"" (Your Praise, Lord, Heaven proclaims) is a German Catholic

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'' ...

Adolf Lohmann Adolf Lohmann (10 January 1907 – 19 October 1983) was a German music educator and a composer of sacred music. Several of his hymn melodies are part of the Catholic hymnal ''Gotteslob''. Career Born in Düsseldorf, Lohmann worked there as a mu ...

adapted a 1659 hymn by the

Jesuit , image = Ihs-logo.svg , image_size = 175px , caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits , abbreviation = SJ , nickname = Jesuits , formation = , founders ...

astronomer

Albert Curtz Albert Curtz (''Curtius'' in Latin; 1600, Munich – December 19, 1671, Munich), was a German astronomer and member of the Society of Jesus. He expanded on the works of Tycho Brahe and used the pseudonym of ''Lucius Barrettus''. Background The L ...

, who paraphrased

Psalm 19 Psalm 19 is the 19th psalm in the Book of Psalms, beginning in English in the King James Version: "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork." In the slightly different numbering system used in the Greek Septua ...

. The melody appeared in Augsburg in 1669. It was No. 1 in the 1938 hymnal ''

Kirchenlied ''Kirchenlied'' ("Church song") is a German Catholic hymnal published in 1938. It was a collection of 140 old and new songs, including hymns by Protestant authors. It was the seed for a common Catholic hymnal which was realised decades later, in th ...

'' and is part of the German Catholic hymnal ''

Gotteslob ''Gotteslob'' ("Praise of God") is the title of the hymnbook authorized by the Catholic dioceses in Germany, Austria, South Tyrol, Luxembourg and Liège, Belgium. First published in Advent 2013, it is the current official hymnal for German-speaki ...

'' as GL 381.

History

wrote the song "" as a revision of a hymn by the

Jesuit , image = Ihs-logo.svg , image_size = 175px , caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits , abbreviation = SJ , nickname = Jesuits , formation = , founders ...

astronomer

, published in 1659 as a

paraphrase A paraphrase () is a restatement of the meaning of a text or passage using other words. The term itself is derived via Latin ', . The act of paraphrasing is also called ''paraphrasis''. History Although paraphrases likely abounded in oral tra ...

(The heavens declare the glory of God). The melody was taken from an

Augsburg Augsburg (; bar , Augschburg , links=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swabian_German , label=Swabian German, , ) is a city in Swabia, Bavaria, Germany, around west of Bavarian capital Munich. It is a university town and regional seat of the ' ...

hymnal from 1669. The song expresses the praise of the created world for the

Creation Creation may refer to: Religion *''Creatio ex nihilo'', the concept that matter was created by God out of nothing * Creation myth, a religious story of the origin of the world and how people first came to inhabit it * Creationism, the belief tha ...

. The song was included as No. 1 in the 1938 hymnal ''

'' by Georg Thurmair and Lohmann, leading the first section of praise, titled "

Großer Gott, wir loben dich "Holy God, We Praise Thy Name" (original German: "Großer Gott, wir loben dich") is a Christian hymn, a paraphrase of the Te Deum. The German Catholic priest Ignaz Franz wrote the original German lyrics in 1771 as a paraphrase of the Te Deum, a C ...

". In the first common Catholic hymnal, the 1975 ''Gotteslob'', the song appeared as GL 263.Alle Gesänge des neuen Gotteslob (2013) mit Angabe, ob und ggf. wo sie bereits im Gotteslob 1975 inkl. Diözesananhang enthalten waren
(in German) verbaende.erzbistum-koeln.de 2013 In the 2013 edition of ''

'', it is GL 381 in the section ''Lob, Dank und Anbetung'' (Praise, thanks and adoration).

Text and theme

The song is in five

stanza In poetry, a stanza (; from Italian language, Italian ''stanza'' , "room") is a group of lines within a poem, usually set off from others by a blank line or Indentation (typesetting), indentation. Stanzas can have regular rhyme scheme, rhyme and ...

s of six lines each, rhyming AABCCB. The first stanza reflects that the blue sky, white day and black night praise their creator. The second stanza states that all people around the Earth, from the sunrise to sunset, hear the news of the Creator's power. In the third stanza, the singers acknowledge that God's law is brighter than the sun and enlightens their lives. The last two stanzas are written in the first person, praying for protection from the temptations of the proud world ("stolze Welt"). The last thought is confidence in redemption in all kinds of distress ("du wirst mich ja in aller Not / durch deine Kraft erlösen").

Melody and musical settings

The melody is in a

triple meter Triple metre (or Am. triple meter, also known as triple time) is a musical metre characterized by a ''primary'' division of 3 beats to the bar, usually indicated by 3 (simple) or 9 (compound) in the upper figure of the time signature, with , , ...

, alternating regularly

half note ''Half Note'' is a live album by saxophonist Clifford Jordan which was recorded in 1974 and first released on the SteepleChase label in 1985.quarter note A quarter note (American) or crotchet ( ) (British) is a note (music), musical note played for one quarter of the duration of a whole note (or semibreve). Quarter notes are notated with a filled-in oval note head and a straight, flagless ste ...

s. It begins with an upward fanfare, but the second half remains quieter. The song was set to music in choral versions, such as a three-part setting by Thomas Kiefer, published by

Carus-Verlag Carus-Verlag is a German music publisher founded in 1972 and based in Stuttgart. Carus was founded by choral conductor Günter Graulich and his wife Waltraud with an emphasis on choral repertoire. The catalogue currently includes more than 26,00 ...

in 2013. Hubert Schwarz used the name as the title of a collection of 16 organ pieces on hymns from the Protestant hymnal '' Evangelisches Gesangbuch'' and the ''Gotteslob'', published by . These settings try to improve the emotional impact of the hymns. \relative c' \addlyrics

References

External links

* {{authority control Catholic hymns in German 1938 songs Psalm settings