By Clinton Martin
The “Loblied” (or Hymn of Praise) is probably the most “famous” Amish hymn. “Famous” might be a bit generous, as hardly anyone would sit around listening to traditional Amish hymnody just for fun, though I did find recordings of the song are available to stream on Spotify, so someone somewhere must be tuning in now and then.
The Loblied can be found in The Ausbund, the Amish community’s original hymnal, in continuous use for around 450 years. It is song number 131. Amish Country News owns both German, and German-English copies of the book, and the English translation doesn’t always flow very well, since German word structure is so different, and the translation is word-for-word. But suffice it to say, the hymn is about praising God while enduring suffering. The hymns are sung in German. The English words are only there to remind those Amish whose High-German has gotten a bit rusty of the meaning of what they are singing.
All Amish people learn PA Dutch, or PA German, naturally as a first language, but this is not High-German. They learn English at school (if they haven’t mastered it already as a child beforehand) but they learn High-German at school. After graduating post eighth grade, some Amish people use High-German very little, so it gets rusty. Furthermore, contemporary High-German sources no longer use the old gothic script that the Amish continue to use in their High-German texts.
The Ausbund is a collection of hymns written, mostly by Anabaptist (forefathers of the Amish) adherents who were imprisoned for their beliefs, tortured, and often executed. Thus, the hymns have a hopeful, yet lamenting, praising, yet sorrowful tone.
At nearly every Amish church service, the Loblied is the second hymn sung. The Ausbund does not have musical notes in it. It simply has the words of the hymn. The tune is learned through repetition and handed down orally by tradition. Who knows if the way the tune goes today has changed much from a couple hundred years ago? Maybe, maybe not. But there is definitely a certain way it is sung now, which each generation learns by doing.
The singing is long, drawn-out, and almost chantlike. Songs can take a number of minutes to complete. A song-leader will begin each line, and the congregation will then come in and finish it out in unison. There is no four-part harmony. All is sung as one. No musical instruments accompany the singing.
Copies of the Ausbund can be purchased at Amish bookstores, and there is a fascinating book, The Amazing Story of the Ausbund, which is a well-researched title explaining the origin and history of the hymnal, which is likewise available at Amish bookstores (or the latter can also be had simply through Amazon or other “secular” booksellers.)