German folk song
The German folk song is a folk song that is characterized by textual and musical traditions in German-speaking countries. It experienced its heyday since Herder and in the German romantic era . Historical folk songs are often associated with an idealized rural culture and strong ties to their homeland. After the misuse of the folk song by National Socialism , such romanticizing interpretations have in some cases become obsolete. Today, German folk songs also include newer forms of popular music, whereby the folk song has to be distinguished from popular music .
history
Beginnings
The German-language song has its earliest known sources in the 12th century, in the time of the minnesingers or mastersingers . In parallel to their art songs , popular songs and morities were created , which owe their popularity and popularity to the bailiff singers .
From the time of the Reformation (late 15th century), these songs were written down in song manuscripts such as the Lochamer songbook (around 1460) or the Glogau songbook , or printed in song collections such as Georg Forster's Frischen teutschen Liedlein (1536–1556).
In the 17th century, interest in folk songs waned. Reasons were the separation into educated class and people since the Renaissance and the emergence of polyphonic French and Italian song forms (such as Villanelles , chansons , madrigals ). In keeping with the spirit of the times , Johann Sebastian Bach assigns the aria in his peasant cantata to the more cultivated townspeople, but the folk song to the down-to-earth rural population.
Herder
In the course of the Sturm und Drang and the subsequent Romanticism , which opposed the rationality of the Enlightenment , a longing search for the “simple, natural, original and unadulterated” grew, especially among poets, writers and musicians.
Johann Gottfried Herder , himself inspired in East Prussia and Latvia , set out in search of the German folk song in the second half of the 18th century. In 1771 Herder published "Von deutscher Art und Kunst". In 1778/79, with the help of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Gotthold Ephraim Lessing , the Weygand'schen Buchhandlung in Leipzig published a first collection of domestic and foreign songs and poems under the title Volkslieder . Even in this collection, with the intention of interpreting the songs as “unadulterated expressions of the people's soul”, no value is placed on author information - although many of the texts come from well-known authors. Herder himself coined the term folksong as a translation of the English popular song - in sharp contrast to the high-quality, time-typical poetry of the educated classes - for the German language. With this new designation (instead of designations such as Gassenhauer , street song etc.) he upgrades the literary-musical genre folk song and its bearer, the respective “simple” people . According to Herder, the real essence of a people is revealed in the folk song. In the essay On the Similarity of Middle English and German Poetry , published in 1777, Herder describes his folk song project and reveals his motivations in this regard: “A small collection […] of songs from the mouths of every people, about the most distinguished objects and actions of their lives, in their own Language, at the same time properly understood, explained, accompanied by music. [...] "He expects to learn more" [...] about the way of thinking and customs of the nation! of your science and language! From play and dance, music and doctrine of gods! "Issues," [...] which the connoisseur of people is always most eager [...] "At the end of the day he calls on people of all nations to collect and study such songs in the certainty," [ ...] they would give other nations the liveliest grammar, the best dictionary and natural history of their people ”.
Directly or indirectly inspired by this approach that unites people, Herder wins numerous energetic comrades-in-arms and “emulators” both nationally and internationally. Collectors and researchers, composers and poets are now increasingly looking for the previously neglected, orally handed down folk song. The Europe-wide strivings for freedom and nationalism around the middle of the 19th century are likely to have had a major influence. The scientifically oriented search and investigation of folk songs, apart from romanticizing or national motivations, only gained importance at the turn of the 20th century. In 1807 - four years after Herder's death - Johannes von Müller published his large international collection of voices of the peoples in songs - still consciously avoiding the term “folk song” newly coined by Herder. In 1808 Achim von Arnim and Clemens Brentano published the text collection Des Knaben Wunderhorn , Ludwig Uhland 1844/45 Old high and low German folk songs . However, these are still pure text recordings without musical notations.
romance
Herder lamented: “The remains of all living folk denominations are rolling down into the abyss with an accelerated fall.” This sentence states that there was no longer a certain kind of popular musical expression. This, in other words the “original folk song”, is mostly just an idea that arises from an external perspective looking for romance and exoticism. With the changing living conditions of the beginning capitalism and industrialization , what "the people" sang also changed. However, this represents an original process for the folk song. In the learned and socially superior circles to which Herder undoubtedly belonged, the supposed rural idyll of the peasant was only discovered at the end of the 18th century and with it the romantic idea of " Folk song "was born. But songs that correlated with increasingly urban life did not really fit into the picture that people wanted from folk songs.
