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Subject Area: Music
Subject Area: Religion

Cantata C.: Was Gott thut, das ist wohlgethan ( c. 1735) 1 - 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 C.

Was Gott thut, das ist wohlgethan (c. 1735)1

A Choral Cantata, on Samuel Rodigast’s Hymn, “Was Gott thut, das ist wohlgethan.” The melody of the first and last movements is that of the Hymn (see Cantata 12).

(a)

The words of the first movement are the first stanza of the Hymn:

  • Was Gott thut, das ist wohlgethan,
  • Es bleibt gerecht sein Wille;
  • Wie er fängt meine1 Sachen an
  • Will ich ihm halten stille.
  • Er ist mein Gott, der in der Noth
  • Mich wohl weiss zu erhalten:
  • Drum lass’ ich ihn nur walten.

  • B.G. xxii. 279.

Form. Choral Fantasia (2 Cor., Timpani, Flauto, Oboe d’amore, Strings, Organ, Continuo).

(b)

The words of the concluding Choral are the sixth stanza of the Hymn:

  • Was Gott thut, das ist wohlgethan,
  • Dabei will ich verbleiben;
  • Es mag mich auf die rauhe Bahn
  • Noth, Tod und Elend treiben:
  • So wird Gott mich ganz vaterlich
  • In seinen Armen halten:
  • Drum lass’ ich ihn nur walten.

  • B.G. xxii. 323.

Form. Extended (2 Cor., Timpani, Flauto, Ob. d’amore, Strings, Organ, Continuo).

[1 ] The Score does not indicate the occasion for which the Cantata was composed. Wustmann, p. 177, assigns it to the Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity (cf. No. 99). Schweitzer, ii. 242 n., conjectures that Bach used it as a Wedding Cantata, and dates it in the early thirties. Spitta, ii. 460, puts it c. 1735 or 1736. Wustmann marks it “um 1735.” Every movement of the Cantata is a stanza of the Hymn.

[1 ] 1676 seine.