Hymn Highlight: "Now Thank We All Our God"

We Grew Up Singing It the Wrong Way!

Perhaps a parent or teacher once said, “Say it again like you mean it,” when you mumbled through a “Thank you” after being prompted. It wasn’t good enough to merely say the words with no mind to how you said them. The form needs to match the content. The same can be said of how you sing a song.

Originally Very Vibrant

Both J. S. Bach and Felix Mendelssohn have arranged the famous Martin Rinckart text with lovely, fluid harmonizations. As I see it, the trouble is that those versions, with their glorious passing note ornamentation on the melody/harmony, provide double the opportunity for the tune to get bogged down in a dirge-like fashion. Obviously, this slowing down and bogging down does not have to happen. But in a day and age when hymn tunes are being abandoned for newer settings, and our congregations are not often musically literate, it is important to highlight the hymn tunes and texts that were originally very vibrant and how they can still be sung in vigorous and hearty ways today as well.

Rhythmic Comparison

Below is Johann Crüger’s Nun Danket Alle Gott hymn. Notice the rhythmic long-short rhythms shown by the dotted rhythm.

Johann Crüger, Praxis Pietatis Melica (Berlin, 1653).

Contrast that with the mostly quarter, even rhythms that remove the long-short quality of the original hymn. See the below version of the 1961 Trinity Hymnal.

This below version is even less rhythmically interesting than the 1961 Trinity Hymnal version. It might be more exciting to watch paint dry. All joking aside, you can clearly see the uniform half-note rhythms that keep the rhythm even and uninspiring.

Now, notice this version below with the rhythmic version preserved. It is hearty and robust to sing. See below:

Please listen to a recording of my Geneva Academy eleventh- and twelfth-grade singers reading through it last week. It will give you an idea of just how much fun this hymn can be. This was a one-take read-through in my music room. I accompanied them on the piano to show the rhythmic version differences.

Here’s the full PDF of the rhythmic version for you to download and sing where you are. I hope you enjoy it as much as we have in my family, church, and school.

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Conclusion

English Hymnologist Erik Routley writes that this hymn “has gained and kept its popularity because of its brevity, its simplicity, its commonplace and unpretentious celebration of that brightest of Christian graces: gratitude.”¹ This hymn was a joyful rhythmic setting that has been flattened a bit in how it communicates thankfulness in tune and meter. We need more thankfulness in our Christian circles. Why not put this version back into regular use in our churches, homes, and schools? There are more hymns out there like this one, and I hope to keep promoting them so that we can joyfully embrace as much of the rich hymnody that has been given to us.

1. Erik Routley, Hymns and the Faith (Greenwich, CT: Seabury Press, 1956), p. 31.