COME, SWEET DEATH, COME BLESSED REST-A MEDITATION

Komm, süßer Tod, komm selge Ruh (Come, Sweet Death, Come Blessed Rest) is originally a song that was written for solo voice and basso continuo in the 69 Sacred Songs and Arias that the great Johann Sebastian Bach contributed to Georg Christian Schemelli’s Musicalisches Gesangbuch (BWV 478), 1736. The music, at first sombre but then ecstatically moving, expresses the longing for the joy and light of the Kingdom of Heaven in the presence of Jesus and all the angels. Come, sweet death, come blessed res