Chorale Melody - O Herre Gott, dein gottlich(s) Wort

Chorale Melodies used in Bach's Vocal Works O Herre Gott, dein göttlich(s) Wort
Melody & Text \| Use of the CM by Bach \| Use of the CM by other composers

Melody & Text: Zahn: 5690 \| EKG: 117
Text:
This chorale text was written by Anarg von Wildenfels and was first printed as a broadside by Peter Schöffer, jr. in Worms in 1526 as O Herre Gott, dein göttlich wort. The next year Schöffer moved his printing activities to Erfurt where this text was once again printed in 1527 and 1531.

Melody:
The chorale melody first appears as a contrafact of a 15^th-century folk song (1470?) entitled Weiß mir ein Blümlein blaue [“I know about a little, blue flower”] in a collection of sacred songs Enchyridion geistlicher gesenge vnd psalmen fur die leyen printed in Wittenberg in 1526. The same folk song provided the basis for another chorale: Nun lob, mein Seel, den Herren. It is not clear from the records whether the Schöffer broadside mentioned above was printed with this melody or even if any melody at all was associated with it in 1526. In 1527 this melody was printed along with the Wildenfels text in Erfurt. A very early hymnal source is one printed by Valentin Bapst (or Babst) in Leipzig,1545:

>>With the publication of Valentin Bapst’s hymnbook (Leipzig, 1545), the last to appear during Luther’s lifetime and containing a new foreword by him, an appendix of 40 chorales was added to the central corpus of 80 Reformation chorales.[The woodcutting was of great artistry.] The basic canon, drawn from various regions of north, central and south Germany, remained relatively constant and free of variants for the next 200 years, but the innovation of a regional appendix, which was typical of many subsequent hymnbooks, allowed for variety and for the further growth of the repertory.<< Robert L. Marshall/Robin A. Leaver, Grove Music Online, Oxford University Press, 2006, acc. 4/25/06
For another early version of the CM from the middle of the 17^th century, see Samuel Scheidt’s version of the CM below:


Hymnal versions Bach may have known:
A source hymnal which Bach may have used is the one printed in Gotha, 1715:


Use of the Chorale Melody by Bach:
Text: O Herre Gott, dein göttlichs Wort \| EKG: 117 Author: Anarg von Wildenfels (1526)
Ver	Work	Mvt.	Year	Br	RE	KE	Di	BC	Score		Music Examples
8	BWV 184	Mvt. 5	1724	14	283	14	15	F159 A88:5	PDF \| PDF v		Mvt. 5 (MG) \| Mvt. 5 ver (MG) [midi] \| Mvt. 5 (Leusink) [ram]


Untexted:
Ver	Work	Mvt.	Year	Br	RE	KE	Di	BC	Score	Music Examples
-	BWV 1110	-	b 1710	-	-	-	-	K183	-
BWV 757: 1700-1717 not accepted by the NBA or BG, the BC K126 & BWV Verzeichnis still list it. BWV 1110: from the Neumeister Collection, No. 22.


Use of the Chorale Melody by other composers:
Hans Leo Hassler (1564-1612): O Herre Gott, dein Göttlich Wort, 4 voices (1608)
Johann Hermann Schein (1586-1630): O Herre Gott, dein göttlich Wort, SATB [bc] (1627)
Samuel Scheidt (1587-1654): O Herre Gott dein göttlich Wort, SSWV 513 (Görlitz, 1650). See: Score
Georg Friedrich Kauffmann (1679-1735): O Herre Gott, dein göttlich Wort, 2 Chorale Preludes for Organ (Leipzig, 1733)


Sources: NBA, vols. III/2.1 & 2.2 in particular [Bärenreiter, 1954 to present] and the BWV ("Bach Werke Verzeichnis") [Breitkopf & Härtel, 1998] The PDF files of the Chorales were contributed by Margaret Greentree J.S. Bach Chorales Software: Capella 2004 Software, version 5.1. Prepared by Thomas Braatz & Aryeh Oron (April 2006)

Chorale Melodies: Sorted by Title | 371 4-Part Chorales sorted by Breitkopf Number | Explanation

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Last update: ýApril 25, 2006 ý18:59:35