"Freuet euch der schönen Erde" (Enjoy the beautiful Earth) is a Lutheran hymn in German with a text by

Philipp Spitta Julius August Philipp Spitta (27 December 1841 – 13 April 1894) was a German music historian and musicologist best known for his 1873 biography of Johann Sebastian Bach. Life He was born in , near Hoya, and his father, also called Phil ...

in 1827. In the hymnal '' Evangelisches Gesangbuch'', it appears as EG 510, with a 1928 melody by

Frieda Fronmüller Friederike Helene Emma Fronmüller (8 September 1901 – 13 March 1992) was a German Lutheran church musician and composer, who published as Frieda Fronmüller. Life and work Born in Lindau, Fronmüller was a daughter of Paul Fronmüller, ...

History

The text was written by

, a Lutheran theologian from

Lower Saxony Lower Saxony (german: Niedersachsen ; nds, Neddersassen; stq, Läichsaksen) is a German state (') in northwestern Germany. It is the second-largest state by land area, with , and fourth-largest in population (8 million in 2021) among the 16 ...

, in 1827, when he worked as young private teacher in Lüne near Lüneburg. It describes the beauty of nature as God's creation, comparing it to precious artwork. He wrote 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 four lines each, with the last line repeated. The text first appeared without a melody in Spitta's song collection ''Psalter und Harfe'' (Psalter and harp), subtitled ''Sammlung christlicher Lieder zur häuslichen Erbauung'' (Collection of Christian songs for edification at home). The hymn was titled "Die Schönheit der Natur" (The beauty of nature). Several melodies were tried. In 1928,

composed a new melody which was successful with choirs, and was chosen for inclusion in the modern German Protestant hymnal '' Evangelisches Gesangbuch'' as EG 510. The hymn also appears in many songbooks.

Text

The text as in the Protestant hymnal is: The song has been compared to Paul Gerhardt's "

Geh aus, mein Herz, und suche Freud "Geh aus, mein Herz, und suche Freud" ("Go forth, my heart, and seek delight") is a summer hymn with a text in German by theologian Paul Gerhardt written in 1653. It was first published that same year in the fifth edition of Johann Crüger's hymna ...

". Both appeared after wars, Spitta's after the

Napoleonic Wars The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...

, and both reflect the beauty of nature as God's creation. Spitta's text looks at natural beauty in the first and third stanzas, and contrasts it to heavenly beauty described in the second and forth stanzas. The final stanza is a summary, imagining the even greater joy at God's heart ("an seinem Herzen").

Usage

"Freuet euch der schönen Erde" has been used as a slogan for concerns of ecology and preservation of nature. It is the title of a 2000 book about Christian understanding of nature in history, a booklet for a children's event, and an exhibition about art related to nature,Ausstellung - Freuet euch der schönen Erde – Diakonissenschwester Hanna Steinert, Aue
(in German) outdooractive.com 2020 among others.

References

External links

4Bibeln: Gesangbuch / Evangelisches Gesangbuch 510
l4a.org

christmysong.com * * Tina Röber-Burzeya

(in German) kirchenkreis-burgdorf.de 21 September 2019 {{authority control 19th-century hymns in German 1827 songs