We come to pray

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Wilt heden nu treden , Adriaen Valerius, Nederlandtsche Gedenck-Clanck 1626
We come to pray , picture postcard from the First World War
melody

We step in to pray ( Dutch original title: Wilt heden nu treden ), also known as Old Dutch Thanksgiving Prayer , is a song of Dutch origin. It can be found for the first time in the Nederlandtsche Gedenck-clanck collection compiled by Adrianus Valerius and was probably created in connection with the victory of the Dutch over the Spanish troops in the Battle of Turnhout in 1597 during the Eighty Years' War . The melody comes from the folk song Hey, wilder dan wilt, wie sal mij temmen (Hey, wilder than wild, who should tame me) from the 16th century.

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Adrianus Valerius , 1626
Original


Wilt heden nu treden
voor God den Heere,
Hem boven al loven
van herten seer,
End 'maken groot zijns
lieven named eere,
Die daar nu onsen
vijan slaat terneer.

Ter eeren ons Heeren
wilt al u dagen
Dit wonder bijzonder
gedencken toch;
Maekt u, o man,
voor God steets worlds dragen,
Doet ieder right en
wacht u voor bedrog.

D'arglosen, den boosen
om yet te vinden,
Loopt driesschen, en briesschen
gelyck een leeu,
Soeckende like hy
wreedelyck verslinden,
Of geven likes
een doodelycke preeu.

Bidt, waket end 'maket
dat g'in bekoring,
End' 't quade met schade
toch niet en valt.
U vroomheyt burns
the vijant dead ruining,
Al waer sijn rijck nog
eens so sterck managed.

Karl Budde , 1901
Translation


I now want to step
before the Lord God,
praise him above all things
from the heart,
And do great
honor tohisdear name,
who
strikes downourenemy.

In honor of our Lord
I want to
especially
rememberthis miracleall your days;
Make every effort, O man,
alwaysbehavewell before God,
do everyone right and
watch out for deceit!

The innocent, the evil one, to
find something,
runs menacingly and roaring
like a lion,
seeking whom he could
cruelly devour
or give
a fatal prank.

Pray, watch and make sure
that you fallinto seduction
and that evil
does not fall!
Your piety brings
the enemy to destruction,
if his kingdom were
again so heavily walled.

Karl Budde , 1901
Liedtext
Siegesfeier [1597]

We come to pray
before God,
to praise him above
with heart and mouth:
So happily praise his
dear name honor,
which has now thrown our enemy
on the ground!

In honor of the Lord
, because you are alive, you want to
thank him for
this miracle without wavering . Always strive to walk cleanly
before His
eyes,
do right and say goodbye to lies
and deceit!

The wicked,
to bring down the innocent ,
creeps , growling and roaring, like
the lion,
and seeks whom he can
cruelly devour,
whom he can inflict the death blow
!

Watch, plead, persevere
in good controversy,
with shame in bonds
of sin not fall! God
gives
the enemy to the pious people for booty,
and if there were still one more so great the power of
his kingdom!

Josef Weyl , 1877
free rewritten
thanksgiving prayer

We come to
God the righteouswith prayer,
he rules and observes
a strict judgment,
he does not let
the good enslavedthe bad,
his name be praised,
he does not forget us. God stood by our

side in the quarrel
;
He wanted
the kingdom to be victorious;
As
soon as the battlebegan,the battle was already won,
you, God, were with us:
the victory, it was yours:

We praise you above,
you
ruler ofthe battles,and plead, may continue to help
us,
That your congregation
not Sacrifice of the enemy,
your name be praised,
O Lord, set us free!

Usually two lines from here are set in one line. The third stanza (which elaborates a biblical motif from 1 Petr 5: 8) is often left out in Dutch texts today. It was not in the score when it was printed in 1871, only as a note on page 41. This with the remark that it was not done well.

Aftermath

The songs of the Gedenck clanck were rediscovered in the 19th century. In addition to the Wilhelmus , which soon became the hymn of the Netherlands , Wilt heden nu treden voor God, the Here , was particularly popular. In the German translation by the poet Joseph Weyl (1821–1895), who came from a Jewish family, and the arrangement for voices and piano by the Viennese composer and music director Eduard Kremser (1838–1914), We step in to pray before God, the righteous after the publication of Six old Dutch folk songs (1877) quickly became very popular, above all through the personal commitment of Kaiser Wilhelm II. The song was part of the Great Zapfenstreich and was often played on special occasions. It became the epitome of the throne-and-altar - civil religion of the empire.

During the time of National Socialism , the song was deliberately used at mass events in order to give them a dignified consecration and to emphasize the supposedly godly continuity of the Third Reich with the German Reich. For example, on April 9, 1938, following Hitler's speech in Vienna : “Afterwards a Dutch prayer of thanks, sung by the Vienna Men's Choir . The nation sings along. In the third stanza all the bells of the churches in the Reich are ringing. "

God the righteous became a metaphor for " providence, " and the song became a slogan for perseverance. It can be heard as such in the films Fridericus Rex and Kolberg (1945) and in Joseph Vilsmaier's Stalingrad (1993).

At the same time, however, the Geusen songs were rediscovered by the Dutch resistance movement and sung against the German occupiers.

The song had quickly found fans in England and America since its rediscovery in the 19th century. Here We gather together , the translation by Theodore Baker (1894), developed into an integral part of the Thanksgiving song repertoire . In 1902 Julia Bulkley Cady Cory created a new, somewhat defused translation: We praise thee, o God, our Redeemer .

In America the song is played or sung in numerous arrangements (including the Boston Pops ) at concerts on July 4th or Thanksgiving ; In Germany, on the other hand, it is hardly ever played outside of its traditional use in the solemn pledge of the Bundeswehr . It may still be compromised by its use during the Nazi era.

Web links

Commons : We come to pray  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Paul Goldscheider: Gloria Viktoria. Selected poems from the world war, explained for the classroom. CH Becksche Verlagsbuchhandlung (Oskar Beck), Munich 1916 (as a footnote in Wilhelm Langewiesche: Wolf's stories about a town house - First book: In the shadow of Napoleon - Chapter 15 , Wilhelm Langewiesche, 1921 (EA: 1919))
  2. ^ Julius Röntgen (music), Karl Budde (text): XIV Old Dutch folk songs after Adrianus Valerius (1626). For a voice with piano accompaniment. Breitkopf & Härtel, Leipzig / Brussels / London / New York 1901, No. 14 / p. 32 “Victory Celebration” ( online at Hathi Trust via US proxy), see also foreword and explanations.
  3. ↑ Quoted from Franz Magnus Böhme: Volksthümliche Lieder der Deutschen. Breitkopf & Härtel, Leipzig 1895, p. 565 . Under the song there is the note: “It will soon be recognized what use this song is suitable for: for patriot. Celebration of Sedan Day (September 2nd). "
  4. ↑ Reinhard Breymayer: "In the dispute to the side": The Jewish author Josef Weyl (1821–1895) and the translation of the "Dutch thanksgiving prayer" ("We step to pray ...") . In: In the quarrel aside. Circular letters from the Tübinger Biblical Circle / Circular letters from the A [academic]. Connection]. Föhrberg (TBK) . Tübingen, Frondsbergstr. 17, Fall 2001, pp. 1937-1939.
  5. ^ "Connection" 1938. A documentation . Ed. Documentation Archive of Austrian Resistance, Vienna 1988, pp. 495–526. Archive link ( Memento from April 4, 2007 in the Internet Archive )

literature

  • Eberhard Nehlsen: Materials on: “We step to pray” . 4th ext. Ed., Oldenburg 2010