WORDS: Philipp Nicolai (1556-1608). "Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme." The words may have been inspired by a 1523 poem by Nuremberg’s Meistersinger Lutheran poet Hans Sachs (1494–1576). They were first published in Nicolai’s Freudenspiegel des Ewigen Lebens (Joyous Mirror of Eternal Life), 1599.
Translated from German to English by Catherine Winkworth, Lyra Germanica, second series (London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans and Roberts, 1858), pages 225–26.
MUSIC: Wachet auf, Philipp Nicolai, 1599. Harmony by Johann S. Bach, 1731. Additionally, the interlude and verse 3 contain portions of Zion hört die Wächter singen from Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme ('Awake, calls the voice to us'), BWV 140, also known as Sleepers Wake, 1731.
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