Where the Lord God does not stop with us, BWV 178

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Bach cantata
Where the Lord God doesn't stay with us
BWV: 178
Occasion: 8th Sunday after Trinity
Year of origin: 1724
Place of origin: Leipzig
Genus: Choral cantata
Solo : ATB
Choir: SATB
Instruments : Co 2Ob 2Oa 2Vl Va Bc
text
Justus Jonas / unknown
List of Bach cantatas
The Lutheran reformer Justus Jonas , author of the song

Where the Lord God does not stop with us ( BWV 178) is a church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach . He wrote the choir cantata in Leipzig for the 8th Sunday after Trinity and performed it for the first time on July 30th, 1724. The eighth cantata of his second cantatas cycle is based on the song Where God the Lord does not hold with us (1524) by Justus Jonas , a rewording of Psalm 124 .

Story and words

In his second year in Leipzig, Bach composed the cantata for the 8th Sunday after Trinity as the eighth cantata in his 2nd annual cycle, which he began on the first Sunday after Trinity with O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort BWV 20.

The prescribed readings for Sunday were as Epistle Rom 8 : 12-17  LUT , "Those who are led by the Spirit of God are God's children", and as Gospel Mt 7 : 15-23  LUT , a section from the Sermon on the Mount , the warning false prophets. The work is based on the song of the same name in eight stanzas by Justus Jonas.

Luther's collaborator rewrote Psalm 124 and the song was published in the Erfurt Enchiridion in 1524 . The theme of the psalm, the need in the face of raging enemies, fits the gospel. Compared to other choral cantatas in the cycle, an unusually large number of six out of eight stanzas have been left in the original text. However, an unknown poet added recitatives to the 2nd and 5th stanzas . He composed the 3rd and 6th stanzas into arias . In the last aria he went beyond the reformer's sentence “Reason cannot grasp that” and formulated an objection to rationalism by ordering “staggering reason” to be silent.

Bach first performed the cantata on July 30, 1724. Johann Nikolaus Forkel borrowed the manuscript of Bach's chorale cantatas from his son Friedemann and copied two of the cantatas from it, in addition to this cantata also Es ist das Heil unskommen , BWV 9.

Occupation and structure

The cantata is occupied by three vocal soloists ( alto , tenor and bass ), horn , two oboes , two oboe d'amore , two violins , viola and basso continuo .

1. Coro: Where the Lord God does not stop with us
2. Chorale e recitativo (Alto): What touches on human strength and wit
3. Aria (bass): Just like the wild ocean waves
4. Chorale (tenor): They chase after us like heretics
5. Chorale e recitativo (alto, tenor, bass): Open your throat
6. Aria (tenor): Be silent, be silent, staggering reason!
7. Chorale: The enemy are all in your hand

music

As in most of Bach's chorale cantatas, the opening chorus is a chorale fantasy. The melody was published anonymously in Wittenberg in 1529. The soprano sings the melody line by line as cantus firmus , reinforced by the horn, to the orchestra's independent concerto . The strings play excited dotted rhythms throughout the movement, the oboes sixteenth runs. The vocal lower voices sometimes sing homophonically , sometimes in the motifs of the instruments. With this contrast, Bach underlines in the first tunnel of the bar form the difference between the stability of holding, whereby negation plays no role, and the raging of the enemy. He repeats this sequence in the 2nd tunnel, although there it does not fit the meaning of the text.

In the following chorale stanza with recitative, Bach distinguishes the chorale lines from the secco recitative in that he has them artistically accompanied by a repeated figure in the continuo that is derived from the beginning of the line in question, but appears four times as fast.

The first aria shows the image of the sea waves in undulating melodies in the singing voice, the obligatory voice of the combined violins and in the continuo. The bass has to sing demanding coloratura on the words "ocean waves" and especially "shatter".

At the center of the cantata is an unchanged choral verse, which is sung undecorated by the alto and accompanied by the oboi d'amore and the continuo as equal partners.

In movement 5, Bach differentiates between chorale and recitative than in movement 2. The chorale parts are set in four voices, the recitative parts are performed by different singers in the sequence bass, tenor, alto, bass. In the continuo, triad motifs sound in regular motion throughout the movement.

In the last aria, Bach invents an imaginative string composition to express the tumbling of reason in a syncopated rhythm, which is interrupted by repeated chordal calls to the text “be silent!”. The drama of the aria only comes to rest in the middle section, when the words “they will be refreshed with consolation” are interpreted by a fermata and the designation adagio . The cantata is concluded by two stanzas of the chorale in a simple four-part setting.

Recordings

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Siegfried Bräuer, Joachim Stalmann: 297 - Where the Lord God does not stop with us . In: Gerhard Hahn , Jürgen Henkys (Hrsg.): Liederkunde zum Evangelisches Gesangbuch . No. 13 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2007, ISBN 978-3-525-50337-9 , pp. 80–85 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  2. ↑ Where the Lord God does not stay with us (Psalm 124) / Text and Translation of Chorale ( English ) bach-cantatas.com. 2011. Retrieved July 23, 2011.
  3. ^ A b John Eliot Gardiner : Cantatas for the Eighth Sunday after Trinity / Christkirche, Rendsburg. ( English , PDF; 118 kB) bach-cantatas.com. S. 1. 2008. Accessed July 24, 2011.
  4. ↑ a b c Klaus Hofmann: Where God the Lord does not stay with us, BWV 178 / If God the Lord is not with us (PDF; 9.4 MB) bach-cantatas.com. S. 17. 2002. Retrieved July 24, 2012.
  5. ↑ Chorale Melodies used in Bach's Vocal Works / Where the Lord God doesn't stop with us ( English ) bach-cantatas.com. 2006. Retrieved July 24, 2011.
  6. ↑ Julian Mincham: Chapter 9: BWV 178, "Where the Lord God does not stop with us" ( English ) jsbachcantatas.com. 2010. Retrieved July 27, 2011.
Cantatas (BWV), oratorios and passions by Johann Sebastian Bach
Sacred cantatas

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Secular cantatas

30a • 34a • 36c • 134a • 173a • 198 • 201 • 202 • 203 • 204 • 205 • 206 • 207 • 207a • 208 • 209 • 210 • 210a • 211 • 212 • 213 • 214 • 215 • 216a • 249a

Cantatas not preserved

App. 1 • App. 2 • App. 3 • App. 4 • App. 4a • App. 5 • App. 6 • App. 7 • App. 8 • App. 9 • App. 10 • App. 11 • App. 12 • App. 13 • App. 14 • App. 15 • App. 16 • App. 17 • App. 18 • App. 19

Passions

St. Matthew Passion (BWV 244) • St. John Passion (BWV 245) • St. Luke Passion (BWV 246) (Bach's authorship questioned) • St. Mark Passion (BWV 247)

Oratorios

Ascension Oratorio (BWV 11) • Christmas Oratorio (BWV 248) • Easter Oratorio (BWV 249)