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Subject Area: Music
Subject Area: Religion

Valet will ich dir geben. - 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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Valet will ich dir geben.

lf1393-03_figure_093

Melody: “Valet will ich dir geben”

Melchior Teschner 1614

    • i.

      Farewell, henceforth for ever,
    • All empty, worldly, joys;
    • Farewell, for Christ my Saviour
    • Alone my thoughts employs:
    • In Heaven’s my conversation,
    • Where the redeemed possess
    • In Him complete salvation,
    • The gift of God’s free grace.

    • ii.

      Counsel me, dearest Jesus,
    • According to Thy heart;
    • Heal Thou all my diseases,
    • And every harm avert:
    • Be Thou my consolation
    • While here on earth I live,
    • And at my expiration
    • Me to Thyself receive.

    • iii.

      May in my heart’s recesses
    • Thy name and Cross always
    • Shine forth, with all their graces,
    • To yield me joy and peace:
    • Stand ’fore me in that figure
    • Wherein Thou bar’st for us
    • Justice in all its rigour,
    • Expiring on the Cross.

    • iv.

      Thou diedst for me—oh hide me
    • When tempests round me roll;
    • Through all my foes, oh guide me,
    • Receive my trembling soul:
    • If I but grasp Thee firmer,
    • What matters pain when past?
    • Hath he a cause to murmur
    • Who reaches Heaven at last?

    • v.

      Oh write my name, I pray Thee,
    • Now in the book of life;
    • So let me here obey Thee,
    • And there, where joys are rife,
    • For ever bloom before Thee,
    • Thy perfect freedom prove,
    • And tell, as I adore Thee,
    • How faithful was Thy love.

    • Valerius Herberger (1562-1627)     Tr. L. T. Nyberg (i-iii), Catherine Winkworth (iv-v)1 .

Valerius Herberger’s funerary hymn, “Valet will ich dir geben,” was published, with the melody (supra), in 1614. The familiar tune is by Melchior Teschner, and bears a close resemblance to “Sellenger’s Round.” Bach uses it in the St John Passion (1723), No. 28, Cantata 95 (? 1732), Choralgesänge, No. 314, and the two Organ movements infra. His text is practically invariable. The substitution of C natural for A as the eleventh note of the first phrase of the tune is found in a Gotha text of 1648 and Witt (No. 722). Excepting N. xix. 2, Bach always writes G for E as the eighth note of the last phrase. The innovation dates from 1668. Bach’s second phrase is quite distinct from Witt’s.

[115]

N. xix. 2. The movement, perhaps, is a treatment of the first stanza of the hymn, the ascending final cadence being inspired by the words:

  • In Heaven’s my conversation,
  • Where the redeemed possess
  • In Him complete salvation,
  • The gift of God’s free grace.

Two mss. of the movement are in the Berlin Royal Library, both of them of secondary authority.

An older reading of the movement is in P. vii. 100. The fact that it is found in Walther’s Collection, where it is inscribed “J. S. B.,” is good evidence that the Prelude belongs to the Weimar period.

[116]

N. xix. 7. The movement has the rhythm of a funeral march. But the mood is joyful and reflects that of the second half of stanza i rather than its opening valediction. Three mss. of the Prelude exist, one of them in Dröbs’ hand.

[1 ]Moravian Hymn-book, ed. 1877, No. 1182: Chorale Book for England, No. 137. The original hymn has five stanzas. The last two lines of each are repeated to the melody.