O Welt, ich muss dich lassen

O Welt, ich muss dich lassen. Attributed to Johannes Hesse* (1490-1547). This is a religious adaptation of an Austrian song, ‘Innsbruck, ich muß dich laßen’, a traditional folk song (see ‘Austrian hymnody’*). It is printed in two texts by Wackernagel, Das Deutsche Kirchenlied III. 952-4, both of which emphasise the journey to heaven rather than a worldly journey. Wackernagel speculates that it was written for a particular person or special event. JJ (where the hymn is found under ‘Hesse’) mentions a tradition that it was written to comfort criminals on their way to execution (p. 518). One Wackernagel text was printed from a Nürnberg leaflet of 1555, followed by a Nürnberg book of 1569. It...