Oh God, look into it from heaven
Oh God, see it from heaven is a Reformation chorale by Martin Luther , which he created at the end of 1523.
Luther's chorale
Around the turn of the year 1523/24, Luther was busy creating psalm songs in German for the celebration of the divine service - a programmatic orientation that he had developed in his Formula Missae 1523 and in a letter to Georg Spalatin . The songs should accurately grasp the meaning of the Psalm and render it in plain language without being exact translations. He created a total of seven psalm songs, of which he considered his German translation of Psalm 130 LUT Out of deep need to be particularly exemplary. Oh God, look from heaven into it is Luther's interpretation of Psalm 12 LUT , in the numbering of the Vulgate Psalm 11. At that time known by its Latin initial words Salvum me fac , it is a lament and trust song; Its heading in the Luther Bible of 1912 reads: Lament over the power of the wicked , in the standard translation The falsehood of men - the faithfulness of God .
The song was published for the first time as a single-sheet print on a now-lost Wittenberger Dreiliederblatt and a little later in the eight-song book and achieved through inclusion in song collections such as the Erfurt Enchiridion and hymn books, z. B. by Johann Walter (1524), quickly spread. At the beginning different melodies were assigned to the song, the modal melody that is customary today, traditionally called hypophrygic , is found for the first time in the Erfurt Enchiridion . In this form it is attributed to Luther himself, who was partly inspired by a pre-Reformation secular melody ( Begirlich in dem hertzen min , 1410).
The translation of Luther formally follows the Psalm; two psalm verses are transmitted in a ratio of 1: 1, then two in each case in a ratio of 2: 1. In terms of content, however, he goes beyond the psalm text and places it in a new, decidedly Christian Reformation context: his time at that time. He uses the psalm to interpret his situation and that of the Reformation in a personal, passionate way, namely as a probationary period dependent on God's word, his gospel: "It wants to be proven through the cross ..."
Reformation battle song
The song was understood and used as a Reformation confession song soon after its first publication. In 1527, supporters of the Reformation in Braunschweig agreed when an old-believing preacher brought in from Magdeburg by the council gave a sermon on good works, and thus silenced him. Something similar is reported from Lübeck , where after the expulsion of the Reformation preachers Johann Walhoff and Andreas Wilms , which was enforced by the council, a dispute broke out that became known in Reformation historiography as the song war . On December 5, 1529, the eve of St. Nicholas ' Day, evangelical-minded citizens began to interrupt the Catholic masses by loudly singing Reformation psalm songs, especially Oh God, see it from heaven . A story handed down in Lübeck says that it was "two little boys" who started doing it in the Jakobikirche and that the citizens "diligently got involved". So, oh God, look down on it from heaven, the first psalm song that was sung publicly in a church in Lübeck. The growing movement and unrest in the city first reached the recall of the two preachers and finally two years later the introduction of the Reformation church order by Johannes Bugenhagen . Such actions had already taken place in Basel and Frankfurt am Main in 1525/26.
Numerous parodies from a Roman Catholic point of view, for example in the hymn book by Johann Leisentrit , show how widespread, identity-forming for Protestants and challenging for Catholics the song had become.
The Bach cantata
In the age of Johann Sebastian Bach , the chorale was the main song for the 2nd Sunday after Trinity because it related to the subject of the readings provided in the pericope order : 1 Joh 3,13-18 LUT as epistle and Luke 14 : 16-24 LUT , the parable of the Great Supper as the Sunday Gospel. For the corresponding Sunday, June 18, 1724, Bach created his choral cantata of the same name Oh God, from heaven see it, BWV 2 .
aftermath
Oh God from Heaven, look into it ... became the song opening pattern for various songs and texts that were mainly distributed on song pamphlets. Oh God from Heaven, look into it and have mercy, the Bavarian Prince has already entered Prague ... was a political rewrite to the Winter King, Elector Friedrich V von der Pfalz, 1620. Oh God from Heaven, look into it ... we have to be braid again, we Hessians, yes we poor ... they sang about the restoration in Hesse and the reintroduction of braids in the military, 1815.
