match extremely well with the texts chosen for the cantata, and it seems likely that hearers would have recognized Strecker in them". Structure and scoring Bach structured the cantata in seven movements. He scored the vocal parts for four soloists: soprano, alto, tenor and bass. The choral writing is in four parts, and the work can be sung with just four singers, the so-called OVPP approach. Some performances deploy more singers in the choral sections. The use of a larger choir is partly a question of balance with the relatively large instrumental forces, but there is also supporting evidence for the use of more than four singers in the score, where a marking implies that Bach envisaged the option of a vocal ensemble that is separate from the four soloists. This was Bach's first cantata for festive orchestra, including trumpets and timpani. The instruments are divided into four spatially separated "choirs", placing the work in the polychoral tradition associated with composers such as Heinrich Schütz. The instruments required for the Baroque instrumental ensemble are three trumpets (Tr), timpani (Ti), two recorders (Fl), two oboes (Ob), bassoon (Fg), organ obbligato (Org), two violins (Vl), viola (Va), violoncello (Vc), viola da gamba (Vg) and basso continuo. In the following table of the movements, the scoring follows the Neue Bach-Ausgabe. The keys are taken from Christoph Wolff, the time signatures from Alfred Dürr, using the symbol for common time (4/4). The continuo, playing throughout, is not shown. Music With short movements that flow into each other, the cantata shows typical characteristics of traditional 17th-century cantatas. Unlike other early cantatas, it has no instrumental introduction. John Eliot Gardiner, who conducted the Bach Cantata Pilgrimage in 2000 and performed this cantata in the Mühlhausen church where Bach was organist, notes: A model for such "theatrical splendour" were oratorios by Dieterich Buxtehude, performed in Bach's presence at the Lübeck in 1705. 1 The opening chorus, (God is my King from long ago), is based on Psalm 74:12. It begins with a chord in C major from the instruments. The first line is repeated separating sections and as a summary at the end, accompanied always by a trumpet fanfare. 2 An aria for tenor, (I am now eighty years old, why shall Your servant burden himself any more?) is complemented by a hymn, sung simultaneously by the soprano, (Should I upon this earth carry my life farther).