Exploring Lived Musical Experience and Post-War German Folk Music Discourses

Folk Music in the German Democratic Republic: Exploring Lived Musical Experience and Post-War German Folk Music Discourses

Felix Morgenstern

Master of Arts in Ethnomusicology

Irish World Academy of Music and Dance

University of Limerick

Student ID Number: 12161268

Supervisor: Dr. Colin Quigley

Submitted to the University of Limerick, August 2017 Author’s Declaration

I, ______, hereby declare that this project is entirely my own work, in my own words, and that all sources used in researching it are fully acknowledged and all quotations properly identified. It has not been submitted, in whole or in part, by me or another person, for the purpose of obtaining any other credit/grade. I understand the ethical implications of my research, and this work meets the requirements of the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Research Ethics Committee.

Signed: ______

i Abstract

Folk Music in the German Democratic Republic: Exploring Lived Musical Experience and Post-War German Folk Music Discourses

Felix Morgenstern

Following the drastic co-option of German folk music in the ideological service of the Nazi regime during the Third Reich (1933-1945), the genre’s performative practice was left highly marginalised. Confronted with this fragility, revival activists in both German post-war states initially recast German folk music in a nostalgic recourse to the soundscape and song themes of Irish and Scottish music, before reconnecting with a 19th century oppositional German- language folk song repertoire. In the GDR, songs of the 1848 Revolution were curated as part of the state’s ‘democratic’ cultural heritage and could not be readily censored. This complexity allowed artists to perform folk songs of the past to metaphorically pass comment on social, cultural and political circumstances existing in the present. Employing Rice’s (2003) model of subject-centred musical ethnography and drawing on fieldwork conducted among former members of the Leipzig-based GDR folk music scene, this thesis examines the lived musical experience of folk musicians in East Germany, nuancing their encounters in comparison to established post-war German folk music discourses. Based on archival research and musicological analysis, I further identify, how these individuals conceptualised their musicking and how this translates into concrete textual and sonic form.

I conclude, that existing discursive portrayals of the relationship between folk musicians and state authorities, based on the oversimplification that GDR artists unconditionally sacrificed their creative expression to state censorship, require further nuancing. Crucially, interviewees characterise the politically-oppositional potential of their songs in multifaceted ways, ranging from critique to intermittent conformity, as they had to uncover pathways for communicating their oppositional attitudes to listeners, while availing of state sponsorship to maintain a performance platform. On a musical level, affective capacities of sonic references and symbolic lyrics amplify subversive messages in the listening experience of audiences, while allowing artists to creatively and intellectually articulate their being-in-the-world of socialism.

ii Acknowledgements

First of all, I would like to acknowledge the people that have contributed to the completion of this thesis. I am especially grateful to my course director in ethnomusicology and supervisor, Dr. Colin Quigley, for his guidance and encouragement throughout my research project. My thanks go to Colin and to Dr. Aileen Dillane for their ongoing support of my future endeavours and to Prof. Mel Mercier for broadening my horizons as a scholar and a practitioner. I would also like to express my gratitude to the other staff members at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, ethnomusicologists, ethnochoreologists, ritual scholars and Irish music and dance specialists, who have equipped me with the necessary methodological and theoretical skill set to venture into the field. In particular, thanks to Dr. Catherine Foley, Dr. Niall Keegan, Dr. Sandra Joyce, Dr. Orfhlaith Ní Bhríain, Dr. Mats Melin and Prof. Helen Phelan.

Dr. David Robb at Queen’s University Belfast deserves a special mention for directing me towards potential interviewees and for clarifying the mechanisms of folk musicking in the GDR as an expert in this field. At this point, I would like to appreciate the vital contributions of my research consultants to this project. My thanks go to Jürgen B. Wolff, Reinhardt “Pfeffi” Ständer, Gert Steinert and Wolfgang Leyn for taking the time to talk to me for opening their musical worlds. Compiling some of the chapters in this paper would not have been possible without the vital help of staff members at the archives of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin, who accommodated me and provided access to primary source material upon short notice in April this year. Moreover, I would like to express my gratitude to Dr. David Verbuč and Dr. Zuzana Jurková, ethnomusicologists at the Faculty of Humanities housed at Charles University, Prague, where I spent time during a stimulating summer school this year. Dr. Verbuč and Dr. Jurková have sharpened my understanding of music’s pathways in socialism and post-socialism in a broader European framework and have led me to comprehend the place of my own research in this contextual web.

Finally, I would like to take the opportunity to thank my family, the Morgensterns, Klaus and Irmlinde Kiupel, Konstanze, Wilfried, and Patric Beiersdorf, for their ongoing support throughout my time at the University of Limerick. I dedicate this work to my parents, Felicitas and Tomas, who have always encouraged me and who helped me make sense of this complex German Other with which they grew up and which is the focus of my research.

iii List of Figures

Figure Title Page No.

Fig.1 Lose Skiffle Gemeinschaft 28 Leipzig-Mitte: “Rapid Musical Cheerfulness” with Gert Steinert on guitar (back row, third from right)

Fig.2 Wolfgang Steinitz’ 39 democratic folk song collection (Steinitz 1954)

Fig.3 Agitprobe 73’, FDJ song 41 book published for the X. Weltfestspiele in 1973 (Andert et al. 1973)

Fig.4 “Auswandererlied” 56 (Folkländer 1982), transl. F. Morgenstern

Fig.5 “Auswandererlied” - 59 Contrapuntal interplay between Waldzither and mandolin

Fig.6 Voice leading in the fifth 61 verse of “Auswandererlied”

Fig.7 “Auswandererlied”- 64 Interlude adapted from E. Burdon’s “San Franciscan Nights” (1967)

Fig.8 “Sag mir, wo du stehst!” 67 (Oktoberklub 1967), transl. F. Morgenstern

Fig.9 Chorus in “Sag mir, wo du 68 stehst!”

iv Table of Contents

Author’s Declaration ...... i Abstract ...... ii Acknowledgements ...... iii List of Figures ...... iv Table of Contents ...... v

Chapter One: “Encounters with a German Other in Leipzig” ...... 1 1.1 Introduction: ‘You Call That Fieldwork?’ ...... 2 1.1.2 Notes on my Ethnographic Field Research ...... 5 1.1.3 Strategies of Musical Representation...... 9 1.1.4 Archival Research in Berlin ...... 10 1.2 Literature Review...... 11 1.2.1 German Folk Music Studies: Pre-World War II Romantic-Nationalistic Frameworks .. 11 1.2.2 Post-War Folk Music Revival, Irish-Inspired Soundscape and Nostalgia ...... 12 1.2.3 GDR Studies: ‘Democratic’ German Folk Songs in East Germany ...... 13 1.2.4 Nuances in Politically-Oppositional Intent ...... 15 1.2.5 Musical Manifestations and Peircean Semiotics...... 16 1.3 Outline of Thesis Structure ...... 18

Chapter Two: “The Romantic-Nationalistic German Folk Song Concept, Post-War Revival, and the Nostalgic Facets of an Irish Ersatz Genre” ...... 19 2.1 A Problematic Romantic-Nationalistic Legacy of German Folk Songs ...... 21 2.2 Post-War Escapism, Volkstümliche Musik, and BRD’s Burg Waldeck-Scene ...... 24 2.3 Hootenanny Klubs and the GDR’s Singebewegung...... 26 2.4 Ersatz Nostalgia and the Reception of an Irish Soundscape...... 29 2.5 Thematic and Restorative Ersatz Capacities of Irish Folk Songs ...... 34

Chapter Three: “The Revival of a 19th Century Democratic German Folk Song Erbe and its Subversive Potential in the GDR Performance Context ...... 36 3.1 Democratic German Folk Songs: Subverting the Revolutionary ‘Erbe’ ...... 38 3.2 Listening to the Sub-Text: ‘Cognitive Praxis’ and its Limitations ...... 44 3.3 The Liminal Space Between Subversion and Censorship ...... 45

v 3.4 Nuancing Politically-Oppositional Intent ...... 50

Chapter Four: “Peircean Semiotics as a Gateway for Tracing the Thematic and Sonic Characteristics of Two German Folk and Protest Songs” ...... 52 4.1 Peircean Semiotics from the Bottom Up: Folkländer’s “Auswandererlied” ...... 54 4.2 Assessing Irish Sonic Iconicity and Authenticity in “Auswandererlied” ...... 58 4.3 Indexing ‘Counterculture’ and a ‘Longing to Travel’: “San Franciscan Nights” ...... 63 4.4 Peircean Semiotics from the Top Down: “Sag mir, wo du stehst!” ...... 66

Chapter Five: “Conclusion and Post-Revival Outlook”...... 71 5.1 Chapter Two: Romantic-Nationalistic German Folk Songs and Post-War Revival ...... 72 5.2 Chapter Three: The Democratic German Folk Song Erbe and Oppositional Nuances ..... 73 5.3 Chapter Four: Peircean Semiotics in “Auswandererlied” and “Sag mir, wo du stehst!” .. 74 5.4 Lived Musical Experience and Post-Revival: The Legacy of the GDR Folk Music Scene After 1989 ...... 76 Bibliography ...... 79 Discography ...... 83

Appendices ...... 84 Transcriptions and Translations of Ethnographic Interviews ...... 85 Appendix A: Interview mit Jürgen B. Wolff und Reinhardt „Pfeffi“ Ständer (German) ...... 85 Appendix B: Interview with Jürgen B. Wolff and Reinhardt “Pfeffi” Ständer (English) ..... 112 Appendix C: Interview mit Gert Steinert (German) ...... 137 Appendix D: Interview with Gert Steinert (English) ...... 148 Appendix E: Interview mit Wolfgang Leyn (German) ...... 158 Appendix F: Interview with Wolfgang Leyn (English) ...... 173 AHSS Research Ethics Committee Documentation ...... 187 Appendix G: Information Letter (German)...... 187 Appendix H: Information Letter (English) ...... 189 Appendix I: Consent Forms ...... 191

Chapter One

“Encounters with a German Other in Leipzig”

1 1.1 Introduction: ‘You Call That Fieldwork?’

It is a rainy Wednesday morning in April 2017. I stand at the central train station in Leipzig, Germany and nervously await the arrival of my first interviewee, Reinhardt “Pfeffi” Ständer. In GDR times, Pfeffi worked as an event organiser for a centralised cultural cabinet. Through his work, he met members of the then rapidly emerging GDR folk music scene. Immersing myself in existing scholarship in this area, I learned that Leipzig was once a central hub for East German folk musicians. I was, until then, largely unaware of this fact. One could say, that I am anticipating my encounter with a German Other, members of a music scene which thrived in times quite distant to somebody, who was born four years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall, an event which heralded the demise of the GDR in 1989. Pfeffi’s train arrives just after 12. We take the tram to Jürgen B. Wolff’s record label “Loewenzahn” at Leipzig’s Shakespearestraße. Initially trained as a graphic designer, Jürgen was lead singer with the seminal GDR folk band Folkländer and is frequently described as a driving personality behind the 70s revival movement. We sit down in his office, which is decorated with posters that Jürgen designed for the annual Rudolstadt Folkfest. Placed on top of his book shelves, Jürgen’s concertina is a constant reminder of his days as an East German folk musician. After serving freshly brewed coffee and poppyseed cake, Jürgen asks, why exactly I would want to interview him. Talking about my experiences as an uilleann piper and music student in Ireland and prizing open my knowledge of the popularity of Irish music in the GDR appears fruitful in breaking the initial ice. Jürgen vividly describes his fascination with Ireland and its vernacular music. It is this shared interest that opens up a space for the exchange of Jürgen’s and Pfeffi’s lived experiences as people, who were involved in the GDR folk music revival movement.

[field note excerpt]

In The Study of Ethnomusicology: Thirty-Three Discussions, Bruno Nettl (2015, pp.199- 210) interrogates changes in the anthropological and ethnomusicological concept of the ‘field’, arguing that modern field sites increasingly differ from the exotic, disparate research scenarios that previously dominated the work of ethnographers in the discipline. According to Nettl, expanding our understanding of ‘the field’ in ethnomusicology and considering ‘home’, our urbanised societies, and our own backyards as equally fruitful domains of inquiry demands us to adapt our methodologies accordingly. Instead of relocating to secluded field sites of ‘otherness’, Nettl encourages us to identify the Other perspective in the numerous identity layers we possess. At the beginning of his chapter with the gently provocative and interrogating title You Call That Fieldwork? – Redefining the “Field”, Nettl poignantly summarises this concern:

“This chapter briefly draws attention to the ways ethnomusicologists have redefined the “field” concept, contemplating their own home community and their personal music culture, bringing the “other” into their home ground.The notion of “at home” suggests looking literally in one’s own backyard, investigating, as an ethnomusicologist, one’s own culture.”

(Nettl 2015, pp.200-201)

In reference to the opening ethnographic vignette to this chapter of my thesis on folk music making in the former German Democratic Republic, I have asked myself the very question that Nettl poses –Where does the Other reside in my work on music making in my home country? As a German-born practitioner of Irish Traditional Music from Berlin, who moved to Ireland in 2012 to study Irish music at the University of Limerick, my previous research interests were situated at the juncture of ethnomusicology and Irish music studies. In the context of my senior undergraduate thesis (Morgenstern 2016), I conducted research on the ramifications of Irish music making in Germany 1. The intriguing outcomes of this work fuelled my desire to pursue postgraduate studies in ethnomusicology and to expand upon my previous research. An initial sense of othering that my scholarly inquiry unveils is tied to the spatial distance between my chosen alma mater, a home away from home, and my field site, Germany, which I study from the outside perspective of an ethnographer. Thus, in Nettl’s terms, I have adopted and bring a sense of otherness to my studies in the field, which is located within my multiple identity layers as a German citizen, an Irish-German ethnomusicologist, and a practitioner of Irish Traditional Music.

At the start of my M.A. degree, I decided to focus more closely on the post-war German folk music revival context, a period in which it is possible to trace historically-rooted German- Irish musical affinities that inform, why the genre of Irish Traditional Music is so popular

1 At the close of my studies on the B.A. Irish Music and Dance programme at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, University of Limerick, I wrote my senior undergraduate thesis on The Experience of Irish Traditional Musicians in Germany. Based on fieldwork among members of the German Irish music community in 2015, I examined the factors that inform the perception and performance of Irish Traditional Music by German-born practitioners. For these individuals, the possibilities of trans-cultural exchange and post-ethnic configurations of musical practice appear to have reshaped historically-rooted notions of ethnic-national identity, expressed through European folk music genres in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Tracing historical trans-cultural musical affinities between Germany and Ireland, as amplified in late 20th century German folk music revival movements, my B.A. thesis also uncovered current identity politics among German Irish Traditional musicians. I conclude that for German practitioners of Irish music, the idea of ‘Irishness’ tethered to the genre has become re-contextualised in post-ethnic configurations of ‘Irish’ sonic markers, in references to locality, and the possibility of musical relocation. These discursive changes recursively shape the participatory frame of German Irish music sessions, which is governed on the basis of gatekeeping regulations, such as musical prowess, inclusivity, and session etiquette. For further details, see: Morgenstern, F. (2016) The Experience of Irish Traditional Musicians in Germany, unpublished thesis (B.A.), University of Limerick.

3 among practitioners and audiences in modern-day Germany. Initial reading in this area (Frey and Siniveer 1987; Steinbiß 1984; Sweers 2005) pointed me towards the role of Irish music as a prominent soundscape among West German revivalist bands and as a performative alternative to ideologically corrupted, Nazi-tainted pre-World War II romantic German Volkslieder (‘folk songs’). Surprisingly however, these post-war portrayals merely glossed over the East German situation. This gap in existing scholarship on German folk music revival movements, which appears to have recently shifted into the focus of scholars (Robb 2007; 2016; Leyn 2016), represents the second redefinition of Nettl’s ‘otherness’ in the field and motivates me to contribute to existing discourses in this area.

The third facet of an internal German Other that my thesis strives to uncover, is connected to the notion of timely distance. As apparent in the ethnographic excerpt above, the 70s GDR folk music revival context and East German society itself is quite removed from a researcher, who was born in 1993. Until commencing my postgraduate studies, my understanding of life in the GDR was informed by often vividly ostalgic 2 and sometimes critically-evaluated stories told by my parents and grandparents, as well as the compulsory historical and political education I received before starting my career as a scholar. Yet, music was largely absent from these narratives. It was my surging interest in post-war German folk music making, combined with my critical attitude towards the reoccurring binary and often undialectical portrayals of life in socialist East Germany that intrigued me to find out what was at stake in terms of the performative practice of artists, who still live and work in the former epicentres of the revival scene. After all, these individuals contributed to an unprecedented resurfacing of a drastically

2 Ostalgie (‘Ost-algia’), as German anthropologist Daphne Berdahl (2010, pp.48-59) writes, refers to the paradoxical post-socialist nostalgic yearning for aspects of East German life. Berdahl grounds her elaborations on Ostalgie in an assessment of a lucrative market in post-communist Germany for the consumption of East German products, which is rooted in affectively experienced values of community and solidarity that materialised in the socially organised everyday reality of production in the workers’ and peasants’ state. Although East German products were readily ridiculed in their symbolism for inefficiency by West German citizens after the Fall of the Berlin Wall, they remained loaded with remembered values of East German identity powerful enough to counteract the hegemony of a Western market economy in the present. Berdahl concludes that the identity transformation of Ostalgie has been significant in resisting both a master narrative of post-socialist ‘Germanness’ and the uncompromised abandonment of a problematic, yet somehow meaningful, East German past, as imposed by the Federal Republic of Germany in the aftermath of reunification. See: Berdahl, D. (2010) ‘(N)Ostalgie for the Present: Memory, Longing, and East German Things’, in On the Social Life of Postsocialism: Memory Consumption, Germany, Indiana, IL: Indiana University Press, 48-59.

4 marginalised German folk music concept in terms of its democratic, oppositional characteristics and developed pathways to critically comment, in a novel textual and sonic fashion, on the social, cultural and political circumstances in this socialist state.

In terms of addressing an overarching research problem in ethnomusicology, Folk Music in the German Democratic Republic: Exploring Lived Musical Experience and Post-War German Folk Music Discourses places my ethnographic encounters with figures of the GDR folk music scene, this German Other, at the heart of its narrative, giving credit to their lived musical experiences and the ways in which they shaped a trans-German post-war folk music revival movement in terms of its topicality in the public consciousness at that time. While providing the necessary historical background information on the consolidation of the East German folk music scene in the 1970s and sketching out strategies for nuancing existing binary portrayals of the relationship between artists and the state, this thesis augments the discursive and primarily ethnographically-defined scope of my previous research, including the lens of musicological analysis to show, how folk musicians’ expression of their being-in-the-world of socialism manifested in concrete textual and musical form. Outlining these areas of inquiry allows me to now formulate the central research questions underpinning my thesis: ‘What constitutes the lived experience of folk musicians in the German Democratic Republic and how do these individuals conceptualise their practice on sonic and textual levels? How are these views related to established scholarly discourses on folk music making in the GDR and how do they manifest in concrete musical form?’. Having provided an overview of the thematic concerns of this paper, I now proceed to outline the ramifications of my ethnographic research, before drawing upon my methodological approaches and critically assessing existing literature in my field of inquiry. This should provide the reader with the necessary background knowledge to follow my line of argumentation in the following chapters.

1.1.2 Notes on my Ethnographic Field Research

In April 2017, I travelled to Leipzig, formerly the second largest East German city, to conduct ethnographic field research on folk music in the GDR in situ. Selecting Leipzig as a location was significant, as its vibrant student community provided fertile soil for the consolidation of an independent GDR folk music scene at the city’s Graphic Design Academy in 1976. Nowadays, Leipzig continues to be an important meeting ground for ex-GDR folk

5 music revivalists and some of them still live and work there. Prior to my arrival in the field, I decided to conduct ethnographic interviews with four individuals, who engaged with the folk music scene either as practitioners or as employees of the East German cultural administration and thus provided varying insights, emerging from outside of and from within the state apparatus. Initial contact was established by email correspondence and with the help of Dr. David Robb at Queen’s University Belfast. A scholar in the field of German studies, Robb has written on folk music in the GDR and has been acquainted with individual artists, especially former members of the seminal Band Folkländer, through his experience as a musician and songwriter living in East Germany in the 1980s. Before introducing my fieldwork consultants, I clarify, how I prepared and conducted my ethnographic interviews. This subsequently leads me to point out the centrality of lived musical experience in my methodological concerns.

In terms of interview question design, I incorporated references to specific musical examples and key events of the GDR folk music revival movement in order to direct the flow of the conversation with my informants. While I approached my ethnographic interviews as informal conversations, I formally contextualised each scenario at the start of the recording to frame it as a particular ‘speech event’, as Spradley (1979, p.55) calls it. Writing on interview techniques, Jackson (1987, p.89) further urges the ethnographer to ‘involve’ and address the recording device when shifting from casual conversation to directed interview discourse. Regarding my interview structure, I progressed from asking open-ended questions on participants’ encounters as artists in East Germany to detailed queries on the ways in which these individuals conceptualised their music making. Based on my background reading, these questions refer to artistic choices, the influence of an Irish soundscape, a revival of oppositional German folk songs, post-revival ramifications, and the use of subversive folk songs by practitioners to air dissatisfactions with the GDR’s organisational fabric. Particularly in terms of the latter, allowing the interviewee to direct the flow of the conversation and only gently redirecting them to expand on certain utterances led to the uninitiated surfacing of emic nuances in musical experience.

The focus on individual, lived musical experience, which is situated at the core of my methodological approach, emerges out of ethnomusicologist Timothy Rice’s (2003, p.152) model of subject-centred musical ethnography. Rice urges ethnographers to move towards atomized studies of individual practitioners and their encounters with the increasingly fragmented and de-territorialised world of mobile identities we live in. In Modeling

6 Ethnomusicology, Rice and Ruskin (2017, p.201) have critiqued the discipline of ethnomusicology for being historically preoccupied with studying music making among groups of people and presupposing culturally shared patterns of behaviour and cognition among them. However, as the authors posit, by idealising societies as homogeneous and bounded, scholars have frequently overlooked frictions between individuals and their cultural values and failed to address their active agency in the transformation of music cultures. In his seminal work on the encounters of two folk musicians with societal, cultural and political shifts during the communist period in Bulgaria, Rice (1994, p.6) has defined musical experience as the affective confrontation between individuals and the rich world of symbols in which they live, and draws on theoretical approaches from phenomenological hermeneutics and semiotics to support his analysis 3. Borrowing from Rice’s approach in chapter four of my thesis, I employ Peircean semiotics (Turino 1999) as a key model to unearth the stakes of affective musical experience for individual folk musicians in the GDR and their audiences, as well as the Communist Party.

In the field, I was confronted with the very tensions between different strata of lived musical experience that Rice describes. This is especially pertinent in relation to ethnographic responses commenting on the stylistic, textual and musical choices made by East German artists and their often ambiguous relationship with state authorities. Interviewees evidenced that the scene’s political opposition and the experience of censorship, prominent features discussed in German folk music discourses, are categorised by artists in multi-layered ways, revealing tendencies of protest alongside intermittent conformity. This example, upon which I expand in chapter three, shows that a nuancing of established binary discourses on the basis of ethnographic research appears most fruitful, if the contrasting views of individual interviewees are brought into dialogue with each other. According to Rice and Ruskin (2017, pp.206-209), dialogue typically involves the voices of individual consultants, who may be innovators, key

3 Rice’s definition of musical experience incorporates German philosopher Martin Heidegger’s (1962) concept of ‘being-in-the-world’ (In-der-Welt-sein), which refers to the individual’s encounter with a world of pre-conceived symbols into which it is “thrown” (Rice 1994, p.3). Heidegger posits that, by experiencing and making sense of symbolic webs, such as language, music and social behaviour, the individual is equipped to finally arrive at a new understanding of the world. I refer to Heidegger’s ‘being-in-the-world’ at several points in this thesis to evidence, how my fieldwork consultants made sense of the complex musical, social, cultural, and political ‘symbols’ they encountered in the socialist GDR and how this informed their multifaceted lived musical experience. For a more in-depth account of Heidegger’s ‘being-in-the-world’, see: Heidegger, M. (1962) Being and Time, translated by Macquarrie, J. and Robinson, E., San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row Publishers.

7 figures, average practitioners, or non-musicians. Selecting my own fieldwork consultants, I have decided to abandon Rice and Ruskin’s distinction between ‘average’ and ‘key’ artists, because the folk musicians I interviewed worked as professional performers in the GDR and through their innovative creativity, they actively contributed to shaping the course of the post- war revival movement. As the authors would have it, I have further considered the role of non- musicians, who were equally important, as they facilitated performance opportunities for members of the East German folk music scene. The following brief introduction should give the reader a sense of my interviewees, their personalities, and the complimenting perspectives they contribute to my research.

As a non-musician, Reinhardt Ständer, who prefers to be called by his nickname “Pfeffi”, was once engaged as an event organiser by an East German cultural cabinet, the Kreiskabinett für Kulturarbeit, in the town of Hoyerswerda. In GDR times, Pfeffi was an important link between folk musicians and the state apparatus, since he was responsible for facilitating performance opportunities at a local youth club. When interviewed, Pfeffi offered his extensive overview of the GDR’s organisational fabric and was able to recall key events and important interpersonal relationships in the revival movement. This interview also featured Jürgen B. Wolff, a lead singer and guitarist with the seminal GDR folk band Folkländer, who is credited as a pivotal figure in the East German folk music scene. As an innovative practitioner, he contributed to defining Folkländer’s Irish-inspired soundscape, conducted field research on primary historical German folk song sources and developed strategies to manoeuver around the regulations set by centralised state authorities to maintain a performative platform. Another innovative figure, Gert Steinert played for folk dance evenings in the GDR with his band Lumich, before joining the acclaimed Skiffle band Lose Skiffle-Gemeinschaft Leipzig-Mitte as a guitarist. Finally, music journalist Wolfgang Leyn, who recently published his work Volkes Lied und Vater Staat (Leyn 2016) on the GDR folk music scene, is both a chronicler of the revival movement and a former band member of Folkländer. His perspective is differentiated and combines intensely personal musical experience with scholarly inquiry and reflection. In terms of interview locations, I met Jürgen and Pfeffi at Jürgen’s Leipzig-based record label Loewenzahn, talked to Gert at Leipzig’s Georg-Schumann-Straße, and corresponded with Wolfgang in a café at Leipzig Central Station. Having introduced my research consultants, I now turn to outlining my strategies for representing fieldwork outcomes in the thesis text, focusing on the techniques of dialogue, translation and musical transcription.

8 1.1.3 Strategies of Musical Representation

Writing musical ethnographies, processing and interpreting their observations after their return from the field, researchers inevitably engage in the power relationships of cultural representation (Barz and Cooley 2008, p.4), which raises the question of how we, as ethnomusicologists, acknowledge the vital contributions of interviewees to our research. Writing about the scholar’s strategies for representing encounters with individuals in the field, Rice and Ruskin (2017, pp.217-18) propose a dialogical narrative technique to allow the voices of fieldwork consultants to be woven into the fabric of the ethnography. Throughout my work, I thus place direct or paraphrased interview quotations in dialogue with each other and add my own interpretative voice, to provide an active arena for the exchange of multiple layers of lived musical experience. Furthermore, this allows the reader to trace, how my examination and nuancing of discursive mechanisms in the thesis text emerges out of my original ethnographic correspondences.

