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      • BachTalks
      • Saturday Sings!
    • 2022-23 Virtual Offerings >
      • The Choir Loft >
        • Feb. 5 - Winter's Chill - Dianna Morgan
        • Feb. 12 - The Heirs of Bach: Charles Ives - Steve Osborn
        • March 12 - The Heirs of Bach: Hugo Distler - Steve Osborn
      • Repertoire Exploration Projects
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  • Who we are and What we do
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    • Circa 1600
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Christe der du bist Tag und Licht
First it was a chant, then it was a chorale.  
This actually happened a lot, especially when Martin Luther and his musical brethren were putting together an entire musical apparatus in German for the early Protestant church. For example, the great 'Christ lag in Todesbanden' is a paraphrase of the Easter sequence 'Victimae paschali laudes'. Today's chorale, 'Christe der du bist Tag und Licht' is a paraphrase of a Latin hymn for Compline, 'Christe qui lux es et dies'.

You can become familiar with the venerable four-phrase hymn in William Byrd's remarkable homophonic setting at this link, which includes a scrolling text and the indication c.f. (cantus firmus) at the opening of each verse, so that you can see (and hear) which part has the melody at any given time. And here's a link to a cpdl page which includes a translation, and which also gives an idea of the number of composers who have made polyphonic settings of different types and voicings.

Luther created a verse-translation of the hymn, which you can read here; interestingly, he made considerable changes in adapting the melody to his poem. The overall skeleton remains the same, but (as you can see here) many of the details are different. 


Bach, as far we know, set the chorale only twice: As BWV 274, one of the independent chorales (probably part of a lost cantata)--score here and recording here--and as an organ prelude, BWV 1096, one of the Neumeister Chorales--see attachment and recording here.

And if you haven't gotten your fill of this lovely, mystical melody, check out J.H. Schein's cantional setting in a very nice, intimate live performance here; and, on a very different scale of magnitude, M. Praetorius' splendiferous setting from the Polyhymnia, one of his many settings of the chorale.

I recommend that you do what I've just done: Make yourself a cup of cocoa and sit down and do some listening!​
Click here to download score
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