Bach’s Whit Sunday cantatas are “Erschallet, ihr Lieder, erklinget, ihr Saiten” (BWV 172, “Resound, ye songs, ring out, ye strings!”), two entitled “Wer mich liebet, der wird mein Wort halten” (BWV 59 and BWV 74, “If a man love me, he will keep my words”), and “O ewiges Feuer, o Ursprung der Liebe” (BWV 34, “O eternal fire, O source of love”). The CD photo is of a young person, covered in red powder, from Mumbai, India. It's one of the more striking of Steve McCurry's many photographs. I looked online and discovered that the red powder signifies the Ganesh Chaturthi Festival in Mumbai.
These cantatas are more celebratory and upbeat than the more somber and anxious pieces of last Sunday, when the disciples were waiting uncertainly between Ascension and Pentecost. Some of this joy stems not only from the celebration of the Holy Spirit but also the joyfulness of the harvest festivals that lay in the background of Shavuot. Even the “first fruits” language of Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 seems (as conductor John Eliot Gardiner writes) to be an allusion to the holiday’s agricultural origins. Gardiner continues, “Bach often brings to the surface pre-Christian aspects and forgotten connections which mirror the turning of the agricultural year. Now...he comes up with music of unalloyed optimism and exuberance in celebration of the first gifts of newly-awakened nature, as well as the miraculous ignition of the divine Pentecostal spark which allows human beings to communicate across the language barrier.”
For instance (as Gardiner writes), BWV 172 contrasts the life-giving breath of God into the newly-created Adam with the different kind of life and breath of the Spirit at Pentecost. The cantata has several combinations of three---”three trumpets, a tripartite form, a theme moving in steps of a third and a triple address to the ‘mighty God of honour’”---providing a trinitiarian structure that also links creator God (Lord of life and harvest) with God the Spirit of Pentecost.
The first cantata entitled “Wer mich liebet” makes use of an 1524 Luther hymn, calling upon the Spirit.
Come, Holy Spirit, O Lord God,
and fill with Thy most precious grace
the heart, will and mind of Thy believers.
Ignite Thine ardent love in them.
O Lord, through Thine own brilliant light,
Thou hast assembled to believe
people from every tongue and clime;
for this, O Lord, may we sing praises to Thee...
The second cantata with that title is based on a text by Christiane Mariane von Ziegler, which as Gardiner writes is constructed “on three main themes: the paramount need for love, and the need to be in a state of readiness to receive the spirit... Jesus’ announcement of his Ascension and return, and its joyful implications for humankind.... and his triumph over Satan, freeing the believer from condemnation.”
BWV 34 is a later work of Bach’s (from the 1740s), adapted from a wedding cantata and now used for Pentecost. Gardiner writes that it is filled with picturesque writing, evoking the pastoral aspect of the harvest as well as the Temple of the Lord and the flames of the Holy Spirit, all leading to a joyful conclusion.
As Bach tied together several themes for Pentecost, we can see how the narratives and promises of Christ's Ascension and Pentecost interconnect. In chapter 14-17 of John, Jesus teaches his disciples that he must leave (die, rise, and ascend to the Father) in order to fulfill God's plan of salvation. So Good Friday, Easter, and Ascension are part of the same divine work. But although Christ ascends and leaves the disciples, the Spirit will come and will remain with the disciples forever. In fact, the Spirit is how we have a relationship with Christ today; we may wish we'd known Jesus in the flesh but we're actually closer to him today!
One thing we forget, is that because Christ is one with the Father and the Spirit in their trinitarian unity, we are closer to one another, too. We understand ourselves to be in unity with one another, not because we share a God-soul as some religions understand it, but because the love of Christ (in his death and resurrection, and in the advocacy of the Holy Spirit) broke down barriers between us and God and between other people. The Spirit, in turn, provides us the divine gifts of love, gentleness, kindness, and other "fruit" that help and heal our relationships with one another. God gives us the gift of eternal life and the gifts of love for God and for one another.
All English translations of Bach's texts are by Richard Stokes.
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