Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns hält, BWV 178

Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns hält (If God the Lord does not remain on our side), BWV178, is a church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. He composed it in Leipzig for the eighth Sunday after Trinity and first performed it on 30 July 1724.

It is the eighth cantata Bach composed for his chorale cantata cycle, the second cantata cycle he started after being appointed Thomaskantor in 1723. The cantata is based on the eight stanzas of the hymn "" (1524) by Justus Jonas, a paraphrase of Psalm 124. Different from most cantatas in the cycle, the text retains not only the first and last stanza of the chorale, but six stanzas, two of them expanded by contemporary lines by an unknown librettist, who also paraphrased two stanzas into aria texts. The first movement is a chorale fantasia, the second a chorale stanza with recitative, the fourth an aria, the central movement is a chorale for a solo voice, the following two movements repeat the pair of chorale with recitative and aria, and the cantata is closed by two stanzas in a four-part setting. Bach thus wrote five different ways of chorale setting.

The cantata is scored for three vocal soloists (alto, tenor and bass), a four-part choir, and a Baroque instrumental ensemble of a horn doubling the chorale melody, two oboes, two oboes d'amore, strings and basso continuo.

History and words
Bach composed the cantata in his second year in Leipzig for the Eighth Sunday after Trinity. The prescribed readings for the Sunday are from the Epistle to the Romans, "For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God", and from the Gospel of Matthew, the warning of false prophets from the Sermon on the Mount. The cantata text is based on the hymn "", published in 1524 by the Lutheran reformer Justus Jonas as a paraphrase of Psalm 124. The theme of the psalm, the need of help against raging enemies, corresponds to the Gospel. Compared to Bach's other chorale cantatas of the period, the unknown poet kept much of the original text, six of the eight stanzas, expanding two of them by recitative, to connect even closer to the Gospel. He paraphrased only stanzas 3 and 6 to an aria each. In the last aria, in a statement of opposition to rationalism—the "weasel words of rationalists, who would bring down the whole Lutheran theological edifice" in the words of John Eliot Gardiner—the poet expands the words of the reformers' hymn, "" (reason cannot grasp it), appealing to reason, described as unstable and frenzied, to be silent.

Bach first performed the cantata on 30 July 1724, as the eighth chorale cantata of his second annual cycle.

Most of Bach's output was neglected after his death in 1750 until the Bach Revival of the 19th century. However, there was continued interest in the chorale cantatas. There is evidence that Bach's son Wilhelm Friedemann performed this cantata in Halle. Also, Bach's biographer Johann Nikolaus Forkel, despite having little to say about the cantatas in his life of the composer, borrowed the manuscripts of chorale cantatas from Wilhelm Friedemann, and copied two of them, Es ist das Heil uns kommen her, BWV 9, and this cantata.

Structure and scoring
Bach structured the cantata in seven movements. Both text and tune of the hymn are retained in the outer choral movements, a chorale fantasia and a four-part closing chorale, and also in the central movement, a chorale for a solo voice, and in two recitatives that include chorale text and melody, one for a solo voice, the other using the choir for the chorale part. Bach scored the work for three vocal soloists (alto (A), tenor (T) and bass (B), a four-part choir, and a Baroque instrumental ensemble of a horn (Co) to reinforce the chorale melody, two oboes (Ob), two oboes d'amore (Oa), two violin parts (Vl), one viola part (Va), and basso continuo. The duration of the cantata is given as 23 minutes.

In the following table of the movements, the scoring, keys and time signatures are taken from Dürr. The continuo, which plays throughout, is not shown.

1
As in most of Bach's chorale cantatas, the opening chorus is a chorale fantasia. The chorale tune was published in 1529 by an anonymous author in Wittenberg. The soprano sings this chorale melody line by line, doubled by the horn, as a cantus firmus to the independent concerto of the orchestra. The strings play "agitated dotted rhythms", the oboes "agitated semiquaver cascades" throughout the movement, supplying a sense of unity. The lower voices sing partly in homophony, partly in independent movement similar to the instruments. Bach uses the contrast to illustrate the text in the first lines, with no regard to its negation. "" is set in homophony and the last word "" (literally: "holds") is held as a long note, whereas in "" the raging of the enemies is shown in dotted rhythm and fast runs. When the bar form's is repeated in the following lines, Bach repeats the music also, although it doesn't reflect the text.

2
In the following chorale and recitative, Bach distinguishes the chorale lines from the secco recitative by a continuo line on a repeated motif that is derived from the beginning of the respective melody line, termed "in rhythmically compressed form ... four times as fast".

3
The first aria shows the image of "wild sea surf" in undulating movements in the voice, in the obbligato part of the violins in unison, and in the continuo. The bass voice has to sing challenging coloraturas on the words "" and especially "" (be wrecked).

4
The center of the cantata is an unchanged stanza of the chorale, the tenor's unadorned melody accompanied by the oboes d'amore and the continuo as equal partners.

5
In movement 5, Bach differentiates chorale and recitative differently from the second. The chorale lines are four-part settings, the recitatives are given to individual different singers in the sequence bass, tenor, alto, bass. The continuo unifies the movement by a constant independent regular motion in motifs based on triads.

6
In the last aria Bach invents a setting for strings that illustrates the instability of "frenzied reason" in syncopated rhythm, interrupted by chords on the repeated appeal "" (be silent). The drama of the aria rests only at the end of the middle section, when the words "" (they will be revived with solace) are given by a fermata and the marking adagio.

7
The cantata is closed by two stanzas of the chorale in a four-part setting.

Manuscripts and publication
Bach's eldest son Wilhelm Friedemann was in possession of a set of parts for the cantata. These manuscripts were written by various scribes including the composer. The set is preserved in Leipzig.

The cantata was first published in 1888 in the first complete edition of Bach's work, the Bach-Gesellschaft Ausgabe. The volume in question was edited by Alfred Dörffel. In the Neue Bach-Ausgabe it was published in 1966, edited by Alfred Dürr, with a critical report following in 1967.

Recordings
A list of recordings is provided on the Bach Cantatas Website. Ensembles playing period instruments in historically informed performance are shown with green background.