Скачать или смотреть J.S. Bach: Chorale Prelude “Wachet Auf” [Re-Worked] (Synthesized)

This NEW version uses the *Music Animation Machine visualization.

Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, BWV 140 (“Awake, calls the voice to us” or “Sleepers Awake”) is a church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach, regarded as one of his most mature and popular sacred cantatas.

Bach composed this cantata to complete his second annual cycle of chorale cantatas, begun in 1724. The cantata is based on the hymn in three stanzas, "Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme" (1599) by the Lutheran pastor Philipp Nicolai, which covers the prescribed reading for the Sunday, the parable of the Ten Virgins. The text and tune of the hymn appears unchanged in movements 1, 4 and 7. An unknown author supplied poetry for the inner movements as sequences of recitative and duet, based on the love poetry of the “Song of Songs.”

It caught Bach’s attention during his golden Leipzig period. It wasn’t unusual for Bach to transform original melodies by other chorale and hymn-tune composers into his own works of art. Bach structured the cantata in seven movements, setting the new texts as dramatic recitatives and love-duets, similar to contemporary opera. The cantata contains a Biblical warning to be alert for the arrival of salvation, but Bach seems to have chosen to wake his sleepers with delightful sounds.

The most famous section of the cantata is the 4th movement, "Zion hört die Wächter singen" (Zion hears the watchmen singing), is based on the second verse of the chorale. It is written in the style of a chorale prelude, with the phrases of the piece, sung as a cantus firmus ("fixed song" - a specific melody forming the basis of a polyphonic composition) by the tenor(s), entering intermittently against a famously lyrical melody played in unison by the violins and the viola, accompanied by the basso continuo.

The first performance of this most beautiful of wake-up calls was on November 25, 1731 - the 27th Sunday after Trinity - the specific day for which the work was written to be performed. It is notable that there can be only 27 Sundays after Trinity in years when Easter falls early. As a result, this now famous cantata was, in fact, rarely heard in the years after it was written. Perhaps this is why Bach later used the beloved movement of the cantata (along with five other organ transcriptions he made from other cantata movements) as the basis for the 1st of his “Schübler Chorales” (BWV 645).

In my realization, I doubled the bass line and added low “Strings,” while turning the top line into high "Strings.” The middle melody line is comprised of a “Horn,” “Bells” and other emphasis.

*In this visualization, the high Strings are Orange, the Bass and low Strings are Pink/Mauve and the intermittent melody of the Horn and Bells are Turquoise.

As always, the use of headphones will greatly enhance the listening experience.