Bach wrote the cantata in his second year in Leipzig for Pentecost Tuesday, the third day of Pentecost. In this second year Bach had composed chorale cantatas between the first Sunday after Trinity and Palm Sunday, but for Easter returned to cantatas on more varied texts, possibly because he lost his librettist. Nine of his cantatas for the period between Easter and Pentecost are based on texts of Christiana Mariana von Ziegler. Bach later assigned most of them, including this cantata, to his third annual cycle. The prescribed readings for the feast day were from the Acts of the Apostles, the Holy Spirit in Samaria, and from the Gospel of John, the Good Shepherd. The cantata is thematically divided in two parts, movements 1 to 4 and movements 5 to 7, but performed consecutively. Both begin with a quotation from the gospel. The first part deals with Jesus as the Good Shepherd and the sheep who hear his voice. The second part deals with those who don't hear this voice. The poet uses the term "verblendete Vernunft", possibly addressing the attitude of the intellectual movement "Aufklärung". The cantata is closed with the ninth stanza of Johann Rist's hymn "O Gottes Geist, mein Trost und Ruh". Bach first performed the cantata on 22 May 1725.
Scoring and structure
The cantata in seven movements is distinctively scored for three vocal soloists, a four-part choir only in the closing chorale, two trumpets, three recorders, two violins, viola, violoncello piccolo and basso continuo. The recorders give a pastorale character to the first part about the Good Shepherd.
Recitative : Er rufet seinen Schafen mit Namen
Aria : Komm, leite mich
Recitative : Wo find ich dich?
Aria : Es dünket mich, ich seh dich kommen
Recitative : Sie vernahmen aber nicht
Aria : Öffnet euch, ihr beiden Ohren
Chorale: Nun, werter Geist, ich folg dir
Music
The first quotation from the Bible is sung by the tenor, like an Evangelist. This recitative, saying "Er rufet seinen Schafen mit Namen und führet sie hinaus", is accompanied by three recorders, an instrument with pastoral associations. The recorders also colour the first aria, a movement in 12/8 time with a text which refers to green fields. The following short recitative asks in a dissonant and dramatic way, like a lost sheep for its shepherd: "Wo find ich dich? Ach, wo bist du verborgen?". The second aria is about the shepherd's arrival. Bach took the music from the secular cantataDurchlauchtster Leopold, BWV 173a, although the meter of Ziegler's poetry does not fit, as if Bach had not communicated the idea of the parody with the poet. Bach transposes movement 7 from his congratulatory cantata up a minor third for tenor rather than bass voice and with an obbligato part for violoncello piccolo contrasting with the low range of the instruments he used in the first version. It is in the form of an extended da capo bourrée. The central recitative, movement 5, is the first movement of the cantata accompanied by the strings. It begins with the quotation from the gospel "Sie vernahmen aber nicht, was es war, das er zu ihnen gesaget hatte", sung by the alto as the Evangelist, and leads to an arioso on the final warning not to overhear the words of Jesus, which "may be to your well-being". This warning is enforced by two trumpets in the bass aria which reminds of the death of Jesus: "Jesus hat euch zugeschworen, daß er Teufel, Tod erlegt". The trumpets are silent in the middle section, dealing with the gifts of Jesus, "grace, sufficiency, abundant life". The aria may also be a parody, but the model is not known. The chorale is repeated from the cantata for Pentecost, Wer mich liebet, der wird mein Wort halten, BWV 59. The melody of the hymn for Pentecost "Komm, Heiliger Geist, Herre Gott" is set for four parts and three independent recorder parts, instead of strings in the earlier version, thus returning to the scoring of the beginning of the cantata.
