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• 1 2023-09-26T09:34:19+00:00 Siehe zu, daß deine Gottesfurcht nicht Heuchelei sei BWV 179 / BC A 121 6 Eleventh Sunday After Trinity. First performed 08/08/1723 in Leipzig (Cycle I). plain 2024-04-24T17:33:54+00:00 1723-08-08 BWV 179 Leipzig 51.340199, 12.360103 05Trinity11 Eleventh Sunday After Trinity BC A 121 Johann Sebastian Bach Hans-Joachim Schulze, "Siehe zu, dass deine Gottesfurcht nicht Heuchelei sei, BWV 179 / BC A 121" in Die Bach Kantaten: Einführungen zu sämtlichen Kantaten Johann Sebastian Bachs, (Leipzig: Evangelisches Verlagsanstalt 2007), p. 377 James A. Brokaw II Leipzig I

  Eleventh Sunday after Trinity, August 8, 1723

  Johann Sebastian Bach composed the cantata Siehe zu, daß deine Gottesfurcht nicht Heuchelei sei BWV 179 (See to it that your fear of God not be hypocrisy) in early August 1723; it is for the eleventh Sunday after Trinity. The Gospel reading for this Sunday is found in Luke 18 and recounts the parable of the Pharisees and the tax collector: 

  He, however, spoke such a parable to several who presumed themselves to be pious and scorned the others. Two people went up to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed to himself thusly: I thank you, God, that I am not like the other people, robbers, unrighteous, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast two times a week and give a tenth of all that I have. And the tax collector stood at a distance, did not want to lift his eyes up to heaven, but rather struck his breast and spoke: God be gracious to me, a sinner! I say to you: This one went to his home justified rather than the other. For he who exalts himself, he shall be humbled, and he who humbles himself shall be exalted. (9–14)

  
  This cantata’s text, the work of an unknown author, takes up this parable. The structure of the libretto follows a model favored among Bach’s cantatas: a biblical passage at the beginning, followed by two recitative-aria pairs and a closing chorale. The biblical passage is drawn from one of the apocryphal books of the Hebrew Bible, the book of Sirach, whose opening chapter praises fear of the Lord as “the beginning of wisdom” and “the true divine service”: “Siehe zu, daß deine Gottesfurcht nicht Heuchelei sei, und diene Gott nicht mit falschem Herzen” (1:29; See to it that your fear of God be not hypocrisy, and do not serve your God with a false heart). The librettist reacts to this terse and earnest admonition with a severe sermon that in its zeal for true faith indulges a tendency to polemic and doctrine while disdaining poetic inspiration:

  Das heutge Christentum
  Ist leider schlecht bestellt;
  Die meisten Christen in der Welt
  Sind laulichte Laodicäer
  Und aufgeblasne Pharisäer,
  Die sich von außen fromm bezeigen
  Und wie ein Schilf den Kopf zur Erde beugen. 
  Im Herzen aber steckt ein stolzer Eigenruhm;
  Sie gehen zwar in Gottes Haus
  Und tun daselbst die äußerlichen Pflichten,
  Macht aber dies wohl einen Christen aus?
  Nein, Heuchler könnens auch verrichten.
  
  The Christianity of today
  Is sadly in a bad way;
  Most Christians in the world
  Are lukewarm Laodiceans
  And puffed-up Pharisees
  Who outwardly display their piety
  And, like a reed, bow their head to Earth.
  But in their hearts there hides a prideful self-admiration;
  Indeed, they enter the House of God
  And themselves are seen to do their duties,
  But does this really make one a Christian?
  No, hypocrites can perform that as well.

  
  The aria associated with this recitative uses language that is just as strong and draws upon the familiar comparison with the so-called apple of Sodom. What is meant here is the fruit of a desert shrub that outwardly resembles the apples of paradise yet is inwardly unpalatable. These apples are mentioned as early as Tacitus and the Jewish historian Josephus and were long regarded as remnants of the devastation of Sodom:

  Falscher Heuchler Ebenbild
  Können Sodomsapfel heißen,
  Die mit Unflat angefüllt
  Und von außen herrlicht gleißen.
  Heuchler, die von außen schön,
  Können nicht vor Gott bestehn.
  
  False hypocrites, as seen reflected,
  Can be called Sodom’s apples,
  Which are filled with filth
  And from without glisten gloriously.
  Hypocrites, those who, beautiful from without,
  Cannot endure before God.

