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• 1 2023-09-26T09:33:56+00:00 Bisher habt ihr nichts gebeten in meinem Namen BWV 87 / BC A 74 11 Rogate. First performed 05/06/1725 in Leipzig (Cycle II). Text by CM von Ziegler. plain 2024-04-24T17:05:48+00:00 1725-05-06 BWV 87 Leipzig 51.340199, 12.360103 26Rogate Rogate BC A 74 Johann Sebastian Bach CM von Ziegler Hans-Joachim Schulze, "Bisher habt ihr nichts gebeten in meinem Namen, BWV 87 / BC A 74" in Die Bach Kantaten: Einführungen zu sämtlichen Kantaten Johann Sebastian Bachs, (Leipzig: Evangelisches Verlagsanstalt 2007), p. 232 James A. Brokaw II Leipzig II

  Rogate Sunday, May 6, 1725

  Bach composed this cantata in his second year as cantor of St. Thomas School, and he performed it in early May 1725, probably in St. Thomas Church. The Gospel reading for Rogate Sunday is found in John 16, as are the readings for the two preceding Sundays, Jubilate and Cantate; it contains a longer section of the farewell addresses of Jesus:

  Truly, truly, I say to you: Should you ask the father for something in my name, he will give it to you. Until now you have asked for nothing in my name. Ask, and you shall receive, that your joy shall be complete. Such things I have spoken to you in proverbs. But the time is coming when I shall not speak with you in proverbs but will freely tell you of my Father. On that day, you shall ask in my name. And I will not say to you that I will pray to the Father for you; for he himself, the father, loves you, because you love me and believe that I am come from God. (23–27)

   
  The text of our cantata, based on this reading, is the third in a series of nine cantata libretti prepared by the Leipzig poet Mariane von Ziegler for Bach in early 1725. As in most of these instances, a New Testament passage stands at the beginning from the Sunday Gospel reading: “Bis her habt ihr nichts gebeten in meinem Namen” (Until now you have asked nothing in my name). Von Ziegler’s first freely versified text proceeding from this comes in a recitative that instructs as to the necessity of prayer after sinful transgression of the law. Her wordy, rather unskillful text reads:

  O Wort! das Geist und Herz erschreckt,
  Ach, Menschen-Kinder! Merkt, was wohl dahinter steckt;
  Ihr habet das Gesetz vorsätzlich übertreten, 
  Und diesfalls möcht ihr Tag und Nacht,
  Wann das Gewissen aufgewacht,
  In Buß und Andacht beten.
  
  O Word! That terrifies spirit and soul,
  Ah, mortal children! Note, what lies behind it;
  You have deliberately transgressed the law,
  And therefore you should, day and night,
  When the conscience is awake,
  Pray in penitence and devotion.

  
  The text composed by Bach is more concentrated, if still unbalanced in its syllable count:

  O Wort, das Geist und Seel erschreckt,
  Ihr Menschen! Merkt den Zuruf, was dahintersteckt,
  Ihr habt Gesetz und Evangelium vorsätzlich übertreten,
  Und diesfalls möcht ihr ungesäumt in Buß und Andacht beten.
  
  O Word! That spirit and soul terrifies,
  You people! Note what lies beneath.
  You have law and Gospel deliberately transgressed,
  And therefore you should immediately in penance and devotion pray.

  
  Whether Bach himself was responsible for this streamlining cannot be determined at this time.¹
  
  The prayer called for is given by the associated aria, whose text Bach adopted without change from von Ziegler’s libretto. The decisive element may have been the skillful way in which the poet adapted the Gospel reading for her verses, the “Reden durch Sprichwörter” (Speech through proverbs):

  Vergib, o Vater, unsre Schuld,
  Und habe noch mit uns Geduld,
  Wenn wir in Andacht beten 
  Und sagen, Herr, auf dein Geheiß:
  Ach rede nicht mehr sprichwortsweis,
  Hilf uns vielmehr vertreten.
  
  Forgive, O Father, our sin
  And still have patience with us
  When we in devotion pray
  And say, Lord, at your command:
  Ah, speak no more in proverbs.
  Help us instead to be faithful.

  
  In Mariane von Ziegler’s text, there follows a second, consoling biblical passage, the conclusion of John 16. The text composed by Bach interpolates another recitative here. It remains unclear whether this change was made only at Bach’s behest and was simply meant to clarify the transition to the Bible passage that follows or whether there is a second revision of an originally longer text by Frau von Ziegler. For one can scarcely ascribe linguistic skill to the following lines:

  Wenn unsre Schuld bis an den Himmel steigt,
  Du siehst und kennest ja mein Herz, 
  Das nichts vor dir verschweigt,
  Drum suche ich mich zu trösten.
  
