Verjaget, zerstreuet, zerrüttet, ihr Sterne (Dispel them, disperse them, you heavens),
BWV 249b, is a lost
cantata by
Johann Sebastian Bach. It was a birthday cantata composed for Joachim Friederich von Flemming, governor of Leipzig, and was first performed in
Leipzig on 25 August 1726. The cantata text was written by
Picander.[1]
The number assigned to Verjaget, zerstreuet, zerrüttet, ihr Sterne in the
BWV catalogue indicates that some twentieth-century scholars thought the work was related to the
Easter Oratorio BWV 249, which was first performed in 1725 at Easter.[2][3]
The case for this linkage is based on Bach's habit of recycling music for "one-off" occasions in a process called
parody. The Easter Oratorio is an example of parody, being based on a lost work,
Entfliehet, verschwindet, entweichet, ihr Sorgen, BWV 249a, premiered in February 1725. BWV 249a, like BWV 249b, was a birthday cantata with a text by Picander.
It has been possible to reconstruct the music of BWV 249a, matching the score of the Easter Oratorio to Picander's secular text. However, in the case of Verjaget, zerstreuet, zerrüttet, ihr Sterne there is no known reconstruction.