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Subject Area: Music
Subject Area: Religion

Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme. - 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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Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme.

lf1393-03_figure_098

Melody: “Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme”

? Philipp Nicolai 1599

    • i.

      Wake, awake, for night is flying,
    • The watchmen on the heights are crying;
    • Awake, Jerusalem, at last!
    • Midnight hears the welcome voices,
    • And at the thrilling cry rejoices:
    • Come forth, ye virgins, night is past!
    • The Bridegroom comes, awake,
    • Your lamps with gladness take;
    • Hallelujah!
    • And for His marriage feast prepare,
    • For ye must go to meet Him there.

    • ii.

      Zion hears the watchmen singing,
    • And all her heart with joy is springing,
    • She wakes, she rises from her gloom;
    • For her Lord comes down all-glorious,
    • The strong in grace, in truth victorious;
    • Her Star is risen, her Light is come!
    • Ah! come, Thou blessed Lord,
    • O Jesus, Son of God,
    • Hallelujah!
    • We follow till the halls we see
    • Where Thou hast bid us sup with Thee.

    • iii.

      Now let all the heavens adore Thee,
    • And men and angels sing before Thee,
    • With harp and cymbal’s clearest tone;
    • Of one pearl each shining portal,
    • Where we are with the choir immortal
    • Of angels round Thy dazzling throne;
    • Nor eye hath seen, nor ear
    • Hath yet attained to hear
    • What there is ours,
    • But we rejoice, and sing to Thee
    • Our hymn of joy eternally.

    • Philipp Nicolai (1556-1608)     Tr. Catherine Winkworth1 .

Philipp Nicolai’s hymn, with the melody (supra), was published in 1599. Its opening line is identical with “O Lamm Gottes2 ” and, according to Christian Huber (1682), the tune appeared in Balthasar Musculus’ Cithara sacra, c. 1591, some years before its association with Nicolai’s hymn. It would seem, therefore, that, as in the case of “Wie schon leuchtet der Morgenstern,” Nicolai adapted older material.

Bach uses the tune in Cantata 140 (1731) and in the Organ movement infra.

[128]

N. xvi. 1. The Prelude is the first of the Schübler Chorals, a rearrangement of the fourth movement of Cantata 140. In the latter the cantus is assigned to the Tenor and the obbligato (“dextra” manual) to the Violins and Viola in unison. The movement is a setting of the second stanza of the hymn. The happy, smooth-running obbligato illustrates the words:

  • Zion hears the watchmen singing,
  • And all her heart with joy is springing.

[1 ]Chorale Book for England, No. 200. The original hymn has three stanzas.

[2 ] See Bach’s Chorals, Part II. 495.