Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns hält is achorale fantasia fororgan composed byJohann Sebastian Bach, likely between 1705 and 1710.[1][2] TheZahn 4441a hymn tune forJustus Jonas's 1524 hymn "Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns hält", a paraphrase ofPsalm 124, is the basis of the composition.[3][4]
A copy of the work resurfaced on 15 March 2008 at an auction of items from the collection of the 19th-century Bach scholarWilhelm Rust.[3] The piece, until then known asBWV Anh. 71, was thus authenticated as Bach's and was reassigned the numberBWV 1128.[5][6]
In the late 17th century, when he was not yet 15, Bach was already acquainted with the chorale fantasia genre, by such settings asBuxtehude'sNun freut euch, lieben Christen g'mein,BuxWV 210, andReincken'sAn Wasserflüssen Babylon.[8] Apart fromWo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns hält, there is only one other known chorale fantasia for organ by Bach:Christ lag in Todesbanden, BWV 718, which was composed beforec. 1715.[8][9][10] From mid 1707 Bach was organist at theDivi Blasii church inMühlhausen.[11] Before that time he had been working inArnstadt, where he played theWender organ of theNeue Kirche.[11] After he moved toWeimar in mid 1708, he revisited Mühlhausen several times in the next few years, for instance supervising the remodelling of the organ of the Divi Blasii according to his design, which was completed in 1709, and performingcantatas he composed for council election in 1709 and 1710 (BWV 1138.1 and 1138.2).[11][12][13]
Stylistic analysis, conducted by, among others,Jean-Claude Zehnder, indicates that Bach composedWo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns hält betweenc. 1705 andc. 1710, or, more narrowly, in thec. 1707–1708 period.[3][14] From what is known about the organs played by Bach around that time, the organ of the Divi Blasii, after completion of the changes initiated by Bach, appears to be the best fit for the composition's performance specifications and range, although it is assumed that Bach composed all his organ music so that it could be performed on more than one specific instrument.[3][11]
Justus Jonas's paraphrase of Psalm 124, "Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns hält", was first published in theErfurt Enchiridion (1524).[15] The hymn consists of eight stanzas of seven lines.[7] Its first stanza reads:
Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns hält, | If God were not upon our side |
| —Justus Jonas[16][17] | —translated byCatherine Winkworth[18] |
According to Stephan Blaut it is primarily the content of this first stanza which is illustrated by Bach's organ setting.[17] Severalhymn tunes were composed for Jonas's hymn.[19] Bach's chorale fantasia is based on a setting of the hymn inbar form, first published inWittenberg byJoseph Klug [de], in the second quarter of the 16th century (Zahn No. 4441a).[3][4][20][21]
In the chorale fantasia for organ, a genre as apparent in the 17th-centurynorth German models by Buxtehude and Reincken which Bach knew, the melody of each line of a hymn stanza is treated separately: the treatment consisting of applying diverse techniques, such as echo, countermelodies and other embellishments or variations, to such fragments of the hymn tune, until all phrases of the chorale melody are treated consecutively.[8] Sections in which the phrases of the hymn tune are treated can be connected with transitional passages, for instance in the form of a coda.[8] This is different from a chorale fantasia type of movement in a vocal composition, where the phrases of the chorale melody are usually sung as acantus firmus, against a backdrop of vocal and instrumental accompaniment and harmonisation, which usually also exhibits independent musical material, often in interludia between the phrases of the hymn. An example of such vocal chorale fantasia by Bach on the "Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns hält" hymn, also using the Zahn 4441a melody, is the opening chorus ofhis chorale cantata named after the hymn,Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns hält, BWV 178, composed in the 1720s.[3][22][23]
Bach's composition consisting of 85 bars of organ music is based on the Wittenberg melody used for Jonas's hymn.[24] The large-scale fantasia is of moderate difficulty in four contrapuntal voices, and is scored forRückpositiv,Oberwerk andPedal.[3]
After an introductory section, the ornamented chorale appears in the right hand beginning with bar 12, proceeding verse by verse with interludes, chromaticism and echo sections. It concludes with a coda in a flurry typical ofstylus phantasticus.[3]
The first public record of the composition is in the 1845 estate auction ofJohann Nicolaus Julius Kötschau who had been organist atSt. Mary's inHalle. According to the auction record the manuscript was once owned byWilhelm Friedemann Bach, Johann Sebastian's eldest son, and predecessor of Kötschau as organist in Halle. When Wilhelm Friedemann died in 1784 he left it along with other manuscripts, which included hisClavier-Büchlein, to his distant relative and studentJohann Christian. When this Johann Christian died in 1814, Kötschau acquired these pieces from the estate auction. Kötschau later loaned the manuscript toFelix Mendelssohn, and then to the Leipzig publisherC. F. Peters.[3]
In the 1845 auction of Kötschau's estate, the manuscript, along with other Bach works, was acquired byFriedrich August Gotthold [de]. In 1852, to preserve his collection, Gotthold donated it to theKönigsberg Library, where, 25 years later, Joseph Müller listed it in a catalogue describing "24 books of organ compositions by J. S. Bach," which contained as fascicle No. 5 "Fantasia Sopra il CoraleWo Gott der Herr nicht bey uns hält pro Organo à 2 Clav. e Pedale."[3]
Learning about the piece,Wilhelm Rust had the manuscript sent on a library loan to Berlin, where he copied it in 1877.[3] Rust, who had edited more than half of the volumes of theBach Gesamtausgabe (BGA), resigned from the BGA project over conflicts, particularly withPhilipp Spitta.[25] Rust shared his knowledge about the piece with Spitta's rivalBach biographerCarl Hermann Bitter, who listed "141. Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns hält. Fantasia sopra il Chorale. G-moll. (Königsberger Bibliothek.)" as a chorale prelude by Bach in Vol. IV of his second edition ofJ. S. Bach (Dresden 1880 / Berlin 1881).[3][26] After Rust's death in 1892, a large part of his collection went to a student of his, Erich Prieger.[3] Prieger's collection, in turn, was put up for auction afterWorld War I in three sections, one of which, with 18th- and 19th-century Bachiana, went in 1924 to the Cologne book dealer M. Lempertz.[3]
The manuscript owned by Kötschau went lost in theSecond World War. According toHans-Joachim Schulze there is some hope it may have survived in a Russian library.[3] As the chorale fantasia did not get included in the BGA,Wolfgang Schmieder listed it as a doubtful work in the second Appendix (Anhang) of the 1950 first edition of theBach-Werke-Verzeichnis (BWV Anh. II 71), where it remained in subsequent versions of the catalogue that were printed in the 20th century.[3][5]
Parts of Prieger's collection, including some compositions by Rust and his copy of BWV Anh. II 71, went up for auction on 15 March 2008. The Rust items were acquired by theUniversity and State Library of Halle, and finally the chorale fantasia was authenticated by Stephan Blaut and Michael Pacholke of Halle University, and got the BWV number 1128.[3]
On 10 June 2008Ortus published the score, based on two 19th-century manuscript sources:[3]
On 13 June 2008, Ullrich Böhme played BWV 1128 at the opening concert of theBachfest Leipzig, which includedBach's cantataBWV 178 on the same chorale, sung by theThomanerchor.[3] The same day a CD byRondeau Production containing these two works was released.[3]
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