Viennese couplet

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Johann Nestroy as shoemaker Knierim in " Lumpacivagabundus " in the comet song: "Every year comes the new comet, the world goes to the bottom." (Photograph from 1861)

The Viennese couplet is a vocal part in the antics or comedies of the old Viennese folk theater . The couplet interrupts the stage action, is aimed directly at the audience and has reflections on various topics on the content. It reached its literary climax in March in the plays by Johann Nestroy and Ferdinand Raimund . The second important musical form of the old Viennese folk theater is the quodlibet .

Form and history

The couplet is a multi-stanza song with a refrain and identical stanzas that are all sung to the same melody. It has rhyming pairs of verses (French couplet "pair of lines") and is mostly written in the Viennese dialect . Historically, it goes back to the interlude in the Jesuit drama. In the musical development it took the place of the aria and, like this, starts from the situation of one of the protagonists .

The couplet was trained by Johann Baptist Moser , who began in the 1830s to write scenes and couplets that were inspired by the harpists ' performances and with which he performed in Viennese suburbs, first in the harpist society Jonas, soon with his own folk singer society . Moser reformed the harpist being, as texts and songs were too primitive for him, and replaced the harp with the piano as an accompanying instrument. His most famous couplet is "The world is a comedy house, we humans are actors, fate distributes the roles, the zeitgeist is prompter" (1840).

In the plays by Ferdinand Raimund and Johann Nestroy within the Viennese folk comedy in the first half of the 19th century ( Biedermeier ), the couplet finally gained a central place. Nestroy wrote his couplets tailor-made, he was both an author and an actor. The audience eagerly awaited Nestroy's new creations, in which he expressed his opinion openly, commented on current political problems and grievances and made the audience his conspirators. In this way, he also undermined the authoritarian system of Metternich's informers and often came into conflict with the censors.

dramaturgy

The decisive factor for the effect of the couplet is the fact that "dramatic time" stands still in it. The events driving the plot are subject to a temporary suspension. The actor leaves his role "for a while" in order to establish contact with the audience as a confidante of the playwright, often on the ramp. Usually in response to an accentuated cue from the previous dialogue or a monologue , the performer interrupts the ongoing action, steps out of the scene and creates a direct interaction between himself and the audience. He takes his personal problems as an opportunity for a critical consideration of memorable cases of human life or for general comments on social and political grievances or human character weaknesses.

“We will not deny his message because it was a couplet,” wrote Karl Kraus in his speech on the fiftieth anniversary of Johann Nestroy’s death in 1912, with which he initiated his rediscovery.

Acting characters

In Ferdinand Raimund's pieces , the couplet (there: Aria or Ariette) is reserved for the comic figure , which is in the tradition of Hanswurst , Kasperl , Staberl , the Viennese version of the comic figure in the Italian Commedia dell'arte . His partner usually receives a duet . With the transformation of the standardized comic figure into character types (root in “ The Farmer as Millionaire ”, Rappelkopf in “ The Alpine King and the Misanthrope ”), the performance song is of particular importance for the exposure of the main character. At the same time, songs are also assigned to the characters of the fantasy and spirit world.

Johann Nestroy profiled the satirical couplet in his antics with singing. The increasing number of verses finally led to two- and three-line stanzas with inner and final choruses , the meter of which evaded a flowing melody line through deliberate accentuation of certain syllables. With great refinement, Nestroy led a situation in his plays where the couplet "breaks out" at a point of despair, anger, perplexity or even resignation, and where the actor "can no longer say it, but sing it must ”( Jean Giraudoux ).

At Nestroy, too, the couplets are usually reserved for male figures, with a few exceptions in which female figures are also intended to be couplets, which mostly consider the male gender: the goose-girl Salome Pockerl in “ The Talisman ” (with the refrain “ Yes, the men have it good! "), Salerl in" On the ground floor and first floor ", Agnes in" Neither laurel tree nor begging staff "or Madame Zichori in" Das Gewürzkrämerkleeblatt "(" S 'is a strong sex, but weak, but weak!").

