“Bist du bei mir”

A timeless love song featuring a beguiling and elegant melody, “Bist du bei mir” was included in a collection of keyboard works and songs commonly known as Anna Magdelena’s Second Notebook. The collection takes its name from that of Bach’s second wife, soprano Anna Magdelena Wilcke, who often worked as his copyist. The song itself is Bach’s arrangement of a popular aria using the same text from Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel’s 1718 opera Diomedes.