Christe, du Lamm Gottes (BWV 619)

from Das Orgelbüchlein by Johann Sebastian Bach

Background

Christe, du Lamm Gottes is based on the German version of the text of the Agnus Dei, from the mass ordinary. The chorale consists of four phrases of music; Bach uses the first three of these in the Orgelbuchlein setting.

The chorale setting is written in five voices, divided between two manuals and pedal: each manual takes two voices and the pedal takes the lowest voice. The chorale melody appears in a canon in two voices, at the interval of a twelfth (an octave plus a perfect fifth). The first voice of the canon, also called the head or dux, is in the left hand, played in long notes, beginning with the whole note F in measure 4. The second voice of the canon, also called the answer or comes, begins in measure 5 with the whole note C.

The other three voices in the texture are composed mostly of scalar passages, ascending and descending, and written mostly in quarter notes. These voices are also in a quasi-canon, meaning that they imitate one another in some places, but not in all places. (Notice, for example, that the right hand in measures 1-2 is identical to the left hand in mm. 2-3, and to the pedal in mm. 3-4. Another instance of quasi-canonic writing is in the quarter-note passages in mm. 8, 9, 10, and 11 [beginning on the second beat.])

Registration and Organs

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See the footnote in the "Notes" section at the bottom of the page

Fingering and Pedaling

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Articulation and Phrasing

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Ornamentation

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Tempo and Meter

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Scores and Editions

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Recordings

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Free Online

James Kibbie, 1717 Trost organ, St. Walpurgis, Großengottern, Germany, using _____.

Pay to Listen

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Other Resources

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Notes

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