Throughout his life as a musician, Johann Sebastian Bach composed cantatas for both secular and sacred use.
Bach's Nekrolog mentions five cantata cycles: "Fünf Jahrgänge von Kirchenstücken, auf alle Sonn- und Festtage" (Five year-cycles of pieces for the church, for all Sundays and feast days),[1] which would amount to at least 275 cantatas,[2] or over 320 if all cycles would have been ideal cycles.
[3] The extant cantatas are around two-thirds of that number, with limited additional information on the ones that went missing or survived as fragments.
Apart from composing several secular cantatas, Lobet den Herrn, alle seine Heerscharen, BWV Anh.
When Bach took up his office in 1723, he started to compose new cantatas for most occasions, beginning with Die Elenden sollen essen, BWV 75, first performed in the Nikolaikirche on 30 May 1723, the first Sunday after Trinity.
[7] The church year begins with the first Sunday in Advent, but Bach started his first Leipzig cycles on the first Sunday after Trinity, which "also marked the beginning of the second half of the Lutheran liturgical year: the Trinity season or "Era of the Church" in which core issues of faith and doctrine are explored, in contrast to the first half, known as the "Temporale" which, beginning in Advent and ending on Trinity Sunday, focuses on the life of Christ, His incarnation, death and resurrection".
[8] Leipzig observed tempus clausum, quiet time, in Advent and Lent, when no cantatas were performed.
Additionally, feasts were celebrated on fixed dates, the feasts of Purification of Mary (Mariae Reinigung, 2 February), Annunciation (Mariae Verkündigung, 25 March) and Visitation (Mariae Heimsuchung, 2 July), and the Saint's days of St. John the Baptist (Johannis, 24 June), St. Michael (Michaelis, 29 September), St. Stephen (Stephanus, 26 December, the second day of Christmas) and St. John the Evangelist (Johannes, 27 December, the third day of Christmas).
Sacred cantatas were also performed for the inauguration of a new city council (Ratswechsel, in Leipzig in August), consecration of church and organ, weddings, confession, funerals, and functions of the University of Leipzig.
Bach's first (Leipzig) cantata cycle consists of cantatas or similar liturgical works (e.g. liturgical compositions in Latin) first performed from 30 May 1723 (first Sunday after Trinity) to 4 June 1724 (Trinity).
Bach started a second annual cycle on the first Sunday after Trinity of 1724, planned to contain only chorale cantatas, each based on a single Lutheran hymn.
He began with O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort, BWV 20, on the first Sunday after Trinity, composed chorale cantatas to the end of the liturgical year, began the next liturgical year with Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, BWV 62 for the first Sunday in Advent, and kept the plan up to Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern, BWV 1, performed on Palm Sunday.
For the occasions from Easter to Trinity, he composed no chorale cantatas based exclusively on one hymn, but wrote a few of them in later years, such as Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, BWV 140, for the 28th Sunday after Trinity which had not occurred in 1724.
For the period from Purification, 2 February 1726, to Trinity XIII, 15 September 1726, there are extant copies by Johann Sebastian Bach and his usual scribes for 16 cantatas (JLB 1–16), covering nearly half of the occasions in that period.
A connection between the cantata text and the readings (or at least one of the prescribed hymns for the occasion) was desired.
Relevant readings and hymns are linked to the church cantata article for each occasion.
Roman numerals refer to the position of the given Sunday with respect to a feast day or season.
The number of Sundays after Epiphany and Trinity varies with the position of Easter in the calendar.
The maximum number of Sundays after Epiphany did not occur while Bach wrote cantatas.
In his third year in Leipzig the last Sunday before Pre-Lent was Epiphany V, on which occasion he staged a cantata by Johann Ludwig Bach.
In the Picander cycle the last Sunday before Pre-Lent was also Epiphany V, but there is no extant cantata for that occasion in 1729.
[9] Epiphany VI did not occur in any of the years Bach was composing his cantata cycles.
4 – Picander cycle, libretto for Epiphany VI: Pre-Lent comprises the three last Sundays before Lent.
In 1729, the Picander cycle year, Annunciation fell more than two weeks before Palm Sunday (10 April).
The incomplete fourth cycle was supposed to start on St. John's Day 24 June 1728, followed by a cantata for the fifth Sunday after Trinity on 27 June, at least as far as the first print of Picander's libretto of this cycle is concerned.