Johann Sebastian Bach King of heaven, be most welcome

The cantata King of heaven, be most welcome BWV 182 holds a special place in Johann Sebastian Bach's biography. He had been employed as organist and chamber musician at the court of Weimar since 1708; on March 2 1714, he was appointed concert master of the court. With this new post came the responsibility of performing a new original cantata every four weeks at the church service of the Weimar court. Bach’s opening work was King of heaven, be most welcome. The cantata was first performed on Palm Sunday, March 25 1714, which also marked the annual celebration of the Feast of the Annunciation. The text of the cantata addresses both occasions, although the Palm Sunday event, with its focus on the Passion of Jesus, is the central theme.

The newly appointed concert master demonstrated his abilities in his debut composition of 1714: the eight movements contain a multitude of beautiful and rewarding challenges for choir and vocal soloists alike, and in addition there is the unusual attraction of a virtuoso solo part for the recorder.

Bach performed this cantata several times - always revising and amending it - both in Weimar and in Leipzig. This is the Weimar version of the cantata. Bach's performance material is bitonal: the recorder part is in B major (relative to the low chamber pitch), all other parts in G major (relative to choir pitch). Since the recorder part can only be played in B major on an F instrument, and B major would place the cantata in a very high register (at a1=440 Hz), this edition uses A major as the main key. For a performance at a1=440 Hz, a recorder tuned to a1=415 Hz can play its part in B major.

For the Leipzig version – where strings and woodwinds played at the same chamber pitch – Bach adapted the recorder part so that everyone could play in G major; this version is also available from Carus (31.182/50).