ZKV 115
Der Winter is vergangen
By chance, I rediscovered the voice of Hannes Wader yesterday and was transported back to the late 1980s, when I listened to his songs in German (and Plattdeutsch). A beautiful voice, highly expressive. So I dredged Spotify for the LP, but could not find it as such, but various album selections restored quite a few of the songs I had come to love. And one of them ‘Der Winter ist vergangen’ gave a double hit. For I recognised not only the German song but a Dutch medieval one, from the 1544 Antwerp song book. There are many variants on the theme of the song, but it is always May, the flowers are beginning to blossom, the nightingale is singing.
The winter is fast waning,
I see May’s growing power:
I see the green leaves straining,
The force in every flower.
In yonder verdant vale now
Is pleasure pure and true,
There sings the nightingale now
And birds of every hue.
There is often a wooer outside a castle wall, offering to plant his sprig of may birch (enough said). The maid tells him to plant it somewhere else in some versions. In other versions they are together at night, but the lover has to escape before dawn to avoid being discovered. A sympathetic night watchman is handy to have around.
Here you can find three poems translated from the Dutch/Flemish:
The dawn no longer remains concealed
Fair love, how come you’re still a-bed?
You can hear Hannes Wader sing the German song here.
(It starts with the same tune, sung by an Irishman, with a lovely accompaniment on the uilleann pipes)
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