Backe, backe Kuchen on:
[Wikipedia]
[Google]
[Amazon]
"Backe, backe Kuchen" is a popular German-language children's rhyme. The original was in Saxony and Thuringia with several textual versions from 1840.
The melody musically structures the text in the way of bar form. The framing lines follow a conventional four-bar period, where only the melodic variation in the postscript of the reprise (i.e. in the last two bars) enlivens the otherwise rather monotonous course. However, the symmetry of these run counter to the bars of the sung "middle part". This irregularity is common in folk songs when litany-like prose texts are set to music. Familiar songs that use this effect are significantly stronger than that with a relatively simple three-bar song, examples like "Backe, backe Kuchen" include "" or the Christmas carol ""Von Backofen, Bäckern und Backstuben"
Deutsches Brotmuseum Ulm (in German) Also, where the bread was baked on certain days in the common village oven, there was a signal when the bread was removed and the residual heat of the oven could be used for baking cakes. The text mentions the yellow colouring effect of saffron. None of the other six mentioned ingredients provides an obvious rhyme word for the modern German word "gelb" (yellow). The Middle High German form " gehl" (or "gel") is used to rhyme with "Mehl" (flour).
Backe, backe Kuchen
volksliederarchiv.de, with links to collections
piano score
ingeb.org {{Authority control German songs Volkslied German children's songs German nursery rhymes German-language songs Traditional children's songs
Text and melody
The melody musically structures the text in the way of bar form. The framing lines follow a conventional four-bar period, where only the melodic variation in the postscript of the reprise (i.e. in the last two bars) enlivens the otherwise rather monotonous course. However, the symmetry of these run counter to the bars of the sung "middle part". This irregularity is common in folk songs when litany-like prose texts are set to music. Familiar songs that use this effect are significantly stronger than that with a relatively simple three-bar song, examples like "Backe, backe Kuchen" include "" or the Christmas carol "The Twelve Days of Christmas
The Twelve Days of Christmas, also known as Twelvetide, is a festive Christian season celebrating the Nativity of Jesus. In some Western ecclesiastical traditions, "Christmas Day" is considered the "First Day of Christmas" and the Twelve Days a ...
".
The song describes a common practice in earlier times: bakers, after baking bread, ''called'' with a horn to signal to the women of the neighbourhood that the residual heat of the oven could now be used to bake the women's own cakes.Deutsches Brotmuseum Ulm (in German) Also, where the bread was baked on certain days in the common village oven, there was a signal when the bread was removed and the residual heat of the oven could be used for baking cakes. The text mentions the yellow colouring effect of saffron. None of the other six mentioned ingredients provides an obvious rhyme word for the modern German word "gelb" (yellow). The Middle High German form " gehl" (or "gel") is used to rhyme with "Mehl" (flour).
Cultural references
* A 2004 episode of the German TV series ''Berlin, Berlin
''Berlin, Berlin'' is a television series produced for the ARD. It aired in Germany from 2002 to 2005 Tuesdays through Fridays at 18:50 on the German public TV network Das Erste. The show won both national and international awards.
A sequel f ...
'' was titled after the song.
* ''Das Monster aus dem Schrank
''Das Monster aus dem Schrank'' (English : The Monster from the Closet) is the debut album by German deathcore band We Butter the Bread with Butter. It was released on November 21, 2008 by Redfield Records.
Track listing
Personnel
;We Butte ...
'', debut album by German deathcore duo We Butter the Bread with Butter, has a track "Backe, backe Kuchen".
See also
* Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker's man, an English equivalentReferences
Further reading
* * *Ingeborg Weber-Kellermann
Ingeborg Weber-Kellermann (26 June 1918 – 12 June 1993) was a German folklorist, anthropologist and ethnologist. She was an academic teacher, from 1946 at the German Academy of Sciences at Berlin in East Berlin and from 1961 at the University of ...
: ''Das Buch der Kinderlieder. 235 alte und neue Lieder: Kulturgeschichte – Noten – Texte.'' Atlantis-Schott, Mainz 2002,
External links
Backe, backe Kuchen
volksliederarchiv.de, with links to collections
ingeb.org {{Authority control German songs Volkslied German children's songs German nursery rhymes German-language songs Traditional children's songs