Werk BWV 79

Gott der Herr ist Sonn und Schild ('God the Lord is sun and shield'), BWV 79, is a church cantata for Reformation Day by Johann Sebastian Bach. He composed it in 1725, his third year in the position of Thomaskantor in Leipzig, and led the first performance on 31 October that year. It is possibly his first cantata for the occasion. He used most of the music for two of his four short masses in the 1730s.