Lyr Add: The Happy Farmer (Schumann)

Subject: Lyr Add: Schumann's The Happy Farmer
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 14 Jun 06 - 09:31 AM

I'm always trying to add new tunes to my dulcimer repertoire, (DAA tuning) yesterday I woke up in the morning asking myself, "Why not the Happy Farmer?" I tried it, and it works.

This tune was written by the famous composer Robert Schumann. You can hear it here:

http://www.midicenter.com/midi/midi_files/classical/schumann/

though there is no law that says you have to duplicate its relentless um-pah-pah accompaniment.

Here are the words that I sang in 4th or 5th grade:

With joy I sing the miracle of spring
The promise true of life a new the warm days bring.
In summer days I sing my grateful praise
of sun and rain and growing grain and cows agraze.

When day is done,
I count my rest well won. [bridge]

And in the fall I reap my harvests all
and firm and fast await at last the winter's call.

I hope you like it.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Schumann's The Happy Farmer
From: Wolfgang
Date: 14 Jun 06 - 11:48 AM

I know the German title of the tune, Der fröhliche Landmann, but I don't know whether there are German lyrics to that tune.

The tune however, is quoted musically in Georg Kreislers (the German language Tom Lehrer) song Der Musikkritiker (the critic of music) and mentioned disparagingly in the song's line

"but I was never able to play better than this" (to an awfully played tune of the Happy farmer).

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Schumann's The Happy Farmer
From: Joe Offer
Date: 14 Jun 06 - 01:21 PM

I've known that tune all my life, but didn't realize it had a name and that it was written by Schumann. I'd never made the connection before, but doesn't it sound like Union Maid/Redwing comes from that tune?
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Schumann's The Happy Farmer
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 14 Jun 06 - 04:04 PM

When I was a kid, "There once was an Indian Maid" or Red Wing," 1907 (in DT) was my favorite dirty song. The clean lyrics were by Thurland Chattaway and music by Kerry Mills, 1907 (Linked by Malcolm Douglas in thread 51816; Levy Sheet Music).
Woodie Guthrie did the Union Maid version.
Everyone knows this.

Now who is this Schumann guy?

(Sorry, Wolfgang; couldn't resist. The Schumann connection is new to me).

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Schumann's The Happy Farmer
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 14 Jun 06 - 05:36 PM

Sheet music for the "Happy Farmer" at American Memory, Boston, White, Smith & Co., R. Schumann, pub. 1878. Violin and piano, no lyrics.

Full title: "Der fröhlicher Landmann, von der Arbeit zuruckkehrend," Album für die Jugend, Opus 68, N. 10.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Schumann's The Happy Farmer
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 15 Jun 06 - 09:44 AM

Well, Joe, I had never noticed the similarity to Redwing. It's definitely true what you say.

If you play a really corny accompaniment, then The Happy Farmer is easily parodied. However, played nicely, it makes a good dulcimer tune.

When I was a kid I liked the words, and I think it remains a good song for family singing.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Happy Farmer (Schumann)
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 02:57 AM

Robert Schumann (1810-1856), German composer and pianist of the Romantic Aera.
More in Wikipedia

No German text found.

In my youth this piece was the signature tune for the farmers' broadcast every sunday at noon.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Happy Farmer (Schumann)
From: Cool Beans
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 09:55 AM

I remember from childhood that somebody set Engish words about different musical instruments to the tune. All I remember, though, is the first line:
"I tried one day, the piccolo to play..."
Perhaps this fragment will jog someone else's memory.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Happy Farmer (Schumann)
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 10:36 PM

I believe, the opening tune, was used on a 30 (22) minute television (B&W)series sponsored by Disney through the "Mickey Mouse Club" in the late 1950's and lyrics, similar to these, accompanied the tune.

rough LYRICS:
The boys of the western sea
Are a rolicking company
They will get things done
While, they have some fun
The boys of the western sea.

Film setting in a fishing village, (manual oars) in the Northern/Outer UK mainland or islands.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Happy Farmer (Schumann)
From: GUEST,Awadgn
Date: 08 Nov 13 - 06:35 AM

I remember an additional verse...which follows "Cows agraze."

"The days grow chill, but I am happy still. Though wind and snow and winter blizzards blow, my heart _______ will keep ______ the summers glow."

