O DU FRÖHLICHE

This very popular German Christmas carol has Italian origins.
In 1788 the German philosopher, theologian, and poet Johann Gottfried von Herder (1744-1803) found the melody during a trip to Italy and took it back to Germany. The melody is that of a Sicilian fisherman's song and was originally used for the Latin hymn "O sanctissima, o piisima, dulcis Virgo Maria" which is still sung in Italy in the Roman Catholic Church.

Johannes Daniel Falk (1768-1826) found this song in Herder's collection Stimmen der Völker in Liedern ("The Voices of the People in Song") and around 1816 wrote the German lyrics. After Falk lost four of his seven children to typhoid fever, he founded an orphanage (Rettungshaus für verwahrloste Kinder, literally the rescue center for abandoned children) and dedicated the song to the children of the orphanage. In its original version, the song was titled "Allerdreifeiertagslied", or "A Song for Three Holidays" as it mentions three festivals of Christianity - Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost. The song which is sung today and which quickly became one of the most popular German Christmas songs, retains Falk's first verse and combines with it two verses by his assistant, Heinrich Holzschuher (1798-1847).

In the protestant churches of Germany, the song is traditionally sung at the end of Christmas Eve services from the Evangelische Gesangbuch. It can also be found in various parts of the German Catholic Church's Gotteslobs, in the Free Church's Feiern u Loben, and in the Mennonite Mennonitische Gesangbuch. And because of the simplicity of the words, it is one that I can sing along with - generally out of earshot of any serious music critic or aficionado.