Du, du liegst mir im Herzen: A Song History
"Du, du liegst mir im Herzen" is a German love song by an unknown author and composer, which the Volksliederarchiv classes as a newer folk song that arose in northern Germany around 1820.[1] The archive's notes record that someone named Pax made a four-part setting of the tune in 1820 without having composed it, and, citing Eckermann's conversations with Goethe, that wandering Tyrolean singers performed the song at their concerts in Germany in 1828.[1] The archive takes its text from the second volume of the Deutscher Liederhort (1893), and the songbooks it lists, beginning with an 1859 Potsdam craftsmen's songbook, include collections for hiking clubs, postal workers, children and sports clubs and a 1926 collection of First World War songs.[1]
Kinney Brothers Tobacco Company, Tyrolean, from National Dances (N225, Type 1) issued by Kinney Bros., commercial color lithograph, 1889. Shown for its subject; it has no connection to the song.
The melody also drew instrumental virtuosos. The flutist Theobald Böhm wrote his Variations on a German Air, Op. 22, on the song.[2] The cornetist Jules Levy published his own introduction and variations on it, for cornet and piano, in Boston in 1878.[3]
Shelley Stevens includes it in Baker's Dozen #6: World Music, a collection of thirteen songs from around the world for mountain dulcimer in DAD tuning, published by Fingers Of Steel.[4]
Sources
- Volksliederarchiv: "Du du liegst mir im Herzen".
- University of Nebraska–Lincoln, Nebraska Today: "Bailey to perform standards and rarely heard flute repertoire".
- IMSLP: "Du, du liegst (Levy, Jules)".
- Fingers Of Steel: "Shelley Stevens, Baker's Dozen #6: World Music".
- Image: Kinney Brothers Tobacco Company, Tyrolean, from National Dances (N225, Type 1) issued by Kinney Bros., commercial color lithograph, 1889. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.