As a requirement set by the University of Limerick’s Research Ethics Committee, my inquiry is based on a bilingual methodological approach, since I interviewed participants whose first language is German and convey their experiences to an English-speaking readership in this paper. To protect the rights of my research informants, I conducted ethnographic interviews through the medium of German, before translating the outcomes into English. This enabled me to freely converse with consultants in our shared mother tongue, enriched the fluidity of correspondences and allowed participants to clearly articulate their responses. To acknowledge the individual voices of my consultants, I have included the German original, alongside an English translation of interview quotations used in the main text. Both German transcriptions and English translations of interviews, as well as the relevant research ethics documents are included as appendices (A-I, pp.85-194). Drawing on literature from the German and English-speaking fields, I occasionally include archaic, GDR-idiomatic terminology to account for specific examples. My translation and definition of these terms in the thesis text should allow the reader to follow my points more clearly.

In chapter four, I augment the ethnographic and discursive exploration of my research outcomes by analysing two concrete examples of commercially recorded East German folk and protest songs through a musicological paradigm. To illustrate the sonic ramifications of folk music practice in the GDR and to display features which underscored or transformed the

9 message of song texts, I have resorted to the representational medium of Western staff notation to transcribe musical excerpts. Charles Seeger (1958) has noted the shortcomings of this conventional, originally prescriptive mode of music writing to serve as a descriptive representation in accounts of human music making. As I nonetheless employ staff notation for analytical purposes in this thesis, it is necessary to critique its flaws as an attempt to recreate the listener’s inherently multidimensional sonic experience in the limited visual bounds of two- dimensional notation (Seeger 1958, p.185). Moreover, Seeger assesses the friction between sonic effects that the transcriber seeks to convey through the symbolic system of notation and the listener’s actual affective and cognitive response, based on their culturally informed experiences.

In light of Seeger’s critique regarding the use of staff notation as a means of representation, I rely on the reader’s knowledge of the symbolic conventions it employs. Notwithstanding the reality that notation can never accurately account for the Gestalt of our culturally informed sound perception, I use it merely for illustrative purposes, to support my stylistic analysis. Additionally, referring to concrete musical transcriptions allows me to show, how a rich sub- text, which was conveyed by GDR folk musicians to their audiences through historical song texts, also manifested in terms of affectively engaging musical elements. During my fieldwork in Germany, one pathway for accessing these musical resources was archival research.

1.1.4 Archival Research in Berlin

Both background reading and my ethnographic field research pointed me towards the revival of oppositional 19th century German folk songs in the GDR context. This song repertoire was collected and published by East German ethnologist Wolfgang Steinitz (1954) and can be accessed at the archives of the Akademie der Künste (‘Academy of Arts’) in Berlin. As a necessary adjunct to my ethnographic work, I decided to visit the Akademie der Künste after completing my fieldwork in Leipzig, to conduct archival research, a methodological approach in the area of historical ethnomusicology (Thram in McCollum and Herbert 2014, pp.309-336). The music archives at the Akademie der Künste house German collections dating from the 20th century and focus on presenting musical developments circulating before, during, and after the Third Reich (1933-45), the historical period pertaining to my work on folk music in the GDR. At the institution, I consulted Steinitz’ seminal folk song collection Deutsche Volkslieder demokratischen Charakters aus Sechs Jahrhunderten (‘German Folk Songs of

10 Democratic Character from Six Centuries’) (Steinitz 1954) and East German musicologist Inge Lammel’s pamphlet Das Lied im Kampf beboren. Heft 1: Lieder der Revolution von 1848 (‘Song Born Out of Struggles. Pamphlet 1: Songs of the 1848 Revolution’) (Lammel 1957). Steinitz’ work provides the basis for my examination of a concrete revived folk song example and its reinterpretation in the GDR context in chapter four.

1.2 Literature Review

In this section, I review core texts that are pertinent to my research and clarify, how they help me engage with my ethnographic material. Initially, I focus on literature in the domain of German folk music studies dealing with the romantic-nationalistic German folk music concept. Subsequently, I explore scholarly works on post-war German folk music revival movements and the dynamics of nostalgia, which were conveyed through an Irish-inspired revivalist soundscape in East and West Germany. Afterwards, I examine literature in the field of GDR studies that allows me to expand upon the revival of 19th century German-language protest folk songs in the East German scenario. Following my critique of scholarly theories that lead me to nuance the politically-oppositional capacities of folk songs in the GDR, I identify existing scholarship on semiotics that enables me to show, how these mechanisms play out in specific textual and musical form.

1.2.1 German Folk Music Studies: Pre-World War II Romantic-Nationalistic Frameworks

Drawing upon literature in the field of German folk music studies allows me to frame the lived musical experience of GDR folk music practitioners as positioned at the historical juncture between a pre-World-War-II ethnic-nationalistic German folk music concept, its problematic entanglement with Nazi-propaganda in the mid-20th century, and post-war folk music revival movements, which unfolded almost simultaneously in West and East Germany. This complex historical and contextual backdrop has to be unravelled in order to comprehend, why German folk songs were revived in a particular textual form and soundscape in the GDR.

Ethnomusicologist Philip Bohlman (2017) has traced the origins of a pre-World War II romantic German folk song concept in reference to the 18th century writings of German philosopher and theologian Johann Gottfried von Herder. Bohlman translates and interprets Herder’s theses as central reference points for a later politically motivated synthesis of folk

11 song, its expression through medium of the German language, and the agendas of emerging 19th and 20th century European nationalism. In The Music of European Nationalism, Bohlman (2004) has specifically outlined, how Herder’s folk song image, situated at the turning point between Enlightenment and Romantic thought, became co-opted to consolidate German national identity and illustrates, how German national song was eventually put into the service of constructing a racially-articulated sense of ‘Germanness’ in the Third Reich (1933-45), something that had wide-reaching implications on the ideological distortion of German folk music practices at that time. While this drastic development is clearly located at the root of German folk music revival efforts following the demise of the Nazi Era, Bohlman only marginally portrays musical post-war dynamics. Therefore, I consult the work of German ethnomusicologist Britta Sweers, who expands upon the ramifications for folk music making in the two post-war German states. To extend my understanding of these complexities, I also refer to Bithell and Hill’s (2014) publication on music revivals.

1.2.2 Post-War Folk Music Revival, Irish-Inspired Soundscape and Nostalgia

In their Oxford Handbook of Music Revival, Caroline Bithell and Juniper Hill (2014) provide a theoretical paradigm for examining music revivals and identify the various de- and re-contextualisation efforts tethered to revival activists’ agenda of reframing historical musical narratives in terms of their relevance in the present. In terms of evaluating my fieldwork responses, Bithell and Hill’s elaborations on the transformative forces inherent in revival movements allow me to uncover a sonic draw among post-war German folk musicians towards the idiom of Irish music. Sweers (2005) particularly focuses on a post-war escapist identity crisis that was widely experienced among German folk musicians, who were confronted with the widespread marginalisation of performance traditions. In light of these dynamics, Sweers (2018 forthcoming) outlines, that folk music revivalists in East and West Germany adopted sonic features and performance styles from the idioms of Irish and Scottish vernacular music to recast their own, almost extinct folk music tradition and to identify an alternative soundscape to the popular, clichéd post-war genre of German folk-style (volkstümliche) music. Sweers’ work extends existing late 20th century German-language scholarship on folk music revivals in post-war Germany compiled by folklorists (Frey and Siniveer 1987). However, writing from the West German perspective, these authors have chiefly discussed the popularity of Irish music in reference to revival movements in the Federal Republic and have only peripherally considered its profound impact in the early years of the GDR folk music scene (Steinbiß 1984,

12 pp.91-98). Given the apparent attraction of East German post-war folk musicians interviewed during my ethnographic research to the genre of Irish music, it is fruitful to shape these outcomes in reference to Mark Slobin’s (1993) concept of the trans-national affinity interculture, which he proposes in Subcultural Sounds: Micromusics of the West, his seminal theory on music’s mobility in modern, globalised society. While Slobin’s model could be critiqued as outdated, since it was formulated in 1993, it continues to resonate, as the author succeeds in making sense of music’s fluidity and exchangeability across nation state lines and the bounds of ethnic identity, something that applies to the German post-war situation.

In terms of nuancing between the various processes at work in the construction of an apparent post-war German-Irish musical affinity interculture, I resort to scholarly theories on nostalgia to differentiate, how precisely nostalgic longing, whether in its mass-mediated Ersatz character (Appadurai 1996), or in its reflective and restorative characteristics (Boym 2001), informed the reception of Irish music’s sonic and textual elements by GDR folk music revivalists. On the one hand, Irish vernacular music’s reflective-nostalgic iconicity as a shorthand for Celtic exoticism (Reiss 2003), made accessible through the possibility of musical relocation to places and memories (Stokes 1994), stimulated a renaissance of bagpipe making in the GDR, as German musicologist Ralf Gehler (2014) has explored in greater detail. On the other hand, David Robb (2009) has identified, how thematic resonances between the 19th century protest song heritage of Ireland and Germany became particularly amplified in the 1970s revival context and contributed to a restorative rediscovery of Germany’s own oppositional folk song repertoire that had been suppressed by the Nazis. These revived German-language songs could be used to metaphorically critique the East German organisational structures (Robb 2007; 2010; 2016).

1.2.3 GDR Studies: ‘Democratic’ German Folk Songs in East Germany

In Protest Song in East and West Germany Since the 1960s, Robb (2007) introduces a novel post-war reframing of the German folk song concept by GDR and West German revivalists in terms of its democratic and oppositional features, which stood in clear contrast to Nazi-tainted romantic-nationalistic connotations. Although Robb’s work only marginally focuses on the GDR folk music scene and foregrounds the experiences of East German balladeers (Liedermacher), his work remains crucial in enabling me to comprehend central performance and listening mechanisms at work for GDR artists and audiences. In a detailed fashion, Robb

13 lays out, how folk musicians could communicate subversive and politically-current messages through the medium of a mid-19th century German folk song heritage. Echoing outcomes of my archival work in Berlin, Robb focuses on Wolfgang Steinitz’ (1954) primary folk song collection and the different ways in which it was interpreted by artists and state-sponsored cultural institutions in the GDR. As Robb notes, Steinitz provided song resources, which reflect the rebellious spirit of the 1848 Revolution in the numerous independently-ruled petty states existing prior to the foundation of a unified German Empire in 1871. Precisely these oppositional songs of the past led GDR folk musicians to exploit a sub-text from which to voice resistance and a longing for freedom that was stimulated by their initial draw to a related Irish song repertoire. On the contrary, Steinitz’ collection also features material that reveals, how a sentiment of disillusionment penetrated activists in face of the 1848 Revolution’s failure. Informant responses indicate that this particular song canon aptly lent itself to accounting for the uncomfortable reality of socialist stagnation that became apparent in the GDR from the late 1970s onwards.

Robb (2007; 2016) points out that the wider appeal of German language songs associated with the 1848 Revolution was also strategically exploited by the East German government, framing utopian revolutionary songs extracted from Steinitz’ collection as historically evidencing the ongoing struggle of the proletariat in the GDR. In the ideological service of the Communist SED Party, musicologist Inge Lammel (1957) adapted utopian repertoire collected by Steinitz to implement her workers’ song canon as part of the state’s youth song movement (Singebewegung). Using Eric Hobsbawm’s (1983) concept of ‘invented traditions’, I distinguish between the different interpretative facets that the 1848 revolutionary song repertoire generated for revivalists and the state and articulate, how it fuelled their respective artistic or ideological endeavours. Lutz Kirchenwitz (1993), former member of the GDR youth song movement, has written on the various song genres and artist groups that formed in the GDR from the 1960s onwards, ranging from songs of the initially popular Hootenanny Klubs to the state-sponsored Singebewegung and state-critical Liedermacher. His work uncovers, in differentiated ways, the attributes of a state-supported genre of social music making that informants I interviewed in the field aimed to dissociate themselves from and serves as a point of departure for understanding reasons for this shift. On the contrary, Kirchenwitz clarifies the facets of the Singebewegung that drew many practitioners to its model of music making.

14 1.2.4 Nuances in Politically-Oppositional Intent

Precisely these paradoxical interferences between experiences of conformity and dissidence among state-conform and independent musicians in the GDR scenario underscore Robb’s (2007) critique of existing scholarly discourses on folk music in the GDR that have projected a unilineal relationship between artists and authorities, in which the former had to simply submit creative expression to the imperative of censorship exerted by the latter. Instead, Robb outlines that GDR artists employed numerous creative strategies to maintain a performative platform, while still communicating subversive messages through the sub-text of their songs. The necessity for greater nuancing of lived musical experience in this regard is pertinent in terms of my own fieldwork outcomes, since ethnographic responses reveal that GDR folk musicians’ politically-oppositional intent is experienced in a highly differentiated fashion by practitioners. Considering Robb’s (2010) discussion of ambiguous mechanisms within the East German state’s cultural policy of the Erbe (‘heritage’) serves to comprehend, how a proudly curated 19th century revolutionary song heritage could be exploited creatively and subversively by artists to utter critique of organisational structures.

To identify the subtleties of political opposition attributed to a democratic German folk song repertoire by fieldwork informants, I critique Eyerman and Jamison’s (1998) concept of ‘cognitive praxis’, which the authors employ to assess the knowledge-producing capacities of social movements in the 20th century. While Eyerman and Jamison confirm Bithell and Hill’s (2014) categorisation of revivals as transformative, knowledge-generating efforts, the collective level of political activism that the authors attribute to social movements is not suitable to account for the fact that individual artists living in the GDR had to occupy a liminal middle-ground between dissidence and conformity in order to maintain their performative platform. In his recently published chronicle of the GDR folk music scene, entitled Volkes Lied und Vater Staat, German music journalist Wolfgang Leyn (2016) balances his narrative of musicians’ struggles with state-imposed censorship by explaining the functions of the GDR state’s administrative structures in place for supporting the arts. An insider to the scene, he lays bare the underlying meanings and gaps within the state’s organisational framework and refers to concrete aspects that are mentioned by my own fieldwork informants in terms of their mediation of artistic expression vis-à-vis the state apparatus. A definitive strength in Leyn’s work is his ethnographic focus on the experiences of ex-GDR folk musicians and his outline of key historical events that changed the individual experience of artists as much as it altered

15 the state’s administrative fabric on a macro level. Volkes Lied und Vater Staat thus serves as an important reference point for contextualising the musical encounters of my informants in a broader social, cultural and political sphere.

In spite of its relevance, Leyn’s work presupposes the reader’s knowledge of specific political developments in the history of the GDR and other socialist post-war states in Europe, which directly or indirectly affected cultural life in East Germany. To deepen my understanding of these mechanisms, I refer to articles published by the Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (‘Federal Agency for Civic Education’), a state-supported German-language online platform, which provides access to scholarly resources dealing with the history of German politics. Sonja Ernst’s (2003) article on the state-sponsored X. Weltfestspiele in 1973, a musically-underscored propaganda event aimed at implementing utopian ideals of a socialist world view in the minds of the GDR youth, illustrates the ramifications for a shift in the musical experience of East German folk music revivalists, who were gradually confronted with the harsh stagnation of a utopian socialist dream that was propagated on an official level. Stefan Karner’s (2008) contribution on socialist military intervention following the Prague Spring uprisings in Czechoslovakia in 1968 sketches out the ideological framework within which the state- sponsored GDR youth song movement performed Party-conform songs to communicate a sense of socialist integrity. Considering these two historical key events is crucial to understand, how subversive regime critique expressed in the songs of GDR folk musicians manifested in textual and musical form and how these features contrasted with the top-down, state-imposed ideological message. A greater focus on musicological (both textual and sonic) dynamics concerns me in chapter four of my thesis, as previous scholarly inquiry on folk music making in the GDR (Kirchenwitz 1993; Robb 2007; Leyn 2016) appears to have either foregrounded ethnographic and discursive modes of analysis, or merely considered the underlying meanings of song texts.

1.2.5 Musical Manifestations and Peircean Semiotics

In Playing with the Erbe, Robb (2010) has accounted for the direct applicability of 19th century songs of emigration in a GDR performance context, where travelling to the non- socialist economic zone was strictly prohibited. In this regard, he refers to the group Folkländer’s (1982) adaption of the mid-19th century émigré’s song “Auswandererlied”, which was collected by Steinitz (1954, p.120) under the title “Hier können wir nicht bleiben” (“We

16 Cannot Stay Here”). Robb’s analysis of the metaphorical sub-text communicated in this song is detailed, yet primarily grounded in his close scrutiny of lyrics, which inevitably overlooks the crucial musical and stylistic reference points that were mentioned by my research consultants in the field and which further underline the song’s critical intent in a directly affective manner. Discussions of how 19th century folk songs were musically reinterpreted in the GDR revival context inevitably raise questions of artistic legitimacy and authenticity (Stokes 1994, pp.1-27) of the material. Owe Ronström (2014, pp.43-59) has offered an alternative to the dominantly discussed discursive nature of authenticity, by claiming that ‘authentic’ musical quality, whatever it may signify, can also reside in the directly affective experience of the listener. This point is key to understanding, how subtle musical references, adjuncts to the subversive song texts, served as sonic short hands for critique in the East German context. Thomas Turino (1999; 2008) has proposed that the theory of Peircean semiotics offers a pathway for making sense of this form of emotionally engaging sound perception and for comprehending, how music is readily politicised, due to its iconic and indexical potential. In chapter four, I refer to Turino’s and Charles Sanders Peirce’s analytical tools to uncover musical processes at work in Folkländer’s “Auswandererlied”, before comparing and contrasting these with the song “Sag mir, wo du stehst!” (“Which Side Are You On?”), which became co-opted for propaganda purposes by the state-conform Singebewegung (Oktoberklub 1967).

The foregoing review has provided an overview on the various scholarly fields, literary sources, and established discourses that my research on folk music revival in the GDR engages and seeks to contribute to. Furthermore, I have indicated, how relevant literature allows me to underscore and nuance outcomes of my ethnographic research that are located at the heart of my narrative. Undoubtedly, critical examination of existing literature in this field needs to be supplemented by ethnographic and musicological modes of analysis, which leads me to uncover, what exactly constitutes the lived musical experience of folk musicians in the German Democratic Republic, how practitioners conceptualised their performance practice, and how this manifests in concrete textual and musical form. At first, it is inevitable to historically trace transformations in a pre-World War II romantic-nationalistic German folk music concept, which, in light of its ideological corruption in the Third Reich, led to a novel, textual and sonic reinterpretation of German folk music practice in post-war times. Chapter two sets out to establish this crucial historical backdrop for my thesis.

17 1.3 Outline of Thesis Structure

The following chapter is concerned with transitions in the romantic-nationalistic German folk music legacy, which became ideologically misused by the Nazi regime and had to be actively recast in post-war times. Focusing on dynamics of nostalgic longing, which stimulated GDR revivalists’ recourse to an Irish-inspired performance style, I further show, how textual affinities between Irish protest songs and 19th century German folk songs led to a strikingly topical resurfacing on an oppositional 1848 revolutionary song repertoire in East Germany. In chapter three, I compare ethnographic responses commenting on the subversive nature of 1848 songs in the GDR performance context to established scholarly discourses on the relationship between artists and state institutions. This focus on lived musical experience leads me to nuance established, binary portrayals of ‘resistance’ and ‘conformity’ enacted by folk musicians in the GDR and unveils important strategies for maintaining their performative platform in a socialist state. Finally, chapter four draws on musicological analysis to untether, how music’s iconic and indexical potential was used by GDR artists and state institutions to sonically communicate agendas of critique and state-conformity to their target audiences.

18 Chapter Two

“The Romantic-Nationalistic German Folk Song Concept, Post-War Revival, and the Nostalgic Facets of an Irish Ersatz Genre”

19 During my interview with Folkländer front man Jürgen B. Wolff, I expressed my interest in the sonic and textual ramifications of his performance practice. His response illustrates the challenges that musicians in both German post-war states faced, when they were confronted with the widespread rejection of German vernacular music, song specifically, due to its misuse by the Nazis during the Third Reich:

JW: „Wir hatten damals das Problem, dass wir das deutsche Volksliedgut eigentlich nicht kannten, weil es nicht verfügbar war.“

JW: “Back then, we had the issue that we actually didn’t know the German folk song repertoire, because it wasn’t available.”

(Wolff 2017, Interview, Appendix B, p.114)

Wolff’s lived musical experience correlates with established discourses in German folk music studies that discuss the genre’s marginalisation in post-war times. 4 Ethnomusicologist Britta Sweers (2018 forthcoming, p.1) also argues that engaging with the theoretical vantage point of ‘music revival’ is useful to account for creative processes which have shaped the reinterpretation of German folk music in the Federal Republic of Germany (here also referred to under the German abbreviation ‘BRD’- Bundesrepublik Deutschland) and the GDR from the 1960s onwards. Juniper Hill and Caroline Bithell (2014, p.3) define music revival as “an effort to perform and promote music that is valued as old or historical and is usually perceived to be threatened or moribund”. While Hill and Bithell list multiple revival characteristics, among them the centrality of revival activists, a desire for change and discourses on authenticity, which all apply to the German case in different ways, they emphasize that revivals bring with them transformative capacities, whenever an aspect of the past is de-contextualised from its source domain and becomes re-contextualised in terms of the needs of the present. It is this transformative force that concerns me most in this chapter, precisely because German folk music’s threatened post-war practice became reinvigorated through sonic transformations borrowed from the idioms of Irish and Scottish Tradional Music (Sweers 2018 forthcoming, p.4).

4 In terms of existing German-language scholarship, the German folk music revival has been examined from a West German perspective in the 1980s. This is evident in: Frey, J. and Siniveer, K. (1987) Eine Geschichte der Folkmusik, Hamburg: Rohwolt. Since a discussion of the revival circumstances in the GDR is missing in Frey and Siniveer’s work, it is worth considering Florian Steinbiß’ more holistic portrayal. See: Steinbiß, F. (1984) Deutsch-Folk: Auf der Suche nach der verlorenen Tradition, Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag.

20 Drawing upon outcomes of my own ethnographic research, this chapter is about evidencing, how a re-contextualisation of German vernacular music in post-war East Germany translated into a novel, Irish-inspired soundscape that was widely shared by folk bands from the 1970s onwards. I set out by tracing, how Herder’s 18th century German folk music concept became historically entangled with political agendas of extreme German nationalism in the 19th and 20th centuries. This contextual outline equips me to show, how different facets of nostalgia, whether in their reflexivity of longing, their restorative capacities (Boym 2001), or in their substitutive Ersatz function (Appadurai 1996), have shaped the transformation of German folk music in West Germany and the GDR. Considering Slobin’s (1993) theory of the ‘affinity interculture’ further leads me to differentiate existing discourses in this domain, by claiming that the post-war cultural identity crisis experienced by many folk musicians in the GDR not just found its sonic remedy through a recourse to the Irish folk music idiom, as is often simplified. In fact, on a textual level, the topicality of Irish protest songs equally stimulated a renewed interest in German-language song material and it was a growing need to identify, how these songs compared to their Irish counterpart that informed a subsequent revival of a democratic 19th century German folk song heritage once suppressed by the Nazis. Those songs could be reinterpreted as vehicles for voicing GDR artists’ critique regarding the state’s organisational structures and provided them with expressive channels to make sense of the real, existing circumstances of socialism.

2.1 A Problematic Romantic-Nationalistic Legacy of German Folk Songs

It is fitting to frame my analysis of the pre-World War II ethnic-nationalistic German folk music paradigm by departing from the pivotal 18th century writings of German philosopher and theologian Johann Gottfried von Herder. Evaluating Herder’s theorizing about folk song and its liaison with language and the nation moves us closer to comprehending, how the romantic German folk song concept gradually became intertwined with enclosing nationalism and how the centrality of language, a tool for the consolidation of cultural identity, retained its influence in post-Nazi Germany.

At a time when German identity was not yet politically delineated in the form of a unified nation state, Herder composed his essay on Alte Volkslieder (‘Old Folk Songs’) in 1774. Stating that the Volk, the German equivalent of ‘folk’, were unpolicirt and thus lacked political organisation in their highly individual and most ‘natural’ state, Herder first expressed the urge

21 to consolidate a unified German national spirit through the collection of a shared, yet highly distinct folk song repertoire, using the German language as a common denominator in its publication (Bohlman 2017, pp.21-25). It was here and in Herder’s 1788 and 89’ volumes Stimmen der Völker in Liedern (‘Voices of the People in Song’) that the term Volkslied, folk song, first became coined and was specifically tied to the prospect of channelling the Volk’s cultural distinctiveness into a cohesive German national identity (Bohlman 2004, pp.42-3). Crucially, this occurred at a time when the territory nowadays referred to as ‘Germany’ was no more than a cluster of independently-ruled kingdoms and principalities and Herder’s theses on the possibility of putting the songs of the people into the service of the nation surfaced long before a unified German Empire came to fruition in 1871.

Inspired by Herder’s theorising about language and song, the advent of 19th century Romanticism witnessed a growing interest in the compilation of folk song anthologies that transferred locally varied German dialects into the more widely accessible High German language. Arguably, the most prominent collection in this regard was Ludwig Achim von Arnim and Clemens Brentano’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn: Alte deutsche Lieder (‘The Youth’s Magic Horn: Old German Songs’), published in 1806 and 1808. As members of an intellectual and political elite, Arnim and Brentano effectively underscored the concept of the nation with musical features. Bohlman (2004, p.48) evaluates the impetus to establish such canons of a Germanness that was yet to be politically defined as an imposition of nationalist sentiment on Herder’s folk song image. After all, implementing a nationalist agenda by a politically consolidated elite from the top down could be legitimised, by referring to Herder’s idealistic and arguably simplistic claim that folk music emerged as the product of the politically- unorganised, hence unpolicirt, Volk.

However, in light of the different interpretative guises that the 19th century German folk song concept would prospectively generate for post-war German folk music revivalists in the late 20th century, it is vital to consider Bohlman’s (2004, p.49) iteration that the period of the 1848 Revolution in German lands brought forward an until then unprecedented framework for the synthesis of Germanic identity and song that framed the Volk itself, not the elite, as political agents. According to Bohlman, songs of the 1848 Revolution, an uprising against repressions exerted by the rulers in multiple German petty states and an outbreak that was inspired by the revolution against King Louis Philippe of France earlier that year, project the folk’s politically- motivated longing for a populist, unified German nation. While acknowledging that the 1848

22 Revolution failed to implement lasting democratic structures, this particular genre of German- language folk song equipped members of a then emerging working and middle class with agency to express opposition to the outdated order of feudalism and a desire for greater democratic co-determination. An excursion into the song repertoire of the 1848 Revolution, an important divergence from the grand narrative of music and its liaison with German nationalism, is necessary to evidence, how these protest songs of the past later became relevant in the GDR as sources that facilitated a platform for folk music revivalists to air dissatisfactions with centralised socialist organisational structures. Illustrating this mechanism requires a more thorough discussion of the thematic issues at stake in revived East German folk songs, an aspect that I will focus on in chapter three. At this point in the present chapter, I turn to outlining the drastic political co-option of German folk music by the Nazi regime, something that is located at the root of post-war folk music revivals in West and East Germany.

When European nationalism entered the 20th century, remnants of a democratic 1848 revolutionary song repertoire were increasingly supplanted by a political agenda implemented from the top down. In the period between the two World Wars, when Germany had lost settlement areas, folk song anthologies, such as Landschaftliche Volkslieder (‘Folk Songs from Their Landscapes’), published by the German Folk-Song Archive in Freiburg im Breisgau in 1924, served not only as means of promoting German sonic authenticity, but were used to justify German military expansion to reclaim territories lost during the First World War (Bohlman 2004, p.65). On the level of social music making, The Wandervogel youth music movement, which had existed since 1896, provided a significant context for amateur folk singing in the German language and stood in strong opposition to popular bourgeois and formalised music education (Sweers 2018 forthcoming, p.2). Mirroring the growing political co-option of Herder’s romantic folk song concept in nationalist ideology, Walther Hensel, a member of the Wandervogel movement and an avid folk song collector, classified the genre as a uniquely German phenomenon and articulated notions of popularity and mass consumption as folk song’s defining attributes (Sweers 2005, p.70).

