Froher Tag, verlangte Stunden, BWV Anh. 18

Froher Tag, verlangte Stunden (Happy day, long hoped-for hours), BWV Anh. 18, is a cantata by J.S. Bach. He composed the work for the inauguration of a renovation of the Thomasschule, Leipzig. It was first performed on 5 June 1732. The music is lost but the words of Johann Heinrich Winckler survived.

In 1731 work began on the reconstruction of the school building, giving it two more storeys. The Bach family, along with other residents, had to move out for a year. On the Bachs' return they benefited from an enlarged apartment. The building is no longer extant.

The Thomasschule where Bach had his apartment

Libretto and structure

Winckler was a colleague of Bach at the Thomasschule. He was a versatile scholar whose interests included experimental physics, and he was later elected Fellow of the Royal Society.

The cantata has 10 movements. In the middle of the work there was a pause for speeches, rather as some church cantatas were performed before and after the sermon. The movements are as follows:

1. Froher Tag, verlangte Stunden
2. Wir stellen uns jetzt vor
3. Väter unsrer Linden-Stadt
4. Begierd und Trieb zum Wissen
5. So laßt uns durch Reden und Mienen entdecken
6. Geist und Seele sind begierig
7. So groß ist Wohl und Glück
8. Doch man ist nicht frey und los
9. Wenn Weisheit und Verstand
10. Ewiges Wesen, das alles erschafft

See also

Bach is believed to have reused the music of the lost cantata's first movement for the festive chorus which opens Lobet Gott in seinen Reichen, BWV 11.