Category Archives: Leipzig

Second Christmas Day

26 Monday Dec 2016

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adoration_of_the_shepherds_1622
Adoration of the Shepherds by Dutch painter Gerard van Honthorst, 1622. Pommersches Landesmuseum (Pomerania State Museum), Germany.

In Bach’s time, there were three Christmas Days. In many countries in Europe there are still two Christmas Days. In the Netherlands, a country so small that you can easily travel to all your relatives within a day, people are expected to visit one side of the family on Christmas Day, and the other side on Second Christmas Day. Or at least that is how I remember it.

Of course, you could continue listening to the Christmas Oratorio, via the links for either Harnoncourt’s recording or Herreweghe’s recording I gave you yesterday. The second cantata is a charming one, evoking the pastoral scene of the shepherds on the field. But this composition has never grabbed or moved me the way the first or fourth cantata of the Christmas Oratorio do. The cantata I am eager to share with you today is cantata 40 Darzu ist erschienen der Sohn Gottes, written for Second Christmas Day in 1723.

The interpretation I grew up with is Leonhardt’s recording from 1974, with countertenor René Jacobs, tenor Marius van Altena, and bass Max van Egmond. There is a good live recording by Herreweghe of this cantata from a concert in Paris in 2015. You can watch this here on YouTube. Soloists are Damien Guillon, alto; Thomas Hobbs, tenor; and Peter Kooij, bass.

Find the text here, and the score here.

This cantata is really Christmas for me. I don’t know exactly why: perhaps because on Second Christmas Day we didn’t have to go to church, so I associate it with a more relaxed, unscheduled day. Perhaps because of the horns in the orchestra in the opening chorus and the tenor aria (I have a soft spot for horns or trombones in Bach cantatas), because of the impressive “Höllische schlange” (Snake of Hell) bass aria (yes, I have a soft spot for bass arias too), or because of the closing chorale that is so pretty, going up so high on the text Wonne, Wonne über Wonne! Er ist die Genadensonne. (Delight, delight upon delight! He is the son of mercy.) I sang this cantata in a Bach cantata reading group mid November this year, sitting directly behind the horns, standing next to one of my best friends, and I couldn’t believe my luck I got to sing this closing chorale.

Wieneke Gorter, December 26, 2016, updated December 24, 2019.

Our Christmas Morning

24 Saturday Dec 2016

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Nativity at Night by Dutch painter Geertgen tot Sint Jans, ca. 1490. National Gallery, London.

Growing up in the Netherlands, my sister and I did not expect gifts at Christmas, and certainly not under the tree. We had already received our gifts on the eve of St. Nicholas, December 5. At the dinner with relatives on Christmas Day, we would maybe receive one book, or a small piece of jewelry. It would be well coordinated between mother and grandmother that this would amount to only one present per person, and it would be next to our plate when we arrived at the well-dressed Christmas dinner table.

However, Christmas Morning was something we immensely looked forward to. The Christmas Morning breakfast was the most wonderful breakfast of the year, even better than the Easter breakfast. We would have crispy rolls from the oven, artisan sliced ham, boiled eggs, cheese, jams, and of course the sweet breakfast sprinkles American kids can’t believe Dutch kids get to eat for breakfast. And Kerststol, or Christmas Stollen, a fruit bread with an almond paste filling.

There was an unwritten rule that my parents would set out the breakfast (including my father carving a bell or Christmas tree out of the butter) and us kids would stay in bed until my mom would sound the special alarm. And the special alarm was: Harnoncourt’s recording of the opening chorus of Part One of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio at full volume, the sound of the timpani rocking the whole house. I usually play the Herreweghe recording in my own house nowadays. You can find that here on YouTube.

In 2012, Herreweghe’s performance of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio in Brussels was recorded and released on DVD. It is a beautiful registration, and has some of my favorite soloists: Dorothee Mields, soprano; Damien Guillon, alto; Thomas Hobbs, tenor; and Peter Kooij, bass. For my readers in Germany, and countries not to far from there, you can buy the regular DVD here, or the blu ray version here. For readers in the USA, if you have Amazon Prime, you can stream it here.

Read more about the history of Christmas in Europe and the USA in this extremely interesting article and join me again tomorrow for a cantata for Second Christmas Day.

Wieneke Gorter, December 24, 2016, links updated December 24, 2019.

