Bach-Sheep May Safely Graze arr. Noguchi (SP)-2-4M

Movement 9 from the ‘Hunting Cantata’ (BWV208), the earliest of Bach’s surviving secular cantatas. It is thought that Bach’s employer, William Ernest, the Duke of Saxe-Weimar ordered the poet Salomon Franck to write the text, and Bach to compose the music for this cantata to be given to the Duke’s friend Christian, the Duke of Saxe-Weissenfels. As a tribute to Duke Christian, a great lover of hunting, the characters who appear in the cantata are Diana (soprano), the goddess of the hunt, her lover Pan, the god of the wild, shepherds and flocks, and Pales, another deity of shepherds, flocks and livestock. Bach skillfully uses horns and recorders in the orchestration to evoke a rustic, pastoral scene.

• Number of players: 4
• Difficulty: Elementary/intermediate
• Instrumentation: This quartet can be played on two marimbas: Mar. 1-3 on 4 octave Marimba & Mar. 2-4 on 5 octave Marimba.