WHICH BACH
CANTATA TODAY?

The ceiling of the Thomaskirche in Leipzig.  

Bach's cantata calendar
Discover which cantata Bach wrote for which day, and listen to the playlists

Felix Mendelssohn playing for Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1830. A painting by Moritz Daniel Oppenheim from 1864. Goethe was a Leipzig native, and this painting depicting a scene in 1830, a year after Mendelssohn conducted the Matthaeus Passion at the age of 20, somehow creates a link with Bach in my mind.

March 26, 2023
5th Sunday of Lent or Judica
The Annunciation (1434–1436) by Jan Van Eyck (c.1390-1441), National Gallery of Art, Washington DC. It is thought that it was the left (inner) wing of a triptych; there has been no sighting of the other wings since before 1817.

March 25, 2023
Annunciation
Schlossanlage Köthen, home of the princes of Köthen, around 1650 in a copper etching by Caspar Merians (Bach-Archiv Leipzig).

March 24, 2023
Funeral of Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Köthen
A wooden memorial plate above the entrance portal of the Georgenkirche in Eisenach, commemorating Bach's baptism according to the Julian calendar.

March 21, 2023
Bach's birthday Julian calendar
The interior of the Marienkirche in Mühlhausen, where the cantata Aus der Tiefen rufe ich, Herr, zu dir, BWV 131, was first performed in 1707.

March 19, 2023
4th Sunday of Lent or Laetare

Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach (aged 61) in a portrait by Elias Gottlob Haussmann, copy or second version of his 1746 canvas. The original painting hangs in the upstairs gallery of the Altes Rathaus (Old Town Hall) in Leipzig, Germany. (Wikipedia)

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) left us a wide collection of cantatas, written for celebratory days of the liturgical calendar or other special celebrations.

This website follows that calendar, based on the liturgical rhythm and the dates of those celebrations, presenting the cantata(s) for the day and playlists with those cantatas on three major audio streaming services.

Bach cantata playlists on Apple Music, Spotify and Deezer