Soul and spirit are astounded BWV 35

Scoring: 3 Ob, Taille (Eh), Org o, 2 Vl, Va, Bc

The alto cantata "Geist und Seele wird verwirret" has seven movements; in the opening movements of the two parts of the cantata, a lost concerto by Bach survives in its original form, which he had arranged for organ. There is also an obbligato organ part in all the three arias, sometimes including virtuosic writing. Lehms takes the Gospel reading for the 12th Sunday after Trinity, which deals with the healing of a deaf and dumb person, and makes it apply more universally: God wants to open the ears of the faithful soul and loosen its tongue, so that it can praise his wonderful works. Unlike most of the other cantatas, in line with the text model Bach avoids the use of a choir for the concluding movement of the work.

The cantata was written for the 12th Sunday after Trinity which fell on 8 September 1726 in the year of its first performance. The text comes from the collection Gottgefälliges Kirchen-Opffer by Georg Christian Lehms, who was court poet and court librarian in Darmstadt. From his Weimar period onwards, Bach set several texts from this collection.