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This hymn or ballad of the Passion was written by Heinrich Müller - the initial letters of its thirteen stanzas spell “Heinrich Müler.” The last two lines of the last stanza repeat his name, and state that the hymn was written by him in prison1. He appears to have been a Lutheran of Nürnberg, imprisoned, circa 1527, by the Duke of Saxony. Released in 1539, he conducted a school at Annaberg until about 1580. The ballad was published as a broadsheet in 1527 and was included in the Rostock Hymn-book of 1531. Luther thought so highly of it that he introduced it into Valentin Babst’s Geistliche Lieder (Leipzig, 1545), the last Hymn-book issued under his supervision. The first of the three melodies (supra) was attached to it there.
The author of the tune is not known. It is found in many forms in the late 16th and early 17th century Hymn-books and probably is of secular origin. The earliest approximation to the form in which J.S. Bach knew it is found in 1573 (supra). From 1601 the first half of the tune definitely took the form J.S. Bach uses. For the second part of the melody he is not consistent. In the Orgelbuchlein he follows the 1573 text (the F sharp that ends his sixth line is as old as 1609). In the Choralgesänge, No. 172 (BWV 343), he prefers Johann Crüger’s (1653) text (supra). Witt’s (No. 94) has peculiarities which J.S. Bach does not repeat.
Source: Charles Sanford Terry: Johann Sebastian Bach, Bach’s Chorals, vol. 3 The Hymns and Hymn Melodies of the Organ Works [1921], pp 186-189 |
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Hilf Gott, dass mir gelinge. History of the Passion. In his Bibliographie, 1855, p. 100, Wackernagel cites two broadsheets as of 15.27. In his D. Kirchenlied iii. p. 85, the earliest source from which he prints the text, is however the Bergkreyen, Nürnberg, 1536, though he says it had appeared in print in 1524 (apparently a mis¬print for 1527). He speaks of the Magdeburg Gesang-Buch, 1534, as the earliest hymnbook in which it is included, This is however an oversight, as it is found in the Rostock Gesang-Buch 1531, where it is entitled “A new hymn on the Word of God and His bitter sufferings," and begins "Help God mi mach gelingen." It is in 13 st. of 7 1., the initial letters of the stanzas giving the name Heinrich Müler, and the two concluding lines being "Hat Hein rich Müller gesungen In dem Gefängniss sein."
From the above note it is clear that the hymn was written by a Heinrich Müller, during an imprisonment, and was in print at least as early as 1531. The ascription to Heinrich Müller, professor at Wittenberg, is therefore impossible, seeing he was only born in 1530. The ascription to Heinrich von Zütphen [born at Zütphen in Gelderlaud, c. 1488, became an Augustinian monk, and in 1515 prior of the Augustinian monastery at Dordrecht; began to preach as a Reformer in Bremen, November 9, 1522; murdered at Heide near Meldorf, in Holstein, December 10, 1524] is also untenable, for neither by himself nor by his contemporaries was he ever styled Heinrich Müller, and there was during his life no period of imprisonment during which he might have written this hymn. The history of the Nürnberg Müller noted above is not indeed very clear, but his claim has at least much more appearance of truth than that of any other.
The hymn was a great favourite during the Reformation period, was included by Luther in V. Babst's Gesang-Buch 1545, and passed into many later books. It is a ballad rather than a hymn properly so called, and has now fallen out of use in Germany. The only translation is: “Help, God, the formar of all thing." In the Gude and Godlie Ballates, ed. 1568, f. 22 (1868, p. 37).
Source: John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907) on Hymnary.org |
