The Feast of Annunciation was the only occasion when church music was permitted during the period of silence enforced for Lent in Bach’s Leipzig. Premiered on March 25, 1725, this would have been the first music churchgoers would have heard in over 40 days, since the superlative BWV 127 was heard on February 11th. Bach thus spared no creative expense in creating Cantata 1, the work that would eventually be chosen in 1851 to open the first volume of the complete catalogue of his works.
The chorale fantasia that opens this work, like the one of the previous cantata, has long been recognized as one of Bach’s grandest. Similar to the exceptional chorale fantasia from BWV 96, premiered a few months earlier, it celebrates Jesus as the Morning Star in the gentle and comforting key of F major and the lullaby-like compound-triple meter of 12/8 time (9/8 time in BWV 96). Also similar to the opening movement of BWV 96, a musical image of the twinkling Morning Star permeates the fantasia, here in the form of two solo violins which are heard from the very start, accompanied only by the continuo.
Every phrase of the chorale sung by the sopranos is celebrated with complex and varied counterpoint in the lower voices and orchestra, using themes both in imitation of the chorale and the instrumental music that opens the piece. As Julian Mincham writes, “One is left feeling warmly enveloped by the light and blessing which the Lord offers us beneath the constant twinkling of the morning star. This is a movement of overwhelming scale, power, joy and maturity.” The 30 seconds that follow 5:20 in the video below contains some of the most glorious and love-radiating choral music I have ever heard.
Bellisimo, lleno de amor y felicidad