Erschallet, ihr Lieder, erklinget, ihr Saiten! BWV 172

Erschallet, ihr Lieder is a church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach, composed in Weimar for Pentecost Sunday in 1714. Bach led the first performance on 20 May 1714 in the Schlosskirche, the court chapel in the ducal Schloss. It is an early work in a genre to which he later contributed complete cantata cycles for all occasions of the liturgical year.

About Erschallet, ihr Lieder, erklinget, ihr Saiten! BWV 172 in brief

Erschallet, ihr Lieder is a church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach, composed in Weimar for Pentecost Sunday in 1714. Bach led the first performance on 20 May 1714 in the Schlosskirche, the court chapel in the ducal Schloss. The work is in six movements, and scored for four vocal soloists, four-part choir, three trumpets, timpani, oboe, bassoon and a string orchestra of two violins, two violas, and basso continuo. The librettist included a quotation from the day’s prescribed Gospel reading in the only recitative, and for the closing chorale he used a stanza from Philipp Nicolai’s hymn. It is an early work in a genre to which he later contributed complete cantata cycles for all occasions of the liturgical year. Bach is known as a prolific composer of cantatas. In early 1713 Bach composed his first recitas that included the new style that he included in the cantata Christophat. In 1713 he also composed the first fugue in D minor, the Toccata and Fugue in E minor, and the Prelude and Prelude in E major, the Dgelbüchlein, the Prelude in D major and the Dügelbuechlein. In the early 1720s he wrote the first funeral cantata for a funeral, the Actus Tragicus for Weimar, composing for the organ, composing works for the instrument, including the Orgelbusein and Toccat.

He also wrote the chorales Christ lag lag in Todes Banden, BWV 4 for Easter; Gott ist mein König,BWV 71, celebrate the inauguration of the new city council on 4 February 1708; and the Act of the Tragic Tragedy for the funeral of Johann Heinrich Peranda in 1713. Bach was appointed organist and chamber musician at the court of the co-reigning dukes in Saxe-Weimar, Wilhelm Ernst and his nephew Ernst August on 25 June 1708. He had composed sacred Cantatas before, some during his tenure in Mühlhausen from 1706 to 1708, but most were written for special occasions and were based mainly on biblical texts and hymns. He composed the third cantata in the series, to a text probably written by court poet Salomon Franck, to be performed on Pentacost Sunday, May 20, 1714, at Weimar. While Bach served as Thomaskantor – director of church music – in Leipzig from 1723, he performed the Cantata several times, sometimes in a different key and with changes in the scoring. The cantata opens with a chorus, followed by the recitative. A bass aria with trumpets addresses the Trinity, and a tenor aria describes the Spirit that was present at the Creation.

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