Performance couplet

Ferdinand Raimund as the ash man in " The Farmer as Millionaire " (lithograph by Friedrich Kriehuber after Moritz von Schwind )

The pieces by Raimund and Nestroy always contain several couplets, beginning with the “appearance couplet” of the main character, in which she introduces her character and fate and which is always immediately followed by a monologue . The task of the performance couplet was to provide the actor with an effective appearance and to offer the audience the opportunity to become familiar with the character of the stage. In Raimund's figures of the barometer maker (“ The Barometer Maker on the Magic Island ”) and the harpist (“ The Fettered Fantasy ”), the performance couplet touches on the genre of the class song .

refrain

The refrain holds together the satirical themes of the individual stanzas and often uses a symptomatic phrase that forms the common motto for the stanzas. Well-known refrains in pieces by Johann Nestroy are:

In Ferdinand Raimund's Zauberspiele there are also distinctive refrains, here often with a melancholy tone: the ash song in Der Bauer als Millionär with the refrain "Ein Aschen", with which the ash collector alludes to the transience of everything earthly, and the planed song from Der Prodigal , in which light-heartedness and transience (vanitas) are considered. It begins with the now famous lines “People argue about this - often about the value of happiness. One calls the other stupid, in the end 'nobody knows nothing ”and ends with the refrain:“ I put my plane down and say goodbye to the world! ”.

Additional stanzas

In performance practice, current “additional stanzas” are often added to a couplet, which refer directly to the political and social events of the day, but without reference to the piece itself or to the time in which it is set. Such stanzas are sometimes written shortly before the performance by the actor himself or by the conductor, in order to be able to refer to current events. Well-known Viennese Nestroy actors such as Karl Paryla , Walter Kohut and Josef Meinrad and later Heinz Petters and Robert Meyer have made this an integral part of their appearances. Nestroy often exposed himself to a duel with the censors with his newly composed additional stanzas , which he thus withdrew from the access of the Metternich police apparatus in Vormärz .

The chorus line of the original is important for the clout of an additional stanza, which, as it is already known to the audience from the stanzas, is often only voiced or not sung at all.

The couplet, in which additional stanzas are built in, is usually towards the end of the piece, usually in the third act. Additional stanzas in the "performance couplet", i.e. the first couplet of the evening, are not common, as this couplet is always followed by a monologue that takes place in has a direct relationship with the performance couplet.

Karl Kraus repeatedly performed and edited Nestroy and also wrote additional stanzas to the couplets (e.g. for "Der Zerrissene", " Eisenbahnheirathen ", "Neither laurel tree nor begging staff"). Even Otto Basil and Hans Weigel wrote additional verses later. For Nestroy's “Kampl” at the Vienna Burgtheater , the actor Otto Tausig wrote a sharp additional stanza in 1981 about the doctor and court expert Heinrich Gross , whose past as a Nazi euthanasia doctor at Spiegelgrund had just become public: “Today there are still so Viennese Eutha-Nazi Mediziner ... ”In 1998 the cabaret artist Josef Hader wrote additional stanzas for Nestroy's“ Das Mädl aus der Vorstadt ”. In 2017, at the Nestroy Games in Schwechat , the dress rehearsal for "On the ground floor and first floor" caused a scandal. Three councilors of the FPÖ left the performance indignantly because current additional stanzas had been inserted in the couplet of the servant Johann, which satirically criticized the governing coalition of the ÖVP and FPÖ. The FPÖ Schwechat demanded an apology from those responsible and the passages removed immediately, otherwise the FPÖ Schwechat would not agree to any more money for the Nestroy games in the future. For the production of " a joke he wants to make " at the Graz Schauspielhaus compose Stefanie Sargnagel 2,018 additional verses.

Nestroy himself wrote additional stanzas to Ferdinand Raimund's “Aschenlied” in “ Der Bauer als Millionär ” (Complete Works, edited by Fritz Brukner and Otto Rommel . Volume 15, pp. 706–708, Schroll, Vienna 1924–30).

music

The Viennese couplet usually has a fast pace. In triple time it reminds often at the Landler or Viennese waltz . A ritornello of the orchestra, often to the melody of the chorus, is followed by a first section of stanzas in the main key. The first violins play around the melody heterophonically, mostly in a very high register. After the orchestra made a forte , the second part of the stanza follows in a different key with contrasting music. At the end of the stanza, an escalation leads to a fermata . This is followed by a quick and pointed refrain and then a short orchestral aftermath. The frequent repetitions make it look like a perpetual motion machine . The simplicity of the music is an art form; couplets were not sung in order to achieve musical enjoyment, but were purposeful, almost like a barrel organ , in order to accompany and underline something unconventional that was added from the text using conventional means from Vienna .

