"" (O light of the wonderful night) is a Christian Easter hymn by

Georg Thurmair Georg Thurmair (7 February 1909 – 20 January 1984) was a German poet who wrote around 300 hymns, a writer, journalist and author of documentary films. Career Born in Munich, he took commercial training and worked from 1926 as a secretary at the ...

written in 1963. It was 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 ...

'' of 1975 as GL 208, with a melody from the 14th century. It is part of the second edition of the ''

'' as GL 334, also of regional sections of the Protestant hymnal '' Evangelisches Gesangbuch''.

History

Thurmair, a publisher of the 1938 ecumenical hymnal '' Kirchenlied'', wrote the text "" in 1963. It became part of the first common Catholic hymnal ''Gotteslob'' of 1975 as GL 208, combined with a melody from

Mainz Mainz () is the capital and largest city of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Mainz is on the left bank of the Rhine, opposite to the place that the Main (river), Main joins the Rhine. Downstream of the confluence, the Rhine flows to the north-we ...

dated to the 1390s. In the second edition of the ''

'' in 2013, it was included as GL 334 in the Easter section. The hymn is suitable for

Easter Vigil Easter Vigil, also called the Paschal Vigil or the Great Vigil of Easter, is a liturgy held in traditional Christian churches as the first official celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus. Historically, it is during this liturgy that people are ba ...

and was recommended by , the newspaper of the

Roman Catholic Diocese of Münster The Diocese of Münster is an ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Catholic Church in Germany.

, for celebrating the holiday at home in 2020, when services were cancelled due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

. "" was included in the regional sections for

Thuringia Thuringia (; german: Thüringen ), officially the Free State of Thuringia ( ), is a state of central Germany, covering , the sixth smallest of the sixteen German states. It has a population of about 2.1 million. Erfurt is the capital and larg ...

and

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...

of the Protestant hymnal '' Evangelisches Gesangbuch'', as EG 559.

Text and melody

"" is in three

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. The

bar form Bar form (German: ''die Barform'' or ''der Bar'') is a musical form of the pattern AAB. Original use The term comes from the rigorous terminology of the Meistersinger guilds of the 15th to 18th century who used it to refer to their songs and the ...

has a ''Stollen ("AB")'' of two lines, and an ''Abgesang'' of three lines, the first two rhyming ("''CC''"), the final one standing alone ("''D''"), creating a ''ABABCCD'' pattern. All three stanzas begin addressing the light, first of the wonderful, or miraculous, night, then the light of bright eternity ("der lichten Ewigkeit", finally much brighter than any day (viel lichter als der Tag). The last line offers a concluding statement, in the first stanza "der Wahrheit Licht ind Leben" (Light and life of truth), in the second "uns leuchten lässt in Gnaden" (makes us shine in grace), finally "voll Freuden und voll Frieden" (full of joys and full of peace). The hymn tune from the 1390s to which the song is set, was notably associated with "

Es ist das Heil uns kommen her "Es ist das Heil uns kommen her" (originally: "Es ist das heyl vns kommen her", English: "Salvation now has come for all" or more literally: It is our salvation come here to us) is a Lutheran hymn in 14 stanzas by Paul Speratus. It was first pub ...

" in 1523.

References

Cited sources

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External links

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Gotteslob / Liedertexte
(in German) {{authority control Catholic hymns in German 1963 songs Easter hymns