During the Third Reich (1933-45), the Nazi regime exploited German folk music’s popular appeal, by systematically putting the genre into the service of their ideology to educate, mobilise and control the masses. The co-option of folk music as part of Nazi propaganda led to an intense, racially-motivated underscoring of Germanic national identity. In fact, German folk music’s traumatic corruption in this period played out drastically when it was misused to

23 “represent the nation to the aggrandizement of self and the denigration of other” (Bohlman 2004, p.67), something that was later referred to in order to legitimise the horrific crime of genocide during the Holocaust. A move from folk music as individual expression, portrayed by Herder, to an anti-individualistic, popular appeal (Sweers 2005, p.72) is particularly apparent in terms of Nazi endeavours to expand upon the then popular folk music repertoire of ballads, carols and dances. The Nazi folk music concept now included newly composed and politically-loaded marching and propaganda songs, which were employed to educate the German youth in the context of the Hitlerjugend (‘Hitler Youth’) and the Bund Deutscher Mädel (‘League of German Girls’), two centralised youth organisations. The new political connotations of the German folk music repertoire and the performance context of marching drills and Nazi propaganda events profoundly altered this generation’s understanding of what folk music signified, as Sweers (2005, p.75) points out.

2.2 Post-War Escapism, Volkstümliche Musik, and BRD’s Burg Waldeck-Scene

After 1945, the arrival of the Allied Forces caused widespread demographic changes that left regional German folk music traditions highly marginalised. On the other hand, politically- charged marching songs were forbidden. A resulting break in the transmission of folk songs, now intertwined with the tag of Nazi propaganda, alienated much of the traditional material from its original performance context. At that time, German folk music’s virtual extinction was mirrored in several domains of the arts. For example, West German poet and folk singer Franz Josef Degenhardt (1968) tantalizingly summarised the then prevailing fragility of German cultural expression by provocatively asking: “Wo sind unsere alten Lieder?” (“Where are our old songs?”). A widespread marginalisation of performance traditions stimulated what Sweers (2005, p.79) calls “post-war escapism”, characterised by the public’s need to seek refuge from folk music’s nationalistic connotations in nostalgic and idyllic representations of the German landscape.

This need was to be satisfied and displayed visually in form of the Heimatfilm (‘film with regional background’), a film genre which projected a Heile Welt (‘idyllic world’) image, the hope that the harsh post-war reality experienced by many would soon turn into an intact world. The Heimatfilm found its textual and sonic adjunct in the form of highly popular, newly composed volkstümliche Musik, a folk-style music genre that was conceived to cleanse folk music of its nationalistic connotations, by portraying a distorted image of the German cultural

24 heritage, replete with associations of kitsch and artificiality. Although a highly popular music genre, volkstümliche Musik had little in common with the actual pre-World War II performative practice of German folk music and shared no commonalities with the strands of political and social criticism that had already started to surface in the 1960s West German folk song revival (Sweers 2018 forthcoming, pp.3-4) and which would later spread to the GDR as well.

Robb (2007, pp.1-2) clarifies that members of the 1960s West German protest song movement, a countercultural movement to folk-style music, which was primarily informed by the American folk music revival of the 1950s and 60s, set out to reframe German folk music in terms of its democratic attributes and emphasized the role of the individual singer, as opposed to the collective. Congregating at the annual Burg Waldeck Festival in the Hunsrück region from 1969 onwards, West German revivalists re-appropriated repertoire associated with the 1848 Revolution, such as satirical Spottlieder, songs of mockery originally aimed at princes and rulers in the numerous petty states existing prior to 1871. For members of the political song movement in the BRD, 1848 texts served the novel purpose of underscoring left-wing rejection of the conservative policies pursued by the Konrad Adenauer government. Sweers (2005, p.79) adds, that West German artists like Hannes Wader, Liederjan or Zupfgeigenhansel also performed 1848 revolutionary material, as it could be used to critique the prevailing social conformity in relation to the apparent Nazi background of their parents’ generation and that of many state employees at the time. I now proceed to take a closer look at the ways in which Irish music, first sonically, then textually, afforded GDR folk musicians to rediscover a similar political edge to folk song in order to recast their identity as practitioners, who sought to musick 5 independently from the state.

5 Ethnomusicologist Christopher Small proposes the use of the term musicking, a gerund of the verb to music, to account for the processual nature and multiple facets of human musical activity, be it performing, listening, or otherwise contributing to a musical event. I employ Small’s ‘musicking’ at several stages of this thesis, as it reflects transformative processes at work in the redefinition of folk music’s sonic and textual meaning by revivalists in the GDR. See: Small, C. (1998) Musicking: The Meaning of Performing and Listening, Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.

25 2.3 Hootenanny Klubs and the GDR’s Singebewegung

Akin to the West-German situation, responses surfacing in the context of my ethnographic research reflect a shared disdain for folk-style music among folk music practitioners in the GDR. Wolfgang Leyn quotes Jürgen B. Wolff, who articulates folk musicians’ need to consolidate their artistic identity as clearly dissociated from volkstümliche Musik:

WL: „Jürgen Wolff war ja damals der Meinung, deutsche Volkslieder könne man gar nicht mehr singen, es ist irgendwie alles entweder verkunstet oder verkitschtVolkslied war äquivalent mit dem romantischen Volkslied. Das war allgegenwärtig im Radio und auf Schallplatten und dann gab es Chöre, die das gesungen haben (). Dann gab es auch die volkstümliche Musik, die ja sich als Volkslied bezeichnet hat. Das wollten wir nicht und es waren eigentlich unsere ärgsten Feinde (lacht).“

WL: “Back then, Jürgen Wolff was convinced that one could not sing German folk songs anymore, because they were either kitsch or too artificialVolkslied is equated with romantic folk songs. This was omnipresent in the form of radio broadcasts, records and choirs that performed this material (). Then there was volkstümliche Musik, which was framed as folk song. We didn’t want that and those were our most vicious enemies (laughs).”

(Leyn 2017, Interview, Appendix F, pp.175; 178)

Reinhardt “Pfeffi” Ständer, who was employed as an event organiser by a centralised cultural cabinet in the GDR, expresses his concerns about an East German TV show host’s attempt to categorise then current folk bands as exponents of a folk-style music genre:

PS: „Die wurden dann als Volksmusik bezeichnet. Ich dachte, das kann man doch nicht machen, die als Volksmusik, mit „V“, zu bezeichnen.“

PS: “They classified them as Volksmusik. I thought, one cannot do that, to classify them as Volksmusik, with “V”. That was impossible!”

(Ständer 2017, Interview, Appendix B, p.134)

The fact that Jürgen and Pfeffi distinguish between the spelling conventions of the German Volksmusik and Folkmusik had wide-reaching implications for GDR folk musicians, the redefinition of their identity as practitioners, and their re-contextualisation of the then marginalised romantic German folk song concept in democratic terms. West German journalist Florian Steinbiß (1984, p.10) untethers the nuances between the German Volksmusik and the Anglicism Folkmusik. Explaining that terminological choices strongly reflect the attitudes of practitioners, he notes that the German Volkslied became framed as equating Herder’s romantic

26 and later corrupted, nationalistic folk song concept. To safely manoeuver around the term’s problematic legacy in the Nazi Era, East German practitioners referred to their practice as Folkmusik. Importantly, the etymology of this genre is also rooted in the impact of the American folk music revival of the 1950s and 60s on artists in the Federal Republic of Germany, and on social music making in the GDR (Leyn 2016, p.279).

In 1966, the East Berlin Hootenanny Klub was initiated by Canadian folk singer and banjo player Perry Friedman and provided a platform for spontaneous sessions of leftist protest singing that students and other aspiring folk musicians could engage in (Leyn 2016, p.11). Robb (2007, p.228) refers to the four years leading up to the formation of the club as a period when the GDR government’s increasing focus on the construction of the Berlin Wall lessened the severity of censorship that was normally enforced in terms of artistic expression. Consequently, folk singers re-interpreted workers’ songs, usually framed as a ‘sacred’ repertoire of the socialist state, in an eclectic manner. In 1967 however, it was decided that the creative epicentre of the Hootenanny Klub was to be taken over by the GDR youth organisation FDJ (Freie Deutsche Jugend- ‘Free German Youth’) and, in homage to the 1917 October Revolution in Russia, renamed Oktoberklub. This strategic move asserted the ideological control of the Socialist Unity Party (SED- Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands) over artistic expression, by promoting a DDR-konkret repertoire as a canon for its redefined youth song movement, the Singebewegung. The label ‘DDR-konkret’ signified that artists could only compose and perform song material which served the interest of socialist progression and the proletariat and fostered a strong sense of GDR identity.6

In this context, Robb (2007, pp.230-233) clarifies that the growing dissatisfaction with the movement’s objectives was rooted in folk singers’ realisation that freedom of speech was in fact limited and that the Singebewegung represented a vehicle for the indoctrination of Communist Party objectives. Ironically, the state-conform Singebewegung itself provided

6 Lutz Kirchenwitz (1993, pp.50-51), founding member and director of the Singebewegung in the 1960s, affirms that the East German state did substantially channel the Hootenanny protest song movement in line with its own ideological objectives. Yet, Kirchenwitz (1993, p.35) equally emphasizes that the initial impetus to establish Hootenannies evolved out of the spontaneous interests of the participants themselves and the articulation of their identity as politically-active, yet by no means politically-oppositional, artists. This independent consolidation complicates a universal dismissal of the youth song movement as a mere enactment of top-down, state-conform objectives. See: Kirchenwitz, L. (1993) Folk, Chanson und Liedermacher in der DDR: Chronisten, Kritiker, Kaisergeburtstagssänger, Berlin: Dietz Verlag.

27 fertile soil for the now rapidly emerging state-critical Liedermacher, balladeers like Wolf Biermann, who was expatriated from the GDR in 1976 for openly expressing regime criticism in his songs. Furthermore, this stimulated the formation of an independent GDR folk music scene, members of which came to terms with the reality that the Singebewegung’s imperatives proved increasingly incompatible with a prevailing disdain for the state’s attempt to exploit youth music movements like the Hootenannies in its ideological service. A growing need among certain artists to decouple themselves from the GDR’s institutional fabric and its Singeklubs (‘youth song clubs’) was met with the establishment of the GDR’s folk music scene in the mid-1970s, as Gert Steinert, member of the ex-GDR folk band Lumich and the Leipzig- based band Lose Skiffle Gemeinschaft (Fig.1) explains:

GS: „Es ist mir gut in Erinnerung geblieben, dass wir uns eigentlich mit diesen Singeklubs überhaupt nicht zusammentun wolltendas hat mich auch nur noch stückweise interessiert. Wir wollten unser eigenes Ding machen und die Folkszene bot das.“

GS: “I remember not wanting to be associated with the SingeklubsI was only partially interested in them. We wanted to do our own thing and the folk music scene facilitated that.”

(Steinert 2017, Interview, Appendix D, p.153)

Fig.1 Lose Skiffle Gemeinschaft Leipzig-Mitte: “Rapid Musical Cheerfulness” with Gert Steinert on guitar (back row, third from right)

2.4 Ersatz Nostalgia and the Reception of an Irish Soundscape

JW: „Man kannte ja nur Lieder, wie “Im Schneegebirge” oder “Wenn alle Brünnlein fließen”. Für Chöre hat das gereicht, für uns aber nichtEine Folkszene kannte die DDR nichtEs wurde gesagt, dass es im engeren Sinne eigentlich Singebewegung war. Dann haben wir gesagt, dass wir ja dort herkommen und von dort wegwollen. () Wenn wir uns dort gemein machen, ist das das Ende der Folkszene.“

JW: “One only knew songs like “Im Schneegebirge” or “Wenn alle Brünnlein Fließen”. That was sufficient for the choirs, but not for us…A folk scene was unprecedented in the GDR They claimed that it was in fact part of the youth song movement, but we responded that we emerged out of that and wanted to get away from it. () If we submit ourselves to the imperatives of the collective, it would be the end of the folk music scene.”

(Wolff 2017, Interview, Appendix B, pp.116; 124)

The above quote by Jürgen B. Wolff portrays the dilemma experienced by post-war East German folk music revivalists. On the one hand, their longing for independent artistic expression from state-sponsored song movements and a reinvigorated performative folk music practice was overshadowed by the uncomfortable legacy of the Nazi-tainted, romantic Volkslied repertoire and its mass-appeal. On the other hand, their artistic desire could not be fulfilled by clichéd volkstümliche Musik and its communication of a Heile Welt ideal. As Robb (2016, p.11) posits, this notion continues to distort the concept of German folk songs in modern times, since Volkslieder are often equated with popular folk-style music in public discourses. Critically, Britta Sweers outlines that, in the context of this identity crisis, Anglo-Irish traditional music genres provided a suitable Ersatz, a sonically-salient replacement for folk- style music and local German folk music traditions that had become widely extinct in the aftermath of the Third Reich:

“the encounter with international, especially then-popular Scottish-Irish artists not only stimulated new research in local traditions. It also provided a musical basis in the face of the extreme marginalization of performance traditions. Many German folk bands thus started as “Irish folk bands” in the 1970s and often adapted related instruments, arrangements and performance styles to newly composed and traditional material.”

(Sweers 2018 forthcoming, p.4)

As Irish music provided a more suitable sonic Ersatz for German folk music’s Nazi-tainted soundscape than nostalgic folk-style music or the DDR-konkret songs propagated by the Singebewegung, it is worth expanding upon anthropologist Arjun Appadurai’s (1996) concept

29 of Ersatz nostalgia, a concern which arises out of his critique of mass merchandising and the use of nostalgia as a means to promote a way of life that is either lost forever or that has never been lost at all. A compound of the Greek nostos (‘return home’) and algia (‘longing’), nostalgia represents the historically prevalent romantic yearning to revisit a specific setting of time and space, coupled with the need to rediscover (cultural) identity and the homeland. For Appadurai, Ersatz nostalgia unfolds as the reclamation of aspects one never thought one had lost. In response to the promotion of popular genres like volkstümliche Musik, he argues that their inherent imagined nostalgia cannot satisfy the real longings of those that have actually lost a way of cultural and, indeed, musical expression, as is the case in the German experience:

“But what has not been explored is the fact that such nostalgia, as far as mass merchandising is concerned, does not principally involve the evocation of a sentiment to which consumers who have really lost something can respondWe need to discriminate between the force of nostalgia in its primary form and the ersatz nostalgia on which mass merchandising increasingly draws”

(Appadurai 1996, p.77-78)

But why was Irish music such a suitable sonic Ersatz? This genre, which was mediated from the ‘Celtic’ European fringe, appeared to resonate with the ‘real longings’ and ‘primary nostalgia’ that post-war German folk musicians felt in their attempt to establish pathways for reconnecting with a lost, once highly individualistic, even unpolicirt 7 romantic folk song tradition. In The Future of Nostalgia, Svetlana Boym unpacks this further, making a case for nostalgia’s multiplicity. In fact, she extends Appadurai’s Ersatz nostalgia by distinguishing between reflective and restorative typologies of nostalgia (Boym 2001, p.41). While the reflective nostalgia dwells on an intense feeling of longing and its frictions with belonging, its restorative counterpart seeks to re-establish continuity with a lost past. As East Germany was radically sealed-off from the surrounding non-socialist economic zone, it is plausible that precisely this level of seclusion initially amplified reflective nostalgic longings among GDR folk musicians to explore the dislocated world beyond the Wall. Music served as an intensely affective medium capable of carrying these sentiments. In an interview and in response to

7 Herder grounded his own fascination with the Volk’s individuality, their ‘wildness’ and natural expression in his 1773 writings on Ossian, James Macpherson’s Gaelic bard. In Herder’s ‘Briefwechsel über Ossian und die Lieder der alten Völker’ (Herder 2017, pp.140-167) and in his 1794 essay ‘Homer und Ossian’ (Herder 2017, pp.172-185), one can identify his attempt to negotiate correlations between ancient Greek epics and Celtic, Scottish and Irish, myth heroes. One could argue that this indicates a historically-rooted Germanic draw to the culture of the European fringe, which resurfaces, in a different nostalgic guise, in the GDR.

30 illegally imported records of ‘Irish folk bands’ from West Germany, Wolfgang Leyn voices his draw to an exotic otherness inherent in Irish forms of instrumentation and an omnipresent feeling of belonging that was conveyed through the melodies of this particular musical idiom:

WL: „Zum einen ist die irische Musik einfach eine sehr schöne Musik. Sie ist in gewisser Weise von ihren Instrumenten und Melodien her exotischDieses Irische war irgendwie immer präsent und es lag uns nahe, weil wir uns da gut eingefühlt habenEs hat uns irgendwie gereizt.“

WL: “Firstly, Irish music is an aesthetic kind of music. Its instrumentation and melodies are exoticThe Irish element was omnipresent and it was particularly close to us, because we could adopt its feelingThat somehow appealed to us.”

(Leyn 2017, Interview, Appendix F, pp.174; 175)

Writing about the concept of ‘Celtic music’, Reiss (2003, p.163) argues that it is primarily through its sonic iconicity and mobility that music can create imaginary landscapes of relocation 8. Consequently, classifying music as ‘Celtic’ sonically and affectively “allows people access toa domain of ‘Celtdom’ denied to them by the complexities of, for example, a Celtic language or the theoretical and practical difficulties of maintaining a coherent political identity.” (Stokes 1994, p.6). One of the primary sonic short hands for Celtic exoticism at work in the GDR was a revival of bagpipe playing, especially since the instrument was perceived as romantically connoting an extinct altdeutsche (‘Old German’) identity (Gehler 2014, p.6). The challenge of acquiring bagpipes in the sealed-off GDR encouraged the smuggling of instruments via West Germany and stimulated the reconstruction of German bagpipe types, such as the Schäferpfeife, by pioneering instrument makers in East Berlin. Soon, different types of bagpipes became part of the local folk music soundscape, a development which later contributed to a renaissance of German medieval music.

In my recourse to Ersatz and reflective nostalgia as tools to shape outcomes in my own field research, I have clarified that an Irish-inspired soundscape initially equipped GDR folk musicians with a novel sonic, and performative platform to recast their nostalgic longings for a lost romantic German folk music heritage through an exotic musical Other. However, tracing the reception of Irish music in the GDR on the basis of Slobin’s (1993) ‘affinity interculture’

8 For a detailed account of the various ways in which music acts as a means of identity construction and serves as a powerful medium for individual ‘relocation’ to places and memories, see: Stokes, M. ed. (1994) ‘Introduction: Ethnicity, Identity and Music’, in Ethnicity, Identity and Music: The Musical Construction of Place, Oxford and New York, NY: Berg Publishers, 1-28.

31 and Boym’s ‘restorative nostalgia’ as an adjunct to its ‘reflective’ characteristics, allows me to extend my argument by showing, how a trans-cultural affinity dynamic between GDR folk musicians and the genre of Irish music translated not only in sonic, but also in textual form and ultimately led to the reinvigoration of a democratic and oppositional German-language folk song concept, which differed greatly from the romantic Volkslied.

In Subcultural Sounds: Micromusics of the West Mark Slobin (1993) provides a seminal ethnomusicological framework for comprehending the numerous complexities of cross- cultural musical interrelations in the modern, fragmented and de-territorialised world we live in. Slobin analyses music a conduit for synthesizing local with national and intercultural planes of lived musical experience and he recognizes the immediacy of increasing global cultural flow (Slobin 1993, p.3) in this dynamic. It is the trans-national level, Slobin’s “affinity interculture” (Slobin 1993, p.68), that is most significant in tracing, how music can transcend its source domain and become meaningful for individuals in a “transnational performer-audience interest group”. This pertains specifically to GDR folk musicians, who, albeit under travel restrictions imposed by the East German government, identified channels through which they could access Irish music and satisfy their force fields of musical desire and belonging (Slobin 1993, x).

Surprisingly, it was a state-sponsored political song festival that opened up an unprecedented “window to the outside world” (Leyn 2016, p.278) and provided opportunities for creative exchange between GDR folk musicians and international protest singers and folk bands, such as Dick Gaughan from Scotland and the Sands Family from Northern Ireland. Robb (2007, p.233) acknowledges that GDR folk musicians like Jürgen B. Wolff trace their own intercultural affinity towards the idiom of Irish music to formative encounters with Irish and Scottish artists at the Festival des politischen Liedes, the annual festival of political song held in East Berlin from 1970 to 1990. Wolff describes, how attending a concert by the Sands Family in 1974 was key in altering his musical worldview:

JW: „Da kam dieses Ding mit irischer Folkmusik und ich war 74’ im Februar beim Festival des politischen Liedes und habe die „Sands Family“ gesehen. Da bin ich richtig aus allen Wolken gefallenwas man sich jetzt im Nachhinein gar nicht begreiflich machen kann, was das für eine Faszination ausgeübt hat.“

JW: “Then, Irish folk music came along and I saw the Sands Family at the festival of political song in February 74’. I was completely flabbergastedI cannot even retrospectively comprehend that fascination.”

32 (Wolff 2017, Interview, Appendix B, p.113)

Later referring more broadly to GDR folk musicians’ fascination with the idiom of Irish music, Jürgen distinguishes between an attraction to an Irish soundscape and a specific performance style conveyed by then popular Irish bands like The Dubliners. Here, it becomes repeatedly apparent, how Slobin’s affinity interculture mechanism operates on a musical level. As a self-taught folk music practitioner, Wolff states that Irish music, while an inherently complex genre of acoustic music, signalled a lower level of musical prowess that was required to master it (Wolff 2017, Interview, Appendix B, p.113). Besides highlighting the accessibility of the material in terms of prowess, he appreciates song performances that exhibit a high degree of spontaneity and freedom of expression, elements which he borrowed from his prototypical role models, the Irish ballad band The Dubliners 9. The impact of this performative model becomes clear when he states that he continues to incorporate this feature as part of his ongoing work with fellow artist Dieter Beckert and their satirical duet Duo Sonnenschirm:

JW: „Für mich war noch die Gesangskultur ganz wichtigJetzt ist es immer noch so, dass wenn ich eine Ansage mache, es wie in den 70ern bei den „Dubliners“ so ist, dass ich aus dem Stand heraus anfange, zu singenEs ist improvisiert und spontanDas ist noch ein Relikt aus dieser Zeit, was ich verinnerlicht habe, weil es mich damals umgehauen hat.“

JW: “Personally, the singing style was also important…Even today, when I perform…I still model my announcements on the 70s Dubliners’ style of spontaneously starting to sing, without any introduction…That’s improvisation and spontaneity…That’s one of the remnants from that period, which I internalised, because it baffled me back then.”

(Wolff 2017, Interview, Appendix B, p.134)

In chapter four, I provide a more in-depth analysis of a song interpreted by the folk group Folkländer and outline the degree, to which elements of an Irish sonic inspiration manifest in the musical expression of GDR folk revivalist bands. Having outlined, how Slobin’s ‘affinity interculture’ plays out in musical terms, I now proceed to arguing, that Irish music’s Ersatz

9 In The Companion to Irish Traditional Music, Tom Keller (in Vallely 2011, p.304), editor of the FolkWorld webzine in Salzgitter, Germany, highlights the attraction of German artists and audiences in the 1970s and 80s to the “ballad folk style” exhibited by professional Irish touring bands, such as The Dubliners. At that time, the 1970s Irish folk revival brought with it increased performance, recording, and dissemination opportunities for artists like The Dubliners, who could consequently access the international touring circuit and successfully market their music to German audiences. For further details on the global reception of Irish song performance, see: Motherway, S.H. (2013) The Globalization of Irish Traditional Song Performance, Farnham: Ashgate.

33 capacity also operated on the levels of repertoire and in relation to the content of song texts, ultimately leading to a rediscovery of German-language folk songs.

2.5 Thematic and Restorative Ersatz Capacities of Irish Folk Songs

Seeking historical evidence for a common Irish-German folk song heritage rooted in the mid-19th century, Robb (2009, pp.141-60) has unearthed thematic resonances between German and Irish folk songs dating from the time of the 1848 Revolution in Europe. Initially, Robb delineates important differences between German and Irish cultural contexts in this historical period, focusing primarily on Germany’s rapid industrialisation and emerging working class consciousness, which contrasted with Ireland’s rural societal fabric and the experience of colonial rule at that point. On the contrary, Robb clarifies that significant commonalities between the two locations unfold in relation to 19th century songs dealing with widely experienced issues of hunger, emigration, and, most notably, rebellion. The latter refers to a thematic overlap between Irish songs voicing protest against the British coloniser and German 1848 revolutionary songs that deal with the uprisings against rulers in the multiple principalities in German lands.

Robb (2009, p.158) concludes that this textual affinity between the Irish Ersatz repertoire and German 1848 revolutionary songs stimulated a reconnection with a democratic, oppositional facet of Germany’s own folk song heritage among revivalists and allowed post- war practitioners to recast their Nazi-tarnished cultural self-image with a novel political edge. Jürgen B. Wolff (2017, Interview, Appendix B, pp.114-115) notes that Irish rebel songs like “Roddy McCorley” and “The Foggy Dew”, emigration songs like “Muirsheen Durkin”, and army recruitment songs like “McAlpine’s Fusiliers” were particularly topical from a socio- political stance in the East German context. Indeed, these songs mirrored then widespread concerns among GDR artists and audiences, resonating with desires to emigrate to the Federal Republic of Germany and the encounters of many with the compulsory military service in a state that outlawed the expression of pacifism (Robb 2007, p.20). Leyn argues that Irish songs, particularly those responding to Ireland’s struggles to rid itself of colonial domination exerted by the British Empire, matched GDR musicians’ need to identify with and express a sentiment of resistance:

34 WL: „Die Dubliners kamen damals auf und das hat uns irgendwie imponiert. Dazu kam noch, dass es ganz gut in dieses anti-imperialistische Weltbild hineinpasste. Zum Beispiel war Irland ja die erste Kolonie Englandsdas stand in dieser Tradition der Aufstände.“

WL: “The Dubliners emerged at that time and we were somehow impressed. In fact, it fitted in with our anti-imperialistic world views. For example, Ireland was England’s first colonyit was a tradition of rebellion.”

(Leyn 2017, Interview, Appendix F, p.174)

In Boym’s terms, while GDR folk musicians’ initial nostalgic longing for an Irish-inspired, romantic-Celtic otherness can be classified as reflective and as dwelling on the feeling of longing and the shattered fragments of German post-war cultural belonging, restorative nostalgia, a need to re-establish continuity with Germany’s own rebellious folk music tradition, fuelled increased research into a democratic, German-language folk song repertoire. Furthermore, although Anglo-Irish songs provided initial channels for the airing of dissatisfactions with the GDR’s organisational structures, their reception by target audiences was problematic, since they could only be understood by those proficient in the English language. Interestingly, this evidences, how the legacy of Herder’s 18th century reflections on folk song and its intersection with language resurfaced in the late 20th century GDR, at a point when the need for a common denominator of understanding and the use of language to consolidate cultural identity was repeatedly amplified by folk music revivalists.

The following chapter sets out to illustrate the ramifications, under which artists in the GDR rediscovered 19th century democratic German language song material. Comparing and contrasting the reinterpretation of a 19th century democratic folk song heritage by GDR folk musicians with stakes for its politicization by the state’s cultural administration leads me to assess the multiple ways in which the performance of songs dating from the period of the 1848 Revolution allowed artists and audiences to make sense of their real, experienced being-in-the- world of socialism and lays bare the need to differentiate the extent to which these texts were used as vehicles for expressing political opposition.

