Johann Sebastian Bach
Gwen Gotsch
Mark Bangert
Edited by Frank Senn
On November 24, 2019 (what for us contemporary Lutherans was Christ the King Sunday, a twentieth century Roman Catholic festival we adopted in 1978, but for the old Lutherans the Last Sunday after Trinity with its eschatological theme of the last judgment) the Bach Cantata presented in Grace Lutheran Church’s Cantata Vespers series was Cantata BWV 20, O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort (O “Eternity,” You Thunder Word), by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 – 1750). The text was an exhortation to ponder the issue of where we will spend eternity, in hell or heaven. “Eternity,” as the cantata text says, is “a beginning without end, time without time.” This could cause anxiety to the Christian and Mark Bangert sees a contemporary relevance in the angst of our age. We present here the entire package: Gwen Gotsch’s notes on the cantata, the parable of the rich man and Lazarus that was the Gospel for the day on which Bach presented his cantata, the text to Part 1 of the Cantata, the sermon by Mark Bangert, and the text to Part 2 of the Cantata. The reader might want to acquire a recording of the BWV 20 to hear Bach’s actual musical proclamation. Available from Amazon.com is Helmuth Rilling with the Bach-Collegium Stuttgart, Edition Bachakademie Vol. 6, BWV 19 and 20.
BACKGROUND OF THE CANTATA
Gwen Gotsch
O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort, BWV 20, was composed for the First Sunday after Trinity in 1724. It marked the beginning of Bach’s second year as Kantor in Leipzig and the beginning of his second cycle of church cantatas. There was a grand plan for this second cycle: the cantatas would be based on seasonal chorales associated with the Sundays in the liturgical calendar. This wasn’t a completely original concept. In 1690 Johann Benedikt Carpzov, pastor of the Thomaskirche in Leipzig, wrote that during the previous year he had preached a series of sermons in which he “expounded a good, fine old Protestant and Lutheran hymn” along with explaining the Gospel text for the Sunday. After the sermon the congregation would sing the hymn. In the following year the practice continued, wrote Carpzov, with the Leipzig music director, Johann Schelle, setting each hymn in a “charming piece of music” before the sermon. These Liederpredigten (chorale-sermons) were not unique to Leipzig. In Bach’s first year in Leipzig, from May 30, 1723, through Trinity Sunday in 1724, he had composed new cantatas for nearly every Sunday and feast day, while occasionally drawing on music written at previous posts. His second year of composing weekly cantatas was even more productive than the first, as Bach produced 40 cantatas in as many weeks. The 16th and 17th century German hymns would have provided a “hook” for the congregation, something familiar to draw them into the new music. For the composer they served as a framework for exploring a great variety of musical forms and ideas.
Each cantata in the second cycle opened with a large-scale chorus that included the chorale melody, and each ended with a plain four-part setting of a later stanza of the chorale. BWV 20 provided a dramatic beginning for the project. It is based on a hymn by Johann Rist (1607–1667) “O Ewigkeit du Donnerwort,” which was subtitled “Ernstliche Betrachtung der unendlichen Ewigkeit” (A serious consideration of endless eternity). The hymn contemplates the nature of time and eternity, mainly an eternity spent in hell, and relates to the Gospel lesson for the day, the story of the rich man in hell calling out to Lazurus in heaven. The hymn has fallen out of use since the 19th century. Neither the cantata’s librettist (who remains unknown) nor Bach holds anything back in depicting God’s judgment and the terrors of eternal punishment. Musically, eternity arrives with the drama and majesty of a modern French overture. Vocal lines in the arias are full of sighing and lamentation. There’s a trumpet call to awake lost sheep from the sleep of sin and urge them to prepare for the final judgment, and a final duet warns listeners to prepare now to avoid the fate of the rich man who lived in luxury but was ultimately condemned to an afterlife in the fires of Hades.
