page_title: An Wasserflüssen Babylon (Reincken)
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: An Wasserflüssen Babylon (Reincken) / History
caption_attribution_description: English: St. Katharinen, Hamburg
context_page_description: An Wasserflüssen Babylon is a chorale fantasia for organ by Johann Adam Reincken, based on "An Wasserflüssen Babylon", a 16th-century Lutheran hymn by Wolfgang Dachstein. Reincken likely composed the fantasia in 1663, partly as a tribute to Heinrich Scheidemann, his tutor and predecessor as organist at St. Catherine's Church, Hamburg. With its 327 bars, it is the most extended repertoire piece of this kind. Reincken's setting is a significant representative of the north German style of organ music.
context_section_description: The text of Wolfgang Dachstein's "An Wasserflüssen Babylon" (By the Rivers of Babylon) is a paraphrase of Psalm 137 (Super flumina Babylonis), Jews lamenting their Babylonian captivity. Its hymn tune is in bar form:
  The hymn was published in 1525, and was adopted in several major German hymnals by 1740.
  Heinrich Scheidemann can be considered the inventor of the chorale fantasia for organ, and, based on over fifteen attributable compositions, the most prolific contributor to this genre. It was an expansion of the Fantasia genre as developed by Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck. Around the mid-1650s Reincken was, probably in about the same period as Dieterich Buxtehude, Scheidemann's pupil for a few years, after which he returned to the Netherlands. Called back by his former teacher in 1659, he became his assistant as organist at the St. Catherine's Church in Hamburg. Around 1660 the stylus fantasticus was the dominant style among the organists in Hamburg, of which the chorale fantasias by both Reincken and Buxtehude bear the mark.
  In 1663 Scheidemann died and Reincken succeeded him as organist of the St. Catherine's Church. Allein zu dir, a late chorale fantasia by Scheidemann, shares many characteristics with Reincken's An Wasserflüssen Babylon, so it is assumed that Reincken composed his setting around the same time, as masterpiece to conclude his schooling, or, most likely, when he assumed his position as successor of Scheidemann at St. Catherine's. Reincken's chorale setting appears not to have been intended for liturgical use, neither as a prelude to a sung chorale, nor for alternatim performance, but rather as a model for improvisation, showing several techniques.
caption: Reincken organ (Flentrop reconstruction) in St. Catherine's Church, Hamburg.[9]
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