On the Cantatas of J.S. Bach: Easter to Pentecost: The Bach Cantatas, #6

By Hendrik Slegtenhorst

In his more than 200 cantatas Bach interprets the human condition through musical assertion and examination of the relevance of the gospels and epistles of the Christian Bible. Every cantata is discussed in my six book series On the Cantatas of J.S. Bach.

 

The epistle, which is essentially didactic, is from the Apostolic letters retained in Scripture. The gospel, which is concerned with the life and teachings of Christ, is effectively an exposition of His adherence to principles and the application of action.

 

Guided by this context, Bach consistently propounds surpassing interpretations of the nature and spirit of life. Though the over-reaching principles are philosophical and ethical, how they apply is determined, ultimately, by the individual.

 

Book Six of this series examines the 40 surviving cantatas for the Sundays and feast days from Easter to Pentecost. They are grouped into the period for Easter proper (including the Easter Oratorio), the five Sundays after Easter, Ascension (including the Ascension Oratorio), Exaudi, Pentecost, and Trinity Sunday.

 

Bach, in these, affirms and explains such fundamental aspects as Easter proper, which begins after the Passion, with Christ dead in the tomb, through to His resurrection and the events that proceed from it. Ascension concerns Christ's departure from the world. Exaudi centres on the promise of the arrival of the Holy Ghost to the church of Christ, and Pentecost is its realization. Trinity Sunday is then the feast of the Trinitarian actuality, and completes the liturgical, and Bach's, cycles.

 

It is a personal exploration, both his and mine.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Enlora Press
• Release date: Jan 26, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201953607

Hendrik Slegtenhorst

Hendrik Slegtenhorst’s executive and senior management work has been for local governments, post-secondary education, and heritage institutions, and on board directorships for cultural, community, and economic development. In addition to his work as a writer, speaker, columnist, and editor, Slegtenhorst has held corporate appointments in project management, information technology, and human resources. Soon after being brought to life in Rembrandt’s university city of Leiden in the Netherlands, his parents emigrated to Canada, where, by design, Slegtenhorst has worked in its largest cities—Ottawa, Montréal, Edmonton, Calgary, Toronto, and Vancouver—and many of the country’s smaller communities. He has also worked in the United States, Europe, and Africa, and resides in Vancouver, Canada.

Book preview

Plus j’ai vu le monde, moins j’ai pu me faire à son ton. — Rousseau, Les Confessions, Livre IV. The more I saw the world, the less I got used to its tone.

This sixth book in the Bach Cantatas series is concerned with the thirty-nine sacred cantatas for Easter to Pentecost, plus one secular cantata. They are grouped into the period for Easter proper (including the Easter Oratorio), the five Sundays after Easter, Ascension (including the Ascension Oratorio), Exaudi, Pentecost, and Trinity Sunday.

Easter proper begins after the Passion, with Christ dead in the tomb, through to His resurrection and the events that proceed from it. Ascension concerns Christ’s departure from the world. Exaudi centres on the promise of the arrival of the Holy Ghost to the church of Christ, and Pentecost is its realization. Trinity Sunday is then the feast of the Trinitarian actuality, and the completes the liturgical, and Bach’s, cycles.

Cantatas of particular note are:

cantata 4 for Easter, on Christ in the tomb;

cantata 6 for Easter Monday, on redemption through the resurrected Christ;

cantatas 134 and 158 for Easter Tuesday, on Christ alive;

cantata 42 for Easter I, on Jesus amongst the Twelve;

cantatas 12 and 103 for Easter III, on strife vanquished by Christ;

cantatas 166 and 108 for Easter IV, on the path before one;

the Ascension Oratorio;

cantata 44 for Exaudi, on suffering and consolation; and,

cantata 172 for Pentecost, on the paradise of the soul.

The idea is God’s. The leading role is Christ’s. The supporting cast is all of humanity. The text is Martin Luther’s. The music is Bach’s.

