Although the date of composition is uncertain, Bach's Cantata No. 9 "Wer mich libet, der wird mein Wort halten" (Who loves me, keeps my commandments) (BWV 59) was certainly written for the First Sunday of Pentecost, or Whitsunday, and was probably first performed in 1724. Bach incorporated his brief cantata—its five movements take only a little more than ten minutes to perform—as parts of his larger Whitsunday cantata from 1725, "Wer mich libet, der wird mein Wort halten" (BWV 74). The first movement sets a line from the Gospel According to St. John 14:23, the third movement sets a chorale by Martin Luther from 1524, and the other movements set a text drawn from Erdmann Neumeister's collection of cantata texts from 1714. The cantata is lightly scored for soprano and bass soloists, chorus, strings, basso continuo, and a pair of trumpets, plus tympani in the opening movement. "Wer mich libet, der wird mein Wort halten" is in C major, with its first and fourth movements in the tonic and its second, third, and fifth movements in the dominant of G major. The first movement, by far the largest of the cantata, is a duetto for the soprano and bass soloists in canon set against an increasingly rich orchestral texture above a walking continuo. The second movement is a recitative for soprano soloist, strings, and continuo that blossoms into a brief arioso in its final bars. The third is harmonization of Luther's chorale for chorus and strings colla parte. The fourth is an insistently rhythmic aria in the form of a trio sonata for bass soloist and solo violin plus continuo. The fifth and final chorale of "Wer mich libet, der wird mein Wort halten" is a repetition of the third movement with Neumeister's text instead of Luther's.

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