German folk music II

Subject: German folk music II
From: GUEST,Irina
Date: 29 Oct 01 - 01:33 PM

I just read the thread about german folk music. Very interesting. I am german, lived in Ireland for a year and started playing irish music there. After coming back I started to wonder about our own traditional music. I know there are some songs that are still enjoyed (some people gathering round a fire, someone with a guitar and everybody will sing along to "dat du min leevsten bist") but what happened to the dance tunes? I found some second hand sheetmusic-books with dance music but they are all arranged for piano. What are the traditional instruments in the different parts of germany? What was it like at a "country dance" a hundred, two hundred years ago? Have the musicians been organized in clubs/Vereine or did this only happen at the turn of the century (not the last one!)? You know -singing only in "Männergeangsverein" yodeling only in yodeling-clubs. I am pretty sure that the traditional music has been changed by the collectors who put my tune books togehter. They studied music after all so they might have "corrected some mistakes" that the traditional musicians made when arranging things for piano. I think that maybe some of the original music might have survived in america or maybe in east european places with german minority communities. Maybe it survived in germany and I just never heard it. Are there any web-pages, CDs, Books, tune collections etc. about german dance tunes? I am also interested in links to german folk song pages but it's mostly the tunes I'm after.

Subject: RE: German folk music II
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 29 Oct 01 - 03:30 PM

Irina, welcome at the Mudcat! I'm afraid, though, I'm not much help with questions about dance music. We have a lot of folk dancing in Northern Germany, but as the local pieces are often very staid bands prefer international dances. As to instruments, accordion or button accordion and hurdy-gurdy seem to be very popular, but this needn't mean they were in former times.
If you're interested, join the 'folkmail' mailing list mailto:[e-mail] web interface for joining etc.: http://www.folkclubfrankfurt.de/majordomo/.
There are quite a few dance enthusiasts among the members.

Subject: RE: German folk music II
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 29 Oct 01 - 03:51 PM

Oops! Try again:

'folkmail' mailing list at
mailto:[e-mail]

web interface for joining etc.:
http://www.folkclubfrankfurt.de/majordomo/.

Subject: RE: German folk music II
From: CET
Date: 29 Oct 01 - 06:50 PM

Goodness, a second thread already!

Does anybody have any further thoughts as to whether the Irish and Scottish tunes on the "Ich hatte einen Kameraden" CDs were simply borrowed by the musicians who made the recordings, or whether they have actually been part of the German folk tradition for the last 200 years or so?

Edmund

Subject: RE: German folk music II
From: Wolfgang
Date: 30 Oct 01 - 07:35 AM

It might be a bias in my perception or recollection but from the instances I have in mind the way of the tunes was mostly to and not from Germany. There are a couple of examples of German folksongs borrowing tunes from other song cultures (especially in the East of Europe) but also from the British Isles. For the songs you have mentioned, I have no knowledge, but I'll have a look with no big chance of success.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: German folk music II
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 30 Oct 01 - 10:34 AM

By the way, I got a response to a request for information about the 2-LP collection of field recordings of German music collected in Wisconsin that was issued in 1985. It's not on CD yet, but the LPs are still available. Here's the e-mail I got:

Doug Miller of Folklore Village forwarded your message. When the old Wisconsin Folklife Center/Wisconsin Folk Museum went out of existence, the Folklore Program at the University of WI bought the rights to all sound recordings productions, including ACH YA! We still have lots of the LPs and hope eventually to reissue the whole business on CD but haven't gotten to it yet. There will, however, be a book/CD project on German American music coming out in the next year, published by the Max Kade Institute for German American Studies at the University of Wisconsin (www.mki.wisc.edu). It's title will be LAND WITHOUT NIGHTENGALES, ed. by Philip Bohlman and Otto Holzapfel. Both Phil and I worked on the old ACH YA! project and we both have essays in the book, which will be distributed by the University of Wisconsin Press.

