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Subject Area: Music
Subject Area: Religion

Cantata LXXIX.: Gott, der Herr, ist Sonn’ und Schild 1 . For the Reformation Festival (? 1735) - 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 LXXIX.

Gott, der Herr, ist Sonn’ und Schild1 . For the Reformation Festival (? 1735)

lf1393-02_figure_154

Melody: “Nun danket alle Gott”

Johann Cruger 1648

(a)

The melody of the third movement is Johann Cruger’s “Nun danket alle Gott,” first published, with Martin Rinkart’s Hymn, in the 1648 (Berlin) edition of the Praxis Pietatis Melica. The tune appears there anonymously; but in the 1653 Cruger-Runge Geistliche Lieder und Psalmen Crüger’s initials are attached to it. It has been conjectured to be an adaptation by Crüger of a melody either by Rinkart, who was a good musician, or Luca Marenzio, a choirmaster at Rome, who died in 1598.

The melody occurs also in Cantata 192 and in the third of the “Drei Choräle zu Trauungen” (Choralgesange, No. 258). There is another harmonisation of the tune in the Choralgesänge, No. 257. Organ Works, N. xvii. 40. Bach’s text is invariable.

The words of the movement are the first stanza of Martin Rinkart’s Hymn, first published in 1648 (supra).

Rinkart was born at Eilenburg in 1586. He became a chorister of St Thomas’ Church, Leipzig, was briefly Cantor at Eisleben, and in 1617 was appointed Archidiaconus at Eilenburg. He died in 1649. His Hymn of Thanksgiving (“Lobund Danklied”) is founded on Ecclesiasticus l. 22-24:

  • Nun danket Alle Gott
  • Mit Herzen, Mund und Handen,
  • Der grosse Dinge thut
  • An uns und allen Enden,
  • Der uns von Mutterleib’
  • Und Kindesbeinen an
  • Unzahlig viel zu gut,
  • Und noch jetzo gethan!

  • B.G. xviii. 308.

Translations of the Hymn into English are noted in the Dictionary of Hymnology, pp. 963, 1679.

Form. Extended (2 Cor., Timpani, 2 Fl., 2 Ob., Strings, Continuo). Choralgesange, No. 259.

lf1393-02_figure_155

Melody: “Nun lasst uns Gott dem Herren”

Anon. 1575

lf1393-02_figure_156

Melody: “Nun lasst uns Gott dem Herren”

Anon. 1587

(b)

The melody of the concluding Choral is that of Ludwig Helmbold’s Grace after Meat, “Nun lasst uns Gott dem Herren,” which was published first in Helmbold’s Geistliche Lieder, den GottseligenChristen zugericht (Muhlhausen, 1575), and repeated in Nicolaus Selnecker’s Christliche Psalmen, Lieder, und Kirchengesenge (Leipzig, 1587). The monotonous melody, which Bach uses (with some modifications introduced by Crüger [1649]), is founded on the one that accompanies the Hymn in Selnecker’s volume. It is clear, however, that Selnecker’s is a variation of the descant melody of the four-part setting of the Hymn in Helmbold’s Geistliche Lieder. The monotony of the tune suggests that the Tenor is the true melody there. Versions of the former, equally monotonous and derived from the 1575 text, are set to the Hymn in other collections between 1575 and 1598.

The melody occurs also in Cantatas 165 and 194. It is sometimes quoted as “Wach auf, mein Herz, und singe,” from its association with Paul Gerhardt’s Morning Hymn.

The words of the concluding Choral are the eighth stanza of Helmbold’s Hymn:

  • Erhalt’ uns in der Wahrheit,
  • Gieb ewigliche Freiheit,
  • Zu preisen deinen Namen
  • Durch Jesum Christum, Amen!

  • B.G. xviii. 316.

English translations of the Hymn are noted in the Dictionary of Hymnology, p. 508.

Form. Embellished (2 Cor., Timpani, 2 Fl. 2 Ob., Strings, Continuo). Choralgesange, No. 267

[1 ] An English version of the Cantata, “The Lord is a Sun and Shield,” is published by Novello & Co.