Jg. 64 – 2016 – Heft 1: Musik und ländliche Gesellschaft
Gunter Mahlerwein und Claudia Neu: Editorial, S. 7-9
Daniel Schläppi: „Einige Zeit aufs Singen verwendet“. Musik als Kernressource dörflichen Kulturlebens am Beispiel des schweizerischen 18. Jahrhunderts, S. 11-35
Michael Fischer: Lieder für den Landmann. Kultur-, medien- und bildungsgeschichtliche Aspekte der Volksaufklärung im späten 18. Jahrhundert, S. 37-53
Holger Schwetter: Veränderung und neue Beständigkeit. Progressive Landdiskotheken in Norddeutschland, S. 55-69
Mickael Blanchet: Rap in der Vendée. Musik als Indikator der Urbanisierung des ländlichen Raums?, S. 71-90
Abstracts
Forum
Friederike Scholten: Tagungsbericht „Totgesagte leben länger? Geschichte und Aktualität ländlicher Gemeingüter in vergleichender Perspektive“. Jahrestagung der Gesellschaft für Agrargeschichte in Regensburg 2015, S. 95-99
Martin Rheinheimer: Nachruf Klaus-Joachim Lorenzen-Schmidt 1948-2015, S. 100-101
Rezensionen, S. 103-119
Abstracts
Daniel Schläppi
„Spent considerable time on singing“. Music as a key resource in rural cultural life of 18th century Switzerland
Dealing with popular music in premodern times historical research usually focuses on so called “Volksmusik”. But already in the 18th century researchers were disappointed to find only few traces of imaginary “traditional” music in Switzerland. They unfortunately overlooked that common people kept on with their own stubborn musical culture: Beginning with the Reformation the authorities encouraged the communities to employ schoolmasters who were able to teach music. Their goal was that everybody should be able to participate in liturgical music actively. Over generations even people with no special musical talent adopted their own repertoire of psalms plus techniques of reading music and polyphonic singing. Spontaneous choral singing evolved into a common everyday practice. The most ambitious and brightest teachers even taught instrumental lessons at home on their proper pianos and chamber organs or encouraged the villagers to build new prestigious organs in their churches. The financial burden of such instruments weighted heavily on the communities. Some of them received financial support from the government, albeit unwillingly because it was obvious to the rulers that the villages just wanted to overtop each other. Homemade music was the most important issue in the cultural life of most parishes. Rich communes spent a lot of money to win the best voices on-site for their church choirs. Belonging to an elitists’ singer association paved the way to the farmer-village’s highlevel sociability.highlevel sociability.
Michael Fischer
Lieder für den Landmann – Songs for the Peasant. Cutural, Media and Educational-Historical Aspects of Folk Enlightenment in the Late 18th Century
At the end of the 18th century and as part of the enlightenment, the so-called “folk” came into the view of the educated world: On the one hand as an object of wellmeaning charity; on the other hand as the carrier of cultural heritage. Perhaps for the first time in modern history, rural and lower class sections of the population were perceived as people deserving attention and education for their own sake. At that time, newly written songs and popular reading materials served the purpose of educating; such songs and reading materials were to eliminate and replace the conventional and supposedly vapid and immoral ones of the past. At the same time, romantics were seeking traditional and unadulterated “folk songs” – which they collected and publicised as old national folklore. Together with the corresponding aesthetic ideals, the educated classes delighted themselves in the “simplicity” and “naturalness” of rural existence as they saw it and experienced it from varying degrees of distance. In the songs of the enlightenment, the rural population was invoked to live demurely, frugally, and piously; freely according to their own dignity, which was due to them on the basis of their social position and their work. The disciplinary aspects should not be overlooked here; at the same time, one is not able to deny the enlighteners’ desire to enact practical, ethical and religious reforms in order to make the peasant’s life easier and to bring him into a state of greater self-awareness. To which degree this succeeded via the help of songs must remain open, as should the question of how the innovations in song were perceived and used by their audience.
Holger Schwetter
Change and new persistance. Progressive rural discotheques in northwest Germany
From the late 1960s on discotheques dedicated to rock music were founded in the west German province. Even though they were well established and widespread they are hardly mentioned in contemporary sources. In the sociology and history of popular music the phenomenon has so far gone unnoticed. This invisibility is contrasted by statements of former visitors which assign these establishments a big importance. In this article a combined analysis of spatial structure, experiences and musical repertoire is used to extrapolate the happenings in rural rock discotheques and to reveal their relevance for juvenile communitization and social change in the 1970s.
Mickael Blanchet
Rap music as urban indicator of rural areas from “Haut bocage Vendéen”?
Rap is currently one of the most popular forms of musical expression of young people from rural areas. This is the case of Montaigu (Vendée, France) where several rap groups were founded in the 2000s. These bands represented social affirmation places for a part of the male youth of this small town. The observation of these groups and their members from the end of the 1990s to 2010, is singular to underline the evolution of local space based on rural and unequal usages and legacies. This paper represents an opportunity to point out the preservation or the split of these social and spatial legacies.
Forum
Friederike Scholten: Tagungsbericht „Totgesagte leben länger? Geschichte und Aktualität ländlicher Gemeingüter in vergleichender Perspektive“. Jahrestagung der Gesellschaft für Agrargeschichte in Regensburg 2015
Martin Rheinheimer: Nachruf Klaus-Joachim Lorenzen-Schmidt 1948-2015