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• 1 2023-09-26T09:34:22+00:00 Wachet, betet, betet, wachet BWV 70.2 / BC A 165 18 Twenty-sixth Sunday After Trinity. First performed 12/6/1716 in Weimar. Text by Salomon Franck. plain 2024-04-24T16:30:57+00:00 1716-12-06 BWV 70 Weimar 51.340199, 12.360103 10Trinity26 Twenty-sixth Sunday After Trinity BC A 165 Johann Sebastian Bach Salomo Franck Hans-Joachim Schulze, "Wacht, betet, betet, wachet, BWV 70 / BC A 165" in Die Bach Kantaten: Einführungen zu sämtlichen Kantaten Johann Sebastian Bachs, (Leipzig: Evangelisches Verlagsanstalt 2007), p. 505 James A. Brokaw II Weimar

  Twenty-Sixth Sunday after Trinity, November 21, 1723

  As it now exists, the cantata Wachet! betet! betet! wachet BWV 70.2 (Watch! pray! pray! watch) is assigned to the twenty-sixth Sunday after Trinity. It was first performed in Leipzig for this particular Sunday in late November 1723, one week before the first Sunday of Advent, the beginning of the new church year. However, most of the work was composed seven years earlier for the worship service in the castle church at Weimar. In this earlier form (BWV 70.1) it belongs to a group of three cantatas that Johann Sebastian Bach, then concertmaster, presented one week apart in December 1716.¹ This unusual flurry of performances is perhaps best explained by his desire to succeed the Kapellmeister in the Ernestine royal seat,² who had died at the beginning of the month, and to put his compositional capabilities on display—as well as his unusual stamina.
  
  Bach took all three texts from a collection by Salomon Franck that became available in late 1716, Evangelische Sonn- und Fest-Tages-Andachten. The remarkable feature of these 1716 texts by Salomon Franck is that they consist entirely of free poetry, except for the closing chorale. Thus they avoid biblical passages. An opening movement for chorus is followed by four arias, and a chorale strophe closes the libretto. In contrast to other cantata texts of the period—even those by Salomon Franck himself—these texts avoid not only biblical passages but also the fashionable poetic form of the recitative.
  
  The freely versified core element of the Weimar cantata Wachet! betet! betet! wachet—the opening chorus and the arias—is for the second Sunday in Advent, whose Gospel reading is found in Luke 21:25–36; it contains— following on Jesus’s speech about the destruction of Jerusalem—predictions about his future:

  And there shall be signs in the sun and moon and stars; and on the earth the people will be distressed, and they will have trepidation, and the sea and the waves will rage, and the people will faint for fear and in expectation of the things that shall happen on the earth, for also the powers of heaven will be in motion. And then they will see the Son of Man come in a cloud with great power and glory. When, however, this begins to happen, then look up and lift your heads, for your salvation draws near. And he recounted to them a parable: Look at the fig tree and all the trees: When they now begin to bud, you see them and notice that now summer is near. So also you: when you see these things happen, you know that the kingdom of God is near. Truly I say to you: This generation shall not pass away until all is fulfilled. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. Take heed of yourselves, however, that your hearts are not consumed with eating and drinking and with concerns for nourishment, lest that day come quickly upon you, for like a snare it will come over all that live on earth. So now watch at all times and pray that you might be worthy, to escape all that will happen, and to stand before the Son of Man.

  
  In accordance with this account, Salomon Franck’s cantata text is situated between fear and hope, at one moment calling up the end times, at the next longing for rescue through Jesus. The text of the opening chorus takes up the close of the Sunday Gospel reading “So seid nun wach allezeit und betet, daß ihr würdig werden möget” (So now watch at all times and pray that you might be worthy):

  Wachet! betet! betet! wachet! 
  Seid bereit
  Allezeit,
  Bis der Herr der Herrlichkeit 
  Dieser Welt ein Ende machet.
  
  Watch! pray! pray! watch! 
  Be prepared
  At all times
  Until the Lord of Glory 
  Makes an end of this world.

  
  With alarming immediacy in the first aria, the current dangerous situation is exemplified by the torment of the people of Israel in Egypt and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah:

  Wenn kömmt der Tag, an dem wir ziehen
  Aus dem Ägypten dieser Welt?    
  Ach! laßt uns bald aus Sodom fliehen,    
  Eh uns das Feuer überfällt! 
  Wacht, Seelen, auf von Sicherheit, 
  Und glaubt, es ist die letzte Zeit!
  
