Johann Sebastian Bach Geist und Seele wird verwirret

Part I

1 Concerto

2 Aria

Soul and spirit are astounded
when your might, my God, I see.
All the wonders now beholding
which the folk with joy are greeting,
wholly deaf and dumb are made.

3 Recitativo

I stand in awe;
for ev’ry thing we see
does give us cause to wonder.
I look at you,
oh precious Son of God;
then understanding and all reason flees.
You are so strong,
you make a miracle seem but an easy task,
you are in duty,
name and deed so truly wonderful;
there is no thing on earth that can compare to you.

Erster Teil

1 Concerto

2 Aria (Alto)

Geist und Seele wird verwirret,
wenn sie dich, mein Gott, betracht't.
Denn die Wunder, so sie kennet
und das Volk mit Jauchzen nennet,
hat sie taub und stumm gemacht.

3 Recitativo (Alto)

Ich wundre mich;
denn alles, was man sieht,
muss uns Verwundrung geben.
Betracht ich dich,
du teurer Gottessohn,
so flieht
vernunft und auch Verstand davon.
Du machst es eben,
dass sonst ein Wunderwerk vor dir was Schlechtes ist.
Du bist dem Namen,
Tun und Amte nach erst wunderreich,

Foreword of the Edition Carus 31.035/03

Ulrich Leisinger
Translation: David Kosviner

Johann Sebastian Bach’s contralto cantata Geist und Seele wird verwirret (Soul and spirit are astounded) BWV 35 was composed for the 12th Trinity Sunday which, in the year of its fi rst performance, in 1726, fell on 8 September. The text was taken from the 1711 collection Gottgefälliges Kirchen-Opffer by Georg Christian Lehms, a court poet and court librarian in Darmstadt. Since his time in Weimar, Bach had set several texts from this collection.

The cantata has seven movements. The opening movements of the two sections of the cantata seem, by all appearances, to consist of the first and last movements of a Bach concerto which in its original form has been lost and which he arranged for organ in this cantata. Bach also intended to arrange the concerto – possibly an oboe concerto from his Cöthen years – for piano and orchestra (BWV 1059), but discontinued work on this project after only a few measures. In all three arias of the cantata, the organ is also deployed as an obbligato instrument, with some virtuoso passages.

Lehms’s comparatively old but nevertheless tasteful cantata text universalizes the gospel reading