Bach’s two hundred cantatas – comprising large-scale works for soloists and chorus as well as solo cantatas – are amongst his greatest works. Intimately bound up with the Lutheran tradition, the sacred cantatas defy a generalised description such is their infinite variety, wealth of musical invention, technical mastery and religious devotion. Of particular interest are Vergnügte Ruh (Cantata No. 170), where for the first time Bach uses the organ as an obbligato instrument given its own line, and the extraordinarily poignant Widerstehe doch der Sünde (Cantata No. 54) with its clear denunciation and rejection of sin.