Christmas carol "Wir grüßen dich, o Jesuskind" (1960)
Text: Marie Luise Thurmair
Mixed choir (SATB) ad libitum with organ or strings, or voice with organ (1960/1999)
Würzburger Domchor | Siegfried Koesler
Free sheet music download
We greet you, O Child Jesus
We greet you, O baby Jesus,
in your manger here.
You lie on straw in the night and wind;
no man gave you shelter.
You are the great God
and become a human child.
We humans are full of need,
we become God's child.
O miracle of this night,
that God's love has accomplished.
We thank you, O Child Jesus,
for your great love,
that we have become so rich,
because poverty remained with you.
You leave the kingdom of heaven
and come into our world
and have appointed for us
your kingdom of heaven.
O miracle of this night,
that God's love has accomplished.
We kneel down like shepherds
and offer gifts:
Take our hearts, take our minds,
the body, take everything.
You have given yourself to us:
O child, now we are yours,
stay with us forever
and let us be with you.
O miracle of this night,
that God's love has accomplished.
Marie Luise Thurmair
In 1960, Bertold Hummel wrote the monophonic Christmas carol "Wir grüßen dich, o Jesuskind" for the MAGNIFIKAT hymnal of the Archdiocese of Freiburg to a text by Marie Luise Thurmaier. He wrote an organ setting for the accompanying organ book, which he transposed for the collection "20 Advent and Christmas chorales for 4 trombones" published in 1985. In 1999, DKM Siegfried Koesler asked Hummel to compose a Christmas carol for his Würzburg Cathedral Choir for a Christmas carol CD. Bertold Hummel then composed a simple prelude and assigned the original organ part to the respective choir parts. He spontaneously wrote a movement for three recorders for a Christmas party for his niece's children in December 1990 and created a string section for the family orchestra for a performance at a Christmas mass in his home parish of St Bruno in Würzburg. In this performance, the organ accompaniment alternated with the string section in addition to the solo part. In the last year of his life, Hummel returned to this carol and included it in his collection 16 Weihnachtslieder für zwei gleiche Stimmen.