Many things to be proud of

26 Saturday Nov 2016

Posted by in Advent, Cantatas, Leipzig, Weimar

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The Entry into Jerusalem by Giotto, ca. 1305. Fresco in the Scrovengni Chapel, Padua, Italy.

Bach performed this cantata 61 Nun komm der Heiden Heiland in Leipzig on November 28, 1723, as a “rerun” of the first performance in Weimar in 1714. Why did he not write a new cantata? The prevailing scholarly answer is that Bach was giving himself a break from composing in between the three-week frenzy of cantatas 60, 90, and 70 and the new works (including a Magnificat) he was planning for the Christmas days.  I think Bach was proud of his Weimar cantatas, and I believe he wanted to show off the special features in this cantata to his colleagues and to the thousands of Lutherans that he knew would flock to the Leipzig churches on holidays.

I myself am proud of having followed Bach’s cantata writing of 1723 every week for the entire Trinity season. After all this listening and reading, I see a pattern in Bach reviving some of his Weimar cantatas on Leipzig feast days*, and I now look at cantata 61 Nun komm der Heiden Heiland in a new way.

This cantata had already been in my top five because of the moving interpretation of the soprano aria by Seppi Kronwitter (soprano) and Nikolaus Harnoncourt (cello) on the Harnoncourt recording from 1976. My mother loved this aria and played this recording many times, and I have fond memories of listening to it with her.

Harnoncourt-cello

I had always found the bass recitative that precedes it very charming, with the musical illustration of the knocking on the door, but not more than that.  I had seen this recitative in the context of all the Bach cantatas and passions that I knew, and had compared it with other typical Bach “Vox Christi” writing for bass. But those were all written after November 28, 1723.  So now, after having tried to place myself in the shoes of the Leipzig congregations for the entire 1723 Trinity season, I am fully aware that they had not heard a “Vox Christi” at all in any of the cantatas leading up to this one.** And thus I finally realize how it must not have been charming, but truly moving to them to hear this announcement presented in this way, on the first Sunday they started looking forward to the birth of Christ.

In the text of the recitative, Jesus says: “See, I am in front of your door! I’m knocking!” The librettist means the door of the believer’s heart, in which he’s planning to live. The pizzicato in the strings, as well as the staccato and the intervals in the voice part illustrate the knocking, and the dissonances at the beginning only resolve until the final “klopfe an.” The form of this recitative is highly unusual, and perhaps also something Bach wanted to show off in Leipzig.

However Bach’s greatest source of pride was probably the opening chorus of this cantata. To understand this, we need to do a mini music history class. First, in the 4th century, Ambrosius created the hymn Veni Redemptor Gentium, beautifully sung here on this video by Giovanni Vianini, director of the Schola Gregoriana Mediolanensis in Milan, Italy. Then, in 1524, Luther turned that hymn into Nun komm der Heiden Heiland, which sounds like this and which all Lutherans in Bach’s time knew very well.

In Weimar Bach had come into contact with French and Italian court music, and had adopted the habit of writing almost every opening chorus or opening sinfonia of his cantatas as a royal “entrada,” to show off his skills in French ouverture writing as well as to please the Duke.

So now Bach needed/wanted to merge the timeless hymn with a fashionable French ouverture. And the result is stunning. Or, as Eduard van Hengel says: Bach wrote “brilliant fusion” at the age of 29. Listen to this in the recording by Philippe Herreweghe on YouTube (Sybilla Rubens, soprano; Christoph Prégardien, tenor; Peter Kooij, bass).

Find the German text with English translations here and the score here.

The first line of the hymn is sung one voice part at a time, an illustration of the Bible reading for this Sunday: the people greeting the messiah who is riding into Jerusalem. The second line is then sung as a simple four-part hymn, while the instrumental parts keep playing the first part of the ouverture. The third line becomes a mini motet in the fast and happy (“Gai”) middle part of the ouverture, in 3/4. 

The fourth line of text is then again a simple four-part setting on the third part of the ouverture.

For the closing chorale, Bach chose the last two lines of Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern as melody. And again he marries the chorale tune beautifully with the instrumental writing.

Wieneke Gorter, November 26, 2016, updated December 1, 2019.

*Read more about this in my post about the feast of St. John the Baptist on June 24, The Visitation on July 2, and last week’s post about cantata 70. Read how proud Bach was of his Weimar cantatas in this post about cantata 12.

** unless they had a really good memory, and were present at Bach’s “audition” in February 1723. There is a Vox Christi in Cantata 22 which he presented at that time, but didn’t repeat in Leipzig until that same time in the church year in 1724.

