The cantatas in the collection of chorale cantatas from 1724/25 follow a fixed pattern, with the first and last strophe of the song retained verbatim and the texts of the intervening strophes rewritten as arias and recitatives. This applies to all the chorale cantatas, except for Was willst du dich betrüben (BWV 107), a song by Johann Heermann (1585-1647) from 1630. This cantata contains the integral text of all strophes, with no new text or explanation. However, between the opening chorus and the closing chorale, the texts of the inner strophes have been musically adapted into a recitative and four arias. We are familiar with this ‘per omnes versus’ structure from Bach’s early cantata Christ lag in Todesbanden (BWV 4), for example.
Original hymn text
The source of the hymn text is the collection Devoti Musica Cordis, published by Heermann in 1630. But …. that text is considerably different from the cantata text. Moreover, Heermann’s original hymn has six stanzas while the cantata has seven. Researchers have, of course, studied all the known collections used in Leipzig, but they do not contain the source of the cantata text. Martin Petzoldt, in his Bach Kommentar (Band 1, p.158), has mentioned a finding place in the Krankenhausgesangbuches of St Georg in Leipzig (1721, 1730), but even this contains some deviations from the cantata text. However, Petzoldt also presents the Halberstädtisches Gesang=Buch (1715), which was used in the Lutheran congregation of St Agnus in Köthen, to which Bach belonged. And only this volume contains, except for three very minimal differences, exactly the text of the cantata, including the seventh strophe.
Petzoldt points out these minor textual differences in the last strophe ‘Herr, gib daß deine Ehre ich ja mein leben lang’. A tip-off from Dick Wursten (thanks!) led me to the Hannoverisches Gesangbuch (1673) in which the text does appear exactly as in the cantata. There, this praise verse was added to a rhyming of Psalm 34 (Ich will zu aller Stunden / erheben Gottes Preis) and that was also sung to the tune ‘Von Gott will ich nicht lassen’.
But that tip put me on the next track. Namely, this hymnbook of Hanover was printed in Lüneburg. And what turns out: the same printer Stern published a new Lüneburgisches Gesangbuch in 1702, the year Bach lived there. And also in it with this text (see image).
18th century hymnologists
Interestingly, this song is not discussed by any of the important hymnologists of the early 18th century. It does not appear in the collections of Johann Christoph Olearius and Johan Martin Schamel, nor does Gabriel Wimmer’s later four-volume edition Ausführliche Liedererklärung of 1749 pay any attention to it. Only in David Heermann’s Erklärter Lieder=Schatz of 1722 we find the song with only a few brief comments, but that contains the original version from Devoti Musica Cordis. (For a comparison of this text and the cantata text, see our Hymnological Dossier on this cantata.)
So it appears that there is no direct connection between the hymnologists’ appreciated and commented songs and inclusion of this song in the annual chorale cantatas.
Biographical data
The fact that the song with the same text as the cantata appears in the song collection of the Lutherans in Köthen gave me the idea of juxtaposing Bach’s biographical data there. As described in the Nekrolog, Bach came home in July 1720 from a two-month trip to Karlsbad with his prince Leopold and the orchestra and at that time received the startling news of the completely unexpected death of his wife Maria Barbara. In fact, she had by then already been buried on July 7. This must have been a very traumatic experience for him, as she was still perfectly healthy when he left. (Nekrolog in: Mizler’s Musikalische Bibliothek, IV, (1754), p.169 ev.)
In 1721, Bach remarried in Köthen to the singer Anna Magdalena Wilcke. After his Leipzig employment in 1723, Bach also remained attached to Köthen as Capellmeister ‘von Haus aus’ (Spitta I, p.765).
There is a note as evidence that Bach performed with his second wife in Köthen on 18 July 1724: ‘Honorar für ein Gastspiel mit Anna Magdalena Bach in Köthen’ (Dok II, 184).
The scheduled performance of the chorale cantata Was willst du dich betrüben (BWV 107) then followed on 23 July 1724.
Thoughts to conclude
The song appears with exactly the same text as in the cantata, including the last stanza, only in the Halberstädtisches Gesangbuch, which was in use in the Lutheran congregation of St Agnus in Köthen. It appears there in the section ‘Creutz- und Trostgesänge’, (p. 290). The content of the song fits remarkably well with Bach’s own life events between 1720 and 1724. It describes the support one can find by trusting in God and surrendering to his will, and how man will experience salvation from distress through his grace.
[I allow myself a little personal fantasy here, separate from the scholarly evidence. I can imagine how Bach, with his second wife, stayed in Köthen in those very days in July 1724, possibly remembering the tragic moments of 4 years earlier. Perhaps visited the tomb of Maria Barbara with her. And I can imagine that Bach could be at peace with how his life had become hopeful again after the sad event in 1720. This song interprets all that, including the beautiful thanksgiving in the last stanza].
The text of the final strophe needs no explanation, but speaks entirely for itself:
Herr, gib, dass ich dein Ehre
Ja all mein Leben lang
Von Herzensgrund vermehre,
Dir sage Lob und Dank.
O Vater, Sohn und Geist,
Der du aus lauter Gnaden
Abwendest Not und Schaden,
Sei immerdar gepreist!
So this choral cantata Was willst du dich betrüben does not specifically contribute to the explanation of endangered or criticised hymns, like the others in the volume, but symbolises the powerful consolation that hymns can offer in people’s lives of faith. And that, too, was an important mission of the Lieder-Freunde. Was that why for Bach this song, with its familiar melody Von Gott will ich nicht lassen, could not be missing from his collection of chorale cantatas?
Lydia Vroegindeweij