  When will come the day, when we will withdraw 
  Out of the Egypt of this world?
  Ah, let us flee soon from Sodom 
  Before the fire attacks us!
  Awaken, souls, out of complacency 
  And believe it is the end of time!

  The second aria speaks against this, with confidence in the foretold appearance of the Son of God:

  Laßt der Spötter Zungen schmähen, 
  Es wird doch und muß geschehen, 
  Daß wir Jesum werden sehen,
  Auf den Wolken, in den Höhen. 
  Welt und Himmel mag vergehen, 
  Christi Wort muß fest bestehen.
  
  Let the tongues of the mockers scorn, 
  Yet it will and must occur
  That we will see Jesus
  Upon the clouds, in the heights. 
  World and heaven may pass away, 
  Christ’s word must stand firm.

  The third aria paraphrases the words “sehet auf und erhebet eure Häupter” (look up and lift your heads) from the Gospel reading, while in the fourth aria the end of days is evoked:

  Seligster Erquickungstag,
  Führe mich zu deinen Zimmern. 
  Schalle, knalle, letzter Schlag,
  Welt und Himmel geht zu Trümmern! 
  Jesus führet mich zur Stille,
  An den Ort, da Lust die Fülle.
  
  Most blessed day of refreshment, 
  Lead me to your mansions.
  Resound, crack, final stroke, 
  World and heaven go to ruin.
  Jesus leads me to quiet,
  At the place where pleasure is abundant.

  
  Salomon Franck’s libretto closes with the fifth strophe of Christian Keymann’s 1658 hymn, Meinen Jesum laß ich nicht (I will not leave my Jesus).
  
  In contrast to Weimar, in Leipzig church music fell silent between the first Sunday of Advent and the first day of Christmas—the period known as tempus clausum. Bach thus had no further use for a cantata written for the second day of Advent. The late Trinity period suggested itself as an alternative, in particular the twenty-sixth Sunday after Trinity, whose Gospel reading in Matthew 25 contains Jesus’s speech about the Last Judgment, beginning with formulations that are similar to those of the Advent Gospel: “When, however, the Son of Man shall come in his glory and all holy angels with him, then he will sit upon the throne of his glory and all nations shall be gathered before him. And he will separate them from one another, just as a shepherd places the sheep to his right and the goats to his left” (31–32). The address to the righteous destined for eternal life culminates in the words “Was ihr getan habt einem unter diesen meinen geringsten Brüdern, das habt ihr mir getan” (Whatever you have done to one among these, the least of my brothers, that you have done to me), while the unmerciful meet their punishment with the justification, “Was ihr nicht getan habt einem unter diesen Geringsten, das habt ihr mir auch nicht getan” (Inasmuch as you have not done it for one of the least of these, you have not done it for me).
  
  Taking up these concepts of the fall from grace and the Last Judgment, a librettist, possibly in Leipzig but unknown by name, expanded Salomon Franck’s Advent libretto with four recitatives. These are formulated, respectively, as a reprimand to hardened sinners, a lament over the inadequacies of mortals, a threat of relentless punishment, and the confident hope in salvation. In addition, a strophe from the hymn Freu dich sehr, o meine Seele (Rejoice greatly, O my soul) was inserted so that the six-movement text of 1716 became an eleven-movement libretto, with two chorale strophes, four Leipzig recitatives, and five Weimar aria movements.
  
  Bach’s composition of this extensive libretto makes every effort to eliminate any discrepancy between the original components and those composed later. Even so, one cannot fail to recognize that the opening chorus, the arias, and even the concluding chorale clearly embody Bach’s “Weimar style.”
  
  Fanfare motives and restless rising and falling scales characterize the sense of expectation in the opening chorus, whereby on the word “betet” the harmony darkens and the motion seems to pause. The entire instrumental ensemble, comprising a trumpet, an oboe, and strings, is also used for the first recitative. Continuously interrupted by the excited tone repetitions of the stile concitato, the recitative begins as a castigation of obdurate sinners.³ It soon takes on a gentler tone for the “erwählte Gotteskinder” (chosen children of God), and for the phrase “Anfang wahrer Freude” (beginning of true joy), it includes an extended coloratura passage. The first aria about the withdrawal from the “Ägypten dieser Welt” (Egypt of this world), given to the alto, is characterized by a deep melancholy earnestness. Its key of A minor is closely related to E minor, the key of the soprano aria “Laßt der Spötter Zungen schmähen.” Here the voice is accompanied by a sonorous obbligato part formed by all the strings, out of which the concertante first violin emerges briefly or for longer sections. The first part of the cantata, to be performed before the sermon, closes with a simple chorale movement in the “Leipzig style” on the melody Wie nach einer Wasserquelle (As from a spring of water).
  