I found this website searching for the missing words. "Aye" is what I remember which makes no sense or rhyme.
Guess I'll keep looking.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Happy Farmer (Schumann)
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 08 Nov 13 - 09:18 AM

'Aye' means yes.
'Ay' means forever.

How about 'My he-art ay will keep each day the summer's glow.'

It may not be historic, but it restores the chance to sing the verse.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Happy Farmer (Schumann)
From: Tug the Cox
Date: 08 Nov 13 - 11:53 AM

The first part of this tune is played as part of 'Scan tester's No 1, but with a different 'B' music
http://lesters-tune-a-day.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/tune-330-scan-testers-no1.html

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Happy Farmer (Schumann)
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Nov 13 - 10:20 AM

Thanks for the link, Tug.
===============
I've been working on a MIDI for this. I've combined the lyrics I remember and the lyrics Awadgn remembers, changing 'heart' to 'spirit' so it scans better.

In the fourth grade, we simply shot through this song, but now that I have time to think about it, it has an amazing amount of internal rhyme, so I'm shortening the lines to bring it out.


With joy I sing
the miracle of spring
The promise true
of life anew
the warm days bring.
In summer days
I sing my grateful praise
of sun and rain
and growing grain
and cows agraze.

When day is done,
I count my rest well won.
And in the fall
I reap my harvests all
and firm and fast
await at last
the winter's call.


The days grow chill,
but I am happy still.
Though wind and snow
and winter blizzards blow,
my spirit ay
will keep each day
the summer's glow.


This melody goes from middle C to high F. I'm not surprised that people don't sing it much.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Happy Farmer (Schumann)
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 23 Apr 14 - 04:21 PM

You have no idea how happy you've made me posting the lyrics. I also sang this in 4th or 5th grade and now approaching 80, I'd like to suggest it as a song for a research project in our retirement facility. I remember the melody (mostly) but only some of the words.   This was a gift. Thank you!

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Happy Farmer (Schumann)
From: GUEST,Abby
Date: 26 Nov 16 - 02:07 PM

OMG! Today is one of the happiest days of my life!! I've been looking for the lyrics to this song for more than 10 years. It didn't help that the few words I remembered were totally wrong, which I just found out today. I heard this song when I was about six years old. The upper grades students at my school were taught it but not my grade. Of course being six, I heard the words differently. I searched online for years and was told many times by various websites that there are no lyrics to The Happy Farmer. Every now and then I'll go online and search it again. Thanks for posting the lyrics, I knew it existed.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Happy Farmer (Schumann)
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Oct 17 - 11:45 AM

Thank you for the "new" "Old" lyrics, folks. Really appreciate these. I suspect that Schumann based his "Happy Farmer" piano piece on a German folk song. I wonder if anyone can find out, or post the folk song and its title. It makes me uncomfortable that in the USA these days the tune is known only by two titles, "Redwing" and "Union Maid." It's a beautiful tune on its own. "Redwing" is a stereotypical image of a young Indian girl as sung in the song by a non-Indian man, idolizing her. I base my opinions on such things by how I believe such songs would be seen by the peoples depicted, in this case, Indians/Native peoples. Some of Stephen Foster's songs are stereotypical of slavery, making it seem "okay" to be an enslaved person. “Gone are my friends from the cotton fields away, “ from “Old Black Joe,” a case in point, and although Foster was, I do believe, an early voice sympathizing with black people’s condition then, the lyrics are outdated and need to be revised. "Union Maid" is, well, a political song, and while unions are a very good thing except when corrupted, I do have to wish we had a different image of this tune her. In Schumann’s Songs of Innocence there are several pieces based on folk songs. One is called “Little Folk Song”, one is “Siciliano,” which implies a Sicilian melody, and two are called “Rural Song.”   Many of the titles are suggestive of folk themes, too. http://www.appca.com.au/proceedings/2009/part_2/Green_Elizabeth.pdf

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Happy Farmer (Schumann)
From: leeneia
Date: 07 Oct 17 - 12:40 PM

Well, I'm from the US, and I learned the Happy Farmer in school. It's clear from the appreciative posts here that others have encountered it too.

If you want to, you can mine history and pop culture for innumerable things to dislike. Why not sing or play the song and make yourself happy instead?

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Happy Farmer (Schumann)
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 08 Oct 17 - 04:55 AM

GUEST 07 Oct 17 - 11:45 AM (please choose a nickname): If I have been correctly informed, Schumann made a point of using only self-invented melodies (except for "iconic" tunes such as the Marseillaise if required by the context). This even applies for traditional lyrics for which a popular melody existed previously and may thus be considered a "folk song".

