Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme (Awake, calls the voice
to us), BWV 140, also known as Sleepers Wake, is a
church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. He composed
the chorale cantata in Leipzig for the 27th Sunday
after Trinity and first performed it on 25 November
1731. It is based on the hymn "Wachet auf, ruft uns die
Stimme" (1599) by Philipp Nicolai. Movement 4 of the
cantata is the base for the first of Bach's Schübler
Chorales, BWV 645. The cantata is a late addition to
Bach's cycle of chora...(+)
Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme (Awake, calls the voice
to us), BWV 140, also known as Sleepers Wake, is a
church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. He composed
the chorale cantata in Leipzig for the 27th Sunday
after Trinity and first performed it on 25 November
1731. It is based on the hymn "Wachet auf, ruft uns die
Stimme" (1599) by Philipp Nicolai. Movement 4 of the
cantata is the base for the first of Bach's Schübler
Chorales, BWV 645. The cantata is a late addition to
Bach's cycle of chorale cantatas, featuring additional
poetry for two duets of Jesus and the Soul which expand
the theme of the hymn.
Bach composed the cantata in Leipzig for the 27th
Sunday after Trinity. This Sunday occurs only when
Easter is extremely early. The prescribed readings for
the Sunday were from the First Epistle to the
Thessalonians, be prepared for the day of the Lord (1
Thessalonians 5:1–11), and from the Gospel of
Matthew, the parable of the Ten Virgins (Matthew
25:1–13). The chorale cantata is based on the
Lutheran hymn in three stanzas, "Wachet auf, ruft uns
die Stimme" of Philipp Nicolai, which is based on the
Gospel. Bach composed the cantata to complete his cycle
of chorale cantatas which he had begun in 1724. The
text of the three stanzas appears unchanged in
movements 1, 4 and 7, while an unknown author supplied
poetry for movements 2 and 3, 5 and 6, both a sequence
of recitative and duet. He refers to the love poetry of
the Song of Songs, showing Jesus as the bridegroom of
the Soul. According to Christoph Wolff, the text was
already available when Bach composed his cycle of
chorale cantatas.
Bach performed the cantata only once, in Leipzig's main
church Nikolaikirche on 25 November 1731. According to
Christoph Wolff, Bach performed it only this one time,
although the 27th Sunday after Trinity occurred one
more time during his tenure in Leipzig, in 1742. He
used movement 4 of the cantata as the base for the
first of his Schübler Chorales, BWV 645.
In the modern three-year Revised Common Lectionary, the
reading is scheduled for Proper 27, or the 32nd Sunday
in Ordinary Time, in the first year of the three-year
cycle of lessons. Thus, the hymn and the cantata are
commonly performed in churches on that Sunday. The text
and its eschatological themes are also commonly
associated with the early Sundays of the season of
Advent, and so the cantata is commonly performed during
that season.
The first movement is a chorale fantasia based on the
first verse of the chorale, a common feature of Bach's
earlier chorale cantatas. It is in E-flat major. The
cantus firmus is sung by the soprano. The orchestra
plays independent material mainly based on two motifs:
a dotted rhythm and an ascending scale "with syncopated
accent shifts". The lower voices add in unusually free
polyphonic music images such as the frequent calls
"wach auf!" (wake up!) and "wo, wo?" (where, where?),
and long melismas in a fugato on "Halleluja".
The second movement is a recitative for tenor as a
narrator who calls the "Töchter Zions" (daughters of
Zion). In the following duet with obbligato violino
piccolo, the soprano represents the Soul and the bass
is the vox Christi (voice of Jesus).
The third verse as the closing chorale
The fourth movement, based on the second verse of the
chorale, is written in the style of a chorale prelude,
with the phrases of the chorale, sung as a cantus
firmus by the tenors (or by the tenor soloist),
entering intermittently against a famously lyrical
melody played in unison by the violins (without the
violino piccolo) and the viola, accompanied by the
basso continuo. Bach later transcribed this movement
for organ (BWV 645), and it was subsequently published
along with five other transcriptions Bach made of his
cantata movements as the Schübler Chorales.
The fifth movement is a recitative for bass,
accompanied by the strings. It pictures the unity of
the bridegroom and the "chosen bride". The sixth
movement is another duet for soprano and bass with
obbligato oboe. This duet, like the third movement, is
a love duet between the soprano Soul and the bass
Jesus. Alfred Dürr describes it as giving "expression
to the joy of the united pair", showing a "relaxed
mood" in "artistic intensity".
The closing chorale is a four-part setting of the third
verse of the hymn. The high pitch of the melody is
doubled by a violino piccolo an octave higher,
representing the bliss of the "heavenly Jerusalem".
Although the cantata was originally scored for three
soloists—soprano, tenor and bass—, a four-part
choir, horn, two oboes, taille, violino piccolo, two
violins, viola, and basso continuo, I created this
arrangement for Winds (Bb Trumpet, French Horn, flute,
Oboe, Bb Clarinet, English Horn & Bassoon) & Strings (2
Violins, Viola & Cello).
PARTITION