Ich bin vergnügt mit meinem Glücke (BWV 84) was probably composed in 1727 and was thus a part of Bach’s third annual cantata czcle, the production of which was spread over several years. Cantata No. 84 is one of the last works to be preserved of this annual cycle. Characteristic of this is that the text - admittedly handed down by anonymous sources - is closely related to a cantata text by Picander also destined for Septuagesima Sunday in his 1728 annual cycle, which Bach composed in part in 1728/29 (but with omission of this particular text). Conspicuous aspects of Cantata No. 84 are in particular the modest scoring (only one solo part) and the undemanding form (aria - recitative - aria - recitative - chorus); both (except for the concluding chorale) recall the normal form of the secular Italian chamber cantata, and both no doubt also contributed to the genre description ”cantata," something which was otherwise unusual in Bach's case. However, with these modest means and within this modest framework a maximum degree of differentiation is achieved: in the sequence of keys (E minor - B/D minor - G major - E/F-sharp minor - B minor), the characters of the arias, the nuance of shading between recitatives and, naturally, in compositional detail. The first aria depicts the pleasure and contentedness to which the text refers and features festively moving 3/4 time with melisrnatic writing for the singing voice. A conccrtante oboe part and the markedly dancelike effect of the dotted and syncopated rhythms further characterise the movement. The following recitative is confined to emphatic declamation. The second aria plays to the full the veiled dance character of the first aria and is in 3/8 time with joyful coloraturas, exulting top notes and concertante playing between the oboe and the solo violin. The second recitative is significantly emphasised by solemn string accompaniment, while the concluding chorale is again studiously simple.
Ich bin ein guter Hirt (BWV 85), marking the Second Sunday after Easter (April 15) of 1725, belongs to Bach’s second Leipzig annual cantata cycle, and within it to the small group of works between the chorale cantatas going as far as Easter of 1725 and the nine cantatas based upon texts by Christiane Mariane von Ziegler which conclude the year. From a textual standpoint the cantata (like Cantatas No. 6 and No. 42 which immediately preceded this work, as well as Cantata No. 86 of the first annual cycle) is related to an anonymous group of texts which always have the same form: a Bible quotation from the Sunday Gospel - interpretative aria - chorale - instructive recitative - instructive, generalising aria - Chorale. The uniformity of the texts is also reflected in Bach's compositions, most impressively so in the fact that Cantatas No. 85 and No. 86, separated from each other by eleven months, are closely related. Cantata No, 85 begins with one of those solemn and at the same time contrapuntally rich and sonorous bass ariosos which are characteristic of Bach’s musical settings of the words of Christ. The oboe, as the tenor part of the movement and as the main instrument given solo treatment, depicts the pastoral sphere of which the text speaks. The succeeding aria is accentuated in shape as a variation sequence with ritornello (R - A - A’ - A” - R), further distinguished by the concertante violoncello piccolo (viola pomposa). The somewhat darker tone ot this instrument and its key of G minor forms the backdrop to the bright colouring of the chorus in E-flat major. Two oboes (again to be construed as pastoral instruments) and the soprano make up a contrapuntally artistic trio movement in which the richly ornamented chorale does not appear as the ”voice of the congregation,” but as a means of first-person disclosure or personal confession. By way of emphatic declamation and detailed painting on the part of the strings, the recitative takes on a surprisingly dramatic accent. Contrasting with this is the tenor aria, which in rocking 9/8 time with an appealing pendulumlike melody and the simple harmony of the string movement, once more evokes the pastoral scene to which there is no reference in the text. At the same time, however, in the vocal part this depicts the emotions ot the text with utmost expression - a classical and musically splendid example of Bachian "interpretative polyphony.” The abundantly harmonised closing chorale touches as often as possible the E flat and A flat major of the preceding movements while not returning to the opening key of C minor until the end.
Wahrlich, wahrlich, ich sage euch (BWV 86), tor Rogation Sunday (May 14) 1724, is closely related to Cantata No. 85, not only in textual structure, but also in the musical style and detail. The most conspicuous difference here is the extremely simple key sequence (E major - A major - F sharp minor - B-minor/E major - E major- E major). The opening arioso (ritornello - A - A’ - A”) reflects the solemnity of Christ’s words in a motet-like, polyphonic and quasivocal five-part movement, which the strings form together with the vocal part. The alto aria (the sequence of the vocal parts accords with that in Cantata No. 85) is embellished with a virtuoso violin section; contrasting with it is the soprano chorale (performed in unornamented manner here), which is accompanied by two oboes d'amore. An unembellished and short recitatiye leads on to the tenor aria, which by its interplay with the concertante first violin and the vocal part, continuously takes up the textual-musical central motif, "Gott hilft gewiß,” (God’s help is sure) so to speak sermonising, reweaving, paraphrasing and repeating it. A simple chorale brings this cantata to a close.
