Come ye Ye Children

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Your little children, come (originally Die Kinder bei der Krippe ) is a Christmas carol , the text of which Christoph von Schmid wrote around 1808/10, and which is sung to a melody by Johann Abraham Peter Schulz from 1794.

origin

The Catholic priest and spiritual writer Christoph von Schmid (1768–1854) appeared for children out of a religious conviction and an educational vocation. Schmid therefore wrote around 50 short stories with educational concerns in a language that children can understand. In example stories he showed them how God allows good to triumph.

His original eight-verse Christmas poem The Children at the Crib has become particularly famous . There are various, sometimes legendary, information about the time the text was written. According to a now lost chronicle, Schmid is said to have written the poem in the baroque Maria Schnee chapel before 1795 during his time as chaplain in Nassenbeuren , now part of Mindelheim . However, there is no evidence of this in Schmid's letters and notes. An autograph with the variant “Ihr Kinderchen kommet” mentioned by Ursula Creutz and dated 1794 cannot be found. This dating is therefore rejected by research. The Evangelical Hymnbook , the Catholic Praise to God and Ulrich Parent name 1798 as the year the text was created without giving any sources. The currently only verifiable autograph, which is kept in the Augsburg State and City Library , probably represents the original of the poem, as the many corrections, deletions and changes suggest, and not a copy "with heavily corrected text", as Ursula Creutz said. By examining the watermarks of this autograph it could be determined that the manuscript was by no means created before 1803, taking into account further evidence, probably around 1808/10 in Thannhausen . This dating also fits that the text was first published in 1811 in the second edition of Christian chants for public worship in Augsburg , published anonymously by Schmid , but not yet in the first edition from 1807. The poem was first published in 1818 in Schmid's Blüthen collection , dedicated to the blossoming age .

Settings

There are several settings for the poem. The earliest, probably by Anton Höfer (1764–1837, teacher in Thannhausen since 1793), can be found in a cantor book that was created for or by Joseph Alois Singer (1786–1848, from 1809 chaplain in Thannhausen) as a Singer pastor was in bleaching. Today it is kept in the Institute for Folklore of the Commission for Bavarian Regional Studies at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences. This melody book for Christian chants for public worship. German hymns with and without folk singing for the music choir in Unterbleichen should be a copy of the original melodies from the Thannhausen hymn book from 1811 mentioned above. With a few modifications, this melody is still sung today during Christmas mass in Krumbach, as well as in Waldstetten. The exhibition on Ihr Kinderlein kommet in the State and City Library Augsburg (2018) was able to find a wealth of different historical settings for this song from southern Germany, Austria, the Sudetenland and the Banat, 9 of which were edited and sung in the accompanying exhibition catalog. One melody is the one set to music by Franz Xaver Luft in 1837 .

The melody by Franz Xaver Luft with accompaniment, Regensburg 1837:

Audio file / audio sample Audio sample 1.37 MB ? / i

Became famous Little Children, come however with a melody of Lüneburg composer Johann Abraham Peter Schulz from 1794. At that time, Schulz Kapellmeister at the Danish royal court in Copenhagen , where he also used his music theory interests. He wanted to achieve a cultural and moral promotion of the people with popular songs. In 1782, 1785 and 1790 he published three volumes of his songs in folk tone . In the same spirit he also composed the melody for the spring poem How charming, how blissful is everything around by Wilhelm Gottlieb Becker , who later became known as your little child, comes . Becker's poem with the melody first appeared in paperback for sociable pleasure in 1795.

The melody by JAP Schulz 1794:

Audio file / audio sample Sound sample 1.11 MB ? / i

At the end of 1829, the Gütersloh elementary school teacher and organist Friedrich Hermann Eickhoff (1807–1886) added the melody to Schmid's poem for the first time, which he had found in Schulz's manuscripts, and at Christmas 1829 the song was premiered in Gütersloh's Apostle Church. He published the song in 1832 in his collection of sixty German songs for thirty pfennigs , which became a bestseller at C. Bertelsmann Verlag . He changed the final turn of the melody. It is the most widespread in this version to this day and is also included in the Evangelical Hymnal (EG 43). For the Catholic praise of God from 2013 (GL 248), on the other hand, the melody version from 1794 with the unchanged final bar was chosen.

