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• 1 2023-09-26T09:32:58+00:00 Ich stehe mit einem Fuß im Grab BWV 156 / BC A 38 16 Third Sunday after Epiphany. First performed 01/23/1729 in Leipzig (Cycle IV). Text by CF Henrici (Picander). plain 2024-04-24T18:01:44+00:00 1729-1-23 BWV 156 Leipzig 51.340199, 12.360103 14Epiphany3 Third Sunday after Epiphany BC A 38 Johann Sebastian Bach CF Henrici (Picander) Hans-Joachim Schulze, "Ich stehe mit einem FuÄ im Grab, BWV 156 / BC A 38" in Die Bach Kantaten: Einführungen zu sämtlichen Kantaten Johann Sebastian Bachs, (Leipzig: Evangelisches Verlagsanstalt 2007), p. 121 James A. Brokaw II Leipzig IV

  Third Sunday after Epiphany, January 26, 1727 or January 23, 1729

  
  The cantata Ich stehe mit einem Fuß im Grabe BWV 156 (I stand with one foot in the grave) presumably originated in early 1729. Its text is the work of the Leipzig mail clerk and later tax collector Christian Friedrich Henrici, and it first appeared in his collection entitled Cantaten auf die Sonn- und Fest-Tage durch das gantze Jahr, verfertiget durch Picandern. Leipzig, 1728 (Cantatas for the Sundays and holidays of the entire year, prepared by Picander. Leipzig, 1728). Following the custom of the day, the adept and gifted lyricist adopted the pseudonym Picander when he began writing poetry; it can be traced back as far as the early 1720s, while the earliest evidence of his collaboration with Johann Sebastian Bach is in 1725. We cannot know whether Bach, having had mostly positive experience with his librettist, decided to ask his “house poet” for an entire annual cycle of cantata texts. In any case, Picander included an unmistakable, broad hint in the foreword to his volume: “To honor God, in response to the desire of good friends, and to promote much devotion, I have decided to prepare the present cantatas. I have undertaken this plan even more happily, since I may flatter myself that perhaps whatever is lacking in poetic charm will be replaced by the loveliness of the incomparable Herr Music Director Bach and will resound in the most important churches of devout Leipzig.”¹ Picander’s self-effacing reference to “the lack of poetic charm” (der Mangel der poetischen Anmuth) and his hope for possible compensation by the “loveliness” (Lieblichkeit) of compositions by Bach were not unique for the era. In 1727, a year before the publication of Picander’s Leipzig cycle of texts, the Hamburg poet Matthäus Arnold Wilkens remarked in the foreword to a Passion text prepared for Johann Paul Kuntzen: “Otherwise the shortcomings of these poems, mostly completed in haste, will be compensated by the musical poetry of Herr Kunzen.”² In contrast to the certainty expressed here, in Henrici/Picander’s case there was only a “perhaps”—and whether Bach did him the favor of setting all, or mostly all, of the texts to music remains uncertain. At the moment we have evidence of only ten of the nearly sixty potential compositions, and several of these are only fragmentary. At least the manner of transmission of these ten cantatas and cantata fragments leaves open the possibility that Bach composed still more works using the texts of 1728, that they were passed on to a single heir (perhaps Wilhelm Friedemann Bach), and that each and every one of them was later lost. Karl Friedrich Zelter, building contractor in Berlin and longtime director of the Sing-Akademie there, unintentionally wrote an obituary for these lost works by Bach when he wrote his friend Goethe, “If a contemporary composer wanted to set a poem of Picander’s to music, he would have to cross and bless himself.”³
  
  Picander’s “poem” for the third Sunday after Epiphany has only a distant relation to the Gospel reading of the Sunday, found in Matthew 8, which recounts the healing of a leper and a gout-ridden man. Without directly mentioning this account, the poet generally focuses his thoughts on illness and death, surrender to God’s will, and the challenges and consolations of faith. At the beginning of his libretto, Picander places an interleaving of texts favored by the era, in which normally the lines of a traditional chorale are interspersed with free poetry that comments upon the older text in a kind of intellectual counterpoint. The chorale text chosen here comes from the Kantional (hymnbook) by the Leipzig cantor of St. Thomas Johann Hermann Schein, which appeared in the first third of the seventeenth century:

  Machs mit mir, Gott, nach deiner Güt,
  Hilf mir in meinen Leiden,
  Was ich dich bitt, versag mir nicht.
  Wenn sich mein Seel soll scheiden,
  So nimm sie, Herr in deinen Händ.
  Ist alles gut, wenn gut das End.
  
  Deal with me, God, according to your goodness,
  Help me in my suffering,
  What I ask of you, do not deny me.
  When my soul shall depart,
  So take it, Lord, in your hands.
  All is good, if the end is good.

  
  To this, Picander added his newly versified lines:

  Ich steh mit einem Fuß im Grabe,
  Bald fällt der kranke Leib hinein.
  Komm, lieber Gott, wenn dirs gefällt,
  Ich habe schon mein Haus bestellt,
  Nur laß mein Ende selig sein.
  
  I stand with one foot in the grave,
  Soon the ailing body will fall in.
  Come, dear God, if it pleases you,
  I have already put my house in order,
  Only let my end be blessed.

  
  In this chorale-aria, Picander did not attempt the tour de force sometimes seen at the time, in which the interpolated lines of the recitative are woven into the rhyme scheme of the original chorale and, furthermore, the components form expanded, rational verse structures. In this case, the text begins with the unrhymed title line, “Ich steh mit einem Fuß im Grabe,” with the beginning of the chorale coming only afterward, so that the sequence of components suggests that the chorale is intended to comment on the newer poetry, not the reverse, in spite of the order in which they were written.
  
  Surrender to God’s will, the finiteness of earthly existence, the plea for forgiveness of sins and for a blessed death: after the complex beginning, this is the world of ideas in the movements that follow. The beginning of the first recitative reads:

  Mein Angst und Not,
  Mein Leben und mein Tod
  Steht, liebster Gott, in deinen Händen.
  
  My fear and distress,
  My life and my death
  Stand, dear God, in your hands.

  
  Later, in allusion to the Gospel reading for the Sunday:

  Willst du mich meiner Sünden wegen
  Ins Krankenbette lege,
  Mein Gott, so bitt ich dich, 
  Laß deine Güte größer sein als die Gerechtigkeit.
  
  If you wish, because of my sins,
  To lay me in a sickbed,
  My God, so I ask you,
  Let your goodness be greater than righteousness.

  
  The ensuing aria is a paraphrase of the chorale strophe “Herr, wie du willt, so schicks mit mir”:

  Herr, was du willt, soll mir gefallen,
  Weil doch dein Rat am besten gilt.
  In der Freude,
  In dem Leide, 
  Im Sterben, in Bitten und Flehn
  Laß mir allemal geschehn,
  Herr, wie du willt.
  
  Lord, whatever you will, shall please me,
  Since your advice is known to be best.
  In joy,
  In suffering,
  In death, in prayer, in pleading,
  Let happen to me at all times,
  Lord, as you will.

  
  Freedom from illness—in other words, forgiveness of sins and preservation of the soul—is the plea of the last recitative:

  Nimm sie [die Seele] durch Geist und Wort in acht,
  Denn dieses ist mein Heil, 
  Und wenn mir Leib und Seel verschmacht’,
  So bist du Gott, mein Trost und meines Herzens Teil.
  
  Take heed of it [the soul] through spirit and word,
  For this is my salvation,
  And when my body and soul fail,
  Then you, God, are my consolation and my heart’s portion.

