Johann Sebastian Bach: Oster-Oratorium (Easter Oratorio), BWV 249

The Easter Oratorio (Oster-Oratorium), BWV 249, is an oratorio beginning with Kommt, eilet und laufet („Come, hasten and run“). Bach composed it in Leipzig and first performed it on 1 April 1725. The first version of the work was completed as a cantata for Easter Sunday in Leipzig on 1 April 1725, then under the title Kommt, gehet und eilet. It was named „oratorio“ and given the new title only in a version revised in 1735. In a later version in the 1740s the third movement was expanded from a duet to a four-part chorus. The work is based on a secular cantata, the so-called Shepherd Cantata Entfliehet, verschwindet, entweichet, ihr Sorgen, BWV 249a which is now lost, although the libretto survives.