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Believers and non-believers alike for years have asked why God allows suffering and evil. Attempted responses vary across the years. Nowadays it is common simply to curse God and move on as best one can without God. Among Lutherans of the 18th century responses derived from a determination to struggle with what came one's way, accompanied by a certain resignation, by cries for patience, and with exhortations to keep the faith, knowing that God has purposes beyond our understanding. Such may not satisfy our yearnings, but they are the subjects of a lengthy hymn worth considering and serving as the core text of this cantata. In his own imitable way Bach is able to treat this text and its tune of secular origins with an astoundingly joyous outlook. According to his hand strings and oboes join in providing everything from jocularity to pathos, leaving the listener with the satisfaction of having traversed the hard questions only to arrive at a brighter spot.

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One of the earliest cantatas Bach ever wrote (at the tender age of 22), Gottes Zeit is clearly also very profound, equaling in this respect many of his later works. Hence it has been and is popular. Composed during his year long stay in Muhlhausen, the cantata's origins remain obscure, though possibly it was written as a kind of memorial for his uncle Tobias Lammerhirt. Recently scholars have demonstrated that the text for the work consists of a well-known manual for dying, a concept slightly strange to anyone living today. The manual offers in short fashion a series of bible texts and hymn stanzas strung together for purposes of memorization but which at the same time afford the composer opportunity to make sudden dramatic changes for emphasis. This solicits interest from the contemporary listener. Couple that to unusual instrumentation (two violas da gamba and recorders) and you have a bundle of reasons to reconsider something like the art of dying, especially on this day of All Saints. For this presentation of the cantata only solo voices will be used, even for the "choir" parts, following recent discoveries about the sizes of Bach's choir and how he chose to perform the cantatas.

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At Christmas time Bach is known chiefly for his monumental Christmas Oratorio. But there are a substantial number of other cantatas that he wrote for those days. This one he composed for the third day of Christmas (Dec. 27), a time when the performing forces were limited though he seems not to have been constrained by such matters. This cantata too is based on a church hymn the tune for which was apparently unknown to the composer before this work. The hymn text, expanded by the cantata's librettist, focuses on the appearance of Jesus and especially on his name. The work is dominated by notions of joy, musically delivered with a kind of perpetual motion assigned to upper strings and - everybody's favorite: the oboes d'amour. The chugging of the reed instruments continues in movement two, ending just in time for some reflection on the name of Jesus (Jesulein, my dear Jesus). Here the musical treatment turns to what one author calls "graceful tenderness" of a kind that is worthy of the newborn baby. Bach employs a variety of unusual techniques to make the point, all of which are sheer pleasure to hear.

This magnificent cantata will be augmented by other seasonal pieces offered by the ensemble, including a Chicago premiere of Heinrich von Herzogenberg's (friend and student of Johannes Brahms) setting of Lo, how a rose e'er blooming.

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On his popular WFMT "Morning Show" Chicago's Carl Grapentine frequently plays an excerpt from a Bach cantata showcasing German trumpeter, Ludwig Guttler. It's obviously a favorite, and it is the first movement of Cantata 148. As engaging as that movement is, the entire cantata provides even more for the listener. Based on a poem by Picander (the poet also of the St. Matthew Passion) the cantata invites the believer's attention to worship and the gathering of the Christian assembly. The first aria ruminates on the holy joy experienced there, calling on the virtuosic talents of both singer (tenor) and player (violin). Mystical moments appear too, and lead to a lyrical aria for alto accompanied by three oboes (there they are again!), all summoning the worshipper to let the indwelling Spirit yield behavior that is compassionate and loving. That call provides this cantata a home during Lent when Christians take opportunity to honestly evaluate their lives of faith.