  
  The closing lines are nearly identical to a verse from Psalm 73, which reads in part: “Wenn mir gleich Leib und Seele verschmachtet, so bist du, Gott, allezeit meines Herzens Trost und mein Teil” (26; My flesh and my heart may fail, but you, God, are the strength of my heart and my portion forever). The libretto’s finale is provided by the first strophe of Kaspar Bienemann’s 1582 hymn:

  Herr, wie du willt, so schicks mit mir
  Im Leben und im Sterben! 
  Allein zu dir steht mein Begier,
  Herr, laß mich nicht verderben!
  Erhalt mich nur in deiner Huld,
  Sonst wie du willt, gib mir Geduld,
  Dein Will der ist der beste.
  
  Lord, as you will, so dispose things for me,
  In living and in dying!
  In you alone lies my desire,
  Lord, do not let me perish!
  Only keep me in your favor,
  Otherwise, as you will, grant me patience,
  Your will: it is the best. 

  
  Bach’s composition of this relatively short libretto places an independent instrumental movement before the opening chorale arrangement, an Adagio for oboe and strings in F major. In somewhat modified form, this movement, in A-flat major, with the tempo marking Largo, forms the middle movement of the Concerto in F Minor for Cembalo and Orchestra BWV 1056. By all appearances, both of these go back to an original version, a concerto for oboe, whose movements Bach used in various church cantatas so that they at least still exist today in revised form. The expressive cantilena of the oboe is supported in this Adagio by a rhythmically complementary accompaniment of strings and basso continuo. Here, the performance in pizzicato throughout would seem to be appropriate, evoking the tolling of funeral bells.
  
  Tone painting and tone symbolism are clearly features of the first vocal movement, a quartet for soprano, tenor, an obbligato part comprising all the high string instruments, and continuo. Long, sustained tones illustrate “stehen” (standing); weighted, downward-directed figures point to “Grabe” (grave); collapsing motions depict the “fallen” (falling) of the “kranke Leib” (ailing body). Similar musical imagery fills the entire aria. In addition, honoring the poet’s intention, the tenor is placed at the top of the musical progression with the text “Ich stehe mit einem Fuß im Grabe.” Undeterred, the soprano nevertheless inserts the chorale melody into the contrapuntal texture, so that, in spite of the aria components’ claim to leadership, the impression of a chorale arrangement predominates.
  
  Surrounded by two recitatives for bass, the second aria is also a quartet: oboe, violin, alto, and basso continuo combine to form a densely woven texture in which the energetic head motive seems ever present. The beginning of the text provides an explanation for this: “Herr, was du willt, soll mir gefallen” (Lord, whatever you will shall please me). Surrender to God’s will is to be understood as law; and Bach prefers to associate such techniques as canon, fugue, or at least imitation with the idea of the law. Imitation, sometimes strict, sometimes free, but obviously meant to be symbolic, is the predominant feature of the aria (with the exception of the basso continuo). The continuo adopts a rather neutral, accompanying role, perhaps as Bach’s concession to the change of taste emerging around 1730. The cantata’s conclusion is, as usual, provided by a simple four-part chorale movement on the sixteenth-century melody to Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir (Out of deep distress I cry out to you), which has roots in the pre-Reformation.

  ---

  Footnotes

  1. “Gott zu Ehren, dem Verlangen guter Freunde zur Folge und vieler Andacht zur Beförderung habe ich entschlossen, gegenwärtige Cantaten zu verfertigen. Ich habe solches Vorhaben desto lieber unternommen, weil ich mir schmeicheln darf, da vielleicht der Mangel der poetischen Anmuth durch die Lieblichkeit des unvergleichlichen Herrn Capell-Meisters Bachs, dürfte ersetzet, und diese Lieder in den Haupt-Kirchen des andächtigen Leipzigs angestimmet werden” (Häfner 1975).↵
  2. “Übrigens werden die Mängel der großenteils eilfertig angefertigten Poesie durch die musikalische Poesie des Herrn Kunzen genugsam ersetzt werden” (Hörner 1933, 61).↵
  3. “Wenn ein heutiger Componist ein Picander’sches Gedicht in Musik setzen wollte, er müßte sich kreuzigen und segnen.”—Trans.↵