Prepare The Way O Zion: A Song History

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"Prepare the Way, O Zion" is the English form of "Bereden väg för Herran," a Swedish Advent hymn by Frans Mikael Franzén, a poet and churchman born in 1772 in Oulu, Finland.[1][2] Franzén studied and taught at the Royal Academy in Turku, was ordained in 1803, entered the Swedish Academy in 1808, served the parishes of Kumla and Klara, and died in 1847 as bishop of Härnösand.[2] Hymnary.org dates the text to 1812, and Gracia Grindal, writing on her Hymnblog, reports that it first appeared that year in a booklet of trial hymns put out by J. O. Wallin, the compiler of the Swedish hymnal of 1819.[1][3] She observes that present-day hymnals usually carry three to five of its stanzas, and that the text joins Isaiah's call to make ready the Lord's road with the account of Jesus riding into Jerusalem.[3]

Small engraving of Christ riding a donkey toward a city gate while a man spreads a cloak on the road before him

Georg Pencz, The Life of Jesus Christ: Christ Entering Jerusalem, engraving, c. 1534–35. The entry into Jerusalem, which the hymn's text recalls; it has no connection to the hymn itself.

Its tune, named for the hymn's Swedish first line, is a Swedish variant of a German folk melody, and sources differ on its date: Hymnary.org cites a Stockholm hymnbook of 1697, Grindal places it in a Swedish hymnal of 1694, and a Church of Sweden parish in Bollebygd dates the German melody to 1693.[4][3][5] Grindal thinks the melody probably began as a German dance tune, and she writes that every later Swedish hymnal kept the hymn, which Swedish congregations traditionally sing as the opening hymn of the First Sunday of Advent.[3][5] Grindal says it became a favorite Advent hymn in Swedish America too, and that it stood first in the Augustana Lutheran Church's Hymnal of 1925, while the Lutheran Book of Worship of 1978 reharmonized the tune and altered its rhythm.[3] Augustus Nelson (1863–1949), a Swedish-born pastor, made an English translation; Hymnary.org lists this English text in 24 hymnals, and the Episcopal Church's Hymnal 1982 prints a composite translation adapted by Charles P. Price.[1][6]

Larry Conger sets it in DAD tuning in Nine Lessons And Carols, a Fingers Of Steel collection of his fingerstyle Christmas arrangements for mountain dulcimer that comes with a recording of every piece.[7]

Our book that contains the song "Prepare The Way O Zion"

Sources

  1. Hymnary.org: "Prepare the Way, O Zion".
  2. University of Helsinki, 375 Humanists: "Frans Michael Franzén".
  3. Gracia Grindal, Hymnblog: "Prepare the Way, O Zion".
  4. Hymnary.org: "Bereden väg för Herran" (tune).
  5. Svenska kyrkan, Bollebygds pastorat: "Psalm 103 Bereden väg för Herran".
  6. Hymnary.org: "Prepare the way, O Zion," The Hymnal 1982, no. 65.
  7. Fingers Of Steel: "Larry Conger, Nine Lessons And Carols".
  8. Image: Georg Pencz, The Life of Jesus Christ: Christ Entering Jerusalem, engraving, c. 1534–35. The Cleveland Museum of Art.

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