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 civilization
among them, that the possibility of such lyric poets as Goethe, Heine,
Ruckert, 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, gayety, 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."