Using these translations

These texts and translations are made freely available for concert programs, recording notes, scholarly works, and course materials. We ask that you acknowledge the translators (Michael Marissen and Daniel R. Melamed) and this Web site (BachCantataTexts.org), and that you not make changes to the text or translation.

We encourage you to provide a link to the annotated versions by including the appropriate QR code in your program or recording, and a link to the relevant page (BachCantataTexts.org/BWVxxx).

We would love to hear about your use of these materials. Please consider sending us a note or a copy of a program through the "Contact" link above.

We are grateful for the assistance we have received in preparing these translations for the Web from Ben Kazez, Maggie Eronimous, Rachel Cisneros, and Elizabeth Hile.

All of the material on BachCantataTexts.org is also available in machine-readable form. 

We have added the text, translation, and notes for each work in JSON format, an encoding scheme that is readable both by people and by computers. It offers a way to incorporate the material into Web pages and other online and electronic resources. These representations can also be the starting point for machine-aided analysis. 

The JSON version of each text is available at BachCantataTexts.org/BWVxxx.json, for example http://BachCantataTexts.org/BWV4.json. Included are basic information about the work; links to resources on BachCantataTexts.org; and both plain text and html versions of text, translation, and notes. 

The formal definition of the Cantata object, the basic unit of the data, is available here. If you are new to JSON you can read about the fundamentals here. We would be especially interested to hear how people make use of this resource; please let us know about your work with it.