In 1723, Bach wrote a setting of the Magnificat text for Christmas, and incorporated additional appropriate seasonal texts. About seven years later, between 1730 and 1732, Bach recast the work to expand it's usefulness. He dropped the key down to D Major – eliminating the rarely available E-Flat trumpets – omitted the Christmas texts so it could be performed at Easter and Pentecost (the other traditional times for a "Magnificat" performance), and replaced recorders with flutes to cut through the dense texture and better balance the colorful German oboes and D trumpets.

This major revision left only about 40 measures untouched. The result is among Bach's finer and more extrovert works, joyfully utilizing the Baroque effect of colorful word painting.

Excerpt from Magnificat “Omnes generationes”
 - Live Performance
Scranton Singers’ Guild - Greater Hazleton Oratorio Society
Sinfonia da camera, Robert L. Edwards - 1982 

(If the performance excerpt does not begin to play automatically within 30 seconds, you can click this link. Magnificat Omnes .)

This portrait, a pastel by Meiningen, is likely a more accurate representation of how J.S.Bach actually looked.

The Leipzig church, Thomaskirke, where Bach spent the last third of his life, and where the Magnificat was first performed, is still in active use. A newly built second organ (based on a Bach design) is featured in regular concerts.