The Complicated Adventures of a Simple Song
Bob Worth
​content posted on February 7th

In the mid-1530’s, Martin Luther published the words to a new poem he had written, possibly for a Christmas pageant which his children were mounting. Although the verses of ‘Vom Himmel Hoch’ (‘From Heaven on High’) were originally set to a preëxisting secular melody, Luther soon penned a new tune, which was published with the poem in 1539 under the rubric ‘Ein Kinderliede auff die Weihnachten’ (‘A Children’s Song About Christmas’). The straightforward four-phrase song became an immediate hit, perhaps Luther’s most beloved song, and was provided with many
​polyphonic settings from the 16th century on.

The fact that many of these settings, by composers such as Johannes Eccard, Hans Leo Hassler and Johann Hermann Schein, are charming and clever and moving is no great surprise. But several others went to great lengths to supply this simple song with extended, complex arrangements. Something about the clearly structured, transparent melody seemed to invite elaboration, and we find (for example) Michael Praetorius publishing a dizzying array of settings large and small; Johann Christoph Bach (JS’s uncle) writing the incredibly inventive ‘Merk auf, mein Herz, merk auf’, a free setting of six stanzas from the chorale; and JS Bach himself producing the amazing ‘Canonic Variations on Vom Himmel Hoch’,
​among many other settings.

We’ll take a close look at the tune and the poem; we’ll listen to some beautiful settings from Luther’s time and on;
and we’ll explore some of these more extended settings as we attempt to answer the question:
‘Why and how do composers build complexity upon simplicity?’