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"O Sanctissima" (O most holy) is a Roman Catholic hymn in Latin, seeking the prayers of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and often sung in various languages on her feast days. The earliest known publication was from London in 1792, presenting it as a traditional song from Sicily; but no original source or date has been confirmed for the simple melody or the poetic text. The tune is often called "Sicilian Mariners Hymn" or similar titles, referring to the seafarers' nightly invocation of Mary as their maternal protector: Our Lady, Star of the Sea. The tune has been notably reused for the German Christmas carol "O du fröhliche" (O, how joyful), the English recessional hymn "Lord, Dismiss Us With Thy Blessing", and the first half of the American civil rights anthem "We Shall Overcome".
Contents
Similar Latin lyrics have been set to entirely different tunes since the 1500s, by notable composers and arrangers including Leonhard Kleber (probably editing another composer), Louis-Nicolas Clérambault, E.T.A. Hoffmann, Antonín Dvořák, and Fritz Kreisler (using a melody of Arcangelo Corelli).
Latin lyric and English translation
Below is a common version of the text; many other versions exist.
An 1820 book claims, without verification, that the first lines of the Latin text were already engraved at Speyer Cathedral at the time of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153).
Widening circulation
After being published anonymously by European Magazine in 1792 and then by an American magazine in 1794, by the early 1800s "O Sanctissima" was spreading widely in multiple languages. J.G. Herder included the song posthumously in his prominent book of traditional folksongs (Stimmen der Völker in Liedern, 1807), while Haydn (Hob. XXIIIc:F2) and Beethoven (WoO 157:4) each wrote choral arrangements of the Latin hymn. A German-language version ("O du fröhliche", c.1816) became a well-known Christmas carol, with original lyrics by J.D. Falk referring not to the Blessed Virgin Mary, but rather to Jesus himself and his day of birth. In English:
Or, in another English-language rendition:
In the 20th century, a group of textual variants commonly known as "O Thou Joyful" became popular in the United States. Although most of these texts are anonymous, one has been attributed to William Glass.
By 1835, the tune (with its first half repeated) also came to be used for the English recessional hymn "Lord, Dismiss Us With Thy Blessing", and by 1945 it appears to have influenced the melody of the American civil rights anthem "We Shall Overcome", with a close match between the first half of both tunes.