Bach wrote the cantata to conclude his first Christmas season as Thomaskantor in Leipzig which had been celebrated with five cantatas, four of them new compositions, the Magnificat and a new Sanctus. The text by an anonymous author, who possibly supplied texts of two of the Christmas cantatas as well, combines the prescribed readings for the feast day, the prophecy from the Book of Isaiah and the gospel of Matthew about the Wise Men from the East. The librettist begins with a quotation from the prophecy, comments it by a stanza of the early anonymous Christmas carol "Ein Kind geborn zu Bethlehem", says in a sequence of recitatives and arias that the prophecy was fulfilled in Bethlehem, concluding that the Christian should bring his heart as a gift. The cantata ends with a chorale, stanza 10 of Paul Gerhardt's hymn "Ich hab in Gottes Herz und Sinn".
Librettist | anonymous |
Date of composition | 1724 in Leipzig, Germany |
First published | 1868 in Leipzig, Germany |
Type | Cantata |
Catalogue | BWV 65 |
Approx. duration | 18 minutes |
Spoken language | German |
Instruments |
Voice (Tenor)
Voice (Bass) Chorus/Choir Recorder Oboe da caccia Horn Strings Continuo |
Autotranslations beta |
Jean-Sébastien Bach: Sie werden aus Saba alle kommen, BWV 65 ""They will all come forth out of Sheba"" Johann Sebastian Bach: Sie werden aus Saba alle kommen, BWV 65 ""They will all come forth out of Sheba"" Johann Sebastian Bach: Sie werden aus Saba alle kommen, BWV 65 ""They will all come forth out of Sheba"" |