Bach's “Wagner Hymnal” Or the Most Complete Collection of German
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Bach’s “Wagner Hymnal” or the Most Complete Collection of German Chorale Texts at the End of the 17th Century This almost complete collection of chorales used in Lutheran churches throughout German-speaking principalities during the 16th and 17th centuries is simply referred to as the ‘Wagner Gesangbuch’, particularly in association with Johann Sebastian Bach in whose library it maintained an easily accessible position and must have been frequently used throughout his tenure in Leipzig from 1723-1750. A Description of this ‘Gesangbuch’ The main part of the title to this book is as follows: “Andächtiger Seelen geistliches Brand- und Gantz-Opfer / Das ist vollständiges Gesangbuch in Acht unterschiedlichen Theilen…” (“A Burnt and an ‚Entirely-Consumed-by-Fire‘ Offering/Sacrifice for Reverent/Devout Souls, i.e., a Complete Hymnal in Eight Different Parts….”). It was published by Andreas Zeidler in Leipzig in 1697. The chorale texts distributed over eight volumes are separated into the following categories: 1. By Martin Luther and other chorales generally used in Evangelical churches. 2. For feast days throughout the entire church year. 3. Relating to gospel and epistle readings for every Sunday, feast and apostle day as well as those about Jesus, the Christian church and the celebration of the Sabbath and also to include the Psalm-based chorales according to the order of Psalms in the Book of Psalms. 4. To be sung in the morning and evening or at meals, also about Christian life and transitional periods of life. 5. At the time of repentance and catechism as well as during communion including some of the most important texts based on Jesus Sirach. 6. During difficult times but also for giving comfort, for giving praise and thanks. 7. Regarding classes of society, divided into the three main classes, also for traveling by land or water, in times of war, hunger or plague. 8. About illness and death as well as including those about the Last Judgement, heaven and hell. The nameless editors of this entire set have included numerous indices and claim to have carefully edited and, in some cases where newer chorales were involved, even improved them. All these chorale texts have received the approval of the theologians in the Department of Theology at the University of Leipzig and were published to assist and encourage others in the community in their devotional activities by Andreas Zeidler in 1697. This 8-volume set contains 4,723 chorale texts distributed according the above-mentioned categories over 11,479 pages. The Origin of the Designation ‘Wagner Gesangbuch’ The name ‘Wagner’ is not mentioned anywhere in the entire set of volumes, not on the title page, not in the dedications nor in the foreword. In the Bach-Dokumente, Vol. 2, Bärenreiter, 1969, Item 627, pp. 490 ff., dated 1750, the contents of Bach’s estate are listed in what is called the “Specificatio der Verlaßenschafft” [“Itemized Listing of the Estate”]. Under the twelfth heading/category “An geistlichen Büchern” [“Books on Matters of Religion”—there were no books on any other subject matter in this estate] with a book size of In octavo, the final entry reads: “Wagneri Leipziger Gesang Buch 8. Bände 1 Reichsthaler” [“The Leipzig Hymnal by Wagner, 8 vols. 1 Reichsthaler”]. In the division of property Item 628, pp. 498 ff., dated November 11, 1750, the Wagner Gesangbuch was given to Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach. Thereafter any record of its existence was irretrievably lost. A noted Bach scholar, Werner Neumann, *(“Zur Frage der Gesangbücher Johann Sebastian Bachs“ [“On the Question regarding Johann Sebastian Bach’s Hymnals”], Bach-Jahrbuch, 1956, pp. 112-123) gives the following explanation: The contents of this Gesangbuch [‘hymnal’] appear to have originated with an extensive collection of chorale texts compiled from various German hymnals over the course of many years by a noteworthy Leipzig citizen, Paul Wagner (1617-1697). Among several positions that he held during his lifetime were those as a member of the Leipzig City Council and as a mayor of Leipzig. It is immediately apparent that the year of Paul Wagner’s death coincides with the publication of this Gesangbuch. His sons were responsible for its rapid publication. No later edition of this work was ever undertaken, as it certainly was not intended to serve as a hymnal that members of a congregation could use in a church setting. More likely it was directed toward a small group of specialized users such as pastors, cantors and musicians. This is how it came to be that it found its place in Johann Sebastian Bach’s library, very likely having acquired it at the beginning of his tenure in Leipzig in 1723 (“Bach[s], der ihn [den Band] vermutlich bei seinem Leipziger Amtsantritt (1723) erstanden hatte”). One can easily imagine or speculate that Bach could have purchased this set from Sabina Elisabeth Kuhnau, the widow of Johann Kuhnau, Bach’s predecessor. Bach