Composed in two parts to be performed before and after the sermon, the cantata contains three chorale stanzas that use the original text from Rist’s hymn. The texts of the solo movements paraphrase and occasionally quote directly from the remaining stanzas. Only the final lines of the final movement provide any relief from the grim landscape of the hymn.
How did the congregation react? It’s impossible for us to know. Death and deadly illness were far more present in the lives of 18th century Germans than in ours; Johann Rist, the hymn writer, lived through the ravages of the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648) and its destructive effects were felt in Germany even into the next century. Many great composers have depicted the final judgment and the fires of hell in music. Fear and trembling have been evoked by music, art and drama for as long as human beings have contemplated their own mortality in the face of God’s eternity. It’s all quite thrilling.
Bach’s cantata for the next Sunday after Trinity in 1724, Ach Gott, vom Himmel sie darein, BWV 2, (Ah God, look down from heaven) was based on a hymn of Luther. It’s decidedly less modern; the opening movement is in the old-fashioned style of a motet. In the first four cantatas of this second cycle Bach deliberately presents contrasting styles of music and places the cantus firmus (the chorale melody) in a different voice in each successive opening chorale fantasia. He has set himself an interesting, complicated task, and set the bar high. Bach wrote two other cantatas for the First Sunday after Trinity, both focused on the idea in the Epistle (1 John 4: 16–21) that loving God means loving one’s neighbor: Die Elenden sollen essen, BWV 75 (The poor shall eat), from 1723; and Brich dem Hungrigen dein Brot, BWV 39, (Break your bread with the hungry), from 1726. But in 1724, Bach gave his congregation a good scare with music about that “thunder word,” “eternity.”
GOSPEL
READING: Luke 16:19–31 [Jesus said to his disciples:] 19“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. 20And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, 21who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. 22The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. 23In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. 24He called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.’ 25But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. 26Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.’ 27He said, ‘Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father’s house — 28for I have five brothers — that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.’ 29Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.’ 30He said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ 31He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”
L The Word of the Lord. C Thanks be to God.
CANTATA – PART 1: O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort, BWV 20 Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750).
Translation of the German text by Dr. Karen P. Danford
1. Chorus
O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort,
O eternity, you thunder word,
O Schwert, das durch die Seele bohrt,
O sword, that pierces through my soul,
O Anfang sonder Ende!
O beginning without end!
O Ewigkeit, Zeit ohne Zeit,
O eternity, time without time,
Ich weiß vor großer Traurigkeit
I know not in such great sorrow
Nicht, wo ich mich hinwende.
Where I should turn.
Mein ganz erschrocken Herz erbebt,
My quite terrified heart shudders
Daß mir die Zung am Gaumen klebt.
So that my tongue sticks to my gums.
In the dramatic opening chorus, mortal human beings contemplate the terrors of eternity, a “time without time.” Bach layers the three sections of the chorale in AAB form onto the three parts of a Baroque French overture. Majestic dotted rhythms swoop upward in a motive derived from the chorale. The cantus firmus in the choir’s soprano section is doubled by the trumpet, while dotted rhythms in the lower voices amplify the thunder of Donnerwort. The movement’s middle section, marked vivace, is quick, lively and fugal in the orchestra, but harrowing, chromatic and fearful in the choir. There’s a dramatic pause before the original short-long rhythms return, tossed from oboes to violin. Striking rhythms in the choir’s lower voices depict shuddering, dry-mouthed sinners facing eternity.
2. Recitative (tenor)
Kein Unglück ist in aller Welt zu finden, das ewig dauernd sei:
There is no misfortune in all the world that lasts eternally:
Es muß doch endlich mit der Zeit einmal verschwinden.
It must finally, in time, one day disappear.
Ach! aber ach! die Pein der Ewigkeit hat nur kein Ziel;
Ah! but ah! The pain of eternity has no end;
Sie treibet fort und fort ihr Marterspiel,
It carries on and on its game of torture,
Ja, wie selbst Jesus spricht, aus ihr ist kein Erlösung nicht.
