Ein ungefärbt Gemüte, BWV 24
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Ein ungefärbt Gemüte BWV 24 |
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| Church cantata by J. S. Bach | |
Thomaskirche, Leipzig
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| Occasion | Fourth Sunday after Trinity |
| Performed | 20 August 1723: Leipzig |
| Movements | 6 |
| Cantata text | Erdmann Neumeister |
| Bible text | |
| Chorale | by Johann Heermann |
| Vocal |
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| Instrumental | |
Ein ungefärbt Gemüte (An open mind) (literally: An undyed mind), BWV 24, is a church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. He composed it in Leipzig for the fourth Sunday after Trinity and first performed it on 20 June 1723. It is the third new cantata of his first annual cycle. The title has been translated more freely, for example as "An unstained mind", "An unblemished conscience", "An undisguised intention", and "An unsophisticated mind".
Bach composed the cantata for the fourth Sunday after Trinity and first performed it on 20 June 1723, three weeks after he took up the position as Thomaskantor in Leipzig with Die Elenden sollen essen, BWV 75. Bach had begun to compose one cantata for almost every Sunday and holiday of the liturgical year, a project described by Christoph Wolff as "an artistic undertaking on the largest scale".
The prescribed readings for the Sunday were from the Epistle to the Romans, "For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God" (), and from the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Luke: the admonition to "be merciful" and "judge not" (). It seems likely that Bach had not found yet a poet in Leipzig. He used a cantata text by Erdmann Neumeister, published already in 1714 in the collection Geistliche Poesie mit untermischten Biblischen Sprüchen und Choralen (Spiritual poetry with inserted biblical quotations and chorales). In a composition of symmetry, Neumeister placed in the centre a quotation from the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew, "Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets." (). He framed it by two recitatives, and those by two arias. The topic of the first recitative is "Die Redlichkeit ist eine von den Gottesgaben" (Sincerity is one of God's gifts). In opposition, the topic of the second is "Die Heuchelei ist eine Brut, die Belial gehecket." (Hypocrisy is a beast coughed up by Belial). The poetry on "Der Christen Tun und Handel" (The Christians' deeds and behaviour), stressing "Treu und Güte" (truth and goodness), has been criticised as "too didactic". Gillies Whittaker described it as "dry, didactic statements and crude denunciations of the failings of mankind". The cantata is closed by the first stanza of Johann Heermann's hymn "O Gott, du frommer Gott" (1630).
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