Chapter Three

“The Revival of a 19th Century Democratic German Folk Song Erbe and its Subversive Potential in the GDR Performance Context”

36 The first of many Folkwerkstätten (‘folk music worshops’) 10, organised by Folkländer in 1976 at the Graphic Design Academy in Leipzig, marked the stage at which the GDR folk music scene constituted its own identity as clearly distinguished from other, popular and state- conform, musical developments circulating at that time. Providing a meeting ground for young practitioners, the initial Leipzig folk music workshop represented an important turning point, at which the lived experience of reflective nostalgia for the idiom of Irish music, which was shared by GDR folk musicians in the early years of the scene, began to merely retain its influence on the continuously Irish-inflected performance style of bands like Folkländer. Now, the focus of artists gradually shifted from Anglo-Irish to German-language song material. Jürgen B. Wolff aptly summarises the creative spirit among musicians who gathered at the 1976 Leipzig folk music workshop, individuals who sought to determine, how German material might compare to its Irish counterpart:

JW: „Da haben wir alle Leute, die wir kannten, eingeladen, saßen alle um einen runden Tisch und haben gesagt: ‘Wir können es eigentlich nicht durchgehen lassen, dass wir hier alle sitzen und dieses irische und schottische Zeug spielen. Wir müssen eine Art Selbstverpflichtung abgeben, dass wir uns über kurz oder lang mit dem deutschen Volksliedgut befassen’Aber die Spielhaltung blieb in dieser irischenAttitüde.“

JW: “We invited everyone we knew, sat around a table and said: ‘We cannot let it happen, that we all sit here and play all this Irish and Scottish stuff. We now have to commit ourselves to engaging with German folk songs, be it a short-term or a long-term engagement.’…However, the style remained in this Irishattitude.”

(Wolff 2017, Interview, Appendix B, p.115)

Such a focal shift was stimulated by an increased demand to use the German language as a means to communicate the messages of song texts to broader target audience groups. As will become pertinent in a subsequent discussion of the political and subversive potential of song texts situated in historical contexts, mediating material to audience members whose mother tongue was German had lasting implications on the significance of revived German folk songs in the GDR. Pfeffi Ständer expresses his delight regarding the use of German, as opposed to Irish, repertoire, stating that the band Folkländer:

PS: „anfangs noch irische Sachen gespielt haben, aber glücklicherweise singen sie inzwischen auf Deutsch (lacht), sodass man es auch breiterem Publikum verständlich macht.“

10 As Leyn (2016, pp.306-7) clarifies, the German term Werkstatt translates as ‘workshop’ and refers to a social context for the creative exchange among young musicians in the GDR, a model which has roots in the state-controlled Singebewegung.

37 PS: “started by playing Irish stuff, but now, they luckily sang in German, which made the material more widely accessible.”

(Ständer 2017, Interview, Appendix B, p.116)

As outlined at the close of the foregoing chapter, the growing realisation that commonalities between Irish and German protest songs existed, stimulated GDR revivalists to propose an until then unprecedented reformulation of the German folk song concept in terms of its democratic, oppositional, in contrast to romantic-nationalistic, attributes. Referring to Hobsbawm’s (1983) dynamic of ‘invented traditions’, I display the different interpretative shades that the rediscovery of a democratic German folk song tradition generated for the state and for independent artists. In relation to the latter, the common use of 19th century revolutionary folk song collections provided a historically-anchored sub-text that could be aptly exploited to critique the state’s policies in the present. While the primary aim of this chapter is to draw upon complexities in ethnographic material to identify, how this mechanism unfolded for practitioners, it is also vital to nuance the degree to which folk musicians actually intended to convey a politically-oppositional message through this sub-text. I show that GDR folk musicians could actively express themselves on both creative and subversive levels, appealing to audiences in a strikingly intellectual fashion. Nevertheless, as part of their lived musical experience, artists still had to manoeuver between intermittent state-critique and conformity, in order to maintain a performative platform and to receive financial support from the authorities.

3.1 Democratic German Folk Songs: Subverting the Revolutionary ‘Erbe’

In Volkes Lied und Vater Staat, Leyn (2016, p.22) recalls the prevailing scepticism among artists regarding the capacity of German-language folk song collections to match the rebellious character of popular Irish folk songs. However, a rich source for a novel contextual reinterpretation of the German folk song repertoire in terms of those democratic and oppositional characteristics had already been provided by East German ethnologist Wolfgang Steinitz as early as 1954 in his folk song collection “Deutsche Volkslieder demokratischen Charakters aus sechs Jahrhunderten” (Fig.2). The labels ‘democratic’ and ‘oppositional’ refer to the substantial body of folk songs that were banned during the Nazi Era and evidence the spirit of social upheaval which led to the 1848 Revolution in German lands, a crucial milestone towards the eventual consolidation of German nationhood in 1871. As introduced in the

38 previous chapter, songs of the 1848 Revolution form a guise of nationalism that differs greatly from its overarching romantic historical narrative, in which the political agenda of nation state building was frequently imposed on (folk) music from the top down. In relation to the Volk’s ambitions in the 19th century towards forming a populist German nation through their own agency from below, Bohlman (2004, p.11) contends that nationalism “may build its path into music from just about any angle, as long as there are musicians and audiences willing to mobilise cultural movement from those angles”.

Fig.2 Wolfgang Steinitz’ democratic German folk song collection (Steinitz 1954)

In terms of its mobilisation by various streams of state-conform and independent revival movements in post-war Germany, Steinitz’ work was of seminal character. His collected songs not only appealed to East German folk musicians, who aspired to identifying German-language material that resonated with a nostalgic rebellious fascination initially stimulated by an Irish Ersatz. As Bohlman (2004, p.71) points out, Steinitz’ portrayal of a democratic German folk song canon was equally useful in supporting the Communist SED Party’s rhetoric, being framed in line with the socialist dialectic of positioning the GDR as the “workers’ and peasants’

39 state”. Steinitz himself expands upon this feature in the preface to his publication, where he emphasises that collective attributes of folk songs emerge out of the shared sentiments of the working people (Steinitz 1954, p.26). Crediting Eric Hobsbawm’s (1983, pp.1-14) concept of ‘invented traditions’, Robb (2016, p.3) reminds his readers that the post-war reconnection with a revolutionary German song tradition, as undertaken by the GDR’s state institutions and folk song scholars like Steinitz, was ideologically underpinned. According to Hobsbawm, traditions that claim to be old can also become established as invented and artificial continuities with a selective past. Hobsbawm adds that, in the wake of drastic social transformations, such as revival movements, institutions use these ‘invented’ traditions to legitimise their actions, to foster the establishment of new belief systems, and to reconfigure a sense of group cohesion.

A selective, ‘invented’ interpretation of Steinitz’ folk songs as a democratic heritage of the workers’ state was exploited in the GDR by Inge Lammel, musicologist at the Arbeiteliedarchiv (‘Workers Song Archive’) in East Berlin, who edited her pamphlet “Das Lied im Kampf geboren. Heft 1: Lieder der Revolution von 1848” in 1957. As Robb (2007, pp. 18-19) asserts, the GDR state resorted to utopian material in this collection to underscore the positive spirit of the Aufbau (‘construction’) years following its foundation, not least, because Lammel conceives of songs she compiled as directly referring to the “Kampf des Proletariats”, the “struggle of the proletariat” (Lammel 1957, p.3). On an official level, songs of the 1848 Revolution were curated as a part of the GDR’s revolutionary heritage, the Erbe. Songs labelled as DDR-konkret, and thus selectively crediting the positive facets of everyday working life in East Germany (Robb 2010, p.296), were transmitted under this directive and implemented as part of state-controlled educational structures, like the Singebewegung, in the 1960s. State- critical songs, on the other hand, were prohibited and sometimes even censored. Noting, how the experience of individual GDR artists deviated from ideological imperatives propagated by the state, Jürgen B. Wolff characterises the of feeling of disillusionment that took hold of him in the late 1970s, when it was clear that the government’s promise of socialist utopia and cosmopolitanism, projected at the X. Weltfestspiele in 1973 11, was yet to be fulfilled:

11 In the summer of 1973, the SED Party staged the 10th Weltfestspiele in East Berlin, a celebration of socialist values, such as friendship and solidarity, that formed an unparalleled meeting ground for the GDR’s youth and guests from abroad. Below this festive patina, the Welfestspiele were carefully planned to propagate an image of the GDR’s cosmopolitanism and anti-imperialistic alliance with other socialist states. State-conform Singeklubs performed DDR-konkret songs, to be found in specially compiled Agitprobe song books (Fig.3), and participants were carefully selected and briefed on displaying the ideals of socialism in front of audiences from West Germany. Additional facets of the event are outlined by: Ernst, S. (2003) Weltfestspiele 1973: Ein Mikrokosmos persönlicher

JW: „Vieles, was im Nachgang der berühmten X. Weltfestspiele noch möglich war, wo man merkte, die DDR blüht jetzt auf () und es wird alles ganz schön hier, damit war plötzlich Schluss. Es entwickelte sich nichts mehr so richtig“

JW: “The hope for a flourishing GDR state () and growing opportunities that installed itself in the aftermath of the famous 10th Weltfestspiele suddenly vanished. Nothing really developed anymore”

(Wolff 2017, Interview, Appendix B, p.119)

Fig.3 Agitprobe 73’, FDJ song book published for the X. Weltfestspiele in 1973 (Andert et al. 1973)

Robb (2007, p.18) clarifies that songs in Steinitz’ collection which deviate from the state’s invented tradition of revolutionary utopia and rather deal with the harsh reality of revolutionary defeat and the failure of the 1848 Revolution provided folk musicians in the GDR with an opportunity to identify with the historical theme of Deutsche Misere (‘German misery’), the struggle of German society to achieve lasting democratic changes through the agency of the folk. This allowed them to critique the issue of socialist stagnation that increasingly penetrated the public consciousness in the late 1970s. In relation to the use of 1848 revolutionary material,

Begegnungen zwischen politischer Inszenierung und Repression, Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, available: http://www.bpb.de/geschichte/deutsche-geschichte/weltfestspiele- 73/65341/einfuehrung [accessed: 1 Aug 2017].

41 Pfeffi Ständer refers to the creative agency that the contradictory and potentially subversive concept of the revolutionary song Erbe afforded folk musicians in East Germany in their performed articulation of life in socialism:

PS: „dort waren Sachen mit dabei, die in vergangenen Jahrhunderten inhaltlich angesiedelt waren, die man auf die DDR-Realität beziehen konntedie DDR hat natürlich immer auf diesen Begriff „kulturelles Erbe“ gesetzt. Da konnten sich die Folkies immer schön herausredenDie meisten DDR-Bürger haben das schon mitbekommen, was mit diesem alten Liedtext ausgedrückt werden sollte, obwohl dieser gar nicht für die DDR geschrieben war.“

PS: “the material included content that was originally rooted in other centuries and that could be related to the GDR realitythe GDR promoted the notion of its cultural Erbe (‘heritage’). This allowed folk musicians to escape censorshipMost GDR citizens understood what this old song text referred to, although it wasn’t written in the GDR.”

(Ständer 2017, Interview, Appendix B, pp.117; 129; 130)

Ständer’s account illustrates that the use of 1848 revolutionary song heritage equipped folk musicians in the GDR with the necessary agency to resort to a historically-rooted sub-text that was shared among artists and audiences. This strategy allowed performers to elegantly manoeuver around the imperatives of state censorship and surveillance by the Stasi 12 secret police. As Robb (2010, p.295) contends, practitioners could revive protest songs of the past “as if they were criticising the present” and still maintain their performative platform. According to Jürgen B. Wolff, while labels such as ‘traditional’ and ‘cultural Erbe’ licensed a joyous metaphorical critique of the GDR’s organisational structures, artists were nonetheless required to develop a meticulousness regarding the use of historical sources, evidencing the legitimate publication of these texts in the GDR:

JW: „In diesem Zeitraum, also zwischen 76‘ und 80‘ würde ich sagen, hat die damals bestehende Folkszenefröhlich gefeiert. Wir haben gesagt, es sei alles traditionell und das haben wir dort gefunden. Ich habe dann eine wahre Quellen-Akribie entwickelt ().“

JW: “I would claim that it was in between 76’ and 80’ that the then existing folk music scene…celebrated. We just told them, it was traditional material and indicated, where we found it. I developed a veritable meticulousness regarding the sources ().”

(Wolff 2017, Interview, Appendix B, p.119)

12 The GDR’s MfS (Ministerium für Staatssicherheit- ‘Ministry for State Security’), commonly abbreviated ‘Stasi’, was implemented for surveillance purposes and targeted countercultural movements that were perceived as pursuing politically-oppositional intent. Wolfgang Leyn provides insights into encounters between East German folk musicians, who rejected an affiliation with the Singebewegung, and agents of the MfS in: Leyn, W. (2016) Volkes Lied und Vater Staat: Die DDR- Folkszene 1976-1990, Berlin: Ch. Links Verlag.

Reminiscing about his time in the army, Pfeffi Ständer recalls the inspiration he drew from 19th century oppositional soldiers’ songs and their potential for critiquing the GDR’s compulsory military service, the NVA (Nationale Volks-Armee- ‘National Peoples’ Army’):

PS: „Wir waren ja alle einmal bei der Armee gewesen und das hat natürlich großen Spaß bereitet, wenn antimilitärische Lieder gespielt wurden, die das Militär schlechtgemacht haben.“

PS: “We all were in the army at some point and we actually enjoyed it, when anti-military songs were played and were used to critique the military.”

(Ständer 2017, Interview, Appendix B, pp.117-118)

Gert Steinert describes, how the adaption of traditional folk texts not only provided an alternative to the ‘red songs’ propagated by the Singebewegung, but lent itself to voicing one’s awareness and critique of “wound spots” in the state’s policies, as he puts it. For example, he refers to a folk dance song which addressed a local pollution issue, something that otherwise could not be openly critiqued without being subject to censorship:

GS: „Aber wir haben natürlichnicht die roten Lieder gespieltEs gab mal ein altes Lied im Volkstanzbereich„Die Luft ist Rein, von Leipzig bis nach Espenhain“. Das ursprüngliche Lied ist aber: „Die Luft ist rein, von Plauen bis nach Falkenstein“Das konntest du natürlich umbiegenund da ist es einem schon aus der Nase gefallen, wie der Dreck im Süden von Leipzig hochstiegDas waren so kleine Reizpunkte“

GS: “Of course, we never played the “red songs”There once was an old song performed for folk dancing“Die Luft ist rein, von Leipzig bis nach Espenhain” (“The air is clear, from Leipzig to Espenhain”). However, the original song is: “Die Luft ist rein, von Plauen bis nach Falkenstein” (“The air is clear, from Plauen to Falkenstein”)Of course, you could bend that () and people instantly recognized that it referred to the pollution in Southern LeipzigYes, those were wound spots back then”

(Steinert 2017, Interview, Appendix D, pp.149; 155)

In relation to the lived experience of folk musicians in the GDR and ethnographic responses presented thus far, it is clear, that the creatively subversive use of 19th century democratic and oppositional song repertoire allowed GDR folk musicians to uncover and adapt historical metaphorical concepts dating from the 19th century in such a way that they could, on a highly intellectual level, provide them with their own expressive voice in late 20th century communist East Germany. How exactly was this sub-text received by audience members?

3.2 Listening to the Sub-Text: ‘Cognitive Praxis’ and its Limitations

In order to express their largely disillusioned sentiment in light of political developments effectively, GDR folk musicians managed to sensitise their target audiences to a specific mode of cognition that involved attuned listening and recognition of the metaphorical meaning conveyed. Wolfgang Leyn retrospectively describes this unique listening habit as follows:

WL: „Das war natürlich etwas ganz Geläufiges, zwischen den Zeilen zu lesen. Das ist das, was heute verloren gegangen ist. Die Leute hören heute nicht mehr so genau zuin der DDR haben die ganz anders zugehört, weil man natürlich auf bestimmte Sachen gewartet hat, die zwischen den Zeilen standen.“

WL: “It was common in the GDR to read between the lines. That’s lost nowadays. Nowadays, people don’t listen that attentively anymorethey listened differently in the GDR, because one anticipated things that were written between the lines.”

(Leyn 2017, Interview, Appendix F, p.176)

Jürgen B. Wolff’s response underscores the intellectual, even elite character inherent in this creative subversion of the GDR’s revolutionary Erbe. According to Wolff, the song texts appealed to a selective, educated audience, primarily consisting of those who attended concerts in student clubs. In terms of Folkländer’s struggles to reach other target groups, he states:

JW: „Als „Folkländer“ sind wir ziemlich oft an unsere Grenzen gestoßenes war viel zu intellektuell, das haben die nicht verstandenDas Ganze war schon elitär“

JW: “We often reached our limits with Folkländerit was too intellectual; they didn’t understand itThe whole thing almost had elite-character”

(Wolff 2017, Interview, Appendix B, p.122)

To show, how folk music revival movements like the one that formed in East Germany in the mid-1970s can both transform musical meaning and create shared knowledge among its members and followers, I consider ‘cognitive praxis’, a theoretical paradigm advanced by Eyerman and Jamison (1998, pp.6-25), who frame social movements as knowledge-producing entities and as loci for the mobilisation and reformulation of cultural content. In Eyerman and Jamison’s terms, with the active help of intellectuals, these movements are capable of transforming meaning associated with established cultural forms, and contribute to collective

44 identity formation at the core of the movement’s shared objectives. Judging by fieldwork outcomes presented above, GDR folk music revivalists clearly transformed the German folk song concept from its historically-framed romantic-nationalistic connotations, forging a distinctly democratic, oppositional genre, albeit drawing on the work of intellectuals like Wolfgang Steinitz. Evaluated through the lens of ‘cognitive praxis’, East German folk musicians used shared knowledge of the applicability of historical song texts in the GDR to air dissatisfactions with the reality that a utopian socialist dream propagated by the Communist Party had stagnated by the late 1970s. Given the apparent re-interpretation of historically- oppositional song material with the objective of critiquing conditions existing as impositions in the GDR reality, it is tempting to interpret the scene as inherently politically motivated. This would appear as a logical conclusion, particularly since Eyerman and Jamison argue that social movements augment their cultural objectives through political activism:

“social movementsdraw upon and revitalise traditions at the same time as they transform them. As cultural as well as political actors, social movements reinterpret established and shared frameworks of meaning which make communication and coordinated action possible.”

(Eyerman and Jamison 1998, p.160)

Yet, the authors close their outline of ‘cognitive praxis’ with the contradictory claim that, through their musicking, social movements may not pursue any progressive political intent at all:

“Saying this should also remind the reader of the fact that we are not claiming any necessarily “progressive” role for social movements or for music.”

(Eyerman and Jamison 1998, p.24)

This ambiguity in Eyerman and Jamison’s argument is far-reaching for the necessity to nuance the degree to which GDR folk musicians actually intended to convey a politically- oppositional message through their song texts. I explore this aspect in the following section.

3.3 The Liminal Space Between Subversion and Censorship

As becomes clear in informants’ responses regarding the political nature of folk musicking in the GDR, Eyerman and Jamison’s concept of ‘cognitive praxis’ reveals limitations. In fact, although possibilities of interpreting historical song material in reference to the present may be

45 widely shared, the degree to which musicians characterise their motives as politicised and oppositional varies greatly. In case of the GDR folk music scene, it is only partially fruitful to abide by Eyerman and Jamison’s claim that the cultural re-contextualisation initiated by social movements consolidates a “collective identity” (Eyerman and Jamison 1998, p.6), especially since the lived experiences of practitioners appear to be much more fragmented, complex, and often contradictory. In this respect, they reveal tendencies towards political opposition, alongside statements that merely comment on the political, social, and cultural status quo. Therefore, it is paramount to shed light on the ambiguous relationship between folk musicians and authorities, taking into consideration that the degree of censorship enforced by the state was in fact regulated depending on the case at hand. Importantly, government agencies also provided the necessary infrastructures to supply artists with performance opportunities. The following fieldwork responses are emblematic of these ramifications:

GS: „Wir waren natürlich auch textorientiert, aber, wenn wir zum Volkstanz gespielt haben, war ja keine politische Botschaft dahinterBei der Straßenmusik waren hin und wieder ein paar schräge NummernAber wir haben nicht ausgetestet, wie weit es geht, sondern es ergab sichDann waren wir auch, wie gesagt keine Politbanddas muss man klar sagen.“

GS: “Of course, we also focused on the texts, but when we played for folk dances, we did not convey a political messageIn relation to street music, we played a few weird piecesHowever, we didn’t test, how far we could go, but it was somewhat obviousWe weren’t a political band; one has to clearly state that.”

(Steinert 2017, Interview, Appendix D, p.151)

In the context of playing for folk dance (táncház 13) evenings in the GDR, Gert Steinert claims that his band Lumich did not project a political motive, since the dancing itself was the central focal point at these events. While he admits that the band did play potentially subversive material when performing music on the street, he rejects the claim that they tested the boundaries of uncensored expression. Instead, Lumich accepted limitations set by the

13 The Hungarian dance house movement, which was initiated at an inaugural meeting in Budapest in 1972 (Quigley 2014, p.182), also gained popularity in the GDR. Consequently, initial acoustic folk bands had to increase their instrumentation and adjusted to playing with amplification to cater for large-scale folk dance evenings. Alongside bands like Gert Steinert’s Lumich, the group Folkländer later performed as the folk dance ‘big band’ Folkländers Bierfiedler. For a thorough examination of the Hungarian dance house movement, consult: Quigley, C. (2014) ‘The Hungarian Dance House Movement and Revival of Transylvanian String Band Music’, in Hill, J. and Bithell, C., eds., The Oxford Handbook of Music Revival, New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 182-202. Details on the movement’s reception in East Germany are provided by: Leyn, W. (2016) ‘Tanz rüber, tanz nüber: Volkstanz zum Mitmachen’, in Volkes Lied und Vater Staat: Die DDR-Folkszene (1976-1990), Berlin: Ch. Links Verlag, 53-64.

46 authorities. Furthermore, Gert indicates that he did not regard the performance of 19th century songs of emigration as a form of critique, aimed at the then current travel restrictions in place. To him, those songs provided means of accounting for the current state of affairs, the uncomfortable, yet existing condition that many GDR citizens applied for exit visas:

GS: „Die Auswanderer-Thematik war ja zu der Zeit aktuell. Viele sind aus der DDR abgehauenDas haben wir aber nicht als Politprogramm gesehen, sondern einfach als Realität.“

GS: “The theme of emigration was current at that time. A lot of people left the GDRWe didn’t regard that as a political programme, but as something that was real and existing.”

(Steinert 2017, Interview, Appendix D, p.151)

Like Gert Steinert, Wolfgang Leyn retrospectively rejects the argument that the GDR folk music scene could be characterised as expressing political opposition. Similarly, he critiques discourses that foreground the issues of ‘inner emigration’, a desire to de-couple oneself from the GDR’s administrative fabric, arguing that one was born into the state’s organisational structures and had to adopt those. Not least, this degree of conformity was necessary, as culture was thoroughly subsidised by the state and performance platforms for artists, their categorisation as amateurs or professionals, as well as a matching fee were centrally provided and thus guaranteed by the state’s cultural administration 14. Leyn asserts:

WL: „Ja, man muss natürlich sagen, dass die Szene keine politische Opposition gewesen istes gab keine Abnabelung oder () innere Emigration in der DDRWir sind in die DDR hineingeboren wordenDas heißt, mit der DDR musste man irgendwie lebenDa gab es Institutionen und da sind wir ziemlich pragmatisch herangegangen.“

WL: “Well, one has to acknowledge that the scene was everything but political oppositionthere was no real cord clamping or inner emigration () in the GDRWe were born into the GDR circumstancesThis means that one had to adjust to the GDROf course, there were institutions, but we approached that quite pragmatically.”

(Leyn 2017, Interview, Appendix F, pp.176; 177)

Controversially, Leyn later admits that the experiences of artists did nonetheless reveal significant nuances in desires to break out of the state’s organisational structures and refers to

14 On the basis of an audition, which assessed the musical capital of bands and the aesthetic value of their repertoire, centralised cultural cabinets (Kabinette für Kulturarbeit) granted GDR artists either amateur or professional performance permits. According to their categorisation, performers were eligible to receive a set fee by youth clubs and other venues, regardless of the profit generated by an event organiser through ticket sales (Leyn 2016, pp.66-7).

47 individuals, who deliberately employed song texts in a politically-provocative fashion and thereby critiqued the centralised authorities. 15 In contrast to Gert, he explains that occasionally, provocation formed an attempt to test the boundaries of creative expression in face of possible censorship:

WL: „Es gab auch Leute, die diese Provokation geliebt haben und es war auch ein Spiel. Wie weit kann man gehen und wann geht man zu weit?“

WL: “Nevertheless, others decided to use texts politically. Some people loved provocation and it was like a game. How far can one go and where is the limit?”

(Leyn 2017, Interview, Appendix F, p.176)

This liminal space, a grey zone between subversion and the potential threat of censorship, is situated at the heart of Robb’s (2007, p.227-228) critique of existing post-war German folk music discourses that are caught up in the predicament that GDR artists exclusively had to sacrifice their own creative expression to state-imposed censorship. In fact, this discourse proves incompatible with the multiple shades of East German lived musical experience. Robb sets out with a more nuanced perspective to show, that folk musicians had to rather “conform with a system in order to attain a public platform from which to criticize it.” (Robb 2007, p.6). I agree with Robb, who primarily refers to state-critical Liedermacher in this regard, and I claim that his point can be extended to account for the lived experiences of GDR folk musicians as well. Fieldwork responses by Jürgen B. Wolff and Pfeffi Ständer depict, how folk musicians’ balancing act between subversion and intermittent conformity to East German authorities still provided them with various creative strategies to convey their artistic messages to target audiences. Wolff aptly summarises this mechanism as follows:

JW: „In der DDR würde man allgemein sagen, es war alles Diktatur und es ging gar nichts. Was nicht erlaubt war, war auf jeden Fall verboten. Es war im Prinzip auch so, aber trotzdem wurde es überall anders gehandelt.“

JW: “In general, one could classify the GDR as a dictatorship where nothing was possible. If something was not allowed, it was definitely forbidden. Indeed, that’s how it was, but it was handled differently depending on the context.”

(Wolff 2017, Interview, Appendix B, p.128)

15 In his contribution on folk music in the GDR, Steinbiß (1984, p.95) posits that regularly occurring frictions between artists and functionaries were accepted as the norm in East Germany. He concludes that characterising critical song texts as sources for fundamental political opposition is inadequate and merely reflects the wishful thinking of many West German scholars.

Here, Jürgen recalls a formative experience, when folk musicians in the GDR attempted to establish an independent cultural committee, called FINK (Folklore-Initiativkomitee- ‘Folklore Initiative Committee’), in 1977. This organisational structure counteracted arrangements already in place for the promotion of the arts in the GDR and was set up to defend the interests of folk musicians in front of the administration (Leyn 2016, p.93). The government responded that it was impossible to implement such a committee, because a movement from below was unheard of (Wolff 2017, Interview, Appendix B, p.124), and proposed the establishment of a centralised folklore committee (Zentrale AG Musikfolklore). As Wolff remarks, it was precisely the five-year period between 1977 and 1982 that it took to initiate the state-controlled committee during which the GDR folk music scene reached its apex.

Dissatisfied with the committee’s centralised organisation, the arbitrariness of its decisions, and its little contributions to the artistic development of the folk music scene, Jürgen’s band Folkländer planned to stage a folk opera in 1982 to air their concerns. The opera “Die Boten des Todes” (“Death’s Messengers”) is inspired by one of the Grimm Brothers’ popular fairy tales and introduces folk musicians as personalities that rescue Death from his misery. In return, he offers to send his messengers upon the musicians’ impeding passing. In the framework of the folk opera, the messengers were figuratively portrayed as members of the administration, employees of the Stasi secret police, bar owners, and educators. Commonly, those were perceived as individuals that abided by state regulations and contributed to limiting the freedom of artistic expression in the GDR. Just as in previously introduced examples, Folkländer resorted to a sub-text, creatively subverting content explored in state-supported folklore sources to critique administrative structures. In this case, however, the sub-text was clearly understood by the authorities and the opera was banned at its dress rehearsal.