  The second half of the cantata begins with the tenor aria “Hebt euer Haupt empor” (Lift up your heads), its rather abrupt cheerfulness seeming to continue the text of the preceding chorale, “Freu dich sehr o meine Seele und vergiß all Not und Qual” (Rejoice greatly, O my soul, and forget all distress and torment). In the ensuing bass recitative, the apocalyptic scenario of the Last Judgment descends upon this apparently ideal world. Above plunging scales and anxiously diverging chords, the trumpet menacingly sounds the melody Es ist gewißlich an der Zeit (The time is certainly drawing near). Yet even here, Jesus’s mercy is not far away, and an extended coloratura evokes the joyousness with which the faithful can leave this earthly existence. Still, peace and blessedness must once more shrink before the horrors of the apocalypse as, in the three-part bass aria, the contrasts characterizing the two recitatives and the first part of the opening aria are heard again. The Leipzig style of the chorale at the end of the first half now steps aside for a movement in the “Weimar style.” The four choral voices are joined by three independent parts in the strings in their high registers so that the cantata is granted a full-textured finale in seven voices.

  ---

  Footnotes

  1. Early Weimar versions for the other two works, with the BWV2 designations BWV 147a and 186a, are not included in BWV3 because the editors decided against including “Werke, die Bach geschrieben haben könnte da sie ebenfalls in den WeimarerTextdrucken von 1714–1717” (works that Bach could have written, because their texts are preserved in Weimar publications of 1714–1717) (BWV3, xi). Moreover, “eineHäufung von drei Adventskantaten im Jahre 1716 entspricht aber nicht den Weimarer Gepflogenheiten monatlich neue Stücke [s. Dok. II Nr. 66]; für den 2. Advent 1716ist bereits die Kantate BWV 70.1 durch Weimarer Stimmen nachweisbar” (a group of three Advent cantatas for the year 1616 does not accord with the stipulations at Weimar for a new cantata every month [cf.Dok II Nr. 66]. BWV 70.1 is already documented for 2. Advent by Weimar performing parts) (BWV3, 232 [no. 186]).↵
  2. Weimar was among a large number of duchies in central Thuringia ruled by descendants of the Ernestine line of the House of Wettin. A helpful overview can be found in Marshall and Marshall (2016, xvi–xviii).—Trans.↵
  3. Stile concitato: “A style . . . defined by Monteverdi and employed in his Combattimentodi Tancredi e Clorinda (1624) and Madrigali guerrieri ed amorosi to express anger and warfare” (NHDM, s.v. “Concitato”).—Trans.↵
• 1 2023-09-26T09:33:55+00:00 Christ lag in Todes Banden BWV 4 / BC A 54 16 Chorale cantata per omnes versus on hymn by Martin Luther. Easter Sunday. First performed 04/24/1707? in Mühlhausen. Restaged 4/1/1725 in chorale cantata annual cycle plain 2024-04-24T14:30:22+00:00 1707-04-24 BWV 4 Mühlhausen 51.2082505221135, 10.46055051755632 21Easter Chorale Cantata per omnes versus Easter Sunday BC A 54 Johann Sebastian Bach Martin Luther Hans-Joachim Schulze, "Christ lag in Todes Banden, BWV 4 / BC A 54" in Die Bach Kantaten: Einführungen zu sämtlichen Kantaten Johann Sebastian Bachs, (Leipzig: Evangelisches Verlagsanstalt 2007), p. 174 James A. Brokaw II Chorale Cantata Annual Cycle Mühlhausen

  Easter Sunday, April 24, 1707?

