"An Wasserflüssen Babylon" is a Lutheran hymn written in 1525 and attributed to Wolfgang Dachstein, organist at St Thomas' Church, Strasbourg.

[5] Despite the lost tract from 1525, the Strasbourg hymn appeared in print in 1526 in Psalmen, Gebett und Kirchenordnung wie sie zu Straßburg gehalten werden and later.

Greiter was born in 1495 in Aichach, near Augsburg in Bavaria, where he attended a Latin school, before enrolling in theology at the University of Freiburg in 1510 and becoming a monk in Strasbourg in 1520.

Daniel Specklin, a 16th-century architect from Alsace, where the region Dachstein takes its name, described in detail how the pair engaged in "das evangelium" and "vil gute psalmen".

A costly edition of the Straßburger Gesangbuch was published by Köpphel in 1541, with a preface by the Lutheran reformer Martin Bucer: the title, text and psalm were printed in characteristic red and black with woodcuts by Hans Baldung.

During the Counter-Reformation, however, the Augsburg Interim resulted in Strasbourg reinstating Catholicism in October 1549: both Dachstein and Greiter renounced Protestantism and Bucer was sent into exile in England, where under Edward VI he became Regius Professor of Divinity.

[13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] Dachstein's hymn "An Wasserflüssen Babylon" was rapidly distributed—it was printed in Luther's 1545 Babstsches Gesangbuch[21][22]—and spread to most Lutheran hymnbooks by central Germany.

[1] Miles Coverdale provided an early English translation in the Tudor Protestant Hymnal "Ghostly Psalms and Spiritual Songs," 1539.

Wie sollen wir in solchem Zwang Und Elend, jetzt vorhanden, Dem Herren singen ein Gesang Sogar in fremden Landen?

Ja, wenn ich nicht mit ganzem Fleiss, Jerusalem, dich ehre, Im Anfang meiner Freude Preis Von jetzt und immermehre, Gedenk der Kinder Edom sehr, Am Tag Jerusalem, o Herr, Die in der Bosheit sprechen: Reiss ab, reiss ab zu aller Stund, Vertilg sie gar bis auf den Grund, Den Boden wolln wir brechen!

[32][33] Another four-part setting of the hymn, likewise first published in Georg Rhau's Newe Deudsche Geistliche Gesenge, is by Benedictus Ducis [choralwiki; de].

[41][42] Sigmund Hemmel used the text in the 1550s in his four-part setting, with the cantus firmus in the tenor: Der gantz Psalter Davids, wie derselbig in teutsche Gesang verfasse was printed in 1569.

[45][46][47][48] In 1628 Heinrich Schütz published a four-part harmonisation of "An Wasserflüssen Babylon", SWV 242, in the Psalmen Davids, hiebevorn in teutzsche Reimen gebracht, durch D. Cornelium Beckern, und an jetzo mit ein hundert und drey eigenen Melodeyen ... gestellet, the Becker Psalter, Op. 5.

[49][50] Samuel Scheidt, composed two settings of the hymn, SSWV 505 and 570, for soprano and organ in the Tabulatur-Buch hundert geistlicher Lieder und Psalmen of 1650.

The 17th-century musical style of the stylus phantasticus covers the freely composed organ and harpsichord/clavichord works, including dance suites.

The 4-part chorale prelude "An Wasserflüssen Babylon" has the same kind of expressive dissonances, with suspensions, as his Lamento "Ach, daß ich Wassers gnug hätte" for voice and strings.

[62] Born probably in 1643, Reincken was the natural successor to Scheidemann as organist at the St. Catherine's Church, Hamburg, with his musical interests extending beyond the church to the Hamburg Opera and the collegium musicum: as remarked by the 18th-century musician Johann Gottfried Walther, his famous, dazzling and audacious chorale fantasia "An Wasserflüssen Babylon" probably marked that succession; its vast dimension of 327 bars and 10 chorale lines, some broken into two, encompass a wide range of techniques, such as its "motet-like development, figuration of the chorale in the soprano, fore-imitation in diminished note values, introduction of counter-motifs, virtuoso passage work, double pedals, fragmentation, and echo effects."

[67] As outlined in Butt & Nolte (2001), Pachelbel's repertoire contained eight different types of chorale preludes, the last of which formed a "hybrid combination-form", one which he particularly favoured.

[68][69] The 2004 catalogue of Pachelbel's works, compiled posthumously by Jean M. Perreault, lists four chorale preludes based on the "An Wasserflüssen Babylon.

[77] The young Johann Sebastian Bach was aware of Reincken's reputation and owned a copy of the chorale fantasia when he studied with Georg Böhm in 1700.

In Stinson (2001) there is a description of a concert in 1720, when Bach extemporised for "almost half an hour" on An Wasserflüssen Babylon at the organ loft of St. Catherine's Church, Hamburg.

As recorded in his obituary, Bach "travelled to Hamburg, and allowed himself, in front of the Magistrat and many sophisticated people of the City, to be listened to for more than two hours on the beautiful organ at the Catherinenkirche with general amazement.

[85] In BWV 653 the same melancholic sarabande-like music of the chorale prelude can be heard in Bach's closing movements of the monumental Passions: the increasing chromaticism and passing dissonances create a mood of pathos.

Schulze (1983) has given a detailed historical account of how the chorales were discovered, including background on the three Berlin musicians who first set about publishing them in the second half of the eighteenth century–Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg, C. P. E. Bach and Johann Kirnberger.