Thanks for your interest,

Jim Leary
Professor of Folklore and Scandinavian Studies
Director, Folklore Program
University of Wisconsin

---

MKI Publications (click)

Subject: RE: German folk music II
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 30 Oct 01 - 10:47 AM

Oh, and the LP set is entitled:

"Ach Ya!"
Folk Songs and Dance Melodies
Traditional German-American Music from Wisconsin

Bat Goddess

Subject: RE: German folk music II
From: CET
Date: 03 Nov 01 - 05:28 AM

On closer examination, I am leaning a little more towards Susanne's point of view as to how German folk songs come to be sung to Irish and British tunes. The tune that the authors sing on their CD for " 's ist Alles lauter Falschheit" is definitely "The Bonny Light Horseman", but it is not the tune that is printed in the book for that song.

Edmund

Subject: RE: German folk music II
From: CET
Date: 15 Sep 02 - 07:35 PM

I am just beginning to learn a German folk song that made me think of this thread. It's printed in a collection called "Songs of Man", edited by Norman Luboff and Win Stracke (I think I might start a separate thread about this book. It's great!)

The song is called "The Speckled Fish" in English and it is a German version of "Lord Rendall". In fact, it's almost a verse for verse parallel. In the version of Lord Rendall that I've heard the dying young man has been fed poisoned eels. The German version goes like this:

"Was gab sie dir zu essen? Heinerich, mein lieber Sohn!" "Sie kocht mir einen bunten Fisch, Frau Mutter mein, O weh! Mein junges Leben, Vergeben hat sie's mir."

In Lord Rendall, the young man wishes his sweetheart a rope to hang herself. In the German song, it's:

"Ich wunsch ihr die ewige Holl und Qual"

(Sorry, no umlauts)

I like the tune, but it's strangely bouncy for such a macabre theme. I think Mozart might have known this tune, since it has similarities to something that Papageno sings in the Magic Flute.

I would be glad to post the lyrics if anyone is interested.

Edmund

Subject: RE: German folk music II
From: Wolfgang
Date: 16 Sep 02 - 09:49 AM

Yes, I am very much interested.

If you can't make Umlaute, the traditional German way is to print ae oe and ue for the respective Umlaute.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: German folk music II
From: IanC
Date: 16 Sep 02 - 11:08 AM

Irina

For books, try the Countries/Germany section of the Basic Folk Library. You may even have some books you'd like including.

Time I got a plug in!!!

:-)
Ian

Subject: RE: German folk music II
From: GUEST,CET (at work)
Date: 16 Sep 02 - 02:21 PM

Wolfgang:

I'll post the lyrics when I get home.

Edmund

Subject: ADD: The Speckled Fish (German Lord Randall)
From: CET
Date: 16 Sep 02 - 06:54 PM

Here's the song. It is taken from "Songs of Man", Norman Luboff and Win Stracke, eds. (Walton Music Corporation, N.Y., 1965). The title given is "The Speckled Fish" but it doesn't give the title of the German original.

The Speckled Fish (German Lord Randall)

"Wo bist du denn so lang gewes'n
Heinerich, mein lieber Sohn?"
"Ich bin bei meinem Feinsliebchen gewes'n,
Frau Mutter mein, O weh!
Mein junges Leben
Vergeben hat sie's mir."

"Was gab sie dir zu essen?
Heinerich, mein lieber Sohn?"
"Sie kocht mir einem bunten Fisch,
Frau Mutter mein, etc"

"Und wie viel Stuecke schnitt sie dir?
Heinerich, mein lieber Sohn!"
"Sie schnitt davon drei Stueckelein,
Frau Mutter mein, etc"

"Wo liess sie denn das dritte Stueck?
Heinerich, mein lieber Sohn?"
"Sie gab's ihren schwarzbraunen Huendelein,
Frau Mutter mein, etc"

"Und was geschah dem Huendelein?
Heinerich, mein lieber Sohn!"
"Der Bauch sprang ihm in der Mitt entzwei,
Frau Mutter mein, etc"

"Was wuenschest du deinem Vater?
Heinerich, mein lieber Sohn!"
"Ich wuensch ihm tausend Glueck und Segn,
Frau Mutter mein, etc."

"Was wuenschest du deiner Mutter?
Heinerich, mein lieber Sohn!"
"Ich wuensch ihr die ewige Seligheit,
Frau Mutter mein, etc."

