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Ich hab in Gottes Herz und Sinn BWV 92 / BC A 42
Septuagesimae Sunday
The Septuagesima cantata Ich hab in Gottes Herz und Sinn BWV 92 (I have to God’s heart and mind) was composed in early 1725 as part of Bach’s annual cycle of chorale cantatas. Its text is based on the hymn of the same name by Paul Gerhardt, who published it in 1647, shortly before the end of the Thirty Years’ War. In older hymn collections, this chorale is assigned to the rubric “Von dem christlichen Leben” (Of the Christian life) or “Von christlichen Leben und Wandel” (Of Christian life and transformation) but without any mention of Septuagesima Sunday. Occasionally, the subtitle Die Gott ergebene Seele (The soul devoted to God) is added, an allusion to a passage in Romans 8: “Wir wissen aber, daß denen, die Gott lieben, alle Dinge zum Besten dienen, denen, die nach dem Vorsatz berufen sind” (28; And we know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, those who are called according to his purpose).Typical of Gerhardt is the tone of sincere, child-like trust in God found in this hymn. It can be explained, on the one hand, by the specific theological views of the poet and, on the other, by the course of his professional career. Gerhardt was born in Gräfenhain in 1607, and it was not until the age of forty that he successfully gained a position as pastor. For a long time he had to struggle along as a private tutor, which meant he had extended close contact with children. It was during this period that he composed the hymn Ich hab in Gottes Herz und Sinn.
The twelve-strophe hymn by Gerhardt was reshaped into a nine-strophe cantata libretto by an unknown author. In the manner usual for Bach’s chorale cantatas, some single hymn strophes remain unchanged, others are expanded by the interpolation of new text, and still others are used as points of departure for free paraphrase. As expected, the opening strophe is presented untouched:
Ich hab in Gottes Herz und Sinn
Mein Herz und Sinn ergeben,
Was böse scheint, ist mein Gewinn,
Der Tod selbst ist mein Leben.
Ich bin ein Sohn
Des, der den Thron
Des Himmels aufgezogen;
Ob er gleich schlägt
Und Kreuz auflegt,
Bleibt doch sein Herz gewogen.
I have to God’s heart and mind
My heart and mind surrendered.
What seems bad is my gain,
Death itself is my life.
I am a son
Of him who has been raised
To the throne of heaven.
Though he may strike
And impose a cross upon me,
His heart still remains well disposed to me.
By contrast, the second strophe is expanded, nearly by a factor of four, through the interpolation of new lines of text. All verses of the chorale text are separated from one another in this manner. Gerhardt’s strophe beginning “Es kann mir fehlen nimmermehr; / Mein Vater muß mich lieben” (It can fail me nevermore; / My father must love me) is expanded by the paraphrase of a passage in Isaiah 54 that reads: “Denn es sollen wohl Bergen weichen und Hügel hinfallen; aber meine Gnade soll nicht von dir weichen” (10; For the mountains shall retreat and the hills collapse; but my kindness shall not retreat from you). In the cantata libretto, chorale and recitative are interleaved as follows:
Es kann mir fehlen nimmermehr;
Es müßen eh’r,
Wie selbst der treue Zeuge spricht,
Mit Prasseln und mit grausem Knallen
Die Berge und die Hügel fallen:
Mein Heiland aber trüget nicht,
Mein Vater muß mich lieben.
It can fail me nevermore;
It must happen soon,
As even the faithful witness says,
With thunder and with horrid cracks
The mountains and hills fall;
My savior, however, betrays not,
My father must love me.
The other components of Gerhardt’s second strophe are modified in similar fashion. Out of Gerhardt’s lines 3 and 4, “Wenn er mich auch gleich wirft ins Meer, / So will er mich nur üben” (Should he even throw me into the sea / He would only be training me) comes the following sequence by means of recitative interpolations:
Wenn er mich auch gleich wirft ins Meer.
So lebt der Herr auf großen Wassern noch,
Der hat mir selbst mein Leben zugeteilt,
Drum werden sie mich nicht ersäufen.
Wenn mich die Wellen schon ergreifen
Und ihre Wut mit mir zum Abgrund eilt,
So will er mich nur üben.
Should he even throw me into the sea.
Thus lives the Lord still on great waters,
He has himself allotted my life to me,
Therefore, they will not drown me.
If the waves should seize me
And their rage surge with me to the abyss,
He would only be training me.
The third cantata movement, an aria, is more freely adapted from its source text. Gerhardt’s fourth strophe reads as follows:
Woher wollt ich mein’n Aufenthalt
Auf dieser Welt erlangen?
Ich wäre längstens tot und kalt,
Wo mich nicht Gott umfangen
Mit seinem Arm,
Der alles warm,
Gesund und fröhlich machet:
Was er nicht hält,
Das bricht und fällt;
Was er erfreut, das lachet.
Wherefore would I my sojourn
In this world prolong?
I would have been long since dead and cold
Had God not embraced me
With his arm,
Which everything warm,
Healthy, and happy makes.
What he does not hold,
That breaks and falls;
Where he brings cheer there is laughter.
