Kantate, BWV 187 "Es wartet alles auf dich"

Johann Sebastian Bach composed the church cantata Es wartet alles auf dich (Everything waits for You), BWV 187 in Leipzig for the seventh Sunday after Trinity and first performed it on 4 August 1726.

The text came from a 1704 libretto cycle published in Meiningen, following a symmetrical pattern in seven movements, which opens with a quotation from the Old Testament, is focused on a central quotation from the New Testament, and ends with a closing chorale. Symmetrical recitatives and arias form the other movements. Bach set the opening as a chorus based on two verses from Psalm 104, set the central movement as a bass solo on a quotation from the Sermon on the Mount, and concluded with two stanzas from Hans Vogel's hymn "Singen wir aus Herzensgrund" in a four-part setting. The arias and recitatives are performed by three vocal soloists. The cantata is scored for a Baroque instrumental ensemble of two oboes, strings and continuo.

Bach later used the music from four movements of this cantata for his Missa in G minor, BWV 235.