During the 18th century, the musical centerpiece of Lutheran worship services was the cantata, a multi-movement piece featuring chorus, orchestra, and vocal soloists. Johann Sebastian Bach composed over 200 cantatas during his long career as a Lutheran church musician. Listen to a complete Bach cantata every Sunday afternoon on Discover Classical.
Trinity Sunday is this week, so we'll hear a festive cantata that Bach wrote in 1727 in praise of the Trinity: Gelobet sei der Herr, mein Gott (Praised be the Lord, My God), BWV 129.
This week begins the second half of the liturgical year, when the focus of each Sunday shifts from the life of Christ to his teachings. The proscribed readings for the First Sunday After Trinity in 1724 included the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus: after an unrepentant life, the rich man must suffer an eternity of torment, while Lazarus is freed from his suffering. Bach focuses on this topic of death and eternity by basing his cantata on the chorale, "O Eternity, You Word of Thunder," text by Johann Rist and music by Johann Schop.
O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort (O eternity, you word of thunder), BWV 20
We're replaying your Top 100 Classical Countdown during the last week of June, so we'll be taking a break this week from the music of JS Bach. Hear number 14 at 12:03pm, a secular work by a 20th century English composer who, like Bach, incorporated a number of hymn tunes into his music...