Weeping, crying, sorrow, sighing BWV 12

Scoring: Soli ATB, Coro SATB, Ob, Fg, Tr, 2 Vl, 2 Va, Bc

On the 2nd March 1714 Bach, who until then had been employed as a chamber musician and organist at he Court of Duke Wilhelm Ernst in Weimar, was promoted to the position of concert master, and was instructed to relieve the ailing Kapellmeister Johann Samuel Drese by composing and performing "new pieces monthly" for the church. Following the cantata "Himmelskönig, sei willkommen, BWV 182, the present cantate was the second work which Bach composed under the terms of his new contract. The extraordinary musical ambition evident in the first Weimar cantatas may have had its roots in the fact htat Bach aspired to become Drese's successor as Court Kapellmeister.