Leise

The Leise or Leis (plural Leisen; from the Greek kyrie eleison) is a genre of vernacular medieval church song. They appear to have originated in the German-speaking regions, but are also found in Scandinavia, and are a precursor of Protestant church music.

For other uses, see Leise (disambiguation).

Leisen arose in the Middle Ages as brief responses in the vernacular to sung elements of the Latin Mass, especially sequences sung on feast days of the ecclesiastical year, and were also sung during processionals and on pilgrimages. They often consist of a single stanza, ending in some form of Kyrie eleison, which is supposedly the origin of the name.[1][2]

The neumed manuscript of the Petruslied, Unsar trothîn hât farsalt, the oldest known Leise

The oldest known Leise, the Petruslied, is found on the last page (folio 158v) of a manuscript of In Genesin by Hrabanus Maurus, dated circa 860, formerly in the cathedral library of Freising, now in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich. It is a song to St. Peter, with the title Unsar trothîn hât farsalt, and was added to the manuscript in the ninth[3] or in the early tenth century.[4] Another early example is the Adalbertuslied (for Adalbert of Prague), which was popular in Bohemia and was sung at the saint's grave during droughts; they were also sometimes sung before battles.[5] They are an early expression of popular piety.

Martin Luther expanded several leisen into chorales, and they are therefore forerunners of German Protestant hymnology.

Leisen in current use

German

The Evangelisches Gesangbuch (EG, the German-language Protestant hymnal used in Germany, Austria, Alsace, Lorraine, and Luxembourg) and the Catholic hymnal Gotteslob (GL, used in Germany, Austria, and South Tyrol) include the following leisen:

Swedish
  • "Uthi Gudz Namn nu rese wij" (1695 Swedish hymnal, 336; 1996 Lutheran hymnal, 968), translation of In Gottes Namen fahren wir; in 1736 Lars Högmarck attributed the original to Nikolaus Herman and the translation to Laurentius Jonae Gestritius.

References
  1. Fritz Baltruweit, "Geistliche Volkslieder: Motoren der Reformation und lebensnaher Ausdruck des Glaubens bis heute", in "Und was ich noch sagen wollte ...": Festschrift für Wolfgang Kabus zum 80. Geburtstag, ed. Johannes Hartlapp and Andrea Cramer, Berlin: Frank & Timme, 2016, ISBN 9783732903139, pp. 77–94, p. 85, n. 32 (in German)
  2. "Leise", The Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology, retrieved 2 June 2017.
  3. David Fallows ([s.d.]). Leise. Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (subscription required).
  4. Peter Czoik (2016). In Genesin - BSB Clm 6260 (catalogue description, in German). Munich: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek. Accessed June 2017.
  5. Josef Sittard, Compendium der Geschichte der Kirchenmusik mit besonderer Berücksichtigung des kirchlichen Gesanges: von Ambrosius zur Neuzeit, Stuttgart: Levy & Müller, 1881, OCLC 215806306, p. 174 (in German).
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