Originally, the incidental music for the pieces by Raimund and Nestroy was composed for a small symphony orchestra (around 26 men, double woodwinds, brass instruments and string instruments ). In the meantime, the pieces are only accompanied by small ensembles (flute, clarinet, piano, 2 violins, bass, drums), string trio , two pianos or in completely new arrangements . Furthermore, the scores assign an important musical function to the choirs , which is also seldom feasible in today's performance practice on speaking stages. In addition, most couplets have very high vocal demands on the actors, even the small episode roles, which is explained by the fact that the actors in Nestroy and Raimund's time had a high degree of vocal training and the Viennese suburban theaters knew no difference between music and spoken theater . Nestroy himself as well as his life and stage partner Marie Weiler were trained opera singers.

The most important composer of Johann Nestroy's couplets was Adolf Müller . Joseph Drechsler , Franz Roser, Carl Franz Stenzel, Carl Binder , Anton Maria Storch and Michael Hebenstreit set other theater songs to music. Their music offered a wealth of graceful ideas, which despite their melody offered the possibility of sharp characterization, here already anticipating the songs by Brecht / Weill . They alienate the viewer from the plot and “make friends” with the actor / author (see below). By Hanns Eisler , there are 1,948 to 1,953 new settings of several Nestroy pieces ( " fear of hell ", "Eulenspiegel", " Theaterg'schichten ") for the New Theater at La Scala in Vienna.

Ferdinand Raimund composed the music for some of his songs himself, such as the famous duet “ Little Brothers Fine ” and the “ Aschenlied ” in “ The Farmer as Millionaire ”. Other composers for Raimund's pieces were Wenzel Müller (who was even considered a competitor to Mozart), Conradin Kreutzer and Joseph Drechsler .

interpretation

In the couplet, the presenter detaches himself from the actual course of the plot, he / she completely interrupts the storyline of the piece, a conversation with the audience begins, which is addressed directly, involved in the game and even asked for his or her opinion. These “striking songs electrifying the audience” resemble the monologue situation of earlier Shakespeare dramas, in which the audience is made into a certain “conspirator” of the main character (for example in “ Richard III ”). There is also a relationship to the parabase in the old Greek comedy, in which the audience is addressed directly.

The verse content offers a wide range of design options, which is often characterized by a drastic imitation of different levels of speech and vocal styles and by a change between sung passages (in the chorus) and spoken chants (in the verse) ( Parlando ). With biting humor, a couplet satirizes apparent cosiness or subtle meanness, the main characteristics of the negative Viennese character.

Often the actor makes a false exit in one of the last verses of the couplet , which apparently indicates the end of the song, only to then reappear with a new verse "called back by the applause of the audience", which then usually marks the transition to the current additional verses .

Succession

In the course of the "decline" of the Viennese folk comedy , the couplet as a role song was already controversial in the second half of the 19th century. Adalbert Stifter expressed himself in 1867 in his essay "On the relationship of the theater to the people": "In order to completely mock every truth, the poetry is interrupted and songs are sung that are neither in the essence of the play nor in that of the singing. " The later Viennese operetta also contained couplets, but the emphasis shifted from text to music. One example is the couplet “It's my custom” by Prince Orlofsky from Die Fledermaus (1874) by Johann Strauss . In contrast to the classic Viennese couplet, which is usually reserved for male characters, the operetta couplet is also performed by women. The composers of the Viennese operetta after Johann Strauss such as Leo Fall and Emmerich Kálmán chose alternative names in the early 20th century, deliberately differentiating from the French operetta .

In the 20th century, the couplet was still used in its old form by Felix Salten ("Der Gemeine", 1901), but also by Karl Kraus ("Couplet des Schwarz-Drucker", "Das Lied des Alldeutschen" and the songs of Roda Roda , Ludwig Ganghofer and Hirsch in " The Last Days of Mankind "; "Couplet Macabre", 1919; "Höllisches Couplet" in "Die Unüberwindlichen", 1928, but also various couplets with literal refrains from pieces by Johann Nestroy such as " The Talisman "," Der böse Geist Lumpazivagabundus "and" Der Zerrissene ") and Hanns Eisler (" Couplet vom Zeitfreiwilligen ", 1928). Even with Eisler, the couplet sounds different from what one is used to from the composers of the Alt-Wiener Volkstheater, in the music for “The Last Night” by Karl Kraus in a marching rhythm and in a minor key.

