(Soul with spirit is bewildered) for alto, oboe I+II, oboe da caccia, bassoon, organo obbligato, strings and continuo.

Bach’s alto cantata “Geist und Seele wird verwirret” (Soul with spirit is bewildered) BWV 35, composed for the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity, belongs to Bach’s most unusual sacred works. Composed to a libretto by the Darmstadt court librarian Georg Christian Lehms, it is one of Bach’s few solo cantatas. The lack of a choir is nonetheless magnificently compensated by the orchestration of strings and three oboes. More noteworthy, however, is that Bach uses the organ as a virtuosic solo instrument not only in the opening sinfonia, but in almost every movement. It has long been assumed that at least the two purely instrumental movements (and possibly the first aria of the cantata) were based upon a solo concerto – probably intended for oboe – that remains lost today. A nine-bar fragment in Bach’s hand of the same opening movement for harpsichord, oboe and strings (BWV 1059) is seen as further evidence of a lost concerto.