Look ye then and see now BWV 46

Scoring: Soli ATB, Coro SATB, 2 Blfl, 2 Obca, Tr da tirarsi, 2 Vl, Va, Bc

The opening chorus of the cantata "Schauet doch und sehet" (Look ye then and see now) is one of those movements by Bach which are much better known in their later guise: the first part of it became the "Qui tollis" of the Mass in B minor. But this movement is not the only high point of the cantata from Bach’s earliest Leipzig period. Both the arias are also unusual: a bass aria depicting God’s anger dramatically as a thundering storm, with strings and slide trumpet, which gives the movement a very special colour through its unexpected notes beyond the instrument’s natural series, and an alto aria with two recorders, accompanied by just two oboi da caccia in unison, which take the role of the continuo as "little basset instruments". Music almost not of this world!