had a continuing contact with this widow, using her as a witness to support his case for financial compensation for his musical activities at St. Paul’s Church, which was associated with the University of Leipzig. Although Bach did not want to purchase any music scores and parts that remained in Kuhnau’s estate, the usefulness of this unusual Gesangbuch, most likely also in his [Kuhnau’s] estate, would have been quite evident to Bach. In Bach’s estate (1750) it is listed in the category, Religious Books. It is extremely unfortunate that Bach’s copy of this set has been lost. How valuable it would have been to see his comments and markings similar to those found in his copy of the Calov Bible! Results from Charles Sanford Terry’s Research *(Bach’s Chorals: Part II: “The hymns and hymn melodies of the cantatas and motetts”, Cambridge University Press, 1917 pp. 78 ff.) Terry notes that the Wagner Gesangbuch is “the only Hymn book in Bach’s possession at the time of his death…. Of the 154 Hymns used by Bach all but eleven [actually only nine] are found there (no tunes or melodies). Of the eleven [9], all but two (Neander’s “Lobe den Herren, den mächtigen König der Ehren“ and Neumann’s „Auf, mein Herz“) are found in the 1708 edition of Crüger’s Praxis Pietatis Melica. The choice of Hymn texts therefore need not have occasioned Bach much research. The following are the 154 Hymns, tabulated under the names of their authors: …. [This list is omitted here.] Not in Wagner’s Hymn book: Auf, mein Herz, des Herren Tag Barmherzger Vater, höchster Gott Christe, du Lamm Gottes Ihr Christen auserkoren Liebster Gott, wann wird ich sterben Lobe den Herren, den mächtigen König der Ehren Schmücke dich, O liebe Seele Sei Lob und Ehr’ dem höchsten Gut Wer weiss, wie nahe mir mein Ende“ Providing Easier Access to this Primary Source Source of the Wagner Gesangbuch: www.zvdd.de/dms/load/met/?PPN=PPN68579217X vd18: VD17 3:313277Q vd18: Bircher, M. Barock, 1600-1720, B 3798-3806 vd18: VD17 3:313276G Sammlung: digiwunschbuch.sub.uni.goettingen.de Niedersaechisische Staats- und Universitaetsbibliothek Goettingen -Digitalisierungszentrum 37070 Goettingen, Germany, Email: [email protected] There are still some good reasons for providing scholars and others who might be interested in having easy access to a complete index for all 8 volumes of the Wagner Gesangbuch. Currently the OCR [Optical Character Recognition] capability provided by the Adobe Acrobat program can barely scratch the surface in recognizing German Fraktur letters and replacing them with English (Roman-type) letters. The results that I have seen when attempting to use Adobe’s OCR on a page from the Wagner Gesangbuch to see what might be recognizable and usable are truly abominable. Even when OCR will be sufficiently capable of rendering German Fraktur into English characters [transliteration: the process of transferring letters from the alphabet of one language to another], it will encounter problems caused by the variability in the darkness and lightness of the ink as well as imperfections in the paper itself when it is of poor quality. Sometimes certain numbers were indiscernible and only a space hinted at the possibility that a number was intended. On some pages the print-through from the reverse side of the page was quite considerable making the identification of certain letters very difficult. In all such instances it becomes necessary to guess at what was intended. At the time when these volumes were printed, German orthography still lacked certain rules governing the spelling of words. On the same page, a specific word may be spelled in two different ways, but the pronunciation would remain the same. These variants will appear elsewhere on differing pages indicating that these instances, or only one of them, were not thought to be misspellings of the same word. These variants could also be explained by the fact that they were copied directly without any changes from various hymnals printed at different times and places. Nevertheless there are typesetting errors many of which are listed in the Errata of each volume. Since there are numerous instances of chorale text incipits, the first lines of which are completely identical, the editors and/or printer decided to continue into the second line which is distinctly identified by capitalizing the first letter of its first word. This may appear rather strange at times because these may be parts of speech which do not require capitalization in the middle of the sentence: Gott ist mein Trost und Zuversicht, Dem thu I, 648 Gott ist mein Trost und Zuversicht, Seit dem VI, 290 Here is an instance where this method does not work since the space requirement does not allow for the third line to be included: Uns ist ein Kindlein heut gebohrn, Von einer Jungfrau auserkohrn, Deß freuen sich die Engelein, I, 38 Uns ist ein Kindlein heut gebohrn, Von einer Jungfrau auserkohrn, Ein wahrer Mensch, ein wahrer GOtt, I, 46 All scratch commas [forward slashes] in Fraktur are rendered in the transliteration simply as a comma.