Trying to find some beauty in ugliness

13 Sunday Nov 2016

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trumpetsmemling

The least gruesome detail of Hans Memling’s “The Last Judgment”, a triptych painted between 1467 and 1471. National Museum, Gdansk, Poland.

This week I’ve been trying harder than ever in my life to find islands of beauty in a sea of ugliness. I found some: I witnessed communities coming together, had a very uplifting choir rehearsal, attended a concert at my daughter’s music school where the director gave a heart-felt speech, and the choir director had included We Shall Overcome in their part of the program. I have talked with my children about what it means to “stand up” for the millions who will suffer discrimination in the next four years in this country.  I realize I have many different readers of this blog, and that some of you might not share my political opinion. But I would urge you to be there for each other. And whomever you had been meaning to contact, whether it is a friend you should have apologized to four weeks ago, someone you know who is having a hard time, a relative you haven’t called in too long, or your representative in the House or Senate, write that letter, make that phone call. Don’t put it off.

In today’s cantata 90 Es reißet euch ein schrecklich Ende (A terrible end shall sweep you away), written for November 14, 1723, the 25th Sunday after Trinity, it is not easy to find beauty either, at least not the soul-soothing kind, since it is based on the Bible story of The Last Judgement, which is an ugly concept in my opinion. However this story was important in Bach’s time, and it was thus appropriate to let the Trinity season go out with a bang: two weeks in a row of impressive cantatas, including some of the most magnificent (and difficult!) arias for bass and trumpet in all of his work.

While Bach’s audience (the congregations of the St. Thomas and St. Nicholas churches in Leipzig) got plenty of tenor drama in the fall of 1723, it had been a long time (August 1, 1723 to be exact) since they had last heard an operatic aria for bass, with the majestic trumpet as accompanying instrument.

Since this emotional week also calls for some nostalgia, I’m going with the Leonhardt recording of this cantata, because I grew up listening to Max van Egmond sing these bass arias. The trumpet player on that recording however barely makes it, so if you would like to listen to a better player in that particular aria, and also see a close-up of the instrument, watch this video (of the bass aria only) by the Bach Foundation, with Patrick Henrichs on trumpet.

Find the text here, and the score here.

Wieneke Gorter, November 13, 2016, Links updated November 24, 2019.

Bach in Vienna / Robin Blaze going wild

06 Sunday Nov 2016

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kokoschka_pieta

Pietà (It is enough) / Pietà (Es ist genug), plate 11 from a series of 11 lithographs O Ewigkeit, Du Donnerwort by Oskar Kokoschka, 1914/1916. Museum of Modern Art, New York.

In Vienna, they were all talking about Bach’s cantata 60 O Ewigkeit, Du Donnerwort. The astonishing harmonization in the closing chorale as well as the structure of a “dialogue” between Fear (alto) and Hope (tenor) made it one of the most unusual among his cantatas, and apparently something worth discussing. In the first half of the 20th century, that is. In 1935  Alban Berg used the “modern” harmonization from the closing chorale Es ist genug in the final movement of his violin concerto To the Memory of an Angel–an instrumental Requiem for Manon Gropius, daughter of Bauhaus architect Walter Gropius and Mahler’s widow, Alma Schindler.

Several years before, the same Alma Schindler had a short-lived affair with Czech painter Oskar Kokoschka. After they broke up, Kokoschka processed his torment by making a series of 11 lithographs to illustrate the cantata. The dialogue between Fear (the alto) and Hope (the tenor) in the cantata became a dialogue between Alma and himself, in pictures only: click here to see the entire series. Many thanks to Eduard van Hengel for pointing this out.

Listen to Bach Collegium Japan’s recording of this cantata on Spotify, with countertenor Robin Blaze and tenor Gerd Türk. Find the German text with English translations here, and the score here.

Bach wrote this cantata 60 O Ewigkeit, Du Donnerwort for the 24th Sunday after Trinity in 1723, the Sunday normally linked to the Gospel story of the Raising of Jairus’ Daughter. However, in 1723–as now in 2016–this day fell on the first Sunday in November: All Hallows Sunday, All Saints Sunday, however you want to call it, but the Sunday on which the congregation would have commemorated all who had passed away that year. None of the commentaries I have read mention this, but I think it is important, because I feel this cantata is much more about how horrible it might be to die, or the thoughts one has when sitting at a loved one’s deathbed, than it is about the Raising of Jairus’ Daughter.