Taking up the close of this strophe filled with gentle, warm gratitude, the cantata poet develops a dramatic scenario enriched by powerful Baroque language:
Seht, seht! wie reißt, wie bricht, wie fällt,
Was Gottes starker Arm nicht hält.
Seht aber fest und unbeweglich prangen,
Was unser Held mit seiner Macht umfangen.
Laßt Satan wüten, rasen, krachen,
Der starke Gott wird uns unüberwindlich machen.
Look, look! How rips, breaks, and falls
Whatever God’s strong arm does not hold.
But see it gleam steadily and immovably
Whatever our hero has embraced with his might.
Let Satan rage, rant, and crash,
The strong God will make us invincible.
The ensuing recitative text, urging patience and the avoidance of despondency, paraphrases the sixth and eighth strophes of the chorale source text in a relatively free manner. The beginning of the ninth strophe—“Das Feld kann ohne Ungestüm / Gar keine Früchte tragen” (The field can, without plowing / Bear no fruit at all)—inspires the poet to a second turbulent aria, in which the fertility of the field is compared to the benefits of faith:
Das Brausen von den rauen Winden
Macht, daß wir volle Ähren finden.
Des Kreuzes Ungestüm schafft bei den Christen Frucht,
Drum laßt uns alle unser Leben
Dem weisen Herrscher ganz ergeben.
Küßt seines Sohnes Hand, verehrt die treue Zucht.
The bluster of the rough winds
Makes us find full ears of corn.
The cross’s violence bears fruit among Christians,
Therefore let us all our lives
Surrender fully to the wise ruler.
Kiss his son’s hand, honor his true discipline.
As at the cantata’s beginning, near its end a chorale strophe is expanded with recitative interpolations, although this time the lines of the source text are not so widely separated. The end of this movement seems somewhat unmotivated:
So kann mein Herz nach deinem Willen
Sich, o mein Jesu, selig stillen,
Und ich kann bei gedämpften Saiten
Dem Friedensfürst ein neues Lied bereiten.
Then can my heart according to your will
Quiet itself, O my Jesus, blessedly.
And I can with muted strings
Prepare a new song for the Prince of Peace.
This “neues Lied” (new song), whose text begins “Meinem Hirten bleib ich treu” (I will stay true to my shepherd), proves to be a new version of Paul Gerhardt’s penultimate chorale strophe. The last strophe, unchanged, brings the cantata libretto to a close:
Soll ich denn auch des Todes Weg
Und finstre Straße reisen,
Wohlan! ich tret auf Bahn und Steg,
Den mir dein’ Augen weisen.
Du bist mein Hirt,
Der alles wird
Zu solchem Ende kehren,
Daß ich einmal
In deinem Saal
Dich ewig möge ehren.
Should I then travel even the way of death
And dark streets,
Well then! I walk on road and path
That your eyes point out to me.
You are my shepherd,
Who shall turn all
To such an end
That one day I
In your hall
May honor you forever.
In Johann Sebastian Bach’s composition of this extended text—his only chorale cantata on a hymn by Paul Gerhardt—the first movement adopts the tone “of sincere, even child-like trust in God” so characteristic of Gerhardt’s hymns. The evenly balanced
8 meter, the mildly glowing timbre of the two oboi d’amore, and the soft gesture of chorus and orchestra in which leading motives of the chorale melody are set against one another produce a musical process that is, so to speak, at peace in itself, to which inner drama seems every bit as alien as outward danger. The second movement is more turbulent, as the solo bass voice is torn back and forth between the solidly advancing chorale and the recitative interpolations, which are rich in imagery. Tone painting in the ensuing tenor aria “Seht, seht! wie reißt, wie bricht, wie fällt” is equally vivid, as the first violin with its quick passagework illustrates the legitimacy of the Cassandra-like outcries by the soprano.
The chorale arrangement that follows has a more sedate diction: two oboi d’amore, alto, and basso continuo form a dense quartet texture in which the two woodwind instruments proceed in graceful imitations. As so often in Bach, this is meant symbolically: strict contrapuntal texture stands for the law and the sacrosanct, presented here in the chorale text “Zudem ist Weisheit und Verstand / Bei ihm ohn alle Maßen” (And more, wisdom and understanding / Are with him beyond all measure). A rather unpretentious tenor recitative presents its emphatic admonition to patience only at the end; it is followed by another turbulent aria whose accompaniment is restricted to the basso continuo—which, however, is unrestrained in its raging depiction of “Brausen von den rauhen Winden” (roaring of the wild winds).
In contrast to the second movement of the cantata, which gave the interweaving of chorale and recitative to a single voice, in the seventh movement more elaborate means are deployed: the chorale portions are heard in four voices, and all four voices take part in the recitative interpolations. The transition to the last aria is completed by the solo soprano. The “neues Lied” announced by the solo soprano turns out to be a lovely, tuneful minuet, performed as a duet between soprano and oboe d’amore and grounded by strings that are not “gedämpft” (muted) but rather plucked—a true serenade. Following this intermezzo, a simple four-part setting of the chorale melody that defines the entire cantata—Was mein Gott will, das g’scheh allzeit (What my God wills, may that happen always)—returns to a familiar realm.