Friday, October 3, 2014

Ruler over Death and Life: Bach's Cantatas for the 16th Sunday after Trinity

Bach’s cantatas for the 16th Sunday after Trinity are: “Komm, du süße Todesstunde” (BWV 161, “Come, O sweet hour of death”), “Wer weiß, wie nahe mir mein Ende?” (BWV 27, “Who knows how near is my end?”), “Liebster Gott, wenn werd ich sterben?” (BWV 8, “Dearest God, when shall I die?”), and “Christus, der ist mein Leben” (BWV 95, “Christ is my life”). The cover photo is from Ladakh, India.

I’ve felt sad this week because of the anniversary of my mother’s death, and I’ve been aware of friends on social media who are also struggling with the loss of parents (in some cases several years ago, but the hurt is still keen). One of my friends is dealing with the loss of her adult son.

So I looked at the titles to these cantatas, prior to listening to them, and I thought, “It’s depressing music this week." Some of Bach's post-Pentecost cantatas have been somber, but I anticipate returning to this week's cantatas again, as I'll return to those for Michaelmas earlier this week. These pieces are  meditative and pastoral without necessarily being downbeat. In the CD notes, conductor John Eliot Gardiner writes, “All four – BWV 161, 27, 8 and 95 – articulate the Lutheran yearning for death, and all but one feature the tolling of ‘Leichenglocken’, funerary bells. Yet for all their unity of theme, there is immense diversity of texture, structure and mood, and together they make a satisfying and deeply moving quartet – music that is both healing and uplifting.”

He writes that the use of triple time dominate in BWV 161, seeming to indicate the passage of time but also offers consolation. As we’ve seen and heard in other cantatas, the misery of the world causes the believer to welcome the redemption of Christ when physical death does come.

My desire

is to embrace the Saviour
and soon to be with Christ.
Though death crushes me

as mortal earth and ashes,

the pure gleam of my soul

will shine like the angels’ glory.

The cantata ends with the tune familiar from the hymn, "O Sacred Head, Now Wounded," also prominent in Bach's St. Matthew Passion.

In BWV 27, Bach uses “the slow pendulum strokes in the bass of the orchestra” to suggest time’s passage, “against this the downward falling figure in the upper strings and a poignant broken theme in the oboes provide the backcloth for the haunting chorale melody, interlaced with contemplative recitative.” Gardiner notes that Bach’s daughter Christiane Sophia (1723-1726) died shortly before the composition of this piece.

World, farewell! I am weary of you,
I wish to enter heaven,

where there is true peace

and eternal, stately rest.
World, you know but war and strife,
naught but merest vanity;

in Heaven there always reigns
peace, happiness and bliss.

While BWV 27 is deeply moving, the mood is a little brighter in BWV 8. We have the suggestion of funeral bells, but also a bass aria that affirms “Jesus’ summons to a better life” (as Gardiner puts it), and also a 12/8 gigue that Gardiner calls “unabashed dance music... with some of the swagger and ebullience of the finale from the sixth Brandenburg concerto.”

Ruler over death and life,

let at the last my end be good,
teach me to give up the ghost
with courage firm and sure.
Help me earn an honest grave
next to godly Christian folk,
and finally covered by earth
never more be confounded!

BWV 95 uses cornetto and oboes to introduce Luther’s version of the Nunc Dimittis. The hour of death will come eventually; and the sooner the better, for we will be with Christ. In the second to last number, the words "schlage doch bald" ("strike then soon") repeat several times, expressing a longing to join the Lord in Heaven. ("Ach, schlage doch bald, sel’ge Stunde, den allerletzten Glockenschlag!" "Ah, strike then soon, blessèd hour, your last and final stroke!"). The cantata bids the believer to trust Christ that our destination--the next life---will be one of peace and joy after life’s struggles.

Christ is my life,

to die is my reward…
And if today I were told:
You must! I would be willing and prepared

to return my wretched body,

my wasted limbs,

mortality’s cloak,

into earth’s bosom.

I become weary of dealing with certain kinds of challenges, but I can't say I ever get weary of living. The longing for Christ expressed in these cantatas is quite understandable but (for me) it's something I feel most keenly when life is weighed down with trouble or sickness. A spiritual challenge, perhaps undertaken during the upcoming Advent season, is to let that longing "sink in," emotionally and spiritually, during times of happiness, so that we're happy in both the blessings of this life and the blessings of the life to come. Then, if life enters one of those awful periods of distress, we can address the situation while also having a strong faith in Christ.

To affirm "Christ is my life" isn't just to affirm that Christ means a great deal to me. We participate in the reality of Christ's death and resurrection---a realm of reality, so to speak, which is forceful and real for us today, even though the historical events happened long ago----so that now, our sins and wrongdoings and failures (and our smallness in the universe) have no more force to separate us from God.  Now, we continue to live our physical lives, which are temporary and ephemeral, but our true, new life, which is in God, is “hidden with Christ” (Col. 3:3).

(As indicated in the CD notes, all English translations are by Richard Stokes.)

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