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• 1 2023-09-26T09:34:19+00:00 Du sollt Gott, deinen Herren, lieben BWV 77 / BC A 126 11 Thirteenth Sunday After Trinity. First performed 08/22/1723 in Leipzig (Cycle I). Text by JO Knauer. plain 2024-04-29T16:05:07+00:00 1723-08-22 BWV 77 Leipzig 51.340199, 12.360103 05Trinity13 Thirteenth Sunday After Trinity BC A 126 Johann Sebastian Bach JO Knauer Hans-Joachim Schulze, "Du sollt Gott, deinen Herren, lieben, BWV 77 / BC A 126" in Die Bach Kantaten: Einführungen zu sämtlichen Kantaten Johann Sebastian Bachs, (Leipzig: Evangelisches Verlagsanstalt 2007), p. 392 James A. Brokaw II Leipzig I

  Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity, August 22, 1723

  Johann Sebastian Bach wrote the cantata Du sollt Gott, deinen Herren, lieben BWV 77 (You shall love God, your Lord) for the thirteenth Sunday after Trinity during his first year in office as cantor of St. Thomas School in Leipzig. The beginning of its text refers to the Gospel reading for the Sunday, Jesus’s telling of the parable of the good Samaritan in Luke 10:

  And behold, a scribe stood up, tempted him and spoke: Master, what must I do, that I may inherit eternal life? He however said to him: How is it written in the law? How do you read? He answered and spoke: “You shall love God, your Lord, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might, and with all your mind and your neighbor as yourself.” He, however, spoke to him: You have answered correctly: Do that, and you will live. He, however, wanted to justify himself and spoke to Jesus: Who then is my neighbor? Then Jesus answered and spoke: There was a man who went from Jerusalem down to Jericho and fell among murderers; they stripped him and beat him and fled, leaving him half dead. It came to pass by chance that a priest came down the same road; and as he saw him, he passed by. A Levite did the same thing; as he came to the place and saw him, he passed by. A Samaritan, however, was traveling and came to the place; and as he saw him he wept for his sake, went to him, bound his wounds and poured oil and wine in them, and lifted him upon his beast and led him to the inn and took care of him. . . . Which, do you think, among these three may have been the neighbor to the one who had fallen among murderers? He spoke: The one who showed mercy upon him. Then Jesus spoke to him: Then go forth and do likewise. (25–34, 36–37)

  
  Scholars have only recently been able to discover the origins of the cantata text.¹ Bach took it from a collection printed in Gotha with the title GOtt-geheiligtes Singen und Spielen des Friedensteinischen Zions, nach allen und jeden Sonn- und Fest-Tages-Evangelien, vor und nach der Predigt angestellet vom Advent 1720 bis dahin 1721. These texts were distributed fairly widely and enjoyed high regard. The author of the annual cycle of texts was Johann Oswald Knauer, born in Schleiz in 1690 and brother-in-law to the court music director at Gotha, Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel. Bach did not adopt the libretto uncritically. The most obvious difference is that Bach used only the second half of Knauer’s text, which has two sections with many movements. Even there, however, much in Bach’s cantata is rearranged, tightened, or reformulated in comparison to the printed text. 
  
  No change was made to the words of Jesus taken from Luke, which in turn can be traced back to Leviticus and Deuteronomy: “Du sollt Gott, deinen Herren, lieben von ganzem Herzen, von ganzer Seele, von allen Kräften und von ganzem Gemüte und deinen Nächsten als dich selbst” (Deuteronomy 10:12; You shall love God, your Lord, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your powers and all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself). In Knauer this is followed by “Hier hast du den Gesetz, das Gott dir vorgeschrieben: / Du sollst zuförderst Gott, und dann den Nächsten lieben” (Here you have the law, which God has required of you: / You shall love God above all, and then your neighbor). Bach omits this well-intentioned interpolation, meant as a clarification, and avoids Knauer’s interleaving of aria and recitative. He proceeds directly to the recitative and aria, which focus on the love of God. The recitative begins: “So muß es sein! Gott will das Herz vor sich alleine haben” (So it must be! God will have my heart for himself alone). It closes with the lines:

  Als wenn er das Gemüte,
  Durch seinen Geist entzündt
  Weil wir nur seiner Huld und Güte 
  Alsdenn erst recht versichert sind.
  
  Than when he the mind
  Through his spirit enkindles,
  For we, of his favor and goodness,
  Only then are truly assured.

  
  In Knauer it is more concise but also differently accentuated:

  Als wenn er das Gemüte
  Mit seiner Kraft entzünd,
  Weil wir dann seiner Güte
  Erst recht versichert sind.
  
  Than when he the mind
  With his power enkindles,
  For we then of his goodness
  Truly are assured.

  
  The aria continues this train of thought; its text begins: “Mein Gott, ich liebe dich von Herzen, / Mein ganzes Leben hangt dir an” (My God, I love you with all my heart, / My entire life depends on you).
  
  With the pair of movements that follow, the librettist turns his attention to the love of one’s neighbor while keeping the parable of the good Samaritan in view:

  Gib mir dabei, mein Gott, ein Samariterherz,
  Daß ich zugleich den Nächsten liebe
  Und mich bei seinem Schmerz 
  Auch über ihn betrübe.
  
