5th Sunday of Lent or Judica
26 March 2023 – Today is the 5th (and last) Sunday of Lent or Judica. Yes, you guessed it, still Tempus Clausum in Leipzig (no music allowed in mass) so no original cantata for this day. Which means I have to come up with a playlist for your enjoyment, with two cantatas with unknown first performance dates or occasions.
Both are very late cantatas, long after his most prolific cantata creation period, the first three years in Leipzig. In allen meinen Taten, BWV 97, dates from 1734 and is a choral cantata, one of the dozen cantatas he wrote in later years to complete that cycle which he started in 1724 but ended prematurely in 1725, possibly due to the death of his main collaborator and librettist, Andreas Stübel, on January 31st of that year. Author of the hymn is Paul Fleming (1609-1640).
Only the aria remains of the cantata Bekennen will ich seinen Namen, BWV 200, dating from 1742. The piece was only discovered in 1924 and published in 1935. I've chosen the outstanding countertenor Andreas Scholl as performer of this aria.
Cantatas
- In allen meinen Taten, BWV 97
(first performance ? 1734, Leipzig period) - Bekennen will ich seinen Namen, BWV 200
(first performance ? 1742, Leipzig period)
Playlist
WBC24-5th Sunday of Lent or Judica
Choose one of these streaming services to listen to this playlist:
Image of the day

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.