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Subject Area: Music
Subject Area: Religion

Christum wir sollen loben schon. - 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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Christum wir sollen loben schon.

lf1393-03_figure_018

Melody: “A solis ortus cardine”

Anon. 1537

    • i.

      Christ, Whom the Virgin Mary bore,
    • We now with humble hearts adore;
    • O might all nations, tribes, and tongues,
    • To our Immanuel raise their songs.

    • ii.

      God, Who to all things being gave,
    • The fallen human race to save,
    • Assumed our feeble flesh and blood,
    • And for our debt as surety stood.
    • * * *

    • vi.

      He Who the wants of all supplies
    • Now in a manger helpless lies;
    • He Who the whole creation feeds
    • An earthly mother’s nursing needs.

    • vii.

      The angels at His birth rejoice,
    • And sing His praise with cheerful voice;
    • The shepherds, hearing Christ is born,
    • To Jesus, our chief Shepherd, turn.

    • viii.

      Thanks to the Father now be given,
    • Who sent His Son to us from heaven;
    • Thanks to the Son Who saves the lost;
    • Thanks to our Guide, the Holy Ghost.

    • Martin Luther (1483-1546)     Tr. C. Kinchen1 .

  • Was fürcht’st du, Feind Herodes, sehr.

    • i.

      Herod, why dreadest thou a foe,
    • Because the Christ comes born below?
    • He seeks no mortal kingdom thus,
    • Who brings His kingdom down to us.

    • ii.

      After the star the wise men go.
    • That light the true Light them did show;
    • They signify, with presents three,
    • This child, God, Man, and King to be.

    • iii.

      In Jordan baptism He did take,
    • This Lamb of God, for our poor sake;
    • Thus He Who never did a sin
    • Hath washed us clean both out and in.

    • iv.

      A miracle straightway befell:
    • Six pots of stone they saw, who tell,
    • Of water full, which changed its sort,
    • And turned to red wine at His word.

    • v.

      Praise, honour, thanks to Thee be said,
    • Jesus, born of the holy maid;
    • With the Father and the Holy Ghost,
    • Now, and henceforward, ending not.

    • Martin Luther (1483-1546)     Tr. George Macdonald2 .

Both words and melody of Luther’s “Christum wir sollen loben schon” are adapted from Coelius Sedulius’ Christmas hymn, “A solis ortus cardine,” whose melody is printed supra from a text of 1537. The adaptation of the tune to Luther’s stanzas was probably undertaken by Johann Walther, in whose Hymn-book, printed at Wittenberg in 1524, it first appeared1 . Bach uses the tune, in its original form, in Cantata 121 (c. 1740) and in two Organ Preludes. Witt (No. 34) prints the tune in another form.

[29]

N. xv. 33. The movement is in the Christmas section of the Orgelbüchlein. Schweitzer2 points out that Bach’s habit was not to employ an actual motive to express ecstatic and spiritual joy, but to give it utterance in an “exuberant musical arabesque,” e.g. the Violin obbligato in the “Laudamus te” of the B minor Mass. It is not rash to select stanza i of Luther’s hymn as the one Bach illustrates in this movement:

  • O might all nations, tribes, and tongues,
  • To our Immanuel raise their songs.

The arabesque enfolding the cantus (in the Alto) “embraces a whole world of unutterable joy.”

[30]

N. xviii. 23. The movement is among the miscellaneous Preludes, and receives the alternative title of Luther’s hymn, “Was fürcht’st du, Feind Herodes, sehr.” The definition has no musical significance; the movement being merely a short “Choralvorspiel” in Fughetta form upon the first line of the melody. The hymn is a translation of the second part (Hostis Herodes impie) of Sedulius’ text and was in use at Epiphany (Witt, No. 73).

The movement is in the Kirnberger ms. and there are eight other texts of it in the Voss, Forkel, and Kittel Collections. In two of them the Prelude is specifically attributed to Bach.

[1 ]Moravian Hymn-book, ed. 1877, No. 46. The original hymn has eight stanzas, of which iii-v are omitted in the translation.

[2 ]Exotics, p. 50. The original hymn has five stanzas.

[1 ] It is printed in Bach’s Chorals, Part II. 368.

[2 ] Vol. ii. 66.