This piano piece ingeniously illustrates the idea of the title, but if it were actually sung, most farmers would have problems with the large ambit, more apt for an experienced singer who is neither walking home nor shouldering a scythe.

Thus any lyrics to the tune, in any language, will be apocryphal. Lovers of classical music in the USA, presumably teachers, used to be most productive in providing such lyrics, claiming to illustrate the meaning of the piece of music. In Europe many high-browers will frown on them, the main objection being that pupils thus treated may obtain a narrowed view. The lyrics offered by the OP, "With joy I sing the miracle of spring", are somewhat charming and cannot do much harm in that sense.

Using classical tunes for lyrics that do not claim to relate to the original work, such as political songs, is quite a different subject. Whoever shouts "shame!", "profanation!", or "plagiarism for lack of own ideas!", should remember that many of our most cherished folk tunes have been stolen from other contexts, including, yes, operas. What counts is the quality of the result.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Happy Farmer (Schumann)
From: MickyMan
Date: 09 Oct 17 - 11:51 AM

Just FYI ....... Two additional little items about Schumann's "Happy Farmer"

-If you know somebody who is schooled in Suzuki Violin, this is a book 1 standard that they all learn and perform.

-A snippit of the tune shows up in the movie version of "The Wizard Of Oz". (I'll bet that it's also used in the original musical too, but I don't know about that.)

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Happy Farmer (Schumann)
From: keberoxu
Date: 09 Oct 17 - 01:36 PM

I consulted the large site now known as the LiederNet Archive.
Curious to see if this specific song fell through the cracks.
Answer: it fell through the cracks.

The Robert Schumann tune, within the category of published classical music,
appears to have stayed within the piano-music category.
Not even with the English words does it turn up
as a Robert Schumann composition in the art-song archive.

Of course, the site is always open to additions,
but they have to be documented with bibliography.
Maybe I ought to go hunt for a published edition?

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Happy Farmer (Schumann)
From: keberoxu
Date: 09 Oct 17 - 07:01 PM

Does anyone have the FakeBook published by Hal Leonard? I don't.
But SheetMusicPlus says that The Happy Farmer is included in the Hal Leonard Fakebook.

Just came from checking that great digital storehouse of classical sheet music, the Petrucci Music Library.

What they have, under Robert Schumann, is ... nothing with lyrics.

They have instrumental transcriptions galore, though, in addition to Schumann's own piano-solo version from his Opus 68.

The United State sheet-music adaptation from about one hundred years ago, in which the piano accompanies an instrumental obbligato for flute, violin, or cello,
is titled "The Merry Peasant," for what it's worth.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Happy Farmer (Schumann)
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Jul 20 - 08:54 PM

does anyone remember a version like this?

I plant my seeds
I plant them in a row
for I'm the happy farmer and I like to make things grow
I plant my seeds
I plant them in a row
for I'm the happy farmer and I like to make things grow

The Sun, the rain the....that ... ??
all make ...
my little garden grow
for I'm the happy farmer and I like to make things grow.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Happy Farmer (Schumann)
From: leeneia
Date: 29 Jul 20 - 07:25 PM

The Lester Levy site has piano music for this:

https://levysheetmusic.mse.jhu.edu/performance/76951

Here you can feast your eyes on music for the serious piano player, with runs that look like a millipede with inky feet ran over the page. What are those, 64th Notes? Semidemihemimini quavers?

It's eight antiquated pages long, but I'm proud to say I found the melody, so it's the right piece of music. This may be the version that Keb just mentioned.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Happy Farmer (Schumann)
From: GUEST,space
Date: 24 May 21 - 01:18 PM

To Awadgn:

"The days grow chill, but I am happy still. Though wind and snow and winter blizzards blow, my heart _______ will keep ______ the summers glow."

We were taught "my heart so gay will keep for e're (ever) thr summer's glow".    :)

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Happy Farmer (Schumann)
From: GUEST,#
Date: 25 May 21 - 10:29 PM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=um8dOgMjrG4

Schumann - Fröhlicher Landmann opus 68 no 10

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Happy Farmer (Schumann)
From: GUEST,#
Date: 26 May 21 - 08:57 AM

There is further info about the song at

https://edrls.wordpress.com/tag/critical-studies/