The cantata opens and closes with hymnstanzas, beginning with the first stanza of Johann Rist's 1642 hymn "O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort",[3][5][6] expressing fear, and ending with the last stanza of Franz Joachim Burmeister's 1662 hymn "Es ist genug".[3][7] Two biblical quotations are juxtaposed in the first and fourth movements. The first movement, "Herr, ich warte auf dein Heil" (Genesis 49:18),[3] spoken by Jacob on his deathbed, expresses hope against the fear conveyed in the chorale.[8] In the fourth movement, Selig sind die Toten (Blessed are the dead, Revelation 14:13)[3] is the answer to the preceding recitative of Fear.[2]
In O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort, solo voices perform all movements but the closing chorale. Bach had composed a similarly structured cantata three weeks before, entitled Ich glaube, lieber Herr, hilf meinem Unglauben, BWV 109, which also featured a dialogue between Fear and Hope, given to one singer. In O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort, he assigned Fear to the alto and Hope to the tenor, and has them sing three movements in dialogue. In movement 4, Fear is answered instead by the bass, the vox Christi (voice of Christ), with "Selig sind die Toten".[8][9]
Bach structured the cantata in five movements: four duets of alternating arias and recitatives, concluding with a four-part chorale. He scored the work for three vocal soloists (alto (A), tenor (T) and bass (B)), a four-part choir only in the closing chorale, and a Baroque instrumental ensemble: horn (Co) to support the chorale tunes, two oboes d'amore (Oa), two violins (Vl), viola (Va), and basso continuo (Bc).[2][3] The title page of the original parts bears a title which Bach wrote himself: "Dominica 24 / post Trinit. / Dialogus Zwischen Furcht u. Hoffnung. / Furcht. O Ewigkeit, du DonnerWort. / Hoffnung. Herr, ich warte auf dein Heÿl. / á / 4 Voci. / 2 Hautb: d’Amour. / 2 Violini / Viola / e / Continuo / di / Joh.Sebast:Bach" (Sunday 24 / after Trinity. / Dialogue Between Fear and Hope / Fear. O Eternity, you Word of Thunder. / Hope. Lord, I wait for Your Salvation. / for / 4 voices / 2 oboes d'amore. / 2 violins / viola / and / continuo / by / Joh.Sebast:Bach).[4] A horn, to support the chorale melodies, was requested only later under the word Viola, possibly in the 19th century.[4] The duration of the work has been stated as 20 minutes.[2]
Movements
In the following table of the movements, scoring, keys and time signatures are taken from the book by Bach scholar Alfred Dürr, using the symbol for common time (4 4).[2] The instruments are shown separately for winds and strings, while the continuo, playing throughout, is not shown.
The first duet is a chorale fantasia with added biblical text.[4][10] The chorale, the first stanza of Rist's hymn "O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort" (O eternity, you word of thunder),[1] is sung by the alto (Fear), reinforced by the horn. The strings and the continuo play a motif in tremolo throughout the movement which is derived from the second half of the first line of the chorale, and anticipates the beginning of the different closing chorale.[2]John Eliot Gardiner connects the tremolo to Monteverdi's agitated style (stile concitato).[8] The two oboes play a "lamenting" duet.[2] From the second Stollen of the chorale, the tenor as Hope responds with Jacob's words, "Herr, ich warte auf dein Heil" (Lord, I await your salvation).[2] In his book The Creative Development of Johann Sebastian Bach, Richard D. P. Jones describes the movement as "one of Bach's most imaginative conceptions, vivid in its portrayal of conflicting states of the soul".[11]
2
The second duet is a seccorecitative. Fear begins "O schwerer Gang zum letzten Kampf und Streite!" (O difficult way to the final battle and struggle!),[1] while Hope confirms "Mein Beistand ist schon da" (My Protector is already there).[1] The music is intensified to an arioso twice: Fear sings the word martert (tortures) as a chromatic melisma to short chords in the continuo, and Hope stresses in a long melisma the last word ertragen (borne).[2]
3
The third, central duet is dramatic and therefore not in da capo form but closer to a motet, unified by the instrumental ritornellos.[2] Three different sections are developed in a similar way: Fear begins, "Mein letztes Lager will mich schrecken" (My final bier terrifies me),[1] Hope answers, "Mich wird des Heilands Hand bedecken" (My Savior's hand will cover me),[1] both argue, and Hope has the last word. The instrument parts are included in the dialogue: the solo violin (with Hope) plays scales while the oboes d'amore and the continuo (with Fear) play dotted rhythms.[2]
4
The last duet is no longer between Fear and Hope. Fear begins "Der Tod bleibt doch der menschlichen Natur verhaßt" (But death remains hateful to human nature)[1] in secco recitative, but three times the bass as the vox Christi quotes the consoling words from Revelation "Selig sind die Toten" (Blessed are the dead)[1] as an arioso, each time expanded, following the scheme a ab abc.[2] The American musicologist Eric Chafe analyses that the quotes of the vox Christi are intensified each time by lengthening the quoted text: first "Selig sind die Toten", the second time "Selig sind die Toten, die in dem Herrn sterben" (... who die in the Lord), finally "Selig sind die Toten, die in dem Herrn sterben von nun an." (... from now on).[12] Dürr notes: "The fascination of these ariosos lies in their memorable and eloquent melodic line which presents the text in heightened speech."[2]
5
"Es ist genug", closing chorale
The closing chorale is "Es ist genug" (It is enough).[1] Dürr notes that the melody is by Johann Rudolph Ahle, a predecessor of Bach as organist in Mühlhausen.[13] The melody begins with an unusual sequence of four notes progressing by steps of major seconds (whole tones), together spanning the interval of a tritone, also called "diabolus in musica".[13][14] During Ahle's time, it was an extreme musical figure, suitable to depict "the soul's crossing over from life into death".[13] Dürr notes further that a similar scale of four notes occurs in Rist's hymn on the word Donnerwort in the first movement, but with the normal half-tone step to the last note.[13] He writes:
... Bach's setting itself, whose harmonization and loosening-up into polyphony allows the text to become, as it were, transparent—something that not even Bach always achieved.[13]
Chafe concludes a thorough analysis of the cantata and the chorale with the summary that "in developing and intensifying traditional, even archaic, ways of understanding music ... Bach carried them far into the future, opening up questions for the analysis, interpretation, and composition of music that are very much with us and are probably timeless".[8][15]
The original parts of the cantata have survived. After 1800, they belonged to Count Voss-Buch. They were acquired by the Königliche Bibliothek zu Berlin (Royal Library in Berlin), probably in 1851. The cantata was first published in 1863 as part of the first complete edition of Bach's works, the Bach-Gesellschaft Ausgabe. The editor was Wilhelm Rust.[4]
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