Cantatas for Rogate Sunday
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Rogate: Theology, Cantatas, Chorales, Motets

William L. Hoffman wrote (April 27, 2018):
The Sunday preceding the feast of the Ascension, called Rogate, was both Martin Luther's focus on prayer, replacing the spring procession into prepared fields for God's blessing, as well as petitioning the Father that the incarnate Son, Jesus Christ, who came from and would return to God in the Great Parabola, would change sorrow into eternal joy. The title, “Sonntag Rogate” or 5th Sunday after Easter does not come from the introit. It is a reference to the traditional pre-Reformation Rogation Litany (Intercessory Prayer) of the saints (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogation_days#Minor_Rogations), suppressed by Luther and turned into the "Supplication Week" of prayer. The theme of “asking”

("rogate," "redirect" or "petition") appears in the Gospel reading (John 16:23–30, Farewell Discourse, beginning, "And in that day ye shall ask me nothing."

In Bach's time, the Gospel for the Fifth Sunday after Easter, John 16:23-30, is known as a “Prayer in the name of Jesus” in “Christ’s Promise to the Disciples.” It is the third, or valedictory address, of five Sunday Christ Farewell Discourses used as the Gospel readings from the 12 discourses in John’s Gospel, Chapters 14 and 16, for the Sundays of Jubilate, Cantate, Rogate, Exaudi, and Trinityfest in Bach’s time. The Rogate Epistle reading is James 1:22-27, emphasizing “Hearing and doing” (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Read/Rogate.htm. The Rogate Collect communal prayer is based on Galacian chant: "O God, all good things come from you. Inspire your humble servants to think those things that are right, and guide and empower us to do them" (The Historic Collects, https://acollectionofprayers.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/the-historic-collects.pdf).

The opening introit polyphonic setting used Psalm 50, Deus deorum (The mighty God, KJV), or Psalm 34, Benedicam Dominum (I will bless the Lord, KJV), says Martin Petzoldt in Bach Commentary, Vol. 2, Advent to Trinityfest.¹ He calls the former “observing God’s service” and the latter as “notes of thanks for God’s friendliness.” The full texts are found at http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Psalms-Chapter-50/ and http://www.christiananswers.net/bible/psa34.html.

Rogate Sunday "procession to the fields is usually traced back to Mamertus, Bishop in Vienna in 452, who, because of pestilence and famine, made this Sunday and the following days the occasion for solemn petitions," says Paul Zeller Strodach.² It is reminiscent of Psalm 126:4, “Die mit Tränen säen / werden mit Freuden ernten” (Who has sorrow planting reaps then rejoicing), the dictum of Johann Ludwig Bach's Jubilate Cantata JLB 8, which Bach presented in 1726. The emphases in Bach's time, which had experienced plague and the ravages of the Thirty Year's War, were based on the Gospel verse 28, "I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father," and the Epistle, James 1:22, "But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only . . . ."

Luther in his 1525 Rogate Sermon explains the change from ritual procession to the emphasis on "five things necessary to constitute true prayer." First is God's promise to respond to the petitions in the Lord's Prayer, with Luther's chorale setting as a prescribed Rogate hymn in Bach's Neu Leipziger Gesangbuch (NLGB) of 1682, “Vater Unser in Himmelreich" (Our Father in Heaven). The other requisites are faith in the promise, name the petitions, intercession of the Holy Spirit (Rom. 8:26), and in the name of Christ (http://www.trinitylutheranms.org/MartinLuther/MLSermons/John16_23_30_1st.html, http://www.trinitylutheranms.org/MartinLuther/MLSermons/John16_23_30_2nd.html).

