J.S. Bach, Cantata 54, Oculi (Lent 3), Satan and Sin

From On the Cantatas of J.S. Bach: Epiphany to Lent.

All Saints’ Cathedral, Edmonton, Alberta

Lent is the penitential preparation for Easter. It begins on Ash Wednesday and concludes on the night before Easter Sunday. Lent lasts forty days, hence it is also known as Quadragesima (meaning ‘fortieth’), from which originate the terms Quinquagesima, Sexagesima, and Septuagesima for the preceding Sundays. The span of forty days re-creates and re-enacts, after His baptism by John the Baptist, Christ’s forty days of temptation, by Satan, and fasting in the desert, as told in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Thereafter, Christ returns to Galilee and begins His ministry.

The six Sundays in Lent are named Invocabit, Reminiscere, Oculi, Laetare, Judica, and Palm Sunday. Holy week, the final week of Lent, begins with Palm Sunday.

This Weimar cantata dates from 1714. It is a solo cantata, for alto, in three movements: aria, recitative, aria. The opening aria is a richly textured piece full, like sin, of dissonant throbbing, the recitative is
finely wrought, and the final aria is of exceptional fugal vigour. The cantata takes its immediate cue from the opening words, Widerstehe doch der Sünde—all stand firmly against sin; and instantly thereafter the congregant is washed over with words to withstand the vile bonds (schnöden Banden) of Satan. Both of those, then, to ensure that the essence of Oculi, as expressed in the Introit, Psalm 25:15, connected to it, is observed.

15 Mine eyes are ever toward the Lord; for he shall pluck my feet out of the net.
Oculi mei semper ad dominum quia ipse evellet de laqueo pedes meos.

I heard Paul Esswood sing this at the Anglican Cathedral in Edmonton during the Albertan Tri-Bach Festival of 1985. We were in the first pew, a few feet from the performers. I’ve not ever forgotten it. We’d drive into the city from Athabasca for each concert, and then drive back the 90 km afterward.