It's a reaper

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It is a reaper, called death , also called Der Schnitter Tod or simply Schnitterlied , is a German folk song of the 17th century, the author of which is unknown.

Illustrated song pamphlet (ca.1660)

The poem addresses the death depicted as a reaper ( grim reaper ) and the transience of people. The six-verse version of the song reproduced below was titled "Erndtelied. Katholisches Kirchenlied ”in Des Knaben Wunderhorn . As with all folk songs, the length of the text varies in the various traditional versions, with the middle section with the stanzas about individual flowers being more or less extensive. A version from 1640 has 80 stanzas.

background

The earliest surviving witness is a pamphlet: “A beautiful Mayan song, How the man reaper of death removes flowers without differing gehling. Everyone young and old very useful to sing and look at. Printed in 1638. “The surviving copy bears the handwritten title“ Schnitterlied, sung zue Regenspurg because a noble young flower accidentally broken off in Jenner 1637, composed in 1637 ”; the text there has a length of 16 stanzas. The song also entered Catholic hymn books of the 17th and 18th centuries, especially the hymn books of Martin von Cochem and the Geistliche Psalterlein PP Societatis Jesu, in which the most exquisite old and new church and house chants ... is composed ( 1668 and so on). The text is also known under various other titles ( Der Schnitter Tod , Harvest Song ). Johann Wolfgang von Goethe remarked in his review of Des Knaben Wunderhorn about the song: “Catholic church death song. Deserved to be Protestant. "

text

Text version from Des Knaben Wunderhorn

It is a reaper, his name is death,
Has power from the highest God,
Today he sharpens the knife,
It cuts much better
Soon he will cut it,
We just have to suffer.
Take care, pretty little flower!

What is still green and fresh today
will be mowed away tomorrow:
the noble daffodils,
the ornaments of the meadows,
the beautiful hyacinths,
the Turkish armbands.
Take care, pretty little flower!

Many hundreds of thousands,
which only falls under the sickle:
You roses, you Liljen, he
will wipe out your
emperor's crowns, too,
He will not spare.
Take care, pretty little flower!

The
sky-colored speedwell , The tulip trees yellow and white,
The silver bells,
The golden flakes,
Lower everything to earth,
What will become of it?
Take care, pretty little flower!

You pretty lavender, rosemary,
you multi-colored roses,
you proud irises,
you curly basilies,
you tender violas,
you will soon be fetched.
Take care, pretty little flower!

In spite of! Death, come here, I'm not afraid of you,
defiance, so hurry in one cut.
If I only get hurt,
I will be transported to
the heavenly garden, for
which we are all waiting.
Rejoice you beautiful little flower.

Alternative versions

Clemens Brentano has quoted the song repeatedly in his works, first in the second part of his novel Godwi (1802), and finally in a fourteen-stanza long, heavily edited poetry, which in his late work Gockel, Hinkel und Gackeleia (1838), more precisely in its third Part, the ancestor's diary , appeared.

With the publication of the Schnitterlied in the first volume of the Des Knaben Wunderhorn collection edited by Ludwig Achim von Arnim and Brentano (1806), the lyrics of the song became known in wider circles in the 19th century.

The quotations of the song in the works of Georg Büchner , Joseph von Eichendorff and Alfred Döblin and the numerous settings of the 19th century also go back to the Wunderhorn .

Anonymous Wunderhorn Brentano

It is a reaper, is called death,
has authority from the great god.
Today he's sharpening the knife,
it's going a lot better,
soon he'll cut it,
we'll just have to suffer.
Beware, pretty little flower!

It is a reaper, his name is death,
Has power from the highest God,
Today he whets the knife,
It cuts much better,
Soon he will cut it,
We just have to suffer.
Take care, pretty little flower!

It is a reaper whose name is death,
He mows the grain when God commands;
He's already sharpening the scythe,
So that it shines when it cuts,
Soon he will cut
you, you just have to suffer;
Must go into the harvest wreath,
beware of beautiful little flowers!

