Featured Article Summary #92

The Easter Oratorio, BWV 249, is a work by Johann Sebastian Bach, first titled and written in Leipzig in 1738, like his Christmas and Ascension Oratorios. Bach had already composed much of its music in 1725, when he used it for two earlier cantatas: the secular Shepherd Cantata and an Easter cantata for Easter Sunday, which later became the oratorio. In the oratorio version, Bach assigns the music to voice parts and develops a drama with speaking recitatives, reflective arias, and a final chorus of thanksgiving, using an elaborate Baroque orchestra. In 1738 he revised the Easter cantata with only small changes, and in the 1740s he made further adjustments, later performing it again in 1749. Some early scholars criticized the work’s libretto and its dramatic style, but later researchers praised Bach for turning “theatrical” music into devotional music and for continuing the kind of narrative and interpretation found in the St John Passion. In 1723, Bach became Thomaskantor in Leipzig, leading church music at four churches and training the boys of the Thomanerchor. He planned to write cantatas for almost every church occasion during his first year, making Holy Week and Easter the busiest times. For Good Friday 1724 he composed the St John Passion, and for Easter he performed and adapted earlier cantatas. The next year he began a second cantata cycle based on Lutheran hymns, including composing and performing BWV 1 for Palm Sunday in time for Easter-related services. In 1725, as he prepared for his second Easter in office, Bach wrote a congratulatory cantata for his patron’s 43rd birthday—the Shepherd Cantata (BWV 249a)—during Lent when he had time to create a longer festive work for the court. The text was written by Picander, marking their first documented collaboration; Bach likely planned to reuse much of the music for an Easter cantata too, and their partnership continued on other major works, including the St Matthew Passion. Picander published the libretto in 1727 and it likely refers to a performance as a costumed musical pastoral play at a banquet, possibly at the duke’s palace in Weissenfels. Bach reused the music of the Shepherd Cantata in the same order for an Easter church cantata, writing only new recitatives; the title was first called “Come, go and hurry” and later changed to “Come, flee and hurry.” Scholars say it works like an Easter play, and it was likely written by Picander using the same verse pattern as the original so the arias and choruses could be kept, with characters such as the disciples and Mary Magdalene meeting at the empty tomb. The Easter cantata was first performed on 1 April 1725 with boys singing the female parts, opened by two instrumental movements from earlier concerto material, and it includes no chorales—so it was also performed alongside another Easter cantata, Christ lag in Todes Banden, in the same services. After the Elector of Saxony Augustus II died in 1733, festive church music was restricted, which gave Bach time to plan larger works. He had already written the Christmas Oratorio in 1734, and later chose Easter and Ascension as subjects for new oratorios, with the Ascension Oratorio likely first performed in 1738. For Easter Sunday on 6 April 1738, Bach largely reused an earlier 1725 Easter cantata with small changes, making specific adjustments to instruments, text fitting, and added measures. He wrote and labelled the piece as an oratorio, but unlike many of his other oratorios it does not include an Evangelist narrator, Biblical readings, or chorales, and its performance history suggests Bach particularly enjoyed it.