(Soar joyfully aloft) for soprano, alto, tenor and bass, vocal ensemble, oboe d’amore I+II, bassoon, strings and continuo.

Cantata BWV 36, “Schwingt freudig euch empor!” (Soar joyfully aloft), is a work of clarity and elegance that seems especially well-suited to the preparatory period of Advent – a time that, while not yet festive, still seems illuminated from within by the warm glow of candlelight. This coherent impression, however, is most surprising considering the cantata’s irregular evolution. Initially, Bach borrowed heavily from secular compositions from his Cöthen and Leipzig periods to develop a five-movement sacred cantata (the version passed down by his pupil Kirchenberger), before expanding it in 1731 into a two-part sermon cantata through the addition of three chorale movements. The form of the resulting work is highly unusual for Bach’s mature oeuvre. Indeed, it comple­tely eschews the usual recitatives, employing instead three verses of the hymn “Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland!”, lending the work the character of a chorale partita interspersed with free passages. Around 1735, Bach must then have “re-secularised” the cantus-firmus-free move­ments to produce BWV 36b for a member of the Rivinus family, a well-known Leipzig family of legal scholars.