We had built a stately home

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Commemorative inscription for August Daniel von Binzer with reference to We had built a stately house .

We had built a stately house is a German student song written in 1819 . It was composed by August Daniel von Binzer for the dissolution of the Jena Urburschenschaft .

history

The song was performed for the first time after the forced dissolution of the original fraternity on January 27, 1819 in the Jenaer Gasthaus Rose von Binzer. At the end of 1819 or beginning of 1820, Binzer entered the song in the register of the participants in the Wartburg Festival of 1817, which was located in the Wartburg . He referred to the melody that was also noted as the "Thuringian folk tune". The text of the song was published for the first time in 1821 in the Kiel Commers- und Liederbuch , the melody four years later.

In its seventh verse, the song contains the lines "Das Band ist zerschnitte / War Schwarz Roth und Gold", in which the three colors of the fraternity and later German colors black, red and gold were recorded in writing for the first time. Some sources state that it is also the oldest song that mentions the colors. However, this is a song composed by Binzer two years earlier on the occasion of the Wartburg Festival with the line “Push! Black-red-gold live! "

melody

The melody of the song

The “Thuringian folk tune”, which Binzer stated as the origin of the melody of the song, is not documented before it was used for We had built . Binzer's wife, the writer Emilie von Binzer , commented after his death: “I don't know whether the melody is from Binzer; I have always assumed it because it is so completely at one with the words; but perhaps he once heard her singing by a craftsperson and copied it, because there is something immensely popular and unaffected about her. "

\ relative c '{\ key d \ minor \ time 4/4 \ partial 4 c4 | a'2 g4 a4 | f2 c4 c4 | c'2 bes4 c4 | a2 r4 f4 | d'4 d4 d4 d4 | c2 a4 c4 | c4 bes8 a8 bes4 c4 | a2 r4 f4 | d'4 d4 f4 d4 | c2 a4 c4 | c4 bes8 a8 bes4 c4 | a2 r4 | \ bar "|." } \ addlyrics {We | had - | build in | instead of - li - ches | House and | in there on God ver - | trust in spite of | Weather, storm and | Horror, and in there to God - | trust in spite of | Weather, storm and | Horror. }

The melody of the song was adopted as early as 1820 for the national confession song I have surrendered and is now also the melody of the national anthem of Micronesia .

In Johannes Brahms ' Academic Festival Overture, which premiered in 1881, quotes from the melody are used in counterpoint .

text

The song in an old Kommers book : After the fraternity was suppressed

The text refers to the dissolution of the original fraternity, enforced by the Karlovy Vary resolutions . This is described as a "stately house", which ultimately crumbles due to the slander of the "bad".

The multiple references to God can probably be traced back to the strongly Christian, especially Lutheran, attitude of the early fraternity movement. The last stanza closes with “… and our castle is God”, a reference to Martin Luther’s song A strong castle is our God , which was also sung at the ceremony of the Wartburg Festival in 1817.

The seventh stanza of the song contains the oldest written mention of the colors black-red-gold in that order. In the oldest record in the Wartburg Festival's studbook, Binzer initially selected the order “was Roth black and gold” , but then corrected this by assigning the numbers 1 to 3 to the colors and bringing them into today's order. In editions of the song printed during the pre-March period , the forbidden colors were often replaced by lines due to the censorship , as was the case with the first print with melody from 1825.


1. We had built
a stately house,
and in it we trusted God in
spite of the weather, storm and horror.

2. We lived so comfortably,
so intimately, so freely,
it became dreadful for the wicked,
we lived too faithfully.

3. They lied, they looked
for deceit and treachery,
slandered and cursed
the young, green seed.

4. What God put in us,
the world has despised,
unity
even aroused suspicion among the good.

5. One blames it for crime,
one was very mistaken;
the form can be broken,
love never more.

6. The form is broken,
coming in from the outside,
but what you smelled inside
was a vain and shine.

7. The ribbon is cut, it
was black, red and gold,
and God suffered it,
who knows what He willed.

8. The house may fall apart.
What's the need then?
the spirit lives in us all,
and our castle is God!

reception

After August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben had composed the song of the Germans on August 26, 1841 , he wrote the poem Wir haben's sworn ( Nunquam retrorsum ) the following day to the melody of We had built a stately house .

literature

  • Kurt Stephenson: Characters in Student Music. August Daniel von Binzer - Justus Wilhelm Lyra. In: Paul Wentzcke (Ed.): Representations and sources on the history of the German unity movement in the 19th and 20th centuries. Winter, Heidelberg 1965, Volume 6, pp. 11-64.

Web links

Wikisource: We had built  - sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Falk Grünebaum: German colors. The development of black-red-gold with special consideration of the fraternity. In: GDS archive for university and student history. Volume 7. Cologne 2004, p. 23.
  2. ↑ August Daniel von Binzer's handwritten entry in the 'Stammbuch of all boys who celebrated the church improvement by Luther and the Leipzig battle on the 18th of the Victory Moon in 1817 at the Wartburg near Eisenach' on the back of the title page
  3. ↑ Tobias Widmaier: We had built a stately house (2011). In: Popular and Traditional Songs. Historical-critical song lexicon of the German Folk Song Archive
  4. ↑ Falk Grünebaum: German colors. The development of black-red-gold with special consideration of the fraternity. In: GDS archive for university and student history. Volume 7. Cologne 2004, p. 21.
  5. ^ Emilie von Binzer: Three summers in Löbichau. Stuttgart 1877, p. 119. Quoted from: Kurt Stephenson: Character Heads of Student Music. August Daniel von Binzer - Justus Wilhelm Lyra. In: Paul Wentzcke (Ed.): Representations and sources on the history of the German unity movement in the 19th and 20th centuries. Winter, Heidelberg 1965, Volume 6, p. 29.
  6. ↑ [Massmann, Hans Ferdinand: Brief and true description of the big boys' festival on the Wartburg near Eisenach on the 18th and 19th of the Victory Moon in 1817, p. 17.]
  7. ↑ Historisch-Kritisches Liederlexikon: We had built a stately house, Edition A.
  8. ↑ Historisch-Kritisches Liederlexikon: We had built a stately house, Edition B.