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Subject Area: Music
Subject Area: Religion

Cantata I.: Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern 1 . Feast of the Annunciation of the B.V.M. ( c. 1740) - Johann Sebastian Bach, Bach’s Chorals, vol. 2 The Hymns and Hymn Melodies of the Cantatas and Motetts [1917]

Edition used:

Bach’s Chorals. Part I: 2 The Hymns and Hymn Melodies of the Cantatas and Motetts, by Charles Sanford Terry (Cambridge University Press, 1915-1921). 3 vols. Vol. 2.

Part of: Bach’s Chorals, 3 vols.

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Cantata I.

Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern1 . Feast of the Annunciation of the B.V.M. (c. 1740)

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Melody: “Wie schon leuchtet der Morgenstern”

? Philipp Nicolai 1599

A Choral Cantata, upon Philipp Nicolai’s Hymn, “Wie schon leuchtet der Morgenstern,” founded on Psalm xlv, first published, with the melody, in Nicolai’s Frewden Spiegel dess ewigen Lebens (Frankfort a. Main, 1599). The Hymn was written during the plague of 1597. The initial letters of its seven stanzas (W.E.G.U.H.Z.W.) stand for “Wilhelm Ernst Graf und Herr zu Waldeck,” Nicolai’s former pupil.

Nicolai was born at Mengeringhausen in 1556. He was educated at Erfurt and Wittenberg, and in 1601 became chief pastor of St Katherine’s Church, Hamburg. He died there in 1608.

It is improbable that Nicolai composed the melody. Probably he adjusted it to the Hymn. The secular love song, “Wie schon leuchten die Aeugelein,” is of later date; therefore the tune cannot be regarded as a secular one transferred to the Hymn. It bears a partial resemblance to that of the fourteenth century Carol, “Resonet in laudibus.”

The melody also occurs in Cantatas 36, 37, 49, 61, and 172. There is another harmonisation of it in the Choralgesange, No. 375, where, for the second part of the melody, Bach follows Gottfried Vopelius’ reconstruction of the tune, in his Neu Leipziger Gesangbuch (Leipzig, 1682 [1681]). Organ Works, Novello, xix. 23.

(a)

The words of the opening movement are the first stanza of Nicolai’s Hymn:

  • Wie schon leuchtet der Morgenstern
  • Voll Gnad’ und Wahrheit von dem Herrn,
  • Die susse Wurzel Jesse!
  • Du Sohn Davids aus Jacobs Stamm,
  • Mein König und mein Brautigam,
  • Hast mir mein Herz besessen;
  • Lieblich, freundlich,
  • Schön und herrlich, gross und ehrlich,
  • Reich von Gaben,
  • Hoch und sehr prachtig erhaben.

  • B.G. i. 1.

English translations of the Hymn are noted in the Dictionary of Hymnology, pp. 807, 1727.

Form. Choral Fantasia (2 Corni, 2 Oboi da caccia, Strings, Continuo1 ).

(b)

The words of the concluding Choral are the seventh stanza of Nicolai’s Hymn:

  • Wie bin ich doch so herzlich froh,
  • Dass mein Schatz ist das A und O,
  • Der Anfang und das Ende;
  • Er wird mich doch zu seinem Preis
  • Aufnehmen in das Paradeis,
  • Dess klopf’ ich in die Hande.
  • Amen! Amen!
  • Komm du schone Freudenkrone,
  • Bleib’ nicht lange,
  • Deiner wart’ ich mit Verlangen.

  • B.G. i. 51.

Form. Embellished (2 Corni, 2 Ob. da caccia, Strings, Continuo). Choralgesange, No. 378.

[1 ] An English version of the Cantata, “How brightly shines,” is published by Novello & Co.

[1 ] See Spitta, iii. 101.