Illustration of the fire in Mühlhausen which is thought to have been the occasion for the commissioning by Georg Christian Eilmar, pastor of the Marienkirche, of the Cantata BWV 131.
Hans-Joachim Schulze points out that the alternative date associated with the penitential chorale , "Herr Jesu Christ, du höchstes Gut", would be the 11th Sunday after Trinity, September 4, 1707.
The illustration of the fire comes from the Muhlhauser Stadtchronik assembled by the artist Georg Andreas Sellman in 1790, and is the state archive in Mühlhausen. It is marked " Anno 1707 ...sind nebst der Kilians Kirchen 248 hausen abgebrand", "In the year 1707 248 houses were burned along with the St Kilians church".
There are more from the same source but few illustrations can have such an intimate connection in time to a Bach cantata.. |