After
doing the waking-up thing (and indeed the praying thing), I had
another listen. It's a two part cantata, extended for its second
performance in Weimar. I apologise for concentrating on the first
part alone, but I think it has both the meat of the message and the
best music. The opening is a wonder. The music rises through the
keys, building up more and more harmonic tension- then, just when you
think it's going to release, Bach leaves us teetering on the edge of
the cliff. Handel does a very similar thing with the opening of the
coronation anthem Zadok
the Priest-
and the delayed choral entry here is just as exciting. A rising
figure on “Wachet!”- “Awake!”,
appropriately enough, is
mirrored by a calmer “Betet”- “pray”.
But the intensity is maintained. John Eliot Gardiner's recording from
his 2000 Bach Cantata Pilgrimage puts a crescendo on Betet
, making it all the more
exciting. The words of command dance from one side of the choir to
the other in a stereo effect that makes it all the more riveting. But
amidst the fireworks, there's an unnerving line- “Bis der
Herr der Herrlichkeit dieser Welt ein Ende Machet”- “until
the Lord of Lordliness makes an end of this world”. There's no time
to reflect on that abrupt shift (which is backed up by a quick
darkening of the harmony); we're immediately back to the beginning of
the chorus.
But
the theme of the End Times grows ever stronger. After the first
chorus, the bass soloist crashes in with “Erschrecket!”-
“Be afraid!”. But there's
more than just terror here. There are two sides of the Day of
Judgement. Firstly, the tumults of earthly powers being overthrown:
Bach depicts that brilliantly in with the earthquake-like tremors in
the bass line and the rushing motifs from the strings. But the other
side of judgement is consolation, the hope for freedom. The
nineteenth-century slave spiritual Steal Away tells
us that “the trumpet sounds within my soul”. No terror there,
just a hope of vindication. So Bach sets Freude in
the phrase “Ist er ein Anfang wahrer Freude”- “it
is the beginning of true joy” to an overflowing melisma of joy.
And the section leads with a gentle trumpet call fading into the
distance, to the alto's wish to depart “from the Egypt of this
world”.
But
here we see an interesting shift. Rather than talking solely about
slavery imposed by earthly aggressors, the libretto starts to focus
on an internal slavery-
mind-forged manacles, as William Blake has it. The alto aria
calls us: “Wacht, Seelen, auf von Sicherheit”- “wake
up, souls, out of your security”. It's an interesting image.
Usually security is seen as a good thing, but here it's talking about
the complacent satisfaction that can chain the soul in slavery to
itself.
And
I think this concept of self-slavery is at the root of the cantata.
The tenor recitative that follows laments the eternal cry of the lazy
would-be do-gooder- the spirit is willing, yet the flesh is weak. But
all that can result from this is ein jammervolles Ach!- a
sorrowful Alas! It's all the more painful as the soul realises its
agony is caused by its own internal conflicts.
Yet
Bach has a remedy for the dualism of body and soul that causes that
Ach. It's summed up in
the very first line of the cantata: awake, to activity; then pray.
Praying without activity leads to nothing more than an ever- more
gorgeous series of interior mental states; activity without prayer
becomes exhausted. Only a proper integration of external and internal
activity can lead to unity. Those ever-more interlaced and
overlapping commands in the first chorus, “WachetBetetWachetBetet”
are not just a diverting bit of musical-showing off; they express a
soul-reviving truth.
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