The Golden Dance Store







The Golden Dance Store offers high-quality handbell sheet music for solo and ensemble ringers at a reasonable cost, as well as Michèle's CDs, DVDs, instructional videos, & accompaniment tracks.


Bist Du Bei Mir
from The Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach, BWV 508
 probably by Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel
often attributed to Johann Sebastian Bach
arr. by Michèle Sharik

In the days before photocopy machines and copyright laws, it was common practice for musicians to hand-copy music into a personal notebook — similar to the jazz "fake books" of today. In the case of a performer, the music was copied as part of their performance repertoire; in the case of a composer, it was copied as a way to study the work.

Despite its inclusion in The Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach, scholars believe that Bist Du Bei Mir was not composed by J. S. Bach (1685-1750), but rather by Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel (1690-1749), another German composer, most of whose works have been lost. Bach was said to have had great respect for St&oum;lzel who was known to be a prolific composer in nearly every genre of the Baroque era and Bach's familiarity with his music may account for the inclusion of this piece in the notebook for his second wife, transcribed as a solo aria appropriate for her voice. The text of the song is by an unknown poet and is very moving:
If you are with me, I will gladly go to my death and to my rest.
Oh, how happy my end would be if your dear hand would close my faithful eyes.
Bist Du Be Mir


Note: This is PDF sheet music that you must download and print after purchasing.



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File size 3,363 kb
Please review our License Agreement before downloading
  • Instrumentation: Solo handbells with string trio (violin, viola, & cello);
    or with piano (or harp)
  • Key: Eb major
  • Bells Used: D5-Ab6
  • Price: $10.00
  • Date last updated: Feb 08, 2008
  • ASCAP Reference Number: 655360
  • ASCAP Title Code: 020070933
  • Catalog Number: TGD1008

Sheet Music
What do you get when you download this music?
  • a full score (showing both handbell and string parts);
  • a "clean" copy (ie. no choreography) of the solo handbell part;
  • a copy of the solo handbell part with suggested choreography written in;
  • parts for each of the string instruments (violin, viola, & cello);
  • a piano reduction score for performance with keyboard (or harp) rather than string trio;
  • a copy of our License Terms.
Included on the CD Chimera

Chimera CD

Listen to an excerpt! Listen to an excerpt!