  When our guilt up to heaven climbs,
  You surely see and know my heart, 
  Which is silent about nothing before you.
  Therefore, seek to comfort me!

  
  The word of God from the Johannine tradition answers the prayer for consolation: “In der Welt habe ihr Angst; aber seid getrost. Ich habe die Welt überwunden” (16:33; In the world you will have tribulation; but be comforted. I have overcome the world).
  
  Sorrow and consolation, troubles and help, pain and its surmounting come together once again in the next aria, in which the text composed by Bach has more differences from von Ziegler’s libretto:

  Ich will leiden, ich will schweigen,
  Jesus wird mit Hilf erzeigen,
  Denn er tröst’ mich nach dem Schmerz.
  Weicht, ihr Sorgen, Trauer, Klagen,
  Denn warum sollt ich verzagen,
  Fasse dich, betrübtes Herz.
  
  I would suffer, I would be silent,
  Jesus will show his help to me,
  For he comforts me after the pain.
  Away, you cares, sorrow, laments,
  For why should I despair.
  Compose yourself, distressed heart.

  
  A strophe from Heinrich Müller’s 1659 hymn Selig ist die Seele (Blessed is the soul) concludes the sequence of thought. Line lengths and rhyme sequences follow the model of the chorale “Jesu meine Freude” (Jesus my soul):

  Muß ich sein betrübet,
  So mich Jesus liebet,
  Ist mir aller Schmerz
  Über Honig süße,
  Tausend Zuckerküße
  Drücket er ans Herz.
  Wenn die Pein
  Sich stellet ein,
  Seine Liebe macht zur Freuden
  Auch das bittre Leiden.
  
  Must I be downcast,
  For if Jesus loves me,
  All pain is to me
  Sweeter than honey.
  A thousand sugar kisses
  He presses on my heart.
  When the pain
  Sets in 
  His love turns to joy,
  Even bitter suffering.

  
  As expected, Bach gives the word of the Lord at the beginning of the libretto to the bass, the vox Christi. The density and gravity of the musical setting match the gathered seriousness of the statement: the voice and four instrumental parts produce a flow somewhere between arioso and aria that occasionally adopts fugal aspects and, at the close, thickens to five full parts.
  
  The first movement pair, consisting of recitative and aria, is given to the alto voice. In contrast to the dramatic gesture of the brief recitative, the G minor aria seems bathed in a soft light. Pleading, upward-striving figures in the basso continuo and burdensome but self-controlled sighs in the instrumental obbligato parts—two deep oboes—depict the spiritual distress of “Vergib, o Vater, unsre Schuld.” The rather inward aria is followed by outward culmination, with an insistent, string-accompanied recitative, “Wenn unsre Schuld bis an den Himmel steigt,” from which the second biblical passage that follows so effectively distinguishes itself. Once again, this passage is given to the bass, the vox Christi, and is accompanied only by the continuo, its only remaining support—a symbolic expression of the avoidance of everything earthly: “Seid getrost. Ich habe die Welt überwunden.” A stubbornly repeated accompaniment figure characterizes the beginning and end of this movement, once again nestled between an arioso and aria, together with agonizing chromaticism appropriate to the statement “In der Welt habt ihr Angst” (In the world you will have tribulation).
  
  In an entirely different way, conflicting feelings—comfort and pain—are reflected in the wide-ranging, affective melodic material of voice and strings in the tenor aria “Ich will leiden, ich will schweigen.” The broad 12
  8 meter and siciliano dance type work together with static bass tones, the harmonic density of the accompaniment, and the brightness of the key of B-flat major to create a tranquility that particularly suits the text, “Denn er tröst’ mich nach dem Schmerz.” The closing chorale, on the melody “Jesu meine Freude,” ends with the lines “Seine Liebe macht zur Freuden / Auch das bittre Leiden” as several chromatic passages resolve, appropriately, into a bright D major harmony.