Interestingly, and this is where ambiguities in the relationship between folk musicians and the state play out vividly, a shortened version of the folk opera was already staged at a youth club in Hoyerswerda as early as 1983 with the assistance of Pfeffi Ständer. Although it was still banned at that point, the piece was performed three times and remained unnoticed by the authorities (Ständer 2017, Interview, Appendix B, p.122). In reference to Stasi attitudes towards artists and their song texts, Ständer emphasizes that the degree to which surveillance of politically-oppositional intentions was reported and censorship was applied largely

49 depended on artists’ relationships with the authorities, the personalities involved, and their obedience to the state:

PS: „Es gab bei den Funktionären hundertprozentige Genossen, die straff in der Linie der Partei lagen und es gab auch welche, mit denen du wirklich reden konntestMenschen sind verschieden. Auch bei denen wirst du welche dabeigehabt haben, die gesagt haben: Was soll’s?“

PS: “Among the functionaries, there were a few die-heart comrades, who were absolutely in line with the party, while there were more approachable ones as wellHowever, I can imagine that all people are different. Even among them, you could have a few that said: ‘What about it?’”

(Ständer 2017, Interview, Appendix D, pp.128; 127)

Retrospectively evaluating the impact of the folk opera, Jürgen B. Wolff adds that the repertoire’s potential political explosiveness was judged depending on the individual case at hand, those in charge, and folk musicians’ objectives. Consequently, artists could operate in a considerable grey area between the liminal spaces of subversion and censorship. The following quote, in which Jürgen refers to the GDR’s cultural policy as an ‘elastic band’, underlines this claim:

JW: „Naja, es gab ja sehr viel Grauzone, wenn man sagt, es sei verboten und es ging nicht. () Die sogenannten Verantwortlichen haben ja auch immer gern etwas geeiertMan muss die DDR immer als eine Gummiband-Politik betrachten. Es konnte mal ganz eng werden und dann war es auch schon wieder vergessen.“

JW: “Well, there were many grey areas of censorship. () Those in charge were never fully certainYou have to conceptualise the GDR and its policy as akin to an elastic band. Sometimes, we could be very restricted, but after that, it was all forgotten.”

(Wolff 2017, Interview, Appendix B, pp.122; 123)

3.4 Nuancing Politically-Oppositional Intent

The present chapter has extended my analysis of GDR folk musicians’ lived musical experience in comparison to post-war German folk music discourses, focusing specifically on the use of German-language song by revivalists and resorting to ethnographic responses to nuance the relationship between folk musicians and the state as a regulatory body of artistic expression. Informed by the desire to voice song messages that were initially communicated in popular Anglo-Irish repertoire through the medium of German-language material, revivalists rediscovered revolutionary songs collected by Wolfgang Steinitz in the 19th century. In line with Eric Hobsbawm’s (1983) concept of ‘invented traditions’, this seminal collection was not

50 only topical for the socialist state and its need to frame folk song as an expression of struggles exhibited by the working class. It was equally significant for folk music revivalists in the GDR, who managed to exploit the ambiguous label of the revolutionary Erbe to employ a rich historical sub-text inherent in oppositional folk songs to address existing issues in the East German present. Referring to Eyerman and Jamison’s theory of ‘cognitive praxis’, I have shown, how this sub-text produced new layers of meaning for artists and audiences and stimulated a specific way of listening to and cognitively evaluating performed content in terms of its topicality.

While Eyerman and Jamison’s framework is useful to evidence the transformational processes and knowledge-producing capacities inherent in the GDR folk music revival movement, ‘cognitive praxis’ is nonetheless limited, as it presupposes that social movements collectively pursue political, and even oppositional, intent. Responses extracted from my ethnographic fieldwork indicate however, that the GDR folk revival movement’s political capacities and intentions are categorised in a multi-layered fashion by artists, ranging from the extremes of oppositional characteristics to conformity. This nuancing is necessary, as folk musicians had to mediate a liminal middle ground between submission to organisational structures and critique. Figuratively speaking, while adjusting to the imperatives set by the cultural administration allowed them to attain a professional performance platform from the bottom up, the degree to which censorship of artistic expression was actually enforced by authorities from the top down was largely dependent on context and the personalities involved.

Thus far, my thesis has foregrounded the discursive and ethnographic analysis and now moves to a greater musicological focus. To document, how the expression and communication of a historical sub-text outlined earlier manifested in musical form, the following chapter focuses on the analysis of a 19th century German song of emigration, “Auswandererlied”, which was stylistically reinterpreted by Folkländer in 1982. Using the lens of Peircean semiotics to compare and contrast the subversive and affectively engaging effect of “Auswandererlied” with the song “Sag mir, wo du stehst!”, a prominent sonic icon of the Singebewegung, I trace, how precisely the aforementioned Irish-inspired stylistic influence and contrasting dynamics of ‘bottom-up’ creative agency and ‘top-down’ ideological indoctrination manifest in song texts, their soundscapes, and are categorised by the listener.

Chapter Four

“Peircean Semiotics as a Gateway for Tracing the Thematic and Sonic Characteristics of Two German Folk and Protest Songs”

52 While applied by GDR folk musicians in numerous shades, ranging from protest to intermittent conformity in order to secure their artistic platform, the performance of ambiguous historical song texts remained prevalent for practitioners in their attempt to subversively critique circumstances in the present. Arguably, 19th century songs dealing with the experience of German mass emigration to America (Robb 2010, p.305) were most striking in this regard. Wolfgang Leyn notes the resonances between Irish songs of emigration, 19th century German- language songs dealing with the often hazardous sailing to America, and widespread applications for exit visas in the GDR:

WL: „Die Iren sind ausgewandert und die Deutschen sind ausgewandert. Die DDR- Bürger haben Ausreiseanträge gestellt (lacht). Da gab es eine Menge Entsprechungen“

WL: “The Irish emigrated and the Germans emigrated. GDR citizens applied for exit visas (laughs). There were numerous parallels”

(Leyn 2017, Interview, Appendix F, p.175)

Pfeffi Ständer illustrates this point in reference to emigration songs that had already been made popular in the GDR by West German folk revivalist groups like Zupfgeigenhansel, who frequented the annual state-sponsored political song festival in East Berlin (Robb 2007, p.232). He emphasizes that the sub-text communicated in the band’s song “Ein stolzes Schiff” (“A Proud Ship”) 16 clearly indicated to East Germans that emigration to America was not to be interpreted in its literal sense. Instead, it was understood as addressing the widespread longings for increased freedom of travel to the West:

PS: „Ja, das wusste ja jeder (): „Ein stolzes Schiff fährt einsam durch die Wellen und führt uns unsere deutschen Brüder fort nach Amerika“. Es wusste jeder, dass mit Amerika nicht unbedingt Amerika gemeint war, sondern es kann ja auch die Bundesrepublik gemeint sein.“

PS: “Yes, everyone knew this (): “A proud ship passes through the lonely waves and carries our German brothers forth to America”. Everyone knew that America didn’t actually refer to America. Instead, it could have been the Federal Republic of Germany.”

(Ständer 2017, Interview, Appendix B, p.130)

As the previous chapters of my thesis have foregrounded a discursive and ethnographically- defined examination of the lived experience of GDR folk musicians, I now proceed to augment

16 Zupfgeigenhansel (1978). The song “Ein stolzes Schiff” is a German song of emigration which projects the émigrés’ nostalgic longing for their homeland, but equally reveals characteristics of protest, by directly addressing the exploitative rulers as a cause of mass emigration.

53 my points, by moving to a musicological plane of analysis. This is crucial, since existing scholarship on East German folk music appears to have been preoccupied with highlighting the linguistic sub-text of folk songs (Robb 2007; 2010; 2016). However, little has been written to date on the ways in which music itself and its sonic impression functioned as a subversive medium for folk music practitioners in the GDR, while also being employed as a tool by the state to spread its ideological message.

In Music as Social Life, Thomas Turino argues that music is easily politicised, due to its directly affective capacities and its “iconic and indexical power” (Turino 2008, pp.189-90). Turino’s claim arises out of his engagement American philosopher and scientist Charles Sanders Peirce’s (1839-1914) theory of semiotics. Peirce’s model of the science of signs accounts for the directly experiential effects of music on human beings and its agency in the construction of individual and collective identities. This is significant, as Peirce diverges from discourses that are readily concerned with equating music and language as modes of communication. Instead, Peircean semiotics, while nonetheless considering abstract, language- based thought in its taxonomy, uncovers affective responses to music that resist linguistic reasoning. Examining the rich symbolically-linguistic sub-text inherent in the content of 19th century German folk songs leads me to shed light on language-based processes of understanding at work for both practitioners and audiences in the GDR. Here, Peirce offers useful tools to trace, how subversive messages were symbolically constructed by folk revivalists. Furthermore, I use Peircean semiotics to illustrate the sonic and affective mobilisation of East German folk and protest music from the bottom up, by folk revivalists themselves, and from the top down, by the Communist SED Party. At first, I ground my analysis in relation to the emigration song “Auswandererlied”, recorded by Folkländer (1982). Subsequently, I focus on the newly-composed protest song “Sag mir, wo du stehst” (Oktober- Klub 1967), which initially gained popularity among members of the Hootenanny movement, before it was used for propaganda purposes by the Communist Party, particularly in 1968.

4.1 Peircean Semiotics from the Bottom Up: Folkländer’s “Auswandererlied”

As I will refer to Peirce’s terminology at several stages in this chapter to evaluate my chosen examples, it is crucial to unpack the specific jargon he employs. Peirce defines a sign as something that represents something else, an object, to someone. This sign-object relationship creates specific effects, called interpretants, in the perceiver. In particular, musical signs

54 profoundly move perceivers, as they trigger sentiments, physiological responses or language- based reflections on the music itself. Peirce further accounts for relationships between signs and the objects they refer to. In this regard, icons are signs that are tethered to objects through some degree of resemblance. Moreover, index-based relationships between signs and objects are created through their co-occurrence in a specific instance and are informed by the interpreter’s life experiences. Turino (1999, pp.234-37) points out that musical indices potentially create ambiguous layers of feelings for perceivers, because they can be assigned different meanings, depending on the objects that musical signs coincide with in a particular context. The creative artistic strategy of deliberately juxtaposing musical indices in a given performance context to play off of the original meanings of the signs (Turino 1999, p.242) is called “creative indexing”. Furthermore, Turino refers to the fact that indices can retain former associations, while taking on new layers of meaning in a different scenario as “semantic snowballing” (Turino 2008, p.9).

In terms of the perceiver’s interpretation of indices, Peirce distinguishes between rhemes, dicents and arguments. Rhemes are signs that can possibly depict an object, whereas dicents represent existent, truthful relationships between signs and objects. Arguments, in turn, are sign relationships that are assessed on the basis of linguistic reasoning. Signs that rely on this level of linguistic abstraction to mediate their relationship to objects are called symbols. Turino (2008, pp.10-12) argues that symbols primarily lend themselves to the formulation of general thought and theoretical analysis and require their users to socially agree on their discursive and cognitive meanings. However, symbols can also evoke felt indexical relationships, when co- occurring with other symbols in a specific context. Recognizing the potential of symbols to transcend the level of mere linguistic abstraction to become indices when perceived in a given scenario is key to understanding, how the lyrics of Folkländer’s “Auswandererlied” (Fig.4) pass comment on the travel restrictions in the GDR.

Fig.4 “Auswandererlied” (Folkländer 1982), transl. F. Morgenstern

Folkländer adapted the lyrics of their “Auswandererlied” from the mid-19th century folk song “Hier können wir nicht bleiben” (‘We Cannot Stay Here’), which appears in Wolfgang Steinitz’ aforementioned democratic folk song collection (Steintz 1954, p.120). Steinitz’ version tells the story of workers from the Alsace Lorraine border region of Germany and France, who decide to leave all their possessions behind and emigrate to America, when faced with the predicament that they can no longer pay the extortionate taxes imposed on them by rulers and members of the administration. Following his documentation of their dialogue with a bureaucrat in Strasbourg, who is responsible for granting emigration permits, Steinitz

56 selectively focuses on the cordial greeting which the émigrés receive after their successful crossing to America. Interestingly, Steinitz’ (1954, p.121) annotations reveal that rulers in German principalities, who realised that mass emigration deprived them of a valuable workforce, circulated songs which purposely propagated the hardship encountered by many Germans in America, to scare-off potential émigrés. Folkländer’s adaption includes excerpts of precisely those propaganda songs, portraying the journey across the Atlantic Ocean as hazardous, which becomes clear when the protagonists of the song experience the disaster of shipwreck. Having barely survived, they express their disillusionment and emerging nostalgia when trying to adjust to a new life in America.

Recalling Peirce’s semiotic model, the listener is required to undergo a process of linguistic abstraction to interpret this song text as symbolically referencing the desire of many GDR citizens to leave the state. This plays out particularly in verse five, where the lines “We cannot stay here any longer” and “rulers and notaries take most of our possessions” form clusters of symbols that are, in this context, abstractly grouped as an indexical argument referring to the desire of 19th century workers to leave German territory, as a result of the politics pursued by repressive rulers. This is based on the listener’s previously acquired knowledge of the historical circumstances surrounding the time of the 1848 Revolution. Processes of semantic snowballing, the acquisition of new indexical connotations, and creative indexing, are at work when this indexical argument is coupled with the performance context of the GDR, where longings for emigration to the West were intensely and emotionally experienced, yet oppressed by the administration. Such indexical juxtaposition entails that the former abstract argument gains the more affectively engaging capacity of a rhematic index, by projecting the felt possibility that “We cannot stay here any longer” and “rulers and notaries” could in fact refer to currently experienced travel restrictions, as imposed by the GDR government.

Jürgen B. Wolff and his fellow band members once again resort to this semiotic process in their last four verses. The émigrés’ experiences of shipwreck (“floating in the sea”), misery (“sickness”), and nostalgia (“better to stay at home”) are first categorised by the listener as symbolic arguments for the historically documented reality that many emigrants did not reach their destination, were confronted with disillusionment in their new found home, and became homesick. When voiced and thus juxtaposed in the East German performance context, this abstract, language-based argument becomes an indexical rheme for the nostalgic longings of many former GDR émigrés, who struggled to adjust to a new life in West Germany (Robb

57 2010, p.305). Importantly, it is the rhematic (possible), as opposed to the dicent-type (truthful) interpretation of the symbolic indices in the song text that broadens folk musicians’ scope to manoeuver their artistic intent around the threat of censorship. At this point, considering the musical features at work in “Auswandererlied” leads me to uncover the directly emotional effects of musical icons and indices, which augment the previously outlined subversiveness of linguistic symbols in the song text.

4.2 Assessing Irish Sonic Iconicity and Authenticity in “Auswandererlied”

The introduction to “Auswandererlied” (Fig.5) features an interplay between mandolin and Waldzither 17, played by band members Jürgen B. Wolff and Manfred Wagenbredt. Especially noteworthy in this regard are the intricate counterpoint melody lines evolving between the mandolin’s higher register and the lower range of the Waldzither. When asking Wolfgang Leyn about the sonic inspiration for the interlocking melodies, I explained that they strikingly reminded me of the contrapuntal bouzouki and mandolin texture played by Dónal Lunny and Andy Irvine, members of the Irish revivalist band Planxty 18. In a GDR context, the comparison between Planxty’s and Folkländer’s accompaniment textures seems far-fetched at a first glance, but remains plausible, since Bode (in Leyn 2016, p.47) contends that the mandolin playing of many folk musicians in East Germany resembled that of prototypical Irish bands. Leyn (2017, Interview, Appendix F, p.175) himself adds, that Planxty-records circulated in the GDR folk music scene and Gert Steinert (2017, Interview, Appendix D, p.150) mentions, that his band Lumich successfully performed polkas recorded by Planxty for their folk dance evenings in the GDR.

17 The Waldzither is a nine-string cittern-type instrument associated with the Thuringia region in Central Germany (Leyn 2016, pp.39-40). 18 In his article ‘Irish Traditional Music on Audio Recordings: A Core Historical Collection’, Christopher Smith (2012, p.354) posits that members of the 1970s Irish folk revivalist band Planxty carved out their performative niche among other Irish artists at that time, by creatively combining previously juxtaposed stylistic features, namely a voice-accompaniment texture associated with 1960s urban ballad singers like The Dubliners, counterpoint melodies played on bouzouki and mandolin, and dance tune melodies performed on uilleann pipes and tin whistle.

Fig.5 “Auswandererlied” - Contrapuntal interplay between Waldzither and mandolin

In terms of his own lived musical experience, Leyn responds that the stylistic choice of an accompaniment style, which resembled the sound of Planxty, was made rather “unintentionally” (Leyn, Interview, Appendix F, p.174). However, this initial rejection stands in stark contrast to a later iteration, when Leyn clarifies that his friend Bob Lumer, an American musicologist, also categorised the stylistic expression and mode of instrumentation as ‘Irish’. Although denying the classification of Folkländer’s accompaniment texture as sonically ‘Irish’, Leyn relativizes his response by clarifying that, after his formative encounter with the Sands Family in 1974, Jürgen B. Wolff’s singing style and vocal timbre became significantly Irish-inspired. Furthermore, Leyn more generally admits to employing an ‘Irish’ performance style when reinterpreting the German folk song repertoire:

WL: „Es stimmt, das hat mir ein Amerikaner erzählt, für den ein Freund von mir die erste „Folkländer“- Platte in die USA mitgenommen hatte. Da sagte er: „Das klingt komplett irisch.“. Das waren deutsche Lieder, aber die Instrumentation und die Art und Weise, wie Jürgen Wolff gesungen hat, das klingt wie eine irische Stimme. Es liegt aber sicher daran, dass sein Erweckungserlebnis dieses 74er Konzert der „Sands Family“ beim Festival des politischen Liedes war und wir haben dann auch mit der irischen Brille das deutsche Volksliedgut uns angeschaut.“

59 WL: “You’re right, a friend of mine told me the same after he brought the first Folkländer record to the USA. An American friend told him: “That sounds completely Irish,” Those were German songs, but with the instrumentation and the lead vocal part, Jürgen’s singing style, sounds Irish. Surely, that’s because he had a formative experience at the Sands Family concert in 74’, as part of the festival of political song. We also interpreted the German folk song repertoire through an Irish lens.”

(Leyn 2017, Interview, Appendix F, pp.174-175)

Discussing an Irish soundscape apparent in Folkländer’s “Auswandererlied” remains relevant, as Jürgen asserts that he is particularly drawn to the fact that singers and instrumentalists in Irish ballad bands like The Dubliners follow a primary melodic line, which entails that multiple voices dynamically resound in unison. To him, this is clearly distinguished from polyphonic vocal textures, a prominent stylistic feature of German art music:

JW: „Das Schöne oder das, was mich damals am meisten fasziniert hat war, dass die Instrumente gar nicht so polyphon durcheinander gespielt haben, wie man es von klassischen Arrangements her kannte, sondern, dass sie alle die Melodiestimme bedient haben.“

JW: “The beauty or the most fascinating thing to me was, that the instruments didn’t actually play in a polyphonic texture, as it was familiar from arrangements in classical music. Instead, they all referred to the principal melody line.”

(Wolff 2017, Interview, Appendix B, p.114)

In my transcribed excerpt of the voice leading in the fifth verse of Auswandererlied (Fig.6), one notices that Jürgen Wolff’s and Peter Uhlmann’s vocal parts rarely actually resound in unison (as audible on the second beat in bar 12). Yet, the rhythm is identically replicated by both singers. Furthermore, intervallic distances between Jürgen’s lead vocal part and Peter’s harmony line mainly unfold in thirds and fifths and only occasionally exceed to a major 6th, which is the case at the juncture between bars 10 and 11. The two voices dynamically and forcefully resound through their harmonic synergies, a feature that musically underscores the profound longing for emigration and the dissatisfaction with rulers and their exploitation expressed in the previously analysed symbolic sub-text of this verse.

Fig.6 Voice leading in the fifth verse of “Auswandererlied”

Taking both analyses of the accompaniment and vocal textures into account, a tension emerges between deliberately selected Irish sonic markers like ‘voice leading’ and the potential, though unintended interpretation of elements like the mandolin and Waldzither interplay as connoting sonic Irishness 19. Here, Peirce’s notes on musical icons tell us much about the processes at work in terms of listening experience. As is relevant to my categorisation of Folkländer as replicating a prototypical Planxty-inspired sound, Turino (2008, p.7) explains that musical icons bear the potential of imaginatively synthesizing signs (‘Folkländer’s accompaniment texture’) with objects (‘Ireland and Planxty-prototype’), even if such combinations are unintended by the performing artist. The connections made by the perceiver in reference to the musical sign’s iconicity depend on its compatibility with personal life

19 John O’Flynn (2009, pp.173-195) discusses the ‘Irishness’ of Irish Traditional Music in relation to the perceived ‘authentic’ Irish sonic markers of the genre. According to O’Flynn, an authentication of Irish musical practice on the basis of soundscape, as becomes apparent in my own discussion of Folkländer’s stylistic interpretation of “Auswandererlied”, recursively shapes discourses surrounding performance practice, as well as the music itself. Furthermore, O’Flynn (2009, p.174) highlights that notions of iconic, sonically-defined Irishness, as articulated by practitioners, equally demand scholars to pay closer attention to the sound experiences of listeners. Locating sonic authenticity in the affective responses that music generates for the perceiver is a key argument in the subsequent part of this chapter in my thesis.

61 experiences, namely my own encounters as a practitioner of Irish Traditional Music and my familiarity with the music of Planxty. Outlining the reversal, Turino (2008, p.8) states that icons can convey intended meaning to the perceiver and lead them to make specific connections, as is the case in reference to the vocal texture in “Auswandererlied”. What does this twofold argument tell us about the Irish sonic element performed by GDR folk bands and how it is perceived, categorised, and affectively experienced by their audience?

Attempts to classify the soundscape of GDR folk music revival bands like Folkländer merely in terms of prototypical sonic Irish features are limited, not least because German vernacular music’s performative practice was heavily marginalised in post-war times and had to be reconfigured from multiple, and sometimes even incompatible, mosaic stones by revivalists (Steinbiß 1984, p.91). Wolfgang Leyn explains that East German folk musicians resorted to hybrid or “adventurous” models of instrumentation, which did nonetheless synthesize existing German stylistic elements with features borrowed from then current Irish ballad bands. According to Leyn, this novel, neither fully ‘Irish’, nor inherently ‘German’ soundscape, was both a performative and reimagined replacement, displayed in lieu of widely extinct regional German folk music traditions at that time:

WL: „Die Folkszene ist ja damals locker an die Dinge herangegangen. Wir haben ganz wild gemixt. Ich habe es „Abenteuer Instrumentierung“ genannt. Da kam eine Mandoline, eine Drehleier und noch eine Tin Whistle hinzu. Das musste irgendwie unseren Soundvorstellungen entsprechenNun kamen wir auch aus Gegenden, die nicht so folkloreträchtig waren. () Da kam einer aus dem Erzgebirge, einer aus Leipzig, einer aus Brandenburg und einer aus Mecklenburg. Welche landschaftliche Tradition hätten die denn pflegen sollen?“

WL: “We put together a wild mixture, something that I have referred to as “adventurous instrumentation”. We simply combined mandolins with hurdy-gurdy and tin whistle. It had to match our sonic idealsWell, we came from areas that didn’t have a particularly rich tradition of musical folklore, anyway. () One member came from the Erzgebirge region, another from Leipzig, one from Brandenburg and another one from Mecklenburg. Which regional traditions could we have possibly immersed ourselves in?”

(Leyn 2017, Interview, Appendix F, p.178)

Bithell and Hill (2014, pp.19-24) acknowledge that music revival activists like Folkländer, who transform a given tradition through creative stylistic recombination, frequently have to defend the ‘authenticity’ of their music to credit its legitimacy and attain authority. However, as Martin Stokes’ (1994, p. 7) posits, authenticity chiefly resides in our use of language to account for musical practice and therefore is merely “a discursive trope of great persuasive power”. Owe Ronström (2014, p.47) offers an alternative to the purely discursive construction

62 of authenticity, outlining that it can also be situated in the experiential and emotional response of the consumer or, in Peircean terms, in the affective interpretants generated for the perceiver. This move from discursive to experiential authenticity allows me to locate another, musically- salient level of the sub-text communicated by East German folk music revivalists.

4.3 Indexing ‘Counterculture’ and a ‘Longing to Travel’: “San Franciscan Nights”

After the fifth verse of their “Auswandererlied”, in which dissatisfactions with rulers are expressed, Folkländer introduce an interlude, a sonic shorthand adapted from Eric Burdon’s and The Animals’ hit “San Franciscan Nights” (Fig.7, next page), a song, which deals with the city of San Francisco and its countercultural movements in the 1960s. Again, we witness a recombination of stylistic features, when Folkländer use Burdon’s interlude to creatively index musical elements and to subversively communicate a deeply-felt message, which sonically critiques the travel restrictions imposed by the GDR government.

From a musical standpoint, the interlude mirrors characteristics discussed earlier in relation to the accompaniment texture chosen by the band, but distinctly stands out through the use of instrumentation, metre, and tonality. The contrapuntal interplay between Waldzither and mandolin is augmented by the addition of violin, playing the primary theme, and a hammered dulcimer. All instruments markedly syncopate the melodic motif, which stretches from bars 9 to 16, and is clearly distinguished from the overarching musical structure of “Auswandererlied”, modulating between the keys of G and D major. In contrast to the regular and gentle ¾ metre characteristic of rest of the song, the interlude changes to a more driving 4/4 feel. To appreciate the musical significance of this Burdon’s interlude, we need to consider the intersections between the iconicity of the melody and the symbolic character of the song content. Referring to the example of “San Franciscan Nights”, a song that communicates both a sense of belonging to and identification with the city of San Francisco and the countercultural flower-power movement of the 1960s, which notably opposed the Vietnam War, geo- musicologist David Keeling (2011, pp. 113–25) outlines, how songs can become emblematic as sonic icons for cities and the cultural and social dynamics they harbour. In relation to Burdon’s song he states:

Fig.7 “Auswandererlied”- Interlude adapted from E. Burdon’s “San Franciscan Nights” (1967)

“Looking eastward over the city…I’m reminded of the heady days of the flower-power movement in the 1960s and why this city is so special. Classics like Eric Burdon’s and the Animals’ San Franciscan Nights…are reminders of how San Francisco shaped the national culture during those heady years.”

(Keeling 2011, p.123)

“San Franciscan Nights” accomplishes to synthesize an affective belonging to the city of San Francisco with its significance as an emblem for the 1960s countercultural movement through an abundance of linguistic symbols in its lyrics. At the start of his song, Burdon relies on the listener’s previously acquired knowledge regarding the flower-power movement and its association with San Francisco. Urging European listeners “to travel to San Francisco, if they

64 wish to fully understand the song”, he consequently aligns linguistic symbols in a fashion that abstractly evidences the song’s ties to this particular location:

“This is a very personal song / So if the viewer cannot understand it / Particularly those of you who are European residents / Save up all your brand and fly Trans-Love Airways to San Francisco, U.S.A. / Then, maybe you'll understand the song.”

(Eric Burdon and the Animals 1967)

For the listener, the symbolic compound “Trans-Love Airways” has, based on their discursive knowledge of “Love”, a symbol tethered to the pacifistic, anti-Vietnam War stance of the flower-power movement, become an indexical argument for its countercultural ideals. Processes of semantic snowballing and creative indexing play out, when “San Franciscan Nights” is performed in front of a GDR audience, citizens of a state that strictly imposed travel restrictions, viewed the U.S. as the class enemy, outlawed the expression of pacifism, and regarded the formation of countercultural movements with suspicion. Burdon’s two indexical arguments, “song belonging to San Francisco”, and “song expressing counterculture”, coupled with the GDR performance context, attain the felt role of rhematic indices, signs that possibly evidence the reality that belonging to an American metropolis and countercultural identification cannot be openly expressed without being prosecuted by the East German government. This juxtaposition finally reverses Burdon’s advocated belonging into an affective longing for travel.

