O du fröhliche

O Holy Night is one of the best-known German Christmas carols. Poet of the first three stanzas of the Weimar " orphan father " Johannes Daniel Falk (1768-1826), the following two were by Heinrich Holzschuher (1798-1847) from Wunsiedel rewritten in their usual form today.

The Emergence

After Johannes Daniel Falk had lost four of his seven children by a typhus epidemic, he founded in Weimar in the " rescue center for abandoned children ." He dedicated the captured children there in 1816 today known as Christmas carol O Holy Night. When melody was a Marian hymn that is sung with the text sanctissima O, O purissima ( piissima ), dulcis virgo Maria today in Italy. Falk found this song in Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803) collection of peoples voices in songs. In its original version, the song was one of Falk as designated " Allerdreifeiertagslied " in which the three main festivals of Christendom as Christmas, Easter and Pentecost underlying facts of salvation were sung.

O you fröliche, O thou blessed, grace -bringing Christmas time! World was lost, Christ is born: Rejoice, rejoice, Christendom! O you fröliche, O thou blessed, grace -bringing Easter time! World in bands, Christ is risen: Rejoice, rejoice, Christendom! O you fröliche, O thou blessed, grace -making Pentecostal! Christ, our Master, sanctify the spirits: Rejoice, rejoice, Christendom!

The song was released in 1816. The first edition is in the year ended January 30, 1817 Second report of Falk's sozialdiakonischem association " Society of Friends in trouble ." Here is a list of songs, " the need to know every pupil of the Sunday School by heart and sing ."

Today's text

Became known for the song O you merry, however, not as " Allerdreifesttagslied " but as outspoken Christmas hymn, in which only the first verse is taken verbatim from Johannes Daniel Falk. The other two Christmas verses were by Heinrich Holzschuher, an assistant Falk, 1826 rewritten for a performance piece " to Feyer the holy Christmas Festival" to pure Christmas song.

In its current form (some with regional differences of the text) is the song:

O how joyfully, O how blessedly, grace -bringing Christmas time! World was lost, Christ is born: Rejoice, rejoice, O Christian! O how joyfully, O how blessedly, grace -bringing Christmas time! Christ has appeared to us atonement: Rejoice, rejoice, O Christian! O how joyfully, O how blessedly, grace -bringing Christmas time! Heavenly hosts sing for joy you honor: Rejoice, rejoice, O Christian!

This sealed Falk and Holzschuher Christmas song has been translated into many languages ​​, including English (Oh how joyfully ), French, Latin, and Swedish (O Saliga you, O you Heliga, 1859).

The song in church hymnals

The song was included in the Protestant hymnal (EC 44 ) ( after it had not been included in the master part of its precursor, the Evangelical Church hymnal ), in many diocesan parts of the Catholic praise to God, in the Free Church Celebration & Praise (F & L 220) and in the Mennonite hymnal (MG 264). In many Protestant churches in Germany the song is traditionally sung on Christmas Eve at the end of the Christian Vespers. Sometimes this will sound full of bells, so all the bells of the church.

Variant as Luther hymn

Allegedly, two days before his death to John Daniel Falk in a " last call " of his friends have asked for the disclosure of a "people's booklet " which appeared posthumously in 1830 as a collection of songs Falk by Reclam in Leipzig. The foreword by Karl Reinthaler, Falk's friend and director of the Martin pin in Erfurt, shows that net Thaler was the actual publisher. The book contains over many pages distributed six other verses of O Holy Night. Four of them are dedicated to the " grace -bringing Martin Time ", two of Katharina von Bora. Examples:

O you merry, O how blessedly, Comes the glory of Martin time! Train was lost; Light is born: Rejoice, Rejoice Christendom!

To Katharina von Bora:

O you merry, O how blessedly, Much welcome noble maid, Luthern to the side, Sey you today, Bora, a friendly greeting said!

Whether the six verses actually go back to Falk, or may have been written by Reinthaler, also of Henry Holzschuher field remains unclear.

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