(A poor man am I; who will set me free) for alto and tenor, vocal ensemble, oboe I+II, bassoon, strings and continuo.

In the introductory chorus to cantata BWV 48, Bach lends the wretched words of Paul, “A poor man am I; who will set me free from the body of this dying?” a musical interpretation that reveals much about the composer’s associative reading of the Bible. The movement opens with a bittersweet ritornello by the strings, which, underpinned by a sparse double bass line, is more a subdued confession of sorrow than a heated expression of despair. Indeed, it is precisely the lack of terrifying rhetoric that heightens the impact of the movement: although the text speaks of personal apprehension, it is not the acute sin of the individual that is at issue but the fundamental depravity of humankind under the law of God, a message that is expressed in its full rigour by the setting’s archaic motet style and the masterful double canon for the vocalists and obbligato instruments.