O DU LIEBE MEINER LIEBE (Thommen)

Composer: Thommen

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Originally a folk song ("Sollen nun die grünen Jahre") dating from around 1700, O DU LIEBE MEINER LIEBE was used as a hymn tune in the Catholic hymnal Bambergisches Gesangbuch (1732). The tune name is the incipit of the text to which it was set in Johann Thommen's Erbaulicher Musicalischer Christen-Schatz oder 500 Geistliche Lieder (1745). The Psalter Hymnal version is from a manuscript chorale book of the Moravian Brethren compiled in Herrnhut in 1735. The tune is a rounded bar form (AABA) with simple stepwise melodic motion. Sing in harmony. Another harmonization in G major (see 513) could provide an alternative setting, perhaps for a higher and fuller sound on stanza 4. --Psalter Hymnal Handbook, 1988