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Subject Area: Music
Subject Area: Religion

Heut’ triumphiret Gottes Sohn. - 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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Heut’ triumphiret Gottes Sohn.

lf1393-03_figure_049

Melody: “Heut’ triumphiret Gottes Sohn”

Bartholomäus Gesius 1601

    • i.

      To-day God’s only-gotten Son
    • Arose from death, and triumph won,
    • Alleluya, Alleluya,
    • In mighty pomp and rich array;
    • His therefore be the praise alway.
    • Alleluya, Alleluya.

    • ii.

      Lo! Death is crushed—nay, Death must die,
    • By Jesus smitten hip and thigh.
    • Alleluya, Alleluya.
    • Like armoured knight, with skilful thrust
    • Christ made His foeman lick the dust.
    • Alleluya, Alleluya.

    • iii.

      Almighty Lord of great and small,
    • Redeemer of poor sinners all,
    • Alleluya, Alleluya,
    • Grant us, for great Thy mercy is,
    • To reign with Thee in endless bliss.
    • Alleluya, Alleluya.
    • * * *

    • v.

      We hymn Thee, Christ, our living Head,
    • Hereafter Judge of quick and dead.
    • Alleluya, Alleluya.
    • At doomsday spare us, mighty King,
    • That we may always say and sing
    • Alleluya, Alleluya.

    • vi.

      To God the Father on His Throne,
    • To Jesus Christ, His Son alone,
    • Alleluya, Alleluya.
    • To God the Holy Paraclete,
    • Be laud and glory infinite.
    • Alleluya, Alleluya.

    • ? Caspar Stolshagius (1591)     Tr. G. R. Woodward1 .

The Easter hymn, “Heut’ triumphiret Gottes Sohn,” appeared first in the Kinderspiegel (Eisleben, 1591) of Caspar Stolshagius, Lutheran pastor at Iglau, in Moravia. Whether he wrote it cannot be stated positively. It is also attributed to Jakob Ebert and Basilius Förtsch.

The melody (supra) is found in association with the hymn in Bartholomäus Gesius’ Geistliche_deutsche Lieder, published in 1601 at Frankfort a. Oder, where Gesius at that time was Cantor. The tune appears in 1601 for the first time and certainly was composed by Gesius himself.

Bach uses the melody in the Organ movement infra, Choralgesänge, No. 171, but employs different melodic texts. In the Choralgesange the fourth and last phrases of the tune do not follow the original. In the Organ movement, excepting the last three bars, which are an added “Alleluya,” he follows the 1601 text and Witt, who also (No. 145) has three concluding “Alleluyas”:

lf1393-03_figure_050

[64]

N. xv. 94. The movement is the last of the Easter Preludes in the Orgelbüchlein, instinct with the triumph of the festival1 . The Pedal subject, as Schweitzer points out2 , is almost ferocious in its representation of the risen Christ spurning his foes as though He were treading the wine-press. In Cantata 43, written for Ascension Day (1735), the Aria “ ’Tis He Who all alone hath trodden well the wine-press” has a similar masterful subject3 .

[1 ]Songs of Syon (London, 1910), No. 50. The original hymn has six stanzas, of which iv is omitted in the translation.

[1 ] The Prelude is wrongly associated with Ascensiontide in the Novello Edition.

[2 ] Vol. ii. 63.

[3 ] See Novello’s Edition, God goeth up with shouting, p. 22.