Klaus Mertens - Humperdinck & Wette: Deutsches Kinder-Liederbuch (Excerpts) (2020)

Whoever hears Engelbert Humperdinck's name inevitably thinks of "Hansel and Gretel", the fairy tale play that premiered on 23 December 1893 at the K. Hof- & National-Theater in Weimar under the direction of Richard Strauss and within a few years - already translated into 17 languages - triumphantly stormed the opera stages of the world. In July 1902 Engelbert Humperdinck, who had been head of the Academic Master School for Musical Composition at the Berlin Academy of Arts since 1900 and Professor of Composition at the Stern Conservatory in Berlin since 1901, corresponded with Friedrich Andreas Perthes, the owner of the publishing house of the same name in Gotha. The first edition of the "German Children's Song Book" with a total of 72 songs was published as early as 1903. Wette and Humperdinck had selected folk songs, but also songs by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Robert Schumann, Johann Adam Hiller and Carl Maria von Weber, and contributed newly created songs, composed further verses to songs that had been handed down, and added a simple, unmistakably Humperdinckian piano movement to all the wise. With the "German Children's Songbook", Wette and Humperdinck achieved a great success some 120 years ago: they collected and edited songs suitable for children, which are musically and lyrically demanding, which are able to captivate children and adults alike, and which walk the fine line between songs still known and those we had (almost) forgotten, and they contributed new creations from the spirit of loving naivety.