page_title: Wär Gott nicht mit uns diese Zeit, BWV 14
section_title: History and words
hierarchical_section_title: Wär Gott nicht mit uns diese Zeit, BWV 14 / History and words
context_page_description: Johann Sebastian Bach composed the church cantata Wär Gott nicht mit uns diese Zeit, BWV 14, in Leipzig in 1735 for the fourth Sunday after Epiphany and first performed it on 30 January 1735, a few weeks after his Christmas Oratorio. The cantata, in Bach's chorale cantata format, is based on Martin Luther's hymn "Wär Gott nicht mit uns diese Zeit". Its text paraphrases Psalm 124, focussing on the thought that the believers' life depends on God's help and is lost without it.
  Bach composed the cantata as a late addition to his chorale cantata cycle of 1724/25. In 1725, Easter had been early and therefore no fourth Sunday after Epiphany happened. The text was possibly prepared already at that time. Ten years later, Bach wrote an advanced unusual chorale fantasia as the first section of it, combining elements of a motet with complex counterpoint. The hymn tune is played by instruments, freeing the soprano to interact with the lower voices. In the inner movements, sung by three soloists, Bach depicts in word painting terms such as flood, waves and fury. The closing chorale resembles in complexity the chorales of his Christmas Oratorio.
context_section_description: Bach held the position of Thomaskantor (director of church music) in Leipzig from 1723. During his first year, beginning with the first Sunday after Trinity, he had written a first cycle of cantatas for the occasions of the liturgical year. In his second year he composed a second annual cycle of cantatas, which was planned to consist exclusively of chorale cantatas, each based on one Lutheran chorale. As Easter was early in 1725, there was no Fourth Sunday after Epiphany that year. In 1735, shortly after the first performance of his Christmas Oratorio, Bach seems to have desired to fill this void and complete his cycle of chorale cantatas. Bach scholar Christoph Wolff found it evident that Bach reprised the second cycle in 1735, performing the new cantata between Was mein Gott will, das g'scheh allzeit, BWV 111, for the third Sunday after Epiphany and Ich hab in Gottes Herz und Sinn, BWV 92, for Septuagesima.
  The prescribed readings for the fourth Sunday after Epiphany were taken from the Epistle to the Romans, "love completes the law" (Romans 13:8–10), and from the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus calming the storm (Matthew 8:23–27). The Neu Leipziger Gesangbuch, which was the standard hymnal in Leipzig since the late 17th century, specifies Luther's "Wär Gott nicht mit uns diese Zeit" as one of five hymns for the occasion. The cantata text is based on this hymn in three stanzas, a paraphrase of Psalm 124, published in Johann Walter's hymnal Eyn geystlich Gesangk Buchleyn of 1524. According to John Eliot Gardiner, this hymn "apparently, had been sung on this Sunday in Leipzig from time immemorial".
  In Bach's typical format of the chorale cantata cycle, the text of the outer stanzas is retained unchanged, while an unknown librettist paraphrased the inner stanzas, in this case to three movements, two arias framing a recitative. According to Wolff, the librettist may have been Andreas Stübel, writing previously in 1724/25. The theme of the chorale is connected to the gospel in a general way: the believer's life depends on God's help and is lost without it. A connection is also provided by the image of flooding water that the psalm conveys, which begins "If it had not been the Lord who was on our side" (Psalms 124), and continues "then the waters had overwhelmed us, the stream had gone over our soul, then the proud waters had gone over our soul" (Psalms 124:4–5). The poet paraphrased it in the central recitative to "Es hätt uns ihre Wut wie eine wilde Flut und als beschäumte Wasser überschwemmet" ("Their fury would have, like a raging tide and like a foaming wave, flooded over us").
  Bach first performed the cantata on 30 January 1735. It is one of his latest extant church cantatas. The only other extant Bach cantata for the fourth Sunday after Epiphany is his first cycle cantata BWV 81.
caption: The Storm on the Sea of Galilee by Rembrandt, 1632
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