This well-known
Cat Stevens arrangement of Eleanor Farjeon' lyrics,
Morning has broken, was and still is extremely popular here in Germany. I have vivid recollections of being in a pub called "Forum" in Vegesack in 1982 when a certain Jürgen Baudin, a drinker of enormous prowess, kept on playing it on the juke box for literally hours on end.
Cat Stevens, a devout man and converted Muslim, is also well known in the Muslim world. This was brought home to me strongly whilst on a short lecturing contract in Dubai in 1993/4 when I sung it to my class of Bahraini airforce personnel. It was so popular that I used it,
pace Cat, as a dedication on the course certificates.
It is indeed a beautiful song which I very much enjoy singing. The melody goes well with both concertina and penny-whistle.
Since writing the above in 1999, I have now (2013) learned that Cat Stevens made use of a hymn which originally appeared in the second edition of
Songs of Praise With Music (1931), to the tune
Bunessan. This Gaelic tune can be found in L. McBean's
The 1st Album of Harry Lauder's Popular Songs.
Much more interesting information can be found at
wikipedia.
When with
Das Trio it would be sung by Britta Steenken while I accompanied her on my concertina..
There is a choral SATB arrangement of
Morning has broken by Siegfried Macht in
Chor Liederbuch published by
Scott Publications. I came to sing the bass part of the arrangement when auditioning to join a
small mixed Bremen group [Christian, Henner, Maja, Marlene] after my time in the
Collegium Musicum Bremen. It was amongst 15 other SATB quartet pieces they put before me.