Not to be confused with another piece by the same title, the BWV 643 from

Das Orgelbüchlein, this work was one of 38 Bach chorales rediscovered in the Neumeister Collection that had been missing for two centuries. Musicologist Christoph Wolff found the manuscripts in the Yale Library in 1985, thus presenting the music world with a bevy of totally unknown Bach works. This one, Alle Menschen müssen sterben (All People Must Die), was probably written before 1708, the year Bach began work in the service of the Duke of Sachsen-Weimar. Despite what many modern-day observers would consider a morbid title, the music to this work is quite uplifting, even triumphant. Bach was a deeply religious man who viewed death as a liberating experience leading to eternal salvation for righteous believers. The music here depicts that optimistic feeling, building from its glorious, quite happy theme a sense of expectation and excitement. Sonorities begin to rise about midway through, eventually leading to a triumphant chordal statement of the theme at the close. Bach's contrapuntal writing throughout is inventive and highly atmospheric in this approximately three-minute work.

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