91. Wir danken dir, Gott, wir danken dir. J.S. Bach

In 2005, our church got involved with the annual International Bach Festival in Toronto (which seems to be no more). During the Festival in 2005, 2006, and 2007, there was a Sunday church service featuring a Bach cantata sung by our choir (with some ringers) and conducted by Helmuth Rilling, an internationally renowned Bach musician. Wir danken dir is the first one we did. I still remember the day; it was Thanksgiving Sunday and my parents were arriving later that day. When I went down to the laundry room before getting dressed in my special black cantata clothes, I discovered that the sewer had backed up. Good times.

Anyway, this is supposed to be about the music. I'm not an expert, so I checked out some of the following on the internet. Bach's cantatas were an integral part of the church service and followed the lectionary (the prescribed Old and New Testament readings for each Sunday of the year) -- I guess this is why there are so many Bach cantatas. The cantatas start with a chorus, which is a four-part fugue-y thing sung by the choir, followed by a few arias (solos or duets or whatever - there are some that are quite beautiful) and/or recitatives (which I find very boring), finishing with a chorale, which is basically a hymn in four-part harmony -- the congregation would sing along with this. The words to this chorale are: "Wir danken dir, Gott, wir danken dir und verkundigen deine Wunder," which means: "We thank you, God, we thank you and proclaim your wonders."

P.S. For those of you wondering what's up with BWV, it stands for Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis, which means Bach-Works-Catalogue. This guy has over 1000 works, so it's just as well there's a numbering system to keep track of them all.

P.P.S. The photo is Lincoln Cathedral.