O Tannenbaum (O Christmas Tree) – Fiddle Tune a Day – Day 347

Today, I am grateful to live in Fort Collins, a town that is so supportive of local music. Today I had the opportunity to appear on the KRFC Live at Lunch program with Steve Eulberg and Brent Hawley to promote our new Fiddle Whamdiddle Album, “Old School Old Time.”

Playing on KRFC is always fun, and playing on Live at Lunch is a special kind of fun. Thanks to Malini Bartels for hosting us. She was a wonderful hostess as always. She was especially gracious in allowing us to perform our Fiddle Tune a Day live on the air as part of the program, which added to the fun.

Since this is the holiday season, we opted for an old German Christmas Carol, O Tannenbaum (O Christmas Tree.) As a side note, when I think of O Tannenbaum, I hear Nat King Cole‘s smooth voice singing it in my head. I really love his voice.

O Tannenbaum according to Wikipedia

“O Tannenbaum” (“O Fir Tree”) is a German song. Based on a traditional folk song, it became associated with the Christmas tree by the early 20th century and sung as a Christmas carol. It is known in English as “O Christmas Tree“.

History

The modern lyrics are due to Leipzig organist, teacher and composer Ernst Anschütz, written in 1824. A Tannenbaum is a fir tree. The lyrics do not actually refer to Christmas, or describe a decorated Christmas tree. Instead, they refer to the fir’s evergreen qualities as a symbol of constancy and faithfulness.

Anschütz based his text on a 16th-century Silesian folk song by Melchior Franck, “Ach Tannenbaum”. Joachim August Zarnack (1777–1827) in 1819 wrote a tragic love song inspired by this folk song, taking the evergreen, “faithful” fir tree as contrasting with a faithless lover. The folk song first became associated with Christmas with Anschütz, who added two verses of his own to the first, traditional verse. The custom of the Christmas tree developed in the course of the 19th century, and the song came to be seen as a Christmas carol. Anschütz’ version still had treu (“true, faithful”) as the adjective describing the fir’s leaves (needles), harking back to the contrast to the faithless maiden of the folk song. This was changed to grün “green” at some point in the 20th century, after the song had come to be associated with Christmas.^{[year needed]}

Melody

The tune is an old folk tune attested in the 16th century. It is also known as the tune of Es lebe hoch der Zimmermannsgeselle and of Lauriger Horatius.

O Tannenbaum Lyrics