Geist und Seele wird verwirret (Spirit and soul become confused),[1] BWV 35, is a church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach.

He composed the solo cantata for alto voice in Leipzig for the twelfth Sunday after Trinity and first performed it on 8 September 1726.

The cantatas for this Sunday have a positive character, which Bach stressed in earlier works for the occasion by including trumpets in the score.

Both parts are opened by an instrumental sinfonia with solo organ, probably derived from concerto music composed earlier in Weimar or Köthen.

Bach scored the cantata for an alto soloist and a Baroque instrumental ensemble of two oboes (Ob), taille (Ot), obbligato solo organ (Org), two violins (Vl), viola (Va), and basso continuo (Bc).

John Eliot Gardiner, who conducted this work on the twelfth Sunday after Trinity in St. Jakob, Köthen as part of the Bach Cantata Pilgrimage with the Monteverdi Choir in 2000, calls the occasion "one of the most cheerful programmes of the whole Trinity season", leading Bach to compose "celebratory pieces", two with trumpets and timpani, and finally this one with an obbligato organ.

[4] The musicologist Laurence Dreyfus distinguished Bach's use of the organ as "sacred icon" versus "galant conversationalist", writing on Bach's "assimilation of the secular solo concerto into his church cantatas and his adjustment of the normal concerto principle, that of soloist-versus-orchestra, through subtle shifts in role playing, the instrument now posing as a soloist, now retreating into the background.

The organ performs both the solo melody and the continuo line, punctuated by quasi-cadenza passages and interspersed ten-measure ritornellos.

[2] The musicologist Klaus Hofmann notes that in the movement in Italian style, the theme is "subjected to intensive thematic working-out in the dialogue between solo instrument and orchestra".

[2] Hofmann observes that the organ, this time the only partner of the voice, is "rich in coloratura" and has a theme, "heard throughout the movement, sometimes in the manner of an ostinato, sometimes freely developed; in its figuration and motoric drive it is stylized just like Bach’s writing for the violoncello piccolo".

The organ interacts with the orchestra without a prelude, which is unusual in Bach's concertos, but not without precedent, such as the harpsichord concerto in F major, BWV 1057[2] Another secco recitative, "Ach, starker Gott, laß mich" (Ah, powerful God, let me [think upon this continually]),[1] is a prayer for the ability to always reflect on the miracle of creation.

[4] The cantata concludes with an aria with the complete orchestra, "Ich wünsche nur bei Gott zu leben" (I wish to live with God alone).