Right from the introductory movement featuring Jesus (bass) and the soul (alto), this interplay between the gospel story and commentary is mirrored in the musical structure, with the arioso words of Christ alternating with the string-accompanied recitative. Through an ascending, yet faltering continuo line that culminates in a dissonant leap, Bach evokes the apprehension in the face of the “cruel path” ahead, while the warning interjections from the distressed soul are emphatically commiserative. Nevertheless, Jesus continues undeterred on his predestined path with his grand, “See now!” gesture arching high over the pauses in the bass continuo, which serve as a symbol of mortal weakness. Moreover, Jesus’ vocal lines do not falter, but ascend undaunted up to E-flat’.
The following movement is also set as a disparate duet. In a theatrical baroque gesture, the alto declares an unswerving desire to follow Jesus “through spitting and scorn” – in other words through persecution and degradation – with the voice and continuo imitating one another along running figures. The entry of the soprano part adds a further layer with a verse alluding to the Passion “I will here by thee tarry, do not treat me with scorn!”, thus turning the duet into a chorale trio with two obbligato lower voices. The notion that the crucified Jesus can find his tomb in the heart of every believer, or that the restorative described in the tenor recitative is to be found in one’s own tears, may sound somewhat foreign today. However, it transforms the pronouncement of the bass aria “It is complete” – the penultimate words of Christ on the cross – into an experience that can be related to human lives. With its fragile oboe cantilena and freely flowing orchestral accompaniment, this expansive aria is one of Bach’s most moving compositions. The sighing of the vocal part no longer embodies burden and sorrow, but fulfilment and peace at the end of life’s path: “The pain is over” and the chasm of “sinful ruin” has been overcome. The redeeming sacrifice of Jesus and a joyous, but in no way naive renunciation of the world converge to create a peerless movement that seems as unending as twilight on the final day of creation. The closing Chorale “Jesu, this thy passion is my purest pleasure” brings this longing, but weary mood in tenderly rendered antithetical turns to its final expression: from the harsh C minor of the cantata’s beginning, the work has progressed to conclude in an E-flat major of inner radiance.