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.
The four Gospels are filled with Christ's teachings, but a central discourse is his Sermon on the Mount, from Matthew, chapters five through seven (and possibly the fifth chapter of Luke). Bach focuses on a section of the sermon that warns against false teachers in this cantata from August 11th, 1726.
Es ist dir gesagt, Mensch, was gut ist (It has been told to you, man, what is good), BWV 45
Salomo Franck was a lawyer and poet based in Wiemar, whom Bach met during his time as court composer for Duke Johann Ernst III in the first decade of the 18th Century. Bach would go one to set at least 20 of Franck's libretti in his extant cantatas, and undoubtedly many more that are lost to us. This cantata was written for the Ninth Sunday after Trinity and first performed on July 29, 1725. In an exciting example of text painting, Bach take's Franck's opening text literally, and the "thunderous word" is accompanied by a "storm" of rapid passages in the strings.
Tue Rechnung! Donnerwort (Settle Acount! Word of Thunder!), BWV 168
Martin Moller wrote a hymn by the same name in response to a plague in 1584, which Bach used as the basis for his cantata, first performed on August 13, 1724, the Tenth Sunday after Trinity. The text for that day was taken from Luke 19, which includes Christ's prophecy of the destruction of the temple, a disastrous event that parallels the plague that was the genesis for Moller's hymn.
Nimm von uns, Herr, du treuer Gott (Take away from us, Lord, faithful God), BWV 101