Settings

Edits

  • Johannes Brahms , Fourteen German Folk Songs, No. 13, WoO 34 (1864)
  • Karl Schiske , Sonata for Violin and Piano (1943). The recapitulation of the second movement uses the song from the Thirty Years' War as a cantus firmus.
  • Johann Nepomuk David , It is a reaper, is called death (Dies Irae) , Choral work X. Booklet (1947)
  • Hugo Distler , Dance of Death op.12, 2nd motet (1934). For the second performance of the dance of death (Kassel, November 1934), Distler also composed short variations of the song Es ist ein Schnitter, is called Death for flute solo, which have since been partially performed, inserted between spoken and sung verse.
  • Herbert Collum wrote in 1944/45 under the impression of the destruction of Dresden organ variations on the folk song and called his work Totentanz .
  • The opera Dantons Tod by Gottfried von Eine and Boris Blacher , premiered in 1947, ends with this song.
  • The north German group Liederjan published an interpretation on their album Volkslieder aus der hheil Welt in 1979 .
  • Jan Koetsier , It's a reaper, his name is death. - Choral Fantasy for Tuba and Organ, op. 93 (1983)
  • Thomas Elbern , singer of the German wave band Escape with Romeo , recorded the song with his solo project Elbern under the name Schnitterlied 95 on the debut album Kalt und Elektrisch in a textually modified version.
  • The German gothic metal band Leichenwetter recorded the poem on the album last words in 2005 under the title Schnitterlied , whereby the band left out the fourth and fifth verses.
  • The German band ASP recorded a textually modified version on the double CD album Zaubererbruder - Der Krabat song cycle released in 2008 under the name Der Schnitter Tod .
  • The German folk group Bube Dame König released a version of the song on their album Traumländlein in 2015 .
  • The German black metal band Horn released the album Turm am Hang, inspired by the song, in 2017 .

reception

In their second Kommissar Kluftinger novel Erntedank (2004), Volker Klüpfel and Michael Kobr use the harvest song as a template for a series of murders. In Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Berlin Alexanderplatz from 1980, the opening verse of the song is often quoted.

swell

  • The boy's magic horn. Old German songs, collected by LA v. Arnim and Clemens Brentano , Part I, ed. v. Heinz Rölleke, Kohlhammer, Stuttgart (inter alia), 1975 (Frankfurter Brentano edition, vol. 6), p. 51f.

literature

  • Karl Bode: The processing of the templates in the Knaben Wunderhorn . Mayer & Müller, Berlin 1909 (= Palaestra; 76), pp. 381-389
  • Eginhard König, Martina Forster (ed.): Regensburger songbook. A city history in notes. Mittelbayerische Druck- und Verlagsgesellschaft, Regensburg 1989, ISBN 3-921114-82-9
  • Heinz Rölleke: Explanations, in: Des Knaben Wunderhorn. Old German songs, collected by LA v. Arnim and Clemens Brentano , Part I. Readings and Explanations, ed. v. Heinz Rölleke, Kohlhammer, Stuttgart (inter alia), 1975 (Frankfurter Brentano edition, Vol. 9/1), pp. 139-143.
  • Heinz Rölleke (Ed.): The folk song book . Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1993, ISBN 3-462-02294-6 , pp. 122 .
  • Berndt Tilp: The folk song "It is a reaper who means death" by Clemens Brentano, Georg Büchner, Joseph von Eichendorff and Alfred Döblin . In: Literatur in Bayern , H. 49 (1997), pp. 12-29.
  • Alfred Wolfsteiner, Manfred Langer, Angela Heller-Wolfsteiner: History in Songs. A journey through time through the Upper Palatinate. edition buntehunde, Regensburg 2004, ISBN 3-934941-10-9

Web links

Commons : It's a reaper, called death  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Aerndtelied  - sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Volker Klüpfel, Michael Kobr: Erntedank. Kluftinger's second case . Maximilian Dietrich Verlag, Memmingen 2004 / Piper Verlag, Munich 2006.