The link didn't work for me, either, alas.

Susanne, your last post touches on the kind of thing that got me wondering about German folk music in the first place - songs about emigrants, criminals, workers, travellers, etc, in other words the very things that attract me to traditional songs from other countries. I would dearly love to get my hands on some of the CDs you refer to, but I would rather stay on the right side of the copyright law. Perhaps you could post a few titles with the publishers' name and catalogue number. I could probably order them through HMV.

You might be interested to know that at one time, the British had the greatest possible respect for German folk music. During the Napoleonic wars, German units in British service fought alongside the British. Lewis Winstock, in "Songs and Music of the Redcoats 1642-1902", writes "...the war music of the Germans, who fought with the redcoats on several fronts, was treated with an admiration that bordered on awe." It was the Germans' choral singing in particular that impressed the British soldiers. Winstock quotes one soldier who compared "those tuneless airs in which the lower orders of our countrymen delight" with the Germans who "sang beautifully a wild chorus, a hymn to the Virgin, different persons taking different parts and producing altogether the most exquisite harmony." Apparently, during the American Civil War, the best bands were German, and the best regimental singing was done by Germans.

I have a particular interest in soldiers' songs. I wonder what songs Sharpe's rifles might have heard when they were camped alongside the King's German Legion?

CET