Yes, as Jesus himself says, from it there is no rescue.
The tenor recitative contrasts the misfortunes of this world, which come to an end, with the prospect of no escape from eternal torments. An ominous chord in the continuo at the beginning of the recitative sets the tone, and staccato eighth notes mark time under the word ewig (eternal). The unsettling, shifting tonality evokes the aimlessness of eternity.
3. Aria (tenor)
Ewigkeit, du machst mir bange,
Eternity, you make me afraid,
Ewig, ewig ist zu lange!
Forever, forever, is too long
Ach, hier gilt fürwahr kein Scherz.
Ah, here truly this is no joke.
Flammen, die auf ewig brennen,
Flames that burn on forever,
Ist kein Feuer gleich zu nennen;
Are like no fire that can be named.
Es erschrickt und bebt mein Herz,
My heart is terrified and shudders
Wenn ich diese Pein bedenke
Whenever I think of this pain
Und den Sinn zur Höllen lenke.
And turn my thoughts toward hell.
In a vivid picture of an eternity in hell, slurred two-note phrases of sighing and lamentation are set against held notes in the orchestra and in the vocal line on the words “ewig” (eternity) and “lange” (long). Phrases end in silence and then start up again, giving no relief from endless pain. Long runs of sixteenth notes depict flames, and sudden upward leaps sound cries of terror.
4. Recitative (bass)
Gesetzt, es dau’rte der Verdammten Qual
Supposing, the torture of the damned lasts
So viele Jahr, als an der Zahl
As many years as the number
Auf Erden Gras, am Himmel Sterne wären;
Of blades of grass on the earth, or stars in heaven.
Gesetzt, es sei die Pein so weit hinausgestellt,
Supposing, the pain is to continue on and on
Als Menschen in der Welt
For as long as human beings in the world
Von Anbeginn gewesen,
Have existed from the beginning,
So wäre doch zuletzt
There would be at last
Derselben Ziel und Maß gesetzt:
An end and a limit put on it:
Sie müßte doch einmal aufhören.
It would finally have to cease at some point.
Nun aber, wenn du die Gefahr,
But now, when you have endured the danger,
Verdammter! tausend Millionen Jahr
You damned one, for a thousand million years
Mit allen Teufeln ausgestanden,
With all the devils,
So ist doch nie der Schluß vorhanden;
The end is still never at hand;
Die Zeit, so niemand zählen kann,
The time which no one can count,
Fängt jeden Augenblick
Starts every moment
Zu deiner Seelen ewgem Ungelück
To the everlasting unhappiness of your soul
Sich stets von neuem an.
Always again from the beginning.
“Gesetz,” sings the bass, “just suppose,” and logically explains the difference between enduring pain and misfortune in measured time, which has an endpoint, and suffering damnation for all eternity.
5. Aria (bass)
Gott ist gerecht in seinen Werken:
God is justified in all his works:
Auf kurze Sünden dieser Welt
For the brief sins of this world
Hat er so lange Pein bestellt;
He has decreed such long pain;
Ach wollte doch die Welt dies merken!
Ah, if only the world would realize this!
Kurz ist die Zeit, der Tod geschwind,
Brief is time, death is swift,
Bedenke dies, o Menschenkind!
Consider this, o human child!
The bass, the voice of authority in Bach’s cantatas, reminds listeners that God’s judgments are righteous, and warns them that as sinners, they would do well to consider this. The cheerful major key and the bouncy accompaniment by oboes provide a welcome respite from the doom and gloom heard thus far, suggesting that there may be reason for hope if one trusts in God.
6. Aria (alto)
O Mensch, errette deine Seele,
O man, save your soul,
Entfliehe Satans Sklaverei
Escape from Satan’s slavery
Und mache dich von Sünden frei,
And make yourself free from sins,
Damit in jener Schwefelhöhle
So that in that sulphurous pit
Der Tod, so die Verdammten plagt,
Death, that so plagues the damned,
Nicht deine Seele ewig nagt.
