Ruth Leon recommends…. Bach’s Easter Oratorio

Bach composed this oratorio in Leipzig and first performed it on 1 April 1725.The work is based on a secular cantata, the so-called ‘Shepherd Cantata’  Entfliehet, verschwindet, entweichet, ihr Sorgen, BWV 249a, which is now lost, although the libretto survives. Its author is Picander   who is probably the author of the oratorio’s text. The first version of the work was completed as a cantata   for Easter Sunday in Leipzig in 1725, then under the title Kommt, gehet und eilet. It was named “oratorio” and given the new title only in a version revised in 1735. In a later version in the 1740s the third movement was expanded from a duet to a four-part chorus.

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