C.P.E. Bach in the Sacred Harp?

[Cook Tim]

I was pretty floored when this piece by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach started playing on my computer.

https://youtu.be/b9Y4N6tKYXo

Although certain measures are not exactly the same, Sacred Harp singers will instantly recognize this. I'll let you identify it. The YouTube video is labeled "Variations on Ich schlief, da träumte mir, Wq. 118 No. 1, H. 69." Google Translate says that "Ich schlief, da träumte mir" means "I was asleep when I dreamt" in German.

Would anyone know if the Sacred Harp lifted this from C.P.E. Bach or if both were copying something else? In any case, is that something a future edition of the Sacred Harp or any other tunebook with that tune (e.g., Christian Harmony) should attribute?

[Antonio James Higgins]

I believe this is a German folk tune! C. P. E's father J. S. used it in his Peasant Cantata. 

AJH

[Will Fitzgerald]

From  C.P.E. Bach: The Complete Works:

Variations on the song “Ich schlief, da träumte mir” were fashionable in Berlin throughout the second half of the eighteenth century; reconstructing their genesis and reception is a major challenge. Individual sets in F major for keyboard are known to have been composed by C. P. E. Bach (Wq 118/1), Johann Philipp Kirnberger (Engelhardt no. 68), and Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg, but the sequence and number of variations differs from one manuscript to another. Several sources contain compilations of variations by more than one composer, often without indicating the composer’s name, and sometimes interspersed with further variations which have not yet been traced in concordant sources bearing plausible attributions. No documents elucidate the specific historic conditions under which these pasticcio variations originated; perhaps they are a musical side-result of the Seven Years’ War, which virtually eliminated the music culture at the Berlin court from 1756 to 1763 and forced the court musicians to seek entertainment (and perhaps also financial compensation) in private circles.

WF

-- 
-- 
Google Groups "Fasola Discussions" Email List
FAQ: http://ej345.com/fasola/Fasola-Discussions-FAQ.html
--- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Fasola Discussions" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to fasola-discussi...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/fasola-discussions/CP4P284MB3088994530887BA52F09F38EA8282%40CP4P284MB3088.BRAP284.PROD.OUTLOOK.COM.

[Wade Kotter]

It may be of interest to know what Warren Steel says about this tune in The Makers:

Music: Metcalf, The Kentucky Harmonist, 1818, from a song tune, "Farewell, ye green fields and sweet groves," in Thompson manuscript, ca 1777, and elsewhere.

Here are the words to that song: https://home.olemiss.edu/~mudws/texts/GreenFields.txt

Perhaps Warren can enlighten us on the provenance of the "Thompson manuscript," but the tune was apparently popular in England circles around the same time it was popular in Berlin. The first line of the English version of the song is obviously the source of the English name of the tune, which appeared as GREENFIElDS in The Kentucky Harmonist. I've seen some collections where the tune is attributed to J. S. Bach. This is apparently because Bach supposedly quoted it in his "Peasant Cantata" (I will attempt to confirm this). We do know that his son C. P. E., and apparently many other German composers, made use of the tune. It also has been misattributed to Maria De Fleury and to Lewis Edson, who composed a very popular fuging tune named GREENFIELD that dates back to around 1782.

Wade

Dr. Wade Kotter

Retired Librarian

Independent Hymnologist and Unrestrained Loud Treble

South Ogden, UT

"Make a Joyful Noise Unto the Lord" 

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/fasola-discussions/9F954D7C-3B79-49EC-929D-DD1350B625C7%40gmail.com.

[Wade Kotter]

This may be of interest as well:

https://tunearch.org/wiki/Annotation:Farewell_ye_Green_Fields

Here's the variant from Bach's "Peasant Cantata" from 1742:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRdr0onjy94&t=1203s

So, is it originally German or originally English? 

Wade

Dr. Wade Kotter

Retired Librarian

Independent Hymnologist and Unrestrained Loud Treble

South Ogden, UT

"Make a Joyful Noise Unto the Lord" 

[Cook Tim]

Liz, how about that!

Wade, can you tell me what the tunearch.org website is saying? It's blocking me from accessing it for some reason.

Wade and Antonio, that J.S. Bach version is intriguing too, although the C.P.E. one is closer to Green Fields.

Will, so maybe all of them were getting it from some tune just floating in the air. In that case, I suppose attribution wouldn't really be possible, although it would be interesting to know if it was floating around in the German air before the English air, or vice versa.

Tim

---

From: 'Wade Kotter' via Fasola Discussions <fasola-di...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, April 25, 2026 13:01
To: fasola-di...@googlegroups.com <fasola-di...@googlegroups.com>; Will Fitzgerald <will.fi...@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [fasola-discussions] C.P.E. Bach in the Sacred Harp?

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/fasola-discussions/1843792643.2983021.1777089706016%40mail.yahoo.com.

[Wade Kotter]

Tim, here's the tune from a London broadside ca. 1780 held by Harvard:

https://collections.americanantiquarian.org/thomasballads/items/show/729

Wade

Dr. Wade Kotter

Retired Librarian

Independent Hymnologist and Unrestrained Loud Treble

South Ogden, UT

"Make a Joyful Noise Unto the Lord" 

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/fasola-discussions/CP4P284MB30882D199F7563E9BAAE5826A8282%40CP4P284MB3088.BRAP284.PROD.OUTLOOK.COM.

[Wade Kotter]

Sorry, Tim. The link I gave works for me. Anyway, I've attached PDFs of the information from this site for Farewell Ye Green Fields and Adam's Surprise, another name for the English tune. Let me know if the PDFs work.

Wade

Dr. Wade Kotter

Retired Librarian

Independent Hymnologist and Unrestrained Loud Treble

South Ogden, UT

"Make a Joyful Noise Unto the Lord" 

On Saturday, April 25, 2026 at 12:13:26 AM MDT, Cook Tim <coo...@gmail.com> wrote:

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/fasola-discussions/CP4P284MB30882D199F7563E9BAAE5826A8282%40CP4P284MB3088.BRAP284.PROD.OUTLOOK.COM.