Evening song (Matthias Claudius)
The evening song ("The moon has risen") is a poem by Matthias Claudius , which is one of the most famous works of German literature . It was published for the first time in the Muses Almanach for 1779 (edited by Joh. Heinr. Voss ) and from then on was hardly missing in any anthology . The model was the poem Now all forests by Paul Gerhardt from 1647. The exact date is unclear; On the one hand, it is assumed that it was made in Wandsbek in 1778 , and on the other, it was made in Darmstadt .
The poem
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Evening song
Text based on the Muses Almanac (1779)
The moon has risen
The golden stars shine
bright and clear in the sky:
The forest stands black and is silent,
And the
white fog rises wonderfully from the meadows .
How is the world so quiet,
And in the twilight shell
So cozy and so sweet!
As a quiet chamber,
where
you should sleep through the day's woes and forget.
Do you see the moon up there?
It is only half visible,
and yet it is round and beautiful.
So are some things that
we confidently laugh at,
Because our eyes do not see them.
We proud human beings
are poor sinners
and we don't know much;
We spin webs of air,
and seek many arts,
and get further from the goal.
God, let us see your salvation,
trust in nothing perishable,
not look forward to vanity!
Let us become simple-minded,
and be
pious and happy before you here on earth like children!
Want to finally grieve
from this world to take us
through a gentle death,
And when you have taken us,
let us come to heaven,
you dear faithful pious God!
So lie down, brothers,
in God's name!
The evening breath is cold.
God spare us punishments,
and let us sleep peacefully,
and our sick neighbor too!
Text after Asmus omnia sua secum portans (1783)
The moon has risen,
The golden stars shine
bright and clear in the sky.
The forest stands black and is silent,
And from the meadows the
white mist rises wonderfully.
How is the world so quiet,
And in the twilight shell
So cozy and so sweet!
As a quiet chamber,
where
you should sleep through the day's woes and forget.
Do you see the moon up there? -
It is only half visible,
and yet it is round and beautiful!
So are some things that
we confidently laugh at,
Because our eyes do not see them.
We proud human beings
are poor sinners
and we don't know much.
We spin the air
And seek many arts,
And get further from the goal.
God, let us see your salvation,
trust in nothing perishable, do not look
forward to vanity!
Let us become simple-minded,
And before you here on earth be
pious and happy as children!
You finally want to grieve
from this world to take us
through a gentle death!
And, if you have taken us,
let us come to heaven,
you our Lord and our God!
So then, you brethren,
lie down in God's name;
The evening breath is cold.
Spare us, God! with punishments,
and let us sleep peacefully!
And our sick neighbor too!
Formal
The poem consists of seven six-line stanzas . The rhyme scheme is included[aabccb]The third and sixth verses each form a tail rhyme . The meter is usually interpreted as a three-letter iambus, with the last verse of a stanza being four-lettered. However, some interpreters assume that all verses are to be interpreted as four-part, and refer to various settings of the poem, among other things.
intertextuality
With Abendlied , Claudius chooses a generic term as a title that puts the poem in the context of certain literary traditions. On the one hand, the title evokes the context of the spiritual chants, on the other hand, the evening song as a literary genre is a typical product of the Reformation period. Typical elements of this genre are the fear of nightfall, the memory of the previous day and a form of devotion. Unlike many of its predecessors in this tradition, Claudius' Abendlied has a real, independent nature that can no longer be read purely metaphorically . The poem also lacks a (generic) basic pedagogical undertone, instead a progressive process of cognition occurs that the reader can follow. Claudius' Abendlied can thus be read as a poem that invokes a literary tradition in order to be at the same time differentiated from it.
In addition to the genre in which the poem stands, some specific intertextual templates can also be named. A particularly prominent model is the song Now all forests by Paul Gerhardt , on the melody of which Claudius' evening song was originally intended to be sung. Therefore, both songs agree in meter and rhyme scheme, with which they stand in a larger context of Christian song texts, which also includes O world, I have to let you . In addition to the theme of contemplating nature in the evening and its use as a picture of dying and the contemplative and devoutly expressed trust in God, Claudius also takes over some lines of text from Gerhardt, which he modifies slightly. The first two verses (“The moon has risen / the golden stars are shining”) are based closely on the first two verses of the third stanza of the Gerhardt poem (“The day has now passed / the golden stars are shining”). With the third stanza, Claudius begins an epistemological defense of faith. This can be read as a defense of Gerhardt's original text, whose passage “the whole world sleeps” was viewed critically by the Enlightenment.
Reception and interpretations
The poem has achieved enormous fame in the German-speaking area, especially as a folk song, especially the first, second, third and last stanzas, the others are often left out. For the most part, the song was received as an idyllic lullaby with the only very quiet eerie aspect of the cold evening breath. The evening song , as Winfried Freund interprets , is more of a death poem, but against the background of a believing Christian's expectation of salvation.
