Bach composed the cantata in his third year as Thomaskantor on a text which Georg Christian Lehms, a court poet in Darmstadt, had published already in 1711. Lehms derived from the prescribed gospel, the finding in the Temple, a dialogue. Instead of a parent missing a son, as in the gospel, an allegorical Soul (soprano) misses Jesus (bass). The motifs of the story, the loss and anxious search, are placed in a more general situation in which the listener can identify with the Soul. As Lehms did not provide a closing chorale, Bach chose the twelfth and final stanza of Paul Gerhardt's hymn "Weg, mein Herz, mit den Gedanken".
| Original Name | Liebster Jesu, mein Verlangen |
| Librettist | Georg Christian Lehms (1684–1717) (Nos.1-3, 5) Luke 2:49 (No.2) Paul Gerhardt (1607-1676) (No.6) |
| Date of composition | 1726 in Leipzig, Germany |
| Premiered | 1726, January 13th in Leipzig, Germany |
| First published | 1857 (BGA) |
| Dedicated to | 1st Sunday after Epiphany |
| Type | Sacred Cantata |
| Tonality | E Minor |
| Catalogue | BWV 32 |
| Spoken language | German |
| Instruments |
2x
Voice
Chorus/Choir Orchestra |
| Links | |
| Autotranslations beta |
Jean-Sébastien Bach: Beloved Jesus, my desire en mi mineur, BWV 32 Johann Sebastian Bach: Beloved Jesus, my desire in mi minore, BWV 32 Johann Sebastian Bach: Beloved Jesus, my desire e-moll, BWV 32 |
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