Heinrich Heine, in his preface to a translation of _Don Quixote_,
discusses the creative powers of different peoples. To the Spaniard
Cervantes is awarded the first place in novel-writing, and to our own
Shakespeare, of course, the transcendent rank in drama.
"And the Germans," he goes on to say, "what palm is due to them? Well,
we are the best writers of songs in the world. No people possesses
such beautiful _Lieder_ as the Germans. Just at present the nations
have too much political business on hand; but, after that has once
been settled, we Germans, English, Spaniards, Frenchmen, and Italians
will all go to the green forest and sing, and the nightingale shall be
umpire. I feel sure that in this contest the song of Wolfgang Goethe
will gain the prize."
There are few, if any, who will be disposed to dispute the verdict of
the German poet, himself no mean rival, in depth and variety of lyric
inspiration, even of the great Goethe. But a greater poet than either
one of this great pair bears the suggestive and impersonal name of
"The People." It is to the countless wealth of the German race in
folk-songs, an affluence which can be traced back to the very dawn of
civilisation among them, that the possibility of such lyric poets as
Goethe, Heine, Rückert, and Uhland is due. From the days of the
"Nibelungenlied," that great epic which, like the Homeric poems, can
hardly be credited to any one author, every hamlet has rung with
beautiful national songs, which sprung straight from the fervid heart
of the people. These songs are balmy with the breath of the forest,
the meadow, and river, and have that simple and bewitching freshness
of motive and rhythm which unconsciously sets itself to music.
The German _Volkslied_, as the exponent of the popular heart, has a
wide range, from mere comment on historical events, and quaint, droll
satire, such as may be found in Hans Sachs, to the grand protest
against spiritual bondage which makes the burden of Luther's hymn,
"Ein' feste Burg." But nowhere is the beauty of the German song so
marked as in those _Lieder_ treating of love, deeds of arms, and the
old mystic legends so dear to the German heart. Tieck writes of the
"Minnesinger period"--"Believers sang of faith, lovers of love;
knights described knightly actions and battles, and loving, believing
knights were their chief audiences. The spring, beauty, gaiety, were
objects that could never tire; great duels and deeds of arms carried
away every hearer, the more surely the stronger they were painted; and
as the pillars and dome of the church encircled the flock, so did
Religion, as the highest, encircle poetry and reality, and every heart
in equal love humbled itself before her."
A similar spirit has always inspired the popular German song, a simple
and beautiful reverence for the unknown, the worship of heroism, a
vital sympathy with the various manifestations of Nature. Without the
fire of the French _chansons_, the sonorous grace of the Tuscan
_stornelli_, these artless ditties, with their exclusive reliance on
true feeling, possess an indescribable charm.
The German _Lied_ always preserved its characteristic beauty. Goethe,
and the great school of lyric poets clustered around him, simply
perfected the artistic form, without departing from the simplicity and
soulfulness of the stock from which it came. Had it not been for the
rich soil of popular song, we should not have had the peerless lyrics
of modern Germany. Had it not been for the poetic inspiration of such
word-makers as Goethe and Heine, we should not have had such
music-makers in the sphere of song as Schubert and Franz.
The songs of these masters appeal to the interest and admiration of
the world, then, not merely in virtue of musical beauty, but in that
they are the most vital outgrowths of Teutonic nationality and
feeling.
The immemorial melodies to which the popular songs of Germany were set
display great simplicity of rhythm, even monotony, with frequent
recurrence of the minor keys, so well adapted to express the
melancholy tone of many of the poems. The strictly strophic treatment
is used, or, in other words, the repetition of the melody of the first
stanza in all the succeeding ones. The chasm between this and the
varied form of the artistic modern song is deep and wide, yet it was
overleaped in a single swift bound by the remarkable genius of Franz
Schubert, who, though his compositions were many and matchless of
their kind, died all too young; for, as the inscription on his
tombstone pathetically has it, he was "rich in what he gave, richer in
what he promised."