The evening song's strong reception began shortly after its publication. Johann Gottfried Herder included it as the only contemporary poem in the second part of his folk songs . In doing so, however, he shortened it by the last two stanzas, in which the prayer character becomes particularly clear. August Hermann Niemeyer printed the poem in his collections of songs for the people and hymn books for schools and educational institutions , thus establishing its reception as a hymn . As a melody he gave Now All Forests by Paul Gerhardt, with which he made this connection for the first time. His reprints, however, were not authorized by Claudius; he himself authorized only two publications in a secular framework, including those in the Vossian Musenalmanac .
The literary qualities of the evening song have long been disputed. Some of the recipients recognized a childishly pious attitude and rejected the poem because of its alleged naivety and simplicity. Ernst Wiechert praised a simple, but technically extraordinarily successful execution and viewed the simplicity as a stylistic device . Notwithstanding this controversy, the evening song quickly became very popular and found its way into countless anthologies and hymn books. A recurring question in the history of reception is that of the image of God conveyed in the evening song. Different interpretations are based partly on Enlightenment basic tones, partly also from Pietistic or Reformation tones , whereby a clear assignment is rarely made. Claudius' unequivocally preaching keynote is often used as a sign of pious orthodox readings, while certain words such as little stars are commonly assigned to the vocabulary of Pietism. Claudius also demonstrably felt connected to the thinking of Martin Luther . Both theological and literary interpretations tend to ascribe Claudius independence from all these currents.
Settings and melodies
In the setting by Johann Abraham Peter Schulz in the Lieder im Volkston collection , with the piano to sing from 1790, the evening song became a permanent fixture in the German song repertoire. This melody is also found in the Evangelical Hymnbook (EG 482, with four-part choral setting by Max Reger (1899)), with identical text and melody since 2013 in the Catholic Praise for God (No. 93). In church hymn books it was mostly found with the melody Now all forests rest well into the 20th century ( Innsbruck, I have to leave you , by Heinrich Isaac ).
However, there are more than 70 settings in total. Franz Schubert composed his song for voice and piano ( D 499 ) in November 1816. Michael Haydn , Carl Orff , Johann Friedrich Reichardt , Othmar Schoeck , and Zsolt Gárdonyi created other versions . Interpretations of Schulz's melody come from Pe Werner in a duet with Xavier Naidoo , Hannes Wader , Herbert Grönemeyer , Achim Reichel or the Singphoniker , the tenor Peter Schreier and even Heino or Freddy Breck .
Source: Notation from the Rhenish-Westphalian Provincial Hymnal , 1893
Parodies
Due to the great popularity of the poem, it has been parodied by various authors .
One of the most famous parodies, at the same time a counter-song to the occidental tradition of evening and moon songs, comes from Peter Rühmkorf , published in 1962 in his volume of poems Kunststücke and comments with the essay Instructions for Resistance . The first stanza of the variation on 'Abendlied' by Matthias Claudius reads:
The moon has risen.
I, between hoping and hanging,
don't touch heaven.
What about hunting or yoga?
I pull the
evening's ink toga in front of my face.
Other parodies come from Dieter Höss as the song of the astronaut , Karlhans Frank as the evening song , Gerd Knabe as Die Saat has risen , Joachim Schwedhelm (Dusty Night Song) and the BosArt Trio ( The mouth has risen ). The cabaret artist Dieter Hildebrandt used the poem to parody Helmut Kohl's habit of enriching foreign texts with his own ideas and turned it into a speech in the Bundestag.
The lines misunderstood by a child “and from the meadows the white fog rises wonderfully” as “and from the meadows the white negro Wumbaba” inspired Axel Hacke for the title of his book about such hearing defects, The white negro Wumbaba and Michael Sowa for the corresponding one Illustration.
Other uses
The beginning of the second verse was chosen as the title of the television film Polizeiruf 110: Wie ist die Welt so silent (2008, directed by Alain Gsponer ). The song melody was used as a leitmotif as film music by the film composer Marius Felix Lange . The fourth line was chosen as the title of the television film Tatort: The forest stands black and silent (2012, screenplay Dorothee Schön ). Andrea Timm and Christhard Lück chose the first line of the evening song as the book title of their crime novel "The moon has risen. An island crime story" (2016). Ingrid Noll chose a line from the last stanza as the book title of her crime novel Kalt ist der Abendhauch (1996).
At the request of the former Federal Chancellor Helmut Schmidt , the evening song was sung on November 23, 2015 at the funeral service on the occasion of his funeral. The song Alter Freund by Reinhard Mey ends with the words "And our sick neighbor - too". Ling sings on her album The Scent of Jasmin 'The moon has risen (evening song)'.
