Look for someone else who wants to

Seek whoever wants to , song motets by Johann Stobäus 1642, reprinted 1858

Find who wants there, another goal is a Lutheran hymn . Georg Weissel wrote the text in 1623 to a melody composed by Johann Stobäus in 1613 .

Origin and reception

The Lutheran theologian Georg Weissel was appointed pastor at the Altroßgärter Church in Königsberg in 1623 , which was built in the same year, initially as a modest chapel, for the residents of the new settlement in Roßgarten . For the inauguration of the church on the second Sunday in Advent 1623 Weissel wrote the song Power up the door, the gate makes wide . The following Sunday he himself was introduced as pastor of the church; For this occasion, Such, who wants there, a different goal was created .

Weissel had known and valued the cathedral cantor and composer Johann Stobäus ten years older than him since he was a student in Königsberg . This wrote the melody to power up the door . For Such, who wants there , Weissel used a melody that Stobäus had already composed for a wedding service in 1613 (As God ordered, I like it) .

The earliest surviving print of the text with the melody - as a five-part song motet - is in the collection of Preußische Festlieder , which Stobäus published in 1642, seven years after Weissel's death, with his own works and works by his teacher Johannes Eccard . The song soon found its way into all German-language Lutheran hymn books. It was also used with other melodies until the second half of the 20th century.

In the Evangelical Hymnal , Such, Who Wills, is assigned to the heading Justification and Confidence (under no. 346) and in the Mennonite hymn to the heading What God calls us to (under no. 449). It is the weekly song on the 17th Sunday after Trinity .

In 1948, Karl Marx (1897–1985) created the motet Such, who wants there, another goal .

shape

The stanza form, which Weissel adopted from the wedding song by an unknown author, is original and demanding. It consists of eleven lines, three of which are three -lettered and eight are only two-lettered. The rapid succession of the male rhymes and the threefold identity of the female required a high level of language skills from the poet. In contrast to the author of the wedding proposal, Weissel is completely up to this challenge. At no time has his text been "improved" or "modernized" worth mentioning.

content

The gospel on the third Sunday of Advent was Mt 11 : 2–10  LUT . The question that John the Baptist directs to Jesus from prison - “Is it you who is supposed to come, or should we wait for someone else?” - and the messianic self-testimony with which Jesus answers become the starting point of the song . No one else, but Jesus Christ alone, gives salvation and bliss, nourishment and joy for the soul, help and consolation in suffering. The I confession of the first stanza is followed by the we confession of the second, the missionary invitation of the third and finally the personal prayer of the fourth and fifth stanzas.

The reference to the Gospel is inextricably linked with Weissel's testimony of faith when he took office in Roßgarten. What he preaches - the Pauline - Lutheran Solus Christ - is at the same time the livelihood of the preacher himself. The rejection of other “ helpers in need ” can also be read as a polemical rejection of the Catholic veneration of saints , as well as all forms of superstition .

text

1. Seek whoever wants to find another goal, bliss; my heart alone should be concerned to be based on Christ. His word is true, his work is clear, his holy mouth has strength and reason to overcome all enemies.

2. Seek whoever wants, many helpers in need who have earned nothing for us; here is the man who can help with what never spoiled. Salvation is bestowed on us through him; the faithful servant makes us righteous , who died for us.

3. Oh look for him, abandon everything you desire for salvation; he is the Lord and no longer one to grant you salvation. Seek him from the bottom of your heart every hour , seek him alone; because it will be good for him who honors him heartily.

4. The crown of my heart, you shall remain my sun of joy , Lord Jesus; do not let me be driven away from your light by vanity; you remain my prize, your word feed me, you remain my honor, your word teaches me to always firmly believe in you.

5. Do not turn your face away from me, do not let me be troubled in the cross; do not leave me, my highest ornament, help me bear my suffering. Help me to rejoice after this suffering; Help me to praise you after this complaint there forever.

melody

Johann Stobäus' melody ^{? / i} , with its unusual quint and octave jump at the beginning and its numerous syncopations, has a joyful, dance-like character and aptly expresses the text's "defiantly happy" assurance of salvation. In contrast to the iambic stanza form, lines 1 and 4 begin with an accentuated beat , so that a dactyl results. In Weissel's text, the beginning of this line is always met by monosyllabic, meaningful words, often imperatives .

In parts of the evangelical tradition, however, Stobäus' melody was felt to be insufficiently community-friendly. So the song based on the German Evangelical Hymnbook , which was introduced in a number of North, West and East German provincial and regional churches from the end of the 1920s and was in use in some of them until 1969, became the melody Up to Here Has Me Brought god ^{? / i} sung by Peter Sohren . An American German Lutheran hymn book from 1894 contains the song with the melody It is surely about time ^{? / i} by Martin Luther .

Otto Riethmüller included the song in his collection Ein neue Lied (1932) with Stobäus' melody, which was important for the further development of the hymn book (No. 173).

literature

• Helmut Lauterwasser: 346 - Look for someone else who wants to . In: Wolfgang Herbst , Ilsabe Seibt (Hrsg.): Liederkunde zum Evangelischen Gesangbuch . No. 17 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2012, ISBN 978-3-525-50340-9 , p. 56–62 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
• Jürgen Henkys : IV. "Seek whoever wants there, another destination" by Georg Weissel and Johann Stobäus . In: Ders .: Poetry, Bible and Hymn book: Hymnological contributions in the third series. Göttingen 2013, pp. 29–33 ( partially digitized ).

Web links

Commons : Find whoever wants a different goal  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ It was later superseded by the melody in use today.
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Helmut Lauterwasser: 346 - Seek whoever wants a different goal . In: Wolfgang Herbst , Ilsabe Seibt (Hrsg.): Liederkunde zum Evangelischen Gesangbuch . No. 17 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2012, ISBN 978-3-525-50340-9 , p. 56–62 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
3. ↑ In the original, the older form "believes" forms the rhyme.
4. ^ Text version EG 346
5. ↑ No. 196
6. ↑ See the version of an American Lutheran hymn book from 1894.