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User Name Thread Name Subject Posted
GUEST,keberoxu The Lorelei vs. Tomorrow Belongs to Me (44) RE: The Lorelei vs. Tomorrow Belongs to Me 28 May 18


Good luck hunting down that accordion piece.

Earlier on this thread, the discussion of the German song,
"Die Lorelei," referred not only to poet Heinrich Heine
but the composer Friedrich Silcher.

There are Wikipedia articles on Silcher's life and career in at least
three languages: German, Dutch, and English.
Thanks to looking up the articles through the Google search engine,
I could look at the German-language Wikipedia article in English translation,
since my German is pretty shabby.

The question was raised if Silcher was, like Heine, Jewish. Not that I can tell.
And this is the perfect moment to remind you,
that Heine's lyric poetry was sought after by German-language composers
of every sort.
Heine, regardless of Jewish ancestry, is one of the German-language poets
most frequently set to music, rivalling Goethe and all the others.
Someone who isn't as lazy as me,
has probably done the calculations, but I don't have the figures.

Now, as to the composer.
His full name was Philipp Friedrich Silcher. The German-speaking region of his origins
is known as Swabia, somebody else will have to say where is Swabia.
Once I get outside of Prussia or Bavaria, I lose my orientation
(for that matter, I confuse Bavaria and Prussia anyhow, but never mind).

An earlier post on this thread name-checked the song,
"In einem kühlen Grunde." I don't know the poet,
but this song is also composed by Friedrich Silcher.
Silcher's dates are 1789 - 1860.

Friedrich Silcher came of age just as the German-language countries
were cultivating vocal music, in the German language, in a big way,
and he somewhat rode the crest of this wave of fashion.
Silcher wrote more vocal music than anything else,
although some compositions are preserved
in other categories.

As in so much vocal music settings of German-language texts,
the Silcher oeuvre comes in two forms:
solo-voice songs or arrangement,
and the "Gesangverein" and "Tafel-lieder" genre
of vocal ensembles.

The older composers who mentored him, knew of the music of Mozart,
and Silcher at a young age took a keen interest in Mozart's compositions.

Just looked over at Wikipedia to see more about the geography.
"Swabia" may be the old ethnic designation, but
in Friedrich Silcher's day, his life and career were spent in
the Kingdom of Württemberg;
this German-language kingdom was just west of Bavaria,
and extended as far south as the Bodensee
which brings one to Switzerland.


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