Schulz's melody in the version by FH Eickhoff 1832:

Audio file / audio sample Audio sample 0.99 MB ? / i

Other settings include a. by Matthias Waldhoer (1831), Franz Bühler (before 1823) and Donat Müller (around 1850).

The Icelander Þorsteinn Erlingsson also wrote a summer song that was popular there: “Nú blika við sólarlag” to go with the melody. In German-speaking Switzerland , the evening song "Ich ghöre es Glöggli" is sung to the same melody.

On the occasion of the jubilee year for Christoph von Schmid's 250th birthday, the Augsburg Cathedral Boys' Choir recorded a new arrangement of the well-known Christmas carol. The four-part choral setting comes from the Augsburg cathedral organist Claudia Waßner .

Melody and lyrics

\ relative a '{\ key d \ major \ time 2/4 \ partial 8 \ autoBeamOff a8 a4 fis8 a a4 fis8 a g4 e8 g fis4 r8 \ bar "" \ break a8 a4 fis8 a a4 fis8 a g4 e8 g fis4 r8 \ bar "" \ break f sharp e4 e8 e g4 g8 g f sharp4 f sharp8 f sharp b4 r8 \ bar "" \ break b a4 a8 a8 d4 a8 f sharp g4 e8 c sharp d4. \ bar "|." } \ addlyrics {Your children - little, come, come on everyone! Come to the crèche in Bethlehem's stable and see what the Father in Heaven is for on this very hot night We are happy! }

1. Little children, come, oh come all!
Come to the manger in Betlehem's stable
and see what
joy our Heavenly Father makes us on this holy night !

2. O look in the manger, in the nocturnal stable,
look here by the shining ray of light,
the lovely boy, the heavenly child ,
much more beautiful and sweet than angels are.

3. There it lies, the child, on hay and on straw,
Mary and Joseph look at it joyfully;
the honest shepherds kneel in prayer in front of it,
high above the angels in a jubilant choir.

4. Many a shepherd child carries
milk, butter and honey to Bethlehem with a joyful spirit ;
a basket full of fruit that shines purple,
a snow-white lamb wreathed with flowers.

5. O pray: You dear, you divine child,
how much do you suffer for our sins!
Oh, here in the crib there is already poverty and hardship, there
on the cross even bitter death.

6. O bend
your knees in adoration like shepherds, lift up your hands, and give thanks like them!
That's right, you children - who doesn't want to be happy? -
joins the angels cheering with joy!

7. What do we give children, what do we give you,
you best and dearest of children, in return?
You don't want anything from the treasures and joys of the world -
only you like a heart full of innocence.

8. So accept our hearts as a sacrifice;
we like to give them with a cheerful mind -
and make them holy and blessed like yours,
and make them only one with yours forever.

