Jesu, meines Glaubens Zier is a German

Lutheran hymn Martin Luther was a great enthusiast for music, and this is why it forms a large part of Lutheran services; in particular, Luther admired the composers Josquin des Prez and Ludwig Senfl and wanted singing in the church to move away from the ''a ...

Gottfried Wilhelm Sacer Gottfried Wilhelm Sacer (11 July 1635 – 8 September 1699) was a German jurist, poet, satirist and Protestant hymn writer. He worked as an advocate at the court of Wolfenbüttel. Johann Sebastian Bach used a stanza from his hymn "" to conclude his ...

, first published in 1661. Its hymn tune, Zahn No. 6453, was first published in 1714, in Freylinghausen's hymnal. In 1736 the hymn was adopted in , with a

figured bass Figured bass is musical notation in which numerals and symbols appear above or below (or next to) a bass note. The numerals and symbols (often accidentals) indicate intervals, chords, and non-chord tones that a musician playing piano, harpsi ...

accompaniment which may have been contributed by

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 wo ...

(

BWV The (BWV; ; ) is a catalogue of compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach. It was first published in 1950, edited by Wolfgang Schmieder. The catalogue's second edition appeared in 1990. An abbreviated version of that second edition, known as BWV2 ...

472). The tune is also known in English due to its presence in the 1906

English Hymnal ''The English Hymnal'' is a hymn book which was published in 1906 for the Church of England by Oxford University Press. It was edited by the clergyman and writer Percy Dearmer and the composer and music historian Ralph Vaughan Williams, and wa ...

and its 1986

successor Successor may refer to: * An entity that comes after another (see Succession (disambiguation)) Film and TV * ''The Successor'' (film), a 1996 film including Laura Girling * ''The Successor'' (TV program), a 2007 Israeli television program Musi ...

, where it appears to "It is finished! Christ hath known", a Passion text by Gabriel Gillett written for the 1906 publication and based on Jesus' dying words, per the

Gospel of John The Gospel of John ( grc, Εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Ἰωάννην, translit=Euangélion katà Iōánnēn) is the fourth of the four canonical gospels. It contains a highly schematic account of the ministry of Jesus, with seven "sig ...

, "" ("It is finished!"), which have inspired many other hymns.

Text

The original German text is a

Passion hymn Passion hymns are hymns dedicated to the Passion of Jesus. They are often sung during Passiontide, namely for Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. Many of them were used as chorales in Passions ''Passions'' is an American television soap opera t ...

in five stanzas of eight lines each. An English-language version of the hymn, not a translation of the original but sharing its rhyme scheme and Passion theme, has three stanzas. The author of that version, who exemplifies the conservative tradition of the beginning of the 20th-century, pleads, in a "very sensitive and beautiful text", for Christ, as maker of human joys and sorrows, to lead his flock upon the same path of self-sacrifice. The poet's tone and theology are medieval in nature, the text as a whole expanding on medieval analogies between Nature and Christian mythology.

German original

English version

Tune

The hymn tune of "Jesu, meines Glaubens Zier" was first published in Freylinghausen's hymnal in 1714. The setting which appears in only consists of a vocal line (melody) and a figured bass. A realisation of this was published in the English Hymnal, and this setting is transcribed below. << << \new Staff \new Lyrics \lyricmode \new Staff >> >> \layout \midi

References

Sources

* * * * *

External links

*
BWV 472: Jesu, meines Glaubens Zier
at
It is finished! Christ hath known, (Jesu Meines Glaubens Zier)
in various print and audio formats at * (recordings) * {{Authority control Lutheran hymns 17th-century hymns in German Passion hymns