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

  Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity, August 22, 1723

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

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

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

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

  
  In Knauer it is more concise but also differently accentuated:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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  Footnotes

  1. Krausse (1981).↵
  2. Wollny (2001a).↵
  3. Schering (1925); Dadelsen (1983). For criticism, see Schulze (2001), Schulze (2002c).↵
  4. Petzoldt (2004), as well as numerous individual studies by the same author.↵
  5. Spitta (1899, 2:429–31).—Trans.↵
• 1 2023-09-26T09:34:19+00:00 Nimm von uns, Herr, du treuer Gott BWV 101 / BC A 118 7 Chorale cantata on hymn by Martin Moller. Tenth Sunday After Trinity. First performed 08/13/1724 in Leipzig (Cycle II). plain 2024-04-24T17:16:22+00:00 1724-08-13 BWV 101 Leipzig 51.340199, 12.360103 05Trinity10 Chorale Cantata Tenth Sunday After Trinity BC A 118 Johann Sebastian Bach Martin Moller Hans-Joachim Schulze, "Nimm von uns, Herr, du treuer Gott, BWV 101 / BC A 118" in Die Bach Kantaten: Einführungen zu sämtlichen Johann Sebastian Bachs, (Leipzig: Evangelisches Verlagsanstalt 2007), p. 367 James A. Brokaw II Chorale Cantata Annual Cycle Leipzig II

  Tenth Sunday after Trinity, August 13, 1724

  This cantata, Nimm von uns Herr, du treuer Gott BWV 101 (Take from us, Lord, you faithful God), belongs to Johann Sebastian Bach’s annual cycle of chorale cantatas, largely produced during his second year at Leipzig. This composition is assigned to the tenth Sunday after Trinity and was performed for the first time on August 13, 1724. The Gospel reading for the day, in Luke 19, gives the account of how Jesus drove the moneylenders from the Temple and predicted the destruction of Jerusalem.
  
  However, the cantata’s text is based only in small part upon the Sunday Gospel reading; instead, as is typical for Bach’s chorale cantatas, it is drawn from a main hymn for the Sunday in question: the chorale Nimm von uns, Herr, du treuer Gott, written by Martin Moller during an epidemic of the plague in 1584. The seven movements of the cantata correspond to the seven strophes of the chorale. As seen so often in Bach’s chorale cantatas, the opening and closing strophes of the chorale are adopted literally, while the internal strophes are revised to become recitatives and arias, retaining some or all of the original chorale text interleaved with freely versified lines. Who it was who undertook this revision, whether a single author alone or with a team of assistants, remains unknown. Moreover, the term “free poetry” can be used only qualifiedly; recent scholarship has led to the insight that the basic statements and significant vocabulary in what appears to be free poetry in fact are drawn from the Bible or the hymnary.¹
  
  The opening strophe of Moller’s chorale makes reference to actual events in 1584, although so generalized that the chorale is found beneath the rubric “Im allgemeiner Not” (In general distress) in hymn collections of the era:

  Nimm von uns, Herr, du treuer Gott, 
  Die schwere Straf und große Not,
  Die wir mit Sünden ohne Zahl
  Verdienet haben allzumal.
  Behüt für Krieg und teurer Zeit,
  Für Seuche, Feu’r und großem Leid.
  
  Take from us, Lord, you faithful God,
  The severe punishment and great distress
  That we, with sins without number,
  Have altogether deserved.
  Protect us from war and times of famine,
  From pestilence, fire, and great suffering.

  
  Sin as the root of all evil is also the theme of the second movement, an aria that freely takes up ideas from the second chorale strophe as well as the Sunday Gospel reading. In Moller it reads:

  Erbarm dich deiner bösen Knecht,
  Wir bitten Gnad und nicht das Recht;
  Denn so du, Herr, den rechten Lohn
  Uns geben wollst nach unserm Tun,
  So müßt die ganze Welt vergehen,
  Und könnt kein Mensch vor dir bestehn.
  
  Have mercy upon your evil servants,
  We pray for grace and not for justice;
  For if you, Lord, wanted to give us
  The just reward for our deeds,
  Then the entire world would have to perish,
  And no person could stand before you.

   
  From this, the cantata aria becomes:

  Handle nicht nach deine Rechten
  Mit uns bösen Sündenknechten,
  Laß das Schwert der Feinde ruhn.
  Höchster, höre unser Flehen,
  Daß wir nicht durch sündlich Tun
  Wie Jerusalem vergehen.
  
  Do not deal according to your rights
  With us evil servants of sin,
  Let the sword of our enemies rest.
  Highest, hear our plea
  That we not, by sinful action,
  Perish like Jerusalem.

  
  The fourth movement, again an aria, hews more closely to the chorale’s original wording. “Warum willst du so zornig sein / Über uns arme Würmelein?” (Why will you be so wrathful / Against us poor little worms?) begins the chorale strophe, and it ends, “Es ist ja vor dein’m Angesicht / Unsre Schwachheit verborgen nicht” (Before your countenance / Our weakness is not hidden). The libretto reads as follows:

  Warum willst du so zornig sein?
  Es schlagen deines Eifers Flammen
  Schon über unserm Haupt zusammen.
  Ach stelle doch die Strafen ein
  Und trag aus väterlicher Huld
  Mit unserm schwachen Fleisch Geduld.
  