Bach's NLGB of 1682 lists the following Easter festival chorales for Rogate: Hymn de Tempore, “Christ Lag in Todesbanden”; Pulpit Hymn, “Christ ist Erstanden,” and Hymns for Chancel, Communion & Closing, “Vater Unser in Himmelreich," NLGB No. 175, Catechism. In the later Sundays of the Easter period, a variety of chorales is appropriate, from the Easter festival to hymns with thematic emphases on the day's Gospel, to Ascension-related chorales of Jesus Christ returning to the Father. One in particular is the old Easter song, "Es ist das Heil uns kommen her" (Salvation has come to us) while others are topical hymns, especially under the rubric, Cross & Persecution, related to the Doctrine of Justification and Theology of the Cross, inferred in the Rogate liturgical readings. Another related Easter song is “Komm her zu mir, spricht Gottes Sohn” (Come here to me, said God’s Son, http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Texts/Chorale095-Eng3.htm). The related Rogate chants are: Introit Vocem Jucunditatis (Voice of Joy, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hP7ii4451Oo); also Allelujah Exivi a Patre (Came and went from his father, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKvmTCbwoes), Pater Noster (Our father, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hWE52zsOaA), and Oremus Praeceptis (Let us pray, https://www.sanctamissa.org/en/tutorial/ordo-missae-5.html).

Bach composed two Rogate Cantatas based on the day's gospel: "Wahrlich, wahrlich, ich sage euch" (Truly, truly, I say to you, John 16:23), BWV BWV 86, 1724, and BWV 87, "Bisher habt ihr nichts gebeten in meinem Namon" (Until now you have asked nothing in my name, John 16:24), 1725. Cantata 87 moves from sorrow to joy, with two undesignated (hybrid aria-arioso) Vox Christi bass solos of mottos from the Gospel of John 16:23-30, the Farewell Discourse: the initial dictum (verse 24), and Movement 5 (Verse 33), “In the world you will have anguish” (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Texts/BWV87-Eng3.htm, http://www.bach-cantatas.com/BWV87-D4.htm). Cantata 87 closes (No. 7) with Heinrich Müller’s 1659 BAR Form song of praise chorale, “Selig ist die Seele” (Blessed is the Soul), with closing Stanza 9, “Must I be troubled?” (http://www.bach-chorales.com/BWV0087_7.htm).³ Bach harmonized it to the associated Johann Crüger (1653) popular melody (Zahn 8032), “Jesu, meine Freude” (Jesus, my joy, http://www.bach-cantatas.com/CM/Jesu-meine-Freude.htm, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqBMP0J0-Ag). The Müller nine 10-line (AABCCDEEFF) chorale was first published in Geistliche Seeln Musik (Rostock 1659). The pietist melody "Jesu, meine Freude is found in the NLGB as No. 301, Cross & Persecution, in the Weimar Orgelbuchlein as No. 610, Christmas, prelude BWV 610, and in the Schmelli Gesangbuch (Leipzig 1736) as No. 744, Joyful Jesus Song, while “Selig ist die Seele” is found in the Schmelli Gesangbuch as No. 709, Love & Longing for Jesus.

Cantata 87 “places the turning of sorrow into joy within the context of prayer [Rogate] and the Trost [trust] from Jesus’s having overcome ‘the World’,” observes Eric Chafe in his recent study, J. S. Bach’s Johannine Theology.⁴ Cantata 87 moves from “the believer’s acknowledgement of guilt” with anxiety to “qualms of conscience” to “the positive other side of the acknowledgement of sin, consolation for the troubled conscience, as Luther described it in his Sermon on the Meditation of Christ’s Passion (1519) and other writing,” says Chafe. Movement 5, John 16:33, concludes: “Ich habe die Welt überwunden.” (I have conquered the world.). This statement ends the Farewell Discourse proper, “ushering in the chapter [John 17] in which Jesus names his ‘hour’ as having come and prays to the Father for his glorification,” says Chafe (Ibid.: 466). The final chorale, “Selig ist die Seele/Jesu, meine Freude," presents “the transformed view of suffering that Jesus’s love brings about,” says Chafe (Ibid.: 468), in Luther's Theology of the Cross (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theology_of_the_Cross). The hymn “evokes all the qualities of Jesulove” expressed in influential theologians Heinrich Müller and Valerius Herberger, says Chafe (Ibid.: 474). Cantata 87 completes the first of three Ziegler cantatas that comprise a subgroup “which deal with the understanding of suffering” through Jesus’ victory and love, increasingly showing how “the tribulation of the world is overcome,” preparing for Jesus’ ascension and the Pentecost theme of love.

