Sun songs

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Title page , designed by Rudolf Koch

Sonnenlieder is the title of a songbook, the songs of which were sung and collected within the Neuwerk movement in the early 1920s, and some were created within the movement. The full title of the 103 songs comprehensive collection that for the first hymnbook that of Eberhard Arnold founded Bruderhof community was, is Sun songs. Songs for the joy of nature, human peace and communion with God . The songbook is dedicated to "the ever new youth". It sees itself as a musical follow-up volume to the book Junge Saat published by Eberhard Arnold and Normann Körber in 1921 . Life book of a youth movement .

Bibliographic information

The sun songs were published in 1924 by the Eberhard Arnold publishing house in Sannerz and Leipzig . Emmy Arnold and Gertrud Dalgas are named as editors . The book has 214 pages in the 8 ° large format . Most of the songs have notations for voices and piano, some also have movements for choral singing.

The title page is the work of the Offenbach graphic artist and typographer Rudolf Koch (1876–1934). The sun songs are accompanied by a series of Dürer pictures, including five drawings in the margin that the artist created around 1515 for a prayer and hymn book.

The sun songs appeared in qualitatively different editions. 650 copies were bound in linen, 3000 in half linen. The number of copies of a third edition ("for hand use, red cardboard, monochrome, on plain paper with cheap equipment, [but] with all notes and texts") is not mentioned in the foreword. The typesetting and printing was done by the Würzburg University Printing House Stürtz .

background

Information sign of today's Sannerz community

In 1920 Eberhard and Emmy Arnold changed their place of residence and moved with their five children from Berlin to Schlüchtern . There they founded the so-called Neuwerk movement with local and foreign friends . Different worldviews as well as political and social ideas should come together here. The impetus included the Wandervogel movement , religious socialism as well as pacifist and last but not least life reform ideas. The agrarian romantic rural commune and settlement movements as well as the various educational reform concepts also had a special influence on the founders of the Neuwerk community . Above all, however, for the Arnolds and their close friends, the goal was to lead a life in the spirit of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount . The early Christian community of property practiced by the Jerusalem early community had a model character for them . Within the young Neuwerk movement, the small Sonnherz community was established in the back of an inn in Sannerz near Schlüchtern in the summer of 1920 . A few weeks later, the Paulsche Villa could be leased as the second domicile of the Sonnherz community . It was here that the co-editor of the Sonnenlieder , the Brake- born teacher Gertrud Dalgas (1897–1985), joined the circle that had formed around the Arnold family. Gertrud Dalgas (after their marriage Hüssy or Dalgas-Hüssy) had met Eberhard Arnold in spring 1921 at a lecture in Frankfurt and then took part in the 2nd Schlüchtern Whitsun Conference of the Neuwerk movement. In autumn of the same year she joined the Sannerz community and remained connected to it through all the crises until the end of her life.

In 1927 the Sonnherz community moved to the Sparhof, located in the Rhön and not far from Sannerz. The settlement grew steadily and by 1930 already had almost 100 adults and children. In 1930 Eberhard Arnold made contact with the North American Hutterites and joined them with his community now known as Bruderhof . The Bruderhöfer were listed as Arnold people by the Hutterites . This connection to the Hutterite community is reflected in a second volume of the Sun Songs, which Emmy Arnold published in 1933 and in which many Anabaptist songs of the 16th and 17th centuries were included. It bears the title Sonnenlieder: songs of the community, as they are written and produced by stimulation of the spirit and thus also to be sung . A completely new, English-German edition of the Sonnenlieder appeared in New York in 1977 under the title Songs of Light .

