Music Alone Shall Live: A Song History
“Music Alone Shall Live” is sung to English words that the Traditional Ballad Index treats as a translation of a German text.[1] Musica International’s choral database catalogs the German song, “Himmel und Erde müssen vergehn,” as a canon, or round, by an anonymous composer.[2] The Liederprojekt run by the music publisher Carus-Verlag lists both its melody and its words as “überliefert,” that is, handed down by tradition.[3] Sources differ on authorship, however: one source, SingPraises’ index of a 1986 camp songbook of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, names Hans-Ludwig Berger as the author of the text.[4] Neither the Musica International nor the Liederprojekt listing gives a date for the round.[2][3]
Luc-Olivier Merson, Head of a Boy Singing (Study for Music), black, white, and red chalk with stumping, c. 1898. Shown for its subject; it has no connection to the round.
The Ballad Index files the song among camp songs, and an editor’s note there remarks that the English words it gives are “not really equivalent to the German.”[1] The Index’s entry gives 1959 as its earliest date, from Chansons de Notre Chalet, where the song appears as “Himmel og Jord” with short texts in English, German, Dutch and French.[1] The same entry also lists it in the Girl Scout Pocket Songbook and in Fred and Irwin Silber’s Folksinger’s Wordbook, and the Index’s bibliography dates the Girl Scout book to 1956, three years before the entry’s earliest date.[1][5] It appeared in Latter-day Saint youth songbooks as well: SingPraises indexes it in the 1962 and 1970 editions of MIA Let’s Sing as “Music Alone Shall Stay (German Round),” with words and music credited to German folk song.[6]
Judy House includes it as a round in Jam Across America, a 178-page book of more than 130 songs for mountain dulcimer clubs, all arranged in DAD tuning; she chose the songs by looking through the playlists of clubs around the country.[7]
Sources
- Traditional Ballad Index: "Music Alone Shall Live".
- Musica International: "Himmel und Erde müssen vergehn".
- Liederprojekt (Carus-Verlag): "Himmel und Erde müssen vergehn".
- SingPraises: "Songs for Camps and Reunions (RLDS) (1986), 60b: Music Alone Shall Live / Die Musica".
- Traditional Ballad Index: "Bibliography".
- SingPraises: "Music Alone Shall Stay".
- Judy House: "Jam Across America".
- Image: Luc-Olivier Merson, Head of a Boy Singing (Study for Music), black, white, and red chalk with stumping, c. 1898. The Cleveland Museum of Art.