A symbolic sub-text notwithstanding, we need to revisit music’s indexical potential to clarify the emotionally engaging and subversive capacity the interlude, now a musical icon for Burdon’s song, when performed in “Auswandererlied”. Here, Turino’s semantic snowballing and creative indexing portray, how an interlude that has formerly been indexically linked to the lyrics of “San Franciscan Nights”, projecting the ideals of a countercultural movement and seeking to foster the listener’s identification with a U.S. metropolis, takes on subversive significance when introduced in the song of a GDR folk band. The first layer of indexical coupling occurs, when the musical sign, Burdon’s interlude, becomes dicent-indexically (truthfully) linked to the performance of a song text that refers to the countercultural ideals of the flower-power movement. Thus, the interlude becomes a dicent index for “counterculture”. Involving another layer of semantic snowballing, the interlude also co-occurs with the song text that symbolically addresses an identification with the city of San Francisco. Consequently, the interlude gains salience as a dicent index for “belonging to an American metropolis”. A

65 subversive capacity becomes apparent, when these dicent indices are creatively juxtaposed in a new performance and listening context.

Initially, the listener perceives Burdon’s interlude, now a multifaceted compound of indices invoking sentiments of belonging to and identification with the city of San Francisco, and signalling the ideals of a countercultural movement, in correlation with Folkländer’s “Auswandererlied”. As described earlier, on a symbolic level of abstraction, this song tells the story of German emigration to America and becomes a rhematic index that could be interpreted to critique the travel restrictions in place in the GDR. When these two semiotic streams correlate, the listener is confronted with a raft of conflicting emotions. While intensely experiencing the indexed belonging to San Francisco when listening to the interlude, the perceiver also realises that such a sense of belonging cannot be fulfilled in the sealed-off GDR. Equally, the interlude is affectively perceived as indexing countercultural movement, but in a GDR context, the expression of countercultural ideals was problematic. Consequently, semantic snowballing and creative indexing on both linguistic and sonic levels reveal, how musical signs and the symbolic song text in “Auswandererlied” amplify the song’s subversive effect on the listener. While it is clear that this example represents a musical and textual strategy which equips folk music revivalists with substantial creative agency to critique circumstances in the East German present, it is now necessary to show, that Peircean semiotics is also suitable to account for the use of music by the state’s SED Party, which sonically conveyed its ideological message from the top down.

4.4 Peircean Semiotics from the Top Down: “Sag mir, wo du stehst!”

In 1967, Hatrmut König, a member of the socialist Free German Youth (FDJ) and the Hootenanny movement in East Berlin, wrote the song “Sag mir, wo du stehst!” (Oktober-Klub 1967), which translates as “Which Side Are You On?” in homage to a correspondent American worker’s song made popular by Florence Reece in 1931. According to Robb (2007, p.230), König’s adaption initially conveyed the East Berlin Hootenanny Klub’s solidarity with the objectives of the leftist American protest song movement of the 1960s, a degree of identification which is effectively generated through the song text (Fig.8). Throughout the three verses, the listener is directly addressed by a collective, which strives for social progress and repeatedly demands the individual to step forward and unveil, whether it identifies with the ideals of the collective or chooses to stay behind. As apparent in relation to the aforementioned

66 examples, language-based abstraction and creative indexing of previously framed musical signs in a new performance context transformed “Sag mir, wo du stehst!” into an icon for the state’s Singebewegung and its ideological message.

Fig.8 “Sag mir, wo du stehst!” (Oktoberklub 1967), transl. F. Morgenstern

In terms of the lyrics, the listener can, based on their previous experiences and cognitive schemata, evaluate the linguistic symbols in the line “We drive this time forward” as indexical arguments for social progress. Moreover, to recurring pronoun “We” indexes a sense of group cohesion and solidarity. When the listener is frequently asked: “Which side are you on?”, and is warned that they “cannot enjoy our benefits and theirs”, those arguments index the demand

67 for clear identification with a shared purpose. In the performance setting of GDR Hootenannies, these indexical arguments have the potential of becoming dicent indices for the truthfully felt, collective social identity, which is fostered through the club’s identification with the leftist American protest song movement. The capacity of musical features in “Sag mir, wo du stehst!” to sonically replicate those dicent indices supports the song’s message. For example, the idea of progress is represented by musical icons, such as a steady drum beat in 4/4 time, as well as driving guitar riffs. Moreover, the melody line of the chorus (Fig.9) revolves around a one-bar, upwards-leading motif, which underscores a progressive feel. Through syncopation and phrase breaks, the melody of the chorus mirrors the song’s demanding character and the singer, König himself, succeeds in conveying this effect through his imperative tone and clear articulation in his singing.

Fig.9 Chorus in “Sag mir, wo du stehst!”

The East German government and its youth organisation, the FDJ, quickly realised the potential of co-opting this song for their own ideological agenda. In fact, the Oktoberklub, now directed by the state apparatus, proved, how creative indexical juxtaposition in a new performance context could channel the Hootenanny scene’s felt solidarity with other leftist protest song movements, alongside a strive for social cohesion and progress, to consolidate an affectively synchronised sense of socialist identity that even reached beyond the GDR borders. In 1968, Alexander Dubček, secretary of the Communist Party in Czechoslovakia, set wide- reaching reforms in motion, which prominently granted citizens of a socialist state freedom of assembly, allowed them to travel abroad, and facilitated the privatisation of small businesses. This move towards a more “humane kind of socialism” (Karner 2008) in Czechoslovakia, which was avidly received by the public, is commonly referred to as the ‘Prague Spring’. The Soviet member states of the Warsaw Pact, among them East Germany, feared that Dubček’s reforms could stimulate a counter-revolution and might thus pose a potential threat to the

68 integrity of socialism. On 21st August 1968, the Warsaw Pact drastically ended the peaceful protests in the ČSSR through military intervention.

By inviting the Oktoberklub to perform “Sag mir, wo du stehst!” In 1968 at a FDJ concert in Lenz, which supported the Warsaw Pact’s invasion of Czechoslovakia, the song was deliberately put in the service of socialist propaganda, directed against the “class enemy’s attempt to discredit the global communist movement” (Robb 2007, pp.230-1). When co- occurring and thus creatively juxtaposed in the context of this propaganda event, and when further infused with symbolic discourse on the party and its ideology, the textually and musically constructed dicent indices of ‘group cohesion’ and ‘shared strive for progress’ inherent in “Sag mir, wo du stehst!” attain novel semantic layers. Clearly, they are transformed into an affectively perceived dicent index for ‘obedience to the state’, ‘identification with socialism’, and consequent ‘opposition to the class enemy’. Ultimately, the rhetoric “you cannot enjoy our benefits and theirs” gains novel significance, by alerting the listener that they can decide either in favour of or against the ideology of socialism. This infusion of novel identity layers in a suitable performance context allows us to understand, how a popular protest song can, under specific circumstances, attain iconicity for the GDR state, its Singebewegung, and its desired, synchronised identity, which becomes unified through a shared ideological persuasion.

In conclusion, this chapter set out with the objective of a more musically-underpinned, in contrast to the previously dominating discursive and ethnographic modes of analysis, in order to augment our understanding of the lived experience of GDR folk musicians. Using the concrete example of Folkländer’s “Auswandererlied”, I have resorted to Peircean semiotics to unearth, how folk songs can generate a specifically critical sub-text through (re)combinations of linguistic symbols that are cognitively evaluated in the mind of the listener. On a musical level, Peirce’s model is a crucial tool for showing, that sonic indexical connections made by the perceiver can become creatively juxtaposed in a particular performance setting and gain emotional salience. On the one hand, East German folk musicians expected their audiences to display a shared level of competence in terms of cognitively evaluating the symbolic sub-text of historical folk songs and their relevance in the GDR. This textual level of understanding was augmented through subtle musical references, which generated felt responses in the listener and amplified the subversive effect. Overall, categorising these creative indexical juxtapositions as rhematic, thus possibly critiquing circumstances in East Germany, is

69 significant, as it is precisely this multitude of produced interpretative possibilities that equipped folk musicians with agency from the bottom up, to express their concerns without facing the threat of censorship exerted by the state.

The concept of creative indexing, as outlined by Turino, also reveals, why a combination of stylistic mosaic stones characterises the soundscape of GDR folk bands. In fact, the abundance of sonic and instrumental transformations, which borrow elements from Anglo-Irish and German vernacular and popular music genres, intensely complicates the drawing of conclusions on the ‘authenticity’ of revived folk music in East Germany. In this context, authenticity, whatever it may signify, is neither discursively constructed, nor based on artists’ absolute fidelity to some source domain in the past, as we frequently encounter the term in music revival discourses. Indeed, the radical marginalisation of vernacular German performance practices in post-war times complicates the criteria of ‘continuity with the past’. Instead, in a GDR revival context, authenticity appears rooted in the affectively meaningful response of the consumer, as Ronström (2014, pp.43-59) astutely points out. Only by broadening the scope of authenticity and by focusing on the emotionally-salient response that an interlude borrowed from the song “San Franciscan Nights” evokes for the East German listener, paints a more holistic picture of the sub-text’s subversive capacity.

On the contrary, the GDR state equally realised the iconic and indexical potential of music for supporting its own ideological aims from the top down. It is a level of creative indexical juxtaposition, similar to that undertaken by folk musicians, that transformed “Sag mir, wo du stehst!” and its original connotations of solidarity and progress into a singular icon for the youth song movement and the indoctrination of party ideology. This affective and musically generated degree of synchronisation with the state, in contrast to a strive for individuality, reveals, why folk musicians in the GDR avidly set out to define an independent artistic identity. As shown in the course of this chapter, ethnographic and discursive analysis needs to be augmented through musicological examination and the consideration of the affective potential of music in order to access this particular plane of lived musical experience.

Chapter Five

“Conclusion and Post-Revival Outlook”

71 In the course of this thesis, I have located aspects of the lived musical experience of former GDR folk musicians, the atomised, individual case studies (Rice 2003) of artists encountered during my fieldwork in Leipzig, in comparison to established German folk music discourses. While primarily nuancing existing portrayals of the relationship between practitioners and the East German state, I have explored the various pathways through which individual folk music revivalists have conceptualised their practice on concrete sonic and textual levels. Initially, I have drawn out the historical backdrop of a romantic-nationalistic German folk song concept, which surfaced in the 18th and 19th centuries and became misused for propaganda purposes by the Nazi regime in the mid-20th century. This has equipped me to show, how post-war revivalists in East Germany, following their nostalgic draw to Irish music as a sonic replacement for their own marginalised vernacular music, reconnected with a democratic 19th century German-language folk song heritage that proved strikingly topical in terms of its applicability in the GDR. Providing insights into the subversive potential of these songs in critiquing social, cultural, and political circumstances in East Germany, I have equally differentiated, how artists managed to maintain a performative platform while, at the same time, voicing regime critique. To clarify meaning of revived German folk songs for GDR artists, audiences and centralised authorities, I have finally moved to a musicological and semiotic mode of analysis of two concrete folk and protest song case studies, which has allowed me to identify notions of sonic authenticity tethered to the GDR revival context and has led me to uncover, how the lived experience of my informants is expressed in affectively engaging sonic and textual form. In the following sections, I summarise the main findings of my research, before ending with a brief outlook on the GDR folk music scene’s post-revival legacy 20.

5.1 Chapter Two: Romantic-Nationalistic German Folk Songs and Post-War Revival

Setting out by tracing the problematic entanglement of Herder’s 18th century romantic German folk song concept with the political agendas of German nationalism has provided a historical framework for examining music revival ramifications in both German post-war states. Particularly in the 19th and 20th centuries, Herder’s theories on language, folk song and

20 The multiple activities of former GDR folk musicians in post-revival times deserve a separate examination as part of future research. While I draw specifically on the importance of remembering lived musical experience in this context, the scope of my conclusion does not allow me to elaborate, for instance, on the significance of the Rudolstadt Folkfest in reunified Germany, which was instrumental in bringing revivalists from both German post-war states together. Further potential areas of inquiry include the riptides of Ostalgie and the pathways of off-spring post-revivalist acts, such as Jürgen B. Wolff’s and Dieter Beckert’s satirical duet Duo Sonnenschirm.

72 the nation became politically co-opted to eventually underscore a racially articulated sense of Germanic national identity in the Third Reich (1933-1945). The traumatic impact of mass mobilisation and the role of German folk music in supporting the Nazi regime led to widespread marginalisation of German folk music after the demise of the Nazi Era. In respect of both German post-war states, I have paid particular attention to the role of Irish music as a genre, which provided a suitable performative replacement of Germany’s own, almost extinct, folk music tradition. Furthermore, Irish music served as a musical alternative to the Ersatz nostalgic associations (Appadurai 1996) projected by mass-mediated German volkstümliche Musik and offered a more individualistic form of artistic expression than the state-conform GDR Singebewegung.

Initial intercultural affinities (Slobin 1993) between East German folk musicians and the idiom of Irish music were shaped by formative encounters with Irish artists at the annual Festival des politischen Liedes in East Berlin. In this context, considering the multiplicity of nostalgia, as outlined by Boym (2001), proved fruitful in making sense of the part that Irish music played in reconfiguring (East) German post-war identity. Clearly, a widely-shared Irish- inspired soundscape among folk musicians in the GDR first revealed their reflective nostalgia for a romantic and exotic otherness rooted in the music of the Celtic European fringe (Reiss 2003). Subsequently however, the discovery of textual commonalities between 19th century Irish and German protest songs (Robb 2009) stimulated a restorative nostalgic urge to unearth the legacy of Germany’s own, once suppressed democratic 1848 revolutionary songs, precisely because Irish folk songs dealing with issues of emigration and post-colonial struggles of de- Anglicising the Irish nation resonated with the concerns of GDR citizens in the present and their growing desire to express a sentiment of resistance in relation to the state’s policies.

5.2 Chapter Three: The Democratic German Folk Song Erbe and Oppositional Nuances

The need to communicate the messages of Irish protest songs and their topicality in the East German present through the medium of German-language song, a common denominator of cultural identity formation, led to the consolidation of an independent GDR folk music scene in 1976. At that point, members of newly established music revival movements in both West and East Germany could resort to ethnologist Wolfgang Steinitz’ (1954) democratic folk song collection as a rich source for the reinterpretation of 1848 songs. For the GDR state, progressive and utopian songs compiled by Steinitz could be used to ideologically ‘invent’ (Hobsbawm

73 1983) a cultural Erbe of revolutionary tradition (Robb 2010) and allowed state-sponsored musicologists like Inge Lammel (1957) to legitimise the ongoing struggle of the proletariat in the workers’ and peasants’ state through folk song. GDR folk musicians, on the other hand, could exploit a primary contradiction in the proudly curated concept of the Erbe, by performing songs in Steinitz collection that revealed the harshness of revolutionary defeat, mass emigration, and disillusionment, factors which intensely penetrated the public in the aftermath of the revolution’s failure and were equally applicable in the GDR from the late 1970s onwards. Those songs differed fundamentally from the state’s utopian message and were useful means to subversively convey the GDR folk music scene’s experience of a stagnating socialist dream.

In reference to ‘cognitive praxis’ (Eyerman and Jamison 1998), I have outlined, how this historical sub-text produced new layers of meaning for artists and audiences, who evaluated songs in terms of their applicability in East Germany. While Eyerman and Jamison’s framework can be used to evidence the transformational processes (Bithell and Hill 2014) and knowledge-producing capacities inherent in the GDR folk music revival movement, ‘cognitive praxis’ reveals shortcomings, presupposing that social movements pursue collective, politically-oppositional intent. In contrast, responses arising in my ethnographic fieldwork indicate, that the GDR folk revival movement’s political intentions are categorised in a complex and multi-layered fashion by artists, ranging from more oppositional characteristics to conformity. This nuancing of paradoxes in lived musical experience is necessary, as GDR folk musicians had to mediate between submission to organisational structures and intermittent critique, to avail of financial support from the state. The example of the folk opera “Die Boten des Todes” (Leyn 2016) aptly illustrates the ambiguous relationship between artists and cultural functionaries, as part of which the enforcement of censorship depended on the personalities involved and their own adherence to party politics.

5.3 Chapter Four: Peircean Semiotics in “Auswandererlied” and “Sag mir, wo du stehst!”

Augmenting previously foregrounded discursive and ethnographic modes of analysis, I have moved to a greater musicological focus in chapter four, to uncover the directly experiential effects of folk music and protest songs on the lived experience of performers and listeners in the GDR. Critically, this also unveils music’s semiotic potential for its co-option by the state. The theoretical paradigm of Peircean semiotics (Turino 1999; 2008) has offered a suitable framework for identifying affectively engaging musical sign relationships at work in the

74 performance of two specific GDR folk and protest songs under scrutiny, Folkländer’s reinterpretation of “Auswandererlied”, a 19th century emigration song, and the Hootenanny movement’s protest song “Sag mir, wo du stehst!”, which became ideologically co-opted by the SED Party.

In the case of “Auswandererlied”, the listener is required to decode an abundance of creatively juxtaposed linguistic symbols inherent in the lyrics to identify, how the historical sub-text of the song could possibly critique the current travel restrictions in the GDR. Textual and musical features complement each other, when an interlude from Eric Burdon’s hit song “San Franciscan Nights” is subtly woven into the arrangement. As a sonic icon for identification with an American metropolis and its countercultural movements, the interlude creatively indexes a longing for travel and the expression of countercultural protest when performed in an East German context. It is the rhematic possibility of establishing these subversive indexical links that provided GDR folk musicians with substantial creative agency from the bottom up, to avoid censorship exerted by the authorities from the top down. Moreover, for folk musicians’ target audiences in the GDR, this emotionally engaging and intellectual process of decoding represented an important part of the listening experience.

Closer musical examination of “Auswandererlied” and the consideration of ethnographic responses reveals, that the song includes certain iconic sonic features, which were deliberately borrowed from the genre of Irish music, specifically in terms of the singing style and vocal texture. However, as closer scrutiny of the accompaniment pattern, instrumentation, and the influence of elements from popular music genres shows, a unilineal classification of Folkländer’s performance style as ‘Irish-inspired’ only penetrates the patina of the band’s artistic choices. An apparent combination of sometimes disparate, neither inherently ‘German’ nor ‘Irish’, musical features has allowed me to critique the discourse on authenticity in revival scholarship, which appears so readily concerned with the establishment of a continuity between past and present and is predominantly language-based (Stokes 1994). For Folkländer, however, ‘authenticity’ was only partially fuelled by their fidelity to a source domain of German folk music tradition rooted in the past. In fact, revivalists’ idea of ‘German folk music’ had to be actively reconstructed from multiple sources, primarily because the trauma of the Third Reich had caused a rupture in the chain of transmission to the post-war generation of practitioners. As Ronström (2014) would put it, the ‘authenticity’ of Folkländer’s music is directly

75 experienced by the consumer and thereby, we begin to grasp the affectively engaging, textual and musical significance of the sub-text communicated by artists to listeners in the GDR.

The example of the protest song “Sag mir, wo du stehst!”, which became a sonic icon of the Singebewegung in the 1960s, evidences, how the GDR government also resorted to music’s iconic and indexical potential, albeit with different objectives. By creatively juxtaposing the truthfully felt musical and textual dicent-indices for cohesive identity and progress conveyed by the song during a propaganda event directed against the 1968 counter-revolution in Czechoslovakia (Robb 2007), the Communist SED Party substantially altered the meaning of “Sag mir, wo du stehst!” for members of its youth song movement. In this performance context, the song attained iconicity as a real and truthfully experienced marker of GDR identity, deliberately fusing the felt solidarity of the Hootenanny movement’s members with the leftist American protest movement into a synchronised fidelity to both the SED and the overarching ideology of socialism. Taking the examples of “Auswandererlied” and “Sag mir, wo du stehst!” into account, I contend that much of the lived experience of East German folk musicians unfolded at the rift between the GDR state’s co-option of music’s affective capacities as a source for collective identity construction through a top-down trajectory and folk musicians’ strive for creatively expressive individuality as surging through a rich, subversive sub-text voiced from the bottom up. This point is mirrored in informants’ comments on the legacy of the GDR folk music revival in post-revival times.

5.4 Lived Musical Experience and Post-Revival: The Legacy of the GDR Folk Music Scene After 1989

On 9th November 1989 the Berlin Wall fell and with it, the German Democratic Republic, a socialist state that had existed since 1949, collapsed. The end of the GDR and its administrative apparatus also meant that the vivid sub-text of folk songs, the interpretation of which relied on the often ambiguous relationship between folk musicians and the state, was ultimately erased. Comparing the demise of the GDR to an irreversible system failure, Wolfgang Leyn outlines the implications of this drastic political and social change for the longevity of the GDR folk music scene:

76 WL: „Das Publikum ging erst einmal woanders hin. Die Lieder verloren den doppelten Boden, die Szene verlor die Auftrittsorte, weil die Jugendklubs reihenweise geschlossen wurden und die Finanzierung unklar war.“

WL: “The audience now went somewhere else. The song texts lost their ambiguous meaning and the scene lost its performance spaces, because youth clubs had to be shut down. The financial support was precarious.”

(Leyn 2017, Interview, Appendix F, p.182)

Moreover, Jürgen B. Wolff emphasizes that the listening habits of audience members changed profoundly:

JW: „...ich glaube, dass würden die Leute heute gar nicht mehr bemerken, weil es sich alles stark vermischt, vor allem die HörgewohnheitenIch merke, dass die Reaktionen mittlerweile ganz abgestumpft sind. Die Leute haben ganz andere Interessen.“

JW: “…I doubt that people would notice that influence nowadays, as the listening habits have become more mixedI notice that the reactions are increasingly indifferent. People have different interests.”

(Wolff 2017, Interview, Appendix B, p.134)

Writing about the kinds of struggles that former GDR folk musicians faced in the post- revival scenario, Bithell and Hill (2014, p.30) provocatively ask, whether revival is merely a phase that thrives under certain circumstances and has to give way to a new beginning at the post-revival stage. Clearly, the demise of the GDR heralded a new beginning in terms of a widely anticipated prospect of German reunification, although it entailed grave post-socialist transformations that dissolved important support structures, such as subsidised performance opportunities for folk musicians, and changed the interests of audiences that were once intensely drawn to bands like Folkländer. On the other hand, Jürgen B. Wolff posits that the GDR folk music scene’s legacy is located in the memory of practitioners and in remembrance of lived musical experience. As Wolff puts it, the underlying significance of the post-war revival movement in the GDR can only be fully grasped by making sense of joyous musical moments of revelation, precisely the potentially subversive, sonically and textually mediated being-in-the-world of socialism that artists communicated to their audiences:

JW: „Jetzt ist es auch wieder so, eigentlich, als hätte es die Folkszene gar nicht gegeben. Die gab es und für uns war es wichtigGottlob gibt es ein paar Platten, die man sich bei Interesse

77 noch anhört. Aber eigentlich braucht jeder dieses Erweckungserlebnis, dass er selbst dorthin kommt. Das ist das, was auch die meiste Laune macht.“

JW: “People act as if the folk music scene never existed in the first place. It did exist and it was important to usThank God for the few records that were made, so that people can listen to it. However, you really need the revelation of discovering all that yourself. That’s the most exciting part.”

(Wolff 2017, Interview, Appendix B, p.133)

In conclusion, the East German folk music scene ought to be remembered as leaving a significant imprint on the reinvigoration of German folk music in post-war times. GDR folk musicians succeeded in mobilising an until then unprecedented, democratic German folk song concept, which formed a distinct expressive medium and was intellectually valuable in the context of socialism. Certainly, the folk song repertoire’s topicality rendered this music revival meaningful in the public consciousness at the time. Not least, the avid reception of an Irish- inspired performance style by East German artists forms a significant reference point for historically tracing the ongoing popularity of Irish Traditional Music in Germany, a terrain, which requires further research. On a broader scale, the subversive and affectively engaging capacity of both texts and stylistic features in the GDR reminds us, as ethnomusicologists, that music can serve as a vital conduit to open performative channels for individual practitioners, who set out to voice protest, even if the overt expression of same is suppressed by political leaders.

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DISCOGRAPHY

Eric Burdon and the Animals (1967) San Franciscan Nights [LP], Hollywood, CA: MGM.

Folkländer (1982) Wenn man fragt, wer hat’s getan [LP], GDR: AMIGA.

Franz Josef Degenhardt (1968) Wenn der Senator erzählt [LP], BRD: Polydor.

Oktober-Klub (1967) Der Oktober-Klub Singt [LP], GDR: AMIGA.

Zupfgeigenhansel (1978) Volkslieder 3: Im Krug zum Grünen Kranze [LP], Dortmund: Pläne.

Appendices

84 APPENDIX A: Interview mit Jürgen B. Wolff und Reinhardt „Pfeffi“ Ständer

Deutsche Originalfassung (Original Transcription in German)

Datum: 12. April 2017 Zeit: 12:30 Ort: Loewenzahn Records, Shakespearestraße, Leipzig Format: Samsung S3 Mini, internes Mikrofon Interviewer: Felix Morgenstern Interviewees: Jürgen B. Wolff, Reinhardt „Pfeffi“ Ständer Abkürzungen: JW: Jürgen B. Wolff; PS: Reinhardt „Pfeffi“ Ständer Dauer: 01:50:40

Es ist ein regnerischer Mittwochmorgen. Ich stehe am Leipziger Hauptbahnhof und warte nervös auf die Ankunft von Pfeffi, der heute zum vereinbarten Interviewtermin von Hoyerswerda nach Leipzig reist. Pfeffi Ständer war zu DDR-Zeiten im Kreiskabinett für Kulturarbeit in Hoyerswerda tätig und hat Veranstaltungen organisiert. So hat er die Folkszene kennengelernt. Sein Zug kommt kurz nach 12:00 an. Ich erkenne ihn anhand der Beschreibung, die er mir per Email zugeschickt hat. Wir gehen zu einem Bratwurststand, um etwas zum Mittag zu essen. Wir fahren mit der Tram und reden über meine Zeit in Irland. Pfeffi sagt, ich könne bei Gelegenheit bei ihm im „Black Raven’s Pub“ auftreten. In der Shakespearestraße werden wir von Jürgen empfangen, den ich nur von Bildern in Büchern kannte. Jürgen ist als eine der führenden Persönlichkeiten der Folkszene und als Frontmann der Gruppe „Folkländer“ bekannt. Er begrüßt mich sachlich und höflich. Die beiden tauschen sich kurz über Bekannte aus und Jürgen bittet uns, am Tisch in seinem Büro Platz zu nehmen. Er bietet uns Kaffee und Mohnkuchen an. Um uns herum stehen Regale mit diversen Musikbüchern, CDs und Plakaten des Rudolstädter Folkfestes. Auf dem Regal erblicke ich zwei Konzertinas. Jürgen fragt nach meinem Studium in Irland. Ich erzähle meine Geschichte, die offenbar die Tür zu unserem Interview öffnet, denn es scheint ihn sehr zu interessieren. Nach der Irland-Anekdote beginnt Jürgen, von seiner Zeit als Folkmusiker in der DDR zu erzählen:

Zeit: [00:00:00]

FM: Also, heute ist der 12.4.; ich sitze hier mit Pfeffi Ständer und Jürgen B. Wolff und wir reden heute über das Thema „Folkmusik in der DDR“. Also, danke euch beiden erst einmal (…), dass ihr euch Zeit genommen habt, mit mir heute zu reden. (…) Als erste Frage, (…) was ist euch so am wichtigsten von der Zeit der Folkszene in der DDR im Gedächtnis geblieben, von den Assoziationen her? Wie habt ihr euch gefühlt? Wie war es bei dir, Jürgen?

