Come on, Christians, sing festive songs

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Up, Christians, sings festive songs in the Fulda diocesan song book , 22nd edition 1834 ( melody ? / I )Audio file / audio sample
Auf, Christians in the Paderborn diocesan prayer and hymn book Sursum corda , 1948 ( melody ? / I )Audio file / audio sample

Come on, Christians, singing festive songs is a Catholic Christmas carol . It is in various text and melody versions in numerous diocesan parts of the praise of God .

Origin and reception

The song first appeared in Fulda in 1778 in the completely new diocesan song book created by Augustinus Erthel OSB , The Christian Singing in the spirit of the Catholic Church . The book was shaped by the spirit of the Catholic Enlightenment and wanted to offer songs with understandable text in contemporary language as well as melodies in the popular tone of the time. Most of the lyrics and most of the melodies came from Erthel himself.

Soon the song was also sung in other dioceses and the text and melody were changed many times. The three-verse version most widespread to this day appeared for the first time in the hymn book Der heilige Gesang ( Ehrenbreitstein 1823) published by Joseph von Hommer , later Bishop of Trier .

Form and content

The original version has eleven eight-line, upbeat - dactylic verses. The first five of these are an invitation to Christians to praise the miracle of Christmas in festive jubilation, the “most beautiful of human children”, who is “God in human garb” and “mediator of sinners”, born of Mary, who Virgin, sung about by the angels and worshiped by the shepherds on their knees. The following five stanzas are addressed as prayer to Jesus Christ himself and develop the faith of the Church in him with expressions from the Great Creed and the Philippian Hymn : his glory from the Father before all ages and his humiliation to the child in diapers, to the brother of the lost People. The last stanza addresses the Father with thanks and closes with the request: "Let us separate ourselves from evil and work what Jesus has practiced".

The three-stanza version only includes parts of the first five original stanzas in linguistically revised form: stanza 1, lines 1–4; Verse 2, lines 1-4; Verse 3 and Verse 5.

melody

The melody has a joyful character, almost like a dance due to the dactylus. In the original it is completely syllabic and was only embellished with more or less numerous melisms in later arrangements . The triad descent over the entire octave in the opening line and the top note ( second above the tonic ) in line 6, followed by a sixth interval down, are particularly characteristic .

Web links

Commons : Come on, Christians, sing festive songs  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bamberg No. 765; Food No. 737; Freiburg / Rottenburg-Stuttgart No. 764; Fulda No. 754; Limburg No. 751; Mainz No. 773; Paderborn No. 732; Wurzburg No. 751
  2. ↑ Fulda Diocesan Song Book 1778 , Diocese of Fulda
  3. ↑ Information in Gotteslob (1975) , own section Essen