"Was wuenschest du deiner Liebsten?
Heinerich, mein lieber Sohn!"
"Ich wuensch ihr die ewige Hoell und Qual,
Frau Mutter mein, etc."

I hope the line breaks come through alright. The spelling of "Heinerich" is taken from the book.

I guess the difference in the lyrics may have something to do with the resources available to the average early modern murderess. English women had eels. The Germans preferred trout.

Edmund

Subject: RE: German folk music II
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 16 Sep 02 - 07:00 PM

Edmund, the song need not have come to Germany from Scotland. Here is what Hamish Henderson (who certainly knew his way round the Italian and German folk song traditions) has to say:

[1986:] [Many] of the narrative songs which were to find their way into Child's 'English and Scottish Popular Ballads' were just as certainly incomers from across the North Sea, or 'land-loupers' which came up from the South, after crossing the English Channel - in some cases starting their fabulous migration in the Mediterranean world.
A revealing example of this latter peregrination is provided by [Lord Randal]. The version printed by Sir Walter Scott in his 'Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border' in 1802 can claim to be one of the two most famous ballad texts in the world (the other is Edward), and generations of Scots poetry lovers have undoubtedly accepted without question the wholly Scottish national identity of this haunting piece. However, the truth is that it is only one version of a very widely diffused international ballad, and that the earliest indication of its presence in a particular culture comes from Italy, where it seems to have been popular 350 years ago. A Veronese broadside of 1629 gives the first three lines of L' Avvelenato (The Poisoned Man), an unmistakable first cousin of Lord Randal [...].
Since then, dozens of versions have been recorded up and down Italy. In Germany 'die Schlangenköchin' (literally, the woman who cooked snakes) is manifestly the same ballad. Although the texts we have are all from the nineteenth century, or later, it is plain that they represent a centuries-old tradition, as do (for example) the Dutch, Swedish, Danish and Hungarian variants. Lord Randal is an 'all-dialogue ballad': that is, the entire action is unfolded through conversation between the protagonists - here a mother, and her son who has been out hunting or courting (or maybe both). (Hamish Henderson, Alias McAlias 82f)

Subject: RE: German folk music II
From: toadfrog
Date: 16 Sep 02 - 11:11 PM

If I recall correctly, Francis James Child's collection followed in the footsteps of the Danish ballad collector Grundvig, a personal friend of Child's, and one of his criteria in selecting ballads as genuinely "popular" was whether other arguable versions of the same ballad could be identified (say) in Ireland or Scandanavia. I also believe that the real pioneering ballad collections were German, identified with the Schlegels and the Grimms. Others doubtless know more about this, but I think that's a fair approximation.

Child says that parts of the ballad are identifiable in a 1629 Italian broadside. He writes:

"The corresponding German ballad has been known to the English for two generations through Jamieson's translation. The several versions, all from oral tradition of this century [the 1800's] show the same resemblances and differences as the English." He identifies one with snakes from Brandenburg, and then "Peter, 1, 187, No. 6, from Weidenau, Austrian Silesia, run thus: Henry tells his mother that he has been at his sweetheart's (but not a-hunting); he has had a speckled fish to eat, a part of which was given to the dog, . . . which burst. Henry wishes his father and mother all the blessings, and hell-pains to his sweetheart . . . [Etc.]" He goes on to observe that of several German variations, this seems one of the closest to the English, "and have even the name Henry, which we find in English C.

Child also identifies one Dutch, two Swedish, two Danish, two Magyar, and one or more Wendish (West Slavic) versions, and very similar Bohemian, Moravian, Slovak, Polish, Serbian, Bulgarian, Slovene, Russian, Massovian, Lithuanian, Albanian, Romaic [?] and Ruthenian versions. Generally, it seems the boy is served snakes or toads which are misrepresentified as fish.

Always this vulgar prejudice against toads!

The Child Ballads with annotations are available, very inexpensively, from Loomis Press. Malcom provides a clickie on this thread where it can be found.

Subject: RE: German folk music II
From: Wolfgang
Date: 17 Sep 02 - 06:29 AM

Thanks, Edmund.

