This is considered the “Queen of the Chorales”  (“Wake, Awake,” SDAH 210, being the “King”). Both words and music were written by Philip Nicolai and included in his Freuden Spiegel (Mirror of Joy), 1599. The opening letters of the original seven stanzas formed an acrostic on the name of one of his students, Wilhelm Ernst, Graf und Herr zu Waldeck. Its title, “A Spiritual bridal song of the believing soul, concerning her heavenly Bridegroom, founded in the forty-fifth psalm of the prophet David,” was actually prophetic, for it became so popular at weddings in Germany that it was almost indispensable.

In Songs of Praise Discussed, Percy Dearmer recounts how the text was written: “Nicolai, during the same pestilence that inspired ‘Wake, Awake’ [SDAH 210], sat one morning in great distress, thinking of the misery around him, when his heart suddenly rose up to God, and he wrote this hymn, forgetting his noonday meal, and working on till he had finished it in the late afternoon.” In 1768 J. A. Schlegel completely rewrote the text; most of the English translation used in SDAH was prepared by the InterLutheran Commission on Worship for use in Lutheran Book of Worship, 1978.

The tune WIE SCHON LEUCHTET (How Beautiful Shines) gets its name from the first words of Schlegel’s rewrite, and was published in Nicolai’s above-mentioned book. The tune also became famous and was heard on chimes in many German cities. It is believed that Nicolai may have merely rewritten an earlier tune, much of which is the same, found in Wolff Kophel’s Psalter, 1538. However, the deft touch he added — the four half notes where the text now reads “Lowly, holy” — was a definite factor in escalating the music to favor.

The great J. S. Bach (see Biographies) loved the tune so well that he based his Cantata No. 1 on it; he used the melody again in Cantata 36, 37, 49, 61, and 172. The harmonization in SDAH is adopted from the final chorus of Cantata No. 1 (1740) as found in the Episcopal Hymnal 1940. Bach also included this magnificent tune in his Choralgesänge, and composed an organ prelude around it. For the fascinating story of the more than 400 “Bach chorals,” see Charles Sanford Terry’s The Four -Part Chorals of J. S. Bach, with the German text of the hymns and English translations, 1929, 1964.

The son of a Lutheran pastor, Nicolai was born on August 10, 1556, at Mengeringhausen, Waldeck, Germany. After study at the University of Erfurt (1575) and Wittenberg University (1576-1579), he earned the D.D. degree in 1594. From 1579 to 1583 he assisted his father in the hometown church. Then he became pastor at Herdecke, from where the Catholic town council finally drove him away. After serving in several Lutheran churches in Germany, he served his final post at Hamburg (1601 to 1608), where he was a renowned and respected preacher and an influential pillar of the church. During his tenure at Unna, Westphalia, in 1597, the plague took many lives in that city, and he published Freuden Spiegel.  The preface gives his purpose for the book: “To leave behind me (if God should call me from this world) as a token of my peaceful, joyful departure, or (if God should spare me in good health) to comfort other sufferers whom He should also visit with the pestilence.” 

Nicolai died at Hamburg October 26, 1608. Much of his ministry was clouded with controversy of one kind or another, including disagreement with the Calvinists over the true meaning of the Lord’s Supper. But the conflicts are long forgotten — and these two great hymns inspired by a pestilence remain vital and alive for our rich blessing.