In the spirit of Herder, poets such as Achim von Arnim , Clemens Brentano , Matthias Claudius , Simon Dach , Heinrich Heine , Wilhelm Müller and Ludwig Uhland on the one hand, as well as musicians and composers such as Johann Friedrich Reichardt , Johann Abraham Peter Schulz , Friedrich , all worked closely together Silcher and Carl Friedrich Zelter, on the other hand, created new songs that the people took up in a process of maintenance and tradition and thus determined them to become folk songs themselves. Songs like The Moon Has Risen (Claudius / Schulz) or I don't know what it should mean ( Die Lorelei , Heine / Silcher) are the godfathers of this cooperation . Schubert's Lindenbaum (words by Wilhelm Müller , 1821), a typical art song , with the simpler melody of Silcher became the internationally known folk song Am Brunnen vor dem Tore .
Overall, from the middle of the 18th century onwards, there was a trend among the educated middle classes towards song compositions that were also practicable for the layman. The Berlin Liederschule, founded by Christian Gottfried Krause , played an important role here . Their motto was the “song in the folk tone”, which meant: simple melodies to which the musical accompaniment is absolutely subordinate; in this sense z. B. the above songs. It should be noted that the musical ideal of the art music of the time (the music of the classical period ), as u. a. Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach proposed, no longer represents a fundamental contrast to the sought-after “folk tone”, so the spheres of art music and folk music could seemingly merge into one another without any problems.
The entire legacy of German folk songs, however, is a mixture of songs of well-known authorship and those that are given as traditional tunes from a particular region; some go back to times before the 18th century, which can be clearly seen in the musical sentence: Innsbruck, I have to let you (after Heinrich Isaac , 16th century), a 'dark cloud is entering (handwriting of the monastery Seeon, 17th century), and in the snow mountains (from the Glatzer Bergland and Silesia ). Such are z. B. Quoted very often from the Georg Forsters collection (see above). In particular, the children's play songs ( Golden Bridge , Who wants to see hardworking craftsmen , All my ducklings, etc.), which are still known today, are mostly of unexplained origin.
The history of the origins of the three well-known songs The moon has risen , I don't know what it is supposed to mean and Am Brunnen vor dem Tore , which, like countless others, sprang from the pen of educated poets and composers, refute the romantic notion of one anonymous collective folk song production. Instead, besides the lyricists and composers who are often known by name, the people are the third party in the league when it comes to folk songs. It carries the active handing down, cultivation and further development of the songs. Songs are "broken up" by the people, that is, the text and melody are developed into variants. Herder admires this connection in consciousness: “Nothing in the world has more jumps and bold throws than the songs of the people!” (Quote from: Voices of the peoples in songs ). The Germanist, folk song researcher and later founder of the German folk song archive John Meier also scientifically refuted this romantic theory of anonymous collective folk song production in 1906 (J. Meier: Kunstlieder im Volksmund , Halle 1906). Folksong means above all that it happens in the people - regardless of who it was at the beginning.
Industrial revolution
Under the influence of the industrial revolution that began in 1850 with its rapid social change, the maintenance and transmission of the folk song initially dried up. The folk song collections from Ludwig Erk and Franz Magnus Böhme Deutscher Liederhort (3 volumes 1893–1894) to Louis Pinck's Verklingende Weisen (4 volumes 1926–1940, vol. 5 1963), now also in notation, often implicitly pointed in the title to the advancing decline - and the process of dissolution in the handing down of the songs. These more scientifically oriented works were juxtaposed with collections that served entertainment and edification, such as German folk songs with their original tunes (Berlin 1838/1841; 2 volumes) by Andreas Kretzschmer and Anton Wilhelm von Zuccalmaglio . These two authors very cleverly changed texts and melodies in line with the taste of the time or added different songs to new song units (e.g. No beautiful country , word and manner of Zuccalmaglio after the old folk songs Ade, my darling, I have to go now and I cannot and do not like to be happy ).
Early 20th century
The various singing movements of the 20th century are hardly any more musical practices that are “authentically drawn from the people”, but rather a romantic-nostalgic recourse to a repertoire that has long been handed down in song books and hardly any reference to Represents the reality of life.
The folk song repertoire was enriched from the 19th century by workers' and student songs as well as by patriotic chants. The Internationale (Pottier / Degeyter, 19th century), for example, became the song of the labor movement all over the world. In 1914, the German scholar and folklorist John Meier (1864-1953) in Freiburg, the German Volksliedarchiv - until today the central collection point for the maintenance and documentation of the German folk song. The booming association system , which began in the late 19th century, is also important for a “renaissance” of folk songs . Particularly noteworthy is the Wandervogel movement of the early 20th century, with its adventurous, romantic flair of a wandering youth, discovering their homeland, who singing, wandering through the woods and meadows, with a hiking club in hand. Through the Bündische Jugend she was able to connect to the ethnic movement .
