Bach cantata cantatas are assumed to date from this period: Bach worked in Weimar from 1708. He composed a secular cantata Was mir behagt, ist nur die muntre Jagd, BWV 208 in 1713. The composition of cantatas for the (court chapel) on a regular monthly basis started with his promotion to in March 1714. His goal was to compose a complete set of cantatas for the liturgical year within four years. Cantatas 54 and 199 were performed within the cycle but possibly composed earlier. Bach worked in Köthen from 1717 to 1723, where he composed for example the "Brandenburg concertos". He had
Brandenburg Concertos of silver. The autograph manuscript of the concertos was only rediscovered in the archives of Brandenburg by Siegfried Wilhelm Dehn in 1849; the concertos were first published in the following year. The manuscript was nearly lost in World War II, when being transported for safekeeping to Prussia by train in the care of a librarian. The train came under aerial bombardment, and the librarian escaped the train to the nearby forest, with the scores hidden under his coat. In the modern era these works have been performed by orchestras with the string parts each played by a number of players,