Does not gnaw at your soul eternally.
O Mensch, errette deine Seele!
O man, save your soul!
A plea to “save your soul” follows the bass’s proclamation of God’s righteousness. The emotion in the vocal line is intensified by irregular accents which frequently regroup the three beats in each measure into unexpected groups of two (hemiola). After the singer is done the orchestra plays on, giving listeners time to contemplate how they might change their ways.
7. Chorale
Solang ein Gott im Himmel lebt
As long as God lives in heaven
Und über alle Wolken schwebt,
And hovers above the clouds,
Wird solche Marter währen:
Such torture will endure:
Es wird sie plagen Kält und Hitz,
Cold and heat will torment them,
Angst, Hunger, Schrecken, Feu’r und Blitz
Anguish, hunger, terror, fire and lightning,
Und sie doch nicht verzehren.
And yet not consume them.
Denn wird sich enden diese Pein,
For this pain will only end
Wenn Gott nicht mehr wird ewig sein.
When God is no more eternal.
The chorus sings the eighth stanza of Rist’s hymn in a straightforward harmonization. The text offers several splendid onomatopoeic German words to depict the torments of hell.
HOMILY
The Rev. Dr. Mark Bangert
Did the last 15 minutes just scare the hell out of you?
Donnerwort so far strikes me to be something of a sonic billboard—much like those that line I-65 just south of Merrilville: HELL IS REAL (in huge letters) WHERE WILL YOU SPEND ETERNITY?
Is this cantata the product of a mindset fixed on things like snake handling and tent revivals?
The 16-stanza hymn on which today’s cantata is based came from the pen of Johann Rist, a seventeenth-century pastor of a small congregation just south of Hamburg. His tenure there spanned the Thirty Years War—a time of violence, terrorism and gruesome deaths. Fifteen years before he wrote this hymn, his alma mater in Rostock was shut down because of pestilence—an unwelcomed partner of the war.
A year after he wrote this hymn marauders raided his parsonage, demolished his library, and severely damaged precious medical instruments he used to take care of his parishioner’s physical needs. Violence and death constantly surrounded him—he meant it when he wrote “Your coffin is on the way.”
Bent on turning such conditions into signs of God’s judgment, people of northern Europe felt at home with songs that mused over last things, such as the Dies Irae: “Day of wrath, O Day of Mourning, see fulfilled the prophet’s warning; Heaven and Earth in ashes burning.”
Popular paintings portraying the Totentanz (Dance of Death) seemed to mirror what was inevitable about their lives—dancing skeletons coming to usher them to the pit. At St. Mary’s in Luebeck congregants named one of their organs the Totentanz Orgel, because it hung near their famous Totentanz portrayals.
And in Leipzig some 70 years later? Well, you know how death stalked the Bach clan.
The macabre thrived there as well; records show that there were 39 public executions during the 1700s, the beheadings for offenses such as stealing a piece of linen. Crowds gathered, the choirboys sang for the “poor soul” while refreshments were served. One such event took place just months before Bach composed this cantata.
The violence that plagued Rist and his not-so-innocent flock, he determined, needed to be addressed, just as Bach’s librettist felt compelled to call out the behavior of the Leipzig citizenry, manifested in the public square as well as in worship. Sermons there were an hour long, in the midst of which people came and went, the cold church induced sleep from many—we are told, collection baskets with tiny bells attached circulated the assembly and from the gallery school boys threw various items upon the preening upper class below.
Was anybody listening? Would it have helped if someone came back from the dead to preach? Not likely—moving Rist and Bach’s librettist to the 16-stanza hymn to provoke repentance. Scare the hell out of them. Get them to consider an eternity of pain, torment, fire, thunder, lightning, cold and heat. Improve your life soon, while there is time.