The chorale has been dealt with in many ways in the history of music. Above all, the singing of the armed men (The man who wanders this street) from Mozart's Magic Flute , which completely quotes the melody, is known.
Oh God in heaven, look into it or (O) God in heaven, look into it have been cited as text fragments in the most varied of contexts, but mostly with a consciously Protestant or national undertone. This is how Ernst Moritz Arndt uses it in the last stanza of Des Deutschen Vaterland : “O God from Heaven, look into it and give us real German courage that we love it faithfully and well! That should be it! That should be it! It should be all of Germany! ” Louise Otto-Peters made God in Heaven see it! on the title of a polemical poem directed against the Jesuits in Switzerland .
Luther's chorale can still be found in the Evangelical Hymnbook (EG 273), but is seldom sung.
Translations
A translation into Low German Ach Godt van Hemmel see vnd lath dy des merciful in it: Bedroeuet ys de gantze Gemein by Ryken vnd by Armen. Dyn Wordt men leth nicht hebben wær de Gloue vnd Trüw vorloeschet gær by den vns schoelen leren ... appeared as a song leaflet in Lübeck by Balhorn the Younger around 1590. A translation into Danish O Gud af Himmelen se her til ... was in a Danish Hymnal, printed in Rostock in 1529, published and adopted in the Danish hymn book by Ludwig Dietz from 1536. A more recent translation into Danish Ak, Gud, fra Himlen se herned, dig over os forbarme ... from 1840 was included in the Danish hymn book Den Danske Salme Bog , Copenhagen 1993, taken over (also in the new edition from 2002).
Catherine Winkworth translated the song into English in 1863 under the title Ah God, from heav'n look down and see .
literature
- Johannes Kulp (edited by Arno Büchner and Siegfried Fornaçon): The songs of our church. A handout for the Protestant church hymn book ; Handbook for the Evangelical Church Hymnal. Special tape. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1958, pp. 272–275.
- Matthias Schneider : 273 - Oh God, look into it from heaven . In: Gerhard Hahn , Jürgen Henkys (Hrsg.): Liederkunde zum Evangelisches Gesangbuch . No. 13 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2007, ISBN 978-3-525-50337-9 , pp. 63–68 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Schneider, p. 64
- ^ Martin Luther: Works (Weimar Edition): WA 35, pp. 336–337
- ^ Kulp, p. 273
- ↑ The expression Singekrieg was apparently only coined in 1931 by Wilhelm Jannasch's popular portrayal of the Reformation in Lübeck, Der Kampf um die Wort ; in any case it cannot be proven beforehand.
- ↑ See Wikisource
- ^ Wolf-Dieter Hauschild : Church history of Lübeck. Lübeck: Schmidt-Römhild, 1981; ISBN 3-7950-2500-1 ; P. 181
- ^ Karl Dienst: Evangelical singing movement in Basel, Lübeck and Frankfurt. In: Yearbook of the Hessian Church History Association 17 (1966), pp. 281–290
- ↑ http://www.bsb-muenchen-digital.de/~db/1059/bsb10591309/images/index.html Spiritual paradeis bird of the Catholic Germans, that is: Auserleßene Catholische Gesäng from many old and new Catholische Gesang Books, to be used for all times of the year, at home, in churches, ..., First printed in Neuss, by Ignatius Schubart u, Sl, 1688, p. 430 ff.
- ^ Lectionary of the Bach time
- ↑ Cf. Otto Holzapfel : Lied index: The older German-language popular song tradition ( online version on the Volksmusikarchiv homepage of the Upper Bavaria district ; in PDF format; ongoing updates) with further information.
- ↑ Synopsis of He who wanders this road and Oh God, look into it from heaven
- ↑ Quoted from Wikisource
- ↑ God in heaven see it! at Wikisource
- ↑ Cf. Otto Holzapfel : Lied index: The older German-language popular song tradition ( online version on the Volksmusikarchiv homepage of the Upper Bavaria district ; in PDF format; ongoing updates) with further information.
- ↑ Ah God, from heav'n look down and see . Hymnary.org. Retrieved July 1, 2016.