Johann Sebastian Bach composed the church cantata Schwingt freudig euch empor (Soar joyfully upwards),[1] BWV 36, in Leipzig in 1731 for the first Sunday in Advent.

Bach based parts of the music on a homage cantata of the same name, Schwingt freudig euch empor, BWV 36.1, which he had composed for the birthday of a Leipzig University teacher and first performed in spring 1725.

[4] The text was probably written by Picander, who modified it to a congratulatory cantata for Countess Charlotte Friederike Wilhelmine of Anhalt-Köthen, Steigt freudig in die Luft, BWV 36.2, first performed on 30 November 1726.

[5] Bach transformed the secular music to a cantata for the first Sunday in Advent, first by combining four movements and simply adding a chorale, the final stanza of "Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern".

The cantata is scored for four soloists—soprano, alto, tenor and bass—a four-part choir, and a Baroque instrumental ensemble of two oboes d'amore, two violins, viola and basso continuo.

As in the secular model, the movement is in two similar parts, each consisting of two contrasting sections, "Schwingt freudig euch empor zu den erhabnen Sternen" (Soar joyfully upwards to the exalted stars)[1] and "Doch haltet ein!"

[5] Gardiner, who conducted the three cantatas for the first Sunday in Advent during the Bach Cantata Pilgrimage with the Monteverdi Choir in 2000, described the movement as a "spiritual madrigal – capricious, light-textured and deeply satisfying once all its virtuosic technical demands have been met: those tricky runs, divisions and chromatic intervals in all voices, and the chains of triplet figuration in the unison oboes d'amore and first violins".

The voices are doubled by the oboes d'amore and render the text in sections of different length, with sixteen measures for the final "Gott solch Geburt ihm bestellt" (that God had ordained such a birth for Him).

[7] Alfred Dürr notes the expressiveness of the music, especially in leaps of sixths on the urgent request "nun komm" (now come), syncopated rhythm on "des sich wundert alle Welt" (over whom the whole world marvels),[1] and daring chromatic on the final line.

[2] Dürr sees the expression of "Kampf und Sieg des Gottessohnes" (fight and victory of the Son of God) over "das krank Fleisch" (weak/sick flesh) of man.

[7] The closing choral, the final stanza of Luther's hymn, "Lob sei Gott dem Vater ton" (Praise be to God, the Father)[1] is a four-part setting.