Cantata 60

Abstract ONE OF THE RUNNING THEMES OF this book has been that the endings of many Bach cantatas—above all their sense of completeness or incompleteness—reflect the extent to which their theological concerns are oriented toward eschatological or present perspectives. In this respect, the tonal “directions” of Cantatas 21 and 77 can be considered opposite each other. In Cantata 21 the overall C minor—major shift and the pattern of increasing “sharpness” in the movement keys that leads to the C major of its final chorus mirror the idea of a progression from worldly tribulation to the anticipation of eternity. In contrast, the change from a weakened G major to a real but incomplete G minor over the course of Cantata 77 delineates a downward progression from God to humankind that expresses the hope of eternity in terms of life on earth. The final chorus of Cantata 21 is one of the closest approaches Bach ever made to the representation of eschatological fulfillment, whereas the final chorale of Cantata 77 is, as we saw, tonally incomplete and most likely associated with the idea of human imperfection. In terms of traditional hermeneutics, the one work represents transcendence of the Old Testament framework (part 1 of Cantata 21) by means of the message of the Gospel (part 2 of that work), while the other centers on the meaning of the Law as given in the Old and New Testaments, building its entire design around the inability of humanity to fulfill it and the acknowledgment of that inability as the prerequisite to salvation.