I'll have a look whether I can find it in my few German songbooks. I wish I had more time so I could dig deeper into ballads across Europe.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: German folk music II
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 18 Sep 02 - 07:30 AM

Irina - let's return to t your original question about German folk dances. They are still played in rural areas by interested musicians, and rural people are dancing to the tunes. Nevertheless these keeping alive the dances is a matter not of the average people but of interested people forming dancing circles in the villages.
When the dances were written down by the collectors, they often noted only the tunes. If you find a piano setting, be glad - here you have the harmonies to play other voices.
The polyphone settings are often done by the musicians themselves; the instruments are varying depending on what's just at hand. You find violins, trumpets, clarinets, accordeons, guitars and for the bass strings or euphonium.
Some of the more popular dances also have lyrics in the form of short ditties which can be sung by the spectators.
In the Alps you also find hammered dulcimers and zithers with the music.

Wilfried

Subject: RE: German folk music II
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 18 Sep 02 - 06:54 PM

Our North German folk dance association has just brought out a CD and guide to accompany the reissue of a book of dance tunes collected by Wilhelm Stahl early last century. I'm no judge but knowing their thoroughness and dedication it's bound to be very good. I'll post the address for anyone who's interested - but not today!

Subject: RE: German folk music II
From: toadfrog
Date: 16 Feb 03 - 07:31 PM

This is a link to the German American Songbook of the Civil War. The site may be familiar to many of you, but is new to me. Contains links to further (German) 1848 songs. What is particularly notable about this site is the magnificent quality of many of its MIDIs, which seem to be real labors of love.

Subject: RE: German folk music II
From: CET
Date: 17 Feb 03 - 06:55 PM

Toadfrog:

Thanks. This is stupendous. Some of these are definitely going into my songbook

Edmund

Subject: RE: German folk music II
From: Bill D
Date: 17 Feb 03 - 07:41 PM

...but the midis seems to be linked to a well-known music site, and not carried ON this site. This is not good practice, as it uses 'bandwidth' (i.e., making the Ingreb site do the work of playing the tune. I wonder if he realizes?

Subject: RE: German folk music II
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 17 Feb 03 - 07:52 PM

Thanks for the link, toadfrog. I was going to send you a PM anyway - have you managed to get through your German folk CDs yet, and what do you think of them? Let us know, please!

Subject: RE: German folk music II
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 18 Feb 03 - 02:07 AM

Many thanks, toadfrog, for the link. I found a lot of the songs we sang at the sad anniversary celebrating the fall of Rastatt, where liberty had her last stand in 1849. My wife is from this ancient battle ground.
Here I learned that General Blenker who fought near her hometown in 1849 lead a division in the Civil War.
A remark to the song "First Call": The melody is probably not the choral "O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden". The second and third verse start with "Wenn alle untreu werden". This is also the start of a famous song from the Liberation War of 1813. It is sung to the melody of "Wilhelmus van Nassauwe", the national anthem of the Netherlands. It is livelier than the choral and fits better to the song when not sung too slowly.

Wilfried

Subject: RE: German folk music II
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 24 Feb 03 - 04:16 AM

Correction to my last post: The melody of "Wilhelmus van Nassauwe" is secondary for this song; in an earlier songbook I found out that it was sung to the tune of an older hunting song, which fits well to irregular troops.
The tune is best known as the beginning to Eichendorff's song Students of Prague and starts: Nach Süden nun sich lenken die Vöglein allzumal... (The birdies are flying South now)

Wilfried

Subject: RE: German folk music II
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 25 Feb 03 - 11:11 AM

And here is the tune

Wilfried

Subject: RE: German folk music II
From: fiddler
Date: 25 Feb 03 - 12:57 PM

all interesting stuff - I'm going to Dusseldorf in May and asked similar questions last week - but of a pack of English Dancers - No hope.

Still Sauerlander 5 and Kruz Konig looks like being my limit after than non germophile English forlk songs and tunes!

A

Subject: RE: German folk music II
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Oct 04 - 04:17 PM

i really do need information about germany's traditional music instruments, some some traditonal music , [pictures and how they play them,,, but most, What are the main instruments in germany. can someone please help me!


e-mail": [e-mail]


thanx

Subject: RE: German folk music II
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 17 Oct 04 - 06:53 PM

New thread started: Traditional German instruments