"Christ the Lord Is Risen Again!" (
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
: "''Christus ist erstanden Von der Marter alle''") is a German Christian hymn published by
Michael Weiße
Michael Weiße or Weisse ( – 19 March 1534) was a German theologian, Protestant reformer and hymn writer. First a Franciscan, he joined the Bohemian Brethren. He published the most extensive early Protestant hymnal in 1531, supplying most hymn ...
in 1531 based on an earlier German
hymn
A hymn is a type of song, and partially synonymous with devotional song, specifically written for the purpose of adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity or deities, or to a prominent figure or personification. The word ''hymn'' ...
of a very similar name. It was translated into English in 1858 by
Catherine Winkworth
Catherine Winkworth (13 September 1827 – 1 July 1878) was an English hymnwriter and educator. She translated the German chorale tradition of church hymns for English speakers, for which she is recognized in the calendar of the Evangelical Lut ...
.
History
Weisse based his new hymn text, "''Christus ist erstanden Von der Marter alle''", upon the earlier German Leise text from the Mass of ("''Christus ist erstanden''") which was studied by
Martin Luther
Martin Luther (; ; 10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546) was a German priest, theologian, author, hymnwriter, and professor, and Order of Saint Augustine, Augustinian friar. He is the seminal figure of the Reformation, Protestant Refo ...
.
The hymn tune CHRIST IST ERSTANDEN was derived from a
sequence
In mathematics, a sequence is an enumerated collection of objects in which repetitions are allowed and order matters. Like a set, it contains members (also called ''elements'', or ''terms''). The number of elements (possibly infinite) is calle ...
used in the German Roman Catholic Latin Mass from 1100 called "
Victimae paschali laudes" which was a widely popular Easter melody. It was then expanded from its initial short Sequence use in the Latin Mass, which "victimae paschali laudes" was, into the longer Liese form in German.
The tune CHRIST IST ERSTANDEN was then adopted by the Protestants as a hymn tune, and Weisse modeled new hymn text after the "''Christus ist erstanden''" used in the German Mass. His hymn text is titled "''Christus ist erstanden Von der Marter alle''" and was set to what had been adopted as the hymn tune, CHRIST IST ERSTANDEN, and thus became a hymn of the Church of Bohemia. Weisse published his German hymn text in 1531 in the German language hymnal he edited, ''Ein Neugesängbuchlein'', in the
Kingdom of Bohemia
The Kingdom of Bohemia ( cs, České království),; la, link=no, Regnum Bohemiae sometimes in English literature referred to as the Czech Kingdom, was a medieval and early modern monarchy in Central Europe, the predecessor of the modern Czec ...
.
In 1858, Winkworth translated Weisse's German text for "''Christus ist erstanden Von der Marter alle''" into English, initially giving it the English title of "Song of Triumph".
She published "Christ the Lord Is Risen Again" in the second edition of her ''Lyra Germanica'' in 1858, attributing the hymn to the "
Bohemian Brethren
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".
Winkworth's approach in translating the hymn was to try and recreate the verses rather than making a direct translation of them due to German
fusional language
Fusional languages or inflected languages are a type of synthetic language, distinguished from agglutinative languages by their tendency to use a single inflectional morpheme to denote multiple grammatical, syntactic, or semantic features.
Fo ...
meaning that some words in the original had to be removed in translation as they did not fit into the English translation.
The hymn is often used as a hymn for
Easter Sunday
Easter,Traditional names for the feast in English are "Easter Day", as in the ''Book of Common Prayer''; "Easter Sunday", used by James Ussher''The Whole Works of the Most Rev. James Ussher, Volume 4'') and Samuel Pepys''The Diary of Samuel ...
which commemorates the
Resurrection of Jesus
The resurrection of Jesus ( grc-x-biblical, ἀνάστασις τοῦ Ἰησοῦ) is the Christian belief that God raised Jesus on the third day after his crucifixion, starting – or restoring – his exalted life as Christ and Lo ...
.
Music
The most common hymn tune Weisse's German text is set to is CHRIST IST ERSTANDEN, which originated from the Latin "Victimae pashali laudes". The U.S. Lutheran hymnal sets Winkworth's English translation to the hymn tune WÜRTEMBURG. However, this hymn text has been set to other hymn tunes, including LLANFAIR.
In 1971,
John Rutter
John Milford Rutter (born 24 September 1945) is an English composer, conductor, editor, arranger, and record producer, mainly of choral music.
Biography
Born on 24 September 1945 in London, the son of an industrial chemist and his wife, Rutte ...
also composed his own musical setting targeted at choirs, not as a congregational hymn, set to Winkworth's English translation, "Christ the Lord Is Risen Again!"
See also
*
Christ ist erstanden
"Christ ist erstanden" (Christ is risen) is a German Easter hymn, and is possibly the oldest Christian liturgical German song. It has inspired music by composers such as Ludwig Senfl and Heinrich Schütz (from the sixteenth and seventeenth centur ...
References
{{German Lutheran hymns
1531 works
Easter hymns
16th-century hymns in German
Songs in German
Songs about Jesus