First cycle 1724 Cantata 86, "Wahrlich, wahrlich, ich sage euch" (Truly, truly, I say to you), uses the address that in John 16:23 is the affirmation of Christian prayer (http://doctrine.landmarkbiblebaptist.net/25verilies.html). Cantata 86 is a meditation on the gospel theme: "whatever you ask the Father in my name will be given to you." The two Reformation chorales appropriate for Easter are (no. 3) Georg Grünwald’s 1530 text and melody, “Komm her zu mir, spricht Gottes Sohn,” from Matthew 11:28, with the last of 16 stanzas, “Und was der ewig Gütig Gott” (And what the goodly everlasting God . . . has promised), and (no. 6) Paul Speratus’ 1524 text and anonymous Easter melody, “Es ist das Heil uns kommen her” (Salvation has come to us), using Stanza 9, “Die Hoffnung wart' der rechten Zeit” (Hope waits for the right time).

Two other cantata texts for Rogate were readily accessible to Bach. The Rudolstadt libretto book of 1726 has the text for a presumed lost Johann Ludwig Bach Cantata, “Der Herr is nahe allen” (The Lord is near all, Psalm 145:18), which Sebastian may have performed on May 26, 1726, but does not survive. Later, Bach student Gottfried August Homilius composed a cantata with the same incipit, “Der Herr is nahe allen” (EG 326), closing with the nine-stanza 1675 pietist hymn "Sei Lob und Ehr dem höchsten Gut!" (Let there be praise and honour for the highest good), Stanza 5, "Der Herr ist noch und nimmer nicht / von seinem Volk geschieden" (The Lord is not and never has been / separated from his people), Schmelli Gesangbuch No. 824, Praise & Thanks song. A Picander Cycle text P 35 exists for 15 May 1729, “Ich schrei laut mit meiner Stimme (I shout aloud with my voice), but no music or parody has been found https://archive.org/stream/bub_gb_GSJLAAAAcAAJ#page/n156/mode/1up. It closes with the Johann Heermann's 1630 "Treuer Gott, ich muß dir klagen" (Faithful God, I must lament to you, http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Texts/Chorale032-Eng3.htm), Stanza 3, "O mein Gott, vor den ich trete" (O my God, before whom I come), set to the Louis Bourgeois 1550 Psalm 42 paraphrase melody, "Freu dich sehr, o meine Seele" (Rejoice greatly, o my soul), Bach uses, http://www.bach-cantatas.com/CM/Freu-dich-sehr.htm. The Heermann chorale is found in the NLGB as No. 297, Cross & Persecution, and in the Schmelli Gesangbuch as No. 100, Penitential Song, both thematic categories appropriate for Rogate. Bach set the 6th and 7th Stanzas of Heerman's text as a pain chorale (http://www.bach-chorales.com/BWV0194_6.htm), closing Cantata 194, "Höchsterwünschtes Freudenfest" (Most greatly longed for feast of joy), for Trinityfest 1724/26/31.

In addition there is a slight possibility that Bach on Rogate Sunday between 1728 and 1731 may have premiered his undesignated per omnes versus chorale Cantata, BWV 117, "Sei Lob und Ehr dem höchsten Gut!" (Let there be praise and honour for the highest good, http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Texts/Chorale019-Eng3.htm), with its anonymous, pre-Reformation Easter melody, "Es ist das Heil uns kommen her" (Salvation has come to us, http://www.bach-cantatas.com/CM/Es-ist-das-Heil.htm) on Rogate Sunday, particularly 29 April 1731, when he mostly presented previous works from his Cycles 1 and 3, for the Easter Season. It also is possible that Bach reperformed this Easter cycle in 1735 when he introduced the unique Ascension Oratorio, BWV 11, possibly followed by the lost Pentecost Oratorio, BWV deest.

