Cat music

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Katzenmusik (Original title: Charivari ; lithograph by Grandville )

As caterwauling unusual music or noise music is understood that usually consists of a jumble blades different sounds and noises. The word derives from the loud, haunted and melodious cries of cats in heat . In terms of onomatopoeia , such music is called Charivari (or: Chalivali , Schaalwari , Scharewari ).

Drums, pipes, animal horns, bells, bells, ratchets, whips, flails, tin buckets or pot lids are among the preferred noise instruments for cat music in customs or at political rallies. This can generate deafening noise and disturbances in protest.

The term is used more generally pejoratively to express the recipient's displeasure with a piece of music or a musical style.

History and origin

In the customs of indigenous peoples as well as the older and younger high cultures , music has a regulating power in society. While certain forms of singing and instrumental music as well as certain musical instruments and sounds ("keys") can have constructive effects on the development of the coexistence of a society (see: Confucius , Plato , al-Farabi , Boëthius ), cat music is used within a community to publicize and denounce conditions or actions perceived as grievances and breaches of norms . One of the most important tasks consisted of a complaint court function, which - without a legal basis - supplemented the law. Insofar as it was related to Mardi Gras and Carnival, the execution was often associated with comedy. However, it sometimes had lasting consequences for the reprimanded. Such cat music was carried out by publicly annoying the person to be disciplined in the form of noise elevators and mocking songs. In addition, there could be siege of the house, corporal punishment, soiling the door, smashing windows, destroying the stove or roof, or even expelling and ostracizing those affected. The phrase "climb on the roof" comes from this medieval use of the word.

In 1665 Johannes Praetorius (aka Steffen Läusepeltzen ) told in his work A Thorough Report Vom Schnackischer Katzen-Veite of the Katzenmusicke , which was brought to honor a Saukoche .

regional customs

Haberfeldtreib , drawing by Oskar Gräf, 1895
Rough music, an English equivalent ; 1832
Gragger for Purim

Such measures were used, for example, with persons accused of adultery, widows who remarried before the end of the year of mourning , other unpopular persons and associations of persons ( religious orders ) or later with hated politicians or organizations.

The charivari , which originated in France in the Middle Ages and was offered to a widow who remarried, consisted of a wild clamor and obscene songs being sung. The couple usually had to get rid of this by paying a ransom. Since this often led to blackmail , the Council of Tours (1163) forbade the performance of cat music under threat of excommunication . Nonetheless, this custom survived into the 19th century, especially in rural areas.

This custom was also known in other countries, for example in Spain under the name of Concerrada . In England, in particular, the conclusion of an unsuitable marriage, especially if there was a great inequality of age, was denounced with rough music . In Italy the scamplana was offered to quarreling couples .

Among the various forms in German territory, in student traditions are also partly to find as in modifications still in (Alpine) Customs belong rumble , Haberfeldtreiben , Krampus parades and some noise pleasure during carnival, carnival or carnival . In the Swiss- Alemannic region and in Vorarlberg comes Guggenmusik to a similar role. Every year at Mardi Gras there is a parade of the shirt-bellies in Constance , during which the pupils perform cozy cat music to their teachers while singing the popular songs. Even at the hen party there are sometimes echoes of cat music.

In Judaism there is a kind of cat music for the Purim festival . During the reading of the Book of Esther , when the name Haman is mentioned, children make a noise with a snore ( Yiddish gragger ) as well as shouting, drumming and knocking.

Funds for political rallies

In the first half of the 19th century, cat music became a catchphrase for political demonstrations . For example, Karl August Varnhagen von Ense wrote about King Ernst August I of Hanover : “People generally speak of him with bitter contempt and in public places people have uttered harsh curses against him without shyness: 'You should throw the windows in him Bring pereat with cat music! '"

In Swabia in particular, women from the lower classes without rights used cat music to draw attention to grievances and despair. For example, on May 1, 1847, they protested in front of the bakeries in Ulm with cat music against the constant rise in the price of flour and bread. One day later, cat music was also played in Stuttgart; At the so-called Stuttgart bread riot, the Stuttgart Wengert women from the Bohnenviertel voiced their protest.

