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Subject Area: Music
Subject Area: Religion

Jesus Christus, unser Heiland, Der den Tod. - 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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Jesus Christus, unser Heiland, Der den Tod.

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Melody: “Jesus Christus, unser Heiland”

? Johann Walther 1524

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? Johann Walther 1524

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Anon. 1535

    • i.

      Jesus Christ, our Saviour true,
    • He who Death overthrew,
    • Is up arisen,
    • And sin hath put in prison.
    • Kyrieleison.

    • ii.

      Born Whom Mary sinless hath,
    • Bore He for us God’s wrath,
    • Hath reconciled us—
    • Favour God doth now yield us.
    • Kyrieleison.

    • iii.

      Death and sin, and life and grace,
    • All in His hands He has.
    • He can deliver
    • All who seek the life-giver.
    • Kyrieleison.

    • Martin Luther (1483-1546)     Tr. George Macdonald1 .

Luther’s Easter hymn, “Jesus Christus, unser Heiland, Der den Tod überwand,” was first published in 1524, in Walther’s Wittenberg Hymn-book and in the Erfurt Enchiridion. In Walther’s book it is set to the first and second melodies printed supra. Both are the Tenor of a four-part setting probably composed by Walther himself. In the Enchiridion only the second tune is found. The hymn was repeated in Klug’s Hymn-book, 1535 [1529], but with a new melody, the third of those printed supra, which has displaced the earlier ones. Its source is not determined.

Bach uses the Klug melody in the Organ movement infra and Choralgesange, No. 207. With one trifling exception—the substitution of G for A as the second note of the first and fourth phrases of the melody (supra) in the Choralgesange—his two melodic texts are identical and conform to Witt’s version (No. 144). Bach’s (and Witt’s) closing cadence dates back to 1585.

[76]

N. xv. 81. The movement is the second of the Easter Preludes in the Orgelbüchlein. The assertive, jubilant figure in the accompaniment expresses the triumph of which the first stanza of the hymn sings.

[1 ]Exotics, p. 54. The original hymn has three stanzas.