Identify this hymnal, please.
  • deo27
    Posts: 27
    CC Watershed has featured a German hymnal a few times but has not posted the name of it or a PDF. Can someone please identify the name of it and attach a PDF if you can? Pictures are attached.

    Thank you :)

  • Liam
    Posts: 5,630
    A Google AI answer:

    Screenshot 2026-05-19 at 2.47.12 PM.png
    1566 x 1332 - 264K
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,630
    It took 2 seconds. If accurate, which I've not checked/confirmed myself, that's ... impressive.

    As Catholics, it should be second-nature to us to start by asking if we are asking the right question. Questions and answers are a garbage in // garbage out thing. A humanist is well trained to consider the careful framing of questions; the Socratic and Scholastic methods are built on that training. Utterly important for dealing with AI.

    Here, from the typesetting, I started with a reasonable intuition that it was likely a 20th century book (though it could be the last decade of the 19th), and thus provided a temporal band that accelerated the search.

    To the best of my knowledge, no demons were involved in the suggestion of this answer.
  • Charles_Weaver
    Posts: 223
    Looks like slop, which is the opposite of impressive.

    Here is Nun Danket from that very hymnal (1954) edition:

    https://singpraises.net/collections/de/1948-hymns/63332/now-thank-we-all-our-god?edition=1954

    Notice that it's hymn 108, on page 157. Also it's not the hymnal featured in the original post.

    I have yet to be impressed with AI when it comes to music research. Maybe someday. For now it's just mostly or even all garbage.
    Thanked by 4MatthewRoth Liam CHGiffen AugustBerchelmann
  • Charles_Weaver
    Posts: 223
    Anyway, it's more likely that it's hymnal that Jeff featured on CCW about a month ago:

    https://www.ccwatershed.org/2025/04/26/pdf-download-extremely-rare-german-organ-accompaniment-for-hymnal-158-pages/

    It's behind the paywall, of course.
    Thanked by 1Liam
  • Xopheros
    Posts: 122
    The answer by Google AI is more than weird: It is unlikely that this is a hymn book of the Mormons, especially as "Nun danket alle Gott" is a well-known and popular Lutheran chorale (it is also in the Gotteslob). And I doubt that the Mormons were so many in Germany in the first half of the 20th century that they even had a complete printed German songbook with four part settings for SATB choir.
    Thanked by 1Liam
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,261
    Going by the number of pages, is it perhaps this book:

    https://www.ebay.com/itm/374775907252
    Thanked by 1Liam
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,630
    Charles

    Thanks for that response! Yes, indeed.
  • deo27
    Posts: 27
    @Chonak,

    Can you repost the link? The one you posted is not working.
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,261
    It's still working here.

    The title page reads:

    "Gesangbuch,
    darinn begriffen sind,
    die aller fürnemisten (?) und besten
    Psalmen, Geistliche Lieder, und
    Chorgesang aus dem
    Wittemburgischen, Strasburgischen,
    und anderer Kirchen Gesangbüchlin zusamen bracht,
    und mit besonderem
    fleis corrigiert und gedrucket...."

    ("Song book, in which are contained, the most (...) and best of all
    psalms, spiritual songs, and choral works from the
    Wittemburg, Strasburg, and other churches' song books,
    collected, corrected and printed with special care")

    The seller describes it as a "Hymn Book in German & Latin"

    It was published at Strasbourg in 1541.

    Thanked by 3Liam deo27 CHGiffen
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