In 1971, Anselm Kiefer painted a painting with the title and text "The moon has risen".
In August 2017, the Evangelical Church in Germany received the negative award Sprachpanscher of the Year for the fact that the last line in the hymnbook for the Evangelical Church Congress and our sick neighbor were also repositioned in the gender-neutral version, according to the organizers, and all sick people . There is also a gender-neutral modification of the first line of the last stanza: So lay down, you brothers, in: So lay down, sisters, brothers, (notes for a church concert).
On the occasion of the COVID-19 pandemic , the Evangelical Church in Germany has been inviting everyone to "balcony singing" this song every evening at 7 pm since March 18, 2020. This is an opportunity to feel the cohesion and community in times of the corona crisis.
Astronomical interpretation
The question of which phase of the moon Matthias Claudius could have had in mind during the poetry was the subject of an astronomical investigation. It was based on the idea that he made his expressive description of nature under a "fresh observation impression". Based on the literary scholarly assumed date of origin 1776 or 1777 during his stay in Darmstadt and the description of nature offered in the first verse, which most closely corresponds to a late summer or early autumn evening, favorable dates for the full moon phase could be derived for September of 1776 and 1777. The natural mood in the poem can be narrowed down to the time of the nautical twilight in the early evening, when the full moon had exceeded the declination height of 10 ° in these years , in order to be able to provide so much brightness that the "white fog" could arise. The phases of the waning and waxing moon, also discussed, are ruled out for reasons of time. Ludwig Richter also illustrated this scene in 1856 with the full moon motif .
Translations
Translated into Danish, “Sig månen slowomt hæver, den gyldne stjerne svæver ...” by Carsten Hauch , 1838, included in the church hymn book , Den Danske Salmebog , Copenhagen 2002, No. 769 (with predecessors, first in the hymn book Roskilde 1855), as well in the hymn book of the Danish Folk High School, Højskolesangbogen , 18th edition, Copenhagen 2006, no.537, and in German there, no.538.
literature
-
Albrecht Beutel : "Beyond the moon everything is immortal." The evening song by Matthias Claudius . In: Michael Nüchtern (ed.): Matthias Claudius. "Not put in this world for nothing ...". For the 250th birthday of the Wandsbecker messenger. Contributions to a conference of the Evangelical Academy Baden from 4. – 6. May 1990 in Bad Herrenalb (= Herrenalber Protocols. Series of publications of the Evangelical Academy Baden , vol. 81). Karlsruhe 1990, pp. 71-106.
- Reprinted in Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche , Vol. 87, (1990), pp. 487-520 ( JSTOR 23585326 ).
- Reinhard Görisch: 482 - The moon has risen . In: Gerhard Hahn , Jürgen Henkys (Hrsg.): Liederkunde zum Evangelisches Gesangbuch . No. 8 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2003, ISBN 3-525-50331-8 , pp. 68–73 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
- Michael Heymel: His song is with me during the night. Pastoral care and music . Spenner, Waltrop 2004, ISBN 3-89991-027-3 .
- Reiner Marx: "Evening Song" by Matthias Claudius . In: Karl Hotz (ed.): Poems from seven centuries. Interpretations. CC Buchners Verlag, Bamberg 1993, ISBN 3-7661-4311-5 , pp. 29-34.
- Reiner Andreas Neuschäfer: "The moon has risen". Ideas, impulses and information from a religious educational perspective. In: AUFBrüche (PTI Drübeck ), 12 (2005), Heft 1, pp. 17-21.
Web links
- Dieter Lamping : The most famous German poem. An inspection. literaturkritik.de , July 7, 2013, accessed November 26, 2015.
- The moon has risen in the song project by Carus-Verlag and SWR2, accessed November 26, 2015.
Choral movements
- Choral setting by Ulrich Kaiser , accessed November 26, 2015.
- Max Reger: 7 sacred folk songs, No. 1 : Sheet music and audio files in the International Music Score Library Project
- Choral setting (SATB) by Philipp Scharwenka : sheet music and audio files in the International Music Score Library Project
- Choral setting (SATB) by Adolf Seifert : sheet music and audio files in the International Music Score Library Project
- Choral setting (SATB) by Georg Sothilander : sheet music and audio files in the International Music Score Library Project
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Asmus : evening song in Joh. Heinr. Voss (Ed.): Muses Almanach for 1779 . LE Bohn, Hamburg 1778, pp. 184–186 ( digitized in the Google book search)
- ↑ 1783 Matthias Claudius took over the poem, verse 6, 6 thereby modifying, in Asmus omnia sua secum portans or all works of Wandsbeck Bothen IV. Part .
