Werk BWV 249

The Easter Oratorio ( 1] BWV 249,[a] is an oratorio by Johann Sebastian Bach.[2] He wrote an autograph score in Leipzig in 1738 under this title, matching his Christmas Oratorio and Ascension Oratorio. Bach had already composed the work in 1725, when he used most of its music for two compositions, the congratulatory Shepherd Cantata, BWV 249a (BWV 249.1), and a church cantata for Easter Sunday, Kommt, gehet und eilet ('Come, go and hurry'), BWV 249.3, that later became the oratorio. The two 1725 works, premiered a few weeks apart, are both musical dramas involving characters: in the secular cantata two shepherds and two shepherdesses, and in the Easter cantata four Biblical figures from the Easter narratives in the Gospel of Luke and other Evangelists. In the oratorio, Bach assigned the music to voice parts instead.