"" (The songs are ringing) is a popular

round Round or rounds may refer to: Mathematics and science * The contour of a closed curve or surface with no sharp corners, such as an ellipse, circle, rounded rectangle, cant, or sphere * Rounding, the shortening of a number to reduce the number ...

for three parts to a German text, about songs sounding when spring returns. The author(s) of text and melody are unknown and it was passed orally. It was first published in a 1869 collection. It became a

Volkslied Volkslied (literally: folk song) is a genre of popular songs in German which are traditionally sung. While many of them were first passed orally, several collections were published from the late 18th century. Later, some popular songs were also ...

, contained in many songbooks.

History

"" is a

for three parts; it can also be sung as a

crab canon A crab canon (also known by the Latin form of the name, ''canon cancrizans''; as well as ''retrograde canon'', ''canon per recte et retro'' or ''canon per rectus et inversus'')Kennedy, Michael (ed.). 1994. "Canon". The Oxford Dictionary of Musi ...

. The author and composer are not known but it is believed to have been created in the 19th century. The text describes how songs, and tunes played by shepherds on a

shawm The shawm () is a Bore_(wind_instruments)#Conical_bore, conical bore, double-reed woodwind instrument made in Europe from the 12th century to the present day. It achieved its peak of popularity during the medieval and Renaissance periods, after ...

, greet the returning spring. It was passed on orally until it was published in 1869, after it had been found in the estate of the gymnast and educator Adolf Spieß. He had developed a series of steps to the music for school gymnastics, first performed in 1853. In 1937, the Swiss songbook ''Basler Singbuch'' published the song, marked "volkstümlich" (traditional), with three additional stanzas and an instrumental ornamented part by the music teacher Walter Simon Huber (1898–1978), the father of composer

Klaus Huber Klaus Huber (30 November 1924 – 2 October 2017) was a Swiss composer and academic based in Basel and Freiburg. Among his students were Brian Ferneyhough, Michael Jarrell, Younghi Pagh-Paan, Toshio Hosokawa, Wolfgang Rihm, and Kaija Saariaho. ...

. The second stanza of his version describes

finch The true finches are small to medium-sized passerine birds in the family Fringillidae. Finches have stout conical bills adapted for eating seeds and nuts and often have colourful plumage. They occupy a great range of habitats where they are usua ...

es in their nests, the third bees, and the last larks, ending with thanks to the Creator. The following 1943 edition of the songbook omitted his additions, but they were retained in other collections aimed at school singing. It became a popular

, included in many songbooks. The beginning was the title of a 2021 series in five parts of the broadcaster SWR about music for spring.

Text

Es tönen die Lieder, Der Frühling kehrt wieder, es spielet der Hirte auf seiner Schalmei. La la la ... The songs are a'ringing, and Spring is returning, the shepherd is playing on his shawm.

Melody

: \addlyrics

Quodlibet

The round can be combined in a

quodlibet A quodlibet (; Latin for "whatever you wish" from ''quod'', "what" and '' libet'', "pleases") is a musical composition that combines several different melodies—usually popular tunes—in counterpoint, and often in a light-hearted, humorous man ...

with two other rounds, "" and "". In 1958, Fritz Bachmann published a quodlibet adding to these three also the song "Hab' mein' Wage vollgelade" which is not a round. The arrangement appeared in the youth collection ''Leben Singen Kämpfen. Liederbuch der deutschen Jugend.'', which was printed by the council of the

Free German Youth The Free German Youth (german: Freie Deutsche Jugend; FDJ) is a youth movement in Germany. Formerly, it was the official youth movement of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and the Socialist Unity Party of Germany. The organization was meant ...

East Berlin East Berlin was the ''de facto'' capital city of East Germany from 1949 to 1990. Formally, it was the Allied occupation zones in Germany, Soviet sector of Berlin, established in 1945. The American, British, and French sectors were known as ...

References

External links