[00:00:40]

85 JW: (…) Naja, das Wichtigste war für mich damals (Pause) diese Option, akustische Musik (…) machen zu können. Also (…), es gab ja in der DDR die sogenannte Singebewegung (…).

FM: Hm.

JW: (…) Die war auch eigentlich ziemlich stark staatlich gelenkt und gefördert, aber hat den Nerv der Zeit nicht getroffen. Dann war so die Frage, ich habe dann anfangs, so um 70‘ herum angefangen, zu lernen, war dann da im Internat in einem Singeklub und dann haben wir da gesungen. (…) Der Singeklub war in der Regel größer als das Publikum, welches dann dasaß. Dann kam ich wieder nach Plauen zurück, wo ich herkomme und habe dann überlegt, was man so machen könnte (…). Wir hatten natürlich alle keine Kohle, kein Geld. Also jetzt zu sagen, wir machen uns jetzt schön elektrisch und machen Rockmusik oder so etwas, das ging auch nicht. Das war einfach finanziell nicht zu stemmen. Dann kam dieses Ding mit irischer Folkmusik und dann war ich 74‘ im Februar beim Festival des politischen Liedes und habe die „Sands Family“ gesehen. Da bin ich richtig aus allen Wolken gefallen. „The Dubliners“ und so kannte ich vorher schon, aber dann eben so eine Band live zu sehen, in so einer ganz schnöden Besetzung, mit Gitarre, Bass, Geige, Mandoline, ein bisschen Whistle, ein bisschen Bodhrán…Dann haben die eben gewurzelt und haben dann ihre politischen Songs gemacht und das war sehr fein…Mehrstimmig singen und im Prinzip alles das, was man sich jetzt im Nachhinein gar nicht begreiflich machen kann, was das für eine Faszination ausgeübt hat. In der Zeit, als ich in der DDR angefangen habe zu lernen, fing das an mit Disko. Vorher spielten noch in den Speisesälen von irgendwelchen Betrieben Live-Bands und dann trommelte es sich plötzlich durch, dass es jetzt Disko sein muss. Dann hat einer irgendeine Anlage aufgebaut und Platten oder Bänder irgendwie durchgenuddelt. Das war von Anfang an eigentlich etwas, das mich angeödet hat. Das war zum Kotzen. Und dann kam eben als Option oder Alternative diese Musik, die eigentlich vor allem auch so war, dass man sie (…) naja, es war natürlich schon komplexe Musik, die die „Sands Family“ und auch die „Dubliners“ gemacht haben. Aber man konnte mit vergleichsweise ganz wenig Mitteln und auch mit minimalen Kenntnissen eigentlich einen guten Song spielen, der auch schon nach etwas klang. Wir haben die Geige dann in Quinten gestimmt und das hat dann eigentlich schon gereicht. Also, wenn ein Finger auf dem D war, hat es schon gereicht. Dann haben wir natürlich geübt wie die Teufel, mit Mandoline, Flöte und weiß der Geier und haben das Prinzip dann eigentlich auch sofort auf deutsches Zeug angewendet. Ich hatte dann noch einen Singeklub in Plauen. Im März 74‘ bin ich zum Studium nach Leipzig gegangen. In dem halben Jahr zwischen Februar, als ich die „Sands Family“ gehört habe und dem Sommer danach, haben wir den Singeklub komplett umgestrickt. Wir haben alle, die nicht hineingepasst haben herauskomplimentiert und es blieben dann sieben oder acht Leute übrig. Mit denen haben wir dann richtige Akustik-Mucke gemacht. Wir waren dann auf den letzten Metern, die Truppe gab es vielleicht so seit drei Jahren mit mir zusammen (…), eine ganz gute Band, also vom Esprit her, nicht unbedingt auf technischer Ebene, aber von der Besessenheit her. Das war eine große Erfahrung und es war dann später, als ich nach Leipzig kam, was in „Folkländer“ eingeflossen ist und was dann auch Feedback-mäßig von Leuten kam, die ich dann auch plötzlich überall kennengelernt habe, in Berlin, in Erfurt, Halle und so weiter. Da saßen überall Freaks herum, die auch so herumgespielt haben und versucht haben, etwas auf die Beine zu stellen.

[00:05:18] FM: Dein erster Kontakt war also mit dem irischen Klangbild, dieses einschneidende Erlebnis bei dem Festival des politischen Liedes?

JW: Ja, das war dieses Klangbild, was in dieser Urbesetzung bei den „Dubliners“ üblich war und die „Fureys“ haben das ja letztendlich auch so gemacht, auch wenn sie noch die Uilleann Pipes dazunahmen. (…) Ich hatte dann einen Sampler, auf dem noch ein paar andere Bands drauf waren. Da hat man auch abgekupfert und geschaut, was die da machen.

FM: Ja.

JW: Das Schöne, oder das, was mich damals am meisten fasziniert hat war, dass die Instrumente gar nicht so polyphon durcheinander gespielt haben, wie man es von klassischen Arrangements her kannte, sondern dass sie alle die Melodiestimme bedient haben.

FM: Ja.

JW: Es gab zwar dann mal eine Terz oder eine Quinte, aber das Prinzip war eigentlich (lacht), genau das zu spielen, was auch in der Gesangsstimme ablief. (…) Ich bin ja kein studierter Musiker und hatte nie Unterricht. Ich bin immer Autodidakt gewesen und geblieben und habe mir alles immer so zurechtgehört, wie ich es brauchte und es mir stimmig erschien. (…) Das Erstaunliche war, dass alle Dasselbe gesungen haben und trotzdem war da eine unglaubliche Dynamik. Also, es gab so ein paar Aspekte, die mich unglaublich fasziniert haben und die haben wir dann bei „Folkländer“…Kennst du „Folkländer“?

[00:07:21]

FM: Ja, ich habe mir ein paar Sachen angehört (…), also „Wenn man weiß, wer fragt“ oder wie hieß die?

JW: Ja, „Wenn man fragt, wer hat’s getan“

FM: Genau (lacht).

JW: Ja, (…) das war ja dann schon die Endphase von „Folkländer“ in dem Stadium in den 80er Jahren. Es gibt auch noch einen Sampler von Aufnahmen, die wir in der Anfangsphase gemacht haben. Da haben wir „Wild Rover“ von einer Probenaufnahme draufgespielt. Das wurde so in den ersten zwei Monaten aufgenommen und ich dachte, das ist OK. Es ist nicht spektakulär, aber es hat irgendwie den Charakter des Stückes gut erfasst. Also es ging wirklich relativ schnell (…). Ich meine, dazu kamen dann natürlich die Inhalte, das was dann das Nächste (…) bei den irischen Sachen. Wir haben zum Bespiel „Roddy McCorley“ gespielt. Das fand ich irgendwie geil. Das ist ein Song, wo irgendjemand zum Galgen geführt wird, weil er in der Revolte aufgemuckt hat (räuspert sich). Wir hatten damals das Problem, dass wir das

87 deutsche Volksliedgut eigentlich nicht kannten, weil es nicht verfügbar war. Es war zwar verfügbar, aber wir wussten nicht, wo und in welchen Druckerzeugnissen. [00:08:58]

FM: Ja.

JW: Das war für uns damals faszinierend, so etwas wie „Foggy Dew“, ein Lied über diesen…

FM: Osteraufstand.

JW: …Osteraufstand 1916 in Dublin, genau. Es war auch so ein Stück, was wir ganz am Anfang auch schon gespielt haben oder auch Auswandererlieder, wie „Good Bye, Muirsheen Durkin“ und so etwas. Dann gab es auch diese Rekrutenlieder, wie das (…) „Fusiliers“, wie hieß das?

FM: Oh, „McAlpine’s Fusiliers“, was die „Dubliners“ aufgenommen haben.

JW: Ja, das haben die „Dubliners“ auch gesungen. Das war eine ganze Reihe Zeug. (…) Es ging ja nicht sehr lang. Wir haben Anfang 76‘ angefangen, mit „Folkländer“ zu spielen und im Herbst 76‘ gab es diese Werkstatt, die wir damals in Leipzig angezettelt hatten.

FM: Die Folkwerkstatt.

JW: Da haben wir alle Leute, die wir kannten eingeladen, saßen alle um einen runden Tisch und haben gesagt: „Wir können es eigentlich nicht durchgehen lassen, dass wir hier alle sitzen und dieses irische und schottische Zeug spielen. Wir müssen eine Art Selbstverpflichtung abgeben, dass wir uns über kurz oder lang dann mit dem deutschen Volkslied befassen.“. Bei „Folkländer“ haben wir das dann eigentlich auch gemacht. Das ging dann relativ schnell und wir haben angefangen, deutsche Sachen zu spielen. Wir haben etwa ein Jahr lang ein gemischtes Programm gemacht, (…) und dann war es ab 78‘ eigentlich deutsch. Aber die Spielhaltung blieb in dieser irischen…

FM: Klangfarbe?

JW: …Attitüde. Auf dieser Platte ist das auch noch an etlichen Beispielen zu hören. (…) Dann kamen wir auf den Steinitz und als ich den das erste Mal in der Hand hatte, war es eine Offenbarung für mich. Das war eine ähnliche Offenbarung, wie das „Sands Family“-Konzert 74‘. (…) Ich habe im Antiquariat einen ersten Band gefunden. Ich habe ja zu der Zeit studiert und wir waren ja ständig unter Beschuss (lacht), weil drei Mitglieder von „Folkländer“ in einer Seminargruppe waren, die allerdings nur aus sechs Leuten bestand. Wir haben an der Hochschule hier Kunst studiert und die Seminargruppen waren klein und dazu spielten wir drei noch in einer Band. Unsere Schriftdozentin hatte mich sowieso schon auf dem Kieker, weil ich

88 das Zeichnen nicht so akribisch gemacht habe: „Ja und jetzt machen Sie auch noch Musik, das geht überhaupt gar nicht!“.

[00:11:58] FM: (Lacht)

JW: Dann wollten sie mich nach dem zweiten Studienjahr durchfallen lassen und das ganze Ding stand völlig auf der Kippe. Trotzdem saß ich dann zu Hause und habe nicht gezeichnet oder Schrift gemalt, sondern eben diesen Steinitz wie einen Krimi gelesen (lacht). Das war damals schon irre. Dann war klar, dass es die Themen der (irischen) Songs im Deutschen in abgewandelter Form auch gab. Aber das wusste man vorher nicht.

FM: Ja.

JW: Man kannte ja nur Lieder, wie „Im Schneegebirge“ oder „Wenn alle Brünnlein Fließen“. Für die Chöre hat das gereicht, für uns aber nicht. (…)

FM: Ja, das ist interessant. Wie hast du, Pfeffi, die Szene erlebt? Du hast ja aus einem anderen Blickwinkel, aus Sicht des Veranstalters, diese Szene betrachtet.

[00:12:54]

PS: Ja, ich komme aus Hoyerswerda und dort (…) war ich zunächst in einem Jugendklub, so Mitte der 70er Jahre, um 73‘, 74‘, also die Zeit, die Jürgen in Bezug auf die Anfänge der Folkszene erwähnt hat. (…) Wir hatten in Hoyerswerda diesen Singeklub, der später als „Brigade Feuerstein“ mit Gundermann bekannt geworden ist. (…) Diese Veranstaltungen habe ich mir öfters angeschaut (…) und das gefiel mir schon ganz gut. Natürlich habe ich mir auch gedacht, es muss nicht immer Rockmusik sein. So etwas gefällt mir eigentlich besser und ich habe dazu einen größeren Bezug. Diese Singeklubs haben damals noch viel politisches Zeug gespielt, wo man meistens nicht so dahinterstand. Aber das Musikalische gefiel mir schon ganz gut und außerdem haben sie manchmal schon (…) Folk oder Folkloretitel gespielt. Ich weiß auch, dass Gundermann einmal ein Lied von „Steeleye Span“ gespielt hat, welches er mit einem deutschen Text versehen hat. Das gab es damals und in anderen Singeklubs natürlich auch, nicht nur in Hoyerswerda. Ich meine, Jack Mitchell ist ja letztlich auch aus der Szene gekommen und ein paar andere auch.

FM: Ja.

PS: (…) Es gab auch „Singeklub-Plus“ in Leipzig, die haben ja auch so etwas gemacht. Manchmal waren es nur ein oder zwei Lieder oder manchmal wurde auch ein Bauernkriegslied- Programm gemacht und das war schon irgendwie spannender, als diese politischen Lieder, wie man sie zu DDR-Zeiten gekannt hat. (…) Nun kam bei mir noch hinzu, dass ein Bekannter von mir im Singeklub, Cäsar Langnickel, der inzwischen in Leipzig Journalistik studierte, mich irgendwann frage und sagte: „Kannst du die Werkstattzeitung der Singebewegung irgendwie

89 unterstützen, als Gestalter? Ich habe gehört, dass du gut zeichnen und beschriften kannst.“. Ich habe gesagt, dass es mich interessiert und habe es dann gemacht. Bei diesen Werkstätten hat man natürlich dann Leute kennengelernt. (…) Ich kann mich erinnern, dass Cäsar Langnickel einen Artikel über die Anfänge der Folkszene für die Singezeitung des FDJ Zentralrats geschrieben hat. Den habe ich mir aufmerksam durchgelesen und die „Folkländer“ kamen da auch drin vor. Er hat geschrieben, dass sie anfangs noch irische Sachen gespielt haben, aber glücklicherweise singen sie inzwischen auf Deutsch (lacht), sodass man es auch breiterem Publikum verständlich macht. Das hat mich natürlich dann auch interessiert und ich weiß gar nicht, ob ihr 77‘ bei der Singebewegung in Merseburg mit dabei wart. Da habe ich euch das erste Mal gesehen.

[00:16:07]

JW: Hm.

PS: 77‘ habe ich also in Merseburg die „Folkländer“ gesehen und habe gesagt: „Oh je, das ist es, das gefällt mir.“.

FM: Ja.

PS: 78‘ war dann das Folkfestival im Haus der jungen Talente (…)

JW: Nein, das war 79‘ hier.

PS: Aber 78‘ war auch eins im Haus der jungen Talente in Berlin. Das weiß ich noch genau, weil dann mein Studium gerade zu Ende ging. Es waren dann viele Kommilitonen von mir aus Meißen in Berlin, weil Stoffel ja dort der Leiter des Singezentrums geworden ist. Er hat die Veranstaltung in Haus der jungen Talente mitorganisiert. (…) Da habe ich zum ersten Mal nicht nur die „Folkländer“ gesehen, sondern auch eine ganze Reihe anderer Bands. Da war auch eine irische Band mit dabei (…).

JW: War das nicht eine Westberliner Band (…)?

PS: Das weiß ich nicht, aber auf jeden Fall waren Iren mit dabei und gute bulgarische und ungarische Gruppen. Da habe ich zum ersten Mal gesagt, dass das natürlich etwas ganz Feines ist. Von 78‘ an habe ich dann auch selbst Veranstaltungen organisiert. Ich habe dann 78‘ nach meinem Studium im Kreiskabinett für Kulturarbeit in Hoyerswerda angefangen und habe dann auch die ersten Folkgruppen selbst mit herangeholt und sie auch an andere Jugendklubs weitervermittelt. Ich kann mich auch erinnern, dass wir 79‘ Kulturtage der Landjugend hatten und da waren „Schotten-Schulle“ und „Klanghaufen“ (…) mit dabei. Die Leute sind total begeistert gewesen, weil sie das ja noch nie kannten. Das waren Normalbürger, die dastanden. Dann habt ihr in Leipzig auf der Buchmesse auf dem Markt gespielt. Das muss auch um 78‘ herum gewesen sein. Ich kann mich erinnern, dass ich das auch gesehen habe und eine ganze Weile dort gestanden habe und mir das ganze Konzert angehört habe. Das sind prägende

90 Erlebnisse gewesen. Am meisten haben mir natürlich die Texte gefallen, die Musik natürlich auch. Aber es war ja etwas ganz anderes gewesen. Man kannte ja die DDR-Rockmusik und wusste, welche Texte gesungen wurden. Schlager hat man sich eh nicht angehört und man kannte das, was die Singebewegung gemacht hat. Aber das war etwas ganz anderes.

FM: Ja.

PS: Wie ich vorhin in der Straßenbahn meinte, waren dort Sachen mit dabei, die in vergangenen Jahrhunderten inhaltlich angesiedelt waren, die man aber auf die DDR-Realität beziehen konnte.

FM: Ja.

PS: Wenn man zum Beispiel über den Herrscher geschimpft hat, der das Volk unterdrückt und die Leute nicht aus dem Land herauslässt (…), so kam es in den Texten nicht vor (…), aber man hat es zumindest so deuten können. Es gab auch Auswandererlieder und oppositionelle Soldatenlieder. (…) Wir waren ja alle einmal bei der Armee gewesen und das hat uns natürlich großen Spaß bereitet, wenn anti-militärische Lieder gespielt wurden, die das Militär schlechtgemacht haben. Das, was in dem Lied vorkommt ist genau wie in der NVA gewesen. Spießrutenlauf gab es bei der NVA vielleicht nicht, aber man wusste, was gemeint ist. Ich habe das später sogar einmal ausgenutzt, 84‘ ist das gewesen. Da haben sie mich zum Reservistendienst in Doberlug-Kirchhain eingezogen. Da hatten wir einen Kulturoffizier, der sehr gebildet war und gesagt hat, wenn jemand kulturell oder künstlerisch etwas kann, kann er mir das sagen und bekommt dann auch Sonderurlaub (lacht). Da habe ich gesagt, ich würde einen Vortrag über die DDR-Folkszene und über Soldatenlieder halten wollen, die darin vorkommen. Ich habe nicht gesagt, oppositionell, sondern Soldatenlieder. Er meinte: „Oh, das kenne ich ja gar nicht, aber machen Sie das und fahren Sie nach Hause.“. Dann bin ich mit den AMIGA-Platten, mit ein paar Mitschnitten und Texten gekommen und habe einen einstündigen Musikvortrag gehalten, nur mit oppositionellen Soldatenliedern. Ich dachte, das riskiere ich jetzt einfach mal. Es saßen ja auch Offiziere dort und nicht nur die Soldaten.

[00:21:27]

FM: Wie wurde das vom Publikum angenommen?

PS: Die Leute waren total begeistert und selbst die Offiziere sind zu mir gekommen und meinten, das sei ja hoch interessant gewesen: „Aber das ist ja die damalige Zeit gewesen?“. Ich meinte, ja, aber jeder wusste, was gemeint ist. Die Soldaten wussten es sowieso und selbst die Offiziere waren nicht so dumm, dass sie den Vergleich nicht verstanden haben. Aber 84‘ war das ja nun doch schon etwas vorangeschritten, sodass sie mir da keinen Strick drehen konnten. Ich dachte mir, das riskiere ich einfach mal.

FM: Ja, es war ja der Subtext, der ganz generell in der Folkszene eine ganz große Rolle gespielt hat.

91 PS: Ja.

FM: Ich denke, es war eine Sache, die auch für die Künstler sehr spannend war.

PS: Hm.

FM: Zum Beispiel, etwas Doppeldeutiges im Steinitz zu finden, was doppelbödige Texte hatte.

PS: Ja.

FM: Was würdest du sagen, Jürgen?

JW: Es gab ja (lacht) eine etwas gewagte Theorie, die wir dann aufgestellt haben. „Folkländer“ haben sich im Frühjahr 76‘ gegründet und angefangen zu spielen. Im Herbst 1976 wurde Biermann ausgebürgert. Danach gab es in der DDR-Kulturpolitik einen richtigen Cut.

PS: Ja.

JW: Es wurden haufenweise Leute kaltgestellt, die sich dafür interessiert hatten. Vieles, was im Nachgang der berühmten 10. Weltfestspiele noch möglich war, wo man merkte, die DDR blüht jetzt auf (…) und es wird alles ganz schön hier, damit war plötzlich Schluss. Es entwickelte sich nichts mehr so richtig. Die Liedermacherei war dann fast ein bisschen sprachlos. Das ging ein paar Jahre. In diesem Zeitraum, also zwischen 76‘ und 80‘, würde ich sagen, hat die damals bestehende Folkszene, so viele, also mehr als fünfzehn Bands waren es ja nicht, fröhlich gefeiert. Wir haben gesagt, es sei alles traditionell und das haben wir dort gefunden. Ich habe dann eine wahre Quellen-Akribie entwickelt (…).

PS: Ja, ja.

JW: Wir haben überlegt, wo genau das dann erschienen ist. Ob das dann so korrekt war, wusste ich auch nicht so ganz, weil wir ja an den Texten immer herumgearbeitet haben.

PS: Ja, ja.

JW: Also ich habe fast nie einen Text eins zu eins aus irgendeiner literarischen Quelle entnommen, sondern es immer modifiziert, weil man dachte, das sei einfach altes Deutsch und wenn man so etwas singt, verstehen es die Leute nicht. Es musste irgendwie griffig formuliert werden. Da war der Gedanke natürlich schon derselbe, aber es war dann trotzdem immer noch einmal umgeschrieben. Das (…) haben wir dann später bei „Duo Sonnenschirm“ auch gemacht, dass wir dann (…) nur noch die Idee übernommen haben und den Text komplett umgeschrieben haben. Ich weiß nicht, ob du das Lied „The Old Woman From Wexford“ kennst.

92 [00:25:13]

FM: Ja, das sagt mir was.

JW: Das haben wir gespielt und umgedichtet (lacht), es gibt sogar eine Geschichte dazu. (…) Das war dann, glaube ich, um 87‘. Da hieß es, wir dürfen ins westliche Ausland fahren, nach Zypern.

PS: (Lacht)

JW: Dann sagten wir uns, dass wir für Zypern etwas Besonderes machen müssten. Da haben wir ein griechisches Lied eingeübt, das war dann der folkloristische Anteil und dann dachen wir, jetzt machen wir noch etwas anderes. Dann haben wir dieses Lied, „The Old Woman From Wexford“ genommen und haben diese Geschichte nacherzählt. Mein Kollege war ja gelernter Puppenspieler. Er hatte Handpuppen, ich habe das gesungen und er hat das dann mit seinen kleinen Puppen gezeigt. Wir haben gedacht, das war irgendwie langweilig und haben beschlossen, es auf Deutsch nachzudichten. Wir sind dann also nach Zypern gefahren, wo die eigentlich Englisch reden und haben denen ein englisches Lied auf Deutsch vorgesungen (lacht).

FM: (Lacht)

JW: (…) und dann mit diesen komischen Puppen die Geschichte erklärt. (…)

JW: (…) Am Ende haben sie auch noch die Puppen geklaut, weil sie es toll fanden.

PS: Hm.

JW: Die waren dann weg.

PS: Ich kann mich aber auch noch daran erinnern, die Puppen gesehen zu haben. (…)

JW: Später gab es dann größere Puppen.

PS: Ja, das waren dann andere.

JW: Die gibt es auch noch, aber ganz am Anfang waren das kleine Fingerpuppen. (…) Was soll es sein? Es war der ganz normale kreative Umgang mit traditionellem Material.

FM: Ja.

[00:27:05]

93 JW: Also diese Quellengläubigkeit war auch nicht unser Ding. (…) Wir haben dann irgendwann eine Reihe Liederhefte herausgegeben. Es sind sieben oder acht Hefte erschienen. Irgendwann in den 80er Jahren hatte ich auch (…) die Idee, Musikwissenschaft zu studieren und einen Abschluss zu machen, weil es mich sehr fasziniert hat. Ich habe dann aber gemerkt, dass es nichts für mich ist, weil wir viel zu anarchisch an die Sache herangegangen sind (…).

PS: Ja.

FM: Pfeffi, du hattest noch einen Gedanken, der dir zwischendurch kam?

PS: Ja, er ist mir jetzt wieder entfleucht.

JW: So schnell geht das, Peffi. Es ist furchtbar.

PS: Ja, ja (lacht).

FM: Was mir dabei in den Sinn kam war, dass du im Kreiskabinett für Kulturarbeit tätig warst.

PS: Hm.

FM: Ich habe das Buch von Wolfgang Leyn zur Szene gelesen und da wird es so beschrieben, dass du sozusagen der „Mann im Apparat“ warst.

PS: Ja.

FM: Also, du hast in gewisser Weise eine Brücke gebildet. Hat das für „Folkländer“ damals eine Rolle gespielt? Was das dann so, dass ihr zu Leuten wie Pfeffi gegangen seid und gefragt habt, ob ihr noch andere Auftrittsmöglichkeiten erhaltet? (…)

JW: Nein, also die Szene in der DDR war ja viel besser vernetzt, als es heute der Fall ist.

PS: Ja, das Land war kleiner und übersichtlicher.

JW: Erst einmal das. Es gab auch nicht so viele Arabesken und die Möglichkeit, eine berufliche Laufbahn einzuschlagen.

PS: Ja.

JW: Pfeffi hat ja auch in Meißen studiert, nicht wahr?

PS: Ja (räuspert sich).

94 JW: In Meißen gab es eine sogenannte Klubleiterschule und ich würde vorsichtig sagen, dass 70 Prozent aller, die in der DDR einen Jugendklub geleitet haben, vorher ihre drei Jahre abgerissen haben und in Meißen studiert haben.

PS: Und die kannten sich alle untereinander (…). Auch nach dem Studium sind die alle noch in Kontakt geblieben. (…)

JW: Ja.

PS: (…) Wir kannten uns alle und haben uns natürlich auch untereinander Empfehlungen gegeben. Ich weiß noch, dass ich mit vielen gesprochen habe und gesagt habe, man müsse von den Folkgruppen den und den unbedingt einmal sehen, die sind wirklich saustark. (…) Es gab viele, die das dann aufgegriffen haben.

[00:30:03]

JW: Dank Pfeffi und „Brigade Feuerstein“ war die Szene in Hoyerswerda sehr agil und das strahlt sie bis heute noch aus (…). Es gab ein paar Hochburgen, das hat Wolfgang Leyn in seinem Buch erwähnt, also Erfurt, Plauen und Hoyerswerda. Das sind komischerweise Städte, die das von ihrer normalen Struktur her nicht ermöglicht hätten und wo auch nichts weiter los war. Plauen hatte keine einzige Fachhochschule, die Ingenieure ausgebildet hätte. (…) Die Folkszene hat ja hauptsächlich studentisches Publikum angesprochen…

PS: Ja.

JW: …und erst in zweiter Linie den Proll.

PS: (…) Da muss ich kurz einhaken. Der Proll hatte vor allem auch wegen der ganzen Sauflieder seinen Spaß. Das hat denen natürlich groß gefallen und die Leute waren total begeistert. (…) Denen gefielen auch andere Arten von Liedern, zum Beispiel die verkappten politischen Lieder.

JW: Ja, das stimmt schon. Trotzdem, wenn du normal von der Konzert- und Gastspieldirektion gebucht wurdest, musste es anders als „Folkländer“ sein.

PS: Ja.

JW: Als „Folkländer“ sind wir auch ziemlich oft an unsere Grenzen gestoßen (…), wenn wir uns auf diese Veranstaltungen verirrt haben, was irgendwann einmal durch unglückliche Umstände zustande kam. Das ging eigentlich nicht.

PS: Es ist ja auch eher Kleinkunst gewesen. Das kannst du eigentlich nur auf kleineren Bühnen machen und nicht in großen Sälen.

95 JW: Ja, es war viel zu intellektuell, das haben die nicht verstanden. (…) Das Ganze war schon elitär, eigentlich auch bis zuletzt, in den 80er Jahren.

FM: Ja, sehr intellektuell. Da kam mir gerade folgender Gedanke. Es gab ja die Folk Oper „Die Boten des Todes“. Wie war das? Hast du dann mitgearbeitet, Pfeffi, als es re-inszeniert wurde?

