A couple weeks ago, I listened to an episode of Sharper Iron on KFUO in which Dr. Jastram mentioned how prayers in older hymnals have a different perspective on suffering from what is commonly encountered now. This made me curious about the tenor of the Gesangbuch, so I turned my attention to it again.
I had translated a couple collects (and many antiphons), but upon looking at the book again and starting a new section, I found that most of the book is hymn texts. (In hindsight, this should have been obvious, considering the title.) Initially, they were unrecognizable as such because they're shorn of their musical accompaniment and not formatted as I would have expected.
Not only did this discovery renew my interest in translating the book, but it also provided me - finally! - with a structure for this blog. From now on, I'm going to try to publish a post a week. Each post will contain the original German text from the Gesangbuch, my prose translation, and a note about whether the hymn appears in The Lutheran Hymnal, Lutheran Worship, and/or The Lutheran Service Book. Occasionally, I may also include some other comments and even a recording of the tune to which the hymn is sung (I've been recording hymn tunes from The Lutheran Hymnal for over four years now, and about six months ago, I started making my way through Georg Philipp Telemann's Fast allgemeines Evangelisch-Musicalisches Lieder-Buch).