Page Category: Bach Cantatas

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Analysis

This cantata is based on a 1630 hymn by Johann Heermann that consists of 11 verses: Bach uses the first and eleventh verses unchanged for his first and last movements; for the rest, an anonymous librettist has paraphrased the original hymn. The first two movements draw attention to the plight of the sinner -but the cantata then switches direction to show that our sins are assuaged by Christ's blood-sacrifice and we accordingly have things to look forward to. The cantata thus starts out with us not knowing which way to turn, but ends up with us confident and assured through Christ. [...] 

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Analysis

This cantata is one of the 'biggies': a major and substantial work to celebrate Easter. It is, in fact, generally considered to be one of his earliest cantatas, dating from his Weimar period (1708-1713) -though no record of it from then exists and the earliest performing parts yet found date to 1724 or 1725, which is definitely from the start of Bach's Leipzig period. The fact is, however, that it's not one of Bach's 'dramatic cantatas' that characterises his Leipzig years. Instead, it adopts the relatively antique form of chorale variations: that violin tune that memorably begins the Sinfonia re-appears in every subsequent movement, but in variation. [...] 

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Analysis

This chorale cantata was first performed on January 14th 1725 and the text Bach set bears very little relation to the appointed Gospel or Epistle readings for the day. It is based on a 1587 hymn by Martin Moller that is all about Jesus being the comforter and helper -and whilst you could sort-of see the Gospel story as involving Jesus being the comforter and helper of bad wedding planners, it's a bit of stretch! [...] 

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Analysis

The words of this cantata are based on a hymn of Martin Luther's, which was an adaptation of Psalm 12: Help, Lord; for the godly man ceaseth; for the faithful fail from among the children of men. It's all about mankind turning away from God and falling prey to the godless ways of heretics. Bach keeps Luther's text exactly for the first and last movements, but paraphrases it for the inner movements. This was the second cantata Bach composed for his second cycle of cantatas (in which he decided to base the music of each new cantata on a well-known Lutheran chorale tune). The first had been BWV 20, the week before. Since the theme of the Psalm bears little relation to the text of either the Epistle or Gospel appointed for the day, one wonders whether the choice of the Lutheran chorale tune had dictated the content of the cantata more than other liturgical factors.
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The following catalogue lists each of Bach's cantatas in turn. To keep the BWV numbers sequential, entries also exist for some non-Bach works and for some Bach works which aren't cantatas.

Clicking on the the green '+' at the start of each catalogue entry will reveal further information about the work in question -such as when it was meant to be performed, what the Epistle/Old Testament and Gospel readings were for the day in question and so on. A link to the full score for each cantata is also revealed when that '+' button is clicked. The full scores are the best editions that I could source which are believed to be out of copyright (or copyrighted with a permissive CreativeCommons license) in the UK at the time of writing. They may not be copyright-free in your country. Specifically, they are unlikely to be copyright-free in the USA, and if you are a citizen of the USA, you should not download them. [...] 

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Translation

Analysis

This cantata was first performed on the Feast of the Annunciation, 25th March 1725. The Feast of the Annunication celebrates the moment that Mary is told by the Archangel Gabriel that she will become pregnant and bear the Christ-child. It's an important feast that usually falls within Lent (and in 1725, it actually fell on Palm Sunday, which is the last Sunday of Lent). Lent has been called a 'musical desert', because as a time of penitential thought, musical extravagances were not considered appropriate. To this day, for example, no Glorias are sung in masses during Lent. [...]