Cat music was particularly widespread as part of the rallies in the revolutionary year 1848 in the big cities. In Berlin , “cat musicians” demanded: “Of the great achievements of the revolution, we, strollers, were only thrown the costly smoke-free crumbs, while the citizens claim the beautiful, sublime right: to make noise for themselves [...]. “With leaflets in general or with wall notices specifically to stop cat music during the deliberations of Parliament. On May 27, 1848, nocturnal cat music was banned under threat of six weeks' imprisonment.

There was also a lot of cat music in Vienna : “[…] the Viennese […] don't want to hear any Italian opera this year, […] don't want any other music than - cat music. You don't even believe what cat music we are consuming now. "

Term in classical music

Since the baroque period, Charivari has been a stylistic device for Western composers to describe disorder and the terrible, which is usually characterized by conspicuous dissonances or melody steps.

Works by avant-garde composers of the 19th and 20th centuries, including jazz music, were also insulted as cat music or charivari .

Examples from literature and music

regional customs

Ferdinand Gregorovius : Years of Wandering in Italy . Chapter 48: From the Campagna of Rome (1858).

On this occasion I will not forget a strange custom of Lazio. One evening a strange, ear-splitting din arose in the town square from all sorts of indefinable instruments; I stepped out and found Genazzano's young and old gathered in front of a house where they appeared to be playing cat music. Never, not even at German universities, did one hear a more brilliantly invented disharmony of instruments. For these uttered dreadful tones from the arched sea shell, those from the cow horn, those rattled with winemaker's knives, spades, and iron pans; the latter held a bundle of all sorts of iron things by a thread, which he shook mightily, and the latter rattled over the pavement with an old saucepan, which he dragged back and forth in a semicircle on a rope. Their ten or twelve rang cowbells in the most enjoyable way. 'Says', I asked a gentleman, who was laughing and listening to the noisy crowd, 'what does this strange being mean?' 'In that house there,' he replied, 'there lives a widower who has just married - they bring him the scampanellata.' This is the rather barbaric usage of the ringing of cow bells. In all of Lazio there is this old custom of bringing cat music to a married couple, one or the other of which was previously widowed, for three evenings in front of the house. And so they did it three times in Genazzano, when they marched through the town after the infernal spectacle had been completed, carrying a jack-o'-lantern on a pole; the procession continued this hellish music through all the streets undisturbed, as if a crowd of demons were wandering through this peaceful town, swarming through the night .

Georg Queri : On the history of the Haberfeldtreibens . In: Bauerotik and Bauernfehme in Upper Bavaria (1911).

The main thing is the final act, where the partners then make a hell of a racket with rattling windmills, chains, cow bells and whips or organize cat music and charivari. With this name and memory are branded and the nuisance giver is excluded from the honest society .

politics

Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach : Bozena (1875).

The revolution, however, went unstoppable. Mob riots in Vienna, civil war in Hungary, the October days, the departure of the imperial family to Olomouc, the desertion of the Czechs from the Reichstag and - parallel to these events: in Weinberg - planting a black and yellow flag on the Heißenstein house and cat music in front of the same ...

Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall : Memories from my life . The year 1848 (1940).

On the evening of May 3rd, Canning was with Ficquelmont in the State Chancellery when he was brought to a great cat music; it was a great mistake on the part of Ficquelmont to promise his abdication to this huddled rabble.

Adolf Glaßbrenner : Funny folk calendar for 1849 .

Yesterday the people showed me their hatred by playing cat music .

Johann Nestroy : Freedom in Krähwinkel (1848).

Cat music, this first spring lark of freedom, swirls in the air, soon the seeds will be in full bloom . (First act, tenth appearance).
Today we have a meeting, tomorrow cat music, the next day a fraternization party ... (Third act, first appearance).

Wilhelm Langewiesche: Wolf's stories about a town house. Second book: Before Bismarck's rise (1919).