Hans Breuer first published the song book of the "Wandering Birds" in 1909 with the Zupfgeigenhansl . Until 1933, this songbook was always reissued and printed in editions of well over a million copies. It should be emphasized that Der Zupfgeigenhansl reproduces a wide range of songs. After the First World War, the efforts of this movement initially collapsed. Soon afterwards, however, Fritz Jöde in northern Germany and Walther Hensel in southern Germany promoted new principles with their singing movements within the framework of the youth and youth music movement :
- The youth should find each other again through singing.
- Making music is better than listening to music.
- Germany (probably all German-speaking countries are meant) should become a singing country again.
“What is the old, classic folk song? It is the song of the whole, self-contained person, that strong person who still carried all forms and possibilities of development within himself, who only needed to sing from the heart to become the heartbreaker of the whole people. This type of person still lives today, outside in the quiet corners of the country, but creating them anew is humanly impossible, impossible, since all progress of our time is based on a sacrifice, as it were, of the whole, full life, on a defiant leap into the half-life of the special professional and specialist. "
Thus the treasure was to ride songs dominated the youth movement, while, conversely, the typical youth moved singing style influenced our view of the typical folk song.
National Socialism
In 1933 these singing movements were brought into line by the new rulers in Germany with National Socialist organizations such as the Reichsbund Volkstum und Heimat and music schools for youth and people. National Socialism pushed the youth music movement into twilight. Leading personalities such as Jöde, Hensel or the publisher of the Bundische Jugend , Günther Wolff (Verlag Günther Wolff, Plauen) were persecuted. Song collections such as B. The Brummtopf, with its sometimes very crude songs, were eloquent testimony to the forced militaristic orientation of (male) youth. Other members saw the time had come to implement their musical goals on a broad front. The above-mentioned principles of the youth music movement, in their vague articulation, were not protected from abuse and corruption. Especially the accompanying words of Hans Breuer about Zupfgeigenhansl did not make it difficult for the Hitler Youth to see the 'Wandering Birds' as a forerunner of themselves. This twelve-year political appropriation of the youth music movement was a major cause of the later prejudice of some towards common singing in general and towards the German folk song in particular. Franz Josef Degenhardt once aptly described it: “Our songs, our old songs, are dead. Teachers bit them, Kurzbehoste clenched them, screamed brown hordes to death, stamped boots in the dirt. "
Since 1945
After 1945 there was a clear preference for foreign folk songs among music teachers. One did not want to simply get involved in the German folk song, which was ideologically instrumentalized by the National Socialists. In the circle of friends and family, the German folk songs from the 19th century continued to be cultivated largely unnoticed by the public and musicology.
From the 1960s onwards, the protest movement in the Federal Republic of Germany manifested itself in the Anglo-American folk song movement , including protest songs ( Bob Dylan , Pete Seeger , Joan Baez and others), which were often designed with new German verses and texts. In addition to their roots in American folk music tradition and the civil rights movement (Civil rights movement), this movement also built on the foundations of the German youth music movement.
In addition, the songs of the German labor movement were rediscovered and interpreted. The groups Zupfgeigenhansel and Hein & Oss as well as the songwriters Hannes Wader , Franz Josef Degenhardt and Peter Rohland were German representatives of this direction. Rohland was one of the first German folk singers to also perform German songs. He presented democratic songs from the two-volume collection of German folk songs of a democratic character from six centuries published in the GDR by Wolfgang Steinitz .
The folk song movement and the appropriation of European folk songs have placed the folk song culture in Germany on a much broader foundation. To this day, the Klingende Brücke, founded by Josef Gregor in Essen in 1949, has worked on melody, text (in the original language) and the respective cultural background of folk songs in all European languages in its international song singing studios.
A modern adaptation of folk songs first took place at Alpenrock . The Neofolk movement, which comes from the Anglo-Saxon-speaking area , has also found supporters in Germany since the 1990s. There are points of contact with the scene of medieval rock . It is characterized by the turn to acoustic instruments and often historical texts. For the proximity of some Neofolk bands to the New Right and right-wing extremism, see the article Neofolk .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Michael Fischer: A Brief History of the Folk Song Idea. S. 2 ff., In SWR (Ed.): Volkslieder , ab. 5th November 2010
- ↑ Johannes Moser: Approaches to a Newer Folk Song Research (PDF; 1.0 MB) , 1989, p. 69.
- ↑ Herzilein, you can be sad , Hellmuth Vensky in: ZEIT Online , March 10, 2011
- ^ Tibbe, Bonson: Folk, Folklore, Folksong . Stuttgart, 1981
Folk song literature
- Rolf Wilhelm Brednich , Lutz Röhrich , Wolfgang Suppan: Handbuch des Volksliedes. Munich 1973/1975
- Werner Danckert: The folk song in the West. Francke, Bern 1966
- Werner Danckert: The European folk song. Bouvier, Bonn 1970.
