"" ("When the Lord Christ sat at the table") is a Christian

hymn A hymn is a type of song, and partially synonymous with devotional song, specifically written for the purpose of adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity or deities, or to a prominent figure or personification. The word ''hymn'' ...

related to the

Passion of Jesus In Christianity, the Passion (from the Latin verb ''patior, passus sum''; "to suffer, bear, endure", from which also "patience, patient", etc.) is the short final period in the life of Jesus Christ. Depending on one's views, the "Passion" m ...

. The 28 stanza text was written by

Nikolaus Herman Nikolaus Herman (first name also ''Nicolaus'' or ''Niklas''; 1500 – 3 May 1561) was a German Lutheran cantor and teacher, creating numerous Protestant hymns. Some of them are contained in hymnals in several languages. Career Herman was born ...

and first published in 1560. Later

Johann Sebastian Bach Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the '' Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard w ...

composed the four-part setting, BWV 285.

History

Herman wrote "" as a text in 28

stanzas In poetry, a stanza (; from Italian ''stanza'' , "room") is a group of lines within a poem, usually set off from others by a blank line or indentation. Stanzas can have regular rhyme and metrical schemes, but they are not required to have eithe ...

of six lines each, reflecting the Passion of Jesus. The hymn opens referring to the

Last Supper Image:The Last Supper - Leonardo Da Vinci - High Resolution 32x16.jpg, 400px, alt=''The Last Supper'' by Leonardo da Vinci - Clickable Image, Depictions of the Last Supper in Christian art have been undertaken by artistic masters for centuries, ...

, and continues with the appeal to always remember the death and bitter suffering ("Tod und bitter Leiden"). The

hymnologist Hymnology (from Greek ὕμνος ''hymnos'', "song of praise" and -λογία ''-logia'', "study of") is the scholarly study of religious song, or the hymn, in its many aspects, with particular focus on choral and congregational song. It may be mo ...

Philipp Wackernagel Carl Eduard Philipp Wackernagel (28 June 1800, in Berlin – 20 June 1877, in Dresden) was a German schoolteacher and hymnologist. He was an older brother of philologist Wilhelm Wackernagel. He was educated in mineralogy and crystallography at Br ...

notes in his ''Bibliography on the history of German hymns of the 16th century'', from 1855, that the hymn appeared in a Wittenberg hymnal by

from 1560, (The Sundays' Gospels through the year in songs written for the children and Christian fathers). It came with the header "" ("The Passion / of our LORD Jesus / Christ, to the melody, Kompt her zu mir ...). While the first publication mentioned two melodies to which the words could be sung ("" and ""), the melody associated with the text today appeared first in Görlitz in 1611. The hymn is contained with this melody in the hymnal by

Gottfried Vopelius Gottfried Vopelius (28 January 1645 – 3 February 1715), was a German Lutheran academic and hymn-writer, mainly active in Leipzig. He was born in Herwigsdorf, now a district of Rosenbach, Oberlausitz, and died in Leipzig at the age of 70. Rober ...

on page 140.

Johann Hermann Schein Johann Hermann Schein (20 January 1586 – 19 November 1630) was a German composer of the early Baroque era. He was Thomaskantor in Leipzig from 1615 to 1630. He was one of the first to import the early Italian stylistic innovations into German ...

composed a choral setting as part of his in 1627.

composed a four-part setting,

BWV 285 Johann Sebastian Bach's chorale harmonisations, alternatively named four-part chorales, are Lutheran hymn settings that characteristically conform to the following: * four-part harmony * SATB vocal forces * pre-existing hymn tune allotted to the ...

, which is without text. It was published as No. 196 in the collection of chorales by

Johann Philipp Kirnberger Johann Philipp Kirnberger (also ''Kernberg''; 24 April 1721, Saalfeld – 27 July 1783, Berlin) was a musician, composer (primarily of fugues), and music theorist. He was a student of Johann Sebastian Bach. According to Ingeborg Allihn, Kirnberg ...

und

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (8 March 1714 – 14 December 1788), also formerly spelled Karl Philipp Emmanuel Bach, and commonly abbreviated C. P. E. Bach, was a German Classical period musician and composer, the fifth child and sec ...

. Bach's biographer

Philipp Spitta Julius August Philipp Spitta (27 December 1841 – 13 April 1894) was a German music historian and musicologist best known for his 1873 biography of Johann Sebastian Bach. Life He was born in , near Hoya, and his father, also called Phil ...

counts the hymn tune as one of the few attributed to Bach. He reports that the four-part setting appeared in Balthasar Reimann's Hirschberg chorale book of 1747.

References

External links

Da der Herr Christ zu Tische sass (Chorale) (Johann Sebastian Bach)
cpdl.org
Johann Sebastian Bach / Da der Herr Christ zu Tische sass, chorale setting for 4 voices, BWV 285 (BC F34)

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

Ein Choralbuch für Johann Sebastian 2 / Passion
klassik-heute.de {{authority control 16th-century hymns in German Lutheran hymns Passion hymns