  ---

  Footnotes

  1. Mark Peters (2005) has cogently summarized the long-running debate and argued for von Ziegler’s authorship of the changes.—Trans.↵
• 1 2023-09-26T09:33:56+00:00 Ihr werdet weinen und heulen BWV 103 / BC A 69 10 Jubilate. First performed 04/22/1725 in Leipzig (Cycle II). Text by CM von Ziegler. plain 2024-04-24T15:42:23+00:00 1725-04-22 BWV 103 Leipzig 51.340199, 12.360103 24Jubilate Jubilate BC A 69 Johann Sebastian Bach CM von Ziegler Hans-Joachim Schulze, "Ihr werdet weinen und heulen, BWV 103 / BC A 69" in Die Bach Kantaten: Einführungen zu sämtlichen Kantaten Johann Sebastian Bachs, (Leipzig: Evangelisches Verlagsanstalt 2007), p. 216 James A. Brokaw II Leipzig II

  Jubilate, April 22, 1725

  This cantata was heard for the first time on April 22, 1725, presumably in Leipzig’s St. Thomas Church. It thus belongs to a period in which a significant change took place in Johann Sebastian Bach’s composition of cantatas. One month before our cantata was performed for the first time, the Thomaskantor had broken off work on his annual cycle of chorale cantatas, bringing the most comprehensive compositional project of his career to a premature end. We have no idea what caused him to discontinue the chorale cantata series, begun two weeks after Pentecost 1724, before its expected conclusion in late May 1725. It is conceivable that the unknown librettist or librettists responsible for adapting chorale strophes to the modern forms of recitative and aria were no longer available. But the reason might lie with Bach himself. In a period of less than ten months he had realized the concept of chorale cantata in at least forty instances, and, in particular, he had set the opening movements according to a model: cantus firmus in large note values in one of the voices; motet-like counterpoint in the other voices; and a motivically unified, concerted orchestral part. The possibility should not be ignored that a certain fatigue had set in, coupled with the composer’s desire to construct large forms not bound to chorales.
  
  Through coincidence or a systematic search, it must have been during this period that the cantor of St. Thomas came into contact with a female Leipzig poet who up to that point had never been engaged in creating texts for Kirchenstücken, or church cantatas: Christiane Mariane von Ziegler. Born in 1695 in Leipzig, she grew up in a middle-class family that was in equal measure wealthy, highly intellectual, and interested in music. Twice married and twice widowed, she had returned to Leipzig in 1722 after years of absence in order to overcome her loneliness in social engagement and take part in poetic and musical activities. Moreover, the arrest of her father by order of the Saxon elector and his lifelong imprisonment in the castle at Königstein without an explanation of the charges and without a trial was a stroke of fate she had yet to overcome.¹
  
  Although Christiane Mariane von Ziegler’s writing career lasted less than two decades, she flourished in the circle of Johann Christoph Gottsched in Leipzig, and despite occasional criticism she earned high honors. In November 1733 the Saxon press reported: “Frau Christiana Mariana von Ziegler, a daughter of the erstwhile mayor of Leipzig, Herr Romani, in the month of October has been named Royal Poet Laureate by the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Wittenberg because of her strong and fully developed poetry, an honor that, at least within the entire University, has never been granted to a person of her gender.”²
  
  Frau Ziegler published nine church cantata texts in her first work, Versuch in gebundener Schreib-Art, which appeared in Leipzig in 1728. Within a period of only five weeks in 1725, Johann Sebastian Bach set all nine to music and performed them. The composer must have received the texts from the librettist in advance of their publication in 1728. It is less likely that she coincidentally happened to have them on hand and helped the cantor of St. Thomas in his unforeseen need for cantata texts than that Bach asked for an unbroken sequence of texts from Jubilate Sunday to Trinity in order to be able to fill out the interrupted cantata cycle in advance. In addition, it is noteworthy that Frau Ziegler, in the second and last part of her Versuch in gebundener Schreib-Art, published in 1729, expanded the sequence of previously published texts to a complete annual cycle, though without printing the libretti set by Bach a second time. However, Bach evidently made no use of this extensive new offering.
  
  Whether Frau Ziegler wrote the nine cantata texts on commission for Johann Sebastian Bach or whether he responded to her offer of texts and therefore allowed his chorale cantata cycle to languish is of some significance because the texts printed in 1728 often differ from those composed by Bach in 1725. It is conceivable that the poet revised her texts before publishing them, but it is just as possible that Bach or someone working for him arranged the texts for composition (and must not have been particularly squeamish about doing so).³ Still, the Ziegler text for Jubilate Sunday is certainly the least affected by this.
  
