Come on, dear Mai, and do it

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Children playing in nature (anonymous, late 18th century)

Come on, dear May, and do it is a German song by Christian Adolph Overbeck (text) and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (music). Along with Franz Schubert's Am Brunnen vor dem Tore and Johannes Brahms ' Guten Abend, gut' Nacht, it is one of the rare examples of art songs that have become real folk songs thanks to their wide reception .

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Christian Adolph Overbeck

The song is about a child who wants spring with the opportunity to play outdoors. It is often referred to as the spring song. Folk song researchers, on the other hand, point out that it is actually a winter song and is in the tradition of medieval songs that express the longing for the first violet. The text was written by the poet, lawyer and later mayor of Lübeck, Christian Adolph Overbeck . It was first published in the Vossischer Musenalmanach for 1776 under the title Fritzchen an den May . Overbeck wrote a number of “Fritzchen” poems, which appeared in 1781 as Fritzchen's songs . However, the author marked some songs, including the one now called An den May , as not exemplary for children and only suitable for the enjoyment of adults. A modified version of the text with the title Longing for Spring , in which the second and third stanzas in particular were completely rewritten, was published by Joachim Heinrich Campe in his Small Children's Library (1779 ff.). Overbeck was not named as the author of this publication. It is not known whether the text changes were made by him or at least authorized by him. In any case, Overbeck himself only published the poem later in the original version. Mozart, who owned a copy of the second edition, used the version from Campe 's children's library as the basis for his setting.

Dubbing

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

The best-known setting of the text was created by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart under the title Sehnsucht nach dem Frühling ( KV 596). Mozart composed the song together with Der Frühling (KV 597) and Das Kinderspiel (KV 598) on January 14, 1791, as can be seen from his personal catalog raisonné. The three songs appeared in the song collection for children and child friends on the piano by the publisher Ignaz Alberti .

The motif of the melody borrowed from Mozart to the theme of the final movement of his few days earlier completed piano concerto no. 27 in B flat major (K. 595). The work is a song for voice and piano, with the right hand of the piano accompaniment being identical to the melody of the voice. The composition is kept in folksong-like simplicity, the singing voice moves mainly in triad breaks. The composer's handling of the alternating female and male endings of the three-part iamb of the text is particularly appealing. The song is originally in F major .

Further settings of the text come from GHL Wittrock (1777), Marie Adelheid Eichner (1780), Johann Friedrich Reichardt (1781), Gotthelf Benjamin Flaschner (1789), Franz Seydelmann (1790), Wilhelm Baumgartner (1848) and Robert Schumann ( Mailied , op. 79,9; 1849). None achieved the popularity and dissemination of Mozart's song.

reception

The song was already featured in many song books in the 19th century. In Prussia, before the First World War , the song was one of the compulsory subject matter of the fourth grade. The German Folk Song Archives found that interest in the song waned during the youth movement and at the time of National Socialism . Since the post-war period, however, it has once again been part of the standard repertoire of German-language folk song books.

text

melody
Original text Version set to music by Mozart

Fritz to May.

Come on, dear May, and make
the trees green again,
And let the
little violets bloom for me on the brook !
How would I like to see
a little flower again!
Oh, dear May! how happy to go for
a walk!

In our nursery
the time will be so long for me!
Soon I'll
be sick of impatience, poor boy !
Oh with the short days
I have to struggle upstairs
with the vocabulary,
And always be diligent!

My new hobbyhorse
must now stand in the corner;
Because outside in the little garden
you can't go because of the snow.
It's too narrow in the room,
and it's dusting too much,
and Mama is strict,
she scolds child's play.

Most of all, however,
Fiekchens Herzeleid endures me!
The poor girl is waiting
for the flower season too!
For free I bring her little game
to pass the time;
She sits in her little chair
and looks at me pitifully.

Oh! if only it were milder
and greener outside!
Come on, dear May! We children,
we ask too much!
Oh come and bring
many roses before all of Us!
Bring lots of nightingales, too,
and nice kukuks!

Longing for spring

Come, dear May, and make
the trees green again,
and let
the little violets bloom for me by the brook !
How would I like to see
a violet again!
Oh, dear May, how much
I love to go for a walk!

It is true that winter days also have
many joys;
one can trot in the snow
and play many an evening game;
builds little houses from cards,
plays blind man's buff and pawns,
and there are probably sleigh rides
on the lovely open country.

But when the birds are singing
and we
jump happily and quickly on the green lawn,
that is a different matter!
Now my hobbyhorse has
to stand there in the corner,
because outside in the little garden
you can't walk because of the excrement.

Most of all, however,
Lottchen's heartache lasts me.
The poor girl is
waiting for the flower season.
For free I bring her little game
to
pass the time: she sits in her little chair
like a chicken on an egg.

Oh, if only it were milder
and greener outside!
Come on, dear May, we children,
we are asking too much!
Oh come and bring
many violets , especially for us!
Also bring lots of nightingales
and beautiful cuckoos!

Translations

Translated into Danish as "Kom, maj, du søde, milde ..." (source: "Overbeck 1776"; Danish translation unmarked) in the hymn book of the Danish Folk Higher Education Movement, Højskolesangbogen , 18th edition, Copenhagen 2006, no. 292 and (in German without melody) No. 293.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Heinz Rölleke (Ed.): The folk song book . Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1993, ISBN 3-462-02294-6 , pp.  141 .
  2. ↑ a b c Frauke Schmitz-Gropengießer: Come, dear May and do (2009). In: Popular and Traditional Songs. Historical-critical song lexicon of the German Folk Song Archive
  3. ↑ a b Text version from the Musenalmanach 1776 with scan of the edition template in the historical-critical song dictionary
  4. ↑ a b Christian Adolph Overbeck: Fritzchens Lieder . New edition. Hamburg, Campe 1831 ( archive.org ).
  5. ^ Christian Adolph Overbeck: Collection of mixed poems. Bohn, Lübeck / Leipzig 1794, p. 195 ff. ( Digitized in the Google book search)
  6. ↑ a b c Longing for Spring KV 596 : Score and critical report in the New Mozart Edition
  7. ^ A b Ludwig von Köchel : Chronological-thematic directory of all of Wolfgang Amadé Mozart's music works. 6th edition edited by Franz Giegling, Alexander Weinmann and Gerd Sievers . Breitkopf & Härtel, Wiesbaden 1964, p. 683 f.
  8. ↑ Joachim Steinheuer: The songs, polyphonic chants, canons and arias. In: Silke Leopold u. a .: Mozart manual. Bärenreiter, Kassel 2005, ISBN 3-7618-2021-6 , pp. 631–673, here pp. 642 f.
  9. ↑ Come on, dear May, and do an archive at The LiederNet
  10. ↑ Information on Come, dear May on Volksliederarchiv.de
  11. ↑ List of songs to be taught in elementary schools . ( Memento of the original from March 20, 2014 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. In: Zentralblatt for the entire teaching administration in Prussia , year 1912, pp. 623–626; on Volksliederarchiv.de @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.volksliederarchiv.de
  12. ↑ Ostensibly not excrement, but the original meaning clay. See meaning change , Kot # terms and designations and Kot ( Wiktionary )!
  13. ↑ Cf. Otto Holzapfel : Lied index: The older German-language popular song tradition ( online version on the Volksmusikarchiv homepage of the Upper Bavaria district ; in PDF format; ongoing updates) with further information.