About this edition
Composed for the Second Day of Christmas and first performed in Leipzig on 26 December 1724, Christum wir sollen loben schon, BWV 121 belongs to Johann Sebastian Bach's celebrated cycle of chorale cantatas. It is built on Martin Luther's German paraphrase of the ancient Latin hymn "A solis ortus cardine," and its opening chorus is among Bach's most austere and deliberately archaic movements: a chorale motet in the old style, with the modal melody sustained in long notes by the sopranos and reinforced by cornetto and three trombones, conjuring the sound world of Renaissance church music. The inner movements turn vivid and personal, including a bass aria that portrays the unborn John the Baptist leaping for joy, before the work closes with a plain four-part setting of the chorale's final stanza.
This printing reproduces the score as published in the Bach-Gesellschaft Ausgabe, Band 26, edited by the Leipzig musicologist and archivist Alfred Dörffel (1821–1905) and issued by Breitkopf und Härtel in 1878 (plate B.W. XXVI). Produced between 1851 and 1899, the Bach-Gesellschaft edition was the first effort to publish Bach's complete works in a unified scholarly form, prepared directly from surviving autograph manuscripts and original performing parts. For well over a century it has served as the reference text for conductors and researchers, and it remains the foundation on which many modern editions rest.
About this edition:
- Format: full orchestral score
- Page size: 8.5 x 11 inches
- Reproduced from a public domain source
- Publisher: Purple 4R Publishing
This edition faithfully reproduces a public domain historical score, bringing a classic work back into easy reach of performers and scholars. We hope it serves you well on the podium, at the stand, or at the desk.
