J. S. Bach's later Easter Oratorio in its first version is performed at the Nikolaikirche in Leipzig on Easter Sunday.

Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his prolific output across a variety of instruments and forms, including the orchestral Brandenburg Concertos; solo instrumental works such as the cello suites and sonatas and partitas for solo violin; keyboard works such as the Goldberg Variations and The Well-Tempered Clavier; organ works such as the Schübler Chorales and the Toccata and Fugue in D minor; and choral works such as the St Matthew Passion and the Mass in B minor. Since the 19th-century Bach Revival, he has been widely regarded as one of the greatest composers in the history of Western music.

The Easter Oratorio, BWV 249, is an oratorio by Johann Sebastian Bach. He wrote an autograph score in Leipzig in 1738 under this title, matching his Christmas Oratorio and Ascension Oratorio. Bach had already composed the work in 1725, when he used most of its music for two compositions, the congratulatory Shepherd Cantata, BWV 249a, and a church cantata for Easter Sunday, Kommt, gehet und eilet, BWV 249.3, that later became the oratorio. The two 1725 works, premiered a few weeks apart, are both musical dramas involving characters: in the secular cantata two shepherds and two shepherdesses, and in the Easter cantata four Biblical figures from the Easter narratives in the Gospel of Luke and other Evangelists. In the oratorio, Bach assigned the music to voice parts instead.

The St. Nicholas Church is one of the major churches of central Leipzig, Germany. Construction started in Romanesque style in 1165, but in the 16th century, the church was turned into a Gothic hall church. Baroque elements like the tower were added in the 18th century.