'Funeral motet'

As we approach Pentecost, I want to share a lovely performance of one of Bach’s motets, the German title of which translates as The Spirit helps our weakness.

Most of Bach’s choral works were written for the liturgy, so it’s interesting to look at a motet like this, which was a private commission for a memorial service. Thus, this “funeral motet” explores the work of the Spirit in our lives, concluding with a stanza from Luther’s Pentecost chorale, Komm, Heiliger Geist, Herr Gott.

Given the initial context in which this motet was sung, it’s interesting to contemplate the connections to the feast of Pentecost itself. For instance, the theme in the first movement is sung by the sopranos in a manner that suggests death and resuscitation, as explained by one of the choir members in the first video below.

The first movement, with its buoyant and jaunty meter, suggests the vivifying, “electrifying” power of the Holy Spirit to revive us from our human weakness. Bach switches to another idea partway through this text (Romans 8:26-27) to describe how the Spirit “pleads for us….with inexpressible groans” and depicts the activity of Him who “searches our hearts” with exploratory syncopations. Finally, Bach inserts the stanza of Luther’s chorale in its recognizable form, tying the motet to Pentecost in the parishioner’s mind.

This was the first significant work by Bach that I sang as an undergraduate chorister, and I remember well the exhilaration and challenge of negotiating this double-choir music. Bach manages, as he so often did, to combine texts and music in a way that was essentially affirmative, faithful, and eschatological. One always gets the sense from his music that there is divine plan in action, and that all will be well in the end for those found in Christ.

Dr Justin Appel, Director of Music

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Bell&TowerMary TrainorMusic, BachComment