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Scan 590
Grove's dictionary of music and musicians;, 1904
27 lines. Read by computer on 10 September 2026. Printed page 524. See the scan on archive.org.
1controversy whether Marnix van St. Aldegonde wrote the words of the song, or whether, as Professor Enschedé surmises,1 the words were originally written in French about 1568, and that Marnix translated them into Dutch in 1572. The melody 2 has at length been conclusively proved to be of French origin, for the oldest version of the song, which appeared in the first edition of the Geusenliedenboecxken of 1581, bears the heading 'Naar de wijze van Chartres.' This is the tune of a song of derision (Spotlied), on the siege of Chartres, undertaken by Condé and his Huguenots in 1568, and entitled 'O la folle entreprise du Prince de Condé.'3 And soldiers who were employed by Condé and afterwards by William of Orange evidently brought the melody from the North of France to the Netherlands, where it was adopted as a national song. The Wilhelmslied has undergone many changes, but the following version given by F. van Duyse in his Oude Nederlandsche Lied, ii. p. 1620, claims to be the best and oldest.4
3WILHELMUS VAN NASSOUWE (1581)
4Naar de wijze van Chartres.
6Wil-hel-mus van Nas-sou-we ben den Va-der-lant ghe-trou-we blijf ick van Duy-tschen bloet ick tot in-den doot: Princ-e van O-raen-gien ben ick vrij on-ver-veert, den Co-ninck van His-paen-gien hab ick al-tijt ghe-eert.
81 Tijdschrift, etc. vol. vii. (1904).
92 Under SONG (iv. 589) it was stated by error that this melody was identical with the English song, 'What if a day.' The English tune resembles the tune to another patriotic Dutch Song called, 'Bergen op Zoom.'
103 In an undated 'Recueil de Chansons spirituelles … avec autres Chansons des Victoires qu'il a pleu à Dieu de donner à notre très-christien roy, Charles IX. … par Christofle de Bordeaux, Paris' (c. 1570) we find at No. 48, 'autre chanson de la ville du Chartres assiégée par le prince de Condé, sur un chant nouveau' beginning with the words 'O folle entreprise.' And in the collection of 1619 entitled 'La pleuse alouette avec son tire-lire' there is a hymn in honour of the Virgin fitted to the same 'folle entreprise' melody. Finally, in 'La Clef des Chansonniers, ou recueil des vaudevilles depuis cent ans et plus' (Ballard, Paris, 1717), a song occurs called 'Mon Dieu, la belle entrée,' the air of which is the old reading of the Chartres song. All this proves that the song survived for many years also in France.
114 Duyse thinks that in the beginning the Wilhelms melody was a signal or trumpet-blast. With this Enschedé does not concur, although he admits it was essentially an army-song; and he quotes as the purest (though not the most beautiful) version the following German soldier song of 1607:—
13(The writer owes her thanks to Professor J. W. Enschedé of Amsterdam for much of the above information.)
14A. H. W.
16WILHEM, GUILLAUME LOUIS BOCQUILLON, a musician known chiefly by his efforts to promote the popular teaching of singing, was born at Paris, Dec. 18, 1781. In early youth he was in the army, but an irresistible passion for music made him take to it as the pursuit of his life. After passing through the Paris Conservatoire, he became one of the Professors in the Lycée Napoléon, and afterwards had a post in the Collège Henri IV. His original compositions were few — chiefly settings of Béranger's lyrics. It was about the year 1815 that he began to interest himself in the class-teaching of music in schools, and through Béranger's influence, was put in charge of the musical part of the work of a society for promoting general education, and afterwards, as his plans broadened out, he was made director-general of music in the municipal schools of Paris. He threw himself into this cause with an enthusiasm which soon produced striking results. Besides the school teaching, he had classes which gave instruction to thousands of pupils, mainly working people; and out of this presently grew the establishment of the ORPHÉON, the vast organisation which has since covered France with singing-societies. [See vol. iii. p. 567.]
18The specialty of Wilhem's system turned on the point of school organisation. The plan of 'Mutual Instruction,' as it was called, was then much in vogue in France as a way of economising teaching power, and the point of the Wilhem System was the application of this idea to the teaching of singing. His principal class-book, the Manuel Musical à l'usage des Collèges, des Institutions, des Ecoles, et des Cours de Chant is an explanation of the ordinary written language of music, clefs, staves, signa—
20Another version, frequently found in modern collections, is as follows:—
22From the Nederlandsche Volksliederenboek.
24Op gewekt.
26Wil-hel-me van Nas-sou-we Ben ick van Duy-tschen bloet, Het Va-der-land ghe-trou-we Blijf ick tot in den doot! Een Princ-e van O-raen-jien Ben ick vrij, on ver-veert, Den Co-ninck van His-paen-jiën Heb ick al-tijt ghe-eert.
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