Chorale Prelude 'Wachet Auf Ruf Uns Die Stimme', BWV 645
Johann Sebastian Bach published his Chorale Prelude Wachet Auf Ruf Uns Die Stimme', BWV 645, around 1748 as part of his Six Chorales of Various Kinds. These six works for organ are based on cantatas. They provided an approachable version of Bach's cantatas through the more accesible medium of keyboard music, and the fact that Bach chose to edit these (while the rest of his cantatas remained largely unpublished during his lifetime), says something about the musical statement that they represented. This particular Chorale Prelude was based on the BWV 140 cantata, in turn based on the text to Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme (Awake, the voice is calling), a Lutheran hymn written in German by Philipp Nicolai, first published in 1599. They hym appears in German hymnals and in several English hymnals in translations such as Wake, Awake, for Night Is Flying. Several other composed set this text to music, such as Bach's own son, Christoph Frierich, Buxtehude, Reger, Blendinger, and others.
