Advent III
Sunday 14 December 2025

Advent III or Gaudete, is the second Sunday before Christmas. Again there is officially no cantata for this day because of Tempus Clausum observed in Leipzig (no music in mass), so the only possible cantatas come from Bach''s Weimar period, where Tempus Clausum was not observed during Advent.

The cantata we know of, BWV 186a - Ärgre dich, o Seele, nicht, was first performed in Weimar, December 13th 1716. But just like with the cantata for Advent II, that score did not survive. So we stick to BWV 186, an expansion on the original that Bach created in Leipzig for Trinitatis VII (in the middle of summer!).

But in order to give you more than one cantata to listen to today, I''d like to add a cantata I only recently (november 2025) became aware of: Die Freude reget sich, BWV 36b. It is not a cantata for Advent III but one for which the reason is not known, so I can reuse it here.

Reason that I did not know this cantata until now is that it is a reconstructed cantata, part of the Schwingt freudig euch empor, BWV 36 family of cantatas - several cantatas that are parodies of one another, as I explained two weeks ago on Advent I.

It is not exactly known when this cantata was first performed; there are assumptions that it may have been for the appointment of Johann Florenz Rivinius (to whom the text pays hommage to) as rector of Leipzig University in May 1739.

The libretto is by Picander who used most of it for an earlier BWV 36 variation, Steigt freudig in die Luft, BWV 36a (from 1726), which is lost.

Music for today

• Ärgre dich, o Seele, nicht, BWV 186a
  (first performance 13 December 1716, Weimar period)
• Die Freude reget sich, BWV 36b
  (first performance May 1739, Leipzig period)