interpolations Before Glöckner's 2003 article on the origin of the Magnificat, and for some authors still after that, it was generally assumed that Bach had composed his Magnificat in the quiet time of Advent 1723 for a first performance at the Christmas vespers. For that performance Bach composed four laudes, songs of praise partly in German, partly in Latin to be inserted at certain points in the E-flat major version of the Magnificat. The E-flat major version of the Magnificat including these interpolations is known as BWV 243.1 (previously BWV 243a). The text of these laudes had been used in Leipzig in a Christmas cantata by Bach's predecessor Kuhnau. Possibly those settings in C major of the same four texts as the laudes Bach had included in his Christmas Magnificat were not a self-contained cantata, but laudes Kuhnau had composed for insertion in his C major Magnificat when it was to be performed at Christmas. These laudes illustrate what the Gospels describe as the circumstances around Christ's birth, and were embedded in an old tradition named (rocking of the cradle). As these laudes were to be performed with a very limited accompaniment of instruments, they were supposedly performed from the small loft in the high choir of the Thomaskirche, opposite to the large organ loft where the other movements of the Magnificat were performed. The autograph of the E-flat major version of the Magnificat (BWV 243.1) suggests that Bach intended to perform the first version of his Magnificat also without the laudes, depending on circumstances, for example on other feasts than Christmas. Other Magnificats by Bach? Bach's Nekrolog, the 1754 obituary written by Johann Friedrich Agricola and the composer's son Carl Philipp Emanuel, mentions that the composer wrote several Magnificats. Apart from the extant copies of the Latin Magnificat BWV 243, of the German Magnificat BWV 10 and of the chorale harmonisation BWV 324, a Magnificat for soprano solo was considered lost in the 19th century. The score of that so-called "little" Magnificat () was rediscovered in the 20th century, and listed as however, its authenticity was doubted. In 1982 Melchior Hoffmann was identified as the composer of this German Magnificat Meine Seel erhebt den Herren. A similar cantata on a German paraphrase of the Magnificat, Meine Seele rühmt und preist, BWV 189 for tenor solo and composed for Visitation, has also been attributed to Hoffmann. Another German libretto paraphrasing