In , solo voices perform all movements but the closing chorale. Bach had composed a similarly structured cantata three weeks before, entitled , which also featured a dialogue between Fear and Hope, given to one singer. In , he assigns Fear to the alto and Hope to the tenor, and he has them sing three movements in dialogue. In movement 4, Fear is answered instead by the bass, the (voice of Christ), with "". Bach structured the cantata in five movements: four duets of alternating arias and recitatives, concluding with a four-part
chorale. He scored the work for three vocal soloists (
alto (A),
tenor (T) and
bass (B)), a
four-part choir only in the closing chorale, and a
Baroque instrumental ensemble:
horn (Co) to support the chorale tunes, two
oboes d'amore (Oa), two
violins (Vl),
viola (Va), and
basso continuo (Bc). The title page of the original parts bears a title which Bach wrote himself: "Dominica 24 / post Trinit. / Dialogus Zwischen Furcht u. Hoffnung. / Furcht. O Ewigkeit, du DonnerWort. / Hoffnung. Herr, ich warte auf dein Heÿl. / á / 4 Voci. / 2 Hautb: d’Amour. / 2 Violini / Viola / e / Continuo / di / Joh.Sebast:Bach" (Sunday 24 / after Trinity. / Dialogue Between Fear and Hope / Fear. O Eternity, you Word of Thunder. / Hope. Lord, I wait for Your Salvation. / for / 4 voices / 2 oboes d'amore. / 2 violins / viola / and / continuo / by / Joh.Sebast:Bach). A horn, to support the chorale melodies, was requested only later under the word Viola, possibly in the 19th century. The duration of the work has been stated as 20 minutes.
Movements In the following table of the movements, scoring,
keys and
time signatures are taken from the book by Bach scholar
Alfred Dürr, using the symbol for common time (). The instruments are shown separately for winds and strings, while the continuo, playing throughout, is not shown.
1 , the author of the hymn The first duet is a
chorale fantasia with added biblical text. The chorale, the first stanza of Rist's hymn "" (O eternity, you word of thunder), is sung by the alto (Fear), reinforced by the horn. The strings and the continuo play a
motif in
tremolo throughout the movement which is derived from the second half of the first line of the chorale, and anticipates the beginning of the different closing chorale.
John Eliot Gardiner connects the tremolo to
Monteverdi's agitated style (
stile concitato). The two oboes play a "lamenting" duet. From the second of the chorale, the tenor as Hope responds with Jacob's words, "" (Lord, I await your salvation). In his book
The Creative Development of Johann Sebastian Bach,
Richard D. P. Jones describes the movement as "one of Bach's most imaginative conceptions, vivid in its portrayal of conflicting states of the soul".
2 The second duet is a
secco recitative. Fear begins "" (O difficult way to the final battle and struggle!), while Hope confirms "" (My Protector is already there). The music is intensified to an
arioso twice: Fear sings the word
martert (tortures) as a chromatic
melisma accompanied by short chords in the continuo, and Hope stresses the last word
ertragen (borne) on a long melisma .
3 The third, central duet is dramatic and therefore not in
da capo form but closer to a
motet, unified by the instrumental
ritornellos. Three different sections are developed in a similar way: Fear begins, "" (My final bier terrifies me), Hope answers, "" (My Savior's hand will cover me), both argue, and Hope has the last word. The instrument parts are included in the dialogue: the solo violin (with Hope) plays scales while the oboes d'amore and the continuo (with Fear) play dotted rhythms.
4 The last duet is no longer between Fear and Hope. Fear begins "" (But death remains hateful to human nature) in secco recitative, but three times the bass as the quotes the consoling words from Revelation "" (Blessed are the dead) as an arioso, each time expanded, following the scheme a ab abc. The American musicologist
Eric Chafe analyses that the quotes of the vox Christi are intensified each time by lengthening the quoted text: first "Selig sind die Toten", the second time "Selig sind die Toten, die in dem Herrn sterben" (... who die in the Lord), finally "Selig sind die Toten, die in dem Herrn sterben von nun an." (... from now on). Dürr notes: "The fascination of these ariosos lies in their memorable and eloquent melodic line which presents the text in heightened speech."
5 {{Image frame|content= { #(set-global-staff-size 14) \new PianoStaff > \new Staff > >> } |caption="Es ist genug", closing chorale}} The closing chorale is "" (It is enough). Dürr notes that the melody is by
Johann Rudolph Ahle, a predecessor of Bach as organist in Mühlhausen. The melody begins with an unusual sequence of four notes progressing by steps of
major seconds (whole tones), together spanning the interval of a
tritone, also called "diabolus in musica". During Ahle's time, it was an extreme musical figure, suitable to depict "the soul's crossing over from life into death". Dürr notes further that a similar scale of four notes occurs in Rist's hymn on the word
Donnerwort in the first movement, but with the normal half-tone step to the last note. He writes: Chafe concludes a thorough analysis of the cantata and the chorale with the summary that "in developing and intensifying traditional, even archaic, ways of understanding music ... Bach carried them far into the future, opening up questions for the analysis, interpretation, and composition of music that are very much with us and are probably timeless".
Alban Berg used Bach's chorale setting in his
Violin Concerto. == Publication ==