Of all the recordings I listened to, I like Bach Collegium Japan’s the best, because of Robin Blaze’s interpretation of the alto part. I always love his voice, but he is usually quite understated in his singing. He explains this well in this interview on San Francisco Classical Voice. I sometimes wish he would indeed sing with Kate Bush and “let go” a little, so I was thrilled to hear that in this cantata he actually does go a bit wild, for his standards at least, and that Suzuki lets him do it. His conviction in the opening chorale is already terrific (also note the wonderful blend with the horn doubling his part), but the way he sings the text “Und martert diese Glieder” (and tortures these limbs) in movement 2 is amazing, spot-on, and unrivaled by any others I listened to.

As we have seen before in the course of these 1723 Trinity Season cantatas (read for example my post on cantata 105) there are elements of Bach’s passions already present in this cantata. The agitated singing of the tenor in the stunningly beautiful duet (movement 3) resembles the Ach, mein Sinn! tenor aria from the St. John Passion. The repeated tremolo in the violins in movement 1 is something Bach often uses to illustrate fear, and this will show up again in the tenor arioso O Schmerz! Hier zittert das gequälte Herz in his St. Matthew Passion.

For further reading, including all the amazing harmonies in this piece which impressed the Viennese composers of the early 20th century,  as well as other insights, I can highly recommend Gardiner’s journal entry about this cantata (start reading on page 5).

Wieneke Gorter, November 6, 2016, updated November 21, 2020

1723 Trinity Special Series: the Final Weeks!

30 Sunday Oct 2016

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95thesen_facsimile_colour

Luther’s Theses, marking the start of the Reformation on October 31 in 1517.

Fear not: I am by no means announcing the end of this blog and am very much looking forward to sharing Bach’s beautiful Advent and Christmas cantatas with you starting on Sunday November 27.

This is just a heads-up about the impending end of my Trinity 1723 Special Series. Bach made his 1723 Trinity Season go out with a bang, and I plan to do the same! Spectacular (and somewhat crazy) cantatas are coming up in the next three weeks, but there’s no cantata from 1723 for today, so this is your chance to catch up on the previous episodes of this special series, which started on Sunday May 29 of this year with this post.  If you don’t have time to read all the episodes, I recommend these two highlights: cantata 147 for the Feast of the Visitation, and cantata 105 for Trinity 9.

Why is there no cantata for today from 1723? It was October 31, also known as Reformation Day, the day on which the Lutheran Church celebrates Martin Luther publishing his 95 Theses against the Catholic Church in 1517. It wasn’t until 1725 that Bach wrote a cantata for that particular day.

Wieneke Gorter, Sunday October 30, 2016.

A pretty soprano aria for Trinity 22

23 Sunday Oct 2016

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parable_of_the_unfaithful_servant

Parable of the Unmerciful Servant by an unknown master from Northern Germany, ca. 1560. Gemäldegalerie, Berlin.

For this 22nd Sunday after Trinity, October 24 in 1723, Bach wrote cantata 89 Was soll ich aus dir machen, Ephraim?

Apart from providing you with the title of the cantata, the stunning painting, and a pretty YouTube video, you’re on your own this week for reading and listening more about this, as I’ve been busy producing these two fabulous concerts.

To find an overview of the recordings, links to the text & translations, and links to the score of this cantata, please visit this page of the “Bach Cantata Bible” by Aryeh Oron.

For a very beautiful interpretation of the soprano aria (fifth movement) from this cantata, please watch this video of the Bach Stiftung, with soprano Nuria Rial, in Trogen, Switzerland. I first heard the fabulous Nuria Rial sing on the German radio in December 2010 and have been a fan since. Watch her sing Cavalli arias at the Utrecht Early Music Festival in the summer of 2016.  I’ll talk about her again on the first Sunday of Advent, in about a month 🙂

Wieneke Gorter, October 23, 2016

Tenor drama

16 Sunday Oct 2016

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Excerpt from the start of the tenor recitative from cantata 109, with “piano” and “forte” marked. Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Preußischer Kulturbesitz

For this 21st Sunday after Trinity, Bach wrote cantata 109 Ich glaube, lieber Herr, hilf meinem Unglauben! in 1723.

For overall best performance, I recommend Herreweghe’s recording from 2013, with counter-tenor Damien Guillon and tenor Thomas Hobbs.

