Johann Sebastian Bach Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam

Our saviour Christ to Jordan came
to do his father’s bidding,
to be baptized by blessed John
and enter on his own calling.
So he appointed us this bath,
to cleanse us from transgression,
to wipe away the sting of death
by his own blood and passion;
new life by this he gave us.

See and hear, O earthly children,
what this rite is called of God.
It is water, that is plain,
but not water all alone,
for God’s Spirit and God’s word
cleanse and purify all sinners.

God made it plain by word and the example of his Christ:
at Jordan’s bank the Father spoke to men;

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Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam
nach seines Vaters Willen,
von Sankt Johann’s die Taufe nahm,
sein Werk und Amt zu erfüllen;
da wollt er stiften uns ein Bad
zu waschen uns von Sünden,
ersäufen auch den bittern Tod
durch sein selbst Blut und Wunden;
es galt ein neues Leben.

Merkt und hört, ihr Menschenkinder,
was Gott selbst die Taufe heißt.
Es muss zwar hier Wasser sein
Doch schlecht Wasser nicht allein:
Gottes Wort und Gottes Geist tauft
und reiniget die Sünder.

Dies hat Gott klar mit Worten und mit Bildern dargetan,
am Jordan ließ der Vater offenbar die Stimme bei der Taufe Christi hören;

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Sven Hiemke
Translation: David Kosviner

The cantata Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam (Our saviour Christ to Jordan came) BWV 7 was composed for St. John’s Day, 24 June 1724 and is part of the so-called annual cycle of chorale cantatas which Bach began in his second year of service as Thomaskantor in Leipzig. The objective was to include all the Sundays and feast days of the liturgical year in one cycle of cantatas, each of which was based on a hymn – usually the Hymn of the Day for the Sunday or feast day in question. In the process, the framing verses of the hymn are performed with the text and melody unchanged: In the opening movement of the cantata they appear as a figured chorale arrangement in which three choral voices imitationally prepare the individual hymn lines which are then heard in the fourth voice (mostly the soprano) in augmented note values, and at the end as a setting in the cantional style. The inner verses are paraphrased in the intervening recitatives and arias.

The author of the madrigal-like texts for Bach’s chorale cantatas remains unknown. It is possible that it was Andreas Stübel (born 1653), the former deputy headmaster of St. Thomas’s

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