Welt adieu, ich bin dein müde

The cantata Welt adieu, ich bin dein müde is intended for the 24th Sunday after Trinity, being part of the end of the church year. Based on the scribes of the handwritten set of parts, the editor assumes that it was performed around 1720. The cantata therefore falls into the last years of Kuhnau’s life and can also be considered a kind of “swan song” of Kuhnau’s due to its fitting theme of death and eternity. It is also one of only two surviving pure choral cantatas, even if others are also partly based on chorales.

The text of the chorale used was written by Johann Georg Albinus (1624–1679), a priest and rector of the cathedral school in Naumburg. He wrote it for the funeral of a daughter of the St. Thomas school rector Abraham Teller in 1649. For the current edition, three of the five vocal parts that were missing from the set of parts were added by the editor. The alternation between “tutti” and “solo” passages in the opening and closing movements suggest the scoring of a choir. Due to its length and manageable orchestration, this cantata is also ideally suited for performance in a church service.