W.F. Bach: Wohl dem, der den Herren Fürchtet (Vocal Score)

The cantata is one of the few surviving vocal works which Wilhelm Friedemann Bach composed during the eighteen years which he spent as organist and director of music at the Marktkirche in Halle (1746–1764). This cantata, published here for the first time in more than 250 years, was written to introduce the autumn sermons in 1752. A musically and technically demanding composition, it consists of two substantial choral movements, partly concertante and partly polyphonic, based on two biblical utterances. They surround a sensitive, while at the same time strictly contrapuntal, duet for soprano and alto with basso continuo in which “God’s sweet teaching for the soul” is described as the true “manna” of the faithful, forming a link with the sermons which are to follow. In the compactness of the musical construction and its intensity of expression W. F. Bach was clearly following in the footsteps of his father in this work.