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Subject Area: Music
Subject Area: Religion

Christ ist erstanden. - 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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Christ ist erstanden.

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Melody:Christ ist erstanden

Anon. 1535

Stanza i.

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Stanza iii1 .

    • i.

      Christe is now rysen agayne
    • From His death and all His payne:
    • Therfore wyll we mery be,
    • And rejoyse with Him gladly.
    • Kirieleyson.
    • ii.

      Had He not rysen agayne,
    • We had ben lost, this is playne.
    • But sen He is rysen in dede,
    • Let us love Hym all with spede.
    • Kirieleyson.
    • iii.

      Now is tyme of gladnesse,
    • To synge of the Lorde’s goodnesse:
    • Therfore glad now wyll we be,
    • And rejoyse in Hym onely.
    • Kirieleyson.
    • Traditional     Tr. Bishop Myles Coverdale2 .

The ancient Easter Carol, “Christ ist erstanden,” dates back at least to the thirteenth century. The melody is found in print in 1513. With the words it occurs in a text of 1535 [1529]. Bach uses it in Cantata 66 (1731); Choralgesänge, No. 36; and the movements infra. Zahn does not reveal the source of his variations: nor does Bach follow Witt (No. 141). Probably they are his own.

[22]

N. xv. 83. The movement is among the Easter tunes of the Orgelbüchlein and is the only one there in which Bach sets all the verses of the hymn. His melodic text closely fits the words of each stanza:

    • Christ ist erstanden
    • Von der Marter alle;
    • Des soll’n wir alle froh sein;
    • Christ soll unser Trost sein.
    • Kyrieleis.
    • Wär er nicht erstanden,
    • Die Welt die war vergangen;
    • Seit dass er erstanden ist,
    • So loben wir den Vater Jesu Christ.
    • Kyrieleis.
    • Hallelujah!
    • Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
    • Des soll’n wir alle froh sein.
    • Christ soll unser Trost sein.
    • Kyrieleis.

Through all three verses, Spitta comments1 , there flows “a fresh vitality as of the rising sun.”

A four-part setting of the melody is in B.G. xl. 173. Copies of it are in the Forkel and Hauser mss. In one copy it is inscribed “Versio IV.”

[1 ] The melody of stanza ii is identical with that of stanza i.

[2 ]Remains, p. 563. The original hymn has three stanzas.

[1 ] Vol. i. 600.