J.S. Bach: Cantata 182, at Palm Sunday – Hope Returns to Rejoice

Cantata 182, composed in 1713, is for Palm Sunday, which is the first day of Holy Week and the Sunday before Easter, and commemorates Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem. As the day is associated in several ecclesiastical rites with the blessing and procession of palms, processional characteristics feature strongly in the music. The Gospel for […]

J.S. Bach, Cantata BWV 132, at Advent IV – Aspects and Validity of the Concept of Salvation

Bach’s cantata 132, Bereitet die Wege, bereitet die Bahn, (Prepare the way, prepare the road) was written in Weimar in 1715. The text is by Salomo Franck (1715, from his cantata libretti of Evangelisches Andachts-Opfer)), except the concluding sixth verse by Elisabeth Kreuziger (1524). The epistle is Philippians 4: 4-7, the gospel John 1: 19-28. […]

J.S. Bach Cantata 186, at Trinity VII – The Wages of Sin Is Death

From On the Cantatas of J.S. Bach: Trinity I-VII.  In 2023, Trinity VII falls on July 16th. Sin and Death : Slavery and Righteousness The wages of sin is death is the ecclesiastical theme of Trinity VII. The epistle for the day is Romans 6:19-23. The passage, especially Verse 23, is famously proverbial. The choice […]

J.S. Bach, Cantata 194, at Trinity Sunday

This is an excerpt from the first of the six volumes of the Bach cantatas series. Trinity Sunday, which falls on June 4 in 2023, is the feast of the Trinitarian actuality: the three persons co-eternal, co-equal, and consubstantial, who are one, uncreated being. The triadic doctrine is intimated in the Scriptures but largely evolved and […]