Die Narren by Wolfgang Schmeltzl
By all rights, I should have waited till April 1 to send out today's piece. But I'm not that patient. And, after all, April Fools' Day isn't the only day one is likely to encounter a fool of some sort or other.
If you want to be prepared to recognize a fool for what he/she is, there's no better song than 'Die Narren' ('The Fools'). It's a veritable treasure-trove of fools we've met, fools we haven't, and (probably for many of us) fools we've been. The song was first brought to light in a peculiar set of partbooks entitled 'Guter, seltsamer und künstreicher teutsche Gesang'.
The title and the ensuing description can be translated as: 'Good, rare and artful German songs, in particular a number of artistic quodlibets, battle-songs and the like, for four or five voices, not seen heretofore in print'. Alongside a woodcut of a coat of arms surmounted by a hedgehog, the title page includes a poem:
I am the goldfinch.
Sing these very best melodies
my way, with diligence.
I stand and sing well
For the noble hedgehog
At his table.
(The dedicatee was a nobleman named Franz Igelhofer; 'Igel' means 'hedgehog' in German.)
The partbooks were published Nuremberg in 1544 under the name of Wolfgang Schmeltzl (c.1505-c.1564). [Don't you just love German? So lavish with consonants and parsimonious with vowels.] As indicated above, the contents are varied, including quodlibets (songs which quote preëxisting songs), onomatopoetic songs about battles and the like, and especially 'catalogue songs', which list many of the representatives of a given class of thing or person--say 'Beers'; or 'Noses'; or (as you may have surmised): 'Fools'.
The authorship of these songs is not given in the partbooks, but a number of the composers are known. It is very likely that the catalogue songs, and 'Die Narren' in particular, are by Schmeltzl himself, a skilled poet and composer and, it seems, a live wire as well.
I first got to know this song in 2014 from a wonderful performance by Stimmwerck, on their CD of secular music, 'Gyri-gyri-ga-ga'. (If this sounds familiar: I mentioned this album a few weeks back in connection with our 'Audite nova' project.) I was particularly amused and fascinated by 'Die Narren' and the super-imaginative performance on Stimmwerck's CD. I sent the text--untranslated in the liner notes--to Andrea Herold with a request for help. She got really into it, and (as I recall, in collaboration with a friend) produced a wonderful translation, which you'll find attached. (Thanks again, Andrea!)
The next thing was to find a score. Nope, not available, period. I tried to write to the group, but to no avail. I looked for the original partbooks for the publication without success. But recently I returned to the quest, and I discovered that there had been an error of attribution on the CD liner notes: instead of appearing in one of Georg Rhau's collections, the song is to be found in the collection described above.
It was smooth sailing from then on. The partbooks were readily available on imslp.org (if you don't know it, you must check it out), and once I downloaded these, I extracted 'Die Narren' and scored it up in Finale. Attached you'll find the resulting modern score, along with the soprano part from the original songbook so you can get a sense of what it looks like.
The song is very clever, and it's worth checking it out in both score and text-translation. But what's really great is the performance. The group has obviously worked hard at how to bring this ancient song about a timeless topic (apparently fools have always been a thing) to vivid--and hilarious--life. Listen with the translation in hand and enjoy!
By all rights, I should have waited till April 1 to send out today's piece. But I'm not that patient. And, after all, April Fools' Day isn't the only day one is likely to encounter a fool of some sort or other.
If you want to be prepared to recognize a fool for what he/she is, there's no better song than 'Die Narren' ('The Fools'). It's a veritable treasure-trove of fools we've met, fools we haven't, and (probably for many of us) fools we've been. The song was first brought to light in a peculiar set of partbooks entitled 'Guter, seltsamer und künstreicher teutsche Gesang'.
The title and the ensuing description can be translated as: 'Good, rare and artful German songs, in particular a number of artistic quodlibets, battle-songs and the like, for four or five voices, not seen heretofore in print'. Alongside a woodcut of a coat of arms surmounted by a hedgehog, the title page includes a poem:
I am the goldfinch.
Sing these very best melodies
my way, with diligence.
I stand and sing well
For the noble hedgehog
At his table.
(The dedicatee was a nobleman named Franz Igelhofer; 'Igel' means 'hedgehog' in German.)
The partbooks were published Nuremberg in 1544 under the name of Wolfgang Schmeltzl (c.1505-c.1564). [Don't you just love German? So lavish with consonants and parsimonious with vowels.] As indicated above, the contents are varied, including quodlibets (songs which quote preëxisting songs), onomatopoetic songs about battles and the like, and especially 'catalogue songs', which list many of the representatives of a given class of thing or person--say 'Beers'; or 'Noses'; or (as you may have surmised): 'Fools'.
The authorship of these songs is not given in the partbooks, but a number of the composers are known. It is very likely that the catalogue songs, and 'Die Narren' in particular, are by Schmeltzl himself, a skilled poet and composer and, it seems, a live wire as well.
I first got to know this song in 2014 from a wonderful performance by Stimmwerck, on their CD of secular music, 'Gyri-gyri-ga-ga'. (If this sounds familiar: I mentioned this album a few weeks back in connection with our 'Audite nova' project.) I was particularly amused and fascinated by 'Die Narren' and the super-imaginative performance on Stimmwerck's CD. I sent the text--untranslated in the liner notes--to Andrea Herold with a request for help. She got really into it, and (as I recall, in collaboration with a friend) produced a wonderful translation, which you'll find attached. (Thanks again, Andrea!)
The next thing was to find a score. Nope, not available, period. I tried to write to the group, but to no avail. I looked for the original partbooks for the publication without success. But recently I returned to the quest, and I discovered that there had been an error of attribution on the CD liner notes: instead of appearing in one of Georg Rhau's collections, the song is to be found in the collection described above.
It was smooth sailing from then on. The partbooks were readily available on imslp.org (if you don't know it, you must check it out), and once I downloaded these, I extracted 'Die Narren' and scored it up in Finale. Attached you'll find the resulting modern score, along with the soprano part from the original songbook so you can get a sense of what it looks like.
The song is very clever, and it's worth checking it out in both score and text-translation. But what's really great is the performance. The group has obviously worked hard at how to bring this ancient song about a timeless topic (apparently fools have always been a thing) to vivid--and hilarious--life. Listen with the translation in hand and enjoy!