- ↑ Albrecht Beutel: "Beyond the moon everything is immortal." The evening song by Matthias Claudius . In: Michael Nüchtern (Ed.): Matthias Claudius . Karlsruhe 1990, pp. 71-106, here p. 73.
- ↑ a b In the Evangelical Hymnal (1993) the line reads "God, let us see your salvation", in Praise of God (2013) "God, let us see your salvation". Both versions are marked as ecumenical .
- ↑ Asmus omnia sua secum portans, or all works by Wandsbeck Bothen, fourth part. Wandsbeck 1783 (with incorrect year: 1774), p. 57 f. ( Digitized in the Google book search)
- ↑ Albrecht Beutel: "Beyond the moon everything is immortal." The evening song by Matthias Claudius . In: Michael Nüchtern (Ed.): Matthias Claudius . Karlsruhe 1990, pp. 71-106, here p. 76.
- ↑ Albrecht Beutel: "Beyond the moon everything is immortal." The evening song by Matthias Claudius . In: Michael Nüchtern (Ed.): Matthias Claudius . Karlsruhe 1990, pp. 71-106, here p. 82.
- ↑ Reiner Marx: Untouched nature, Christian hope and human fear - The teaching of the householder in Claudius' evening song . In: Poems and Interpretations, Vol. 2: Enlightenment and Storm and Drang . Reclam, Stuttgart 1984, p. 342 f.
- ↑ cf. Michael Fischer: Now all forests are at rest (2008). In: Popular and Traditional Songs. Historical-critical song lexicon of the German Folk Song Archive
- ↑ Reiner Marx: Untouched nature, Christian hope and human fear - The teaching of the householder in Claudius' evening song . In: Poems and Interpretations, Vol. 2: Enlightenment and Storm and Drang . Reclam, Stuttgart 1984, p. 351 f.
- ↑ Albrecht Beutel: "Beyond the moon everything is immortal." The evening song by Matthias Claudius . In: Michael Nüchtern (ed.): Matthias Claudius . Karlsruhe 1990, pp. 71-106, here p. 71 ff. And p. 103 ff.
- ↑ Johann Abraham Peter Schulz: Lieder in Volkston, singing at the piano , part 3. Berlin 1790, p. 52.
- ↑ Published as No. 1 in Seven Sacred Folk Songs for Mixed Choir . Munich and Leipzig 1900.
- ↑ Reinhard Görisch: 482 - The moon has risen . In: Gerhard Hahn , Jürgen Henkys (Hrsg.): Liederkunde zum Evangelisches Gesangbuch . No. 8 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2003, ISBN 3-525-50331-8 , pp. 68–73 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
- ^ Peter Gülke: Franz Schubert and his time , Laaber-Verlag, 2nd edition of the original edition from 1996, 2002, page 367
- ↑ http://www.wer-singt.de/song_Der+Mond+ist+aufgiegen.htm
- ↑ Gerd Labroisse, Gerhard P. Knapp: Literary tradition today: German-language contemporary literature in its relationship to tradition . Rodopi, Amsterdam 1988, ISBN 90-5183-038-6
- ↑ Peter Rühmkorf: Tricks . Edition 4. Rowohlt, Hamburg 1962, p. 86. Online: Variation on 'Abendlied' by Matthias Claudius
- ↑ Dieter Höss : Song of the Astronauts.
- ^ Karlhans Frank : Evening song.
- ↑ Gerd Knabe : The seed has grown.
- ↑ JOKE, SATIRE & IRONY . In: The time . No. 14/1971 ( online ).
- ↑ Dieter Hildebrandt : The moon has risen ( text , video ).
- ↑ Andrea Timm, Christhard Lück : The moon has risen. Retrieved October 6, 2016 .
- ↑ https://www.songtexte.de/alben/ling-der-duft-von-jasmin-2054984.html
- ↑ scoopnest.com: The moon has risen
- ↑ http://vds-ev.de/pressemitteilungen/evangelische-kirche-deutschlands-ist-sprachpanscher-des-jahres//
- ↑ Heike Schmoll: changing gender against God. In: FAZ.net , May 29, 2017.
- ↑ Evangelical Church invites you to sing on the balcony , EKD, March 18, 2020, accessed on March 24, 2020
- ↑ Evening "balcony singing" will be continued , pro - Christian Medienmagazin, March 20, 2020, accessed on March 24, 2020
- ^ M. Bartnik: Matthias Claudius and the moon quarters. Comparative consideration of the three possible phases of the moon. In: The Stars . Volume 63 (1987), pp. 103-107.
- ↑ Cf. Otto Holzapfel : Lied index: The older German-language popular song tradition ( online version on the Volksmusikarchiv homepage of the Upper Bavaria district ; in PDF format; ongoing updates) with further information.