  The libretto for Ihr werdet weinen und heulen BWV 103 (You shall weep and wail) begins with a New Testament dictum taken from the Sunday Gospel reading in John 16, which continues the farewell speeches of Jesus: “Über ein kleines, so werdet ihr mich nicht sehen; und aber über ein kleines, so werdet ihr mich sehen, denn ich gehe zum Vater” (16; For a little while, you will not see me; however, for a little while, you shall see me, for I am going to the Father). The Sunday Gospel reading closes: “Wahrlich, wahrlich ich sage euch: Ihr werdet weinen und heulen, aber die Welt wird sich freuen; ihr aber werdet traurig sein; doch eure Traurigkeit soll in Freude verkehret werden” (20; Truly, truly I say to you: you shall weep and wail, but the world shall rejoice; you, however, shall be sorrowful, yet your sorrow shall be turned into joy). Frau Ziegler’s free poetry takes up the lament of the dictum in a brief recitative and, in the ensuing aria, paraphrases the Suchmotiv (search motive), “Verbirgst du dich, so muß ich sterben” (If you hide yourself, then I must die).⁴ The aria begins:

  Kein Arzt ist außer dir zu finden, 
  Ich suche durch ganz Gilead;
  Wer heilt die Wunden meiner Sünden, 
  Weil man hier keinen Balsam hat?
  
  No physician other than you is to be found, 
  I search through all Gilead;
  Who will heal the wounds of my sins, 
  Since one has no balsam here?

  
  The passage referred to is found in chapter 8, verse 22, of the book of the prophet Jeremiah: “Mich jammert herzlich, daß mein Volk so verderbt ist; Ich gräme mich und gehabe mich übel. Ist denn keine Salbe in Gilead, oder ist kein Arzt da? Warum ist denn die Tochter meines Volks nicht geheilt?” (I am greatly distressed that my people are so corrupted; I grieve and conduct myself badly. Is there then no balm in Gilead, or is no physician there? Why then is the daughter of my people not healed?). “Du wirst mich nach der Angst auch wiederum erquicken” (You will, after my distress, revive me again) reads the recitative that follows regarding a verse from Psalm 138. The rest of the recitative text is shortened by several lines compared to the printed version, yet without any loss of substance; hewing closely to the dictum at the beginning, it reads:

  Ich traue dem Verheißungswort, 
  Daß meine Traurigkeit
  In Freude soll verkehrt werden.
  
  I trust the word of promise, 
  That my sorrow
  Shall be transformed to joy.

  
  “Sorrow and joy” is also the theme of the ensuing aria text, which begins “Erholet euch, betrübte Sinnen” (Recover, distressed minds). A strophe from Paul Gerhardt’s hymn Barmherz’ger Vater, höchster Gott (Merciful father, highest God) draws together the train of ideas in the text once again: “Ich hab dich einen Augenblick, / O liebes Kind, verlassen” (I have, for a moment, / Dear child, left you).
  
  In Bach’s wide-ranging composition of the opening movement, the instrumental introduction anticipates the phrase “aber die Welt wird sich freuen” (but the world shall rejoice). Strings, two oboi d’amore, and a solo instrument (in the first version a piccolo recorder, in the later version a solo violin or transverse flute) join together in a lively ensemble of inner cheer that could hardly be allowed to end with the return of the initial phrase, “Ihr werdet weinen und heulen.” This appears in a brief fugal exposition full of intense chromaticism that just as quickly resolves into a confident “Aber die Welt wird sich freuen.” Upon its reappearance, the joy motive is given along with the sorrowful fugue theme in counterpoint from the start, and here, in a third, identical exposition, now with the text “Doch eure Traurigkeit soll in Freude verkehrt werden,” the joy theme—quite in the spirit of the text—proves itself the strongest. On the other hand, the bass arioso at the beginning of the last third of the movement, with its repeated warning, “Ihr aber werdet traurig sein” (You, however, shall be sorrowful), has little effect.
  
  The ensuing recitative, though brief, is quite vivid in its dramatic gesture; in the sorrowful aria that follows, the solo instrument originally planned, the piccolo recorder, illustrates the search “durch ganz Gilead” (through all of Gilead) with its animated passages, while its ingratiating tone is meant to lend emphasis to the plea for compassion. In the tenor aria, self-confident fanfare motives and twisted harmonic progressions conflict with one another until the cantata concludes in a simple chorale movement on the melody Was mein Gott will, das g’scheh allzeit (What my God wills, that shall forever be).

