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• 1 2023-09-26T09:32:58+00:00 Ich bin vergnügt mit meinem Glücke BWV 84 / BC A 43 10 Solo cantata. Septuagesimae. First performed 02/09/1727 in Leipzig (Cycle IV) "Picander Jahrgang" plain 2024-04-24T16:56:08+00:00 1727-02-09 BWV 84 Leipzig 51.340199, 12.360103 15Septuagesimae Solo cantata Septuagesimae BC A 43 Johann Sebastian Bach CF Henrici (Picander) Hans-Joachim Schulze, "Ich bin vergnügt mit meinem Glücke, BWV 84 / BC A 43" in Die Bach Kantaten: Einführungen zu sämtlichen Kantaten Johann Sebastian Bachs, (Leipzig: Evangelisches Verlagsanstalt 2007), p. 139 James A. Brokaw II Leipzig III

  Septuagesimae Sunday

  The cantata Ich bin vergnügt mit meinem Glücke BWV 84 (I am content with my fortune) originated in February 1727 and is for Septuagesima Sunday, the ninth Sunday before Easter or the third Sunday before the beginning of Lent. Its Gospel reading is found in Matthew 20 and tells the parable of the workers in the vineyard: “For the kingdom of heaven is like a householder, who went out early in the morning to hire laborers in his vineyard. And when he agreed with the laborers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard” (1–2). The parable further describes workers who are hired several or even many hours later, however, with the promise “I will give you what is right,” and, finally, the paying of wages when everyone receives the same amount—one groschen—at which those who had been hired first were not amused:

  And when they had received it, they grumbled against the householder and said, These last have worked but one hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us, who have borne the burden and heat of the day. But he answered one among them, and said: Friend, I do you no wrong: were you not at one with me for a penny? Take what is yours, and go forth! I will give unto this last, even as unto you. Or do I not have the power to do what I will with my own? Are you envious because I am good? So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen. (Matthew 20:11–16)

  
  To judge by the scenario it portrays of the workers in the vineyard and the parable’s deeper meaning, the text of our cantata shows itself to be not exactly inspired. Instead, it revolves around concepts such as “Genügsamkeit” and “Vergnügung,” whereby the first means “Sichbescheiden” (sufficiency), according to contemporary understanding, while the second would be translated as “Zufriedenheit” (contentment). However, according to Friedrich Smend, “Vergnügung” (contentment) is “not to be understood in the bourgeois fashion of this world, but as recreatio animae [restoration of the soul], to be at peace in the devotion to God and the surrender to his will.” “Ich bin vergnügt mit meinem Glücke” would thus be translated as “ich bin zufrieden” (I am content) and, indeed, in the just-quoted interpretation, as “mit meinem Schicksal” (with my fate). An older model for this title is found in a cantata text for St. Jacob’s Day (July 25) in the annual cycle Geistliches Singen und Spielen, printed in Gotha in 1711 and written for Georg Philipp Telemann in Eisenach by Erdmann Neumeister. His poem begins with the lines:

  Ich bin vergnügt mit meinem Stande,
  In welchen mich mein Gott gesetzt.
  
  I am content with my condition,
  In which my God has placed me.

  
      Closely related to this is the opening movement of the Septuagesima cantata in the annual cycle begun in 1728 in Leipzig by Christian Friedrich Henrici (Picander), Cantaten auf die Sonn- und Festtage durch das ganze Jahr (Cantatas for the Sundays and holidays of the entire year):¹

  Ich bin vergnügt mit meinem Stande,
  Den mir der liebe Gott beschert.
  Was soll ich viel nach großen Dingen
  Mit Ungeduld und Mühe ringen?
  Ich bin ja! nicht der kleinen Wert.
  
  I am content with my condition,
  Which the dear God has granted me.
  To what end might I strive for great things
  With impatience and trouble?
  I am certainly not worthy of small things.

  
  In view of the unmistakable commonality of substantial parts of these two strophes, it is tempting to suppose that Henrici/Picander had already written a Septuagesima cantata libretto for Bach in early 1727 and then included it two years later in modified form in his complete annual cycle of cantata texts. While this possibility certainly cannot be excluded, the differences between the two cantata texts beyond the opening movement are so considerable that other explanations for the partial relationship should be considered.
  
  In the first recitative of our cantata, the librettist stays close to the ideas he has already set forth and thus does not go into the deeper meaning of the parable of the workers in the vineyard. The recitative begins as follows:

  Gott ist mir ja nichts schuldig,
  Und wenn er mir was gibt, 
  So zeigt er mir, daß er mich liebt;
  Ich kann mir nichts bei ihm verdienen,
  Denn was ich tu, ist meine Pflicht.
  
