Hearing an old folk song in Suzuki.

[Elisabeth]

Last night I was practising on my cello and was playing some of the songs in Suzuki Book One. When I finished playing Allegretto, my mother asked, "Does that song have a name?" I said "Allegretto." She said, "Who wrote it?" When I said Suzuki, she said "No, he didn't", and she started singing:

Wenn i komm, wenn i komm,

Wenn i wiedrum komm,

Wiedrum komm,

Kehr i ein, mein Schatz, bei dir.

That thief! He stole from an old German folk song.

[La Folia]

I don't think there's a composer yet who hasn't used folk material. I don't remember hearing that tune from the cello books years ago, at least not in the same form as the folk song. I also don't think Suzuki wrote the cello books. They were mostly adapted by others from the violin books, with some additions.

[sunnybear]

I think that a lot of the early Suzuki stuff is folk songs...some of the words (German) are not really child orients and that is pretty funny...one of the songs is about a fox going into a chicken coup and eating the chickens and then the farmer has to go after the fox with an axe...I don't think that Suzuki claims to have written these songs either...he just uses them in his "method"

[Marie Brown]

"Muss i denn" ("Must I then" - a soldier is reluctant to leave his home town) was also adapted by Elvis Presley in about 1958 as "Wooden Heart."

I don't know why Suzuki appears as the composer of this. The other folk songs are labeled as such.

[oldgeezer]

Of course I know this Swabian folk song. I met my wife there, have in-laws there and understand Swabian dialect better than standard German. Schaffe’ schaffe’ geigele speile’ und verrecka.

[xcheerleader]

What! Suzuki method books are NOT politically correct....why I should have ripped it up the first time I thought about doing it! Just kidding.

[toasty]

But of course! how else can great music be??

If you have not already been, listen to lots of classical music. Some of us here are life long listeners often

as a result of sharing our lives with other musicians.

My favorite Composer is Haydn, and even though his pieces contain very beautiful melodies they tend to be very

long with lots of longish notes, so the idea that German composers are the only source of good tunes is to me a little

silly, but I still like bits of them all.

For sheer catchy simplicity it is hard to beat Bocherinni, Scarlatti, Vivaldi etc in fact I would have to run away down the

list to find one nothern name!

Nonetheless I find some parts of Bach very catchy but not OC the tunes, arrangements only. Mozart only becuase his

father was already a dabbler in the art of fine tunes, made a few nice wee pieces; contrasting the very sparse but

nonetheless brilliant English composers here is a great exercise. Hats off to the southerners though they seem to

have won the battle long long ago. Should we be surprised? I think not, look at Greek Sculpture, Italian Painting and

then tell me they were not aritisitic!

In Suzuki you'd be wise not to assume he wrote any of it, since composition mostly happens with the percussive

non bowed family of instruments and the Proffessor did not play them. IOW It is very hard to write well for or on the

Violin etc...