland, das Hoffen der Frommen,
Auf meine begierigen Arme genommen;
Ich habe genung,
Ich hab ihn erblickt,
Mein Glaube hat Jesum ans Herze gedrückt;
Nun wünsch ich, noch heute mit Freuden
Von hinnen zu scheiden.
Ich habe genung!
I have enough,
I have taken the savior, the hope of the devout,
Into my eager arms;
I have enough,
I have seen him,
My faith has pressed Jesus to my heart;
I only wish, even today, with joy
To depart from this life.
I have enough!
Increasingly, the movements that follow are filled with hope for “the joy of that life.” The second aria longs for the sleep of death as the first step in separation from this world:Ich habe genung,
Mein Trost ist nur allein,
Daß Jesus mein und ich sein eigen möchte sein.
Im Glauben halt ich ihn,
Da seh ich auch mit Simeon
Die Freude jenes Lebens schon.
Laßt uns mit diesem Manne ziehn!
I have enough,
My consolation is but alone
That Jesus might be mine and I his own.
In faith I hold him,
For I too see, with Simeon,
The joy of that life already.
Let us go with this man!
Schlummert ein, ihr matten Augen,
Fallet sanft und selig zu!
Welt, ich bleibe nicht mehr hier,
Hab ich doch kein Teil an dir,
Das der Seele könnte taugen.
Hier muß ich das Elend bauen,
Aber dort, dort werd ich schauen
Süßen Friede, stille Ruh.
Fall asleep, you weary eyes,
Fall softly and blessedly closed!
World, I remain here no longer,
I have indeed no part of you
That could be of use to the soul.
Here I must bear misery,
But there, there I will see
Sweet peace, still repose.
The last recitative alludes to Luther’s hymn Mit Fried und Freud ich fahr dahin (With peace and joy I depart), his translation of the ancient Canticum Simeonis:
Longing for death, hinted at by the opening aria, becomes the main idea in the closing aria:Mein Gott! Wenn kömmt das schöne: Nun!
Da ich im Friede fahren werde
Und in dem Sande kühler Erde
Und dort bei dir im Schoße ruhn?
Der Abschied ist gemacht,
Welt, gute Nacht.
My God! When might come that lovely: Now!
When I shall depart in peace
And rest in the sand of the cool earth
And there within your bosom?
The departure is made,
World, good night.
The remarkable change in perspective between the first movement and the second can perhaps be explained by the fact that the text Bach used, expressly for a solo cantata, is a revision and expansion of an older text, which is preserved in a reprint of 1744.2 This version, for several voices, began with the dictum from Luke 2:29, “Herr, nun läßest du deinen Diener im Friede fahren” (Lord, now let your servant depart in peace); closed with a chorale; and contains, in addition to one recitative, only a single aria, “Schlummert ein, ihr matten Augen.”Ich freue mich auf meinen Tod,
Ach hätt er sich schon eingefunden.
Da entkomm ich aller Not,
Die mich noch auf der Welt gebunden.
I look forward to my death,
Ah, had it already arrived!
There I will escape all distress,
Which still binds me in the world.
Bach’s composition of this libretto, not particularly rich in contrast but well-balanced and thematically self-contained, comes from 1727. It has been reasonably suggested that Bach composed the earliest version of the St. Matthew Passion in the weeks immediately before or afterward. Should this be the case, then our cantata can be associated broadly with that work’s conceptual preparation, and this exceptional status can be seen in the effusive or ecstatic opening movement; the “heavenly length” of the “Schlummer” aria; and the closing movement, which gradually turns inward with anticipation.
Bach conceived the first version (BWV 82.1) of the cantata in 1727 for the bass voice, string instruments, and one oboe. Four years later, there followed a transposition from C minor to E minor (BWV 82.2), a soprano replaced the bass, and a transverse flute took the place of the oboe. At about the same time, Anna Magdalena Bach began copying the solo part of movements 2 and 3 along with an accompaniment into her 1725 notebook. Four years later, Bach assigned the solo voice to a mezzo soprano and returned to the original key of C minor (BWV 82.3). About a decade later, we have evidence of two performances, in which the bass recovered its rightful place and the instrumental ensemble was augmented in various ways. The soloist in these performances, probably after 1745, is likely to have been Johann Christoph Altnickol, Bach’s student and later his son-in-law. In May 1747 Bach himself confirmed in writing that although Altnickol was a skilled performer of violin and cello, he mostly participated in the chorus (choro musico) as a bass singer to help with the lack of bass voices at the St. Thomas School. Johann Elias Bach, a cousin of the cantor of St. Thomas, spent several years as his secretary and in-house tutor for the children in the Leipzig household. In 1741 he briefly mentioned a “Basso solo” that Johann Sebastian Bach had lent a Weissenfels singer but had not yet received back, so that further lending was not contemplated at the moment. Although this work cannot at present be identified more precisely, it may have been the cantata Ich habe genung.
In any case, this composition was clearly one of Bach’s favorite pieces, and he performed it often with pleasure. Whether he undertook the revisions for soprano and mezzo soprano to address problems of setting, we do not know. It is just as plausible that highly capable singers asked Bach to arrange the cantata for their specific voice ranges to test their ability to master demanding parts in three of the most different aria characters and successfully meet the challenge of this consummate masterpiece. This is still possible today. Although the original—and final—version for bass is the only complete one, the alternative versions for higher voices can be convincingly reconstructed with minimal effort, making them readily available to performers.