A journey from distress to faith. That’s the path that Bach takes us on with Cantata 138. And he does so while setting out on a bit of experimentation himself, in terms of musical language and cantata format.
The occasion is the fifteenth Sunday after Trinity during Bach’s first year in Leipzig (1723), which fell on September 5th. The Gospel for this Sunday is Matthew 6: 24-34, a section of Jesus’ “Sermon of the Mount”, whose central message is not to worry about temporal matters and earthly riches, and strive for the Kingdom of God instead.
From an orchestration perspective, the cantata is modest in its requirements: 2 oboes d’amore in addition to strings and continuo. Vocally, it calls for the usual 4-part choir and 4 soloists.
The libretto is by an unknown poet, and quite unusual in its structure. It is based on a Nuremberg hymn from 1561, also of unknown authorship, from which it borrows three full verses, used in the first, third and seventh movements of the cantata. In the first and third movements, the librettist broke up the stanzas of the hymn with recitative text. For the seventh, the hymn verse was used intact. Movements 2 and 4 are also recitatives, which means that the only aria in the entire cantata is movement 5.
The narrative arc of the cantata follows the believer in his or her personal path through this Sunday’s fragment of Jesus’ sermon. The libretto is written largely in the first person, and it starts with a troubled individual worrying about “zeitliche Gut” (“temporal good”). The choir, carrying the verses from the original hymn, distances itself from the main character, speaking to him or her reassuringly, encouraging trust in God.
The second movement is purely recitative, in which the main character becomes more explicit about the cause of the angst, citing, per the Gospel text, scarce provisions on which to live and maintain the household – “sighs are my food and tears my drink”. The believer’s worrying then continues into the third movement, where the recitative, this time broken into two segments, is again surrounded by reassuring words by the choir. The first of these two recitative segments picks up another direct reference from the Gospel with its mention of animals.
Unlike in some other, later cantatas, Bach doesn’t set up this dramatic exchange between two performers. Rather, he uses the choir as the “comforting” character and alternates three soloists (alto, bass and soprano) in the recitative segments representing the “distressed” role.
The chorale tune associated with the Nuremberg hymn is present throughout the chorale segments. The cantata opens with a short theme on the violins that chase each other in close imitation. The same material will be echoed by the tenor in his entrance a few bars later. However, before the tenor starts, we hear the oboes, one with the chorale tune and the other one with a typical “sighing” figure of slurred, descending chromatic motifs. The two oboes are, right there, summarizing the dialog that we’ll hear throughout the entire cantata. Once the tenor finishes his arioso introduction, we hear the full chorale in 4-part harmony, with the tune on the sopranos and the sighing motif on the basses. This happens two more times, before the entire ensemble comes to a pause and we hear the distressed character make its first appearance voiced by the alto, accompanied with strings. After the alto’s recitative, the choir returns to close out the first chorale verse. Notably, in this last segment the distressed motif is absent, which aligns with the text being delivered.
The bass will now embody the distressed character in the next movement, which is a “secco” recitative. Listen for the emphasis on “Tränen” (“tears”) with high notes, both times the word is said.
The choir intervenes again in its reassuring capacity, with three lines of chorale punctuated by orchestral interventions. It’s now the turn of the soprano to represent the troubled soul with her recitative, which is accompanied by the strings. Her intervention ends with a question (illustrated with an upwards leap of a sixth), to which the choir responds with a motif passed among the bottom three voices imitatively before the chorale tune makes another appearance with the sopranos.
We come full circle now to the alto, who delivers a final segment of secco recitative before being comforted by the choir one last time.
And this is how we get to the inflection point of the cantata. The tenor, who has not yet impersonated the troubled main character, is now in charge of delivering a recitative that switches the tone to optimistic and hopeful. The comforting message has been heard, and the believer accepts the fact that God hasn’t forgotten or abandoned him or her. Listen for the happy run of 16th notes on the word “Freuden” (“joyfully”) as the text states that worries can be rested on God!
This leads to the only aria in the cantata – a rhythmic, minuet-like movement for the bass accompanied by the strings, in the bright key of D major. After articulating the main theme, the violins break into an energetic rhythmic pattern (2 sixteenths and 1 eighth) and eventually into long flurries of 16ths that can’t contain the cheerful mood. This movement was reworked, in the late 1730s, into the “Gratias agimus tibi” of the Mass BWV 236.
Using a brief, final alto recitative as a bridge, the cantata closes with a chorale setting whose text is the full third stanza of the Nüremberg hymn. The positive, optimistic outlook rooted in the newfound faith is solidly reinforced musically. Even if the mode remains minor, Bach uses a lively 6/8 meter and a rich and extensive instrumental ritornello with independent material for the oboes and strings, as the choir delivers the chorale. Could the fast-moving phrases of the violins be seen as an illustration of “life in Heaven” as mentioned in the last line of the alto recitative?
A cantata so solidly based on a hymn and its associated chorale tune is called a “chorale cantata”, and it’s a form that Bach developed extensively during his second cycle of yearly cantatas in Leipzig. This piece, while not completely following the chorale cantata pattern, can certainly be seen as an experimentation on the format and a clear example of Bach’s unparalleled ability to mold his musical language and defy convention in service of the text.
