Uns ist ein Kind geboren, BWV 142

The biblical text, chorale and free verse come from the 1711 collection of librettos of the writer, theologian, pastor and theorist, Erdmann Neumeister.

The earliest surviving manuscript copy of BWV 142 made by Christian Friedrich Penzel in Leipzig on 8 May 1756 is also based on Neumeister's text.

[10][11][12] 19th-century Bach-biographies by Hilgenfeldt (1850), Bitter (1865), Spitta (1873), and Lane Poole (1882) mention Uns ist ein Kind geboren as a cantata composed by Bach.

[15][21] According to Spitta, Bach "adhered throughout the cantata to the subdued minor key, which offers so singular a contrast to the bright joyfulness of Christmas.

It gives a tone as of melancholy reminiscences of the pure Christmas joys of our childhood ...; in contrast to this Telemann's eternal C major is often unutterably shallow and flat.

[5][22] After subsequent commentary by Bach scholars Johannes Schreyer, Arnold Schering and Alfred Dürr, that attribution was no longer generally accepted, although the identity of the original composer has not so far been established with certainty.

[32] In 1940, William Walton orchestrated the first bass aria in the cantata as dance music for Frederick Ashton's ballet The Wise Virgins.