3 Lieder -- German folk song settings for mandolin trio

[Martin Jonas]

These are three very popular German songs, including one with a tune by Mozart and another with words by Goethe. The settings are my own, based on very simple harmonies I found in an anonymous book of German folk songs for children. Each song is played as a trio of two mandolins and tenor guitar, with each of the three instruments taking the melody line in turns, the Mid-Mo playing single stroke and the Embergher tremolo.

Mid-Missouri M-0W mandolin
1915 Luigi Embergher mandolin
Ozark tenor guitar

1) Komm, lieber Mai, und mache (Mozart, K. 596)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1791): Sehnsucht nach dem Frühling ("Komm, lieber Mai, und mache"), KV 596

This is an example of an art song entering the oral tradition. It was written in 1791 by Mozart, to words by Christian Adolph Overbeck.



2) "Sah ein Knab' ein Röslein stehn"

Heinrich Werner (1827): Heidenröslein ("Sah ein Knab' ein Röslein stehn")

"Heidenröslein" (better know by its first line "Sah ein Knab' ein Röslein stehn") is one of the seminal poems of the Sturm und Drang movement in Germany, written in 1771 by the then 22-year-old Johann Wolfgang Goethe. There were more than 100 musical settings before Werner's, the most durable being Schubert's 1815 setting, but Heinrich Werner's tune is the one that became most popular in Germany and is still widely sung as a folk song.



3) "Ich hab die Nacht geträumet" (or "Das Laub fällt von den Bäumen")

This is a traditional German folk tune, dating from prior to 1777 (when it was first printed). It was used as the tune to two 19th century romantic songs, both of them still widely sung as German folk songs: "Ich hab die Nacht geträumet" (words by Joachim August Zarnack, 1820) and "Das Laub fällt von den Bäumen" (words by Siegfried August Mahlmann, 1805). The Mahlmann words were also set to a different tune by Robert Schumann.



Martin