Go to content

In addition to the 25 chants and songs created in the area of ​​the Neuwerk movement , the hymn book Sonnenlieder offers a wide selection of songs from more than seven centuries. Secular journeys and sacred folk songs can be found here as well as traditional chorales from the Reformation period. Songs of the workers' and pacifist movements stand alongside Anabaptist , Pietist and awakening chants. Arnold biographer Markus Baum writes about the content and composition of the sun songs: “Hardly any other document reveals more about life in the Neuwerk Sannerz community, about the spiritual currents that converged there and at the same time about the people who lived there in and out of the first few years. "

structure

The actual song part of the sun songs is preceded by a foreword, a dedication and the poem by an unnamed author ( light is love ... sun weaving ). This is followed by three introductory chants: Francis of Assisi's Canticle of the Sun , God Moves, and Towards the Sunrise (both by Eberhard Arnold). The main part of the 100 sun songs is divided into five "song groups", the meaning of which is not explained in detail and the meaning of which cannot be deduced from looking at the songs assigned to the groups. The appendix to the sun songs consists of four sections. The first contains brief explanations of the individual songs and their poets and composers. The second section provides musical information and shows which of the sun songs are suitable for solo performance or for male , female and mixed choirs . The third section deals with the Dürer pictures that were included in the hymnal. The final section contains an alphabetical list of songs.

Songs

Around a quarter of the sun songs come from the pen of Eberhard Arnold

Eberhard Arnold, to whom around a quarter of the Sonnenlieder can be traced back, wrote to the pacifist philosopher and educator Friedrich Wilhelm Foerster on May 8, 1924 : "The strong tone of belief in peace and expectation of peace goes through all of our songs." With this he points to the red one Thread that connects songs from a wide variety of origins.

The oldest song in the Sonnenlieder collection is Franz von Assisi's Sonnengesang , which was written in its original text between 1224 and 1226. Luther chants in the original textual version (for example Nu bitten wyr den heyligen Geyst ) stand next to songs of the Reformation Anabaptist movement ( If you want to get an apartment with God , we sneak around in the woods ). A larger part of the song collection goes back to authors of the Moravian Brethren and the sanctification and revival movement . Zinzendorf's king, give us courage and clarity can be found, for example, among the sun songs as well as the song Auf, because the night will come from the Methodist preacher Ernst Gebhardt . Nature and travel songs (for the most part without religious reference) are interspersed between the sacred chants customary for church hymn books. These include, for example, a golden walking stick ; We want to go out by land ; Early, when the roosters crow . The lyrics of some of these songs have been revised or new stanzas have been added. Among the latter is the well-known evening song No beautiful land in this time . The Neuwerkerin Eva Öhlke added the following verse to the song:

You brothers know what unites us,
Another sun shines brightly on us,
In her we live, to her we strive
As the community '!
In her we live, to her we strive
As the community '!

Another special feature of the Bruderhof hymnbook are song poems by known and unknown pacifists. These include Kees Boeke , Otto Salomon and Hans Fiehler . Kees Boeke (1884–1966) was a Dutch reform pedagogue. He wrote a large group of sun songs that were translated from Dutch into German by the Neuwerk community. Otto Salomon (1889–1971) also wrote a large number of the sun songs . He was of Jewish origin and converted to Christianity in 1911. He belonged to both the Wandervogel and Neuwerk movements. His spiritual home was religious socialism . Salomon worked as a poet, writer (pseudonyms Otto Bruder , Otto Johannes Bernt ), actor and dramaturge. Hans Fiehler (actually Johannes Baptist Fiehler ; † 1969), the third of the pacifists named here, was the son of the Baptist preacher Heinrich Fiehler and brother of the Munich Nazi Mayor Karl Fiehler . After traumatic experiences as a soldier in World War I , he moved from place to place as a singer, musician and painter under the stage name Hans im Glück and was often a guest at Eberhard and Emmy Arnold in Sannerz.

One of the political sun songs is the song We woo in dying for distant stars, composed by Kurt Eisner , the Prime Minister of the Free State of Bavaria who was murdered in 1919 . In addition - and this is probably unique in a spiritual hymn book - the sun songs contain the originally Russian workers' fight song Brothers, to the sun, to freedom . However, the last line of the third stanza was changed by Erich Mohr (1895–1960). With Hermann Scherchen , the German translator of the workers' song, the final stanza is:

“ Brothers, now put your hands in one, / Brothers, dying laughs! / Eternal, the end of slavery / holy the last battle! "

In the sun songs it says:

“ Brothers, now put your hands in one, / Brothers, dying laughs! / Eternal, the end of slavery / Holy power of love! "

literature

  • Markus Baum: Eberhard Arnold. A life in the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount , Schwarzenfeld 2013, ISBN 978-3-86256-716-4 .
  • Antje Vollmer : The new work movement. Between youth movement and religious socialism . Herder: Freiburg, Basel, Vienna 2016. ISBN 978-3-45131504-6 . Pp. 118-123

