Last updated German grave cross with the text Selig im Herrn ("Blessed in the Lord")
Selig sind die Toten (English: Blessed are the dead) is the incipit of a verse from the Bible frequently used in funeral music of German-speaking composers.
The incipit of a text is the first few words of the text, employed as an identifying label. In a musical composition, an incipit is an initial sequence of notes, having the same purpose. The word incipit comes from Latin and means "it begins". Its counterpart taken from the ending of the text is the explicit.
The Bible is a collection of sacred texts or scriptures. Varying parts of the Bible are considered to be a product of divine inspiration and a record of the relationship between God and humans by Christians, Jews, Samaritans, and Rastafarians.
The text appears in Revelation 14:13. In the Luther Bible it begins Selig sind die Toten, die in dem Herrn sterben von nun an, in English "Blessed are the dead, who die in the Lord, from henceforth" (Revelation14:13).
The Book of Revelation, often called the Book of Revelations, Revelation to John, the Apocalypse of John, The Revelation, or simply Revelation, the Revelation of Jesus Christ or the Apocalypse, is the final book of the New Testament, and therefore also the final book of the Christian Bible. It occupies a central place in Christian eschatology. Its title is derived from the first word of the text, written in Koine Greek: apokalypsis, meaning "unveiling" or "revelation". The Book of Revelation is the only apocalyptic document in the New Testament canon The only extended apocalyptic passage in the Old Testament is in the Book of Daniel.
The Luther Bible is a German language Bible translation from Hebrew and ancient Greek by Martin Luther. The New Testament was first published in 1522 and the complete Bible, containing the Old and New Testaments with Apocrypha, in 1534. It was the first full translation of the Bible into German based mainly on the original Hebrew and Greek texts and not the Latin Vulgate translation.
In western music, a motet is a mainly vocal musical composition, of highly diverse form and style, from the late medieval era to the present. The motet was one of the pre-eminent polyphonic forms of Renaissance music. According to Margaret Bent, "a piece of music in several parts with words" is as precise a definition of the motet as will serve from the 13th to the late 16th century and beyond. The late 13th-century theorist Johannes de Grocheo believed that the motet was "not to be celebrated in the presence of common people, because they do not notice its subtlety, nor are they delighted in hearing it, but in the presence of the educated and of those who are seeking out subtleties in the arts".
Heinrich Schütz was a German composer and organist, generally regarded as the most important German composer before Johann Sebastian Bach, as well as one of the most important composers of the 17th century. He is credited with bringing the Italian style to Germany and continuing its evolution from the Renaissance into the Early Baroque. Most of his music we have today was written for the Lutheran church, primarily for the Electoral Chapel in Dresden. He wrote what is traditionally considered to be the first German opera, Dafne, performed at Torgau in 1627, the music of which has since been lost, along with nearly all of his ceremonial and theatrical scores.
Geistliche Chormusik is a collection of motets on German texts for choir by Heinrich Schütz. It was printed in Dresden in 1648 as his Opus Undecimum, and comprises 29 individual settings for five to seven voices, which were assigned numbers 369 to 397 in the Schütz-Werke-Verzeichnis (SWV). The original title was Geistliche Chor-Music, Erster Theil which indicates that Schütz planned a second part. It is also known as Geistliche Chor-Music 1648. The collection contains earlier and new works and a German arrangement of a motet by Andrea Gabrieli.
Hugo Distler was a German organist, choral conductor, teacher and composer.
Johann Hermann Schein was a German composer of the early Baroque era. He was born in Grünhain and died in Leipzig. He was one of the first to import the early Italian stylistic innovations into German music, and was one of the most polished composers of the period.
Gottfried Scheidt was a German composer and organist.
In 1724 Johann Sebastian Bach composed the church cantata Meine Seel erhebt den Herren, BWV 10, as part of his second cantata cycle. Taken from Martin Luther's German translation of the Magnificat canticle, the title translates as "My soul magnifies the Lord". Also known as Bach's German Magnificat, the work follows his chorale cantata format.
The Orgelbüchlein BWV 599−644 is a set of 45 chorale preludes for organ — one of them is given in two versions — by Johann Sebastian Bach. All but three were written between 1708 and 1717 when Bach served as organist to the ducal court in Weimar; the remainder and a short two-bar fragment came no earlier than 1726, after the composer’s appointment as cantor at the Thomasschule in Leipzig.
Johann Sebastian Bach's Magnificat, BWV 243.2, BWV 243, is a musical setting of the biblical canticle Magnificat. It is scored for five vocal parts, and a Baroque orchestra including trumpets and timpani. It is the first major liturgical composition on a Latin text by Bach.
"Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme" is a Lutheran hymn written in German by Philipp Nicolai, first published in 1599 together with "Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern". It appears in German hymnals and in several English hymnals in translations such as "Wake, Awake, for Night Is Flying", "Wake, O wake! with tidings thrilling", and "Up! Awake! From Highest Steeple". Johann Sebastian Bach based a chorale cantata on the hymn, Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, BWV 140, one of its many settings for organ and for voices.
