Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. [NRSV, Philippians 4:6].
Christ Church Cathedral Choir Notes
Thanksgiving Sunday
3) The Concert Calendar
Nun danket alle Gott
Now thank we all our God
The organ voluntaries and the recessional hymn for Choral Eucharist on Thanksgiving Sunday are all versions of Nun danket alle Gott / Now thank we all our God.
Martin Rinkart
Now thank we all our God is a popular Christian hymn. It is a translation from the German Nun danket alle Gott, written circa 1636 by Martin Rinkart (1586-1649), which in turn was inspired by Sirach, chapter 50 verses 22-24, from the praises of Simon the high priest. It was translated into English in the 19th Century by Catherine Winkworth.
Martin Rinkart was a Lutheran minister who came to Eilenburg, Saxony at the beginning of the Thirty years war. The walled city of Eilenberg became the refuge for political and military fugitives, but the result was overcrowding, and deadly pestilence and famine. Armies overran it three times. The Rinkart home was a refuge for the victims, even though he was often hard-pressed to provide for his own family. During the height of a severe plague in 1637, Rinkart was the only surviving pastor in Eilenberg, conducting as many as 50 funerals in a day. He performed more than 4000 funerals in that year, including that of his wife.
Johann Crüger
During this time, Rinkart was a prolific hymn writer. In Rinkart's "Jesu Hertz-Buchlein" (Leipzig, Germany: 1636), the hymn appears under the title "Tisch- Gebetlein," or a short prayer before meals. The exact date of Nun danket alle Gott is in question, but it is known that it was widely sung by the time the Treaty of Westphalia was signed in 1648.
The tune for Now thank we all our God is the Leuthen Chorale and is attributed to Johann Crüger and written circa 1647.
After the Battle of Leuthen in the Seven Years' War, a soldier of the victorious Prussian army started to sing Nun Danket alle Gott, and soon all 25,000 joined in the hymn.
It is often used in Christian weddings and other joyous religious ceremonies, and in Germany it is sung on occasions of national thanksgiving.
Johann Sebastian Bach
Cantatas:
Click to go to Johann Sebastian Bach, Cantata 79, Gott der Herr ist Sonn und Schild, with performances by John Eliot Gardiner, Gustav Leonhardt, and Pieter Jan Leusink.
Click to go to Johann Sebastian Bach, Cantata 192, Nun danket alle Gott, with performances by John Eliot Gardiner, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, and Pieter Jan Leusink.
Chorales:
BWV 252, performance by the Stuttgart Gachinger Kantorei, Stuttgart Bach Collegium, Helmuth Rilling conducting [text] [NML] (info)
BWV 386, performance by the Stuttgart Gachinger Kantorei, Stuttgart Bach Collegium, Helmuth Rilling conducting (followed by Chorale Prelude, BWV 657; Gerhard Gnann, organ) [text] [NML] (info)
Chorale Prelude, BWV 657:
Performance by Marie-Claire Alain (instrument not identified) [listen]
Performance by James Kibbie on the 1755 Gottfried Silbermann/Zacharias Hildebrandt organ, Kathedrale, Dresden, Germany [listen]
Felix Mendelssohn
The now-standard harmonisation was devised by Felix Mendelssohn in 1840 when he adopted the hymn, sung in the now-standard key of F major and with its original German lyrics, as the chorale to his Second Symphony, known as the Lobgesang or Hymn of Praise.
Felix Mendelssohn, Symphony No. 2 "Lobegesang," Valentina Valente, Santiago Calderon, Maria José Suárez, Madrid Symphony Orchestra, Orféon Donostiarra, Peter Maag conducting [listen to entire symphony]
Chorale (movement 11) [listen]
Nun danket alle Gott
mit Herzen, Mund und Händen,
der sich in aller Not
will gnädig zu uns wenden,
der so viel Gutes tut;
von Kindesbeinen an
uns hielt in seiner Hut,
und allen wohlgetan.
Lob, Ehr’ und Preis sei Gott,
dem Vater und dem Sohne
und seinem heil’gen Geist
im höchsten Himmelsthrone.
Lob dem dreiein’gen Gott,
der Nacht und Dunkel schied
von Licht und Morgenrot,
ihm danket unser Lied.
Organ works:
Sigfrid Karg-Elert, performed by Dick Sanderman on the Hinsz organ of the Bovenkerk Kampen (Holland) [YouTube]
Choral:
English Translation
Now thank we all our God, with heart and hands and voices,
Who wondrous things has done, in Whom this world rejoices;
Who from our mothers’ arms has blessed us on our way
With countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.
O may this bounteous God through all our life be near us,
With ever joyful hearts and blessèd peace to cheer us;
And keep us in His grace, and guide us when perplexed;
And free us from all ills, in this world and the next!
All praise and thanks to God the Father now be given;
The Son and Him Who reigns with Them in highest Heaven;
The one eternal God, whom earth and Heaven adore;
For thus it was, is now, and shall be evermore.
Who wondrous things has done, in Whom this world rejoices;
Who from our mothers’ arms has blessed us on our way
With countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.
O may this bounteous God through all our life be near us,
With ever joyful hearts and blessèd peace to cheer us;
And keep us in His grace, and guide us when perplexed;
And free us from all ills, in this world and the next!
All praise and thanks to God the Father now be given;
The Son and Him Who reigns with Them in highest Heaven;
The one eternal God, whom earth and Heaven adore;
For thus it was, is now, and shall be evermore.
[All with the assistance of Wikipedia.]