Odd and ends

So many things still to write about--dinner with Stefan's brother's family yesterday in Odelzhausen and our conversation about whether Jewish soldiers would have been included on WWI memorials with crosses (yes, if the crosses were "iron crosses," but probably not if the crosses were church-affiliated, and so much more to say about different kinds of anti-Semitism and how it played out regionally in the part of the world now known as Germany); how to recognize small Bavarian churches from afar (see photos below--there are basically two predominant types of Baroque towers, the onion dome and the simple triangle); lunch with Inge (Helen's best friend for the past 70 years); the annual dueling Haensel und Gretels in Muenchen (today we reconfirmed that the Gaertnerplatz performance is not the one to attend if you want to be able to hear the singers over an adequate pit orchestra, but we aren't sure we can handle going to the Staatsoper performance next year to confirm that it's the one to see); and how sad it is that the performance of "Aloha He, Stern der Suedsee" by Die Flippers has been removed from youtube.com because of copyright restrictions.

But (to paraphrase Chaucer) instead of writing about all those things, we're feverishly packing and repacking, already pining for Germany before we get on a plane tomorrow to head back to the U.S. We thought we had all our suitcase and carry-on space cleverly mapped out, and then a Nigerian guy tried to blow up an airplane in Detroit the other day and our airline changed its baggage rules. Oh well. Back to work.

There are, of course, lots of things to look forward to back home: our friends, our cats, our house, our neighborhood; organs to play, pots to wheel-throw, a choir to conduct, writing workshops to give; a gas oven and stove top, American baking powder, and local streets that are wide enough for two cars to drive on in opposite directions at the same time. We're dusting of our "might coulds" and "oughta shoulds" and girding ourselves for culture shock.

I don't know that I'm ready to give up my Wadlstrumpf home quite yet, but our final week of Vodafone service expires at ~22:30 tonight, and that deadline seems an appropriate way to mark the end of a lovely six months of talking to myself and to you dozen or so loyal readers out there in ether-space.

But saying farewell to Wadlstrumpf doesn't mean I'll be giving up my new blogging habit. Tune in Tuesday at mightoughtashould.blogspot.com for the next exciting installment.

Also, pfirdi, pfirdi, also, also, servus, pfirdi!

New Horizons in Schlager Appreciation, Episode 3

In 1999, when I was a professor of music theory at Big Plains State U., I was asked to teach a class called Music Theory for Non-Musicians. After a unit on motivic uses of rhythm, I asked my students to choose a short passage from a favorite piece and present it to the class. One student brought in "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" and said, "in order to understand today's music, you need to understand the classics."

With this dictum in mind, I introduce you, dear readers, to Jan and Kjeld Wennick's 1959 Schlager hit, "Banjo Boy," which reached the number one spot in the German Hitparade and spent 29 weeks in the Top 40. Not bad for two young brothers from Denmark.

As is the case with other Schlager songs we have encountered thus far, "Banjo Boy" is cheerfully nostalgic for an exotic land far, far away ("Tennessee"). It includes some geographically ambiguous twangs that perhaps sound more tropical than suth'n or country, but what the heck, Other is Other, right? There's also a fine trumpet lick that alludes to the long jazz tradition that, um, Tennessee is so famous for. Yodeling would be semiotically inappropriate given the lyrics, but Jan and Kjeld never seem too far from their European roots. Enjoy!

Jeden Abend geht er durch die Strassen
In der kleinen Stadt in Tennessee,
Und die grossen und die kleinen Leute
Kennen alle seine Melodie...

[Every evening, he walks through the streets
in the little town in Tennesse,
and the big and the little people
all know his melody...]

Sing ein Lied, sing ein Lied,
Little Banjo Boy
Banjo Boy, Banjo Boy.
Denn Musik, denn Musik,
Little Banjo Boy,
Banjo Boy ist unser Glueck.

[Sing a song, sing a song,
little Banjo Boy,
Banjo Boy, Banjo Boy,
for music, for music,
little Banjo Boy,
Banjo Boy is our happiness.]

So ein sing sage dige dage
Sing song unterm blauen Himmelzelt
Ist das sing sage dige dage
Sing song Allerschoenste von der Welt

[So a sing-saga-digga-dagga-
sing-song under the blue tent of the sky
is the most beautiful sing-saga-digga-dagga-
sing-song in the whole world.]

Herbstferien

This week is Herbstferien (fall break) in Baden-Wuerttemberg, which means that we, along with the rest of the state, will be traveling. Our personal plan is to roadtrip south to Ticino*--the Italian-speaking, southernmost canton of Switzerland--in search of high mountains and sunshine.

Perhaps the trap in the parking basement will have caught something--a marten, a rat, or as my friend Tamsin suggests, a troll--by the time we return. As the tufts of grass on the cage gradually wither, the egg remains intact inside, untouched and unrefrigerated.

For all of you new Schlager fans out there, check out this scrumptious video of the ever-popular group, Die Flippers, singing "Aloha He, Stern der Südsee." I draw your attention to the song mainly to point out the popularity of both echoes and Polynesia in Schlager, as the refrain "Aloha He (Aloha, Aloha)" clearly recalls "Fliege mit mir nach Somoa (Samoa, Samoa)." The unabashed joyfulness conveyed by the blowing hair and shiny blazers isn't bad either.

And on that musical note, I bid you farewell, dear readers, until the weekend. Also, pfirdi! Pfirdi! Also, pfirdi!

Schlager

How did I make it this long without writing about Schlager, the hot hot music everyone's listening to these days years decades? I don't know much about pop music in Germany, let alone in the U.S., but Schlager has a certain, oh, je ne sais quoi that you can't avoid. It's sort of what happens to Muzak when you add lyrics and synthesized drums.

Today, en route to practicing Cesar Franck's expansive Grande Piece Symphonique and Mendelssohn's majestic sixth organ sonata on the robust Rieger organ in Landwasser (where one doesn't yet need mittens), I tried turning on the car radio and actually got some reception. Thus I heard most of Edith Prock's 2004 hit, "Fliege mit mir nach Samoa (Samoa, Somoa)" (Fly with me to Samoa ["Samoa, Samoa," echo the backup singers]), with a catchy synth beat and steel drums for that extra Polynesian flair; as well as a good bit of Michael Morgan's 2002 classic, "Piano, Piano" (which I think is supposed to mean "softly, softly," as in the Italian dynamic indication, rather than "Klavier, Klavier," but maybe he's in love with his keyboard, probably a white lacquered parlor grand, or someone named Piano):

"Piano, piano – du bist wirklich alles, / wonach ich mich seh’n. / Ich will dich ganz haben / und morgens nicht sagen: /Du, es war schön und dann geh’n. Piano, piano – bin einmal zu oft schon
verloren erwacht. / Und ich brauch’s nicht schon wieder, / dass‘ mich die Liebe / so hilflos macht. / Ich bin kein Typ für ’ne Nacht."

[Piano, piano--you are really all I desire. I want to have you entirely, and in the mornings not say "Yo, it was nice" and then go. Piano, piano--I've woken up left one time to many. And I don't need love to make me so helpless again. I'm not the type for a one night stand.]

Check out the music video to see and hear him in action! I doubt Franck or Mendelssohn were as dreamy in peach.