Bach composed the cantata in his fourth year as Thomaskantor (musical director) in Leipzig. The text is based on the day's prescribed reading from the Gospel of Mark, the healing of a deaf mute man. The librettist is Georg Christian Lehms, whose poetry Bach had used already in Weimar as the basis for solo cantatas. The text quotes ideas from the gospel and derives from these the analogy that as the tongue of the deaf mute man was opened, the believer should be open to admire God's miraculous deeds. The cantatas for this Sunday have a positive character, which Bach stressed in earlier works for the occasion by including trumpets in the score. In this work, he uses instead an obbligato solo organ in several movements.
Original Name | Geist und Seele wird verwirret |
Librettist | Georg Christian Lehms (1684–1717) (partly based on a lost oboe concerto (see BWV 1059R)) |
Date of composition | 1726 |
Premiered | 1726, September 8th in Leipzig, Germany |
First published | 1857 (BGA) |
Dedicated to | 12th Sunday after Trinity |
Type | Sacred Cantata |
Tonality | D Minor |
Catalogue | BWV 35 |
Spoken language | German |
Instruments |
Voice
Orchestra |
Links | |
Autotranslations beta |
Jean-Sébastien Bach: Spirit and soul become confused en ré mineur, BWV 35 Johann Sebastian Bach: Spirit and soul become confused in re minore, BWV 35 Johann Sebastian Bach: Spirit and soul become confused d-moll, BWV 35 |