Meter: 7.6. 7.6. 6. 7.7. 6.
Source: David Wolder, New Catechismus Gesangbüchlein, Hamburg, 1598
Proper Text: My Inmost Heart Now Raises (Aus meines Herzens Grunde)
The tune “Aus meines Herzens Grunde” began as a melody in duple meter to accompany the text “Herzlich tut mich erfreuen” (not to be confused with “Herzlich tut mich verlangen,” whose tune has come to be associated most recognizably with the text “O Sacred Head Now Wounded”). It appears in David Wolder, New Catechismus Gesangbüchlein, Hamburg, 1598, No. 101, and its composition is generally attributed to him. Wolder assigns the tune also to “Aus meines Herzens Grunde“ in the same hymnal, No. 179.
“Herzlich tut mich erfreuen,” melody only, in David Wolder, New Catechismus Gesangbüchlein, Hamburg, 1598, No. 101:
The familiar tune in triple meter began with Bartholomäus Gesius, who joined it to “Aus meines Herzens Grunde” and harmonized it for five voices in his Geistliche deutsche Lieder, Frankfurt, 1601, p. 185.
“Aus meines Herzens Grunde a 5,” arr. Bartholomäus Gesius, Geistliche deutsche Lieder, Frankfurt, 1601, p. 185:
In the years following, the tune was further simplified until reaching the form (or rather the multitude of forms) that it has today. Zahn suggests that the tune was likely sung extensively before its first extant appearance in print: “The circumstance that this melody upon its first appearance occurred in so many different forms leads me to conclude with certainty that it had already been sung for some time before 1598” (Johannes Zahn, Die Melodien der deutschen evangelischen Kirchenlieder, Gütersloh, 1889, p. 356).