Das Lied der Deutschen - Deutschland über alles

About this work

Joseph Haydn’s melody comes from the imperial hymn Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser, composed in 1797. This edition sets it to the three stanzas of Das Lied der Deutschen written by Hoffmann von Fallersleben in 1841.

Eusebius Mandyczewski’s arrangement distributes the melody across soprano, alto, tenor and bass. The four voices mostly move together, while passing notes and contrary motion give shape to the cadences without obscuring the words.

Rehearse each part first on a shared vowel, then add consonants without shortening the notes. All three stanzas use exactly the same music: agree on breaths and stresses once before adjusting the diction for each text.

What the document containsDocument: the score fits on one A4 page and contains all four SATB parts with the three German stanzas. The MIDI file helps singers hear entries and cadences.Klaus Rettinghaus’s typesetting for the Mutopia Project follows Eusebius Mandyczewski’s arrangement published by C. F. Peters in 1915. It is available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. The reference catalogue preserves the source, and LesPartitions.info provides a copy prepared for reading and listening.