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Subject Area: Music
Subject Area: Religion

Ich hab’ mein Sach’ Gott heimgestellt. - 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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Ich hab’ mein Sach’ Gott heimgestellt.

lf1393-03_figure_053

Melody: “Ich weiss mir ein Röslein hübsch und fein”

Anon. 1589

    • i.

      My cause is God’s, and I am still,
    • Let Him do with me as He will;
    • Whether for me the race is won,
    • Or scarce begun,
    • I ask no more—His will be done!
    • * * *

    • xi.

      My sins are more than I can bear,
    • Yet not for this will I despair;
    • I know to death and to the grave
    • The Father gave
    • His dearest Son, that He might save.
    • * * *

    • xiii.

      To Him I live and die alone,
    • Death cannot part Him from His own;
    • Living or dying, I am His
    • Who only is
    • Our comfort, and our gate of bliss.

    • xiv.

      This is my solace, day by day,
    • When snares and death beset my way,
    • I know that at the morn of doom
    • From out the tomb
    • With joy to meet Him I shall come.
    • * * *

    • xvi.

      Then I shall see God face to face,
    • I doubt it not, through Jesu’s grace,
    • Amid the joys prepared for me!
    • Thanks be to Thee
    • Who givest us the victory!
    • * * *

    • xviii.

      Amen, dear God! now send us faith,
    • And at the last a happy death;
    • And grant us all ere long to be
    • In heaven with Thee,
    • To praise Thee there eternally.

    • Johannes Leon (d. 1597)     Tr. Catherine Winkworth1 .

Johannes Leon’s hymn, “Ich hab’ mein Sach’ Gott heimgestellt,” was first published in Psalmen, geistliche Lieder und Kirchengesäng (Nürnberg, 1589). The author was born at Ohrdruf, near Gotha, and after service as an army chaplain became pastor at Königsee and Wölfis. He died at Wölfis in 1597.

Associated with Leon’s hymn are two melodies, both of which are used by Bach, and are traced to the same origin, a four-part setting (supra) of the secular song “Ich weiss mir ein Roslein hübsch und fein,” published by Johann Rhau in 1589. The Tenor of the setting becomes the melody of Leon’s hymn in a Hymn-book dated 16091 and in Witt (No. 317). Bach introduces it into the orchestral accompaniment of Cantata 106 (1711). Meanwhile, the descant melody of the 1589 four-part setting also became attached to Leon’s hymn in David Wolder’s Hymn-book, published in 1598. Bach uses this tune in the Organ movements infra, and there is a four-part setting of it among the Choralgesänge, No. 182. Bach’s text is practically invariable. The D natural which he substitutes for F natural as the fourth note of the melody (supra) has early (1611) sanction. His variant of the opening of the second line of the stanza (notes 3-5 of line 2 supra) follows a reconstruction of the melody which became the accepted form of the tune in Hymn-books after 1601, when it first appears.

[66]

N. xviii. 54. The movement treats in fugue the five phrases of the cantus. MSS. of the movement are among the Kirnberger and Oley mss. and four other copies are extant. The B.G. Edition ascribes it confidently to Bach’s early period, and Spitta1 attributes it to Walther. There does not appear to be any close relation between it and the stanzas of the hymn. Five of the six mss. of it conclude with a plain four-part harmonization of the tune, having a certain amount of free figure work. It is omitted from the Novello Edition, and printed in P. vi. 77.

[67]

N. xviii. 58. The two arrangements come from different sources. The first (A) is found in Kirnberger’s, Voss’, and three other mss. The second (B) occurs in a much later (1836) text and is misleadingly described in the B.G. Edition as a “Variant” of A. Both settings are plain four-part harmonizations of the tune, of greater simplicity than that appended to No. 66 supra.

[1 ]Chorale Book for England, No. 127. The original hymn has eighteen stanzas, of which ii-x, xii, xv, xvii are omitted in the translation.

[1 ] It is printed in Bach’s Chorals, Part II. 344.

[1 ] Vol. i. 656.