Honor only to God on high
Honor to God alone is a Lutheran hymn that is included in most German-language hymn books today. Text and melody were created by Nikolaus Decius in 1523 as a glory for the Reformation German mass . Joachim Slueter added a fourth stanza in 1525.
Emergence
Decius' authorship is sparse. Alone God in the Heights was only printed anonymously until the 18th century . In his Braunschweigische Kirchen-Historie, Philipp Julius Rehtmeyer shares a Latin report from the year 1600 in which Decius's acquaintances testify innocently as the writer of texts and melodies from Only God in the Heights, Honor and O Lamb of God . Biographically, Decius' song writing is set to 1522/23 in Braunschweig , i.e. in the early phase of the Reformation, even before Luther's first songs.
The song was written in Low German and was first printed; only afterwards was it translated into standard German , which can be seen in places in the syllable and rhyme structure.
Decius paraphrased the Latin Gloria text in three stanzas. Martin Luther's “September Testament ” was already available to him ; this is proven by his formulation “God is pleased with us” (cf. Lk 2,14 LUT ) for the Latin “hominibus bonae voluntatis”, which is usually translated as “people of good will”.
Decius concluded with the request “Have mercy on us. Amen". Slütersche fourth stanza was created with the intention of completing the trinitarian structure of the original. In place of the original doxology , he put an supplication to the Holy Spirit with passion memory .
The melody is a rhythmic adaptation of the Gloria of the Easter choral mass Lux et origo ( GL 114).
reception
Although the song is missing from Luther's printed song collections - perhaps because of Decius' later inclination to Zwinglianism - it achieved a monopoly as a glory chant in the divine service regulations of the emerging Lutheran regional churches and has retained it to this day. In German Lutheran church music up to the end of the 18th century, especially in the work of Johann Sebastian Bach , Alone God in the Heights is one of the most frequently arranged melodies.
Translations
Alone God in the Heights was translated into Danish by Arvid Pedersen as Allene Gud i det høje være ære ... in the Danish hymn book, Rostock 1529, based on the Low German version by Nikolaus Decius , 1525, Aleyne Godt yn der hoege sy ere ... , reprinted in the Danish hymn book by Ludwig Dietz, 1536, and again in Hans Tausen , En Ny Psalmebog (A new hymn book), 1553. Later it came in other versions in the newer Danish hymn books.
text
Lyrics in use today |
The Lutheran Gloria |
Only God on high be honor |
Glory to God on high |
We praise, praise, adore you; |
We praise you, we adore you, |
O Jesus Christ, only begotten Son of |
Lord, only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, |
O |
For you alone are holy, |
literature
- Andreas Marti : 179 - Honor to God alone on high . In: Gerhard Hahn , Jürgen Henkys (Hrsg.): Liederkunde zum Evangelisches Gesangbuch . No. 6/7 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2003, ISBN 3-525-50330-X , p. 32–37 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
- Ludger Stühlmeyer : The hymns of the Hofer Nicolaus Decius. In: Curia sonans. The music history of the city of Hof . A study on the culture of Upper Franconia. From the foundation of the Bamberg diocese to the present. (Phil. Diss.) Bayerische Verlagsanstalt, Heinrichs-Verlag Bamberg 2010, ISBN 978-3-89889-155-4 , pp. 110-112, 135-137, 357-358.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Werner Merten: Decius, Nikolaus . In: Wolfgang Herbst (ed.): Who is who in the hymnal? , Göttingen 2001, pp. 73f.
- ↑ Bach based - including the vocal arrangements with different lyrics - BWV 85.3, 104.6, 112.1.5, 128.1, 260, 662, 663, 664, 675, 676, 677, 711, 715, 716, 717 and 771 (today Nicolaus Vetter attributed to) on the melody.
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ Evangelisches Gesangbuch 179; Mennonite Hymns 24; In Praise of God (No. 170) the 4th stanza is missing; there the second half of the fifth melody line is divided into two quarter notes, so that the apostrophes “well-liked”, “unmeasured” and “holy” are omitted.
- ↑ EG 180.1