- Werner Danckert: Symbol, metaphor, allegory in the song of the peoples. 4 parts. Publishing house for systematic musicology, Bonn-Bad Godesberg 1976–1978.
- Ernst Klusen : folk song. Find and Invention. Gerig, Cologne 1969.
- Ernst Klusen: On the situation of singing in the Federal Republic of Germany. Gerig, Cologne 1974/1975.
- Joseph Müller-Blattau : The German folk song. Hesse, Berlin 1932.
- Wolfgang Suppan: Folk Song - His Collection and Research. Metzler, Stuttgart 1978.
- Wolfgang Suppan (et al.): Folk song, folk music, folk dance. In: MGG 1
- Monika Tibbe, Manfred Bonson: Folk, Folklore, Volkslied: On the situation of domestic and foreign folk music in the Federal Republic. Stuttgart, 1981.
Song collections
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See also: List of Folk Songs
- Achim von Arnim , Clemens Brentano : Des Knaben Wunderhorn . 1806/1808.
- Andreas Kretzschmer , Anton Wilhelm von Zuccalmaglio : German folk songs with their original ways. 2 volumes. Berlin 1838/1841.
- Rochus Freiherr von Liliencron : The historical folk songs of the Germans from the 13th to the 16th century. 5 volumes. Leipzig 1865–1869, reprogr. Reprinted in 1966.
- Ludwig Erk , Franz Magnus Böhme : German song library . Leipzig 1893/1894.
- August Linder: Deutsche Weisen - The most popular folk and spiritual songs for piano (with text), approx. 1900 ( online ).
- Hans Breuer (Ed.): The Zupfgeigenhansl . Melody output with chords. Reprint of the 10th edition, Leipzig 1913 (ED 3586). Schott, Mainz 1983, ISBN 3-7957-4002-9 .
- Bertold Marohl , Der neue Zupfgeigenhansl , 121 young songs with texts, melodies, chord numbering and a fingering chart for guitar. - Mainz (inter alia), Schott 1983 ISBN 978-3-7957-2062-9
- Klemens Neumann , The Spielmann song book for youth and people , Matthias Grünewald Verlag Mainz; First edition 1914 [(Catholic) Quickborn Movement], many (extended) new publications, definitely up to 1976
- Fritz Sotke , Our Songs A song book for the wandering youth ; Sauerland Verlag, Iserlohn, first edition 1921. [Sotke (1902-1970), German national writer, became Hitler Youth leader; after 1933 Nazi songs added, socialist removed, subtitles removed. Cf Victor Klemperer : LTI - notebook of a philologist , Leipzig 1946, p. 304; (also Aufbau Verlag, Berlin 1947, and later prints)]
- Hermann Böse , the folk song for home and hike ; Arbeiterjugend Verlag Berlin, first edition 1922, others in 1923, 1927.
- Louis Pinck : Fading Sages. Lothringischer Verlags- und Hilfsverein, Metz 1926 (vol. 1).
- Hermann Peter Gehricke , Hugo Moser , Alfred Quellmalz , Karl Vötterle , Brother Singer, songs of our people ; Bärenreiter edition 1250, Kassel 1951 (101-120th thousand); 1974 reworked
- Heiner Wolf , Our happy companion, A songbook for every day , Möseler Verlag Wolfenbüttel \ Voggenreiter Verlag Bad Godesberg, 1955, new prints up to 1964 anyway
- Josef Gregor, Friedrich Klausmeier, Egon Kraus: European songs in the original languages. Volume 1: The Romance and Germanic languages, Berlin 1957.
- Ernst Klusen : Das Mühlrad, A song book from home , Kempen \ Niederrhein 1966
- Ernst Klusen : Folk songs from 500 years - texts and sheet music with accompanying chords. Fischer, Frankfurt 1978.
- Ernst Klusen : German songs. Texts and melodies. Insel, Frankfurt / M. 1980, ISBN 3-458-04855-2 .
- Theo Mang, Sunhilt Mang (ed.): The song source . Noetzel, Wilhelmshaven 2007, ISBN 978-3-7959-0850-8 . .
- Heinz Rölleke (Ed.): The folk song book . Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1993, ISBN 3-462-02294-6 .
- Willy Schneider: Deutsche Weisen - The most popular folk songs for piano with text. Lausch & Zweigle, Stuttgart 1958.
- Wolfgang Steinitz : German folk songs of a democratic character from 6 centuries. 2 volumes., Berlin 1953, 1956.
- Klingende Brücke: Song atlas of European languages from the Klingende Brücke. Volume 1: Bonn 2001, Volume 2: Bonn 2002, Volume 3: Bonn 2003, Volume 4: Bonn 2006