  The Easter cantata Christ lag in Todes Banden BWV 4 (Christ lay in the bonds of death) belongs to a group of fewer than a dozen works that Johann Sebastian Bach composed using pure, unmodified chorale texts. This technique was hardly his own invention; it appears rather frequently in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, and it enjoyed a certain favor among cantors of St. Thomas. Ernst Ludwig Gerber, organist at the court of Sondershausen, writing in his dictionary of composers published in Leipzig in 1790, describes Johann Friedrich Doles, Bach’s second successor at St. Thomas: “For the most part he performs his own compositions in the churches. And in the interest of greater variety, since 1766 he has set entire chorales through in the manner of the famous Kuhnau, occasionally recasting the contents of the strophes as recitatives, arias, duets and choruses, and performed them to great acclaim instead of the usual church cantatas.”¹
  
  The year given by Gerber lends his account considerable credence because he matriculated at the University of Leipzig early in the same year. Hence his account apparently reflects the first impressions of music he encountered in the trade-fair city at a time when the young Goethe also frequented the Alma mater Lipsiensis. Moreover, Gerber’s allusion to the Manier of Bach’s predecessor Johann Kuhnau was hardly baseless; the dictionary article states: “He was not the initiator but rather the fortunate follower of the manner of church cantatas in which a chorale serves as text, the content of every strophe worked through. I own the chorale Wer nur den lieben Gott läßt walten in this style by him.”² Two centuries later, scholars have supplemented Gerber’s brief accounts with a multitude of names, illustrating the continuity of the procedure, whose roots reach back well into the seventeenth century and whose adherents are still found in the middle of the eighteenth. Later examples such as those by Mendelssohn in the nineteenth century are clearly retrospective in nature. In the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries the most outstanding examples are by the northern German masters Dieterich Buxtehude, Nicolaus Bruhns, and Joachim Gerstenbüttel and in central Germany Johann Philipp Krieger, Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow, and Johann Pachelbel, as well as the Leipzig cantors of St. Thomas Knüpfer, Schelle, and Kuhnau. What is remarkable in all this is that the lexicographer Gerber, in praising the achievements of Kuhnau and Doles in connection with the chorale cantata, completely neglects the contributions of Johann Sebastian Bach. This is particularly difficult to explain since his father, Heinrich Nicolaus Gerber, studied in Leipzig beginning in 1724 and must have heard a large part of Bach’s annual cycle of chorale cantatas—including the performance of the cantata Christ lag in Todes Banden BWV 4.2 at Easter in 1725.
  
  This performance in early 1725 was the conclusion—earlier than planned—of the annual cycle begun in the summer of the previous year. Cantatas performed after Easter of 1725 do not belong to the chorale cantata type. Strictly speaking, the cantata Christ lag in Todes Banden was just a straggler. Only a few days previously, Bach had completed the last newly composed work for his chorale cantata cycle: Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern BWV 1 (How brightly shines the morning star) for March 25, the feast day of the Annunciation of Mary. Christ lag in Todes Banden, on the other hand, involved the reperformance of an existing work: it had been heard the year before, the current version having cornet and trombones added to three of the seven vocal movements.
  
  In the context of Bach’s chorale cantata cycle begun in June 1724, the first Leipzig performance of the Easter cantata in April 1724 might be understood as a testing of the waters, so to speak. But there are qualifications: features of the work’s style exclude the possibility that Christ lag in Todes Banden originated in 1724. Its musical diction instead points to the era of the young J. S. Bach. Specifically, the work is comparable to his Mühlhausen cantatas of 1707–8; one might suppose that the work (BWV 4.1) was meant for Easter 1708 and performance at St. Blasius Church. An even more likely hypothesis is that the work was composed a year earlier and served as audition music for Bach’s application to the position of organist at St. Blasius. That Bach’s audition took place on Easter Sunday in 1707 is explicitly attested to by the report of the so-called Eingepfarrten—the city council’s representative for church music.
  
  There are certainly problems with these hypotheses as well. Strictly speaking, the stylistic attributes that point to Bach’s early style pertain only from the first movement through the next to the last; the concluding movement is a four-part chorale setting typical of Bach’s Leipzig compositional style. If one wanted to postulate a Mühlhausen early version (and very little speaks against such an endeavor), then one would have to consider a completely different concluding movement, of which no trace remains.
  