Whereupon to the conclusion of the whole thing, a cat's music began, a hell of a noise that could be heard for hours: kettles and pans, drums and trumpets, rattles and creaking, whatever noise was set in motion, howled and shouted, whistled and whistled with all physical strength screeched and shot from a few hundred rifles - he didn't think any worse din was possible on this planet .

August Bebel : From my life (second part; 1911).

A few days later, a number of students gave me a similar ovation. Cat music should come along with the window throw.

Paul Schreckenbach : The von Wintzingerode (1905).

[…] The people had pulled in front of the pen, first they sang angry songs and played horrible cat music, then they threw all sorts of old dishes, finally heavy stones at the door and window, and it would certainly turn into a storm to have come to the house if the council had not finally managed to calm the indignant people .

Karl Kraus : The torch . 1st volume, H. 3, p. 12 (1899).

Undeterred, however, from the tangled mess of this artfully orchestrated cacophony, slowly and solemnly taking place for months the mass transfer of the six German national MPs ... .

Ludwig Thoma : Andreas Vöst (1906).

In Giebing the young boys lined up in front of the polling station and brought cat music to every supporter of the dean Metz .

Georg Weerth : Sketches from the social and political life of the British (1849).

And the violated and vilified cats will attack the fashionable tomcats and will bring them a music that will make them stop hungover, and the cats will meow: 'Now we rule!'

music

Hector Berlioz :

The opera composer "D" (presumably Gilbert Duprez; 1806-1896) is called by him a realist who "wrote a charivari in choir and orchestra with constant dissonances" in order to depict "the mockery of a prisoner by Jewish rabble".

Karl Kraus: The torch . 5th vol., H. 157, p. 21 (1904).

Kubelik concert on March 15th. Thunderous peach cries, physical threats to the visitors, attack on the Lieutenancy Vice-President's car, wounding of a Lieutenancy's adviser, stone throwing in the concert hall, cat music with stone throwing in front of the artist's apartment, Kubelik's nightly escape accompanied by the police, - declaration from the German national side, that the demonstration against the Czech violinist Jan Kubelík was not directed against the person of the artist. ' ...

Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy : Travel letters. Rome, January 17th, 1831.

The orchestras are worse than you might think; there is actually a lack of musicians and a right sense of purpose. The pair of violinists each work in their own way, each employing them differently; the wind instruments are tuning too high or low; decorate their middle voices as we are used to hearing in the courts, and hardly as well; the whole thing forms true cat music, and these are compositions that you know .

Johann Strauss (son) : Liguorian sigh , joke polka op.57 .

The composer tries to musically represent the noise of cat music including the sound of clinking windows. The title refers to the cat music held on April 7, 1848, with which the unpopular Redemptorists - the "Liguorians" - were forced out of Vienna.

Ludwig Tieck : Musical sorrows and joys (1823).

Since I played the length and brevity of the notes, their deviation in minor and everything that makes up the music, without any understanding, only from memory (because I only knew the note in itself as it stood on the line, and nothing further), since I had no hearing at all, I wielded the bow badly and was often wrong with my fingerings, it is easy to understand what kind of Charivari I produced. My master, who was really skilled at the game, complained about his ears every hour. As often as I put the violin under my chin, I suffered from the pain of hell. These snarling, whistling, mauzen and girring were unbearable to me; Even the best violinist, when heard too closely, has a secondary note, the strongly bowed string, especially in the applique, sometimes crosses one another, but with me almost only the most hideous discrepancies emerged .

Jakob Wassermann : The Goose Man (1915).

The main pleasure had been watching the composer conduct. [...] The old Count Schlemm-Nottheim, [...] declared that the unison of all the show booth instruments at the fair is a musical revelation against such cat music ...