  ---

  Footnotes

  1. Franz Conrad Romanus was installed as mayor by the court of August the Strongover the objections of the Leipzig Town Council. In the winter of 1704–5 “it becameknown that he had forged town council debentures and . . . embezzled money fromthe municipal treasury and the treasury of St. Nicholas” (Maul 2018, 176).↵
  2. “Die Frau Christiana Mariana von Ziegler, eine Tochter des ehemaligen Herrn Bürgermeisters zu Leipzig, Herrn Romani, von der Philosophischen Facultät der Universität Wittenberg, im Monat October bei Gelegenheit einer volzogenen starcken Dicht-Kunst, zur Kayserlichen gecrönten Poeten erklärt worden, welche Ehre wenigstens von ganzen Universitäten noch keiner Person von ihrem Geschlechte ertheilet worden.”↵
  3. Mark Peters (2005) has cogently summarized this long-running debate and argued for Ziegler’s authorship of the changes.↵
  4. The Suchmotiv is the soul’s search for Jesus in the Christian reading of the Song of Songs.↵
• 1 2023-09-26T09:33:57+00:00 Also hat Gott die Welt geliebt BWV 68 / BC A 86 7 Second Day of Pentecost. First performed 05/21/1725 in Leipzig (Cycle II). Text by CM von Ziegler. plain 2024-04-24T16:29:06+00:00 1725-05-21 BWV 68 Leipzig 51.340199, 12.360103 29Pentecost1 Second Day of Pentecost BC A 86 Johann Sebastian Bach CM von Ziegler Hans-Joachim Schulze, "Also hat Gott die Welt geliebt, BWV 68 / BC A 86" in Die Bach Kantaten: Einführungen zu sämtlichen Kantaten Johann Sebastian Bachs, (Leipzig: Evangelisches Verlagsanstalt 2007), p. 266 James A. Brokaw II Leipzig II

  Pentecost Monday, May 21, 1725

  
  The cantata Also hat Gott die Welt geliebt BWV 68 (And God so loved the world) was heard for the first time on May 21, 1725, and thus belongs to that remarkable period of transition between the premature end of Bach’s chorale cantata cycle and, presumably, the beginning of a new project after Trinity 1725. That is, our cantata is subject to a strange circumstance: that Bach broke off work only a few weeks before completing a cycle of cantatas for nearly all Sundays and holidays in the church year, based on chorales and/or on texts derived from them, and turned abruptly to other libretti. These “other libretti,” nine in total, were the work of the Leipzig poet and patron of the arts Christiane Mariane von Ziegler, who, as a member of the circle of Johann Christoph Gottsched, quickly advanced to wide recognition and fame in under a decade before her poetic star vanished as quickly as it had appeared.
  
  Thanks to a contemporary who occasionally visited her salon and quickly jotted down his impressions, we have an attractive description of the Leipzig poet:

  We were invited to Madame von Ziegler’s. . . . She is a daughter of Mayor Romanus and lives with her mother in the famous Romanesque house. . . . She is still a young woman but is unlikely to marry due to various circumstances. Among others, her manner is almost overly feminine and her spirit much too cheerful and bright to have to subordinate herself to common masculine sensibilities. Outwardly she is not ugly, but large boned with a plain face and smooth brow, beautiful eyes, healthy, rather dark in color; about thirty-six years of age, quiet but rather clever and charming, in conversation more friendly, humorous, and jesting than ponderous. . . . She participates in everything; she plays all sorts of musical instruments and also sings; she shoots with rifles, pistols, and crossbows in hunting parties. She speaks French, she is remarkably strong in the German style and poetry, in which she tutored Herr Magister Corinus as a youth. She now needs no mentor, as can be seen in her writings and samples, of which I am a witness. . . . Madame von Ziegler is so noble that she scorns unsubstantiated gossip and is not at all shy about encouraging several of her gender to improve themselves through reading good books and honest conversation. After her example, there are several here in Leipzig and Saxony who study and apply themselves to proper accomplishments. Among gentlemen Madame herself is so popular that no distinguished company can make merry without her. Her learning is certainly as special as her deportment. I regard her as an honor to our nation.¹

  The nine cantata texts that she delivered in early 1725—if we are not completely mistaken, on commission from the Thomaskantor—range from Jubilate Sunday to the Feast of Trinity. Of his nine compositions, Bach was later able to work two of them into his chorale cantata cycle, even though he had not envisioned this originally, and, in particular, the von Ziegler texts deviate sharply from the others in the cycle. Even so, her libretti for the Feast of the Ascension and the second day of Trinity begin with a chorale strophe, so that Bach had a point of contact for his usual procedure. This was exceptional for von Ziegler; her texts usually begin with a biblical passage. She was able to begin with a chorale strophe because the opening lines of Samuel Liscow’s 1675 hymn largely coincide with the beginning of the Gospel reading for the second day of Pentecost. This reading is found in the third chapter of John; it belongs to Jesus’s conversation with Nicodemus and begins: “Also hat Gott die Welt geliebt, daß er seinen eingeborenen Sohn gab, auf daß alle, die an ihn glauben, nicht verloren werden, sondern das ewige Leben haben” (16; For God so loved the world that he gave his only son in order that all who believe in him shall not be lost but rather have eternal life). After the chorale strophe, Mariane von Ziegler’s cantata text continues with free poetry: two arias frame a recitative, and the libretto concludes with the Bible verse “Wer an ihn glaubet, der wird nicht gerichtet” (Whoever believes in him, he will not be condemned), from the Gospel reading for the second day of Pentecost. Of the three freely versified movements, the recitative remains fairly close to the Gospel reading. In alluding to a place in Luke where Peter indicates to Cornelius, who is praying to him, that he is only human, the recitative reads:

  Ich bin mit Petro nicht vermessen;
  Was mich getrost und freudig macht,
  Daß mich mein Jesus nicht vergessen.
  Er kam nicht nur die Welt zu richten, 
  Nein, nein, er wollte Sünd und Schuld
  Als Mittler zwischen Gott und Mensch vor diesmal schlichten.
  
