Barmherziges Herze der ewigen Liebe

Text
Salomo Franck, 1715

Text No. 6
Johann Agricola, 1529

First performance
Unknown

The cantata “Barmherziges Herze der ewigen Liebe” (O heart filled with mercy and love everlasting) belongs to a group of works stemming from Bach’s Weimar period that the composer reworked during his tenure as Thomascantor in Leipzig. Composed in 1715 to a libretto by Weimar court librarian Salomo Franck, the cantata was likely reperformed in Weimar a second time, before being revived in 1723 and again in the mid-1740s for church services in Leipzig.

Like several cantatas of Bach’s Weimar period, the work opens not with a typical tutti setting but with a soprano and tenor duet whose continuo accompaniment sets the mood with lilting 6⁄8 figures. Here, the notion that mercy and love are a part of the give and take between two individuals is expressed at a structural level through the scoring for two soloists. The covert star of the mellifluous and consonant setting, however, is the oboe, which presents the chorale melody “Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ” (I call to thee, Lord Jesus Christ) in a high register; in Leipzig, Bach reassigned the part to a trumpet or horn to suit the larger churches there.

With its pianissimo strings gleaming like a halo over the gentle entreaties of the alto soloist, the following recitative offers a musical image of forgiveness that overcomes the hardest of hearts. Franck’s powerful language enables Bach to shape a setting that is cohesive in its overall effect yet sensitive in its rendering of each phrase. Indeed, in the central section of the movement, set to the words “Vergebt – so wird euch auch vergeben” (Forgive and ye will be forgiven), the message that there will always be ample scope for humans to act in faith is made tangible in particularly inspiring fashion.

While Martin Luther’s liberating doctrine of justification through faith struggled to motivate humans to nevertheless perform good deeds, in the alto aria, Bach and Franck have a ready answer that cuts straight to the heart: the setting makes it nigh impossible to resist the shimmering magic of the act of giving, drawn out in the slowest of tempos. “Sei bemüht, in dieser Zeit, Seele reichlich auszustreuen” (Be concerned within this life, Spirit, ample seed to scatter) – what the strings and oboe celebrate step by step in this celebratory A major movement is nothing less than the infectious kindness of a life transformed by the Gospel.

Had modern media existed in Bach’s times, the following recitative on the trials and tribulations of earthly life could well have served as a short sermon for radio and television. The libretto, drawing on biblical parables, summons humans to free themselves of foolish “Eigenliebe” (selfishness) and to be aware of the plank in their own eye before removing the speck from another’s – a practical homily for life that Bach portrays word for word, and perhaps even with a knowing wink.

In the following aria, these moral principles are elevated to a model of Christian ethics: “Das ist der Christen Kunst, nur Gott und sich erkennen” (This is the Christian skill, but God and self discerning). While the bass cantilena serenely takes on this norm, the main interpretive gesture lies concealed in the instrumental scoring: not only do all strings play the same part in unison, but the continuo, too, toes the party line, echoing precisely the same part one octave lower. Indeed, reconciling God and Self could hardly be better expressed than in this low register miniature, in which even Bach has chosen to eschew practically every form of artistic embellishment.

By way of compensation, Bach furnishes the closing chorale – the first verse of the supplication hymn “Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ” (I call to thee, Lord Jesus Christ) by Johann Agricola (1530) – with an obbligato violin part that, like a radiant morning star, shines above the four-part vocal setting, illuminating the “rechter Weg” (proper path) of faith and Christian love.