Bist du bei mir (en: "Be thou with me") (BWV 508) is an aria by the German composer Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel. The piece is often mistakenly attributed to Johann Sebastian Bach due to its inclusion in the 1725 Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach. The aria was part of the Stölzel opera Diomedes, oder die triumphierende Unschuld that was performed in Bayreuth on November 16, 1718. The opera score is lost. The aria had been part of the Berlin Singakademie music library and was considered lost in the Second World War, until it was rediscovered in 2000 in the Kiev Conservatory. The continuo part of BWV 508 is more agitated and continuous in its voice leading than the Stölzel aria; it is uncertain who provided it, as the entry in the Notebook is by Anna Magdalena Bach herself. In an essay in the Bach-Jahrbuch 2002, Andreas Glöckner speculates that either she obtained the song from the inventory of the Leipzig Opera that had gone bankrupt in 1720, or that it simply was a favourite known to nearly everybody in Leipzig that was particularly suitable for Hausmusik.

The sheet music of the Stölzel aria is made available as a microfiche.

The piece has become a very popular choice for wedding ceremonies and other such occasions. It was featured in the 2005 French film Joyeux Noël, accompanied by piano, violins, and cello.

Text
Bist du bei mir, geh' ich mit Freuden zum Sterben und zu meiner Ruh'. Ach, wie vergnügt wär' so mein Ende, es drückten deine lieber Hände mir die getreuen Augen zu! English translation: Be Thou with me, then I will go gladly unto death and to my rest. Ah, what a pleasant end for me, if your dear hands be the last I see, closing shut my faithful eyes to rest!

The above text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License ( creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ ). It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Bist du bei mir" ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bist_du_bei_mir ).