Tilge, Höchster, meine Sünden (Cancel, Highest, my sins, or: Lord, annul all my transgressions[1]), BWV 1083, is a sacred vocal composition by Johann Sebastian Bach.
While Bach named the work a Motetto in the autograph, it is rather a psalm cantata, scored for soprano and alto voices, strings and basso continuo.
[3] This setting was successful from the beginning, performed all over Europe and arranged frequently, for example by Johann Adam Hiller as a Passion cantata in 1774 to a translation of the original text by Klopstock.
The moods and "conceptual traits"[2] of the two texts are similar, but Bach moved Pergolesi's two movement preceding the Amen to an earlier position, having to abandon the key sequence in the process.
Where in Pergolesi's version the viola often plays in unison with the continuo, Bach increases the independence of this instrument, thus creating the four-part harmony typical of his own style.
[2] A set of parts for voices and instruments, missing a title page, was later found in the same library,[14] written by Johann Christoph Altnickol, with some amendments by Bach.
[2] As only a short manuscript was known then, it was assumed that Bach performed the work from the Pergolesi's original material, and a first publication by Hänssler in 1962 was based on this premise.