Herr Jesu Christ, wahr' Mensch und Gott

(Attribution to Bodecker and biographical details thanks to Andreas Osiander)

Johann Heinrich Bodecker (or Bödecker) was born in Bremen in 1640 or 1641. In 1667 he became a member of the court orchestra of the Elector of Brandenburg in Berlin, at 200 reichstalers per annum. In 1674 the city council of Bremen appointed Bodecker as organist of St Mary's church and asked the elector in Berlin to let him go. But the elector refused. Instead he appointed Bodecker as assistant organist of the Berlin cathedral (with the right pf succession) and raised his salary to 250 rt. p.a. In 1679 Bodecker's salary is raised to 300 rt., the same as that of the cathedral organist, Wilhelm Karges. Finally, in 1699 Bodecker succeeds Karges. His salary is now 352 rt. He retires in 1708, dies in 1713.

All this shows Bodecker was much in favor. Yet no music by his hands survives that I know of. Until now: I present an organ work, possibly written by Bodecker.
The work can be found in manuscript Mus Ms 30439, owned by the Staatbibliothek in Berlin. The manuscript contains some 120 pages, that for the largest part are in very bad shape. The pages where Bodecker’s piece is written are stained, torn and parts are missing because the paper has become brittle. The piece is a set of variations on the melody of “Herr Jesu Christ, wahr’ Mensch und Gott”. Each variation has the unaltered melody in one of the voices. So it is possible to determine exactly how much is missing and make a reconstruction of the missing parts.

My first attribution of this piece was to Henricus Radeker. Hence the mention of his name in the comments.

Score available here:
http://partitura.org/index.php/johann-heinrich-bodecker-herr-jesu-christ-wahr-mensch-und-gott/