Johann Christoph Rube (Hymn-Writer)

Born: c1665 - Hohenebra (Thuringia), Germany
Died: May 3, 1746 - Battenberg, Germany

Johann Christoph Rube was lawyer of of rights, official and poet of sacred hymns (songs). He was father-in-law of the Frankfurt senior Heinrich Andreas Walther (1696-1748). As a lawyer he had official posts in the upper-hessian Burggemünden (Hessen-Darmstadt) and in Battenberg. His numerous sacred poems are close in their spirit to the Halleschen Pietismus.

The first songs of Johann Christoph Rube are in the Pietisten-Gesangbuch of A. Luppius (ADB XIX, 650). Songs of Rube were were also included in Gesangbuch bon Freylinghausen. Rube von Heinrich Steitz (RGG) was attributed Separatistengesangbuch with the title Geistlicher Würtz-Kräuter- und Blumengarten (5 Bde, 1744) with "over 500 songs" of Rube appear with Stromberger under the same title. Großes Homburger Gesangbuch 1739/40, by Christian Schütz, chamber writer of Pfalzgräfin Christine, Karl von Raumer (1783-1865) and Albert Knapp (1798-1864) gave Rube again some attention. In the Deutschen Evangelischen Gesangbuch (DEG) and in the EKG songs of Rube can be found. Arnold Mendelssohn composed a melody to the song Der Herr bricht an um Mitternacht (1906). Rube soings appear in the Ev. Gesangbuch for the Grand Duchy of Hessen (No. 533), in the Frankfurt Ev. Gesangbuch of 1927 (No. 348) and in the appendix to the EKG for Hessen and Nassau (No. 412). There, however, the death year of Rube is mentioned as 1749 (ADB: ”after 1748“).

Works

Frühlingsblumen aus der geistlichen Erde (1712)
Poetisch-christliche Lieder-Gedanken aus den Sonn- und Festtags-Evangelien und Episteln eines frommen Rechtsgelehrten (1737) (hrsg. von Heinrich Andreas Walther)

Source: BBKL Website (Author: Karl Dienst, 1994), English translation by Aryeh Oron (May 2006)
Contributed by Aryeh Oron (August 2003, May 2006)

Texts of Bach Cantatas & Other Vocal Works

BWV 139, BWV 447

Chorale Texts used in Bach’s Vocal Works

Title

Year

EKG

Zahn

Der Tag ist hin, die Sonne gehet nieder

1714

Wohl dem, der sich auf seinen Gott

Links to other Sites

Rube, Johann Christoph (BBKL) [German]

Bibliography

Eduard Emil Koch: Geschichte des Kirchenliedes und Kirchengesanges, 3. Aufl., 8 Bde, 1866/76, IV, 404
Chr. W. Stromberger: Die geistliche Dichtung in Hessen, 1886, 114-117
Gustav Hammann: Amtmann J. Ch. R., in: Bottendorfer Brief 34 (vor 1975)
ADB XXIX, 412 f.
RGG³ V, 1205