Paul Gerhardt (1607-76) wrote "Auf, auf, mein Herz, mit Freuden" near the close of the Thirty Years' War, and it appeared in the first edition of Johann Crüger's Praxis Pietatis Melica (Berlin, 1647). Sixteenth-century hymns spoke in "we" and "us"; Gerhardt wrote in "I" and "me." Fred Precht observed that one looks in vain for a hymn of the 1500s that begins with a rousing "Awake, my heart!" The nine original stanzas unfold like scenes in a tableau: joyful discovery at the grave, the victor's banner waved, the foe surrendering, hell and death made powerless, and at last the crown of life for the faithful. Crüger, cantor of St. Nicholas Church in Berlin, wrote the tune for this text. Its dotted rhythms in triple meter suggest a dance, and it ends on the upper tonic, a rare feature that lifts the last line of each stanza ("our spirit wings its flight"). John Kelly first translated the hymn in 1867, but later committees revised his work so thoroughly that only his first stanza survives. LSB appoints it as the Hymn of the Day for Easter Sunrise, and the word "today" in its second line suits Easter morning.
Sung at Our Saviour
2026