Der Herr denket an uns, BWV 196
church cantata by J. S. Bach
Der Herr denket an uns (The Lord is mindful of us), BWV 196, is a cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. The early church cantata, possibly for a wedding, is difficult to date, but is generally considered to be an early work on stylistic grounds. The text is a passage from Psalm 115, assuring of God's blessing, especially for children. Scholars have suggested the work may have been written for the wedding of Johann Lorenz Stauber, the minister in Dornheim who had married Bach and his first wife there in 1707, and Regina Wedemann, an aunt of Bach's wife, on 5 June 1708.
Bach structured the work in five movements – an instrumental Sinfonia, a chorus, an aria, a duet and a final chorus. He scored it for three vocal soloists, a four-part choir and a Baroque instrumental ensemble of strings and continuo.
History and words
The precise date of composition for this cantata is unknown, but it is generally considered to be an early work. The English Bach scholar Richard Jones notes that "although it survives only in a later manuscript copy", its stylistic features are evidence of an earlier date: its text comprises "selected psalm verses only, without any free madrigalian verse", it has no recitative, and the compositional approach "still breathes the air of the seventeenth century".
Many of Bach's later church cantatas were composed for the requirements of the liturgical calendar, but the early ones, including Der Herr denket an uns, were written for special occasions. The text is taken from Psalms 115:12-15, speaking of a thoughtful and blessing God.
“Der Herr denket an uns, BWV 196” enters the record as church cantata by J. S. Bach. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Herr, denket and church can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3013878. VIAF identifies the subject as 174272092. The Library of Congress control number is n94028443. None of the 2 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1707 and 1708.
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This entry incorporates text from “Der Herr denket an uns, BWV 196” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.