  I am not presumptuous with Peter,
  Which makes me confident and joyful
  That my Jesus does not forget me.
  He came not only to judge the world, 
  No, no, he wanted to straighten out sin and guilt
  As mediator between God and Man, once and for all to reconcile.

  
  Bach appears to have reformulated and abbreviated the last lines of this text for his purposes.² The original text by von Ziegler reads:

  Nein, nein, er wollte Sünd und Schuld 
  Durch die besondere Leib und Huld,
  Als Mittler zwischen Gott und Menschen völlig schlichten.
  
  No, no, he wanted sin and guilt,
  Through the particular body and grace,
  As mediator between God and man to completely straighten out.

  
  The first aria also was subject to significant alteration. In von Ziegler’s version it reads: 

  Getröstetes Herze, 
  Frohlocke und scherze, 
  Dein Jesus ist da.
  Weg, Kummer und Plagen,
  Ich will euch nur sagen:
  Mein Jesus ist nah.
  
  Comforted heart,
  Rejoice and jest,
  Your Jesus is here.
  Be gone, tribulation and plagues,
  I will to you only say:
  My Jesus is near.

  
  In contrast, Bach’s version reads:

  Mein gläubiges Herze,
  Frohlocke, sing, scherze,
  Dein Jesus ist da. 
  Weg, Jammer, weg, Klagen,
  Ich will euch nur sagen:
  Mein Jesus ist nah.
  
  My faithful heart,
  Rejoice, sing, jest,
  Your Jesus is here.
  Be gone, distress, be gone, lamentation,
  I will to you only say:
  My Jesus is near.

  
  By contrast, the second aria text, “Du bist geboren mir zugute” (You have been born for my benefit), is hardly changed at all.
  
  In Bach’s composition, new additions and the reuse of materials already on hand are interwoven in a peculiar way. A reuse in the figurative sense is seen in the first movement. The Thomaskantor formed it after the pattern he had been using for nearly a year: chorale cantus firmus in large note values, performed by the soprano; motet-like leading of the other voices; and a thematically unified orchestral component. As mentioned earlier, this gave him the option of including the work in the chorale cantata cycle. Strictly speaking, this was a compromise solution, since in our cantata the chorale melody certainly does not remain untouched. Rather, it is often included in the motivic development instead of remaining in its original version. Like the opening chorus, the bass recitative in the center of the work as well as the closing chorus can be regarded as original compositions.
  
  On the other hand, both arias turn out to be incorporations of movements from the Hunt Cantata BWV 208, twelve years older. The bass aria “Du bist geboren mir zugute” goes back to the aria “Ein Fürst ist seines Landes Pan” (A prince is his country’s Pan), from the Weissenfels congratulatory work. The oboe trio, conceived in association with the instrument of Pan, the forest god, remains in the sacred version although without any connection to the text. Thus one can assume that at the time the text was being drawn up, neither von Ziegler nor the composer considered the possibility of drawing upon an older work, and that this occurred to Bach only later. Although he invested little effort in revising the bass aria, his approach to the first aria, “Mein gläubiges Herze” (My faithful heart), was radical and comprehensive. The original in the Hunt Cantata is a modest piece for soprano and basso continuo; the contrapuntally ambitious instrumental texture is obviously built upon the spare basso continuo ritornello. From these preliminary components Bach developed something new for the Pentecost cantata, a soprano aria with a completely transformed vocal part, accompanied by an obbligato part with elaborate figuration for violoncello piccolo, a small instrument whose appearance has not yet been completely researched. 
  
  In contrast to the modern form of the arias and the relatively relaxed handling of the choral material in the opening movement, the effect of the concluding biblical passage with its motet-like composition seems quite archaic. The supremely artistic movement for voices with doubled instruments is laid out as a double fugue: an initial exposition of the first theme is followed by the countertheme, and then both themes are combined. One occasionally hears the criticism that Bach has underlaid the same thematic substance with different, indeed opposed texts, represented by the keywords “gerichtet” (condemned) and “nicht gerichtet” (not condemned). But it does not appear that the composer was primarily interested in a close, limited relationship between word and tone; instead, thematic invention and its development hew closely to the biblical passage in its totality, not sentences, phrases, or individual words. Seen in this way (unlike the opening chorus, a well-practiced model realized once again; or the arias, which draw upon existing materials), the concluding movement is the musical and spiritual high point of the entire work.

