Rhine Gorge - The Lorelei song

[MarkBearSF]

When we cruised up the Rhine in April, when passing the famous Lorelei Rock in the Rhine Gorge, the AmaCello played a very famous German song, the song of Lorelei which was unfamiliar to me. What was striking, however was that the opening was almost identical to the start of "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" from Cabaret.

 

Yesterday, I decided to put that question to a Broadway chat group which has almost as many knowledgeable posters as Cruise Critic - Was John Kander (Kander & Ebb) familiar with what I referred to as a folk song.

 

There were a number of interesting replies, but Broadway expert Michael Feingold's contained such interesting history of the song I thought I'd mention it here:

 

"It would be hard to imagine that a musician as cultivated and knowledgeable as Kander did not know this famous song.

 

It isn't strictly speaking a folk song - the lyric is a poem by Heinrich Heine, published in 1824, and set at various times in the 19th century by around a dozen composers including Franz Liszt. But the most famous setting - the one that has some similarities to "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" - was made in 1837 by the otherwise forgotten composer Friedrich Silcher.

 

Silcher's melody, combined with Heine's words, became universally known in European (not just German) culture, and is probably still immediately familiar to anyone from a German-speaking country. It has been quoted and alluded to in a thousand contexts - so probably for German audiences at CABARET, Kander's paraphrasing/recollecting it was completely natural.

 

The big irony involved is that Heine was Jewish, and his works were banned by the **** regime. But the song was so familiar by then that they couldn't get rid of it. So they just dropped all mention of Heine from listings and published versions & said it was by Silcher - or sometimes even "Anon."

 

So - When you're cruising down the Rhine, you'll know more about the song you'll certainly hear!

[Murray55]

Thanks for posting

[the2ofus]

I was disappointed on our Uniworld Antoinette Rhine River cruise in Sept. 2011 that they did not play Die Lorelei. I was so ready to sing along. Have loved the song ever since I studied German in high school many years ago. I was able to find a small music box in Rudesheim that played the melody.

[Bet & Peg]

Thanks SO much for this FABULOUS information!!! We were at that part of the Rhine River on a car trip in 2008 and will be taking a River Cruise on the Rhine this December! Hope our cruise ship (Viking) will be playing the music as we sail by!

 

And now for a moment of "it's a small world"/"six degrees of seperation" ~ In googling (I hope that's a word nowadays??) Lorelei I found that there's a statue to Heinrich Heine in a park in the Bronx (we live in Queens - both are boros in NYC and my husband often does work in the Bronx courthouse about a block from the park but he's never been there - yet!) The statue is actually of Lorelei and a memorial to Heine that was to be given to his home town of Dusseldorf in 1888 but refused and then purchased by a NYC German-American group in 1893!

 

And thanks for mentioning a Broadway chat group! Our adult son is a Broadway fanatic - will have to mention a chat group to him!

 

So THANK YOU for your posting that led to all this great info!!!! CC is the best!!!!

[bobandjo]

Avalon Vista played it on our cruise which we just returned from last night. Even gave out the words to it so everyone was singing. or trying to :)