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Subject Area: Music
Subject Area: Religion

Wir danken dir, Herr Jesu Christ. - 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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Wir danken dir, Herr Jesu Christ.

lf1393-03_figure_106

Melody:Herr Jesu Christ, wahr Mensch und Gott

Anon. 1597

    • i.

      We bless Thee, Jesus Christ our Lord;
    • For ever be Thy name adored:
    • For Thou, the sinless One, hast died
    • That sinners might be justified.
    • ii.

      O very Man, and very God,
    • Redeem us with Thy precious blood;
    • From death eternal set us free,
    • And make us one with God in Thee.
    • iii.

      From sin and shame defend us still,
    • And work in us Thy stedfast will,
    • The Cross with patience to sustain,
    • And bravely bear its utmost pain.
    • iv.

      In Thee we trust, in Thee alone;
    • For Thou forsakest not Thine own:
    • To all the meek Thy strength is given,
    • Who by Thy Cross ascend to heaven.
    • Christoph Fischer (1520-97)     Tr. Benjamin Hall Kennedy1 .

Christoph Fischer’s Passiontide hymn, “Wir danken dir, Herr Jesu Christ,” is found in the Dresden Gesangbuch of 1597. Fischer was born at Joachimsthal, in Bohemia, in 1520. He graduated at Wittenberg in 1544, held pastoral charges at Halberstadt and elsewhere, and died at Celle in 1597. Though he was a voluminous writer, this is the only hymn known to be his.

The melody (supra), which is sung to several hymns, was published first in Johann Eccard’s Geistliche Lieder, Auff den Choral oder gemeine Kirchen Melodey durchauss gerichtet (Part II, Königsberg, 1597). The tune is attributed by Winterfeld to Eccard himself. But the many and divergent texts of it found about the year 1597 prove the melody of greater antiquity. The tune was set in 1597 to Paul Eber’s hymn, “Herr Jesu Christ, wahr Mensch und Gott.” Bach has not used it elsewhere than in the Orgelbuchlein. Witt’s (No. 135) text, like Bach’s, is true to the original form of the melody.

[138]

N. xv. 73. The movement is among the Passiontide Chorals of the Orgelbüchlein. The hymn is a thanksgiving for the Atonement. Hence the characteristic “Joy” formula in the Pedal part.

[1 ]Hymnologia Christiana, No. 622. The original hymn has four stanzas.