See also

literature

  • Henry Kahane , Renée Kahane : Charivari. In: The Jewish Quarterly Review. NS vol. 52, no. 4, 1962, ISSN  0021-6682 , pp. 289-296.
  • Martin Vogel : Onos Lyras. The donkey with the lyre (= Orpheus series of publications on fundamental issues in music. Vol. 13-14, ZDB -ID 509106-8 ). 2 volumes. Publishing house of the Society for the Promotion of Systematic Musicology, Düsseldorf 1973.
  • Friedrich Geiger: "Cat Music". For the aesthetic experience of compositional innovation. In: Gert Mattenklott (Hrsg.): Aesthetic experience under the sign of the dissolution of boundaries of the arts. Epistemic, aesthetic and religious forms of experience in comparison (= magazine for aesthetics and general art history. Special issue 4). Meiner, Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-7873-1698-1 , pp. 155-175.
  • Regina Hackl: Freedom - starting or arrival point: the cat music as a political and social form of protest and demonstration in the Vienna Revolution of 1848 . Vienna, Univ., Dipl.-Arb. 1987 Link at ÖNB
Entries in lexicons

Web links

Wiktionary: Katzenmusik  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Wolfgang Suppan: The music-making man. An anthropology of music . Schott, Mainz 1984, ISBN 3-7957-1709-4 .
  2. ↑ Werner Röcke: Life as a production. “Cultures of the Performative” and modern Medieval Studies.
  3. ↑ Johannes Praetoris (Steffen Läusepeltzen): A thorough report from Schnackischer Katzen-Veite. Retrieved November 1, 2017 .
  4. ↑ Johannes Praetorius (actually: Hans Schulz also: Petrus Hilarius, Steffen Läusepeltz, ...). Retrieved May 7, 2020 .
  5. ↑ Daily news. (...) A cat music. In:  Deutsche Zeitung , Abendblatt, No. 93/1872, April 5, 1872, p. 2, bottom left. (Online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / dzg.
  6. ↑ Sholem Alejchem: A wedding without musicians . (Explanations of Yiddish words).
  7. ^ Karl August Varnhagen von Ense: Diaries . 1.92; Entry for May 13, 1838.
  8. ↑ a b Jürgen Kaiser: Why Swabians can do everything - if they want. Historical forays into Swabia . Evangelical Community Press, 2005, ISBN 978-3-920207-12-4 , pages 13 to 14.
  9. ^ Petition by the Berlin cat musicians, 1848
  10. ↑ "A doggie who disturbs the calm again from today!"
  11. ↑ To the citizens and residents of Berlin
  12. ^ Announcement of the Major General von Aschoff and the Police President von Minutoli
  13. ↑ From Vienna. [...] Cat music and ministerial speeches . In: The border messengers . Journal for politics, literature and art . Year 1848 (VII. Year), I. semester, II. Volume 2. Deutscher Verlag, Berlin 1848, p. 77. - Online .
  14. ^ Ferdinand Gregorovius : Years of Wandering in Italy in the Gutenberg-DE project
  15. ^ Georg Queri : Farmer's eroticism and peasant company in Upper Bavaria in the Gutenberg-DE project
  16. ^ Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach : Bozena in the Gutenberg-DE project
  17. ↑ Reference at zeno.org (accessed on November 9, 2012)
  18. ↑ Adolf Glaßbrenner : Komischer Volkskalender for 1849 in the Gutenberg-DE project
  19. ↑ reference for I / 10 and reference for III / 1 , both at zeno.org (accessed on November 9, 2012)
  20. ^ Wilhelm Langewiesche : Wolf's stories about a town house. Second book: Before Bismarck's rise in the Gutenberg-DE project
  21. ↑ August Bebel : From my life (second part) in the Gutenberg-DE project
  22. ↑ Paul Schreckenbach : The von Wintzingerode in the Gutenberg-DE project
  23. ↑ Reference at zeno.org (accessed on November 9, 2012)
  24. ^ Georg Weerth : Sketches from the social and political life of the British in the Gutenberg-DE project
  25. ↑ Music in the past and present
  26. ^ Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy : Travel letters in the Gutenberg-DE project
  27. ^ Ludwig Tieck : Musical sorrows and joys in the Gutenberg-DE project
  28. ↑ Reference at zeno.org (accessed on November 9, 2012)