Whit Sunday

Bach Cantata Day Information:
Pentecost or Whit Sunday

Fifty days after Easter. Liturgical period : Easter.

Occurrences: May 19 2024, June 8 2025, May 24 2026, May 16 2027, June 4 2028, May 20 2029, June 9 2030, June 1 2031, May 16 2032, June 5 2033, May 28 2034, May 13 2035, June 1 2036, May 24 2037.

Music for this day

Erschallet, ihr Lieder, erklinget, ihr Saiten!, BWV 172
(first performance 20 May 1714, Weimar period)
Wer mich liebet, der wird mein Wort halten, BWV 59
(first performance 16 May 1723, Leipzig period)
Wer mich liebet, der wird mein Wort halten, BWV 74
(first performance 20 May 1725, Leipzig period)
O ewiges Feuer, o Ursprung der Liebe, BWV 34
(first performance 1 June 1727, Leipzig period)

Pentecost or Whit Sunday is the 50th day after Easter and a very special liturgic holiday. So no less than 4 cantatas for this day. The first one, Erschallet, ihr Lieder, erklinget, ihr Saiten!, BWV 172, is a very festive Pentecost cantata, dating from the Weimar period. It was a cantata Bach really loved himself, as he performed it several times later as Thomaskantor in Leipzig.

There is some uncertainty about the creation date of Wer mich liebet, der wird mein Wort halten, BWV 59, but it is now believed that Bach wrote it when he was still in Köthen, and performed it for the first time in the Paulinerkirche in Leipzig a week before his final move to the city, two weeks before his first Thomaskirche cantata (Die Elenden sollen essen, BWV 75). As newly appointed Thomaskantor he was also responsible for music in the university church, the Pauliner, four times a year. But he most certainly performed it again in the Thomaskirche on Pentecost the following year, 1724.

The year after, 1725, he created Wer mich liebet, der wird mein Wort halten, BWV 74, a cantata with the same name and indeed an expansion and revision of BWV 59, making it more festive and indeed better suited for the imposing Thomaskirche. It is based on a libretto by Christiana Mariana von Ziegler.

The last one, O ewiges Feuer, o Ursprung der Liebe, BWV 34, is a parody on an earlier (incomplete) wedding cantata, BWV 34a.