"Freuet euch der schönen Erde" (Enjoy the beautiful Earth) is a

Lutheran hymn Martin Luther was a great enthusiast for music, and this is why it forms a large part of Lutheranism, Lutheran services; in particular, Luther admired the composers Josquin des Prez and Ludwig Senfl and wanted singing in the church to move away ...

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 Phili ...

in 1827. In the hymnal ''

Evangelisches Gesangbuch ''Evangelisches Gesangbuch'' (''EG''; , "Protestantism, Protestant song book") is the current hymnal of German-language congregations in Germany, Alsace and Lorraine, Austria, and Luxembourg, which was introduced from 1993 and 1996, succeeding ...

'', 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 Lutheranism, Lutheran church musician and composer, who published as Frieda Fronmüller. Life and work Born in Lindau, Fronmüller was a daughter of Paul ...

History

The text was written by

, a Lutheran theologian from

Lower Saxony Lower Saxony is a States of Germany, German state (') in Northern Germany, northwestern Germany. It is the second-largest state by land area, with , and fourth-largest in population (8 million in 2021) among the 16 ' of the Germany, Federal Re ...

, in 1827, when he worked as young private teacher in Lüne near

Lüneburg Lüneburg, officially the Hanseatic City of Lüneburg and also known in English as Lunenburg, is a town in the German Bundesland (Germany), state of Lower Saxony. It is located about southeast of another Hanseatic League, Hanseatic city, Hambur ...

. It describes the beauty of nature as

God In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...

's creation, comparing it to precious artwork. He wrote five

stanza In poetry, a stanza (; from Italian ''stanza'', ; ) is a group of lines within a poem, usually set off from others by a blank line or indentation. Stanzas can have regular rhyme and metrical schemes, but they are not required to have either. ...

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 ''

'' 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 the theologian Paul Gerhardt, written in 1653. It was first published in the same year in the fifth edition of Johann Crüger ...

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

Napoleonic Wars {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Napoleonic Wars , partof = the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars , image = Napoleonic Wars (revision).jpg , caption = Left to right, top to bottom:Battl ...

, 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").

Melody

% From https://www.sermon-online.com/de/contents/22006 \header \layout global = chordNames = \chordmode soprano = \relative c'' alto = \relative c' tenor = \relative c bass = \relative c verse = \lyricmode choirPart = \new ChoirStaff << \new Staff << \new Voice = "soprano" \new Voice = "alto" >> \new Lyrics \lyricsto "soprano" \verse \new Staff << \clef bass \new Voice = "tenor" \new Voice = "bass" >> >> \score \score

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

* {{authority control 19th-century hymns in German 1827 songs