Bisher habt ihr nichts gebeten in meinem Namen (BWV 87), also intended for Rogation Sunday but composed in 1725, instead of dealing with the consoling aspects of the Sunday Gospel, refers to its dark and menacing traits, the guilt and fears of mankind. The composition is correspondingly grave, seeming in parts almost apocalyptic, with the keys of D, G and C minor dominating (only the tenor aria being in B flat major). As in Cantatas No. 85 and No. 86, the words of Christ are set polyphonically as an arioso; hovvever, the style is not archaic and motet-like but rather in the completely free form of an instrumental quartet movement, into which the bass pours his threatening pronouncements with constantly and ever differently composed repetitions. A brief but uncommonly agitated recitative provides the transition to the alto aria, in which the dark sound of two oboes da caccia combine their insistence on the ”Vergib” (forgive) motif of the vocal part and the pleading ostinato gestures in the thoroughbass to produce a gloomy picture of the conditio humana (which certainly goes beyond the intention of the text). The tenor arioso intensifies this attitude to a cry of utmost distress, which is arranged with extreme vocal and harmonic means. This is answered by the second statement by Christ, again as an arioso, but accompanied only by the thoroughbass, whose ostinato adherence to the main motif ("In der Welt habt ihr Angst” - In the world there is woe) seems also to allude to the second half of the text, to the price of mankind’s redemption, Christ’s sacrificial death, The reply of the faithful Christians provided by the tenor aria again considerably exceeds what is intended by the text. Bach does not compose joyful surrender to suffering, but a fervent suffering of almost shockingly sensual directness, in a siciliano of bewitching tonal attraction, whose seventh-chord harmony and whose ”altered” melody in many senses act like a greeting reaching far into the nineteenth century. In the rich harmonisation of the final chorale something still seems to linger on of the excitement of this piece, which even by Bach’s standards is extraordinary.
Siehe, ich will viel Fischer aussenden (BWV 88) was written for the Fifth Sunday after Trinity (July 21) 1726, almost immediately after Bach had introduced a series of works by his cousin in Meiningen, Johann Ludwig Bach, to the St Thomas Church instead of his own cantatas. At least the form ofthe anonymous text - as with Cantatas Nos. 39, 187, 45, 102 and l7, composed more or less around the same period - corresponds precisely with that of this group of inserted works. Thus it seems reasonable to assume that Bach instructed a Leipzig poet to write texts in this form, or that he himself undertook the taslk. The focal point of these texts is a quotation from the Sunday Gospel in question, symmetrically framed by two arias and two recitatives. Before the first recitative there is a quotation from the Old Testament, the sense of which is related to the passage from the Gospel, while the second recitative is followed by the final chorale. On the whole this is an arrangement which is not only satisfying from a musical point of view, but theologically is also eminently significant (with the New Testament at the centre, the Old Testament at the beginning and the congregational hymn at the end).
Bach’s composition places almost too much emphasis upon the quotation from the Old Testament, in the sense that it transposes its graphic language into two broad and splendidly painted genre scenes, a marine and a hunting piece. Beneath their colourful surface  they are extremely artistically designed, and are set in contrast to each other. The short but harmonycally rich first recitative leads on to the tenor aria which, without a ritornello, answers the question of the recitative. It is not until after the contrasting vocal sections, held together by the motif treatment of the oboe d'amore, that the ritornello is subsequently featured as an abbreviated da capo, with the oboe d'amore adopting the role of the vocal part. The Gospel quotation is introduced by a two-bar Evangelist arioso and is then taken up in the bass (the vox Christi) as a solemn, four-part arioso (A A’ A A”) above a quasi ostinato bass. The duet once more reverts to the motet-like sequence form and the technique of varying repetition which dominate the entire cantata and give Bach an opportunity of declalming the text with unusual intensity and ever fresh shading. Two text sections, the second being repeated, are arranged in an artistically polyphonic three-movement setting (A A' A"). The final chorale after the second recitative is kept in a comparatively simple songlike style.
Was soll ich aus dir machen, Ephraim? (BWV 89) has its origins in the first Leipzig annual cantata cycle and was composed for October 24, 1723 (22nd Sunday after Trinity). The text, again anonymous, begins with a  quotation from the Old Testament which hints at the Sunday Gospel reading, and is then construed in a double sequence of recitative and aria. The impact of the Old Testament language inspired Bach to compose a grandiose .intl gloomy opening movement. This is a bass arioso of the highest rhetorical power around which oboes, strings and continuo (the horn has only a tone-supporting function), three contrary motifs, sighs, pathos-laden chordal breaks and murmuring semiquavers develop in constantly new constellations. The two arias stand out from this movement on account of markedly simple instrumentation, but at the same time are designed as a contrasting pair. The alto aria (only with continuo) conjures up once more in D minor the terrors of the Old Testament court (not by coincidence with the aid of that already slightly archaic theme type, ascribed in Cantata No. T06 to the covenant of the Old Testament. The soprano aria in B flat major with obbligato oboe, prepared hy way of the arioso concluding phrase of the second recitative, sings of the hope in Christ's redeeming sacrifice in almost dancelike grace and in a rekaxed mood. The final chorus is again a simple, songlike setting, although not entirely without harmonic surprises based on the text.
Es reißet euch ein schrecklich Ende (BWV 90) was composed for the 25th Sunday after Trinity, that is to say, November 14, 1723, and thus also belongs to the first Leipzig annual cantata cycle. The anonymous text concentrates on the visions of horror of the final period before the Last Judgement; the hope of the ”chosen people" is not uttered until the second recitative and the chorale. The deadly earnestness of this text is matched by the almost gloomy composition, which with uncustomary persistence circles around D minor (the principle key] and G minor, and which in the two chief arias dominating the work depict the text’s emotions in a highly drastic fashion: the ”snatching,” terrible end and the sinfulness of man in vehement coloraturas, chromatic runs, torn-off phrases and catapulted declamatory motifs in the highest range for tenor; the vision of the zealous judge of the world in grandiose war music, completely built up on signal motifs, with concertante trumpet, the symbolic instrument of warfare. The two secco recitatives are brief and unadorned, but worked out down to the last text detail, declamatory and harmonically. In particular the first, which contrasts (God’s goodness and the world's ingratitude, displays an abundance and power of musical depiction of the text which were not customary even for Bach. The closing chorus is a songlike setting wich begins in simple fashion and then increases in harmonic splendour, culminating in one of Bachßs most astounding harmonic applications (inserted D flat major on the word "Stündelein") and eventuallz fading out on the sustained D major of "ewig bei dir sein" (and kufe eternal there with thee).