Listen to this recording on YouTube. To support the artists, please consider purchasing the entire album on Amazon — a good deal if you like this blog, as it also includes three cantatas I discussed here earlier this year: cantata 44, cantata 73, and cantata 48.

Read the German texts with English translations here, and find the score here.

I love Herreweghe’s interpretation of  the opening and closing chorus as well as Damien Guillon’s singing in the alto recitative and aria.

However, there is an extremely dramatic and unusual recitative and aria for tenor in this cantata which I like better on the Gardiner recording. The recitative is unusual because Bach has two voices/persons speak: the uncertain/fearful voice, marked “piano” in his manuscript (see picture above), and the certain/faithful voice, marked “forte” in the manuscript. According to Gardiner, this feature never appears anywhere else in Bach’s recitative writing.

Just as with the “Storm on the lake” aria from cantata 81, only Gardiner and the fabulous Paul Agnew are able to properly convey the drama of the text and context of this tenor recitative and aria. If at first you think this might be a bit over the top, it is most probably exactly what Bach had in mind. A bit of opera to properly bring out the agony of the text.

Listen to these two movements by Gardiner and Agnew on YouTube: the recitative here, and the aria here.

Bach might have been preparing the Leipzig congregations for the St. John Passion he was planning for Good Friday 1724, as this tenor aria is very similar in dramatic intensity and music to the Ach mein Sinn aria from that passion. Those who know the St. John Passion well might hear other resemblances in this cantata 109.

 

Wieneke Gorter, October 16, 2016

A Weimar cantata for Trinity 20

09 Sunday Oct 2016

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Vornehme Hochzeitsgesellschaft

Vornehme Hochzeitsgesellschaft (Distinguished Wedding party) by Wolfgang Heimbach, 1637. Kunsthalle Bremen, Germany.

I’m in the middle of St. Matthew Passion concert weekend now with California Bach Society. To read more about the connection between this blog and Bach’s Great Passion, please see my post from last week.

This week, while doing dishes, packing dinners, promoting our concerts on Facebook, and making spreadsheets for the youth choir logistics, I listened to several recordings of the 1723 cantata for this Sunday: cantata 162 Ach! ich sehe, itzt, da ich zur Hochzeit gehe, and can safely say I recommend Bach Collegium Japan’s recording of this cantata. It has the most sensitive playing in the instrumental opening and the best interpretation of the bass aria and the soprano aria in my opinion.

Listen to the recording of cantata 162 by Bach Collegium Japan on Spotify. Soloists: Soprano: Yumiko Kurisu, Counter-tenor: Yoshikazu Mera, Tenor: Makoto Sakurada, Bass: Peter Kooy.

Read the text here, and find the score here.

Bach wrote this cantata in Weimar, and performed it there on October 25, 1716. For the performance in Leipzig on October 10, 1723, he added a corno da tirarsi to the instrumentation (the Bach Collegium Japan recording is based on the Weimar version, and thus doesn’t feature the corno da tirarsi).

A very short explanation of the cantata, thanks to Eduard van Hengel: Cantata 162 is based on the Gospel text for this Sunday: Jesus compares the heavenly kingdom with the wedding of a King’s son. Many guests decline the invitation, and several of those who do come are sent away because they are not properly dressed. Since the relationship between Jesus and the soul of the believer is compared to the bond between groom and bride, the believers will be at first concerned that they will not be allowed to join the wedding (cantata movements 1-3), but can then rejoice in their conviction that Jesus, through his suffering, will provide the proper dress for them (cantata movements 4-6).

To read more in Dutch, please go to Eduard van Hengel’s website; to read more in English, find Gardiner’s notes about this cantata here.

Wieneke Gorter, October 9, 2016. Updated October 21, 2023.

The Opening Chorus’ Silver Lining

01 Saturday Oct 2016

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genezing_lamme_masolino

Healing of the Cripple (on left) and Raising of Tabitha (on right) by Masolino da Panicale, 1424-25. Fresco in the Brancacci Chapel, Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence, Italy.

My head has been in the St. Matthew Passion. For a few weeks already. Yes, that is pretty strange for me, having grown up in a house where Bach’s music was played often, but only on the Sundays and holidays for which it was written (read more about that in this blog post). However, it can happen when one sings in a Bach Choir in the United States. While in The Netherlands all 180 (!) St. Matthew Passion concerts happen in the weeks before Easter, here in the USA the piece is presented much less often, and the only classical music performances with a strong seasonal tie are those of Handel’s Messiah in the weeks before Christmas.

