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Subject Area: Music
Subject Area: Religion

Cantata XXI.: Ich hatte viel Bekümmerniss 1 . For General Use 2 (1714) - Johann Sebastian Bach, Bach’s Chorals, vol. 2 The Hymns and Hymn Melodies of the Cantatas and Motetts [1917]

Edition used:

Bach’s Chorals. Part I: 2 The Hymns and Hymn Melodies of the Cantatas and Motetts, by Charles Sanford Terry (Cambridge University Press, 1915-1921). 3 vols. Vol. 2.

Part of: Bach’s Chorals, 3 vols.

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Cantata XXI.

Ich hatte viel Bekümmerniss1 . For General Use2 (1714)

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Melody: “Wer nur den lieben Gott lasst walten”

Georg Neumark 1657

In the ninth movement, the Chorus “Sei nun wieder zufrieden,” Bach makes use of the words and melody of Georg Neumark’s Hymn, “Wer nur den lieben Gott lässt walten,” published together in his Fortgepflantzter Musikalisch-Poetischer Lustwald (Jena, 1657).

Georg Neumark was born at Langensalza in Thuringia in 1621. In 1652 (?) the Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar appointed him Court Poet, Librarian and Registrar of the administration at Weimar. Of the “Fruit-bearing Society,” the chief German literary union in the 17th century, he became Secretary in 1656. He died in 1681. The melody was composed by Neumark for the Hymn.

Bach uses the melody also in Cantatas 27, 84, 88, 93, 166, 179, and 197. There is another harmonisation of the tune in the Choralgesänge, No. 367. Mendelssohn uses it for the Choral, “To Thee, O Lord, I yield my spirit,” in “St Paul,” No. 9. Bach’s version of the last line of the tune is invariable and is not noted by Zahn as having earlier authority. Organ Works, N. xv. 117; xvi. 6; xix. 21, 22.

The words of the Choral are the second and fifth stanzas of Neumark’s Hymn, which was written at Kiel in 1641:

  • Was helfen uns die schweren Sorgen?
  • Was hilft uns unser Weh und Ach?
  • Was hilft es, dass wir alle Morgen
  • Beseufzen unser Ungemach?
  • Wir machen unser Kreuz und Leid
  • Nur grösser durch die Traurigkeit.
  • Denk’ nicht in deiner Drangsalshitze,
  • Dass du von Gott verlassen seist,
  • Und dass der Gott1 im Schoosse sitze,
  • Der sich mit stetem Glücke speist.
  • Die Folgezeit verändert viel,
  • Und setzet Jeglichem sein Ziel.

  • B.G. v. (i) 36.

Translations of the Hymn into English are noted in the Dictionary of Hymnology, p. 796.

Form. Choral Motett (Oboe, Fagotto, 4 Trombones, Strings, Organ, Continuo). The cantus is with the Tenor.

[1 ] English versions of the Cantata are published by Novello & Co., “My spirit was in heaviness,” and Breitkopf & Haertel, “I had great heaviness of heart.”

[2 ] The Score is inscribed, “Per ogni tempo.” The Cantata is appropriate particularly to the Third Sunday after Trinity, by whose Epistle it was suggested.

[1 ] 1657 Gott der.