Lobe den Herrn, meine Seele, BWV 143

Lobe den Herrn, meine Seele (Praise the Lord, my soul),^[1] BWV 143,^[a] is an early cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. He appears to have composed the cantata for New Year's Day, probably when he was in his 20s, but whether it was first performed in Mühlhausen or Weimar is not known: the date of composition is unclear.^[2] Bach's authorship has been doubted because the cantata has several unusual features; one of these is the scoring, it is the only Bach cantata to combine three corni da caccia with timpani.

An unknown librettist drew mainly from Psalm 146 and from Jakob Ebert's hymn "Du Friedefürst, Herr Jesu Christ" to develop seven movements, supplying only two of the movements himself. The text assembly is similar to Bach's early cantatas. The cantata is in seven movements which combine the three major text sources: psalm, hymn and contemporary poetry. The opening chorus is based on a psalm verse, followed by the first hymn stanza and another psalm verse as a recitative. An aria on poetry is followed by a third psalm verse as an aria. It is followed by another aria on poetry, which simultaneously quotes the hymn tune instrumentally. The last movement combines elements of a chorale fantasia on the third stanza of the hymn, with vivid counterpoint of "Hallelujah" which closes the psalm.

Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).