  Bach’s first Leipzig performance of the cantata—possibly with a replacement for the last movement—was a part of the bicentennial celebration of Luther’s hymn. It first appeared in 1524, a particularly significant year for the Lutheran Reformation, in a collection printed in Wittenberg entitled Geystlichen gesangk Buchleyn, as well as in Erfurt under the title Enchiridion Oder eyn Handbüchlein. The oldest version of the hymn appears beneath the heading “Christ ist erstanden, gebessert” (Christ is arisen, improved). In fact, both text and melody go back to the pre-Reformation era, in particular to the sequence traced to the eleventh century, Victimae paschali laudes, to the Gregorian Easter Alleluia Christus resurgens ex mortuis, and to the twelfth-century Easter hymn Christ ist erstanden.³ However, these are not the only sources that nourish the vivid scenario of Luther’s hymn. Essential to Luther’s language are, in addition, direct reference to the Bible, on the one hand, and the centuries-old tradition of Easter plays with their transfer of Passion and resurrection to the everyday language of the waning Middle Ages, on the other.
  
  Johann Sebastian Bach’s composition transposes this textual and liturgical connection into the musical realm by clothing the cantata in the regalia of the chorale partita. In keeping to the same key in all movements and in its succession of different movement characters, the chorale partita is the coun- terpart of the secular variation suite. At the time of the cantata’s presumed origin, the chorale partita was already in its final stages. It remains debatable whether the young Bach was aware of this historical development when he was occupied with Luther’s chorale. If the work was indeed an audition piece, he may have decided that he could place many facets of his compositional art on display and in particular make clear that the close connection between strophic content and musical form was of paramount concern to him.
  
  The palette of models on display ranges from ostinato variation, to trio texture with lively obbligato parts, to canon and alternatim forms, to motet with fugal treatment of individual chorale lines.⁴ Viewed superficially, the results of his compositional effort resemble organ writing. But in contrast to the instrumental chorale partita, which can pursue purely musical objectives, the cantata in the form of a chorale partita is strictly bound by the sequence of strophes and their contents. The manner in which the composer met this challenge demonstrates how absorbed the young Bach was in mastering complicated, multidimensional tasks. The quality of the result is shown simply by the fact that the composer himself, after nearly two decades, felt it appropriate to include the work almost without change in the ambitious project of the chorale cantata annual cycle.

  ---

  Footnotes

  1. “Er führt größtentheils seine eigenen Kompositionen in den Kirchen auf. Un dum mehrere Abwechslung willen setzte er seit 1766 Chorale ganz durch, in der Manierdes berühmten Kuhnau, nach Gelegenheit des Inhalts der Strophen in Rezitative, Arien, Duette und Chöre, und führte sie mit unter mit vielem Beifalle auf, statt der gewöhnlichen Kirchencantaten.”—Trans.↵
  2. “Er war wo nicht der Anfänger, doch der glücklicher Fortsetzer der Manier von Kirchenkantaten, zu welchen ein Choral als Text, jede Strophe nach ihrem Inhalte, ganz durchgearbeitet wird. Ich besitze auf diese Weise den Choral ‘Wer nur den lieben Gott läßt walten’ von ihm.”—Trans.↵
  3. In medieval music, a sequence was a type of addition to the official liturgical chant of the Latin church. It was generally sung after the Alleluia.—Trans.↵
  4. The alternatim is the practice of two or more contrasting forces taking turns in performing music for a liturgical text, each taking only one verse or short section at a time. NHDM, s.v. “Alternatim,” by Bruce Gustafson.—Trans.↵
• 1 2023-09-26T09:32:58+00:00 Was mein Gott will, das g'scheh allzeit BWV 111 / BC A 36 15 Chorale cantata on hymn by Albrecht von Preußen. Third Sunday after Epiphany. Part of Chorale Cantata Annual Cycle. First performed 01/21/1725 in Leipzig (Cycle II). plain 2024-04-24T17:23:03+00:00 1725-01-21 BWV 111 Leipzig 51.340199, 12.360103 14Epiphany3 Chorale Cantata Third Sunday after Epiphany BC A 36 Johann Sebastian Bach Albrecht von PreuÄen Hans-Joachim Schulze, "Was mein Gott will, das g'scheh allzeit, BWV 111 / BC A 36" in Die Bach Kantaten: Einführungen zu sämtlichen Kantaten Johann Sebastian Bachs, (Leipzig: Evangelisches Verlagsanstalt 2007), p. 115 James A. Brokaw II Chorale Cantata Annual Cycle Leipzig II

  Third Sunday after Epiphany

  This cantata, a member of Bach’s cycle of chorale cantatas, was heard for the first time on January 21, 1725, in Leipzig. As is so common among Bach’s chorale cantatas, it is based on a hymn whose first and last strophes are left unchanged, while the inner strophes are freely adapted to become recitative and aria texts. In the four-strophe form used here, the hymn appeared in print for the first time in 1554. An older version—surely the original—with only three stanzas appeared seven years earlier; its author was Margrave Albrecht of Prussia.
  