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Emmy Arnold, Gertrud Dalgas: Sonnenlieder. Songs for the joy of nature, human peace and fellowship with God , Sannerz / Leipzig 1924, p. 5
  2. ↑ Eberhard Arnold, Normann Körber: Junge Saat. Life book of a youth movement , Berlin 1921; see Markus Baum: Eberhard Arnold. A life in the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount , Schwarzenfeld 2013, ISBN 978-3-86256-716-4 , p. 131.
  3. ^ For Emmy Arnold see the short biography on the pages of Hymnary.org ; Accessed April 20, 2015.
  4. ↑ For Gertrud Dalgas see the short biography on the pages of Hymnary.org ; accessed on April 20, 2015. Gertrud Dalgas (married Dalgas-Hüssy) died according to written information from the Bruderhof Holzlandgemeinschaft in Bad Klosterlausnitz (March 27, 2015) on July 29, 1985 at the Woodcrest-Bruderhof in Rifton / New York .
  5. ↑ See Emmy Arnold, Gertrud Dalgas: Sonnenlieder , Leipzig / Sannerz 1924, p. 210.
  6. ^ Emmy Arnold, Gertrud Dalgas: Sonnenlieder , Leipzig / Sannerz 1924, p. 211.
  7. ↑ The information in this section can be found in the preface to the Sun Songs .
  8. ↑ For the history of the Neuwerk movement and the Sannerz community, see Ulrich Linse: Anarcho-religious settlement: Sannerz , in: Zurück, o Mensch, zur Mutter Erde. Rural communes in Germany 1890-1933 (Ed. Ulrich Linse ), Munich 1983 pp. 221–241.
  9. ^ Emmy Arnold: A Joyful Pilgrimage: My Life in Community , Rifton (New York) / Robertsbridge (Sussex) 2011, p. 85.
  10. ↑ 1932? Compare Markus Baum: Eberhard Arnold. A life in the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount , Neufeld 2013, p. 200.
  11. ↑ Brief description of the title on the pages of the German National Library ; accessed on April 16, 2015.
  12. ↑ Emmy Arnold: Sonnenlieder: Lieder der Lebensgemeinde, as written and produced from stimuli of the spirit and as also to be sung , Neuhof 1933.
  13. ↑ Hymnary.org: Songs of Light ; Accessed April 20, 2015.
  14. ↑ Markus Baum: Eberhard Arnold. A life in the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount , Schwarzenfeld 2013, p. 154 f.
  15. ↑ Quoted from Markus Baum: Eberhard Arnold. A life in the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount , Schwarzenfeld 2013, p. 154.
  16. ↑ The song comes from Ludwig Hätzer , who died in 1529 as a martyr of the Anabaptist movement .
  17. ↑ The song goes back to Leonhard Schiemer , who was beheaded in Rattenberg am Inn in 1528 because of his Anabaptist beliefs.
  18. ↑ Antje Vollmer: The new work movement. Between youth movement and religious socialism . Herder: Freiburg, Basel, Vienna 2016. p. 120
  19. ↑ On Salomon (not to be confused with the Swedish reform pedagogue of the same name!) See albert-lempp.de: Otto Salomon (short biography) ( Memento of the original from May 19, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ; accessed on May 29, 2015. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.albert-lempp.de
  20. ↑ Hymnary.org: Hans Fiehler ; accessed on May 29, 2015; Peter Mommsen: Homage to a Broken Man. The Life of J. Heinrich Arnold , 2004, p. 29.
  21. ↑ Markus Baum: Eberhard Arnold. A life in the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount , Schwarzenfeld 2013, p. 155.
  22. ↑ For Erich Mohr see International Archives of the Service Civil International (SCI): Erich Mohr ; accessed on May 29, 2015.
  23. ↑ Song archive: Brothers, for suns, for freedom ; accessed on May 29, 2015.
  24. ↑ See Sun Songs , 63; see also p. 207 (commentary on song 63).