Liebster Immanuel, Herzog der Frommen, BWV 123
History and words. Bach wrote the chorale cantata in his second year in Leipzig to conclude a set of Christmas cantatas on the Feast of Epiphany. The prescribed readings for the feast day were taken from the Book of Isaiah, the heathen will convert (), and from the Gospel of Matthew, the Wise Men From the East bringing gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to the newborn Jesus (). The cantata text is based on the chorale in six stanzas by Ahasverus Fritsch (1679). The unknown poet kept the first and the last stanza, and  paraphrased the inner stanzas to a sequence of as many recitatives and arias. The text has no specific reference to the readings, but mentions the term (name of Jesus), reminiscent of the naming of Jesus celebrated on 1 January. The poet inserts "" (salvation and light) as a likely reference to the Epiphany, and alludes to Christmas by "" (Jesus who came into flesh). Otherwise the cantata text follows the idea of the chorale: hate and rejection in the world cannot harm those who believe. Bach first performed the cantata on 6 January 1725. Scoring and structure. The cantata in six  movements is scored for three vocal soloists (alto, tenor, and bass), a four-part choir, two flauto traverso, two oboes d'amore, two violins, viola, and basso continuo. Music. In the opening chorus Bach uses the beginning of the chorale melody as an instrumental motif, first in a long introduction, then as a counterpoint to the voices. The soprano sings the cantus firmus. The lower voices are set mostly in homophony with two exceptions. The text "" (come soon) is rendered by many calls in the lower voices. The text of the final line is first sung by the bass on the  melody of the first line, which alto and tenor imitate to the soprano singing the text on the melody of the last line, thus achieving a connection of beginning and end of the movement. The prominent woodwinds, two flutes and two oboes d'amore, and the 9/8 time create a pastoral mood. Albert Schweitzer said of this choir that, thanks to it, the cantata "Liebster Immanuel" "is one of those that one cannot forget, so simple are the harmonies and indefinable their charm." The tenor aria, accompanied by two oboes d'amore, speaks of "" (harsh journey of the Cross), illustrated by  a chromatic ritornello of four measures in constant modulation. Christoph Wolff terms the material "bizarre chromatic melodic figures". When the ritornello appears again at the end of the first section, it is calmer in the melodies, with the chromatic theme in the continuo, perhaps because the singer claims he is not frightened. In the middle section, thunderstorms are pictured "allegro" in "exuberant passage-work" of the voice, calming to "adagio" on "", the reference to the Epiphany. The bass aria is termed by John Eliot Gardiner, who performed the cantata on the Bach Cantata Pilgrimage in the Nikolaikirche in Leipzig, as  one of the loneliest arias Bach ever wrote. The voice is only accompanied by a single flute and a "staccato" continuo. Gardiner compares the flute to "some consoling guardian angel". The cantata is closed by an unusual four-part chorale. The "Abgesang" of the bar form is repeated, the repeat marked piano. The reason is likely the text which ends "" (until one day I am laid in the grave). Alfred Dürr notes such soft endings also in Bach's early cantatas , and , but also in .