  Albrecht, born in 1490 in Ansbach, was named grand master of the Teutonic League (Hochmeister des deutschen Ordens) as a young man and reigned over the Ordensland (State of the Teutonic Order) in Prussia. In 1525 he adopted the Reformation and transformed the Ordensland into a secular duchy. Here, in what was later known as East Prussia, the royal court at Königsberg, with its superb court chapel, became a world-famous performance venue for polyphonic art music. Duke Albrecht brought musicians to his court such as the Netherlandish composer Adrianus Petit Coclico, creator of musica reservata, and the Hungarian lutenist Bálint Bakfark.¹He maintained correspondence with others, among them Lucas Osiander, Ludwig Senfl, Thomas Stoltzer, and Johann Walter, and collected their compositions.
  
  In the hymn collections of the era, Duke Albrecht’s hymn Was mein Gott will, das g’scheh allzeit (What my God wills, may that happen always) is occasionally (but by no means consistently) assigned to the third Sunday after Epiphany. The Gospel reading for that day, from Matthew 8, recounts the healing of a leper and of a gout-ridden man. Remarkably, this story had little if any influence on any of the various cantatas written by Bach for the third Sunday after Trinity. Instead, these libretti focus on the central idea “surrender to God’s will” (Ergebung in Gottes Willen).
  
  The unknown librettist took a similar approach in our cantata. As mentioned, he let the first strophe stand in its original form:

  Was mein Gott will, das g’scheh allzeit,
  Sein Will, der ist der beste;
  Zu helfen den’n er ist bereit,
  Die an ihn gläuben feste.
  Er hilft aus Not,
  Der fromme Gott,
  Und züchtigt mit Maßen:
  Wer Gott vertraut, fest auf ihn baut,
  Den will er nicht verlassen.
  
  What my God wills, may that happen always,
  His will, that is the best.
  He is ready to help those 
  Who believe in him firmly.
  He helps those in need,
  The righteous God,
  And corrects in just measure:
  Whoever trusts God, builds securely on him,
  Will not be forsaken by him.

  
  The inner strophes were adapted very freely, since in order to adapt them into two each of aria and recitative texts, their scope needed to be substantially expanded. The second chorale strophe begins:

  Gott ist mein Trost, mein Zuversicht,
  Mein’ Hoffnung und mein Leben,
  Was mein Gott will das mir geschicht,
  Will ich nicht widerstreben.
  
  God is my comfort, my faith,
  My hope, and my life.
  What my God wants sent to me
  I will not strive against.

  
  It was accordingly transformed into the following aria:

  Entsetze dich, mein Herze, nicht,
  Gott ist dein Trost und Zuversicht
  Und deiner Seele Leben.
  Ja was sein weiser Rat bedacht,
  Dem kann die Welt und Menschenmacht
  Unmöglich widerstreben.
  
  Do not be upset, my heart,
  God is your comfort and faith
  And the life of your soul.
  Yes, what his wise counsel deems prudent
  The world and human might
  Cannot possibly strive against.

  
  Similarly, the close of the same strophe became the ensuing recitative. Albrecht writes:

  Sein Wort ist wahr,
  Denn all mein Haar
  Er selber hat gezählet:
  Er hüt’ und wacht,
  Stets für uns tracht’t,
  Auf daß uns ja nichts fehlet.
  
  His word is true,
  For all my hair
  He himself has counted.
  He guards and watches,
  Always considers for us
  That we want for nothing.

  
  The cantata poet’s version reads as follows:

  Auch unser Denken ist ihm offenbar,
  Und unsers Hauptes Haar
  Hat er gezählet.
  Wohl dem, der diesen Schutz erwählet 
  Im gläubigen Vertrauen,
  Auf dessen Schluß und Wort
  Mit Hoffnung und Geduld zu schauen.
  
  Even our thinking is plain to him,
  And the hair on our head
  He has counted.
  Blessed is he who chooses this protection 
  In faithful trust,
  Looking to his decision and word
  With hope and patience.

  
  However, the librettist cannot omit a warning against doubts of faith; he places the admonition at the beginning of the recitative:

  O Törichter! der sich von Gott entzieht
  Und wie Jonas dort
  Vor Gottes Angesichte flieht.
  
