Glory to God in the highest

Only the text and the last page of the autograph score of the Christmas Cantata “Glory to God in the highest” BWV 197.1 (197a) have survived, beginning with the end of the 2nd aria. This, along with the complete surviving 3rd aria are found in parody versions in the Wedding Cantata BWV 197 / BWV3 197.2, from which this cantata takes its BWV number. For a long time there has been a fascinating theory about the missing opening chorus: could this have been the parody source for the Gloria in the “Mass in B minor”? The musicologist and organist Pieter Dirksen has pursued this, creating a four-part choral version largely derived from corrections made in the autograph of the “Mass in B minor”. He has underlaid this with the text of the opening chorus (the German translation of the Gloria). What results is a convincing version of the Christmas Cantata – with one of Bach’s best-known choruses as the prominent opening chorus and plausible solutions for the other sections missing in the autograph. This is a reconstruction of the incompletely preserved Christmas cantata BWV3 197.1. The wedding cantata BWV3 197.2, in which Bach re-used two movements from the Christmas cantata, has been published as Carus 31.197/50.