Jesus Christus, unser Heiland, BWV688, comes from the Clavier-Übung Part III, the so-called German Organ Mass, published at Bach’s expense in September 1739. ‘Various preludes on the Catechism and other hymns for the organ,’ read the title page. ‘Prepared for music-lovers and particularly for connoisseurs of such work, for the recreation of the spirit, by Johann Sebastian Bach, Royal Polish and Electoral Saxon Court Composer, Capellmeister and director of the chorus musicus, Leipzig.’ Bach’s trio setting—complex and elaborately motivic, the two manuals concerned largely with fleet invenzione and imitative writing (Dupré used to fancy it as a scherzo, registering appropriately)—references Luther’s Eucharist hymn of the same title (1524), the deliberated D minor canto fermo melody (1529) fragmentized on pedals. ‘Christ Jesus, our Redeemer born,/ Who from us did God’s anger turn,/ Through His sufferings sore and main,/ Did help us all out of hell-pain’ (Charles Sanford Terry, 1921).

from notes by Ateş Orga © 2018