ABSTRACT
Paradoxically, Bach's cantatas are often considered to be too religious for the present day, and yet they are mostly heard in a secular setting; but in Bach's day they were frequently considered to be too secular, and yet they were a regular feature of Sunday worship. There are differences between the two libretti, notably their metrical structures. With regard to cantata libretti, Bach's preference appears to have been to work directly with a poet rather than with preexisting published collections of such poetry. On the one hand, Bach made more use of printed libretti than was his usual custom, and on the other hand, there is a group of cantata texts for which an unknown poet made use of the published poetry of others in order to create new cantata libretti. The object of both text and music is to “move the hearers”—not simply to please the ears, or divert the mind, but to move the heart.
