Der Himmel dacht auf Anhalts Ruhm und Glück, BWV 66a

History#

Bach composed the secular cantata, or serenata, Bach and Hunold collaborated on other cantatas, including one for the same birthday, . Hunold’s text was included in a collection, (Selected and partly never printed poems), which he published the following year, and has thus survived. Bach’s music has been lost apart from a fragment, but there is scope for its reconstruction as he recycled some of it in at least one sacred work. Bach adapted several movements for his 1724 cantata for Easter Monday, . While the structure of the sacred cantata is different (it is closed with a chorale, and it opens with music from the closing movement of the secular cantata), Bach preserved the original dialogue form in which two allegorical figures appear. For (Fortune of Anhalt) and (Fame), he substituted the alto “Fear” in place of Fortune and the tenor “Hope” in place of Fame. John Eliot Gardiner has suggested that instrumental music from the lost cantata survives in another cantata from the composer’s Leipzig years. The music in question, a sinfonia for strings and woodwind, is the first movement of , which was first performed in 1725.

Structure#

The work has eight movements: # Recitative: # Aria: # Duet recitative: # Duet aria: # Duet recitative: # Aria: # Duet recitative: # Chorus:

Publication#

Der Himmel dacht auf Anhalts Ruhm und Glück was published in the Neue Bach-Ausgabe, edited by Alfred Dürr, with a critical report 1964.

Recordings#

• Mitteldeutsche Hofmusik, Alexander Grychtolik. Ruhm und Glück (Fame and Happiness). Rondeau Production, 2012.

External links#

• • Festkonzert Köthener Bachfesttage 2018