  ---

  Footnotes

  1. Predeek (1927, 121–23).↵
  2. Mark Peters argues that “BWV 68/3 is more clearly improved, both poetically and theologically, in its 1728 version” (2005, 41).—Trans.↵
• 1 2023-09-26T09:33:56+00:00 Sie werden euch in den Bann tun BWV 183 / BC A 79 5 Exaudi. First performed 05/13/1725 in Leipzig (Cycle II). Text by CM von Ziegler. plain 2024-04-24T17:30:33+00:00 1725-05-13 BWV 183 Leipzig 51.340199, 12.360103 28Exaudi Exaudi BC A 79 Johann Sebastian Bach CM von Ziegler Hans-Joachim Schulze, "Sie werden euch in den Bann tun, BWV 183 / BC A 79" in Die Bach Kantaten: Einführungen zu sämtlichen Kantaten Johann Sebastian Bachs, (Leipzig: Evangelisches Verlagsanstalt 2007), p. 246 James A. Brokaw II Leipzig II

  Exaudi Sunday, May 13, 1725

  Johann Sebastian Bach wrote his cantata Sie werden euch in den Bann tun BWV 183 (They will place you under a ban) for the last Sunday before Pentecost in the church calendar. It is the later of two compositions of the same name. Also like the earlier work, its text begins immediately with a biblical passage from the Gospel reading for Exaudi Sunday, found in John at the end of chapter 15 and the beginning of chapter 16, and once again quotes from the farewell addresses of Jesus to his disciples:

  But when the comforter comes, whom I will send you from the Father, the spirit of truth, which from the Father goes out, he shall testify of me. And you also shall testify, for you have been with me since the beginning. Such things I have said to you that you shall not be upset. They shall place you under a ban. The time is coming when whoever kills you will believe that he does God a service thereby. And such things they will do to you because they recognize neither my Father nor me. (15:26–16:3)

  
  The text of our cantata comes from the Leipzig poet Christiane Mariane von Ziegler. Three years after Bach composed the cantata, she published the libretto in her poetry collection Versuch in gebundener Schreib-Art. This print, which possibly preserves the version of the text she delivered to the cantor of St. Thomas, shows differences in wording at several places from the version composed by Bach. To varying degrees, similar differences are found in all nine of Ziegler’s texts composed by Bach.¹
  
  The word of the Lord quoted at the beginning, from John 16:2, is unchanged: “Sie werden euch in den Bann tun, es kömmt aber die Zeit, daß, wer euch tötet, wird meinen, er tue Gott einen Dienst daran” (They shall place you under a ban. The time is coming when whoever kills you will believe that he does God a service thereby). The ensuing aria text underwent only minor changes; it formulates the answer of the disciple and, in general, that of the faithful Christian:

  Ich fürchte nicht des Todes Schrecken,
  Ich scheue ganz kein Ungemach,
  Denn Jesus’ Schutzarm wird mich decken,
  Ich folge gern und willig nach.
  Wollt ihr nicht meines Lebens schonen
  Und glaubt, Gott einen Dienst zu tun,
  Er soll euch selben noch belohnen,
  Wohlan, es mag dabei beruhn.
  
  I do not fear death’s terror,
  I shy away from no adversity at all,
  For Jesus’s protective arm will cover me,
  I follow him gladly and willingly.
  If you would not spare my life
  And believe that you do God a service,
  That he shall himself still reward you,
  Well, then! Let it be so.

  
  More significant are the disparities in the third cantata movement, a recitative. Ziegler’s text reads:

  Ich bin bereit, mein Blut und armes Leben,
  Vor dich, mein Heiland, hinzugeben,
  Mein ganzer Mensch soll dir allein
  Gewidmet sein.
  Dies ist mein Trost, dein Geist wird bei mir stehen,
  Und sollt es mir auch noch so schlimm ergehen.
  
  I am prepared to give my blood and poor life
  For you, my savior.
  My entire being shall to you alone 
  Be dedicated.
  This is my consolation, your spirit will stand by me,
  Even should it go so badly for me.

