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Subject Area: Music
Subject Area: Religion

Cantata VII.: Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam. Feast of St John Baptist ( 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 VII.

Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam. Feast of St John Baptist (c. 1740)

lf1393-02_figure_075

Melody: “Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam”

? Johann Walther 1524

A Choral Cantata, on Luther’s Baptismal Hymn, “Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam.” It was written, probably, in 1541 and published as a broadsheet in that year.

The melody, “Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam,” or properly, “Es woll’ uns Gott genadig sein,” which Bach uses in the first and last movements, was published first in Johann Walther’s Geystliche gesangk Buchleyn (Wittenberg, 1524), where it is set to Luther’s Hymn, “Es woll’ uns Gott.” It may be attributed with great probability to Walther himself. From 1543 (Joseph Klug) it was attached to “Christ unser Herr.”

Bach uses the melody also in Cantata 176. There is another harmonisation of it in Choralgesange, No. 43. Organ Works, N. xvi. 62, 67.

(a)

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

  • Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam
  • Nach seines Vaters Willen,
  • Von Sanct Johann’s die Taufe nahm,
  • Sein Werk und Amt zu erfüllen;
  • Da wollt’ er stiften uns ein Bad,
  • Zu waschen uns von Sunden,
  • Ersaufen auch den bittern Tod
  • Durch sein selbst Blut und Wunden;
  • Es galt ein neues Leben.

  • B.G. i. 179.

English translations are noted in the Dictionary of Hymnology, p. 226.

Form. Choral Fantasia (2 Ob. d’amore, Violino concertante, Strings, Continuo). The cantus is with the Tenor1 .

(b)

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

  • Das Aug’ allein das Wasser sieht,
  • Wie Menschen Wasser giessen:
  • Der Glaub’ allein1 die Kraft versteht
  • Des Blutes Jesu Christi;
  • Und ist fur ihn ein’ rothe Fluth
  • Von Christi Blut gefärbet,
  • Die allen Schaden heilet gut2
  • Von Adam her geerbet,
  • Auch von uns selbst begangen.

  • B.G. i. 210.

Form. Simple (2 Ob. d’amore, Strings, Continuo). Choralgesange, No. 44.

[1 ] In this Chorus, Schweitzer remarks (ii. 363), Bach paints on a large scale the picture he had already sketched in the Choral Preludes upon the melody. The movement assumes the form of a Concerto grosso, the concertino consisting of a Solo Violin and two oboi d’amore (Spitta, iii. 103).

[1 ] 1543 im Geist.

[2 ] 1543 heilen thut.