CANTATA CONCERT

The text originates from the Book of Common Prayer (specifically the Order for the Burial of the Dead), written and translated into English by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer in 1549. While it is a liturgical prayer rather than direct scripture, it draws heavily from earlier Christian texts and underlying biblical themes:

• Latin Origin: Cranmer translated the opening lines from the 9th-century Latin antiphon and Gregorian chant "Media vita in morte sumus" ("In the midst of life we are in death"), traditionally attributed to the monk Notker the Stammerer.

• Trisagion Influence: The lines "O Lord God most holy, O Lord most mighty, O holy and most merciful Saviour" are adapted from the ancient Christian Trisagion prayer ("Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us").

• Biblical Echoes: The passage reflects several biblical passages, including:

  • Job 14:1–2 (on the brevity and uncertainty of life).

  • Psalm 90:7–12 (God's anger over sin and human mortality).

  • Psalm 130:3 and Psalm 39:11 (seeking mercy and succor for our sins).

— David Long 

This cantata was written for the Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity and first performed on October 13, 1726, three hundred years ago. The libretto, by Johann Friedrich Helbig, recounts Jesus’ teachings against pride.

The text of the first movement directly quotes the final verse of the Gospel appointed for this Sunday, Luke 14:1-11: “Whoever exalts themself shall be humbled, and whoever humbles themself shall be exalted.” These opposing ideas naturally invite musical contrary motion. The librettos of the second and third movements offer a browbeating sermon against pride, with declarations such as “God cultivates hatred for those who do not abandon haughtiness” and “Man is excrement, stench, ashes and earth.” In the final two movements, the listener is charged with a prayer for humility and a resolve to “curse arrogance."  Alfred Dürr notes that the phrase in movement four, “as did that first Hell-bound,” refers to the legend in Christian belief that Lucifer was cast out of heaven because of his pride. Together, the movements form a three-part liturgy: the reading of scripture in movement one, the response to that reading or sermon in movements two and three, and the listener’s prayers in movements four and five.

Musically, Bach sets the opening movement in an expansive 228 measures for four-part choir, strings, two oboes, and continuo. It begins with a long non-fugal sinfonia with a theme that is unrelated to the fugue the choir will later sing. In measures 12–14, however, the first oboe introduces a sequence that later forms the basis of the choral fugue subject.

Bach paints the opposing ideas of the text, “whoever exalts themself shall be humbled,” in the choir’s first entrance. The tenors begin at the bottom of a g minor scale and rise to its summit on the word erhöhet (“exalted”), only to descend immediately to the bottom of the scale on erniedriget (“humbled”). The altos then enter with the fugue subject in the same manner, now in the dominant key of d minor. Beneath them, the tenors sing the countersubject on the contrarian text, “and whoever humbles themself shall be exalted.” Here the musical motion is reversed: the line begins high, falls an octave, and then rises again on the words erniedriget and erhöhet.

A brief, somewhat homophonic statement of the first half of the text appears twice, punctuated by the orchestra, and serves as a conclusion to the fugal section. Bach then presents the entire fugue subject, countersubject, and conclusion once more. The movement closes with the same forty-four-measure sinfonia heard at the beginning, this time with the choir woven into the orchestral texture. 

Movement two was originally scored with obbligato organ, which Bach replaced with obbligato violin when he revived the cantata in the late 1730s. Once again, the music paints a picture of the humility/pride contrarian text. The principal section depicts humility through a graceful, flowing instrumental line. In the contrasting middle section, pride is represented by an insistent rhythm in the soprano, reinforced by sharp accents and double stops (two notes played simultaneously) in the violin.

An accompanied recitative for strings follows in movement three and leads to the second aria, movement four, scored for bass, obbligato oboe and violin, and continuo. Bach expertly uses these voices first as a duet between the oboe and continuo, then as a trio when the violin enters, and finally as a quartet with the entrance of the bass voice. The aria’s contrasting middle section is reminiscent of the opposition between humility and pride heard in movement two: “on the one hand, flowing rhythm and stepwise melody, and on the other, speech-like rests and large intervals” (Dürr, p. 567).

A simple chorale concludes the cantata. Its plain and unadorned setting may be an intentional choice by Bach, serving as a final musical expression of the humility at the heart of the Gospel text.

— David Long