Between 1716 and 1767, Georg Philipp Telemann wrote a series of Passions, musical compositions reflecting on Christ's Passion – the physical, spiritual and mental suffering of Jesus from the hours prior to his trial through to his crucifixion. The works were written for performance in German churches in the days before Easter. A prolific composer, Telemann wrote over 40 Passions for the churches of Hamburg alone, of which 22 have survived according to the present state of research. He also wrote several Passion oratorios. Unlike the Passions intended for liturgical performance, they were not closely set to the literal text of the Gospels.
Wer da gläubet und getauft wird, BWV 37, is a cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach, a church cantata for the feast of the Ascension of Jesus. Bach composed it in Leipzig and first performed it on 18 May 1724.
"Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern" is a hymn by Philipp Nicolai written in 1597 and first published in 1599. The hymn for Pentecost "O Heilger Geist, kehr bei uns ein" by Michael Schirmer is sung to the same tune.
O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort, BWV 60, is a church cantata for the 24th Sunday after Trinity composed by Johann Sebastian Bach. It was first performed in Leipzig on 7 November 1723, and is part of Bach's first cantata cycle. It is one of Bach's dialogue cantatas: its topic, fear of death and hope of salvation, plays out mainly through a conversation between two allegorical figures, Fear and Hope.
Vox Christi, Latin for Voice of Christ, is a setting of Jesus' words in a vocal work such as a Passion, an Oratorium or a Cantata. Conventionally, for instance in Protestant music of the Baroque era, the vox Christi is set for a bass voice.
"Gelobet seist du, Jesu Christ" is a Lutheran hymn, written by Martin Luther in 1524. It was first published in 1524 in the Eyn geystlich Gesangk Buchleyn. For centuries the chorale has been the prominent hymn (Hauptlied) for Christmas Day in German speaking Lutheranism, but has also been used in different translations internationally. It has appeared in hymnals of various denominations including the Catholic Church.
Selig ist der Mann, BWV57, is a church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. He wrote the Christmas cantata in Leipzig in 1725 for the Second Day of Christmas, which was celebrated that year as St. Stephen's Day, and first performed it on 26 December 1725.
The Weimarer Passion, BWV deest, is a hypothetical Passion oratorio by Johann Sebastian Bach, thought to have possibly been performed on Good Friday 26 March 1717 at Gotha on the basis of a payment of 12 Thaler on 12 April 1717 to "Concert Meister Bachen". It is one of several such lost Passions. Both the text and music are lost, but individual movements from this work could have been reused in latter works such as the Johannes-Passion. At one time, it was thought that the work set chapters 26 and 27 of the Gospel of Matthew to music, with interspersed chorales and arias, but current consensus is that it is possible that the text reflected a synopsis of two or more Gospel texts, as well as the interspersed chorales and arias.
A church cantata or sacred cantata is a cantata intended to be performed during a liturgical service. The liturgical calendar of the German Reformation era had, without counting Reformation Day and days between Palm Sunday and Easter, 72 occasions for which a cantata could be presented. Composers such as Georg Philipp Telemann composed cycles of church cantatas comprising all 72 of these occasions. Such a cycle is called an "ideal" cycle, while in any given liturgical year feast days could coincide with Sundays, and the maximum amount of Sundays after Epiphany and the maximum amount of Sundays after Trinity could not all occur.
"O Mensch, bewein dein Sünde groß" is a Lutheran Passion hymn with a text written by Sebald Heyden in 1530. The author reflects the Passion, based on the Four Evangelists, originally in 23 stanzas. The lyrics were written for an older melody, "Es sind doch selig alle, die im rechten Glauben wandeln". The first and last stanzas have appeared in 11 hymnals. Catherine Winkworth translated it as "O man, thy grievous sin bemoan". The hymn has been used in Passion music and is known in Bach's setting as a chorale fantasia closing Part I of his St Matthew Passion.
Wer ist der, so von Edom kömmt is a pasticcio Passion oratorio based on compositions by Carl Heinrich Graun, Georg Philipp Telemann, Johann Sebastian Bach and others. The pasticcio was assembled around 1750.
Ich lasse dich nicht, also Ich lasse dich nicht, du segnest mich denn, BWV Anh. 159, is a motet set for double choir. Recent scholarship assumes Johann Sebastian Bach as the composer who possibly wrote it during his Weimar period around 1712.
"Herzlich tut mich verlangen" is a German hymn, with lyrics written in 1611 by Christoph Knoll, with a melody adapted from a secular song by Hans Leo Hassler. It is a prayer for a blessed death, beginning "Herzlich tut mich verlangen nach einem sel'gen End".
"Dies sind die heilgen zehn Gebot" is a hymn by the Protestant reformer Martin Luther based on the Ten Commandments. It appeared first in 1524 in the Erfurt Enchiridion.
"Christus, der uns selig macht" is a German Lutheran Passion hymn in eight stanzas in German by Michael Weiße, written in 1531 as a translation of the Latin hymn "Patris Sapientia" to an older melody of the Bohemian Brethren.
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