“Take what's yours and get out! Get out, get out!” Without any
introduction, the congregation's ears are assaulted with a solid
block of choral polyphony. It's dense, complex and chromatic; the
clearest thing about it is the repetition of “gehe hin!
Gehe hin!”, running incessantly through all the
vocal parts. And suddenly it finishes as abruptly as it began;
the door slams shut.
It's yet another moment of psychological genius. The tense, dark
instrumental interlude that follows, with its repeated bass notes has
the feeling of being left outside, stammering- we expected more than
this! Give us what's fair! Yet the whole point of the cantata is that
human ideas of what's fair are just that- human.
On this particular Sunday in February 1724, Bach's congregation would
have just heard the parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard. It's a
wonderfully perverse story where an landlord insists on paying all
his contractors exactly the same full daily wage, even though some
have worked all day and others have only turned up an hour before
home-time. Surely the people who were in work at nine o'clock in the
morning deserve more than the people who were only hired at five in
the afternoon? That would be fair, reasonable and completely in line
with the fallen world of invoices, timesheets and payslips . Those
who work harder and longer get more; the lazy ones who roll in late
get their pay docked. Not in this vineyard, though. You've got your
pay; now get out and don't grumble!
And
the second movement is all about coming to terms with this odd,
inhuman, unfair divine notion of reward that isn't deserved. Over a
bass line that's still pulsating (frustrated rage?), the alto tells
us “Murre nicht”- don't
grumble. But it's not an insensitive fobbing-off; the text addresses
us as “lieber
Christ”, “dear
Christian”, and the vocal line is tender, reassuring. Even so,
it's a difficult message for modern ears;
Er
weiß, was dir nützlich ist- God
knows what is good for you. And the chorale that follows just repeats
the assertion:
Was
Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan, Es bleibt gerecht sein Wille-
What God does is well done, his will remains just. Without any
complex accompaniment and foursquare in its harmonies, it feels like
the sort of chorale that usually concluded a cantata. It may not be
the end of the cantata- but it's certainly the end of the argument.
Far better, says the tenor in the brief recitative that follows, to
let contentment reign. And we see the flowering of that contentment
next: the the soprano aria, lovely and serene again and again
repeating the word genugsamkeit-
“contentment, the treasure of life”.
And
we end with another old familiar chorale for Bach's congregation.
This one dates back to the sixteenth century, both in words and
music; it's as if Bach is pointing out that fact that he's dealing in
old wisdom, not anything new: “Was
mein Gott will, das g'scheh allzeit, Sein Will, der ist der beste”;
“What
my God wills, that always comes to pass; his will is the best”. And
the unexpected twisting harmonies on the very last line leave us
hanging. We expected more than this!
So,
an unexpected ending to a cantata that is literally unsatisfactory-
it leaves us wanting more! So either Bach was having a rushed week-
or he is playing a very clever theological-musical game. How can we
say as listeners we expected more when we were given the glories of
the Genugsamkeit
aria,
as beautiful as anything Bach wrote? How could the labourers expect
more when they were paid a full daily rate? And how can the
congregation shake their fist at God and say “we wanted more than
this!” when he died for them? Take what has been given you and go
and do something with it. Gehe
hin!
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