Ich freue mich in dir in D major, BWV 133

Bach wrote the chorale cantata in his second year as Thomaskantor in Leipzig, as part of his second cantata cycle, for the Third Day of Christmas. The prescribed readings for the feast day were from the Epistle to the Hebrews, Christ is higher than the angels, (Hebrews 1:1–14) and the prologue of the Gospel of John, also called Hymn to the Word (John 1:1–14). The cantata is based on the chorale in four stanzas Ich freue mich in dir (1697) by Caspar Ziegler. It is one of the newest of the chorales which served as a base for the second annual cycle, whereas Bach otherwise preferred the beloved hymns of poets such as Martin Luther and Paul Gerhardt. The unknown poet of the cantata text kept the first and the last stanza, and paraphrased the inner stanzas closely to a sequence of recitative and aria. The text has no reference to the readings nor to the feast of John the Evangelist. It expresses the intimate joy of the individual believer about the presence of God in the Jesus child.