Hymnist Rist gave his hymn a subtitle: “A Serious Consideration of Unending Eternity,” or as another translation has it: “An Earnest Contemplation of Unending Eternity.”
What happens when we take him up on the “earnest contemplation” part? I mean, you can walk away from this thing that’s going on around us, dismissing the hymn and the libretto as a piece of poppycock from psycho pastors. You can do that.
Or not.
If you decide to stick with it, this cantata, among other things, awakens in the ever-so-hesitant contemplator a host of unsettling questions: What IS eternity? How does the time/space continuum fit in here? Is hell a place? Does it exist? Ditto on heaven. If so, where will I be? What does steadfast love or grace have to do with this, especially when the poet barks: “Save your soul” or “Make yourselves free from sin.”
Beyond such questions, beyond the brash rhetoric of hymn and libretto the John the Baptist-like cry persists: REPENT. Consider making some turns in your life. I don’t like to hear that, and neither do you, even though the details have changed since 1724.
Perhaps it looks a little different now. Angst (anxiety) is still around; mental health professionals report that the condition has reached record high levels in our time. Why? The New York Times reports that there is growing anxiety over the climate; Californians who live near the recent fires, reporters submit, live with a persistent mood of impeding apocalyptic destruction, fearing recurrence of fire—FIRE—that’s a Rist word, as is cold and heat, and torment. If you are earnest, you may want to resist the temptation to think of these fires as divine judgment, but there is still plenty out there to be anxious about and to provoke reorientation of life.
“Brief is time,” we just heard sung—“Consider THIS, O human child.” The good news here, seemingly, is simply that there is time—time before the coffin arrives.
Is that all there is? Did we go through all this effort only to hear: there is time?
You may have already sensed that the cantata text is full of Biblical imagery and allusions, even a direct quote from the apocryphal book of Baruch. There are dozens of images from Matthew, especially the 25th chapter, where we hear of worthless slaves, outer darkness, and the separation of sheep and goats—all to be proclaimed a week from today as we begin Advent.
Rist, apparently, couldn’t keep the brimstone flying until the very end of his hymn. Drawing on Matthew again he permits us in the final lines of the hymn to identify with the faithful servant who “enters the joy of his master,” or as the hymnist has it, “the tent of joy.”
At least that.
But of far greater significance are these words from the chorale stanza we just heard:
As long as God lives in heaven
And hovers above the clouds
Such torture will endure.
“As long as.” Contemplate that for a moment: God above the clouds—inaccessible, out of reach, on the other side of the fixed chasm, God not able to get here from there.
Pastor Rist didn’t reveal everything swirling in his head as he wrote those words; maybe he suspected you could easily fill in the context he surely had in mind, most beautifully fashioned into this gem from the Book of Revelation:
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying: “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them, they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe away tears from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.”
“As long as” no longer pertains, it has come to an end. God DID get here from there.
Joy to the world, the Lord is come. . .
Mark Bangert
CANTATA – PART 2: O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort, BWV 20 by J. S. Bach
8. Aria (bass)
Wacht auf, wacht auf, verlornen Schafe,
Wake up, wake up, lost sheep,
Ermuntert euch vom Sündenschlafe
Arouse yourselves from the sleep of sin
Und bessert euer Leben bald!
And improve your life soon!
Wacht auf, eh die Posaune schallt,
Wake up, before the trumpet sounds,
Die euch mit Schrecken aus der Gruft
Which calls you with terror from the tomb
Zum Richter aller Welt vor das Gerichte ruft!
To face the judge of all the world in court!
The cantata continues after the sermon with a trumpet call to wake up. (The preacher may not have appreciated that!) The dotted rhythms recall the opening chorus, but once again the bass’s music sounds optimistic, even as the text warns of the terror of the final judgment. Rising scales in the first oboe and first violin reinforce the call to wake up, look toward God, and leave sin behind.
