Text No. 1–5
Salomo Franck, 1715

Text No. 6
Elisabeth Cruciger, 1524

First performance
Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity,
26 August 1725

The introductory aria, in particular, with its tightly knit consort and quaint style, seems to be composed more with the intimate audience of a courtly gathering in mind than the imposing, resonant acoustics of Leipzig’s city churches. In this movement, the gently flowing 9⁄8 metre stands in stark contrast to the dramatic G minor tonality and accusatory libretto that addresses the discrepancy between Christian duty and actual practice; the dotted crotchets of the head motive stab precisely like the admonitory finger of a forbidding preacher or a prophet painted on a church wall. In the B section, Bach illustrates the “kindness” of mercy in an Elysian string episode before reintroducing the instrumental head motive to confront the virtue of Christ’s example with the “stony hardness” of the human heart. In this cathartic moment, Bach demonstrates great artistic interpretation by – in keeping with Franck’s libretto – leaving the last word, at least for now, with the harsh judgement of a world pervaded by egotism.
The bass recitative, set as a dialogic sermon of penance, is no less severe in tone. Through the contrast of an arioso passage on the message of love from the Sermon on the Mount and a prosaic depiction of the egotism of everyday life, human behaviour is revealed to be nothing short of a constant transgression of the divine command. Indeed, the prominent placing of “priest and Levite” as a particularly repugnant example of the callous zeitgeist makes abundantly clear that in Weimar and Leipzig, too, the fish rots from the head.
In the face of such futile remonstrations, it appears that only a complete change of tack can help. For this, Bach sets a trio in close imitation that is soothingly softened by the dulcet tones of the transverse flutes and thus expresses caring love – regardless of how tough the demand to show mercy may appear, this yoke is audibly light. At the beginning of the second section of the aria, Bach reveals the meaning of such loving devotion to the downtrodden and needy in a descending, musical gesture of aide. That this attitude of “Hearts Samaritan in kindness” is anything other than natural, however, is equally evident in the unique and otherworldly timbre of the flutes.
The soothing power of God’s radiant love is underscored in the following recitative through the addition of a string accompaniment. In this moment of demonstrative repentance, declaimed appropriately by a heroic tenor, Bach seems to employ the full gamut of baroque ornamentation, as defined by masters such as Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel, Kapellmeister in Gotha, in his treatise on the recitative (Abhandlung vom Recitativ).
In the following duet, Bach puts into practice a veritable compendium of baroque musical theology. The unity achieved among humans and with God through a life of compassion is summarised in a rich, unison passage in which violins, oboes and transverse flutes hold equal sway. And as a duet for soprano and bass, the setting is plausible also from the perspective of scenic realism: it takes two to give and receive. Nevertheless, it remains audibly difficult for the notoriously imperceptive humans to grasp the transformation of the head motive, which now soars heavenwards in both the continuo and the upper orchestral parts. The fact that God gives to those who follow the example of his boundless love is illustrated here in music that seems extraordinarily inspired by Franck’s morally charged metaphors – from the sympathetically weeping eye, to the loving heart, to the helping hand.
The cantata ends with a chorale, a vehicle that Bach evidently appreciated to summarise and conclude complex libretti. Here, Elisabeth Cruciger’s moving appeal to weaken the “former man” in order that the “new” may live in the spirit of God is particularly fitting: to appreciate the life of Christ means to see and discover him “here on earth now” first and foremost in our neighbour’s need.