  O fool! Who withdraws himself from God
  And like Jonah there
  Flees before God’s countenance.

  
  This allusion refers to the prophet Jonah, who tried to escape God’s order to preach in Nineveh and in fleeing by ship fell into mortal danger.
  
  Duke Albrecht’s third chorale strophe deals with death, dying, and the surrender to God’s will. The aria derived from it exhibits few if any discernible commonalities of text:

  So geh ich mit beherzten Schritten
  Auch wenn mich Gott zum Grabe führt.
  Gott hat die Tage aufgeschrieben, 
  So wird, wenn seine Hand mich rührt,
  Des Todes Bitterkeit vertreiben.
  
  So I go with courageous steps
  Even when God leads me to the grave.
  God has recorded my days
  So that when, if his hand touches me,
  The bitterness of death will be driven away.

  
  The last verse of this aria text once more alludes to a rather obscure place in the Hebrew Bible, a statement by the king of the Amalekites, a Bedouin people slain by Saul. As the king was brought before Samuel, looking death in the eye, he said: “Also muß man des Todes Bitterkeit vertreiben” (1 Samuel 15:32; So must one drive away the bitterness of death). Like the aria, the recitative that follows is very freely derived from the chorale; Albrecht states modestly: 

  O frommer Gott,
  Sünd, Höll und Tod
  Hast du mir überwunden.
  
  O pious God,
  Sin, hell, and death
  You have overcome for me.

  
  His lines are traced in bold strokes by the newer poem:

  Wenn Teufel, Tod und Sünde mich bekriegt
  Und meine Sterbekissen
  Ein Kampfplatz werden müßen.
  
  If devil, death, and sin besiege me
  And my pillows of death
  Must become a battleground.

  
  As expected, the final strophe remains unchanged:

  Noch eins, Herr, will ich bitten dich,
  Du wirst mirs nicht versagen:
  Wenn mich der böse Geist anficht,
  Laß mich doch nicht verzagen.
  Hilf, steur und wehr,
  Ach Gott, mein Herr,
  Zu Ehren deinem Namen.
  Wer das begehrt,
  Dem wirds gewährt;
  Drauf sprech ich fröhlich:
  Amen.
  
  Yet one thing, Lord, I would ask of you,
  You will not deny me:
  When the evil spirit tempts me,
  Do not let me despair.
  Help, guide, and defend
  O God, my lord,
  To the honor of your name.
  Whoever desires it,
  For him it is reserved;
  To that I gladly say:
  Amen.

  
  As usual, Bach’s composition of this libretto begins with a broadly conceived, concerted arrangement of the chorale, with the melody presented in long note values by the soprano and the other voices in counterpoint in the manner of a motet. The relatively fast alla breve meter, the energetic chordal accents of the strings and woodwinds, and the continuous interplay of the two instrumental groups with an anapestic figure lend the movement a sense of the resolute and unswerving, in the sense of the not-at-all passively understood statement “Was mein Gott will, das gescheh allzeit.”
  
  In the first aria, “Entsetze dich, mein Herze, nicht,” the bass voice is accompanied only by basso continuo in order to strengthen the gravity of the admonition by eliminating the distraction of any externalities. The continuous presence of the accompaniment’s head motive, frequently repeated, allows one to grasp the calming quality of “Entsetze dich, mein Herze, nicht.” The second aria movement, “So geh ich mit beherzten Schritten / Auch wenn mich Gott zum Grabe führt,” features a purposeful, striding rhythm in the strings, with the first violin often emerging with virtuosity, as well as the voices, alto and tenor, which follow one another imitatively or coupled in parallel and encourage one another along the dangerous path. The middle section of this movement leaves the self-confident region of G major for the related keys of E minor and B minor, where the characteristic head motive appears in inversion. The following recitative assigns two oboes to the soprano and accompanying basso continuo; the oboes underscore the closing “sighs” in the arioso “O seliges, gewünschtes Ende” (O blessed, desired end). The cantata closes with a simple four-part chorale on the originally secular melody, belonging to a 1529 chanson composition.

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  Footnotes

  1. The term is used by Coclico in his Compendium Musices of 1552, in which he praises the music of Josquin for reviving a more text-oriented style of composition. NHDM, s.v. “Musica reservata.”—Trans.↵