The epistle is 1 Corinthians 5:7-8

⁷ Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:

⁸ Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

and the gospel is Mark 16:1-8

¹ And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him.

² And very early in the morning the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun.

³ And they said among themselves, Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre?

⁴ And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away: for it was very great.

⁵ And entering into the sepulchre, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment; and they were affrighted.

⁶ And he saith unto them, Be not affrighted: Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified: he is risen; he is not here: behold the place where they laid him.

⁷ But go your way, tell his disciples and Peter that he goeth before you into Galilee: there shall ye see him, as he said unto you.

⁸ And they went out quickly, and fled from the sepulchre; for they trembled and were amazed: neither said they any thing to any man; for they were afraid.

Bach’s cantata dates from 1707, for Mühlhausen. It is a masterpiece. It is symmetrical in structure: seven movements with voices and an introductory sinfonia without. Each movement is a variation of the hymn tune. The sequence is chorale, duet, solo; central chorus; and then the reverse: solo, duet, chorale.

The opening sinfonia depicts Christ, dead, in the tomb, after His crucifixion. This is Luther’s point of departure as he almost immediately moves to resurrection, which is the subject throughout. Luther’s hymn, through all its seven verses, becomes a brilliant survey of Christian doctrine, which is apposite, as his is the main Lutheran hymn for Easter. Its ancestry is ancient, as Luther’s treatment derives from the Victimae paschali laudes (laud the Paschal victim), one of the medieval sequences for the celebration of the Eucharist in the Catholic mass. It is still in liturgical use today.

Verse 2 asserts that, before the coming of Christ, humanity after death and because of original sin, remained within the kingdom of death. Verse 3 recounts that Christ, through His death, has removed the taint of original sin, so that mortal death becomes impermanent, that the dead body is only the earthly shell of the redeemed. Verse 4 tells of the victory of the afterlife in its battle with death. This is the central pivot of Bach’s symmetry. Verse 5 specifies that the victory is won through the sacrifice of Christ upon the cross. Verse 6 confirms that divine grace has (if one is a believer) forever vanquished, through its solar illumination, the night that sin had held humanity within. Verse 7 relates that the word of Christ is the universality of redemptive faith that He has brought.

The problem with this is that death is still death. The tomb, and the loss, are permanent. Resurrection is an impossibility. The concept of divinity is an invention of the human mind, and is one of its original needs. The psychic striving for an afterlife in the empyrean is no more than an evasion of the truth of being. The Biblical narrative is metaphor rather than actuality. Its purpose is adherence. The grace that is true is what is found and remains in the hearts of those still living but left behind, until their own death enables eternal reunification. Which, I suggest, represents a metaphor that is realistic, and if bittersweet, more comforting.

The end of life is the return to the great nothingness in which it began; which, just as Christ knew his fate on Palm Sunday, we cannot escape knowing and accepting once our awareness is awoken. We are manifestations of a beautiful transience.

This is what religion endeavours to explain, until it lost its way in the absolutism of doctrine and power; and having become doctrinaire, admitted no further or different interpretation, the understanding of the mystery jettisoned in favour of control and obedience.

Obedience is a behaviour that is observable. Heaven as a place is not. It is figuratively imagined as an anthropomorphism, even when intellectually considered as transcendental. It could as easily be considered as restoration. Restoration is a decomposition into what originally was, transcendence a rebirth. After death, we do not become immaterial, but we eventually are disembodied. We never leave the essence of the earth. Extraterrestrial transcendence or restoration may both be valid, but neither demands or requires a resurrection to open the gateway, nor can either be denied—or approved—by anyone or anything.

But the fundamental problem is that doctrine obscures the intent, the wisdom, of Jesus. It moulds the reaches of His teachings into the confines of the church, often to the detriment of the teachings. Instances of prophesy, for example, are written into the Biblical record through the desires of fabulists to imagine Christ different than He was. The consequence is distortion of the grandeur of the attempt.

But, further, did Christ really know that death through