Hello,

As part of my ongoing project of making lead sheets of public songs available, I have now added my first genuine traditional song: It's here, on page 9:
The Wanderer (Greek, from Smyrna)

I've posted about these lead sheets before. Since then, I may have added a couple, but "The Wanderer" is the only new folk or traditional song.

I recently bought a bouzouki (Greek, not Irish) and in honor of the occasion I got out my copy of "Das Lied der Völker, Griechische, Albanische und Rumänische Volkslieder" ("The Song of the Peoples, Greek, Albanian and Rumanian Folksongs"), edited by Heinrich Möller. I particularly liked this song, but I haven't played through them all yet.

There can be no doubt that this song is in the public domain, because Moeller credits the arrangement to L.A. Bourgault-Ducoudray,         
"Trente mélodies populaires de Grece & d'Orient" from 1897 (incorrectly cited as "Mélodies populaires de Grece & d'Orient").
Louis-Albert Bourgault-Ducoudray died in 1910. As a traditional song, it _should_ be in the public domain, but it is well-known that many have been copyrighted; unethical, but legal.

The collection "Das Lied der Völker" doesn't seem to be that well-known in the English-speaking world, even though the publisher, Schott, has branches in London, New York and Toronto. I searched for it in the forum but the only reference was a post of mine from a few years back. It is a real treasure-trove. I own all of the volumes that were in print at the time I was buying them. There were originally 13, Russian, Scandinavian, Celtic, etc. Terribly over-arranged, but the arrangements are uniformly of good quality, if you like that sort of thing. It wasn't a scholarly publication.

I wrote to Schott a couple of days ago asking about copyright info for this series. The books contain none whatsoever, not even a date of publication for the books themselves. I found out from Wikipedia that Möller himself died in the '50s, so anything copyrighted by him hasn't gone into the public domain in Europe yet. I haven't received an answer from Schott yet.

Anyway, it's a nice song and if I make any more lead sheets of folk or traditional songs that are in the public domain, I'll post about them.