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.

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:

Schöffer’s broadside mentioned above was printed with a different melody which probably looked like this in its simplified form:

Here is the actual broadside *:

* Special thanks to Dick Wursten who supplied a copy of the actual broadside from 1526 which contains both the text and a different, unidentified melody. The source for this is the Jahrbuch für Liturgik und Hymnologie, 1956.

>>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, September 2008)