Ich glaube, lieber Herr, hilf meinem Unglauben, BWV 109
church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach composed the church cantata Ich glaube, lieber Herr, hilf meinem Unglauben (I believe, dear Lord, help my unbelief), BWV 109, in Leipzig for the 21st Sunday after Trinity and first performed it on 17 October 1723.
History and words
Bach wrote the cantata in 1723 during his first year in Leipzig for the 21st Sunday after Trinity. The prescribed readings for the Sunday were from Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians, "take unto you the whole armour of God" (Ephesians 6:10–17), and from the Gospel of John, the healing of the nobleman's son (John 4:46–54). The unknown poet of the cantata text stressed the faith, which made the healing possible. The cantata opens with a quote from the Gospel of Mark, The possessed boy, Mark's rendition of the gospel (Mark 9:24). The following movements almost form a dialogue between fear and hope, or belief and doubt, such as Bach would compose three weeks later in O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort, BWV 60, and again for Easter of 1724 in Erfreut euch, ihr Herzen, BWV 66. Movement 2 is a dialogue, movement 3 the expression of fear, movements 4 and 5 turn to hope. The closing chorale is verse 7 of "Durch Adams Fall ist ganz verderbt" by Lazarus Spengler (1524).
Bach first performed the cantata on 17 October 1723.
Scoring and structure
The cantata in six movements is scored for alto and tenor soloists, a four-part choir, and a Baroque instrumental ensemble of cor du chasse (corno da caccia or corno da tirarsi), two oboes, two violins, viola, and basso continuo.
The public source identifies “Ich glaube, lieber Herr, hilf meinem Unglauben, BWV 109” as church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around glaube, lieber and Herr.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ich glaube, lieber Herr, hilf meinem Unglauben, BWV 109” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.