A Musical Presentation on the History of Folk Songs in Mecklenburg
Nothing beats singing a song together. Well-known folk songs are best suited for this. Everyone knows them, but hardly anyone sings them anymore, and some are being forgotten. Take the history of Mecklenburg’s folk songs, for example.
Yet this history stretches far back, even into the church, where in 1492 in Schwerin, the singing of songs in the local language during worship services was formalized. Around 1550, the first printed versions of the folk song about Klaus Störtebeker appeared. In 1850, the first Mecklenburg Singers’ Federation Festival took place in Güstrow. In 1914, librarian Bruno Claußen discovered the late-medieval Rostock Songbook in the Rostock University Library—one of the most important records of Low German musical culture. And in 1933, Hinstorff Publishers in Rostock released *Folk Songs from the Two Mecklenburgs*, edited by Johannes Gosselck and Friedrich Siems. Historian Christoph Wunnicke recounts this history through broad strokes, illustrative episodes, and, of course, the folk songs themselves. Between the individual stories, the songs described—as well as others—are sung together with the audience, accompanied by organist Reinhard Kotitschke and trumpeter Ulf Rust.
Once the final note has faded, it’s clear: Singing makes us strong and happy!
