"" (I dreamed last night) is a German

folk song Folk music is a music genre that includes #Traditional folk music, traditional folk music and the Contemporary folk music, contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be ca ...

. It is a melancholic song that tells of a disturbing dream foreshadowing death – a

rosemary ''Salvia rosmarinus'' (), commonly known as rosemary, is a shrub with fragrant, evergreen, needle-like leaves and white, pink, purple, or blue flowers. It is a member of the sage family, Lamiaceae. The species is native to the Mediterranean r ...

tree in the garden, falling leaves, and a jar broken to pieces and bleeding a red liquid. In Northern Germany, rosemary was planted in graveyards, and mourners at funerals would sometimes wear rosemary stalks.

History

It is unknown when the song was first popularized, but the melody was first written and published in 1777 by Friedrich Nicolai in ''Eyn feyner kleyner Almanach'' with the text of "" (A hunter wanted to go hunting). Other versions using the same melody but different lyrics included "" (The leaves fall from the trees) by Siegfried August Mahlmann in 1804/1805, "" (Beautiful children love), and "" (In Koblenz on the bridge). The best-known and most widely used lyrics to the melody were written by German preacher and collector of folk songs

August Zarnack Joachim August Christian Zarnack (September 21, 1777 - June 11, 1827) was a German preacher, teacher, and collector of German folk music. He found, arranged, and published a number of collections of such music from his travels and research. Biog ...

. Zarnack's version was originally published under the title "" (The heavy dream), and appeared in Zarnack's 1820 book which was a collection of German folk songs intended for primary schools. Zarnack's textbook sold well, and in the 1840s and onwards, "Ich hab die Nacht geträumet" was increasingly included in other music workbooks as well for schools and choirs.

Lyrics

Melody

% https://www.liederlexikon.de/lieder/ich_hab_die_nacht_getraeumet/editionb (Männerchor 1888) % Deutscher Liederkranz. Eine reichhaltige Sammlung älterer und neuerer vierstimmiger Männerchöre. Hrsg. von G. Zanger. Dritte vermehrte Auflage. Op. 8. Berlin und Leipzig: Heuser's Verlag (Louis Heuser) 1888, S. 283 (Nr. 124). \header \paper \layout global = soprano = \relative c' alto = \relative c' tenor = \relative c bass = \relative c verse = \lyricmode \score Source

Musical settings

Johannes Brahms Johannes Brahms (; ; 7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer, virtuoso pianist, and conductor of the mid-Romantic period (music), Romantic period. His music is noted for its rhythmic vitality and freer treatment of dissonance, oft ...

wrote a choral version of the song between 1859 and 1862.

Max Reger Johann Baptist Joseph Maximilian Reger (19 March 187311 May 1916) was a German composer, pianist, organist, conductor, and academic teacher. He worked as a concert pianist, a musical director at the Paulinerkirche, Leipzig, Leipzig University Chu ...

published two versions for choir

a cappella Music performed a cappella ( , , ; ), less commonly spelled acapella in English, is music performed by a singer or a singing group without instrumental accompaniment. The term ''a cappella'' was originally intended to differentiate between Rena ...

, in 1898 a setting for men's chorus choral (

TTBB In choral musical notation, TTBB denotes a four-part lower-voice choir. Composed of tenors and basses, Its configuration is Tenor 1, Tenor 2 (or lead), Bass 1 (or Baritone), and Bass 2. Typically (but not always) one of the Tenor parts is the me ...

) as No. 5 of WoO VI/6, and in 1899 a setting for mixed choir as No. 4 of WoO VI/11. In 2004, the German band Heimatærde released its first EP named after the song, including two versions of it. The 2016 video game ''

Civilization VI ''Sid Meier's Civilization VI'' is a 2016 4X turn-based strategy video game developed by Firaxis Games and published by 2K (company), 2K. The mobile and Nintendo Switch ports were published by Aspyr Media. It is the sequel to ''Civilization V'' ...

'' uses four versions of the song as its theme for the German civilization.''

''
Soundtrack

References

External links

Lieder-Projekt,

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 includes more than 26,000 works ...

, SWR2
"Text and MIDI version"
ingeb.org {{DEFAULTSORT:Ich hab die Nacht getraumet German folk songs Volkslied 18th-century songs