ADD:Kinderwacht/Als goede kinderen slapen zacht

Subject: Lyr Req: Als goede kinderen slapen zacht
From: keberoxu
Date: 05 Jun 20 - 03:13 PM

We have an existing thread which makes passing mention of
"als goede kinderen slapen gaan,"
and I'm not sure if
"als goede kinderen slapen zacht"
is a variant of same,
or if these are two different folksongs.

One of them seems to be all about
guardian angels
watching over children as they sleep.

The German variant of the angel song
was made famous in the opera
Hansel and Gretel (Humperdinck).

Are we looking at something different here?
I will sniff around
but hopefully
somebody else will do an even better job than I do.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Als goede kinderen slapen zacht
From: GUEST,keberoxu
Date: 05 Jun 20 - 04:36 PM

I have just stumbled across a songbook from 1896
in which this folk lyric
is fitted to pre-existing music
by Robert Schumann, of all people.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Als goede kinderen slapen zacht
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 05 Jun 20 - 05:17 PM

I'd say you're looking at two different songs. And I would probably not consider them folksongs either. But, as they say, ymmv

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Als goede kinderen slapen zacht
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 05 Jun 20 - 05:37 PM

This is the song we discussed, and this is obviously the original of the lyrics, by Friedrich Güll (1812-1879), in Standard German, apparently of 1836. Variants are found in other books. For such poems, inevitably several tunes would be composed immediately. Perhaps one of our native speakers knows which version survived, if any?

I suggest that the thread title be changed to "Engelwacht", that may ring a bell.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Als goede kinderen slapen zacht
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 06 Jun 20 - 03:36 AM

In that light I can, perhaps, offer my perspective. Both songs that came up in the other thread struck me as uncommon, I have no recollection of ever hearing either of them. 'En over de weide' for all it's 'schaapkens' and 'biekens' strikes me as essentially Flemish, which may or may not explain its absence in the (northern) Netherlands' repertoire.

'Engelenwacht' seems to come up in some internet collections, I came across it yesterday, digging around a bit looking for sources of the songs on the other thread. I had never come across it before previously.

I browsed through the bundle Monique linked to on the other thread 'Kun je nog zingen, zing dan mee' which was the favourite of old schoolteachers at one time, standard issue. Even allowing for the linked edition being an older one, it struck me how few of the songs included in it are actually 'alive', or at least heard sung. I have another popular collection of songs for schools 'Zing!' but digging it out will involve pulling a box from a top shelf so I left it there for now.

In front of me I have another collection 'Oude kinderliedjes', a 1970s edition of popular children's songs. I'd know 75% of the songs in it, without thinking. The songs under discussion in these threads are not included in it. And neither are they in any of the (limited number) of collections of Dutch songs I have on the shelves.

So, my perspective, for what it's worth, is that these threads are not dealing with popular songs. And I have doubts about them surviving in any popular context as songs that are being sung.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Als goede kinderen slapen zacht
From: Monique
Date: 06 Jun 20 - 05:31 AM

Engelenwacht sheet music from Wikimedia Commons.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Als goede kinderen slapen zacht
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 06 Jun 20 - 05:44 AM

[url=http://www.liederenbank.nl/index.php?lan=nl]De Nederlndse liederen bank[/url]may be a good tool chasing up (Dutch) songs. It claims to have 175.000 songs listed.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Als goede kinderen slapen zacht
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 06 Jun 20 - 05:48 AM

Sorry, I'll try that again:

De Nederlandse liederenbank

Database of 175.000 Dutch songs.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Als goede kinderen slapen zacht
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 06 Jun 20 - 07:37 AM

Well found, Monique; from the Wikimedia we now learn that

1. Catharina van Rennes published the song with an original piano accompaniment, of good craftswomanship, thus fit for a "salon" as mentioned in the other thread. This makes me suspect that "En over de weiden" also had such an accompaniment, of which both songs were stripped later by education officials,
2. the lyrics are officially declared to be translated from Standard German, presumably by herself or her husband etc., thus it is not overly surprising that Peter never heard the song before,
3. she fails to mention the poet Friedrich Güll (see my first post), so does probably her direct German source. The poem may well have been considered "folk" in German-speaking areas (who knows more?), and, as I wrote already, there must have been older tunes for it.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Als goede kinderen slapen zacht
From: keberoxu
Date: 06 Jun 20 - 01:12 PM

With the help of the LiederNet Archive, the following information may be found.

