Intermediate Sacred & Church Music Sheet Music

The cantata "Es ist euch gut, dass ich hingehe" BWV 108 for Sunday Cantate is one of the cantatas based on texts by the Leipzig poet Christiane Mariane von Ziegler, with which Bach concluded his secon...

The cantata Ich glaube, lieber Herr, hilf meinem Unglauben BWV 109, composed for the 21st Sunday after Trinity in 1723, is characterized as a dialogue between unbelief and faith: While the dense openi...

Bring festive splendor to your Christmas season with Johann Sebastian Bach's magnificent cantata "Unser Mund sei voll Lachens" BWV 110. Composed for Christmas Day, this uplifting work radiates pure jo...

The cantata "Der Herr ist mein Hirte" dates from 1731 and was evidently intended as a supplement to the choral cantata cycle, which Bach left unfinished at Easter 1725. Bach adopted the five-stanza po...

The cantata BWV 127 belongs to the year of choral cantatas that Bach performed in Leipzig in 1724/25. It is closely related to the "St. John Passion", which was performed in its second version on Good...

The three-verse hymn "Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme" was written by Philipp Nicolai and first appears in his "Freudenspiegel des ewigen Lebens". The poet of the other text sections of the cantata is...

Reconstruction of the original version (Klaus Hofmann); composition period unknown

The Whitsun cantata Erschallet ihr Lieder was composed for the first Whitsun holiday in 1714 and was performed several times in Leipzig in slightly different versions. Performances in 1724 and 1731 ar...

The cantata Siehe zu, dass deine Gottesfurcht nicht Heuchelei sei BWV 179 opens with a motet-like choral movement in the stile antico without obbligato instruments. This is initially a counter-fugue:...

The Whitsun cantata "Erwünschtes Freudenlicht" BWV 184 is based on a Köthen composition, presumably a congratulatory cantata, whose instrumental parts (the only surviving ones) Bach continued to use i...

A (rare) autograph date (14.7.1715) confirms that the cantata Barmherziges Herze der ewigen Liebe was intended for the 4th Sunday after Trinitatis 1715. Like many Weimar cantatas, it is a decidedly ch...

In addition to the Mass in B minor, Bach is known to have composed four other, smaller masses, the so-called Lutheran or Kyrie Gloria masses. Despite their high musical qualities, they are often overs...

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach's 9-movement Magnificat from 1749, his first major Berlin vocal work, is one of the most sonorous and, in the vocal solo parts, also one of the most demanding settings of the...

Dieterich Buxtehude composed his greatest oratorical work, the cantata cycle Membra Jesu nostri, for the Passiontide of 1680 and dedicated it to his friend and Swedish court conductor Gustav Düben. In...

The Advent cantata Machet die Tore weit has long been one of Telemann's most frequently performed church music works. Among the manuscripts that transmit the cantata is an important testimony to the e...

The cantata Nun danket alle Gott cannot be assigned to any of Telemann's known cantata years. Its designation "Tempore Messis" in the title of the only surviving source suggests that it was composed o...

Vivaldi's employment at the "Ospedale della Pietà", one of the four orphanages in Venice where young girls received intensive musical training, prompted him to compose sacred works.

Psalm 147 "Lauda Jerusalem" has an important place in the church year, among other things in vespers on Marian feasts. Antonio Vivaldi's only setting of this Vespers Psalm has some peculiarities: the...