  God certainly owes me nothing,
  And if he gives me something, 
  He thus shows me that he loves me;
  I can earn nothing from him,
  For what I do is my duty.

  
  And at the close:

  Hat er uns nicht so lange Zeit
  Umsonst ernähret und gekleidt
  Und will uns einsten seliglich
  In seine Herrlichkeit erhöhn?
  Es ist genug vor mich,
  Daß ich nicht hungrig darf zu Bette gehn.
  
  Has he not, for so long a time,
  Nourished and clothed us for nothing
  And wants one day, blessedly,
  To raise us in his glory?
  It is enough for me
  That I need not go to bed hungry.

  
  The associated aria praises the advantages of gratitude, modesty, and love of one’s neighbor:

  Ich esse mit Freuden mein weniges Brot
  Und gönne dem Nächsten von Herzen das Seine.
  Ein ruhig Gewissen, ein fröhlicher Geist,
  Ein dankbares Herze, das lobet und preist,
  Vermehret den Segen, verzuckert die Not.
  
  With joy I eat my meager bread
  And sincerely do not begrudge my neighbor that which is his.
  A conscience at rest, a joyful spirit,
  A grateful heart that praises and extols
  Multiplies blessings, sweetens travail.

  
  With the last recitative the text poet finally succeeds in penetrating to the concern of the Gospel reading:

  Im Schweiße meines Angesichts 
  Will ich indes mein Brot genießen,
  Und wenn mein’n Lebenslauf,
  Mein Lebensabend wird beschließen,
  So teilt mir Gott den Groschen aus,
  Da steht der Himmel drauf.
  O! wenn ich diese Gabe
  Zu meinem Gnadenlohne habe,
  So brauch ich weiter nichts.
  
  In the sweat upon my countenance
  I will meanwhile enjoy my bread,
  And when my life’s course,
  My life’s evening, is to close,
  Thus God hands my the pennies,
  On it heaven affirms.
  O! if I have this gift
  As my reward reckoned of grace,
  Then I need nothing further.

  
  The cantata concludes with the last strophe of Ämilie Juliane von Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt’s hymn Wer weiß, wie nahe mir mein Ende (Who knows, how near my end). In a catechetical function, it summarizes the libretto’s line of thought:

  Ich leb indes in dir vergnüget
  Und sterb ohn alle Kümmernis,
  Mir gnüget, wie es mein Gott füget,
  Ich glaub und bin es ganz gewiß:
  Durch deine Gnad und Christi Blut
  Machst du’s mit meinem Ende gut.
  
  I live, meanwhile, content in you
  And die without any sorrow.
  It is enough for me however God ordains it,
  I believe and am absolutely certain:
  Through your grace and the blood of Christ
  With my death you will bring good to pass.

  
  In accordance with the character of the text, Johann Sebastian Bach cast this work as a solo cantata (although it concludes with a four-part chorale) and therefore granted it the rare designation “Cantata.” Much is demanded from the solo soprano in endurance and fluidity, particularly in the opening aria: while the strings and even the basso continuo are restricted to dabbed accompanying chords, soprano and solo oboe issue forth sweeping melodies that, with their nearly unending breath, remind one of the slow movement of a concerto. By contrast, the second aria is vibrant and dance-like, as the “fröhlicher Geist” (cheerful spirit) apostrophized in the text shapes the texture, and as the oboe only partially plays the role of obbligato part and otherwise willfully follows the contour of the violin part one moment, the soprano voice the next. Of the two recitatives, the first is more simply set. The second, however, embedded in the accompanying strings, ventures to the remote key of F-sharp major at the end in accordance with the text. With deliberate, restful voice leading, the concluding chorale on the melody Wer nur den lieben Gott läßt walten (Whoever simply allows dear God to rule) leads everything back to its proper proportion and thereby connects to the recreatio animae of the cantata’s beginning.