  Grant me besides, my God, a Samaritan’s heart
  That I may at once love my neighbor
  And, in his pain,
  Also be distressed for him.

  
  At the close, the recitative in Bach’s cantata deviates slightly from Knauer’s text: “So wirst du mir dereinst das Freudenleben / Nach meinem Wunsch, jedoch aus Gnaden geben” (Then you will one day grant me the life of joy / According to my wish, yet out of grace). The ensuing remorseful aria strophe shows that the way there is not smooth but remains rocky and thorny: 

  Ach es bleibt in meiner Liebe
  Lauter Unvollkommenheit!
  Hab ich oftmals gleich den Willen,
  Was Gott saget, zu erfüllen,
  Fehlt mir’s doch an Möglichkeit.
  
  Ah, there remains in my love
  Such glaring imperfection!
  Though I often have the desire,
  What God says, to fulfill,
  Yet I lack the possibility.

  
  In the printed libretto, the conclusion is somewhat vague: “Doch das Gute zu erfüllen / Fehlet mir zu jederzeit” (But to fulfill the good / I am unable at any time). The version composed by Bach is, as elsewhere, more powerful and precise. Knauer’s libretto concludes with the last two strophes from Luther’s 1524 chorale Dies sind die heilgen zehn Gebot (These are the holy Ten Commandments). But remarkably, Bach decided against this plan. His score contains a chorale movement without text as well as the chorale strophe, added by a different hand, “Du stellst, mein Jesu, selber dich / Zum Vorbild wahrer Liebe” (You present yourself, Lord Jesus, / As a model of true love), the eighth strophe from David Denickes’s 1657 hymn Wenn einer alle Ding verstünd (If one understood all things). Long thought to be an unauthorized entry in the score, it has recently been identified as the work of Bach’s second-youngest son, Johann Christoph Friedrich, who may have taken it from the original performance parts.²
  
  More than any other part of Bach’s composition, the opening chorus has inspired analysts and exegetists to ever newer and bolder interpretations.³ These proceed from the fact that the words of Jesus at the beginning, given to the chorus in a dense, motet-like texture, are framed by a canonic cantus firmus, performed by the trumpets in small note values and by the bass in long notes. Musically, this recalls the opening chorus of the cantata Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott BWV 80 (A mighty fortress is our God), in which the four-part, motet-like arrangement is bordered by an instrumental canon between the oboes and the bass. In the cantata Du sollt Gott deinen Herren, lieben, this appears to be motivated in several respects. First, the Luther hymn about the holy Ten Commandments belongs to the de tempore hymns for the thirteenth Sunday after Trinity and is called for in Knauer’s libretto; Bach thus had several reasons to compensate for his avoidance of this conclusion for the cantata. Second, a concordant understanding of the Bible in Bach’s era can be assumed,⁴ which means that the Sunday Gospel reading and parallel passages can be understood side by side. In Matthew it reads, regarding the commandments of love of neighbor and God, “In diesen zwei Geboten hanget das ganze Gesetz und die Propheten” (The entire law and the prophets depend upon these two commandments). The two-part canon could thus be understood to symbolize the two commandments, whereby “canon” is understood literally as “law” and “regulation.”
  
  But rash conclusions can set in all too easily here. Philipp Spitta, the unerring nineteenth-century biographer and analyst of Bach, had already recognized that

  a working out in strict canon form between the instrumental bass and trumpet was inadmissible, since, in the first place, neither the value of the notes nor the intervals are the same; and, in the second place, the trumpet repeats the first line after each of the others in order to emphasise very expressly the words “These ten are God’s most holy laws”; finally, the whole melody is repeated once more straight through above an organ point on G. This playing with fragments of the melody, so to speak, rather points to the influence of the Northern school.⁵

  
  There is little to be added: few options were open to Bach other than to repeat the upper voice, moving in short note values, several times in order to even out the lead gained by the cantus firmus bass part, moving in large note values. But he made good use of the leeway he thus gained: a combination of luck and skill allowed the count of repetitions to equal exactly ten, so that the phrase “heilgen zehn Gebot” received symbolic emphasis. It does not follow from this, however, that this integration of number symbolism is natural and immanent in music. Achieving a particular numeric level is normally bound with curtailing purely musical aspects. In any case, this is how Philipp Spitta’s gentle criticism of the first movement’s structure is to be understood.
  
  The remaining cantata movements are easily characterized. The aria for soprano and—perhaps—two oboes is characterized by the constant parallel voice leading in sixths and thirds in the instruments, which, with its absolute rigor, is meant to embody the permanence of God’s love. However, the aria for alto and obbligato slide trumpet, “Ach es bleibt in meiner Liebe / Lauter Unvollkommenheit!” remains ruminative and self-tormenting. The surprising answer is provided by the simple concluding chorale on the melody Ach Gott, vom Himmel sieh darein (Ah, God, look down from heaven), with its keyword connection: “Du stellst, mein Jesu, selber dich / Zum Vorbild wahrer Liebe” (You present yourself, my Jesus, / As a model of true love).

  ---

  Footnotes

  1. Krausse (1981).↵
  2. Wollny (2001a).↵
  3. Schering (1925); Dadelsen (1983). For criticism, see Schulze (2001), Schulze (2002c).↵
  4. Petzoldt (2004), as well as numerous individual studies by the same author.↵
  5. Spitta (1899, 2:429–31).—Trans.↵