  
  In his second recitative, the librettist places the ideal articulated in the Gospel against this broadly drawn negative image:

  Wer so von innen wie von außen ist,
  Der heißt ein wahrer Christ.
  So war der Zöllner in dem Tempel, 
  Der schlug in Demut an die Brust,
  Er legte sich nicht selbst ein heilig Wesen bei;
  Und diese stelle dir,
  O Mensch, zu rühmlichen Exempel
  In deiner Buße für.
  
  Whoever inwardly is as he is outwardly,
  He is truly a Christian.
  As was the publican in the Temple
  Who in humility beat his breast,
  He did not ascribe to himself a holy nature;
  And hold this before you,
  O man, as an admirable example
  In your penance.

  
  At the close, a request is issued:

  Bekenne Gott in Demut deine Sünden,
  So kannst du Gnad und Hilfe finden!
  
  Confess to God in humility your sins,
  So that you may find grace and help!

  
  The associated aria provides the confession. The drastic, graphic simile it includes goes back to the prophet Habakkuk:

  Liebster Gott, erbarme dich,
  Laß mir Trost und Gnad erscheinen!
  Meine Sünden kränken mich
  Als ein Eiter in Gebeinen,
  Hilf mir, Jesu, Gottes Lamm,
  Ich versink im tiefen Schlamm.
  
  Dear God, have mercy,
  Let consolation and grace appear to me!
  My sins afflict me
  Like a purulence in my bones.
  Help me, Jesus, lamb of God,
  I am sinking in deep mire.

  
  The opening strophe from a chorale written by Christoph Tietze in 1663 closes the libretto:

  Ich armer Mensch, ich armer Sünder
  Steh hier vor Gottes Angesicht.
  Ach Gott, ach Gott, verfahr gelinder
  Und geh nicht mit mir ins Gericht!
  Erbarme dich, erbarme dich,
  Gott, mein Erbarmer, über mich!
  
  I, poor man, I, poor sinner,
  Stand here before God’s countenance.
  Ah God, ah God, deal more leniently
  And do not enter judgment with me!
  Have mercy, have mercy,
  God, my merciful one, upon me!

  
  The biblical passage from Sirach with its predominantly negative tone renders it highly problematic in regard to music. It is clothed by Bach in the form of a Spruchmotette, a motet that sets a single Bible verse in a freestanding vocal movement with colla parte instrumentation and a partially independent basso continuo. Bach’s choice of fugue as a form matches the gravity of the textual statement; it is here further compressed through a technique known as “counterfugue,” in which each statement of the subject is answered in inversion. Intensifying half-tone steps, together with the words “mit falschem Herzen” (with a false heart), move into the foreground in a canonic episode at the beginning of the middle third of the movement. In 1738 Bach transposed the rigorous and concentrated choral movement and retexted it as the Kyrie eleison for inclusion in his Mass in G Major BWV 263. It was in this version that the Berlin theorist Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg became acquainted with the work. In his Abhandlung von der Fuge (Treatise on fugue), which appeared in 1753–54, Marpurg printed the piece in its entirety and honored it with a rigorous analysis that begins with the words “it is enough that one knows the name of its famous composer to regard it as an exemplar of its type.”¹
  
  In the first aria, for tenor, Bach depicts the purely external brilliance of the Sodom’s apple, symbolizing hypocrisy, with a subtly differentiated theme that seems above suspicion. It is given at first to the leading obbligato part, comprising oboe and first violin. In the sense of the negative judgment outlined in the text, the theme’s persuasive manner is immediately exposed and counteracted by its own vain, preening, syncopated figures.
  
  The second recitative, with its invitation to confession of sins and atonement, is, like the first, restricted to voice and basso continuo. But the richer musical structuring here nevertheless indicates that the composer was able to identify more strongly with this textual statement than the other. 
  
  The second aria distinguishes itself from the first in a similar fashion: the pleading, poignant gestures of the voice with its “Liebster Gott, erbarme dich” and the two oboi da caccia, every bit the voice’s equal, leave no doubt as to the truthfulness of the text. This closely worked movement was also used later in another work. In 1738 it found its way into the Mass in A Major BWV 234 as the Qui tollis, transposed, with flutes instead of oboi da caccia and with the bassetto foundation instead of the basso continuo.
  
  In the closing chorale, the lower voices are unusually animated: the alto at the beginning and the tenor and bass near the end. Clearly, in order to compensate for the rather monotonous text, they accentuate the initial “Ich armer Mensch, ich armer Sünder” as well as the closing “erbarme dich.”

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  Footnotes

  1. “Es ist genung, daß man den Nahmen des Berühmten Verfassers davon weiß, um sie als ein Muster in dieser Schreibart zu betrachten” (Marpurg 1752, 136).—Trans.↵