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Subject Area: Music
Subject Area: Religion

Ach bleib’ bei uns, Herr Jesu Christ. - Johann Sebastian Bach, Bach’s Chorals, vol. 3 The Hymns and Hymn Melodies of the Organ Works [1921]

Edition used:

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

Part of: Bach’s Chorals, 3 vols.

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Ach bleib’ bei uns, Herr Jesu Christ.

lf1393-03_figure_002

Melody: “Danket dem Herrn, heut’ und allzeit”

Seth Calvisius 1594

    • i.

      Ah Jesu Christ, with us abide,
    • For now, behold, ’tis eventide:
    • And bring, to cheer us through the night,
    • Thy Word, our true and only light.

    • ii.

      In times of trial and distress
    • Preserve our truth and steadfastness,
    • And pure unto the end, O Lord,
    • Vouchsafe Thy Sacraments and Word.

    • iii.

      O Jesu Christ, Thy Church sustain;
    • Our hearts are wavering, cold, and vain:
    • Then let Thy Word be strong and clear
    • To silence doubt and banish fear.

    • iv.

      O guard us all from Satan’s wiles,
    • From worldly threats and worldly smiles,
    • And let Thy saints in unity
    • Know Thee in God and God in Thee.

    • v.

      The days are evil: all around
    • Strife, errors, blasphemies abound,
    • And secret slander’s withering eye,
    • And soft-tongued, sleek hypocrisy.
    • * * *

    • ix.

      From these and all of God abhorred,
    • O Christ, protect us by Thy Word;
    • Increase our faith and hope and love,
    • And bring us to Thy fold above.

    • Nikolaus Selnecker (1532-92)     Tr. Benjamin Hall Kennedy1 .

Nikolaus Selnecker’s “Ach bleib’ bei uns, Herr Jesu Christ,” was first published in his Geistliche Psalmen (Nürnberg, 1611). Actually only stanzas iii-ix are by him, being an addendum to Melanchthon’s “Vespera jam venit, nobiscum Christe maneto” (St Luke, xxiv. 29). The Alto melody (supra), which also bears the name of Selnecker’s hymn, is found in a four-part setting of the hymn “Danket dem Herrn, heut’ und allzeit,” by Seth Calvisius, in 1594. As a separate melody, however, its Alto part is at least as old as 1589. Bach uses it in the movement infra, in Cantata 6 (1736), and Choralgesange, Nos. 1, 313. His text is invariable. Its variations of the original are not traced in Zahn. In Witt (No. 476) the hymn is set to another melody, as in the Gotha Cantional (Zahn, No. 613).

[1]

N. xvi. 101 . The movement is No. 5 of the Schubler Chorals, an arrangement of the Soprano Unison Choral in Cantata 6, where the obbligato is played by the Violoncello piccolo2 . The movement paints the placid evening scene upon the road to Emmaus.

[1 ]Hymnologia Christiana (Lond. 1863), No. 41. The original hymn has nine stanzas.

[1 ] The reference is to the Novello Edition. To identify the movement in the other Editions, refer to the Table on pp. 2-11 supra.

[2 ] See Bach’s Chorals, Part II. 146.