Berlin Air (Paul Lincke Song)
Berliner Luft or Das ist die Berliner Luft is an operetta song written to march rhythm that Paul Lincke wrote in 1904 to a text by Heinrich Bolten-Baeckers . It was initially part of a two-act act of the same name that premiered in Berlin's Thalia Theater in 1904 and quickly disappeared from the repertoire, but was soon played as an independent piece of music in concert halls in and around Berlin. It was not until 1922 that Berliner Luft was included in the originally one-act operetta Frau Luna , which premiered in 1899 as part of a full-length expansion .
background
Lincke has made the Berlin air a synonym for a free lifestyle in Berlin and a role model for non-Berliners. Right at the beginning of the first verse, the song praises the city's inexpensive entertainment with the words:
- "Berlin! If I only hear the name, I have to laugh happily!
How can you make fat Wilhelm for a little moss! ",
with which he referred to the lifestyle of King Friedrich Wilhelm II, which was portrayed as sexually dissolute and gourmet . With the success of the piece, the term “Berliner Luft” was spread in German-speaking countries .
Lincke set the text to music in the form of a march . Sven-Åke Johansson has pointed out that this march is by no means martial. Rather, one hears “the beat of the early industrialization of Berlin” in its lively rhythm. The marching song became a " hit song" relatively quickly and was performed independently of the operetta by choirs and in salons. Lotte Werkmeister sang it on record. With the film adaptation of Frau Luna (1941), Lizzi Waldmüller's interpretation was also released on record. It also served as promenade brass music.
meaning
The song Berliner Luft is considered the city's unofficial anthem and is also often played at performances by military bands. However, it is traditionally of particular importance at the end of the season-end concert of the Berlin Philharmonic in the Waldbühne and the Elbland Festival in Wittenberge . The work was included in the list of “100 hits of the century” by a jury made up of Hans R. Beierlein , Christian Bruhn and Dieter Thomas Heck .
There are also cover versions in other languages, for example Een reisje sprach de Rijn in Dutch .
literature
- Ingo Grabowsky, Martin Lücke: The 100 hits of the century . European Publishing House, Hamburg 2008, ISBN 3-434-50619-5 .
Web links
- Berliner Luft : Sheet music and audio files in the International Music Score Library Project
Individual evidence
- ^ Andrew Lamb: 150 years of popular musical theater . Yale Univ. Press, New Haven / London, 2000, ISBN 0-300-07538-3 , pp. 70-72.
- ^ Franz Born: Berliner Luft. A cosmopolitan city and its composer Paul Lincke . Apollo-Verlag Paul Lincke, Berlin, 1966, pp. 128/129.
- ↑ quoted from Peter Funken: Berlin - Choreography of a City (Berlin 2011)
- ↑ Lukas Richter: The Berliner Gassenhauer: Presentation, documents, collection. Waxmann Verlag, Münster 2004, pp. 102, 266
- ↑ military music . In: Der Spiegel . No. 19 , 1965, p. 145 ( online - May 5, 1965 ).