• Wedding Cantata
• Editions: NBA I/40

The cantata BWV 216 comes to us in fragmentary form, only the soprano and alto parts surviving. However, BWV 216/3 is parody of BWV 204/8 and BWV 216/7 is a parody of BWV 205/13, so all is not lost. The cantata was written for the wedding of Johann Heinrich Wolff and Susanna Regina Hempel in 1728 and features the happy banter betweeen the river Pleiße (on which Leipzig, the home of the bridegroom, stands) and the  river Neiße (on which Zittau, the home of the bride, stands). I'm not aware of any reconstruction of this work (Dürr reports on an edition due to Schumann and Wolffheim dating from the 1920's but says that it can't claim to be a reconstruction) and certainly not of any recording. If you want to see what's left, refer to NBA I/40.

Copyright © 1999, Simon Crouch.