Song postcard

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The motif of the very first song postcard "Drham is' drham" by Anton Günther, 1895. Here in a version around 1902

Song postcards are postcards that usually contain an illustration in addition to complete song texts and music notes. Starting from the Bohemian Ore Mountains and almost parallel to Austria-Hungary and Bavaria, they gained popularity from 1895 and contributed significantly to the spread of songs.

The first song postcards

Klippl-Lied - possibly Anton Günther's first card with text and music, 1899
How dr Schnawl happens - a song postcard by and with the portrait of Anton Günther, 1911

Postcards with lines of songs appeared as early as 1895. The cards, which were mainly published in the Austro-Hungarian region, only show one stanza or the rhyme with a simplified notation. For the first time complete songs (but until 1899 without sheet music) appeared from 1895/96 in the Bohemian Ore Mountains by Anton Günther (1876–1937). He is therefore considered to be the actual founder of the song postcard, the characteristic of which is a complete text with a score.

Anton Günter, who later became a folk singer from Gottesgab , brought a whole song with five stanzas and his own monochrome lithograph on a postcard during his apprenticeship as a lithographer in Prague in 1895 with "Drham is' drham" . The first edition was 100 pieces. Günther himself called the cards the song card .

In 1898, he left with "Gros Hahner" (no. II) and "Schwammagieher" (no. III) two more cards followed with complete lyrics. Günther's first cards followed in 1899 with images, text and a simplified notation. It is unclear which card was the first with a note image. Possibly this was the "Klippl-Lied" (No. IV), but also "Da Pfeif" (No. IX) or the first version of the card "Da Uf'nbank" (No. X) would be conceivable. Proof of this is almost impossible, as the Günther family were unable to save any relevant documents when they were evicted.

The song postcard in the Ore Mountains and Vogtland

The wide distribution of folk and Christmas carols in the Ore Mountains and Vogtland is largely due to the song postcard, the shape of which clearly goes back to Anton Günther and Hans Soph (1869–1954). Like Günther, Soph, who was born in Platten (Horní Blatná), used his artistic skills and training as a porcelain painter in Zwickau from 1915 to self-publish his songs with his own drawings and notes as song postcards.

That made school and when Arthur Vogel in his father's "Kunstverlag Wilhelm Vogel, Schwarzenberg" offered other local poets and singers the chance to publish their songs on postcards from 1899 after he had visited Anton Günther in Gottesgab and admired his song postcards for the first time , the triumphant advance of the song postcard could not be stopped. Vogel, who also sold Günther cards from 1920, achieved high editions with his song postcard series comprising around 70 cards. The Vuglbärbaam by August Max Schreyer , the secret hymn of the Ore Mountains , appeared for the first time and probably as number 1 in this publishing house .

Vogtländer Madle - song postcard by Hilmar Mückenberger, 1910
O you may forest! - Song postcard by Otto Peuschel, 1906

The number of song postcards that appeared in Saxony between 1895 and 1941 is estimated at between 500 and 600, with a total print run of at least 200,000. About 90 percent of the publications are in the Erzgebirge dialect, almost ten percent in the Vogtland dialect, especially Hilmar Mückenberger (1855–1937), who was born in the Erzgebirge and lived in the Vogtland until his death.

Upper Lusatia had the smallest share of song postcards . Numerous song postcards, often by unknown authors, appeared in self-publishers and in-house, mostly as colored chromolithographs and in small editions.

Widespread authors in Saxony and Bohemia

The most widespread authors are Anton Günther, whose complete works with poetry, saying cards and Landsturm songs include around 180 cards. 30 cards are known from Hans Soph. Both published exclusively in the Ore Mountains dialect. Hilmar Mückenberger had a total of 35 cards with lyrics in the Ore Mountains , Vogtland and High German . 16 cards are known from Otto Peuschel from Crottendorf .

Without the song postcard publications, many folk and Christmas carols of the Saxon low mountain range would not have been preserved. Other well-known song postcard authors include a .: Kurt Petzold , Curt Rambach , Curt Nestler , Hans Siegert , Reinhold Fischer , Max Nacke , Christian Friedrich Röder and Gottfried Lattermann . In 1942, the Schwarzenberg industrialist Friedrich Emil Krauss also published a postcard for a children's song at Christmas time , composed by Christian Lahusen . This turned into a series, illustrated with multi-colored woodcuts from at least ten cards.

See also

literature

  • Manfred Blechschmidt : The song postcard in the Ore Mountains music folklore. In: Erzgebirge 1976. A year for socialist local history , Stollberg 1976, pp. 40–45.
  • Manfred Blechschmidt : The song postcard in the Ore Mountains and Vogtland music folklore. In: Yearbook for Folk Song Research. 25, 1980, ISSN  0075-2789 , pp. 98-105 ( JSTOR 849060 at jstor.org - Subscription Access ).
  • Ehrhardt Heinold, Alix Paulsen: Ore Mountains Customs ABC. Husum Druck- und Verlagsgesellschaft, Husum 2003, ISBN 3-89876-061-8 .

Web links

Commons : Song postcards  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Erwin Günther, Anton Günther's son, on research by Chr. Leopold for the manuscript: Life and Work of Anton Günther , University of Education Zwickau , 1968
  2. ↑ Manfred Blechschmidt : The song postcard in the Ore Mountains and Vogtland music folklore. In: Yearbook for Folk Song Research. 25, 1980, ISSN  0075-2789 , pp. 98-105 ( JSTOR 849060 at jstor.org - Subscription Access ).
  3. ^ Chr. Leopold for the manuscript: Life and work of Anton Günther . Zwickau University of Education, 1968