This was written by George Briggs for Songs of Praise, 1933, to go with another Bach tune, RINKART (KOMMT SEELEN), which has a wide range, an octave and a half, making it difficult for congregational use.

      George Wallace Briggs (1875-1959; see SDAH 261 was a minister, musician, and educator the Church of England; he furnished eight tunes and 16 texts for Songs of Praise, 1933. He also wrote SDAH 261, “The Spirit of the Lord Revealed,” and SDAH 413, “God Has Spoken by His Prophets.”

     DARMSTADT (O GOTT, DU FROMMER GOTT, O God, Thou Faithful God) first appeared in Fritsch’s Himmels-Lust und Welt-Unlust (Desire of Heaven and Dislike for Earth), 1679. The tune name comes from the fact that this tune appeared in a hymnbook in Darmstadt, Germany, in 1689. (The German SDA Seminary is situated in the outskirts of this city.) There have been many different melodic versions of this, one of the finest stately and most stately of the German chorales. The arrangement SDAH uses is slightly altered   from the final chorus of Bach’s Cantata No. 94, “Was frag’ ich nach der Welt (What Do I Care for the World). He also used it in Cantatas 45, 64, and 133.

     Ahasuerus Fritsch was born December 16, 1629, in Mücheln, Saxony, Germany, the eight of 11 children, in the house of the town mayor. His childhood was during the Thirty Years’ War, and the family suffered when the town was besieged. In spite of poverty brought about by the death of his father when Ahasuerus was only 14, somehow he managed to get an education, and went to study at Jena in 1650. Becoming a tutor in a wealthy family, he earned their respect, and they supported him in completing his Doctor of Law degree at the University of Jena in 1661. He later served as chancellor of the university and as president of the consistory of Rudolstadt. A prolific writer on antiquarian, legal, and sacred subjects, he made collections of hymns, carefully naming all the authors, but modestly leaving off his name from his own works. He died at Rudolstadt August 24, 1701.