Econlib

The Library

Other Sites

 Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow Cantata CXXXIX.: Wohl dem, der sich auf seinen Gott. Twenty-third Sunday after Trinity ( c. 1740) - Bach's Chorals, vol. 2 The Hymns and Hymn Melodies of the Cantatas and Motetts

Return to Title Page for Bach’s Chorals, vol. 2 The Hymns and Hymn Melodies of the Cantatas and Motetts

Search this Title:

Also in the Library:

Subject Area: Music
Subject Area: Religion

Cantata CXXXIX.: Wohl dem, der sich auf seinen Gott. Twenty-third Sunday after Trinity ( c. 1740) - 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.

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


Cantata CXXXIX.

Wohl dem, der sich auf seinen Gott. Twenty-third Sunday after Trinity (c. 1740)

lf1393-02_figure_184

Melody: “Mach’s mit mir, Gott, nach deiner Güt’ ”

Johann Hermann Schein 1628

A Choral Cantata, on Johann Christoph Rube’s, or Ruben’s, Hymn, “Wohl dem, der sich auf seinen Gott,” first published in Andreas Luppius’ Andachtig Singender Christen-Mund (Wesel, 1692), and, to its own melody, in the 1694 edition of the Dresden Hundert Arien.

Rube was born in 1665, his father being then pastor near Sondershausen. He was appointed judge (Amtmann) at Burggemünden, near Alsfeld, and from about 1704 held a similar appointment at Battenberg. He died at Battenberg in 1746.

The melody to which Bach sets the Hymn in the first and last movements is associated with it in the 1709 edition of Crüger’s Praxis. It was composed by Johann Hermann Schein for his Hymn, “Mach’s mit mir, Gott, nach deiner Güt’,” with which it was published in a broadsheet at Leipzig in 1628 as a “Trost-Liedlein” for five voices.

The melody occurs also in Cantata 156 and in the “St John Passion,” No. 22. There is another harmonisation of it in the Choralgesange, No. 237. The B flat which Bach substitutes for A natural as the third note of the tune has earlier (1714) authority.

(a)

The words of the opening movement are the first stanza of Rube’s Hymn:

  • * Wohl dem, der sich auf seinen Gott
  • Recht kindlich kann verlassen!
  • Den mag gleich Sünde, Welt und Tod,
  • Und alle Teufel hassen,
  • So bleibt er dennoch wohl vergnugt,
  • Wenn er nur Gott zum Freunde kriegt.

  • B.G. xxviii. 225.

Form. Choral Fantasia (2 Ob. d’amore, Strings, Organ, Continuo)1 .

(b)

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

  • * Dahero Trotz der Hollen Heer!
  • Trotz auch des Todes Rachen!
  • Trotz aller Welt! mich kann nicht mehr
  • Ihr Pochen traurig machen!
  • Gott ist mein Schutz, mein Hulf’ und Rath:
  • Wohl dem, der Gott zum Freunde hat.

  • B.G. xxviii. 248.

Form. Simple (2 Ob. d’amore, Strings, Continuo). Choralgesange, No. 238.

[1 ] See Spitta, iii. 101, on the movement.