Gellert Odes and Songs

One of the best known German poets of his time, Christian Fürchtegott Gellert was a professor of philosophy at Leipzig University.

In 1757, at age 42, he published Geistliche Oden und Lieder, a collection of sacred poetry that enjoyed considerable success.

[1] According to the foreword to the first edition of Geistliche Oden und Lieder, written by Bach himself, the composer was so impressed with the poetry that it suggested to him a novel kind of song setting; he proceeded to create settings for all 54 of Gellert's poems – however, in Bach's collection the order of poems is completely different from Gellert's volume.

Both Gellert's poetry and Bach's setting of it enjoyed considerable popularity: several more collections of settings of Gellert's poems appeared, including some by distinguished composers such as the famous music theorist Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg, and Johann Friedrich Doles, a pupil of Johann Sebastian Bach).

The style of the accompaniment grows out of the Baroque basso continuo practice: Bach himself noted in the preface that he added harmonies to his melodies in order to prevent incompetent figured bass performers from ruining the music.