BACH Through the Year: The Church Music of Johann Sebastian Bach and the Revised Common Lectionary, SECOND EDITION

The church cantatas of J. S. Bach were designed, composed, and performed to enhance and interpret the message of the Bible to worshippers in the congregations which Bach served. The Lutheran Church of 18th-century Germany appointed specific biblical texts to be read each Sunday and festival day of the year. This series of appointed readings, one from the New Testament letters and the other from one of the four gospels, was the lectionary. The lectionary readings determined the day's theme for th