Text No. 1
Johann Rist, 1642 and
1. Gen. 49:18; Psalm 119:166

Text No. 2, 3
Poet unknown

Text No. 4
Revelation 14:13

Text No. 5
Franz Joachim Burmeister, 1662

First performance
7 November 1723, Leipzig

The opening aria begins with trembling repeated notes in the strings over a sustained bass note, musically introducing the two opposing aspects of the word “eternity”. By alluding not only to the permanence of eternity but also to the terror of eternal damnation, Bach evokes the multi-faceted nature of fear. Whereas the composition employs a chorale setting until the beginning of the fourth line, the musical character changes swiftly with the entry of the tenor. Two oboes d’amore, whose initial themes had no clear affiliations, now emerge as the partner of Hope, singing defiantly in their upper register against all despair. Aside from their warm, rich timbre, the symbolism of the name “oboe d’amore” also certainly influenced their inclusion in this section. On an intertextual level, Martin Luther’s admonishment that one should not ask for specific alms, but alone for God, is impressively implemented here with the insistent repetition of the phrase “Lord, I wait now for thy help”.
In the first recitative, the reasons why man succumbs to doubt are clearly named: fear of death and the burden of sin. Despite the comforting affirmations of the tenor, Bach’s familiarity with the trials of earthly life becomes evident in his chromatic painting of the word “torture” (sung by Fear) and its inverse musical answer on the word “endure” (sung by Hope). In this passage, the effort involved in enduring life’s burdens is all too keenly felt.
Bach devised the following aria – a feisty minuet – as a double dialogue. Aside from Fear and Hope fiercely trading vocal blows, an oboe d’amore and a solo violin are likewise engaged in a duel. Their starkly contrasting motifs of dotted-rhythmic gestures from the oboe d’amore and racing scales from the violin heighten the impression of an all-encompassing uncertainty. When then the “cruel” sight of the “open grave” is then mentioned, this may well sound disrespectful to today’s listeners. For contemporaries of the baroque period, however, coping with death and dying was a daily issue. Bach himself was orphaned as a child and lost his first wife as well as several of his children to death; accepting irreversible acts of fate was a part of life. Consequently, when Hope declaims the grave as a redemptive “house of peace”, this does not signify an empty gesture of comfort or a mere play on words, but rather a confidence born from the acceptance of human destiny.
Nevertheless, in recitative no. 4, Fear summons his strength for one last attack, to “hurtleth nigh all hope to its destruction”. Hope, in response, takes refuge in a bible passage sung in arioso style which ever so gradually lays bare a secret of deep faith: “Blessed are those, who in the Lord have diéd, from now on”. The phrase “from now on” reveals that salvation shall be given to all believers from this day forward and serves as the works catalyst. For the first time in the entire cantata, Fear is then granted the last word because doubt and terror have lost their power through the promise of the resurrection. The musical tension of the dialogue has been resolved.
The final chorale “It is enough lord, then let me rest in peace”, based on a melody by the Mühlhausen organist Johann Rudolf Ahle, is justifiably one of Bach’s most famous settings. Centuries later, its unusual opening of three ascending whole tones, exquisite harmonisation and modified recapitulation of the first text stollen so fascinated Alban Berg that he thoroughly developed the chorale in his violin concerto of 1935. Inscribed to the “memory of an angel”, it proved to be a swan song not only for Manon Gropius, to whom it was dedicated, but also for Berg himself, who died shortly after its completion.