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Commentaries on the Cantatas of Johann Sebastian Bach: An Interactive Companion

Was frag ich nach der Welt BWV 94 / BC A 115

Ninth Sunday after Trinity, August 6, 1724

This cantata belongs to Bach’s chorale cantata annual cycle; it originated in early August 1724. It is for the ninth Sunday after Trinity, whose Gospel lesson is found in Luke 16 and contains Jesus’s parable of the unrighteous steward:

He, however, spoke to his disciples: There was a rich man who had a steward of whom it was rumored that he had wasted his goods. And he called him and spoke to him: How is it that I hear this of you? Give me an account of your stewardship, for henceforth you cannot be my steward! The steward said to himself: What shall I do? My lord has taken away my job; I cannot dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I am resolved to do that, if I am now discharged from my job, so that they take me into their homes. And he called all debtors to his lord and spoke to the first one: How much do you owe my lord? He spoke: A hundred casks of oil. And he spoke to him: Take your letter, sit down quickly, and write fifty. Then he spoke to the other: You, however, how much do you owe? He said a hundred bushels of wheat. And he said to him: Take your letter and write eighty. And the lord praised the unrighteous steward, that he had dealt cleverly; for the children of this world are more clever than the children of the light in their generation. And I say to you: Make friends with unrighteous mammon so that when you fail, they may take you into the eternal dwellings. (1–9)


Balthasar Kindermann’s 1664 hymn Was frag ich nach der Welt (What do I ask of the world) and the Bach cantata text derived from it six decades later belong to the interpretive history of this parable recounted by Luke. Its wording deserves thorough reflection and careful examination. One must avoid the impression that Jesus means to praise the steward, who tries to escape the consequences of his embezzlement through deceit. Hence the interpretive tradition points to the intended recognition of “great speed, nimble cunning, and wise reflection”—meaning “the wisdom of the Christian to appear before God having done penance in a timely fashion” and “the prudence to look after eternal salvation with all the speed and shrewdness with which the children of this world seek their temporal well-being.” Similarly, it must not seem that one might gain heaven through good works alone. It instead concerns the Christian’s wisdom in dealing with impermanent goods, the “unrighteous mammon” that is not the true good. This is the subject of Kindermann’s hymn and the cantata text derived from it by an unknown author: “Its pervasive, multifariously varied theme is the opposition between the love of the world and that of Jesus; of the earthly, the transitory, and of the eternal.” Hymnaries of the eighteenth century assign the chorale Was frag ich nach der Welt to the chapter “Von der Welt Eitelkeit und menschlicher Mühseligkeit” (Of the vanity of the world and human hardship) and indicate its source, two verses from Psalm 73: “Wenn ich nur dich habe, so frage nichts nach Himmel und Erde. Wenn mir gleich Leib und Seele verschmachtet, so bist du doch, Gott, allezeit meines Herzens Trost und mein Teil” (25–26; If only I have you, I need ask nothing of heaven and earth. If both my body and soul fail, then you, God, are forever the strength of my heart and my portion).

As usual in Bach’s chorale cantatas, the opening strophe is brought over to the cantata text without change: 

Was frag ich nach der Welt
Und allen ihren Schätzen,
Wenn ich mich nur an dir,
Mein Jesu, kann ergötzen.
Dich hab ich einzig mir
Zur Wollust fürgestellt,
Du, du bist meine Ruh:
Was frag ich nach der Welt!

What do I ask of the world
And all its treasures
If I, only in you,
My Jesus, can take delight.
You alone have I imagined
For my pleasure,
You, you are my repose:
What do I ask of the world!


Similarly, the final two strophes of Kindermann’s poem, unchanged, form the conclusion of the cantata libretto. Some of the remaining five strophes were recast to become arias; others retained their original wording but were expanded with commentary in the form of interpolated, freely versified lines of recitative. Thus the third movement, a recitative, begins with two verses from Kindermann’s third strophe: 

Die Welt sucht Ehr und Ruhm
Bei hocherbabnen Leuten.

The world seeks honor and fame
Among highly exalted people.


It then continues: 

Ein Stolzer baut die prächtigsten Paläste,
Er sucht das höchste Ehrenamt,
Er kleidet sich aufs beste
In Purpur, Gold, in Silber, Seid und Samt.
Sein Name soll für allen
In jedem Teil der Welt erschallen.
Sein Hochmuts-Turm
Soll durch die Luft bis an die wolken dringen,
Er trachtet nur nach hohen Dingen.

A proud man builds the most opulent palaces, 
He seeks the post of highest honor,
He clothes himself with the best
In purple, gold, in silver, silk, and velvet.
His name has to be heard by everyone
In every part of the world.
His tower of arrogant vanity
Must penetrate the air up to the clouds, 
He aims only for high things.


The recitative then continues with the chorale verses: 

Und denkt nicht einmal dran,
Wie bald doch diese gleiten.

And does not even once consider
How quickly such things pass.


