Most beautiful Lord Jesus

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Most beautiful Lord Jesus , first print in the Münster hymn book from 1677

Most beautiful Lord Jesus is a spiritual song of the Catholic tradition. It is an individual's prayer to Jesus Christ and praises his spiritual beauty, which transcends all created things and is present in the Eucharist , as the ultimate goal of love . The author of the text, first printed in 1677, is unknown, as is the composer of the two melodies from the 17th and 19th centuries. The song is contained in the most important German-language Catholic and Protestant hymn books in different text versions.

Origin and reception

The hymnologist Bernhard Hölscher (1813–1890) reports in an essay about a manuscript book he found in Münster , which he dates to the 1660s and which, along with other sacred and secular songs, contains the oldest known transcription of the song Schönster Herr Jesu in one six- verse version, headed Suspirium ad Jesum - "Sigh to Jesus". Hölscher suspects that the writer of the booklet is a student at the Jesuit high school in Münster . He puts the author of the spiritual texts in the booklet close to Friedrich Spees . This closeness to Spee's thinking and poetry and, more generally, to the Jesuit concern of internalizing faith in the course of the Counter Reformation is undisputed for the song Most Beautiful Lord Jesus ; however, a direct authorship of Spees is unlikely.

The Lüner hymn poet Rudolph Nagell is also mentioned as a co-author (in the Gresang book of Münster 1677).

In the reception the song went through countless changes. The first print in the Münster hymn book of 1677 already had a text different from Hölscher's manuscript book; the fourth of the six stanzas is completely missing there. In contrast, the editions of the Cologne Jesuit hymn book Geistliches Psalterlein from the late 17th century onwards offer a six- stanza version, which is not based on the Munster hymn book. Even Henry Bones version of 1847 are all six verses based.

Bones ecclesiastical restorative edition was preceded by the suppression of the song in the Enlightenment period and its romantic revival as a “ Silesian folk song ” by the Protestant August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben , Breslau 1842, under the heading “Jesus about everything”. In this version, which is also very different from the original, the original verse 5 is missing ("they must die, must perish"). Instead, the second stanza "The forests are beautiful, the fields are beautiful" has been added. The final stanza has been repositioned in such a way that it does not refer to the sacraments.

In this version, the song was more popular in the Protestant context than in the Catholic in the following decades. Otto Riethmüller kept Hoffmann von Fallersleben's second stanza for his evangelical youth song book Ein neue Lied (1932), but also took up the deleted fifth stanza again. He deleted the sacramental stanza without replacement and added the original stanza 2 "All ... beauty ... is contained in you alone" at the end. The song was included in the Evangelical Church Hymnbook (No. 495), the Mennonite Hymnal (No. 59) and, with minor changes, into the current Evangelical Hymnal (No. 403).

The Catholic resumption of the hymn - hymn (1938) , Gotteslob (1975) and finally Gotteslob (2013) (No. 364) - follows, with some text retouches, the version of Münster 1677. The presence of Jesus "in the Holy Sacrament" is added to "through your word and sacrament". This version is also the ö version.

Text in use today

EG 403

GL 364

1. Most beautiful Lord Jesus,
ruler of all lords,
Son of God and Mary,
I want to love
you, I want to honor you, the
joy and crown of my soul.

1. Most beautiful Lord Jesus,
ruler of all lords,
Son of God and Mary,
I want to love
you, I want to honor you, the
joy and crown of my soul.

2. The forests
are beautiful, the fields are more beautiful
in the beautiful spring time;
Jesus is more beautiful,
Jesus is purer,
who delights my sad heart.

2. All the beauty of
heaven and earth
is contained in you alone.
Nobody should ever be more
to me
than you, dearest Jesus mine.

3. The moons are
beautiful, the sun is more
beautiful, the stars are also beautiful.
Jesus is finer,
Jesus is purer
than all the angels.

3. The moons are
beautiful, the sun is more
beautiful, the stars are also beautiful.
Jesus is finer,
Jesus is purer
than all the angels.

4. The flowers
are beautiful, the people
in their fresh youth are more beautiful ;
they must die,
must perish:
Jesus remains forever.

4. The flowers
are beautiful, the people
in their fresh youth are more beautiful .
They must die,
they must perish,
Jesus remains forever.

5. All the beauty of
heaven and earth
is contained in you alone.
I shall
love nothing on earth
than you, my dearest Jesus.

5. Most beautiful Lord Jesus, present
with us
through your word and sacrament,
Jesus, I ask you:
Lord, be gracious to us
now and also in the end.

Melodies

The melody of 1677 ? / i is a harmoniously expressive Baroque style in a minor key with sometimes large intervals . Is the Silesian melody against it ? / i in major , which can be found in Hoffmann von Fallersleben's 1842, more vocal and cheerful. The Catholic hymn books contain only the baroque, the Protestant both melodies. Audio file / audio sample Audio file / audio sample

literature

Web links

Commons : Most beautiful Lord Jesus  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ German sacred songs from the first half of the 17th century . In: Austrian Quarterly Journal for Catholic Theology , Vienna, Volume 4/1865 , pp. 221–256
  2. ↑ Most beautiful Lord Jesus , oldest known text version
  3. ↑ Fischer, p. 2
  4. ↑ Most beautiful Lord Jesus with Heinrich Bone 1847
  5. ↑ Text in the Freiburg anthology ( Memento of the original from January 9, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . The headline is remarkable as a parallel to Hoffmann von Fallersleben's controversial line “Germany, Germany over everything” . @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.lyrik-und-lied.de
  6. ↑ EKG : "beautiful" with Melisma ligature
  7. ↑ The divine praise part of the dioceses of Austria also contains the song with the Silesian melody (No. 853).