"Wenn fromme Kindlein schlafen gehn" does indeed appear in the work of Catharina van Rennes.
Her setting appears in
Lebenslust: Sechs zweistimmige Kinderlieder mit Pianofortebegleitung, the Composer's Opus 15, no. 3, published by Breitkopf & Härtel in 1892.

German composers who have set this lyric to music,
most often give it the title
"Kinderwacht" or "Kinderwache," for example:
F. W. Abt,
Karl Hirsch,
Julius Maier,
Robert Radecke,
and both van Rennes and Schumann.

In the latter half of the 19th century,
when these versions of the song seem to have been
most widely circulated and most popular,
the publishers, editors, and composers
themselves gave contradictory information about the source of the text.
One publisher maintained that it came from Des Knaben Wunderhorn.
"Volkslied" is not an uncommon label in song settings.
A few people did indeed credit Friedrich Güll,
and at least as many others, if not more people,
credited
Melchior, Freiherr von Diepenbrock as the Author.


The source located by Grishka for the text,
credited to Güll, is not a bad source.
An even better source would have been
a collection that is all Friedrich Güll,
for example his
Kinderheimath in Bildern und Liedern from 1836,
which may be scared up at Google Books.
But this text is absent from that collection -- I looked.

Nor could I find this lyric in Diepenbrock's work.

Editors such as Franz Magnus Böhme
(Deutches Kinderlied und Kinderspiel)
write that, in 1849, an issue of
Fliegendes Blatt or Fliegende Blätter
first printed the song.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Als goede kinderen slapen zacht
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 06 Jun 20 - 02:17 PM

"Fliegendes Blatt" = (anonymous) broadside! Not any particular one.

"Lebenslust. Sechs zweistimmige Kinderlieder mit Pianofortebegleitung" (1893) is an exact translation of "Levenslust. 6 tweest. kinderliederen met pianobegeleiding" previously published, only in Dutch, by the composer's wealthy father (according to the footnote in the reproduction linked by Monique). Breitkopf & Härtel is an international publisher of high prestige, quite an honour! Some of the lyrics had to be freshly translated, whereas for Engelenwacht/Kinderwacht, the original German text needed very little tweaking - I have not yet seen the result.

Given the many printed books mentioning Güll as the author, apparently undisputed, the pre-Internet attribution to Diepenbrock can safely be called erroneous nowadays.

I think we esentially solved the puzzle, with united forces.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Als goede kinderen slapen zacht
From: leeneia
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 01:55 PM

Wenn fromme kindlein schlafen gehn
As long as we're discussing its history, we might as well see what it is. As Grishka stated, here is the original of the lyrics, by Friedrich Güll (1812-1879), in Standard German,

Wenn fromme Kindlein schlafen gehen.
vor ihrem Bett zwei Englein stehen,
decken sie zu, decken sie auf
und haben ein liebendes Auge darauf.

Wenn aber auf die Kindlein stehen
die beiden Engeln schlafen gehen.
Reicht nun nicht mehr der Engelen Macht
der liebe Gott haelt selbst der Wacht.

==============
If pious little children go to sleep, two angels stand before the bed, cover it or uncover it, and keep a loving eye upon it.

If, however, the little children get up, the two angels go to sleep. The might of angels reigns no more; our dear God keeps watch Himself.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Als goede kinderen slapen zacht
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 03:57 PM

Well done, leeneia. One little correction: "Reicht" in this context means "Suffices"; thus the line before last says:

"Now the angels' power is no longer sufficient"

– a becoming little streak of irony.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Als goede kinderen slapen zacht
From: keberoxu
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 04:34 PM

Well, this is not the score, it is only proof
that the score exists.
The evidence in a number of classical music song catalogs
shows that the musical setting by this composer
was rather well known in the 1800's,
I would guess before the era
of Dutch composer Catharina van Rennes.

Julius Joseph Maier: Kinderwache

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Als goede kinderen slapen zacht
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 05:10 PM

And Robert Schumann's composition for voice an piano, No. 22 in his "Liederalbum für die Jugend, op.79" (year 1849, long before Van Rennes' birth) was in fact designed for this poem, not retrofitted.

However, if my own prior knowledge were a criterion for "rather well known", all of the above would fail ;-)

Subject: RE: ADD:Kinderwacht/Als goede kinderen slapen zacht
From: keberoxu
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 07:40 PM

(Thank you, Joe Offer!)

Subject: RE: ADD:Kinderwacht/Als goede kinderen slapen zacht
From: leeneia
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 09:35 AM

Sheet music:

https://imslp.org/wiki/Liederalbum_f%C3%BCr_die_Jugend%2C_Op.79_(Schumann%2C_Robert)

Go down to Nr. 21.