In June I faced the pleasant but enormous task of preparing and submitting a manuscript to publishers. (Anyone who has done that knows what I mean. The proof-reading, revising, and re-proof-reading seem to go on indefinitely, and one feels badly about performing other tasks until it’s finished.) Then my family and I went on a driving vacation of over 2500 miles. Not being able to spread myself so thin as I did when I was younger, I put my traversal of Bach’s cantatas on hold until now. So I’ve missed the first and second Sundays after Trinity and also the Feast of John the Baptist, but I’ll catch up with those before the summer’s over.As I've written before, these posts represent a year-long "spiritual journey" through Bach's extant sacred cantatas, performed by the English Baroque Soloists and the Monteverdi Choir under the direction of John Eliot Gardiner, and available on a 56-CD set from arkivmusic.com. I'm now over halfway through the cantatas, and thus halfway through the Christian liturgical year.
There are two cantatas for the third Sunday after Trinity (disc 29 on this set): “Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis” (BWV 21, “My heart was deeply troubled”) and “Ach Herr, mich armen Sünder” (BWV 135, “O Lord, do not punish a poor sinner”). Conductor John Eliot Gardiner rounds out this concert (CD 29 on the 56-CD set) with Bach’s BWV 1044 concerto for flute, violin, and harpsichord. The cover photo is of a young woman from Omo Valley, Ethiopia.
In the CD notes, Gardiner comments that he has always considered BWV 21 as one of Bach’s “most extraordinary and inspired” vocal works. From the beginning it has a “poignancy” and “pathos” that continue as the difficulties and struggles of the sinner-believer are depicted. Gardiner writes in detail of Bach’s many beautiful and skillful ways of depicting the longing for salvation.
What use to us are these heavy sorrows,
what use is all this grief and woe?
What use, that we each morning
bewail our hardship?
We only increase our cross and pain
through our unhappiness....
Rejoice, my soul, rejoice, my heart,
give way, sorrows; vanish, pain!
Transform yourself, tears, into pure wine,
my moaning shall turn to cries of joy!
The purest candle of love and comfort burns
and flames in my soul and heart,
for Jesus consoles me with heavenly joy.
BWV 135 is a shorter cantata that contrasts well with 21. The instruments that begin the piece provide “a slow, ritualistic portrayal of a penitential sinner seeking reprieve and is deeply affecting.” All the texts focus upon the believer’s struggles with temption, sin, and anguish at separation from God, but like the penitential Psalms, the cantata ends with words of joy at God’s salvation and compassion.
After tears and after weeping
[Jesus] makes the sun of joy to shine again;
this gloomy weather changes now,
suddenly our enemies must fall
and their arrows recoil against them.
Musically, though, 21 concludes with fairly joyous music, which 135 ends with the pensive tune used in the hymn "O Sacred Head Now Wounded," and which Bach uses in the St. Matthew Passion.
Both cantatas are deeply penitential, occupying the same theological world as psalms like 51. One of my "best friends forever" reminds me that I'm hard on myself and give myself insufficient credit for things. I wonder if those of us who err on the self-doubting side are often in the "penitential" mode because we will approach God feeling poorly about ourselves and our best efforts. The spontaneous mental prayers that I offer throughout the day happen from a rather "blue" point of view: unsure of myself, I ask for God's kindness, for forgiveness for my weakness and typical struggles, for God's mercy for me and the people I know, for the power of the Spirit to use me and my "circle" and multiply the worth and range of our efforts (and I often feel that my efforts are inadequate).
Put that way, prayer and repentance may sound rather anxious and and depressed. It occurs to me that even very humble, penitential prayer (like those reflected in Bach's texts this weekend) should also have that element of joy, the way even the very sad psalms conclude on very upbeat, confident tones. We approach God for mercy, compassion and kindness, in a humble and contrite mood, because God will indeed show us those things, and in fact God's compassion and kindness toward us is beyond our comprehension and is utterly trustworthy. A regretful, uncertain inner attitude is joined with a considerable joy of living because of God's lovingkindness.
As indicated in the CD notes, all English translations are by Richard Stokes.
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