  
  These six paired rhyming verses are shortened and concentrated to five in Bach’s version, although one of the verses ends up without a rhyme partner:

  Ich bin bereit, mein Blut und armes Leben
  Vor dich, mein Heiland, hinzugeben
  Mein ganzer Mensch soll dir gewidmet sein.
  Ich tröste mich, dein Geist wird bei mir stehen.
  Gesetzt, es sollte mir vielleicht zuviel geschehen.
  
  I am prepared to give up my blood and poor life
  For you, my savior.
  My entire person shall be dedicated to you.
  I comfort myself that your spirit will stand by me
  In the event that it should perhaps be too much for me.

  
  The weakening of the last line seems remarkable: “noch so schlimm ergehen” in Ziegler becomes “vielleicht zuviel geschehen” in Bach.
  
  The following movement, an aria, hews more closely to the Gospel reading, particularly to the following verse: “Wenn aber der Tröster kommen wird, welchen ich euch senden werde vom Vater, der Geist der Wahrheit, der vom Vater ausgeht, der wird zeugen von mir. Und ihr werdet auch zeugen” (15:26–27; But when the comforter comes, whom I will send you from the Father, the spirit of truth, which from the Father goes out, he shall testify of me. And you also shall testify). This becomes in rhyme:

  Höchster Tröster, heilger Geist,
  Der du mir die Wege weist,
  Darauf ich wandeln soll,
  Hilf meine Schwachheit mit vertreten,
  Denn von mir selbst kann ich nicht beten,
  Ich weiß, du sorgest für mein Wohl.
  
  Highest comforter, Holy Spirit
  You who show me the ways
  Upon which I shall walk,
  Help my weakness with your intercession,
  Since for myself I cannot pray.
  I know you care for my well-being.

  
  The resonance with Romans 8:26 is unmistakable: “Der Geist hilft unser Schwachheit auf, denn wir wissen nicht, was wir beten sollen, wie sich’s gebühret” (The Spirit helps our weakness, for we know not what we should pray for, what is proper). A strophe from Paul Gerhardt’s hymn of 1653, Zeuch ein zu deinen Toren (Enter through your gates), serves as conclusion and summary:

  Du bist ein Geist, der lehret,
  Wie man recht beten soll;
  Dein Beten wird erhöret,
  Dein Singen klinget wohl. 
  Est steigt zum Himmel an,
  Es steigt und läßt nicht abe
  Bis der geholfen habe,
  Der allein helfen kann.
  
  You are a spirit who teaches
  How one truly should pray;
  Your praying is heard,
  Your singing sounds well.
  It climbs up to heaven.
  It climbs and does not abate
  Till he has helped
  Who alone can help.

  
  A remarkable aspect of Bach’s composition of this source text is the suppression of familiar timbres and, at the same time, the preference for woodwinds and string instruments in their deep registers. Perhaps this procedure is meant to do justice to the extraordinary circumstance of “Sie werden euch in den Bann tun.” Hence the opening word of the Lord is given to the bass, the vox Christi, surrounded by the harmonies of four woodwinds: two oboi d’amore in the alto range and two oboi da caccia in the tenor range. Also unusual is the procedure in the ensuing aria: above a hesitant basso continuo a violoncello piccolo—a smaller, more manageable form of the usual cello—proceeds in incessant, almost unyielding, sixteenth-note figuration. This dynamic abates only occasionally to briefly merge in harmony with the continuo. In contrast, the vocal part seems nervously conflicted, expressed in erratic melodies as well as a continuously changing and unstable rhythm. The confident statement “Ich fürchte nicht des Todes Schrecken” (I do not fear death’s terror) thus ends up in a strange twilight. The ensuing alto recitative, “Ich bin bereit, mein Blut und armes Leben / Vor dich, mein Heiland, hinzugeben” (I am prepared to give my blood and poor life / For you, my savior), is clearly distinguished from this with its clear diction: above sustained chords in the strings, the woodwinds alternate a short motive that anticipates the opening “Ich bin bereit” in the voice and is repeated throughout the entire movement.
  
  Similarly, Bach at first had planned all four oboes for the following soprano aria but then left it to strings and two oboi da caccia in unison. Its pastorale coloration seems especially aimed at the text “Höchster Tröster, heilger Geist.” Despite the multifarious writing for winds and strings and the skillful coloratura demanded of the soprano, a serene, dance-like pace predominates in this aria movement. Hence the inner strength of the soprano aria distinguishes it clearly from the nervous conflictedness of the preceding tenor aria. This impression also strengthens the concluding four-part chorale setting of the late sixteenth-century melody Helft mir Gotts Güte preisen (Help me praise God’s goodness).

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  Footnotes

  1. Mark Peters (2005) has cogently summarized this long-running debate and argued for Ziegler’s authorship of the changes.↵