Cantata no. 133: Ich freue mich an dir, BWV.133

Ich freue mich in dir (I rejoice in You), BWV 133, is a church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. He composed the Christmas cantata in Leipzig in 1724 for the Third Day of Christmas and first performed it on 27 December 1724. It is based on the 1697 hymn of the same name by Caspar Ziegler. The cantata is part of Bach's chorale cantata cycle, the second cycle during his tenure as Thomaskantor that began in 1723. The hymn is among the most modern that Bach used within the cycle. Instead of dealing with the nativity story it is focused on an intimate relationship of the individual believer and the Christ child.

In the style of the chorale cantata cycle, an unknown poet retained the outer stanzas for framing choral movements and paraphrased the middle stanza into four movements for soloists, alternating arias and recitatives. In this case, two recitatives also end in the exact wording from the chorale.