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Subject Area: Music
Subject Area: Religion

Cantata CLXXVII.: Ich ruf’ zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ 1 . Fourth Sunday after Trinity (1732) - 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 CLXXVII.

Ich ruf’ zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ1 . Fourth Sunday after Trinity (1732)

lf1393-02_figure_200

Melody: “Ich ruf’ zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ”

Anon. 1535

A Choral Cantata, on Johannes Agricola’s (Sneider) Hymn, “Ich ruf’ zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ,” published originally as a broadsheet, and thence in Joseph Klug’s Geistliche Lieder zu Wittemberg (Wittenberg, 1535 [1529])2 , with the melody.

Agricola was born at Eisleben in 1492. He was educated at Wittenberg, where he was befriended by Luther. He became in 1525 Rector of St Andrew’s School and preacher at Eisleben, and later (1540) Court preacher at Berlin. He helped to draw up the “Interim” in 1548 and died in Berlin in 1566. The Hymn is attributed erroneously to Paul Speratus.

The melody, which was published with the Hymn (supra), occurs also in Cantata 185. Organ Works, N. xv. 111.

(a)

The words of the opening movement are the first stanza of the Hymn:

  • Ich ruf’ zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ,
  • Ich bitt’: erhor’ mein Klagen;
  • Verleih’ mir Gnad’ zu dieser Frist,
  • Lass mich doch nicht verzagen.
  • Den rechten Glauben, Herr, ich mein’,
  • Den wollest du mir geben,
  • Dir zu leben,
  • Mein’m Nächsten nutz zu sein1 ,
  • Dein Wort zu halten eben.

  • B.G. xxxv. 201.

English translations of the Hymn are noted in the Dictionary of Hymnology, pp. 31, 1550.

Form. Choral Fantasia (2 Ob., Violino concertante, Strings, Continuo).

(b)

The words of the concluding Choral are the fifth stanza of the Hymn:

  • Ich lieg’ im Streit und widerstreb’:
  • Hilf, O Herr Christ, dem Schwachen!
  • An deiner Gnad’ allein ich kleb’;
  • Du kannst mich starker machen.
  • Kömmt nun Anfechtung, Herr, so wehr’,
  • Dass sie mich nicht umstosse.
  • Du kannst maassen,
  • Dass mir’s nicht bring’ Gefahr;
  • Ich weiss, du wirst’s nicht lassen.

  • B.G. xxxv. 234.

Form. Simple (2 Ob., Fagotto, Strings, Continuo). Choralgesänge, No. 183.

[1 ] Every movement of the Cantata is a stanza of the Hymn.

[2 ] Wackernagel, iii. 54, prints from a 1531 text.

[1 ] 1531 nutz sein.