Thomas Kingo (1634–1703), the Danish bishop and Baroque poet of Scottish descent, wrote this hymn, Lov og Tak og evig Ære. Its first home was one of the most bruising episodes of his life. In 1683 King Christian V commissioned Kingo to compile a new hymnal for Denmark and Norway; Kingo printed the first half, the Vinter-Parten, at his own expense in 1689, with 267 hymns, 136 of them his own, this one among them. The king then suddenly withdrew his approval, the result of court intrigue and complaints that Kingo had dropped too many old hymns to make room for his own. Left humiliated and holding a warehouse of unsellable books, Kingo wrote a bitter couplet in the copies he gave to friends, bidding the “flayed book” go find a plaster and souls to bind its wounds. The story turned: in 1699 an approved hymnal appeared keeping eighty-six of his hymns, and it became known as Kingo’s Hymnal. Kristen Kvamme, a Norwegian immigrant who became a Lutheran pastor in Iowa, gave us the English in 1904, set to the familiar Freu dich sehr (Genevan 42).
Sung at Our Saviour
2025