Walter Mehring still used the art form of the couplet like the Dadaists ("Berlin simultaneous: first original dada couplet"). At the beginning of the 20th century, the term "couplet" was soon replaced by the term " chanson " and was used primarily in cabaret and on cabaret stages. In 1919 Kurt Tucholsky described the couplet - here already with the characteristics of the chanson - in his essay "Die Kunst des Couplets" in the Berliner Tageblatt on November 18, 1919: "The couplet has its own laws. First of all, it must be completely at one with the music (that is a great difficulty), and then it must be born out of the spirit of the language, that the words only roll in such a way that there is nowhere the slightest stagnation, that the tongue has no difficulty in unwinding the word sequence smoothly. " He demanded "disposition, taste and great ability" for authorship.

In political form, the couplet at the theater was then carried on primarily by Bertolt Brecht as a “song” in the “ epic theater ”. In Brecht's work, the actors step out of the action in the " alienation effect " and reflect in front of a curtain and with "song lighting" (e.g. in the "Song about the inadequacy of human striving" in the " Threepenny Opera ", 1929). With this method, Brecht wanted to raise the audience "above the level of consciousness of its characters", while Brecht's fellow writer Friedrich Wolf called it "the direct involvement of the audience in the game".

By Theodor W. Adorno , there are the couplets from 1936/1937 the following view: "The intended, probably done by the audience unconscious process, therefore, is the first to identify. The individual in the audience experiences themselves primarily as a couplet ego, then feels they are in good hands in the refrain, identifies with the refrain collective, enters it by dancing and thus finds sexual fulfillment. "

The couplet was also an important part of cabaret , where it was an independent vocal number alongside the chanson in the interwar period . Karl Farkas , Fritz Grünbaum , Armin Berg and, after the war, Georg Kreisler , Gerhard Bronner and Helmut Qualtinger have distinguished themselves as authors , for example in “Der G'schupfte Ferdl” and “Der Wilde mit seine Maschin '”. The couplet "Papa will fix it" from the program "Spiegl vorm Gsicht" even forced a minister to resign. In the Bavarian version of the couplet, Karl Valentin got to the bottom of folklore and skillfully played with the rules of the language (Chinese couplet, futuristic couplet).

literature

  • Johann Nestroy (Author), Hermann Hakel (Ed.): The world will definitely not stand long any more. Couplets and monologues . Forum Verlag, Vienna 1962.
  • Fritz Nötzold (Ed.): My wife is a Pfutsch. Viennese Couples . Fischer Taschenbuchverlag, Frankfurt / M. 1969 (Fischer-Bücherei; 1059).
  • Ferdinand Raimund : The songs of the fairy tale dramas in the original settings . Anton Schroll & Co, Vienna 1924.
  • Otto Rommel : Johann Nestroy's couplet work . In: Johann Nestroy: Collected works in six volumes . 1949 (vol. 6)
  • Richard Smekal (ed.): Old Viennese theater songs. From Hanswurst to Nestroy. , Viennese literary institution, Vienna / Berlin 1920

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jürgen Hein: On the function of the "musical interludes" in the pieces of the Vienna Volkstheater . In: Jean-Marie Valentin (Ed.): Volk, Volksstück, Volkstheater in the German-speaking area of ​​the 18th - 20th century . Lang, Frankfurt / M. 1986, ISBN 3-261-03528-5 (Yearbook for International German Studies; Volume 15)
  2. ↑ https://derstandard.at/2000082607632/FPOe-Schendung-empoert-ueber-Nestroy-Zusatzstrophen
  3. ↑ Jürgen Hein, Dagmar Zumbusch: Problems of the edition “Musical Texts” in the Viennese dialect, illustrated using the example of Johann Nestroy . In: Walther Dürr u. a. (Ed.): The text in the musical work. Edition problems from a musicological and literary perspective . Erich Schmidt Verlag, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-503-03789-6 , pp. 212-232
  4. ^ Günther Mahal: Authorial theater - the stage as a pulpit. Acceptance of authority by the viewer as a result of a dramatic persuasion strategy . Gunter Narr Verlag, Tübingen 1982, ISBN 3-87808-575-3 (additional habilitation thesis, University of Tübingen)