ter case the Gospel of the
Sunday for which the cantata was written is introduced entire in the body
of the work as the nucleus around which the great composer grouped the
remaining parts. For instance, the cantata for Sexagesima Sunday turns
upon the parable of the sower, and this being the Gospel for the day is
made its central point. In like manner the cantata for the fourteenth
Sunday after Trinity has for its subject the story of the ten lepers,
which is introduced in recitative form in the middle of the work. The
astonishing industry of Bach is shown by the fact that for nearly five
years he produced a new cantata for each Sunday, in addition to his
numerous fugues, chorales, motets, magnificats, masses, sanctuses,
glorias, and other church music. The artistic sincerity and true genius
of the old master also reveal themselves in the skill with which he
finished these works for the congregation of St. Thomas,--few of whom, it
is to be feared, had any conception of their real merit,--and in the
untiring regularity with which he produced them, unrewarded by the
world's applause, and little dreaming that long years after he had passed
away they would be brought to light again, be published to the world, and
command its admiration and astonishment on account of their beauty and
scholarship.[5] Before passing to the consideration of the cantata in its
present form, the following abridged description of those written by
Bach, taken from Bitter's Life of the composer, will be of interest:--

"The directors who preceded Bach at Leipsic used to choose the cantatas
or motets to be sung in the churches quite arbitrarily, without any
regard to their connection with the rest of the service. But Bach felt
that unless these elaborate pieces of music were really made a means of
edification, they were mere intellectual pastimes suitable for a
concert, but an interruption to divine worship; and he thought that
they could best edify the congregation if their subjects were the
themes to which attention was specially directed in the service and
sermon of the day. He therefore made it a rule to ascertain from the
clergymen of the four churches the texts of the sermons for the
following Sunday, and to choose cantatas on the same or corresponding
texts. As most of the clergy were in the habit of preaching on the
Gospel of the day, the service thus became a harmonious whole, and the
attention of the congregation