The righteous perishes are the words with which the 57th chapter of the Book of Isaiah starts. In Christianity, is associated with the death of Christ, leading to liturgical use of the text at Tenebrae: the 24thresponsory for Holy Week, "Ecce quomodo moritur justus", is based on this text. More generally, the text is associated with the death of loved ones and is used at burials. As such, and in other versions and translations, the Bible excerpt has been set to music.
Responsory "Ecce quomodo moritur justus"
"Ecce quomodo moritur justus", in the pre-Vatican II Catholic Church the 24th of 27 Tenebrae responsories, or the sixth responsory for Holy Saturday, is based on. In the Tenebrae service of the Holy Week this responsory is preceded by a reading taken from Saint Augustine's Commentary on Psalm 64 § 13, interpreting in the light of . The Versus of the responsory derives from. Settings of the responsory are included in Tomás Luis de Victoria's Officium Hebdomadae Sanctae, Carlo Gesualdo's Responsoria et alia ad Officium Hebdomadae Sanctae spectantia, Jan Dismas Zelenka's Responsoria pro hebdomada sancta and Franz Liszt's Responsorien und Antiphonen. A 16th centurymotet by Marc'Antonio Ingegneri on the Latin text was published around 1967 in an arrangement by Maynard Klein and with "Behold how the righteous perish" as English translation. Palestrina set the responsory for two sopranos, alto and choir. Jacob Handl published his as No. VIII under the heading "De Passione Domini Nostri Iesv Christi" in his Opus Musicum II. The subtitle of the 1587 publication reads "Qvae Ex Sancto Catholicae Ecclesiae Vsv Ita Svnt Dispositae, vt omni tempore inseruire queant". The Versus in Handl's setting is different from the Versus of the 24th Tenebrae responsory. As in 17th century France the Tenebrae services, including the Répons de ténèbres, were held at the vespers of the preceding evening, for example Marc-Antoine Charpentier's Ecce quomodo, H 131 is part of his Répons de ténèbres du Vendredi saint. In the 18th centuryGeorg Reutter produced a SATB for the ceremonies of the Holy Week in the Wiener Hofburgkapelle. Another SATB setting was composed by Franz Joseph Aumann, to which an accompaniment by three trombones was added by Bruckner in 1879. In the 20th century Francis Poulenc included "Ecce quomodo moritur justus" as the last in his Sept répons des ténèbres, FP 181, composed 1961. The Episcopal Church provides a single Tenebrae service on Wednesday evening, the day before Maundy Thursday. That service reduces the total number of Tenebrae lessons, each followed by a responsory, to nine. Ecce quomodo moritur is the sixth responsory, and it follows after a reading from Augustine's commentary on Psalm 55.
was sung at Protestant burials in the 16th century. In 1682, Gottfried Vopelius published Handl's motet with a singable German translation on p. 263 of the Neu Leipziger Gesangbuch, for performance on Good Friday. Handl's motet was performed on Good Friday in Protestant churches in Wrocław and Leipzig. The music of Handl's setting, by that time perceived as a Protestant funeral motet, is quoted in George Frideric Handel's Funeral Anthem for Queen Caroline, HWV 264.
Der Gerechte kömmt um
Der Gerechte kömmt um, a chorus appearing in a pasticcioPassion oratorio from the early 1750s, has a German version of Isaiah 57:1–2 as text. It is an arrangement attributed to Johann Sebastian Bach of a SSATB setting of Tristis est anima mea, a motet attributed to Johann Kuhnau. The arrangement may have been a stand-alone funeral motet.