Old Netherlands Melody
Biography
“Old Netherlands Melody” identifies the traditional musical source behind the hymn tune KREMSER rather than a single known composer. The melody belonged to Dutch song culture before it entered Christian hymnody. Music-historical commentary on Adriaen Valerius’s Nederlandtsche Gedenck-clanck identifies an earlier secular form by the incipit “Hey! wilder dan wilt,” one of several names under which the tune circulated.
Adriaen Valerius used the melody for the Dutch thanksgiving and patriotic song “Wilt heden nu treden.” His Nederlandtsche Gedenck-clanck was published posthumously in 1626 and preserved both historical narrative and a large body of songs connected with the Dutch struggle against Spain. The melody later became one of the collection’s most internationally recognizable musical survivals.
During the nineteenth century the tune was revived in the Netherlands and then carried into German-speaking choral culture. Eduard Kremser’s 1877 male-voice arrangement was especially influential, and the melody became widely known under his name. Theodore Baker’s later English translation “We Gather Together” helped establish it in American Thanksgiving worship before Julia Cory wrote a new English hymn specifically for the same tune in 1902.
Because the melody is traditional and predates the modern hymn-tune attribution, Kremser should be understood as arranger, not original composer. The tune’s history illustrates how a folk melody can pass through secular song, national and religious memory, choral arrangement, translation, and finally international congregational hymnody.
Adriaen Valerius used the melody for the Dutch thanksgiving and patriotic song “Wilt heden nu treden.” His Nederlandtsche Gedenck-clanck was published posthumously in 1626 and preserved both historical narrative and a large body of songs connected with the Dutch struggle against Spain. The melody later became one of the collection’s most internationally recognizable musical survivals.
During the nineteenth century the tune was revived in the Netherlands and then carried into German-speaking choral culture. Eduard Kremser’s 1877 male-voice arrangement was especially influential, and the melody became widely known under his name. Theodore Baker’s later English translation “We Gather Together” helped establish it in American Thanksgiving worship before Julia Cory wrote a new English hymn specifically for the same tune in 1902.
Because the melody is traditional and predates the modern hymn-tune attribution, Kremser should be understood as arranger, not original composer. The tune’s history illustrates how a folk melody can pass through secular song, national and religious memory, choral arrangement, translation, and finally international congregational hymnody.
Hymns by Old Netherlands Melody
We Praise Thee, O God
Role: Composer