Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming: a last rose in the snow in Skandia (photographer’s title and description) /
yooperann via Flickr

No one knows who wrote either the German text or the tune of “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming.” According to legend, a monk near the Rhineland city of Trier found a rose blooming one Christmas Eve, plucked it, and put it in a vase on an altar devoted to the Virgin Mary. The poem “Es is ein Ros entsprungen” may have been written as early as the 15th century, but the earliest extant version appeared in the late 16th century.

At the time, the Protestant Reformation roiled Europe in general and Germany in particular. Catholic and Lutheran publishers issued slightly different versions of the text, paired with the tune we know and love today. I say slightly different, but the change of two lines clearly shows a theological gulf. Just whom does the rose symbolize?

The Catholic origins of the text

The poem, with 19 verses, first appeared in a manuscript called Gebetbüchlein des Frater Conradus made at St. Alban’s Carthusian monastery in Trier. Various sources give the date as 1582 or 1588.

The earliest printed version, with 23 verses, appeared (with the familiar tune) in Alte catholische geistliche Kirchengeinge (Cologne, 1599). Other early publications include Speierschen Gesangbuch (1599 or 1600) and (with only six verses) in Catholische geistliche Gesange (1608).

We need not be concerned with all those verses. All but the first two soon fell by the wayside. The original second verse begins

From the Middle Ages onward, commentators had considered various flowers as symbolic of the Virgin Mary. They interpreted Song of Solomon 2:1, “I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valley,” as a reference to her. The verse just quoted, therefore, uses very familiar and conventional symbolism for her.

The Protestant version

Lutherans disapproved of the way Catholics venerated Mary, but many of them must have loved the poem and the tune. So Lutheran publications changed two lines.

This text points not to Mary as the Rose but her child Jesus. The Protestant version points to Isaiah 11:1, “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.”

In Medieval iconography, the branch from the stump of Jesse often appears as a rose plant. The German Ros (rose) is very similar to Reis (branch), so some early Lutheran printings also change the name of the poem to “Es ist ein Reis entsprungen.”

A Lutheran supplies the harmony

First printing of “Es ist ein Ros entsprungen” (1599) The caption says “Catholic song.”

Most hymns in most modern hymnals have the rhythm of all quarter notes except for a longer note at the end of phrases. All four parts usually sing the same rhythm. And most hymns, unfortunately, have a boring sameness to the harmony.

Tunes written during the time of the Reformation predate the convention of all or mostly quarter notes. When good composers harmonize a hymn tune, they include some nice, imaginative touches.

Michael Praetorius wrote the familiar harmony of “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming” used in modern hymnals. It appeared in one of the later volumes of his collection Musae Sionae (1609) He used only the first two verses of the Lutheran version of the text.

Take a good look at the notation of the 1599 printing of the hymn. It has no bar lines. The notes look like our whole notes and half notes, but supplying modern bar lines splits four of the whole notes into half notes tied across the bar to end two phrases. You can see how that works in any modern hymnal, although you’ll see quarter notes and sometimes divided half notes.

Praetorius could have simply assigned the same rhythm to all the other parts. His lesser contemporaries may have routinely done so. Instead, he provided lovely rhythmic diversity to end those two phrases.

The harmony near the end of the melody has a particularly magical effect for the phrase “mitten im kaltem Winter” (“amid the cold of winter” in English). The tune is in a minor key, but for the second syllable of “winter,” Praetorius reaches outside the tonality to provide a major chord. It has the effect of giving the cold of winter a warm glow as Mary bears the little flower. The same effect takes place on the German “g’boren” (born) or English “Savior” in the second verse.

“Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming” in modern hymnals

Both because of the excellence of Praetorius’ setting and the fact that Catholics had no tradition of congregational singing, the Lutheran text has completely supplanted the Catholic text.

By the end of the 19th century, the other 21 verses of the 1599 edition were long forgotten.  Friedrich Layritz added two more verses in German and Harriet Spaeth translated them into English in 1875. Theodore Baker translated the two verses used in Praetorius’ setting in 1894. Baker, literary editor and translator for the New York music publisher G. Schirmer, is best known as the originator of Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of Musicians.

A few of the hymnals I consulted use a different translation, but most use Baker’s version. If they have a third verse, it is usually Spaeth’s translation of one of Layritz’ verses. I don’t own a Catholic hymnal, but when I searched for one online, it has Baker’s translation of the Lutheran text.

Sources:

12 Days of Christmas carols- Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming / Stephen Wedgeworth, Wedgewords. January 4, 2013
Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming / Hymnary
Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming / The Hymns and Carols of Christmas
Of a rose: Seks engelske Mariaviser for blandet kor og instrumenter / Per Drud Nielsen. 2018 (PDF)