But working on the St. Matthew Passion and this Weekly Cantata blog at the same time has been a blessing, as the two areas of study influence each other. Nine months of research for this blog have inspired me to read more about the St. Matthew Passion and study the music in more detail. In that process I have learned many new things about the piece I thought I already knew so well. And experiencing the composition Bach’s sons referred to as their father’s Great Passion on a deeper level has, I believe, improved my understanding of Bach’s cantata writing.

Let’s just look at the opening chorus of this week’s cantata 48 Ich elender Mensch, written for the 19th Sunday after Trinity (October 3 in 1723).

I listened to Bach Collegium Japan (with Robin Blaze and Gerd Türk), Koopman (with Bernhard Landauer and Christoph Prégardien), Gardiner (with William Towers and James Gilchrist), Harnoncourt (with Paul Esswood and Kurt Equiluz), and Herreweghe (with Damien Guillon and Thomas Hobbs), and find Herreweghe’s interpretation the most moving. Herreweghe is also the only one who uses a tromba da tirarsi in the opening chorus, and I  love that sound. Listen to Herreweghe’s recording on YouTube or on Spotify. Please consider supporting the artists by purchasing the recording on Amazon: click here for USA, here for UK, here for Germany, or here for France.

Please find the German text with English translation here and the score here.

The main music is hauntingly beautiful (It’s not just the Herreweghe sopranos that give me goose bumps this time – the altos and tenors move me to tears, and none of this could happen without the basses providing that wonderful foundation for everyone to build on) but extremely downcast. It is clearly full of Elend (misery), in reference to the Gospel text of the day.* The same holds for the main music and words of the opening chorus of the St. Matthew Passion. It is clearly full of klagen (lamenting), and paints the picture of the Via Crucis, Jesus on his way to the cross.

However, in the midst of all the misery, a J.S. Bach opening chorus almost always provides a preview of the salvation that is to come later in the piece, or that is implied in the Gospel. In the opening chorus of the St. Matthew Passion he does this by superimposing the German Agnus Dei – the chorale O Lamm Gottes Unschuldig (O Lamb of God, unspotted), sung by a treble choir in G major, over the lamenting E minor of the two other choirs and orchestras. The repeated  auf unsre Schuld (for our sins) of Choir I is answered by the treble chorus with: All Sünd hast du getragen (you took away all sins).

The congregation in Leipzig, where the St. Matthew Passion was first performed on the afternoon of Good Friday in 1727, would have sung this German Agnus Dei earlier that day at the conclusion of the morning service. Back to this week’s cantata for October 3, 1723: in that Sunday service, the congregation might have sung the chorale Herr Jesu Christ, ich schreie zu dir:

Herr Jesu Christ ich schreie zu dir
Mit ganz betrübter Seele:
Dein Allmacht laß erscheinen mir
Und mich nicht also quäle.
Viel grösser ist die Angst und Schmerz.
So anficht und turbirt mein Herz,
Als daß ich kan erzählen.		 Lord Jesus Christ, I cry to you
With a soul that is wholly troubled:
Let your almighty power appear to me
And do not punish me in this way.
Far greater is the anguish and pain
That challenge and confuse my heart
Than I can explain

The congregation might thus have heard those words in their head, when two bars after the soprano entrance the tromba da tirarsi starts playing this melody, later followed by two oboes in unison. In this way, these three instruments accompany every choral passage with a new line from the chorale, and the chorale thus starts forming the frame of the opening chorus.

After this preview message in the opening chorus that Jesus might be able to offer salvation, we have to wait until the tenor aria for the all-around convincing message that everything will be OK, in music as well as in text:

Vergibt mir Jesus meine Sünden,

If Jesus forgives me my sins,
So wird mir Leib und Seele gesund.
then my body and soul will become healthy.
Er kann die Toten lebend machen
He can make the dead live
Und zeigt sich kräftig in den Schwachen,
and shows himself to be mighty in those who are weak,
Er hält den längst geschloßnen Bund,
he keeps the covenant made long ago
Daß wir im Glauben Hilfe finden.
that in faith we find support.

Wieneke Gorter, October 1, 2016, links updated October 15, 2020.

* The Gospel story for this 19th Sunday after Trinity was the miracle of Jesus healing a cripple. From the time the Gospel was written through Bach’s time, unfortunately, having a disability or illness was seen as carrying a sin. When Jesus heals the man, he also takes his sins away.