Praise to the Lord, the Almighty

"Praise to the Lord, the Almighty"
Hymn
Words and music as published in The Chorale Book for England in 1865
Text	Catherine Winkworth
Published	1863 (1863)

"Praise to the Lord, the Almighty" is a hymn based on Joachim Neander's German hymn "Lobe den Herren, den mächtigen König der Ehren", published in 1680.John Julian in his A Dictionary of Hymnology calls the German original "a magnificent hymn of praise to God, perhaps the finest creation of its author, and of the first rank in its class."

The melody used by Neander, first published in 1665, exists in many versions and is probably based on a folk tune. The text paraphrases Psalm 103 and Psalm 150.Catherine Winkworth published her English translation of Neander's hymn in 1863.

The common name given to this melody is "Lobe den Herren". Several variants were published with various secular texts between 1665 and 1680, when Joachim Neander published his German hymn Lobe den Herren, den mächtigen König der Ehren, using its meter.

It was the favorite hymn of King Frederick William III of Prussia, who first heard it in 1800.

Johann Sebastian Bach used the chorale as the base for his chorale cantata Lobe den Herren, den mächtigen König der Ehren, BWV 137, in 1724. Although only the text of the outer stanzas was kept completely, he referred to the unusual melody in bar form with a Stollen of five measures and a climax at the beginning of the Abgesang in all movements but one. John Eliot Gardiner assumes, looking at the festive instrumentation and the general content of praise and thanksgiving, that the cantata was also performed that year to celebrate Ratswahl, the inauguration of the Leipzig city council. In 1729 Bach concluded his wedding cantata Herr Gott, Beherrscher aller Dinge, BWV 120a, with the final movement of the chorale cantata, transposed to D major. Bach transformed the central movement of his cantata to one of his Schübler Chorales.