literature

  • Gerhard Blail: O you happy. The story of our most beautiful Christmas carols. 2nd Edition. Quell, Stuttgart 1994, ISBN 3-7918-2801-0 , pp. 56-61.
  • Friedhelm Brusniak : "The children at the crib". To the story of “You little children are coming” . In: Musik und Kirche , 76th year, 2006, ISSN  0027-4771 , pp. 330–336.
  • Guido Fuchs: Our Christmas carols and their story. Herder, Freiburg i. Br. 2009, ISBN 978-3-451-32278-5 , pp. 113-121.
  • Karl-Georg Pfändtner with the collaboration of Ursula Korber (Ed.): Your little children come! Myth - history - world success of the famous Christmas carol. Exhibition catalog. Josef Fink, Lindenberg 2018, ISBN 978-3-95976-174-1 .
  • Ulrich Parent, Martin Rößler : 43 - You children, come . In: Gerhard Hahn , Jürgen Henkys (Hrsg.): Liederkunde zum Evangelisches Gesangbuch . No. 3 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-50324-5 , pp. 17–20 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  • Christoph von Schmid: Blüthen, dedicated to the blooming age by the author of the Ostereyer. Krüll, Landshut 1819, pp. 14-16 ( digitized in the Google book search).
  • Byron Edward Underwood: The German Prototype of the Melody of “Home! Sweet Home! ” In: Yearbook for Folk Song Research , 22nd year, 1977, pp. 36–48 ( JSTOR 846915 ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Ursula Creutz: Christoph von Schmid 1768-1854. Life, work and contemporaries. Konrad, Weißenhorn 2004, ISBN 978-3-87437-479-8 , p. 89.
  2. ↑ a b c Karl-Georg Pfändtner: The secret of the origin of the Christmas carol Your little children are coming - on the search for traces of world success. In: Karl-Georg Pfändtner with the assistance of Ursula Korber (Ed.): Your little children come! Myth - history - world success of the famous Christmas carol. Exhibition catalog. Josef Fink, Lindenberg 2018, ISBN 978-3-95976-174-1 , pp. 13-18.
  3. ↑ Ulrich Parent, Martin Rößler : 43 - You children, come . In: Gerhard Hahn , Jürgen Henkys (Hrsg.): Liederkunde zum Evangelisches Gesangbuch . No. 3 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-50324-5 , pp. 17–20 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  4. ↑ So also Walter Götze: Our Christmas carols for guitar alone. B. Schott's Sons, Mainz 1958, p. 10.
  5. ↑ Karl-Georg Pfändtner (Ed.): I love gold and books very much… - 480 years of the Augsburg State and City Library. The Cimelia. Quaternio Verlag, Lucerne 2017, ISBN 978-3-905924-59-6 , p. 176-177 (Ursula Korber) .
  6. ↑ Karl-Georg Pfändtner with the assistance of Ursula Korber (Ed.): Your little children come! Myth - history - world success of the famous Christmas carol. Exhibition catalog. Josef Fink, Lindenberg 2018, ISBN 978-3-95976-174-1 , p. 30.
  7. ↑ Brita Sachs, Christmas carol exhibition Kinderleins World Success , FAZ.net, December 6, 2018
  8. ↑ Karl-Georg Pfändtner with the assistance of Ursula Korber (Ed.): Your little children come! Myth - history - world success of the famous Christmas carol . Kunstverlag Josef Fink, Lindenberg 2018, ISBN 978-3-95976-174-1 , p. 34 .
  9. ↑ Karl-Georg Pfändtner with the assistance of Ursula Korber (Ed.): Your little children come! Myth - history - world success of the famous Christmas carol . Kunstverlag Josef Fink, Lindenberg 2018, ISBN 978-3-95976-174-1 .
  10. ^ Becker's text
  11. ↑ Pocket book on sociable pleasure for the year 1795. Gleditsch, Leipzig [1794], pp. 186–188 ( limited preview in the Google book search). Printed as a facsimile in: Byron Edward Underwood: The German Prototype of the Melody of “Home! Sweet Home! “ In: Yearbook for Folk Song Research, 22nd year, 1977, pp. 36–48, here p. 39 f. ( JSTOR 846915 ).
  12. ↑ Karl-Georg Pfändtner with the assistance of Ursula Korber (Ed.): Your little children come! Myth - history - world success of the famous Christmas carol . Kunstverlag Josef Fink, Lindenberg 2018, ISBN 978-3-95976-174-1 , p. 50 .
  13. ^ The Christmas carol from Gütersloh, Die Glocke, December 14, 2013
  14. ↑ Six stanzas are selected from the original text on the ground floor in the order 1, 2, 3, 6, 5, 8. Most popular song collections contain stanzas 1, 2, 3 and 6.
  15. ↑ The GL contains stanzas 1, 3, 6, 5 and 8 of the original text.
  16. ↑ Ursula Korber: The melodies come to your little child and their composers. In: Karl-Georg Pfändtner with the assistance of Ursula Korber (Ed.): Your little children come! Myth - history - world success of the famous Christmas carol. Exhibition catalog. Josef Fink, Lindenberg 2018, ISBN 978-3-95976-174-1 , pp. 21-28.
  17. ↑ Exhibition “You little children are coming! Myth - History - World success of the well-known Christmas carol "of the State and City Library Augsburg from November 14, 2018 to December 21, 2018 with a virtual exhibition of the various melody versions
  18. ↑ swissmom.ch
  19. ↑ Diocese of Augsburg: Augsburger Domsingknaben: The world-famous Christmas carol "Your little children come" newly arranged. December 24, 2018, accessed January 14, 2019 .