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  Footnotes

  1. Picander’s text, from his 1728 cycle, was set in a recently discovered composition by the young C. P. E. Bach. See Wollny (2010).—Trans. ↵
• 1 2023-09-26T09:33:55+00:00 Ich lebe, mein Herze, zu deinem Ergötzen BWV 145 / BC A 60 10 Third Day of Easter. First performed 04/19/1729 at Leipzig. Cycle IV "Picander Jahrgang" plain 2024-04-24T17:47:42+00:00 1729-04-19 BWV 145 Leipzig 51.340199, 12.360103 21Easter2 Third Day of Easter BC A 60 Johann Sebastian Bach CF Henrici (Picander) Hans-Joachim Schulze, "Ich lebe, mein Herze, zu deinem Ergötzen, BWV 145 / BC A 60" in Die Bach Kantaten: Einführungen zu sämtlichen Kantaten Johann Sebastian Bachs, (Leipzig: Evangelisches Verlagsanstalt 2007), p. 191 James A. Brokaw II Leipzig IV

  Easter Tuesday, April 19, 1729

  This cantata probably originated in April 1729. Johann Sebastian Bach took its libretto from an annual cycle of cantata texts that the Leipzig postal secretary and gifted poet Christian Friedrich Henrici had begun to publish in the early summer of 1728 under the title Cantaten auf die Sonn- und Fest-Tage durch das gantze Jahr, verfertiget durch Picandern (Cantatas for Sundays and holidays throughout the entire year prepared by Picander). Henrici provided a foreword that overtly stated the goal of the publication: “In honor of God, in response to the desire of good friends, and to promote much devotion, I have decided to prepare the present cantatas. I have undertaken this plan even more happily, since I may flatter myself that perhaps whatever is lacking in poetic charm will be replaced by the loveliness of the incomparable Herr Music Director Bach, and that these songs will resound in the most important churches of devout Leipzig.” If Bach indeed set Picander’s cycle in its entirety, then this portion of his oeuvre must be considered lost. Today we have evidence of scarcely ten compositions, only about a sixth of the complete cycle.
  
  And so the cantata Ich lebe, mein Herze, zu deinem Ergötzen BWV 145 (I live, my heart, to your delight) should be regarded as one of those works that might be all that remains of what was once a much larger collection. If there are several question marks attached to this broad assumption, then the downright unusual transmission of sources for our cantata gives rise to several additional puzzles. In contrast to the five-movement libretto by Picander, the cantata also survives in an expanded form of seven movements. This version begins with a chorale movement setting of the chorale strophe “Auf, mein Herz, des Herren Tag” (Arise, my heart, the Lord’s day) by Caspar Neumann, dated about 1700, using the melody Jesus, meine Zuversicht (Jesus, my assurance) from the seventeenth century. There follows a choral movement that begins with a duet and closes with a fugue on the words from Romans 10:9: “So du mit deinem Munde bekennest Jesum, daß er der Herr sei” (If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord). This last composition just described is by Georg Philipp Telemann and belongs to a cantata of 1723 for Easter Sunday.
  
  The author/compiler of the seven-movement pasticcio version of our cantata, also prepared for Easter Sunday, remains unknown. At the moment, the earliest available source is a copy that Karl Friedrich Zelter, director of the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin (Berlin Singing Academy), received from his colleague Peterson of Frankfurt an der Oder in 1816. When bringing the work to print in 1884, the Bach-Gesamtausgabe had to rely on this not exactly confidence inspiring copy. Shortly afterward, the editors provided an addendum with a correction to a problematic reading in the score. In doing so, they made reference to the cantata Ich lebe, mein Herze, zu deinem Ergötzen without mentioning its origins. Apparently, the owner of a superior source—perhaps Bach’s own manuscript—had made contact, asking, even begging, that he remain anonymous. The whereabouts of the precious treasure remain unknown today. However, the source of the choral movement “Jesus, meine Zuversicht” that serves as the first movement of the pasticcio has been clarified: sources once belonging to the Sing-Akademie show that it is the work of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach.¹
  
  Picander’s libretto begins with a duet, as would be appropriate for a dialogue cantata:

  Ich lebe, mein Herze, zu deinem Ergötzen,
  Mein Leben erhebet dein Leben empor.
  Die klagende Handschrift ist völlig zerrissen,
  Der Friede verschaffet ein ruhig Gewissen
  Und öffnet den Sündern das himmlische Tor.
  
  I live, my heart, to your delight,
  My life exalts your life on high.
  The plaintiff document of ordinances is entirely torn up,
  Peace gives one a conscience at ease
  And opens to sinners the heavenly gate.

  
  This is meant for the part of Jesus; the Soul sings a variant of the first two lines:

  Du lebest, mein Jesu, zu meinem Ergötzen,
  Dein Leben erhebet mein Leben empor.
  
  You live, my Jesus, to my delight,
  Your life exalts my life on high.

