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Bilingual Bedtime/German songs
KanonRound

Froh zu sein bedarf es wenig.

Froh zu sein bedarf man wenig

The melody of Froh zu sein bedarf es wenig on a staff, as engraved in the book
Historische Fassung · Historical version
Download the tune

The melody as written on the staff, so you can learn the tune before you sing.

  1. Froh zu sein bedarf man wenig,froh tsoo zain buh-dahrf mahn vay-nikh,One needs little to be happy,
  2. und wer froh ist, ist ein König!oont vair froh ist, ist ain ker-nikh!and whoever is happy is a king!

About this song

A familiar German round, sung at birthdays and in kindergartens. Four voices come in one bar apart, at the circled numbers, and each sings it twice. The words are an old saying, printed here as Hiller's opera Die Jagd had them in 1771; today it is usually sung bedarf es wenig. The tune is August Mühling's.

Where it comes from

The words: The couplet first in print in Johann Adam Hiller, Die Jagd. Eine komische Oper. Klavierauszug (Breitkopf, Leipzig, 1771), text by Christian Felix Weisse, Röse's aria, S. 88 bis 89, where it is sung "Froh zu seyn bedarf man wenig, und wer froh ist, ist ein König".

The tune: The Lieder-Projekt sheet "Froh zu sein bedarf es wenig (Kanon zu 4 Stimmen)" from the Carus and Reclam Kinderlieder-Buch, footed "Melodie und Text: August Mühling (1776 bis 1847)". G major, 4/4, one system of four bars, the four canon entries marked 1. 2. 3. 4. over the barlines and chord letters D7 and G twice in every bar. The PDF was rendered at 500 dpi, the five staff line rows measured off the render, and each of the sixteen noteheads located and read against those rows; the barlines were found as the full height dark columns and fall evenly, four notes to the bar. Bar 1 is a dotted quarter, a flagged eighth and two quarters, the other three bars four quarters each. Cross-checked note for note against the engraving in the Text und Melodie section of the de.wikipedia article "Froh zu sein bedarf es wenig" (Commons file "Happiness is cheap a thing.jpg", CC0), which writes the canon out as four one-bar systems, one per voice, also G major and 4/4: the two agree on all sixteen notes and on the rhythm. They differ only in where the fermata sits, over the third note of each bar in the Lieder-Projekt sheet and over the fourth in the Wikipedia engraving; no fermata is printed here. The article itself has no score block. G major is the reference's own key and is kept. Range D4 to D5

From the book

Bilingual Bedtime

Thirty-Seven German Songs for Children

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Es tönen die LiederAll 37 songsIch geh mit meiner Laterne
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