Zu dir in deinen Freudensaal!
The author, Nikolaus Selnecker, an ardent Lutheran, was a scholar and accomplished musician. He became church organist when only twelve years old and afterwards, in succession, lecturer at the University of Wittenberg, Professor of Theology at Jena, and pastor of St. Thomas’ Church at Leipzig. He wrote Latin verse and composed many German hymns but is chiefly known through this evening hymn. The English rendering of it we owe to Robert Bridges’ Yattendon Hymnal. It was made to suit Bach’s setting of the Proper tune, and freely though finely expands stanzas 1 and 9 of the original.
For comments on Robert Bridges see [Hymn 32].
MUSIC. ACH BLEIB BEI UNS, “one of the most famous of German chorales,” appeared in Geistliche Lieder, Leipzig, 1589, and in other contemporary collections.
The composer, Seth Calvisius, 1556-1615, was the son of poor parents, but succeeded in obtaining an education at the Universities of Helmstedt and Leipzig. He was an astronomer and chronologer, besides being a musician, and was offered the Chair of Mathematics at Wittenberg in 1611. Calvisius refused the offer in order to devote himself to music. After holding various musical posts in churches in Leipzig and Schulpforta, he became music director at the Thomaskirche in the former city. Calvisius wrote treatises on the theory of music and published several collections of his own and others’ music, among them Hymni Sacri Latini et Germanici, 1594, in which this tune appears in the alto as a descant to another melody. The present version is from J. S. Bach’s Vierstimmige Choralgesänge, 1769.
GENERAL
558. Commit thou all thy griefs
Paul Gerhardt, 1607-76
Tr. John Wesley, 1703-91