9.Recitative (alto)
Verlaß, o Mensch, die Wollust dieser Welt,
Abandon, o man, the delights of this world,
Pracht, Hoffart, Reichtum, Ehr und Geld;
Splendor, arrogance, wealth, honor and money;
Bedenke doch
Consider then
In dieser Zeit annoch,
In this time still left,
Da dir der Baum des Lebens grünet,
While for you the Tree of Life is verdant,
Was dir zu deinem Friede dienet!
What serves to give you peace!
Vielleicht ist dies der letzte Tag,
Perhaps this is the Last Day,
Kein Mensch weiß, wenn er sterben mag.
No man knows when he may die.
Wie leicht, wie bald
How easily, how soon
Ist mancher tot und kalt!
Is many a person dead and cold!
Man kann noch diese Nacht
On this very night
Den Sarg vor deine Türe bringen.
The coffin can be brought to your door.
Drum sei vor allen Dingen
Therefore above all things
Auf deiner Seelen Heil bedacht!
Think of the salvation of your soul!
The final recitative and aria tie the chorale text and its paraphrases in the cantata’s libretto to the warning in the gospel lesson about what will happen to those who enjoy riches in this life with no thought for the next—which may come all too quickly! The list of delights of this world is sung over a dotted bass line recalling the picture of eternity in the cantata’s opening chorus.
9. Duet (alto and tenor)
O Menschenkind,
O child of mankind,
Hör auf geschwind,
Quickly cease
Die Sünd und Welt zu lieben,
To love sin and the world,
Daß nicht die Pein,
So that the pain may not,
Wo Heulen und Zähnklappen sein,
When there is howling and gnashing of teeth,
Dich ewig mag betrüben!
Afflict you forever!
Ach spiegle dich am reichen Mann,
Ah, see yourself in the rich man,
Der in der Qual
Who in his torment
Auch nicht einmal
Not even once
Ein Tröpflein Wasser haben kann!
Can have a small drop of water!
The duet is accompanied only by the continuo group. The ritornello (the instrumental introduction to the duet, repeated between sections of singing) conjures up an image of death sneaking up on an unwary child of man, or worse, a coffin clattering over the cobblestones on its way to your door. The voices, almost childlike in their plea, fit tightly together. Both Tröplein (drop) and Wasser (water) are illustrated musically, the one in short notes, the other in a flowing melisma.
10. Chorale
O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort,
O eternity, you thunder word,
O Schwert, das durch die Seele bohrt,
O sword that bores through the soul,
O Anfang sonder Ende!
O beginning without end!
O Ewigkeit, Zeit ohne Zeit,
O eternity, time without time,
Ich weiß vor großer Traurigkeit
I know not in such great sorrow
Nicht, wo ich mich hinwende.
Where I should turn.
Nimm du mich, wenn es dir gefällt,
Take me, if it pleases you,
Herr Jesu, in dein Freudenzelt!
Lord Jesus, into your tent of joy!
The final stanza of the chorale repeats the text of the first, with only the final two lines altered to reorient the congregation toward the joys of heaven.
The Rev. Michael Costello, who conducted the cantata, is the Cantor of Grace Lutheran Church in River Forest, IL. He has published choral and organ works with several publishers and is Artistic Director of Chicago Choral Artists.
The Rev. Dr. Mark Bangert is the John H. Tietjen Professor of Pastoral Ministry: Worship and Church Music, Emeritus at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. One of his passions is the music of Bach—about which he produces scholarly writing. He also loves ethnomusicology and has studied church music in Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Manila, Bali, Thailand, and Bangalore, India. He chaired the task force that produced the 1982 Lutheran Book of Worship: Occasional Services book and served as a consultant for Evangelical Lutheran Worship.
Gwen Gotsch, who wrote the notes, and Dr. Karen P. Danford, who translated the cantata text, are members of Grace Lutheran Church.