Fret thee not, thou mortal soul

Bach was not able to use his Weimar Advent cantata “Fret thee not, thou mortal soul” BWV 186a in Leipzig, as there was no performance of church music there between the first Sunday of Advent and Christmas. So he expanded and revised the cantata during his first year in Leipzig and performed it for the first time in its new form on the seventh Sunday after Trinity 1723. Only a libretto survives from the original Weimar form of the work. Starting from the Weimar text and Bach’s Leipzig score, Diethard Hellmann has created a reconstruction of Bach’s sole known cantata for the 3rd Sunday of Advent. / Bach’s Leipzig version of the cantata is available separately (Carus 31.186/50).