"Herr, wie du willt" (BWV 73), composed for the Third Sunday after Epiphany in Bach”s first year as Thomaskantor at Leipzig (January 23, 1724), is closely related textually and in some musical details to Cantata No. 72, which was composed two years later, but in character is its exact opposite. In the earlier work, the quiet and joyful submission to God's will is represented with chamber musical discretion, while here, painted in powerful colours, the emphasis is on the contrast between God’s inflexible decree and human weakness in the face of death. The composition derives from this contrast a tension emerging in highly unusual forms and compositional techniques. The opening chorus (G minor/G major) interprets at three levels the basic concept of the Sunday Gospel (the healing of the leper) and of the cantata text: in the orchestra ritornello, which builds up on the motto-like principal motif of the chorale (”Herr, wie du willt,” b flat-b flat-g-b flat), in the line by line chorale development in relatively simple and compact choral movement, and in the fearful and faint-hearted recitative insertions of single voices, answered consolingly and at the same time demandingly by the ritornello motif and chorale lines. The distribution of the “roles” in this extraordinary movement is just as strikingly dramatic as the movements conclusion, in which the chorus utters the meaning of the instrumental ritornello maxim three times: "Herr, wie du willt." In the tenor aria (E-flat major) again the individual who is ”sick in spirit” pleads for "the spirit of joys,” and once more the conflict of the text is captured in clearly contoured, musical and rhetorical detail as well as in the contrast between the gentle main section of the aria and the chromatically tormented middle section. The Bach recitative and aria (C minor) paint anew, and in even darker colours, the horrors of death - despite the fact that the aria text, again concentrating on the motto "Herr, so du willt,” refers to “fearless” submission to God’s will. The cantata reaches its gloomy climax in this aria. Its highly expressive and declamatory vocal part blends with the counterpoint of chromatic string writing, with the "tolling bells of the dead" forming yet another strand of this tightly woven fabric. It is not until the turn to C major in the very last bar of the final chorus that the work reverts to the actual theological summing up: ”Lob, Ehr und Preis” (praise, honour and glory).
"Wer mich liebet, der wird mein Wort halten" (BWV 74), for Whitsunday (May 20) 1725, uses a text by Christiane Mariane von Ziegler, a disciple of Gottsched’s in Leipzig, in which words from the Sunday Gospel (Nos. 1, 4 and 6 of the cantata) are commented upon by way of recitatives and arias; the second verse of the Whitsun hymn “Gott Vater, sende deinen Geist” (God Father, send forth thy Spirit) provides the theological summing up. The first two movements of the composition go back to the brief Whitsun Cantata No. 59 (Nos. 1 and 4 in that work); at the same time the chamber music-like opening duet from Cantata No. 59 has been transformed with astounding economy into a splendid, highly colourful chorus (in C major), which, in concertante interplay between trumpet, oboe and string chorus and the lighthearted choral setting, reflects the basically joyous mood of Whitsuntide. The soprano aria (F major), which follows without recitative, fits into its new text without difficulty. Transposition, soprano instead of bass timbre, and the tone colour of the oboe da caccia (in BWV 59 a violin) augment the latent dance character of the piece, which is at one with the gently ecstatic mood of the text. An uncomplicated alto recitative leads to the second biblical quotation, which is given to the vox Christi (the bass soloist as the voice of Christ) and is constructed as a grand, two-part E minor arioso above a quasi-ostinato bass. This ground-bass movement, constant repetition of the short text sections, tone symbolism (”Ich gehe hin - und komme wieder” - I go away and come again) and emotional (”rejoice”) tracing of the text details lend the movement in the precise centre of the cantata that special importance which the biblical soliloquy demands. The following tenor aria in the joyous parallel key to E minor - G major - is marked by the “hurrying” figures of the highly virtuoso vocal parts and of the concertante first violin in the main section of the unusually extended da capo form. At the same time the tone symbolism of the figures accompanying Christ’s ”Cehen” (going) and ”Kommen” (coming) are taken up once more from the preceding aria. The third quotation from Scripture - as a short but very emphatically declaimed accompagnato of the vox Christi - leads to the alto aria (C major), a splendidly virtuosic and thrilling movement, the martial signal motifs of which on the one hand evidently were inspired by the image of “hellish chains,” and on the other by the idea of Christ’s victorious struggle against the princes of hell. Effectively contrasting with this battle and victory music is the quite simple chorale with which the work closes.
"Die Elenden sollen essen" (BWV 75), for the first Sunday after Trinity, was Bach’s first Leipzig cantata: “On the 30th of the same month (1723)... the new cantor Collegii iviusici Director Herr Joh. Sebastian Bach, who came here from the princely court in Cöthen, performed his first music to good applause,” the Acta Lipsiensium academica reported. The fact that this first performance by the new Thomaskantor was also a “social event” (Alfred Dürr) is clear enough from the extent and extravagance of the composition. The text is constructed much like a sermon: the introductory psalm verse exemplifies the basic ideal of the Sunday Gospel dealing with the rich man and poor Lazarus. Recitatives, arias and chorale verse of the first section interpret the concept further and in various directions, while the second section provides the contrast between poverty and wealth with the added allegorical meaning indicating that true riches are to be found in Christian faith in Jesus. It is apparent everywhere that Bach’s exegetic and compositional ambition goes even beyond this plan. The intellectual and formal points of reference in the composition are the psalm verse and chorale: the former in the marvellous opening chorus constructed on the prelude and fugue pattern (and at the same time, particularly in the pathos-laden dotted rhythms ofthe beginning, hinting at the French overture), the latter in the polyphonic concertante choral arrangement of ”Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan,” which is just as broadly conceived. The first and last verses of this section are performed as the concluding movements of the first and second half of the cantata, while the Sinfonia to the second section is nothing else but an instrumental arrangement of the same chorale with the melody played by the solo trumpet. Grouped between these supporting pillars of the edifice are the recitatives and arias in regular alternation and with artistically proportioned choice of compositional techniques: large-scale accompagnato and tonally emphasised tenor aria, secco and soprano aria with concertante oboe d’amore (followed by secco as transition to the chorale); in the second half of the work, large-scale accompagnato and alto aria with unison accompaniment of the violins, then secco and bass aria with full string accompaniment and concertante trumpet (followed again by secco as the bridge to the final chorus). The tenor and alto aria, which address Jesus directly, are free as regards theme; the soprano and bass arias, which from the point of view of content are more closely related to the chorale maxim “Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan,” allude to the beginning of the chorale melody in their first notes. Finally the uniform first person perspective of the aria texts (as opposed to the general sentences of the recitatives ) appears to have given Bach the impulse to incorporate fashionable, which is to say "subjective," musical accents in the spiritualised sermon tone of the work. This is apparent in the markedly songlike style of the vocal parts and the polonaise tone of the tenor aria, in the minuet tone of the soprano aria, in the passepied accent of the alto aria and in the bass aria’s style of warlike and triumphant opera music. The “good applause” for the cantata was perhaps due not least of all to such ”fashionable” accents; that they do not appear to be superimposed upon the work, but open up an additional dimension of an extraordinarily rich and varied textual reading accounts to a large extent for its greatness.