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Subject Area: Music
Subject Area: Religion

Es ist das Heil uns kommen her. - 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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Es ist das Heil uns kommen her.

lf1393-03_figure_034

Melody: “Es ist das Heil uns kommen her”

Anon. 1524

    • i.

      Our whole salvation doth depend
    • On God’s free grace and Spirit;
    • Our fairest works can ne’er defend
    • A boast in our own merit:
    • Derived is all our righteousness
    • From Christ and His atoning grace;
    • He is our Mediator.
    • * * *

    • v.

      The law cried, Justice must be done,
    • And man doomed to damnation;
    • But mercy sent the Eternal Son,
    • Who purchased our salvation,
    • Endured the Cross, despised the shame,
    • And answered every legal claim,
    • To spare the sons of Adam.

    • vi.

      Christ, having all the law fulfilled,
    • Thro’ His blest Cross and Passion,
    • Is now the rock whereon we build
    • Our faith and whole salvation:
    • He is the Lord our righteousness,
    • Whose death hath purchased life and grace,
    • And ransomed us for ever.
    • * * *

    • ix.

      The law revealed sin’s sinfulness,
    • Enhanced the accusation;
    • The gospel brings us saving grace,
    • Hope, joy, and consolation;
    • Bids all lay hold on Jesus’ Cross:
    • The law could ne’er retrieve our loss,
    • Ev’n with our best performance.

    • x.

      True faith, by Jesus in us wrought,
    • By works is manifested;
    • That faith is empty which is not
    • By works of love attested:
    • Yet faith alone us justifies;
    • Love to our neighbour but implies
    • We are sincere believers.
    • * * *

    • Paul Speratus (1484-1551)     Tr. John Christian Jacobi1 .

The words and melody of Paul Speratus’ (Offer or Hoffer) hymn were published in 1524 in the first Lutheran Hymn-book. Bach uses the melody in the Orgelbuchlein; Cantatas 9, 86, 117, 155, 186 (1716-c. 1733); and the Wedding Chorals (Choralgesange, No. 89). With the exception that in the Cantatas he substitutes B for G as the first note of the last phrase of the tune (ut supra), Bach’s text is invariable. The innovation is in Witt’s text (No. 292). Having regard to Bach’s invariable use elsewhere, it may be conjectured that the quaver B natural at the second beat of the final bar of the Orgelbüchlein Prelude belongs to the melody, and should be printed

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instead of

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[46]

N. xv. 109. The movement is the last of the penitential Preludes in the Orgelbuchlein, and one of the only two completed in that section. Bach disregards the pointedly dogmatic character of the hymn and uses its opening statement

Salvation hath come down to us

to justify a jubilant treatment of the melody. The significance of Bach’s inclusion of the hymn among the penitential hymns, already pointed out in the Introduction to this volume, is enhanced when we discover him enforcing the hymn’s message of comfort by associating its melody with a jubilant motive. Such a treatment of it was the more congruous in that the tune itself is an old Easter Carol.

[1 ]Moravian Hymn-book, ed. 1877, No. 19. The original hymn has fourteen stanzas, of which ii-iv, vii, viii, xi-xiv are omitted in the translation.