Cantata no. 170: Vergnügte Ruh, beliebte Seelenlust, BWV.170

Johann Sebastian Bach composed Vergnügte Ruh, beliebte Seelenlust (Delightful rest, beloved pleasure of the soul), BWV 170, a church cantata for the sixth Sunday after Trinity in Leipzig. It is a solo cantata for alto that he first performed on 28 July 1726.

Due to circumstances during Bach's first years as Thomaskantor in Leipzig, the cantata became his first extant contribution for the occasion, as part of his third cantata cycle. He took the text from Georg Christian Lehms' 1711 collection Gottgefälliges Kirchen-Opfer, which paraphrases the prescribed Gospel from the Sermon on the Mount. He set it in five movements, alternating arias and recitatives. A small Baroque ensemble features oboe d'amore and an obbligato organ besides strings and basso continuo.