The Cuckoo and the donkey

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The cuckoo and the donkey , paper cutting, early 20th century

The cuckoo and the donkey is a well-known German children's song for which Hoffmann von Fallersleben wrote the text in 1835. The melody ? / i goes back to Carl Friedrich Zelter's 1810 setting of the humorous poem Es ist ein Shot von Goethe . Audio file / audio sample

content

The song depicts the cuckoo call in May, which the donkey joins with its screams. The topos is related to the well-known folk song about the competition between the cuckoo and the nightingale from Des Knaben Wunderhorn , in which the donkey, as referee, declares the cuckoo the winner because it sings so well as a schoolmaster according to the rules of tone theory (“The Kukuk caught on fast · His sang through thirds and fourths and fifths. "), while the free jubilee of the nightingale is too incomprehensible for the donkey (" You're making me pissed off! I-yes! I-yes! I can't get it in my head! ") - Gustav Mahler set this song to music as a praise of high intellect (No. 10 Humoresken / Lieder aus Des Knaben Wunderhorn ) , but also Johann Karl Gottfried Loewe as an art song. Behind this is the ancient myth of the music competition between Pan and Apollo , in which Midas, as the unfortunate referee, closes dog-ears.

In The Cuckoo and the Donkey , the argument between these two is shown in their overconfidence. The role of the donkey here is as embarrassing as it is as a competition judge, although it can keep up in terms of volume, it gives the already rather simple, almost unimaginative cuckoo call a little laudable competition and accompaniment. All in all, the story told succinctly in a few words by Fallersleben, which does not get lost in any interpretation or moralizing conclusions, is reminiscent of sayings such as “Among the blind is the one-eyed king” and the competition of the big boobs, such as that in German Schwank is part of the repertoire of topics: Only the word “scream” in relation to the sounds of the cuckoo shows that the phrase “that sounded so beautiful and lovely” is to be understood ironically: the singing competition is contested by two screamers.

Peter Rühmkorf counted in his speech when receiving the Hoffmann von Fallersleben Prize for time-critical literature The Cuckoo and the Donkey zu Hoffmanns (in the sense of a dictum by Gottfried Benn ) “'six to eight completed poems' [...], the At the end of a life full of renunciation, they finally see themselves as harvest and presented to posterity as, so to speak, 'poems that can be left behind' ”.

text

The cuckoo and the donkey , print version 1837

1.
The cuckoo and the donkey,
They had a big quarrel,
|: Who sang best  : |
|: During the beautiful May time  : |

2.
The cuckoo said: “I can do that!”
And immediately started screaming.
|: But I can do better!  : |
|: Immediately remembered the donkey.  : |

3.
That sounded so beautiful and lovely,
So beautiful from far and near;
|: They both sang  : |
Cuckoo, cuckoo, ia, ia!
Cuckoo, cuckoo, ia!

Text variants: first stanza, second line: one instead of a capital one ; second stanza, second line: began instead of hub ; third stanza, second line: From afar and from instead of So beautiful from afar and

reception

Musical reception

There are numerous musical arrangements and variations of the song, including variations for violin, violoncello and piano by Hans Poser and a movement for soprano and piano by Hans-Klaus Heinz (op. 72, 9).

There is also a song of the same name by the German deathcore band We Butter the Bread with Butter , which is based on this song.

Artistic reception

The song was in a so-called Long Radio Night on the topic of “Singers' War” with the title “I'll break your leg, your sentence will limp. A Long Night from the Singers' War. ” With an exemplary leitmotif in front and processed artistically. The program was created by Deutschlandradio Berlin and was broadcast for the first time on July 30, 2004 on the nationwide radio program Deutschlandradio Kultur .

Web links

Commons : The Cuckoo and the Donkey  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Zelter's art song doubles the tempo in the second half, which is balanced in the folk song version.
  2. ↑ Praise of the High Mind , recmusic.org; Text also in Friedrich Karl von Erlach : The folk songs of the Germans. 3rd edition, 1835, p. 23 ( books.google )
  3. ↑ Rühmkorf award speech (PDF file; 54 kB)
  4. ↑ Description of contents / preview at dradio.de ( memento of the original from October 17, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. : Sascha Verlan, Almut Schnerring: “I'll break your leg, your sentence will limp. A long night from the singing war. "  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.dradio.de