Bach Cantatas
Sundays at 12:03pm
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.
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6/7
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Bach held a number of positions throughout his life, both secular (as court composer in Weimar and Köthen) and sacred. This program primarily features the music that he composed during his time as Kantor at St. Thomas in Leipzig, a position that he held for 27 years. His first week on the job was the first Sunday after Trinity on May 30th, 1723. This week we'll hear the festive work he composed for that date.
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6/14
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Written for June 6th, 1723, the prescribed readings for this week included the Parable of the Wedding Feast from Matthew 22. A metaphor for the eschatological heavenly banquet, Bach used a solo trumpet to signify the glory of God.
Die Himmel erzählen die Ehre Gottes (The heavens are telling the glory of God), BWV 76
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6/21
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It was common during the liturgical season of Ordinary Time for Bach's cantatas to be related to the theme of the proscribed readings in only a tangential way. One such case is Ach Herr, mich armen Sünder, BWV 135. First performed on the 25th of June, 1724, the proscribed readings for that Sunday included a portion of 1 Peter and the exhortation to "cast thy burden on the Lord." Bach seized on the idea of asking for God's intervention and set a chorale by Lutheran composer Cyriakus Schneegas, a metrical paraphrase of Psalm 6, a prayer for divine deliverance.
Ach Herr, mich armen Sünder (Ah Lord, Poor Sinner That I Am), BWV 135