  Why will you be so wrathful?
  Already the flames of your zeal strike
  Together upon our heads.
  Ah, put punishment aside 
  And have, out of fatherly indulgence,
  Patience with our weak flesh.

  
  The two movements that frame this aria (movements 3 and 5) are recitatives; they take the form that prevails throughout the chorale cantata annual cycle. All lines of text in the chorale strophes are adopted, but they are expanded with interpolated lines of free poetry. With regard to the third movement, Moller’s strophe begins with the lines:

  Ach Herr Gott, durch die Treue dein
  Mit Trost und Rettung uns erschein.
  Beweis an uns dein’ große Gnad 
  Und straf uns nicht auf frischer Tat.
  
  Ah, Lord God, through your faithfulness
  Appear to us with comfort and deliverance.
  Reveal to us your great grace,
  And do not punish us in the very act.

  
  The cantata text here reads:

  Ach Herr Gott, durch die Treue dein
      Wird unser Land in Fried und Ruhe sein.
      Wenn uns ein Unglückswetter droht,
      So rufen wir,
      Barmherziger Gott, zu dir,
      In solcher Not:
  Mit Trost und Rettung uns erschein.
      Du kannst dem feindlichen Zerstören
      Durch deine Macht und Hilfe wehren.
  Beweis an uns deine große Gnad
  Und straf uns nicht auf frischer Tat.
  
  Ah, Lord God, through your faithfulness
      Our land will enjoy peace and repose.
      Should a tempest of misfortune threaten us,
      Then we will call, 
      Merciful God, to you
      In such need:
  Appear to us with comfort and deliverance.
      You can repel the enemy’s destruction
      Through your might and assistance.
  Reveal to us your great grace,
  And do not punish us in the very act.

  
  In a similar fashion, the fifth movement, whose text begins “Die Sünd hat uns verderbet sehr” (Sin has greatly corrupted us), is reshaped to its new purpose as a recitative. In the sixth movement, an aria whose text begins “Gedenk an Jesu bittern Tod” (Think upon Jesus’s bitter death), only a few lines were taken from the chorale strophe, as in the fourth movement. As usual, the seventh and concluding movement is the unchanged final chorale strophe, “Leit uns mit deiner rechten Hand” (Lead us with your righteous hand).
  
  What is particularly striking about Bach’s composition of this rather conventional libretto are the unusual proportions of the opening movement. The cantus firmus Vater unser im Himmelreich in the soprano in long note values; motet-like counterpoint in the alto, tenor, and bass; and an independent concerted orchestral part with three each of strings and oboes: all this requires more than 260 measures, which cannot be performed particularly quickly despite the prescribed alla breve meter. It is hardly surprising that Bach’s oldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann, copied out this impressive movement in which the motet-like element predominates and probably performed it in Halle.
  
  The second movement, “Handle nicht nach deinen Rechten,” is set as a tenor aria with obbligato violin or flute. There is a remarkable opposition between the gestures of supplication in the text and the defiant self-confidence of the distinctive instrumental part. The third movement—the first recitative, for soprano and basso continuo—sharply distinguishes the original chorale verses, accompanied by an ostinato figure in the continuo, from the interpolated, freely versified lines of recitative. The chorale verses are performed strictly in   3
  4 meter, while the recitative lines, notated in 4
  4 , are performed more freely, following the rhythms of speech.
  
  Rage and agitation on the one hand, clemency and patience on the other characterize the multifarious musical trajectory of the bass aria “Warum willst du so zornig sein?” The tight instrumental ritornello for three oboes, to be performed Vivace, is clearly derived from the text “Es schlagen deines Eifers Flammen / Schon über unserm Haupt zusammen” (Already the flames of your zeal strike / Together upon our heads). Immediately upon the first entrance of the voice and again a short time later, the ritornello is interrupted by a calming figure marked Andante that intensifies concern of the “Warum willst du so zornig sein?” and highlights the chorale melody by the voice. A turn for the better seems to be at hand with the verse “Ach stelle doch die Strafen ein”: the chorale melody is heard polyphonically in the instruments, while the voice continues with its text urging mercy and patience. The return to the instrumental version of the beginning casts doubt on the plea’s success. The third movement’s contrast between a tempo performance of chorale lines and freer delivery of recitative interpolations is also heard in the fifth movement, where the composer does without the change in meter in the earlier movement.
  
  The next to last movement, a duet for alto and soprano, features a delicate texture and intensive text interpretation. Obbligato parts for transverse flute, oboe da caccia, and continuo fill out the texture to a full five voices. Bach was unusually precise in designating the flute part as he did; this shows that he had arrived at a thoroughly exact implementation of musical components for this duet and regarded the textual statement “Gedenk an Jesu bittern Tod” to be the central concern of the entire cantata libretto. A rather simply harmonized four-part chorale, “Leit uns mit deiner rechten Hand,” leads out of the otherworldliness of the hovering 12
  8 meter and back to reality. It is enlivened only by a brief harmonic outburst prompted by the mention of “des Teufels List” (the devil’s deceit).

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  Footnotes

  1. See Petzoldt (2004), as well as numerous individual studies by the same author.↵