Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

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604 SONG
reproduced the beautiful old Mallied (May-song)
in his Fastnacktsspiel, Der Neydhart mit dem
'
Feyhel,' written Feb. 7, 1562.1 He calls it a
Reigen or roundelay, and its original date was
evidently anterior to the 14th century.
16th-century form it is as follows :
In its
^gg^^^
Der Meye, der Meye bringt unsderBlUmlein
p^EpgEg^3^^|g=g^
weiBS wol, wem icha wil,
ich trng eln frei Ge • mil - te, Gott
Gott weiaa wol.wem iclis wil.
In fine, the Meistersinger cannot be said to
have reached a high level of excellence either
in i^oetry or in music, but they undoubtedly
exercised an important influence on the formation
of the Song by the attention they paid to
rhyme, and by their numerous inventions of
new metrical arrangements. And they rendered
a still greater service to music when they canied
it into every German home, and made it a grace
and pastime of domestic life.
While more regular and formal varieties of
the Song were thus being studied and practised,
it had never ceased to issue in its own spontaneous
form of Volkslied from the untutored
hearts of a music -loving people. From that
source it came in native vigour, unforced and
untrammelled. And far more was done for
melody and harmony by the obscure authors
of the Volkslieder than was ever done by
Minnesinger or Meistersinger. As Anibros has
pointed out,^ the importance of the part played
by the Volkslied in the history of the music of
Western Europe was second only to that of the
Gregorian modes. Further, the moral struggle
against the anti- humanism of the mediseval
church found victorious expression in the assertive
humanism of the folk-song—anathematised
by spiritual authority. A partial reconciliation
of the contending forces followed when the great
polyphonic masters adopted Volkslied melodies
as theme or foundation of their greatest sacred
and secular works. Later, a yet closer union
was efifected in the Chorale of the Reformation
period. Whoever were the authors of the
Volkslieder, it was not their habit to write
them down ; the songs lived on the lips and in
the hearts of the people. But happily, even in
remote times, there were collectors who made
it their business to transcribe these popular
songs ;
and of collections thus made none are
more important than the Limburger Chronik
'
and the Locheimer Liederbuch. ' ' The former
work consists of Volkslieder which would seem
1 See Bdhme's 'Altd. Liederbuch,' p. 36tj.
3 AmbroB, Qesch, der ilua. li. 276.
to have been in vogue from 1347 to 1380 ;'
while songs of a little later date are found in
the other collection.* This book contains fortyfour
songs, some of great melodic beauty, and
showing considerably developed rhythm and
structure as well as a delicate sense of poetic
feeling. The Zekrcompendium of H. de Zeelandia
also contains some very fine Volkslieder
of the 14th and 15th centuries.^ Finally,
among the many Minnesinger and Meistersinger
and other MS. collections named after the
various towns (such as the Nuremberg, Prague,
Dresden MSS.), numbers of genuine Volkslieder
are to be found.'
The subjects of the earliest Volkslieder were
historical ; " they were indeed epic poems of
many stanzas set to a short melody. But by
the time that the Volkslied had attained to its
meridian splendour, about the begmning of the
16th century, almost every sentiment of the
human heart and every occupation of life had
its own songs. Students, soldiers, huntsmen,
pedlars, apprentices, and other classes had their
own distinctive songs. The best are undoubtedly
the love-songs—those, in fact, where feeling is
the strongest. Amongst them the songs of
parting (Abschiedslieder) are the most numerous
and beautiful, especially the Wachterlieder * or
Tagelieder, in which the watchman announces
the dawn.' As a rule, the music of the Volkslied
was better than the words. So loose was the
structure of the verse that syllables without any
sense were inserted to fiU up the length of the
musical phrase, as
Dort oben auf dem Berge
Dblpel, dSlpel, dolpel
Da steht ein hohes Haus.
or a sentence was broken off in the middle, or
meaningless unds and ahers were lavishly interspersed.
But notwithstanding these laxities of
composition there was a close connection between
the words and the melody.
The Volkslied was always strophical in form,
and therein differed from the Sequences and
Proses of the Church' and the Leichen of the
Minnesinger. Another marked feature was its
rhyme. When the final rhyme had been
substituted for mere alliteration and assonance,
a definite form was imparted to the verse, and
its outline was rendered clearer by the melody
of the Volkslied which emphasised the final
rhyme, and by covering two lines of the poetry
3 '
In the LimbQl^er Chronik ' we are told of a leper monk living
by the Rhine, c. 1370. Despite his lepi-osy, the beauty of his compositions
drew men to his cell from all quarters.
* Ambros, Geach. der Jfiw. ill. 375.
6 From the Prague MS. Ambros (il. 277) gives one, Hen* Conrad
'
ging,' both in its original and in modem notation.
^ For the history of the Meistersinger see J. C Wagenseil's
Btieh von der JUeiatorsinger holdaeligen Ktmgt, ISSfT,
7 For the best authority consult B. von Llliencron's Die hit'
tirriaclien Volfalieder, etc.
8 A Wiichterlied still '
sung, Der Wiichter auf dem ThUrmleiu
sasa,' is given In Erk's
'
Deutsche Ltederhort,' No. 135.
^ These Abschiedslieder are full of the somids of nature—described
with poetlo charm. They were the special property of the Minnesinger
(Wolfram von Escheubach's were the most famous), but
equally loved by the people.