"Liebster Gott, wann werd ich sterben" is a late 17th-century Lutheran hymn by Caspar Neumann, with a hymn tune, Zahn No. 6634, by Daniel Vetter. The topic of the hymn, which has five stanzas of eight lines, is a reflection on death. In 1713, Vetter published a four-part setting of the hymn. Johann Sebastian Bach's voice and continuo setting of the hymn, BWV 483, was published in Schemellis Gesangbuch in 1736, and his chorale cantata based on the hymn, BWV 8, was first performed in 1724. The closing chorale of that cantata, BWV8/6, is a reworked version of Vetter's 1713 setting. Despite it being marked as inauthentic Bach in the 1998 edition of the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis, this chorale was published in several variants in the New Bach Edition.
Neumann's text and Vetter's setting
Caspar Neumann wrote "Liebster Gott, wann werd ich sterben" around 1690. It is a Lutheran hymn in five stanzas of eight lines. Its hymn metre is 8.7.8.7.7.7.8.8. The title, which is based on the incipit of the hymn, is spelled in various ways, e.g.:
Translations of the first line of the hymn include "Ah, Lord God, when shall I see Thee?", "Dearest God, when will I die?" and "Dearest God, when shall I die?" The topic of the hymn text is a reflection on death. Vetter, a native of Breslau, published his four-part setting of the hymn in 1713, in the second volume of his Musicalische Kirch- und Hauß-Ergötzlichkeit. In the introduction of that publication he wrote: By the time Vetter wrote this, he had been an organist in Leipzig for around 35 years. In the late 19th century, Philipp Spitta, Johannes Zahn and Max Seiffert retold Vetter's account of the origin of his setting of "Liebster Gott wenn werd ich sterben". Vetter's SATB setting, which has a figured bass, is in E-flat major. According to Spitta it is rather a sacred aria than a chorale in a strict sense. The soprano's melody of Vetter's setting is a hymn tune known as Zahn 6634. It is in bar form, with the stollen comprising two lines of text.
Compositions based on Vetter's setting
There was a copy of the 1713 volume of Vetter's Musicalische Kirch- und Hauß-Ergötzlichkeit in the household of Johann Sebastian and Anna Magdalena Bach. In 1724, Johann Sebastian composed a chorale cantata, Liebster Gott, wenn werd ich sterben? BWV 8, on Neumann's hymn. It is a cantata for the 16th Sunday after Trinity which is part of his second cantata cycle. Its first movement, setting the first stanza of the hymn, is a chorale fantasia on Vetter's hymn tune. Its last movement, in E major like the first, is a slightly reworked version of Vetter's four-part setting, for SATB choir, colla parte instruments and figured bass, with the last stanza of Neumann's hymn as text. By around 1735 the vocal parts of this movement, BWV 8/6, were adopted in the Dietel manuscript. The Dietel manuscript also contains a four-part setting in E-flat major, BWV deest, of Vetter's hymn tune. In 1736, a voice and continuo arrangement of Vetter's hymn tune, attributed to Bach, in the same key, was included in Schemellis Gesangbuch. In 1747 Bach produced a second version of his BWV 8 cantata: its outer movements are D major transpositions of the same movements of the earlier version of the cantata. When Bach's pupil Johann Friedrich Doles had become Thomaskantor some years after the composer's death, the BWV 8 cantata was performed again in Leipzig. According to, the widowedAnna Magdalena may have heard such performance, finding consolation in the hymn's text and setting. Some two centuries later, four instances of the BWV 8/6 chorale, deemed spurious while too close to Vetter's 1713 four-part setting, were included in the New Bach Edition:
In E major, orchestrated, as part of the BWV 8.1 cantata, in Volume I/23.
In the same volume, the D major version, orchestrated, as part of the BWV 8.2 cantata.
The E major version of the Dietel manuscript, containing only the vocal parts, in Vol. III/2.1.
Zahn 6635 is a 1747 setting of the "Liebster Gott, wann werd ich sterben" hymn. A 19th-century hymnal indicates "Freu dich sehr o meine Seele" as hymn tune for Neumann's hymn.
