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This fourth book is the first of three concerned with the life of Christ, beginning with the nativity of Christ, from its advent through to the new year after. The fifth book examines the cantatas for Epiphany to Lent, and the sixth book the cantatas for Easter to Pentecost. This fourth book of the Bach cantatas series discusses the twenty-four cantatas for Advent, Christmas, New Year, and Epiphany, the six cantatas of the Christmas Oratorio, and one secular cantata. There are individual chapters on Advent, Christmas, the Feast of St. Stephen, and the Feast of John the Evangelist. I also include a chapter describing the life of Christ, as primarily found in the canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and a chapter on the Christian Bible. As Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) represents the finest ecclesiastical composer in the Western musical tradition, his religious works remain one of the tradition's most illuminating interpretations of sacred text and theology. Although the ritual and context within which Bach composed have changed or disappeared, the substance upon which they were based has not.

Within the music of Bach flows an intense awareness of our human condition, of our heart as the sibling of the soul. These commentaries are concerned with Bach's enabling artistry, its elemental contemplations, and the persistence of their relevance. It is a personal exploration. It is written for those who seek the same. In the cantatas for Trinity I through VII, the five aspects of the human condition that Bach dwells upon are first, the relationship of money to morality; second, the linkage between compassion and individual salvation; third, the influence of condemnation upon the sense of redemption; fourth, the correlation of identity and the need to understand otherness; and fifth, how the sacred is invested in the secular and are, thus, identical.