Otto Holzapfel (born February 5, 1941 in

Beeskow Beeskow ( dsb, Bezkow) is a town in Brandenburg, Germany, and capital of the Oder-Spree district. It is situated on the river Spree, 30 km southwest of Frankfurt an der Oder. Demography File:Bevölkerungsentwicklung Beeskow.pdf, Developme ...

) is a German folklorist and researcher of traditional German folk song (

folk music Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has b ...

Lied In Western classical music tradition, (, plural ; , plural , ) is a term for setting poetry to classical music to create a piece of polyphonic music. The term is used for any kind of song in contemporary German, but among English and French s ...

). He is a retired professor at the

University of Freiburg The University of Freiburg (colloquially german: Uni Freiburg), officially the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg (german: Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg), is a public university, public research university located in Freiburg im Breisg ...

. His mother tongue is Danish. He studied in Frankfurt am Main; among his subjects were Scandinavian languages and literature with Klaus von See. In 1970 he was appointed curator (archivist) at the German Folk Song Archives in Freiburg, now Center for Popular Culture and Music, University of Freiburg. He led this institute until 1996. He was co-editor of the journal ''Jahrbuch für Volksliedforschung'' from 1984 to 1998 and editor of the ''Studien zur Volksliedforschung'' (volumes 1 – 17, 1991–1996). Special topics of Holzapfel are the traditional German folk

ballad A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads derive from the medieval French ''chanson balladée'' or ''ballade'', which were originally "dance songs". Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and ...

and the tradition of the German folk song, European mythology and German-Danish genealogy. He has edited several volumes of the standard edition of the traditional German folk ballads ''Deutsche Volkslieder mit ihren Melodien: Balladen'' (10 volumes, 1935–1996), and he created a system for analyzing German quatrains (Schnaderhüpfel, four line lyric stanzas,

Gstanzl The Gstanzl (Austro-Bavarian for ''Gestanzel'', " stanza") is a traditional type of mocking songs particularly known in the Austrian-Bavarian regions. A Gstanzl normally consists of four lines, sometimes eight, and is sung in dialect. They can eith ...

). Since 2006 he supervises the German song index (''Liedverzeichnis')', now online.

Partial list of publications

* ith Julia McGrew and Iørn Piø, editors''The European Medieval Ballad: A Symposium''. Odense, Denmark: University Press, 1978. * ith Flemming G. Andersen and Thomas Pettitt, editors''The Ballad as Narrative: Studies in the Ballad Traditions of England, Scotland, Germany and Denmark''. Odense, Denmark: University Press, 1982. * „Graf und Nonne. An Analysis of the Epic-Formulaic Elements in a German Ballad“. In: Carol L. Edwards (editor): ''Narrative Folksong: New Directions''. Boulder, CO 1985, p. 179–193. * ''Vierzeiler-Lexikon: Schnaderhüpfel, Gesätzle, Gestanzeln (

), Rappeditzle, Neck-, Spott-, Tanzverse und verwandte Formen aus mündlicher Überlieferung'' (= Studien zur Volksliedforschung. 7–11). Volumes 1–5. Bern: Lang, 1991–1994. ISSN 0930-8636 * „Totenlieder deutscher Auswanderer in Kansas (USA)“. In: ''Jahrbuch für Volksliedforschung'' 31 (1986), p. 83–87.English summary, in: Philip V. Bohlman: ''Central European Folk Music. An Annotated Bibliography of Sources in German''. New York and London: Garland, 1996, S. 216–217. * ith_Philip_V._Bohlman.html" ;"title="Philip_V._Bohlman.html" ;"title="ith Philip V. Bohlman">ith Philip V. Bohlman">Philip_V._Bohlman.html" ;"title="ith Philip V. Bohlman">ith Philip V. Bohlman''The Folk Songs of Ashkenaz'' (= Recent Researches in the Oral Traditions of Music. 6). Middleton, WI 2001. * ith Philip V. Bohlman, editor] ''Land without Nightingales: Music in the Making of German-America''. Madison, WI 2002. * „Singing from the Right Songbook: Ethnic Identity and Language Transformation in German American Hymnals“. In: Philip V. Bohlman (editor): ''Music in American Religious Experience''. New York 2006, p. 175–194. * ''Liedverzeichnis: Die ältere deutschsprachige populäre Liedüberlieferung'' online on the German homepage of the „Volksmusikarchiv des Bezirks Oberbayern“; PDF-format; currently being updated). - Otto Holzapfel: ''Liedverzeichnis''. Volumes 1–2. Hildesheim: Olms, 2006.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Holzapfel, Otto German folklorists 1941 births Living people Academic staff of the University of Freiburg Goethe University Frankfurt alumni Academic journal editors People from Beeskow