How brightly beams the morning
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1. How brightly beams the morning star! What sudden radiance from afar, aglow with grace and mercy! Of Jacob's race, King David's son, our Lord and master, you have won our hearts to serve you only! Lowly, holy! great and glorious, all victorious, rich in blessing! Rule in might, over all possessing!
2. Come, heavenly Bridegroom, Light divine, and deep within our hearts now shine. There light a flame undying! In your one body let us be as living branches of a tree, your life our lives supplying. Now, though daily earth's deep sadness may perplex us and distress us yet with heavenly joy you bless us.
3. Oh, let the harps break forth in sound! Our joy be all with music crowned, our voices richly blending! For Christ goes with us all the way, today, tomorrow, every day! His love is never-ending! Sing out! Ring out! Jubilation! Exultation! Tell the story! Great is he, the King of glory!
Words: Philipp Nicolai, Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern, Appendix to Freuden-Spiegel des ewigen Lebens, 1599; tr. Lutheran Book of Worship, 1978 Translation copyright © 1978 Lutheran Book of Worship. Tune: Philipp Nicolai, Appendix to Freuden-Spiegel des ewigen Lebens, 1599
This "queen of chorales" has also been called the morning star of Philipp Nicolai. Regarding poetic form, text, tune, and content, it struck a totally new tone in German hymnody, expressing a personal love for Jesus never before found in serious German hymnwriting. The hymn became a favorite for weddings and was parodied in a popular love song during the seventeenth century. Its intimate language anticipates the best of the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century hymns of the pietist movement. Various terms of endearment, including the language of marriage, appear, for the most part, in the four stanzas that have been omitted. The hymn is delightfully full of poetic and musical intricacies.
Like Nicolai's "Sleepers, wake" (188), known as the "king of chorales," this hymn was also written during the horrors of plague. Nicolai chose verbs and adjectives that countered suffering in an almost flamboyant way. Even in the poetic structure, Nicolai adjusted the lengths of the musical phrases to give a graphic impression carmen figuratem) of the chalice, itself a symbol of pain and healing.
How brightly beams the morning star What sudden radiance from afar, aglow with grace and mercy! Of Jacob's race, King David's son, our Lord and master, you have won our hearts to serve you only! Lowly, holy! great and glorious, all victorious, rich in blessing! Rule in might, o'er all possessing!
The English seems to be a free translation and combination of several of Nicolai's original stanzas. The first line of the translation from the Lutheran Book of Worship (1978) has been altered so that it more closely follows William Mercer's 1859 paraphrase, "How bright appears the morning star, with mercy beaming from afar." The German text provided is from Gesangbuch mit Noten (1890). The melody WIE SCHÖN LEUCHTET resembles an earlier tune for Psalm 100, Jauchzet dem Herren, alle Lande, as found in Wolff Köphel's Psalter (1538) (Stulken 1981). This older form of the chorale is more interesting rhythmically than later metric versions, which are set mostly in even quarter notes.
NICOLAI, PHILIPP (b. Aug. 10, 1556, Mengeringhausen, Waldeck, Germany; d. Oct. 26, 1608, Hamburg, Germany), the son of a Lutheran pastor, attended the University of Erfurt in 1575 and the University of Wittenberg in 1576, completing his studies in 1579. He assisted his father in preaching at Mengeringhausen, then continued with pastorates at Herdecke (1583), Niederwildungen (1586), and Altwildungen (1588). He found himself in nearly constant and vociferous controversy with Catholics, not an uncommon predicament in the late Reformation era. When Nicolai pastored in Unna, in Westphalia (1596), he had similar altercations with the Calvinists, especially over the interpretation of the Lord's Supper sacraments. While at Unna he also survived a terrible epidemic of bubonic plague and fled an invasion of Spaniards on December 27, 1598, returning in April 1599. In April 1601 Nicolai was elected chief pastor of St. Katherine's Church at Hamburg where he served until his death. He was widely respected as a popular preacher and hymnwriter. Two of his works have been dubbed the "king and queen of chorales."
from Hymnal Companion, pp. 222-223 and 619 Joan Fyock, Writer/Compiler & Lani Wright, Editor ©1996, Brethren Press
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