  
  The allusion to the “klagende Handschrift” (plaintiff document) refers to a place in the letter by the apostle Paul to the Colossians: “[He] has made us a gift of all sins and erased the record that stood against us, which was based on statutes and was opposed to us, and put it aside and lifted it upon the cross” (2:14). Aside from the verse regarding the “klagende Handschrift,” the opening movement proceeds with general formulations. It is tempting to suppose that Picander was able to take an existing work into consideration here. One notices this immediately upon comparing the text of the opening movement with the rich and substantial recitative that follows immediately :

  Nun fordre, Moses, wie du willt, 
  Das dräurende Gesetz zu üben,
  Ich habe meine Quittung hier 
  Mit Jesu Blut und Wunden unterschrieben.
  Dieselbe gilt.
  Ich bin erlöst, ich bin befreit
  Und lebe nun mit Gott in Fried und Einigkeit,
  Der Kläger wird an mir zuschanden,
  Denn Gott ist auferstanden,
  Mein Herz, das merke dir!
  
  Now demand, Moses, as you will,
  That we practice the threatening law.
  I have my receipt here 
  Signed with Jesus’s blood and wounds,
  It is in force.
  I am redeemed, I am freed,
  And live now with God in peace and unity.
  The plaintiff is in me confounded,
  For God is resurrected,
  My heart, mark you that!

  
  The closing line serves as a deft transition to the next aria, which openly exhibits several weaknesses of language or, more to the point, content:

  Merke, mein Herze, beständig nur dies,
  Wenn du alles sonst vergißt,
  Daß dein Heiland lebend ist;
  Lasse dieses deinem Gläuben
  Einen Grund und Feste bleiben,
  Auf solche besteht er gewiß.
  Merke, mein Herze nur dies.
  
  Remember, my heart, ever just this,
  If you forget everything else,
  That your savior is living;
  Let this remain for your faith
  A foundation and fortress,
  On this he certainly insists.
  Remember, my heart, just this.

  
  Here again, one suspects that the poet was laboring under stipulations that hampered the flight of his imagination. In the ensuing recitative, with even greater skill he interlaces the end rhymes as he gives the certainty of salvation to the Soul in following Jesus: 

  Mein Jesus lebt,
  Das soll mir niemand nehmen
  Drum sterb ich sonder Grämen.
  
  My Jesus lives,
  That shall no one take from me.
  Therefore, I shall die without grieving.

  
  And at the end:

  Mein Jesus lebt,
  Ich habe nun genug,
  Mein Herz und Sinn,
  Will heute noch zum Himmel hin,
  Selbst den Erlöser anzuschauen.
  
  My Jesus lives,
  I have now enough.
  My heart and mind,
  Would indeed today go to heaven 
  To see the redeemer himself.

  
  The libretto closes with a strophe from Nikolaus Herman’s Easter hymn Erschienen ist der herrlich Tag:

  Drum wir auch billig fröhlich sein,
  Singen das Hallelujah fein
  Und loben dich, Herr Jesu Christ;
  Zu Trost du uns erstanden bist.
  Hallelujah.
  
  Therefore, we are justly cheerful,
  Sing the Alleluia exquisitely,
  And praise you, Lord Jesus Christ.
  For our consolation you are arisen.
  Hallelujah.

  
  The suspicion, drawn from the uneven qualities of the text of the cantata Ich lebe, mein Herze, that only the two recitatives and the closing chorale are original compositions solidifies upon examining the two aria movements. As Friedrich Smend established in 1950, the duet “Ich lebe, mein Herze” and the bass aria “Merke, mein Herze, beständig nur dies” are quite close to the style of Bach’s secular cantatas from his Köthen period. Both movements have an animated, dance-like character: the duet is loosened up by the playful cheerfulness of the solo violin, and the bass aria is characterized by the skillful, terraced interchanges between the powerful unison effects of the entire ensemble and the concertante emergence of individual string and woodwind instruments. The presence of the oboe d’amore—not found elsewhere in Bach’s Köthen orchestra—may be the result of an arrangement of the work in Leipzig. On the other hand, the unusual assignment of the vox Christi to the tenor in the opening movement may be a relic of a possible Köthen early version.²

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  Footnotes

  1. Schulze (2003, 11).↵
  2. The identification of C. P. E. Bach as the composer of the prepended chorale prompted Peter Wollny (2010, 139–43) to examine stylistic evidence in the setting of the five-movement Picander text, ostensibly by J. S. Bach. Since the closing chorale offered only meager starting points and the recitatives none at all, Wollny focused on the two arias. In spite of their indisputably “Bachian” tone, he found numerous anomalies throughout the duet: frequent stagnant harmonies; the absence of Vokaleinbau; the lack of independent voice leading. He concluded that the long-standing view articulated by Smend was not plausible and that the observable deficiencies in the arias in BWV 145 were much more characteristic of a young, as yet inexperienced, although ambitious composer whose full potential had yet to unfold.—Trans.↵