Abstract

The author investigates Bach’s c.1728 New Year’s cantata as a prism for perennial anxieties – fire, disease and war – tracing their shifting meanings from urban conflagration, early modern contagion and 18th‑century conflicts to contemporary threats: climate change, antimicrobial resistance and globalised warfare. Drawing on historical sources, public reports and institutional critiques, the study links cultural expression to political trust, administrative failure and social resilience, and argues for subsidiarity-based, institutional and individual responses to systemic risks.