Description
Gott, wie gross ist deine Güte (God, how great is your goodness) is a hymn of thanks for divine grace, set here in B-flat major and 4/4 with the tune moving calmly over its bass. It is found in the Schemelli Gesangbuch, published in Leipzig in 1736, for which Bach supplied music in the form of melody and bass.
The writing is simple, centred on those two lines. It has 175 notes in 58 seconds, and its range, D2 to G5, fits on a 61-key keyboard. Compared with Ermuntre dich from the same hymnbook, it is in four rather than three and has a few more notes, with a little more motion in the melody.
Rated beginner. With few notes, it can be played through in a short time. The tasks are to keep the tempo steady and join the melody as if singing. B-flat major uses two black keys, so first listen to each hand alone at a reduced playback speed and check where the fingers go. Tell melody from bass with the hand colours, then put the hands together while repeating one phrase with the A-B loop, and the calm flow of a prayer will follow.
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Sheet music provided by Mutopia Project
About the Composer
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Johann Sebastian Bach was the towering figure of German Baroque music, serving for decades as Cantor of St. Thomas Church in Leipzig. Renowned for his mastery of counterpoint, he laid the foundations of keyboard music with works such as The Well-Tempered Clavier and the Inventions. This site includes minuets and polonaises from the Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach, the Inventions and Sinfonias, and fugues from The Well-Tempered Clavier. The Notebook pieces are catalogued with BWV Anh. (appendix) numbers, but many are by other composers - Petzold's minuets among them - or by no one known, and most of their song pages give the current view of who wrote them.
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