In the current three-year lectionary, for Rogate Sunday, now called the Sixth Sunday of Easter, the appropriate Bach vocal works, says John S. Sutterlund,⁵ are: Year A, John 14:15-21 (Promise of Holy Spirit, not in Bach's one-year lectionary), Cantata 108, "Es ist euch gut, daß ich hingehe" (It is good for you that I should go away, John 16:7), for Cantate Sunday 1725, and alternate Cantata 145, "Ich lebe, mein Herze, zu deinem Ergötzen" (I live, my heart, for your delight), for Easter Tuesday 1729; Year B, John 15:9-17 (Jesus, true vine; not in Bach's lectionary), Cantata 172, "Erschallet, ihr Lieder, erklinget, ihr Saiten!" (Ring out, you songs, resound, you strings!), for Pentecost Sunday, 1714/17-23-24/31/after 1731, and alternate Cantata 57, "Selig ist der Mann" (Blessed is the man), Stephenfest 1725; and Year C, John 14:23-29 (Promise of Holy Spirit, Pentecost Tuesday in Bach's lectionary) or John 5:1-9 (Healing at Pool, not in Bach's lectionary), Cantata 59, "Wer mich liebet, der wird mein Wort halten" (Who loves me will keep my word, John 14:23-29), Pentecost Sunday 1723/24, and alternate Cantata 48, "Ich elender Mensch" (Miserable man that I am), Trinity 19, 1723. In the current lectionary, Cantata 86 is most appropriate for Year C, 9th Sunday after Pentecost; Cantata 87, Year A, (18th Sunday after Pentecost), and Cantata 117, this year's Year B, Christ the King Sunday, November 25.

Among Bach's colleagues composing cantatas for Rogate Sunday are two with extensive publications: Georg Philipp Telemann (http://www.musiqueorguequebec.ca/catal/telemann/telgp01d.html#0136), and Christoph Graupner (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cantatas_by_Christoph_Graupner#GWV_1135) as well as works of Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel, "Gelobet sei Gott der mein Gebet nicht verwirft," H. 385, and "Aus der Tiefen rufe ich Herr höre meine Stimme," H. 419b, and Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel's "String-Cycle" works Bach may have conducted on 6 May 1736, "Christus ist zur Rechten Gottes, und vertritt uns" (Romans 8:34), Mus. A 15:180, and "Die wahrhaftigen Anbeter werden den Vater anbeten" (John 4:23-24), Mus. A 15:181, a cycle begun at Trinityfest 1735 (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/LCY/1735.htm).

FOOTNOTES

¹ Martin Petzoldt, Bach Kommentar: Theologisch Musikwissenschaftlicke Kommentierung der Geistlichen Vokalwerke Johann Sebastan Bachs; Vol. 2, Die Geistlichen Kantaten vom 1. Advent bis zum Trinitatisfest; Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2007: 865).
² Paul Zeller Strodach, The Church Year: Studies in the Introits, Collects, Epistles and Gospels (Philadelphia PA: United Lutheran Publication House, 1924: 166-171).
³ Heinrich Müller (1635-71), BCW http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Muller-Heinrich.htm; German text, http://www.monarchieliga.de/index.php?title=Selig_ist_die_Seele; English (on line) translation, https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://www.monarchieliga.de/index.php%3Ftitle%3DSelig_ist_die_Seele&prev=search.
⁴ Eric Chafe, J. S. Bach’s Johannine Theology: The St. John Passion and the Cantatas for Spring 1725, Chapter 10, “Jubilate to Ascension Day: Cantatas 103, 108, 87, and 128” (Oxford University Press, 2014: 392).
⁵ John S. Sutterlund, Bach Through the Year: The Church Music of Johann Sebastian Bach and the Revised Common Lectionary (Minneapolis MN: Lutheran University Press, 2013: 60f).

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To Come: Ascension Oratorio, BWV 11, of 1735: towards the fulfillment of a Christological Cycle of sacred works, as well as progressive Ascension works of sons Friedemann, Emmanuel, and Johann Christoph Friedrich.