Johann Sebastian Bach Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern

How beauteous is the morning star
that shows God’s greatness from afar,
the sweetest root of Jesse!
Thou David’s son of Jacob’s line,
my king, my bridegroom,
and my own,
my heart is thy possession:
lovely, friendly,
fair and glorious,
great, victorious,
grace most splendid,
highly and richly exalted.

Thou Son of God and blessed Mary’s child,
thou Sovereighn of God’s elected,
how sweet is Thy most holy word,
by which the patriarchs of old
their years as days had counted,
which Gabriel with joyful heart in Bethlehem did promise!

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Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern
voll Gnad und Wahrheit von dem Herrn,
die süße Wurzel Jesse!
Du Sohn Davids aus Jakobs Stamm,
mein König und mein Bräutigam,
hast mir mein Herz besessen,
lieblich, freundlich, schön und herrlich,
groß und ehrlich, reich von Gaben,
hoch und sehr prächtig erhaben.

Du wahrer Gottes und Marien Sohn,
du König derer Auserwählten,
wie süß ist uns dies Lebenswort,
nach dem die ersten Väter schon
so Jahr als Tage zählten,
das Gabriel mit Freuden dort
in Bethlehem verheißen!
O Süßigkeit, o Himmelsbrot,
das weder Grab, Gefahr, noch Tod,

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Ulrich Leisinger
Translation: David Kosviner

The cantata Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern BWV 1 (How beauteous is the morning star) occupies a special position in Johann Sebastian Bach’s cantatas. It is, indeed, not the composer’s first cantata, even though a super ficial glance at its Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis (Bach Works Catalog) number may give a different impression. However, this was – in 1852 – the opening work of the first volume of the first complete edition of his works that was published on the initiative of Robert Schumann as editor of the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, Moritz Hauptmann as incumbent Thomaskantor and Otto Jahn as active philologist on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Bach’s death. The choice of exactly this cantata as the opening work of the complete edition captures the spirit of the project in more ways than one: it is based on a chorale whose framing verses were utilized unchanged for both the opening chorus and the concluding movement, and whose inner text verses were tastefully and pragmatically modified by a contemporary of Bach so that they could be set either as recitatives or arias. Thus the cantata was not subject to

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