The second movement of the cantata provides a classic example of the recasting of a chorale strophe to become an aria text. Kindermann’s verse is short and concise: 

Die Welt ist wie ein Rauch,
Der in der Luft vergehet,
Und einem Schatten gleich,
Der kurze Zeit bestehet,
Mein Jesus aber bleibt, 
Wenn alles bricht und fällt,
Er ist mein starker Fels,
Was frag ich nach der Welt?

The world is like a cloud of smoke
That vanishes in air
And is like a shadow
That only lasts a short time.
My Jesus, however, abides
When everything breaks and falls. 
He is my powerful rock.
What do I ask of the world?


Eloquently, although not entirely rich in ideas, the cantata poet writes: 

Die Welt ist wie ein Rauch und Schatten,
Der bald verschwindet und vergeht,
Weil sie nur kurze Zeht besteht
Wenn aber alles fällt und bricht, 
Bleibt Jesus meine Zuversicht,
An dem sich mein e Seele hält.
Darum: was frag ich nach der Welt!

The world is like smoke and shadow,
That soon vanishes and passes away, 
Since it lasts only a short time.
When, however, everything falls and breaks,
Jesus remains my confidence,
To which my soul holds fast.
Therefore, what do I ask of the world?


As always, Bach’s composition of this wide-ranging libretto places particular weight upon the opening movement. As is typical for its genre, it combines the chorale melody in large note values in the soprano with motet-like counterpoint or supporting chords in the other voices, along with an independent concerted orchestral part. In this case, a flute is juxtaposed to the subtle, closely woven texture of two oboes coupled with the strings. The flute conforms only partially to the thematic structure; whenever possible it soars to soloistic preeminence. It becomes clear how problematic if not impossible it is to represent a negative entity musically, such as in Kindermann’s first strophe. Instead, the music elucidates what is seen critically—here, the world with all its treasure—as if it were meant positively, as if one could, so to speak, place a negative sign before the composition as a whole.

In the second movement, the first aria, this path is abandoned for the moment; the voice, the solo bass, is accompanied only by the basso continuo, which for its part does without the participation of the organ. A restless back-and-forth of scales and downward-directed arpeggios is clearly focused on the opening lines “Die Welt ist wie ein Rauch und Schatten, / Der bald verschwindet und vergeht” (The world is like smoke and shadow, / That soon vanishes and passes away); the composer may have had an instable, shadowy timbral image for the accompanying part in mind. In the fourth movement as well, an alto aria with obbligato flute, the composition hews closely to the text as key words such as “betörte Welt” (deluded world), “Betrug” (deceit), and “falscher Schein” (false appearance) are the occasion for unexpected melodic and harmonic divergences, which are strikingly absent later when the text reads, “Ich will dafür mein Jesum wählen” (I will instead choose my Jesus).

In the sixth movement, an aria for tenor and strings, the text once again presents a negative statement that would not necessarily suggest a harmonic full sonority.

Die Welt kann ihre Lust und Freud,
Das Blendwerk schnöder Eitelkeit,
Nicht hoch genug erhöhen.

The world’s pleasures and its joy,
The deception of contemptible vanity,
It cannot exalt highly enough.


Even so, it seems possible that the apparently ideal world of the dance-like, animated movement in its deliberate lack of conflict is meant as a musical realization of “Blendwerk” (deception). In the same fashion, parts of the penultimate cantata movement, an aria for soprano with obbligato oboe d’amore, are to be understood figuratively. The text begins: 

Es halt es mit der blinden Welt, 
Wer nichts auf seine Seele hält,
Mir ekelt vor der Erden.

Let him keep to the blind world
Who cares nothing for his soul. 
I am sickened by the earth.


It is connected with a melody that—in the words of Arnold Schering—“is none other than one of those cheeky Bourrees as found among the French, in the ‘Musikalischen Rüstkammer’ and in Sperontes.1 Whether Bach made use of a quotation cannot be established; the melody is probably his own. With all the crude vividness of a nondescript pop hit, it mocks not only the galante servility to fashion of the era, but—with its static bass—it taunts the artlessness of such a superficial way of making music.” Schering correctly noted in his reflections, published in 1933,2 that the figurative meaning of the music transitions to the actual meaning after a few measures when the text speaks of being “sickened by the world.” Several of the preceding movements are similarly Janus-faced; one wonders what Bach’s contemporaries may have made of such provocative ambivalence (anspruchsvoller Ambivalenz). In any case, they would have had to bear a certain amount of uneasiness until the simple closing chorale led them back to familiar territories. 

Footnotes

  1. The Musikalischen Rüstkammer, auff der Harffe aus allerhand schönen und lustigen Arien, Menuetten, Sarabanden, Giguen und Märschen, bestehend aus allen Thonen (Musical armory, on the harp, from all sorts of beautiful and funny arias, minuets, sarabands, gigues, and marches in all keys) was published in Leipzig in 1719.—Trans.
  2. Schering (1933, 66–70).—Trans.

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