PS: (…) Jürgen kann ja etwas zum Original der Folk Oper sagen, wobei ich natürlich auch mit dabei gewesen bin. Ich habe mir das dann von hinten aus durch den Vorhang angeschaut, da war ein Schlitz. Mich haben sie ja nicht hereingelassen: „Haben Sie denn eine Berechtigung? Nein!“. Dann dachte ich, das war es dann (…). Dann kam aber jemand, der sagte: „Pfeffi, komm mal mit, ich habe hier etwas entdeckt!“. Hinter dem Vorhang war ein Schlitz, wo man auf die Bühne durchschauen konnte. Wir haben dann wirklich die ganze Generalprobe gesehen, das haben die Verantwortlichen gar nicht bemerkt (…). Ansonsten kann Jürgen ja mehr dazu sagen. Die andere Sache ist ja im Buch auch beschrieben. Es ist so, dass ich ein Jahr später den Beckert gefragt habe, ob wir das mal bei uns machen könnten. Wir als Mitglieder hatten im FMP Klub (…) ein kleines Stück aufgeführt und das hat mir einfach inhaltlich nicht gefallen. Dann dachte ich mir, dass die „Boten des Todes“ so etwas Feines sind, wenn man das auf eine kleinere Besetzung umschreiben könnte. Dann habe ich den Beckert gefragt, ob er die Texte dahatte. Er meinte: „Na klar, kann ich dir geben.“. Dann habe ich sie mir angesehen, ein bisschen gekürzt und das weggestrichen, was einfach nicht ging und dann haben wir das bei uns aufgeführt. (…) Wir haben das insgesamt drei Mal bei uns gespielt, denke ich. Es hat ja auch niemand mitbekommen, dass das Stück nicht aufgeführt werden durfte. Das haben wir natürlich niemandem erzählt.

[00:34:38]

JW: Naja, es gab ja sehr viel Grauzone, wenn man sagt, es sei verboten und es ging nicht. (…) Die sogenannten Verantwortlichen haben ja auch immer gern etwas geeiert: „Ja, das passt jetzt nicht.“, so etwas. Etwas wirklich zu verbieten war schon harter Tobak.

FM: Ja.

JW: Ich weiß noch, als wir die Folk Oper aufgeführt haben, als Teil der Werkstatt, die im Januar 1982 stattfand. (…) Drei Wochen später war das Festival des politischen Liedes in Berlin und „Folkländer“ waren eigentlich gebucht, um dort zu spielen. Ich dachte erst, wenn sie uns die Vorgruppe kappen, werden sie uns vielleicht absagen. Das passierte aber nicht. Wir sind alle nach Berlin gefahren. Am Anfang war beim FDJ Zentralrat immer ein Empfang und da kamen wir auch hin. Da kam dann Hartmut König, der für die gesamte Singebewegung zuständig war und da auch…

PS: …Stellvertretender Kulturminister…

96 JW: …war auf mich zu und meinte: „Da habt ihr ja etwas angestellt.“ (lacht). „Da gab es aber Diskussionen, ob wir euch jetzt beim Festival spielen lassen und da waren nicht alle dafür.“ Dann sagte er aber: „Ja, ich habe mich dann aber für euch eingesetzt.“.

PS: (lacht) Das bezweifle ich. (…)

JW: Ist ja auch egal. Jedenfalls (…) haben wir bei dem Konzert auch ein Stück aus der Folk Oper gespielt und haben es auch als solches angesagt. Das ist dann auch vom Rundfunk mitgeschnitten worden. Ich weiß nicht, ob sie es gesendet haben, aber den Mitschnitt gibt es und er wurde auf dem Sampler „Wenn die Bettelleute Tanzen“ aufgenommen, also „Wenn die Folkloristen Tanzen“. Das war wieder Textadaption. (…) Im selben Programm haben wir dann das berühmte Stück „Nach der Schlacht“ von Renft als Folknummer gespielt.

PS: Ja.

JW: Und das war genauso. Renft war im Prinzip verboten, weil sie alle 76‘ ausgebürgert wurden oder weg sind, also einen Ausreiseantrag gestellt haben und Renft in den offiziellen Medien nicht gespielt werden sollte. Aber ich weiß auch nicht, ob es völlig durchgezogen wurde. Es war immer so, dass es Empfehlungen gab. Es wurde da nicht gepusht und nichts erwähnt. Dadurch konnten wir auch bestimmte Songs spielen und das hat dann keine Folgen gehabt. Man muss die DDR immer als eine Gummiband-Politik betrachten. Es konnte mal ganz eng werden und irgendwann war das schon wieder vergessen.

[00:38:20] FM: Ja.

JW: (…) Als „Wacholder“ in Cottbus die „Hammer-Rehwü“ gespielt hat, wurde diese verboten. Dann sind sie zum FDJ Zentralrat oder Zentralkomitee gefahren und es wurde dann schon wieder aufgehoben.

PS: Sie sind zum Kulturministerium gegangen, weil sie dort jemanden kannten (…), der sich für sie eingesetzt hat. Es ist hochinteressant, dass die Frau vom Rat des Bezirkes, die es verboten hatte, (…) also ihnen die Spielerlaubnis entzogen hatte, (…) ihnen die Spielerlaubnis zurückgegeben hatte. (…) Außerdem gingen sie dann nach Berlin und haben sich dafür eingesetzt, dass die Frau abgesetzt wird. (…) Es ist wirklich erstaunlich, welche Sachen es manchmal gab. (…)

FM: Ja, das ist spannend, weil auch in englischsprachiger Literatur viel über den Subtext geschrieben wird, der bei Stücken wie der Folk Oper mitschwingt. In Wolfgangs Buch wurde auch erwähnt, dass du bei der (…) Zentralen Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Musikfolklore tätig warst. Was war das genau?

JW: (…) Solche Arbeitsgruppen gab es in allen möglichen Sparten der Volkskunst-Szene. Es gab ja in Leipzig das …

PS: …Zentralhaus für Kulturarbeit…

JW: …Das war der organisatorische Knotenpunkt, wo alle politisch angeleitet wurden. Man konnte ja in der DDR nicht einfach irgendetwas machen, sondern es musste kontrolliert werden. Das wollten sie zumindest. Da gab es Laientheater, Tanz, Kabarett und weiß der Geier. Als wir 76‘ in Leipzig die erste Werkstatt veranstaltet haben, (…) haben wir festgelegt, dass wir jetzt als Folkszene existieren und so etwas gab es gar nicht. Eine Folkszene kannte die DDR nicht. Die DDR kannte Volkstanz, was auf dem Festival in Rudolstadt aufgeführt wurde. Dann gab es Chöre ohne Ende, die auch Volkslieder gesungen haben. Aber so etwas, wie das, was wir gemacht haben, gab es eigentlich nicht. Es wurde gesagt, dass es im engeren Sinne eigentlich Singebewegung war. Dann haben wir aber gesagt, dass wir ja daherkommen und von dort wegwollen. (…) Wenn wir uns dort gemein machen, ist das das Ende der Folkszene. Dann haben wir ein Folklore-Initiativkomittee, abgekürzt „FINK“, gegründet und das sollte dann beim Kulturministerium unsere Rechte als Künstler vertreten. Das Problem in der DDR war, dass man nicht einfach auftreten konnte, sondern eine Einstufung, also eine Zulassung benötigte.

[00:42:35] FM: Eine „Profi-Pappe“?

JW: Ja, entweder Profi oder Amateur, es ging beides. (…) Aber da musstest du einen roten Ausweis haben. Wenn die Sparte nicht klar war, hätte man das gar nicht einstufen können. Es gab dann zwei oder drei Leute, die den Auftrag hatten, es beim Kulturministerium einzureichen. Das Kulturministerium hat gesagt, es bleibe verboten. Ein Folklore- Initiativkomitte kann nicht bestehen, weil es hier keine Bewegung von unten gibt. (…) Es muss alles von oben gemacht werden. (…) Dann haben wir uns alle in Berlin getroffen und uns alle spitzenmäßig an einem See besoffen (…). Dann haben sie aber gesagt, es solle geprüft werden und (…) von oben eine zentrale Arbeitsgruppe gegründet werden, in die Vertreter von den wichtigen Bands hineinberufen werden. (…) Es dauerte aber und das war auch wieder interessant, da die Spanne von fünf Jahren, die es dauerte, bis die Arbeitsgruppe 81‘ anfing zu arbeiten, genau die Zeit war, in der die Szene richtig agil war. Dann wurde diese Arbeitsgruppe berufen, ich wurde Stellvertreter, Dr. Bernd Eichler aus Berlin wurde Chef und dann waren noch einige aus dem Umfeld dabei. Also eigentlich bestand die Gruppe schon aus den richtigen Leuten. Aber von Anfang an merkte man, dass hier etwas völlig nach hinten losging (lacht). Die hatten immer schon alles fertig, was sie beschlossen und es war schon alles ausgedruckt.

PS: Das war also typisch DDR.

JW: (…) Dann sollte man nur noch seine Unterschrift daruntersetzen und es war unfassbar. Da haben wir uns natürlich geweigert und haben Forderungen gestellt und sogar Mitglieder dieser Gruppe (…) haben es nicht verstanden, warum wir immer dagegen angeredet haben (räuspert sich). Die Erfahrung in dieser Gruppe war der wesentliche Auslöser für die Folk Oper. Der Gedanke dieser Folk Oper ist ja, dass der Tod niederliegt und die lustige Folkloregruppe

98 ihn rettet, weil sie fröhliche Musik macht und ihn aus seiner Lethargie holt. Er will ihnen dann seine Boten schicken. Die Boten sind dann diejenigen, die irgendetwas kaputt machen, die Bullen, die Kulturstellen…

PS: …Die Kneiper…

JW: …die Kneiper, die keine Bands spielen lassen…

PS: …Schulleiter und Lehrer…

JW: (…) Insofern war das Ganze schon ziemlich gut durchdacht. Es war natürlich klar, dass es nicht richtig sozialistisch war (alle lachen).

PS: Ich kann mich noch erinnern, wie Wenzel mit einem großen Pappohr über die Bühne lief (…). Da dachte ich mir: „Um Gottes Willen, ob das durch die Zensur durchkommt?“.

JW: Ja, es ging ja dann sehr schnell. Zwei Jahre danach wurde ich entbunden und ich weiß nicht, ob sie es begründet haben. Aber es war vielleicht auch gut so, weil es nicht zu retten war. Dann haben wir ja in Leipzig ab 79’ wieder diese Werkstätten unter unserer Führung als „Folkländer“ veranstaltet. Wir hatten ja nun bereits einen guten Stand und hatten ganz erfolgreich mit den Behörden laviert. Von Mal zu Mal hat es aber mehr genervt und 84‘ oder 85‘ war dann, glaube ich, auch die letzte Werkstatt. Dann wurde gesagt, dass Schluss ist und nie wieder in Leipzig eine Werkstatt stattfindet (lacht), weil es zu viel Anarchie war. Dann wurden diese Werkstätten in die Provinz verlegt, nach Ilmenau, Neubrandenburg und weiß der Himmel wo hin.

PS: Ja, ja.

JW: Und dann fuhr auch keiner mehr hin.

PS: Ich kann mich erinnern, dass bei der letzten Werkstatt in Leipzig irgendwie die Luft raus war. Es gab einen Graben zwischen Folkies und Funktionären, den man nicht mehr kitten konnte. (…) Das habe ich so mitbekommen und mir war eigentlich klar, dass es nicht mehr funktionierte.

[00:48:15]

JW: Es gab dann alle möglichen Sachen. In Plauen haben sie das Malzhaus zugemacht. Das war für viele Mitglieder der Folkszene eine echte Adresse, weil es genau der richtige Ort war, um Folk zu spielen. Es war ein Keller, wo mit Mühe und Not 130 Leute reinpassten, aber da war schon keine Luft mehr drin. Dort ein Konzert zu spielen war immer eine Messe. (…) Es gab keine Toiletten und keine Gastronomie (…) in einem Gebäude aus dem 12. Jahrhundert (lacht). Ich habe ja den Klub in Plauen selbst gegründet, bin dann aber zum Studium weggegangen. Aber sie haben den Klub weiterbetrieben und sich immer gegen die Behörden

99 gewehrt. Irgendwann haben sie gesagt, dass der Laden zugemacht wird. Da war das Geschrei in der Szene groß. (…) Im Sommer 82‘ wurde er zugemacht, aber es gab noch einen Jahresetat, der ihm zugebilligt wurde. Dann haben wir beschlossen, in vier Wochen das gesamte Geld zu verbraten. Dann haben sie alle möglichen Leute eingeladen und Theater und Folkkonzerte veranstaltet (…) und dann war Schluss. (…) Es sind dann mehrere Lieder nach dem Parodieverfahren entstanden und wir haben dann 83‘ (lacht) einen Workshop gemacht und wollten darlegen, dass es schon immer in der Folkszene üblich war, dass Texte tradiert wurden.

FM: Ja.

JW: (…) Als Beispiel haben wir die drei Malzhauslieder genommen. Dann waren die Künstler alle da (…) und dann haben wir gespielt und ein bisschen genervt. Während der Veranstaltung ist dann schon jemand ans rote Telefon gegangen und hat im Ministerium gefragt, ob das denn alles rechtens sei.: „Wie können wir denn hier einfach solche Lieder singen, wo gibt es denn so etwas? Der Laden wurde doch schon von der Stasi geschlossen.“. Dann gab es noch ein kurzes Nachspiel in der Wochenpost (…). Gemacht haben sie gar nichts. (…) Dadurch, dass sie nichts gemacht haben, hatten sie 89‘ ein wunderbares Argument in der Hand, das ganze Haus zu übernehmen. Der Klub bestand ja eigentlich nur aus einem einzigen Keller und jetzt ist es das ganze Haus. (…)

FM: (…) Jürgen hat ja schon viel von den Folkwerkstätten erzählt. Wie war das denn bei dem Folkfest in Hoyerswerda, das du ja mitorganisiert hattest?

[00:52:48]

PS: Ja, ich wollte da erst noch anknüpfen, weil es ja sehr interessant ist. (…) Letztes Jahr habe ich einen Vortrag über die Singe- und Jugendklubszene in Hoyerswerda in den 70er und 80er Jahren gehalten. Da habe ich das Malzhaus auch mit erwähnt, aus dem einfachen Grund, dass wir zur gleichen Zeit in Hoyerswerda den sogenannten FMP Klub, „Feuersteins-Musik- Podium“ gegründet haben. Da ist komischerweise genau das Gegenteil eingetreten. Es haben alle immer damit gerechnet, dass der Klub irgendwann geschlossen wird. Wir hatten da alles, was damals Rang und Namen hatte, von Bettina Wegner über Stephan Krawczyk, also die, die eigentlich schon verboten waren (…). Natürlich war da auch die ganze Folkszene, Jens-Paul Wollenberg, der gar keine Spielerlaubnis hatte und ich die Nummer immer erfunden habe (lacht). Trotzdem hat es den Klub von 1980 bis 1988 gegeben. 88‘ haben wir ihn selbst aufgelöst, weil wir in Hoyerswerda einen größeren hatten. (…) Wir hatten da sehr viele Folkgruppen, Folk war ungefähr die Hälfte und dann gab es noch Liedermacher und Jazz. Über die ganzen acht Jahre ist nichts passiert und es ist niemand auf die Idee gekommen, den Klub zu schließen. Wir haben auch nie wegen eines Liedermachers Ärger bekommen. (…) Das hat eine Bewandtnis. In Hoyerswerda haben sie einige aus der „Brigade Feuerstein“, des Singeklubs Hoyerswerda, in die Stadtverwaltung genommen. Wie die da reingekommen sind, weiß ich nicht. Einer ist Stadtrat für Kultur geworden, ein anderer war Stadtrat für Wohnungswesen (…) und dann hatten wir einen Kultursekretär der FDJ Kreisleitung, der uns den Rücken freigehalten hat. Er ist selber mit Liedern aufgetreten, die sehr kritischen Inhaltes

100 waren. Hannes Wader und andere Sachen hat er gesungen. Der hat uns auch in der FDJ Kreisleitung immer verteidigt: „Der FMP Klub ist gut, den dürfen wir nicht schließen und müssen ihn unbedingt erhalten!“. Wir hatten sozusagen Narrenfreiheit und es wäre keiner auf die Idee gekommen, den Klub zu schließen. (…) Ich habe mich Mitte der 90er mit Bernd Nitzsche, dem damaligen Stadtrat für Kultur über die Stasi-Problematik unterhalten (…) und ich fragte, warum der Klub nie geschlossen wurde, obwohl es so viele Gründe dafür gegeben hätte. Da hat er gesagt: „Pass mal auf, ich habe mich mit jemandem unterhalten, von dem ich wusste, dass er vom MfS war und ich habe gefragt, warum der FMP Klub nie geschlossen wurde. (…) Ihr seid doch immer zu Veranstaltungen gekommen, habt euch in die letzte Reihe gesetzt, etwas mitgeschrieben und seid nach Ende wieder gegangen.“. Er meinte: „Naja, wir haben uns auf dem Weg nach Hause gefragt, was wir machen mit dem, was wir heute gehört haben, ob wir es melden oder nicht. Dann sind wir zu dem Beschluss gekommen, es nicht zu melden, weil sie ja mit dem, was sie dort gesungen haben, Recht gehabt haben. Außerdem wussten wir nicht, wo wir am nächsten Wochenende hätten hingehen sollen. Zu Hause vor dem Fernseher zu sitzen und „Ein Kessel Buntes“ schauen, das wollten wir auch wieder nicht. (…)“.

FM: Das war ja außergewöhnlich.

PS: Nach der Wende kann er natürlich so etwas sagen. Das hätte er sich zu DDR-Zeiten nie getraut. Aber ich kann mir das schon vorstellen, Menschen sind verschieden. Auch bei denen wirst du welche dabeigehabt haben, die gesagt haben: „Was soll’s! (…) Wenn wir das erzählen, machen sie den Klub zu.“.

[00:57:54]

JW: Man hat ja auch nie etwas ungestraft gemacht. Es hat ihnen überhaupt nichts genützt. Die haben das in Plauen zwar gemacht, aber dann stiegen die Ausreisezahlen. Infolge dessen sind 600 bis 700 Jugendliche ausgewandert und haben Ausreiseanträge gestellt. Die meisten sind auch bewilligt worden. Sie haben sich selbst derartig gelinkt und es hat ihrem Renommee nichts genützt. Wer findet das schon gut?

FM: Ja.

JW: Im Unterschied zu Hoyerswerda war dieser Klub von Anfang an eine Eigeninitiative.

PS: Ja, wir waren im Prinzip auch eine Eigeninitiative. Der Klub ist so entstanden, dass der Singeklub Hoyerswerda (…) bei der Stadt angefragt hat, ob sie Räumlichkeiten zum Proben zur Verfügung gestellt bekommen. (…) Es wurde gesagt, sie können es haben und es wurde ein Vertrag gemacht. Dann haben sie dort geprobt. Als ich vom Studium zurückkam, kam dann Nitzsche auf mich zu und meinte zu mir: „Weißt du Pfeffi, unsere Probenräume stehen doch am Wochenende leer. Wir würden darin gern eine Kleinkunstbühne aufbauen. Du kennst doch bestimmt ein paar Leute in Hoyerswerda, Folkgruppen und Liedermacher, die da mitmachen würden. Wie sieht es aus?“. Dann haben wir mit ehrenamtlichen Leuten dieses Ding ausgebaut und daraus eine Kleinkunstbühne mit Kellerbar gemacht. Bernd ist natürlich Stadtrat für Kultur

101 gewesen und hat logischerweise gewusst, wo dafür das Geld herkommt. Er hat natürlich in der Stadtverwaltung erzählt, es sei ungeheuer wichtig und niemand würde über die Stränge schlagen. (…) Aber im Prinzip ist das nicht von oben gekommen, das haben wir selbst entwickelt. (…) Wenn wir die Frau aus Hoyerswerda, die „Wacholder“, wie ich vorhin erwähnt habe, die Spielerlaubnis entzogen hat, Stadträtin für Kultur gewesen wäre, wäre es eine Katastrophe für uns gewesen, um Gottes Willen! Dann hätte es den Klub wahrscheinlich nie gegeben. Sie hätte alles darangesetzt, den Klub zu zerschlagen. Man muss es immer so sehen, dass es in den einzelnen Städten und Bezirken sehr unterschiedlich war. Es kam immer auf die Leute an, die an den Hebeln der Macht gesessen haben.

[01:01:10]

JW: Man könnte sagen, dass es selbst zu DDR-Zeiten so war.

PS: Jetzt ist es auch so.

JW: Es war immer interessenabhängig, wenn irgendwo etwas passierte. In der DDR würde man allgemein sagen, es war alles Diktatur und es ging gar nichts. Was nicht erlaubt war, war auf jeden Fall verboten. Es war im Prinzip auch so, aber trotzdem wurde es überall anders gehandelt.

PS: Der Kultursekretär der FDJ Kreisleitung, der auch Hannes Wader gespielt hat, wurde 1985 nach Cottbus in die FDJ Bezirksleitung geholt. Wir bekamen einen neuen. Wo der herkam, weiß ich nicht und der war das Gegenteil zu dem vorigen. Der hat von 85‘ an (…) uns nur versucht, Steine in den Weg zu legen (…): „Passt mal auf, was ihr da in dem Klub macht, das ist für irgendwelche komischen Gestalten, aber doch nicht für den Arbeiter! Der Arbeiter will Disko haben und interessiert sich für Skat und Fußball, aber doch nicht für so etwas. Wen interessiert denn das? (…)“. Der hat natürlich gar keine Macht gehabt und die Zeit war auch schon zu weit fortgeschritten. 85‘, 86‘ fing das an zu gären, da war doch Gorbatschow schon da gewesen. Er war mit seinem Latein irgendwann am Ende und hat es dann irgendwann aufgegeben und sich gesagt, dass er da nicht mehr durchkomme. Es sei ja alles schon zu weit fortgeschritten in der Szene.

FM: Es ist spannend, die Nuancen zu sehen. Es war eben nicht alles schwarz oder weiß…

PS: Ja.

FM: …, sondern es gab sehr viel Grau dazwischen, um es bildlich zu sagen.

[01:03:18]

PS: Es gab bei den Funktionären hundertprozentige Genossen, die straff in der Linie der Partei lagen und es gab auch welche, mit denen du wirklich reden konntest. Die haben gesagt,

102 sie sehen das auch so und haben bloß ihre Anordnung von oben, aber werden schon einen Kompromiss finden. Es war ein großes Spektrum an Leuten, mit denen man dort zu tun hatte.

FM: Interessant, Jürgen, was ich dich noch fragen wollte, es gab auf einer „Folkländer“- Platte ein Lied, das hieß „Ich verkauf’ mein Gut und Häuselein“. Das hat mich sehr angesprochen, weil die Textur der Begleitung mich sehr an „Planxty“ erinnert hat. Die Melodie wurde mit Waldzither begleitet.

JW: Da war auch eine Mandoline dabei.

FM: Morgen habe ich vor, mir in Berlin den Steinitz anzuschauen und wollte wissen, ob es ein bestimmtes Beispiel gibt, ein Lied, welches dir besonders im Gedächtnis geblieben ist, was ihr aus dem Steinitz genommen habt. (…) Wo habt ihr „Ich verkauf’ mein Gut und Häuselein“ her?

JW: Es ist zumindest in Varianten im Steinitz. Ich müsste mal schauen.

(Jürgen steht auf und sucht nach dem Buch im Regal)

FM: Ich frage, weil mich das vom Hören her daran erinnert hat.

JW: In Rudolstadt hatten wir mal eine Platte gemacht, wo es schwerpunktmäßig um Steinitz ging. Pfeffi, weißt du das noch?

PS: Ja, die habe ich auch zu Hause, weiß aber nicht mehr, wie die hieß. (…) Wir haben natürlich auch immer darauf geachtet, bei den alten Liedern die Quellen anzugeben. Wir haben ja auch Liederhefte herausgegeben und ich habe auch von „Wacholder“ die Liederhefte gestaltet. Wir haben immer ganz penibel darauf geachtet, wo wir das herhatten und es bis zur Seitenzahl ganz genau angegeben, damit sie uns keinen Strick drehen und sagen konnten: „Ja, das habt ihr bloß erfunden, das ist kein kulturelles Erbe und den Text habt ihr selbst geschrieben!“. Das wollten wir natürlich vermeiden, denn die DDR hat natürlich immer auf diesen Begriff „kulturelles Erbe“ gesetzt. Da konnten sich die Folkies immer schön herausreden: „Das ist ja gar nicht so gemeint, das ist kulturelles Erbe. Es spielt auf die Revolution von 1848 an und wir wollen doch keine Revolution in der DDR.“ (lacht).

[01:06:39]

FM: Ja, es ist spannend, weil mich anfangs auch dieses Spiel mit dem Erbe sehr fasziniert hat, als ich mich mit der Szene beschäftigt habe. Gerade 1848, da gab es ja Liedtexte, die im real existierenden Sozialismus irgendwie anzuwenden waren. (…)

PS: (…) Viele haben auch zwei Textversionen verwendet und wenn sie wussten, dass im Publikum niemand sitzt, der mitschreibt, haben sie auch mal die deftigere Version gespielt. (…) Beispielsweise, hat man mitunter auch Dinge hineinformuliert, um es noch drastischer

103 darzustellen. Auf Veranstaltungen, wo Funktionäre waren, hat man dann doch die Originalversion von 1872 gespielt, um sicher zu gehen, dass es keinen Ärger gibt.

FM: Aber war es wirklich so, (…) dass das Publikum diesen Subtext allgemein verstanden hat, wenn Künstler auf der Bühne standen, die so etwas gesungen haben?

PS: Ja, im Prinzip haben alle Leute verstanden, wohin sich die Sache wendet, wenn zum Beispiel über Zensur gesungen wurde. (…) Von Goethes „Heideröslein“ hat „Wacholder“ einmal eine Version gesungen: „Sah ein Fürst ein Büchlein stehen / Büchlein in dem Laden / und der Fürst verbot das Büchlein in dem Laden/ Büchlein aber nahm keine Not / denn es wurde verteilt, ging von Hand zu Handund so weiter.“

FM: Das wurde dann so verstanden, ja?

PS: Es wusste im Prinzip jeder, was damit gemeint ist. Die meisten DDR-Bürger haben das schon mitbekommen, was mit diesem alten Liedtext ausgedrückt werden sollte, obwohl dieser gar nicht für die DDR geschrieben war.

[01:09:26]

JW: (sucht im Steinitz)

FM: War das Auswandererlied „Ich verkauf’ mein Gut und Häuselein“ auch sehr beliebt?

PS: Es gab ja mehrere Auswandererlieder.

JW: Das wurde gern gespielt und das haben wir dann auch noch in den 90ern gespielt.

PS: „Wacholder“ war eine Gruppe, die auch viele Auswandererlieder gespielt hat. Daran kann ich mich gut erinnern, weil ich die Liederhefte für „Wacholder“ gestaltet habe. Da ist mir natürlich aufgefallen, dass dort mehrere solcher Lieder auftauchten. Wir haben auch immer darauf geachtet, dass die Liedzitate darin stimmten (…) und dass sie uns nichts anhaben können.

FM: Das Thema Reisefreiheit war da aktuell.

PS: Ja, das wusste ja jeder (…): „Ein stolzes Schiff fährt einsam durch die Seelen und führt uns unsere deutschen Brüder fort nach Amerika“. Es wusste jeder, dass mit Amerika nicht unbedingt Amerika gemeint war, sondern es kann ja auch die Bundesrepublik gemeint sein.

FM: Ja.

JW: (blättert) Hier ist der Steinitz und irgendwo hier muss es ja sein.

104 FM: Ah, sie sind nach Themenbereichen und Genres sortiert.

JW: Bei der Fassung, die wir interpretiert haben, habe ich auch zwei völlig verschiedene Fassungen verkuppelt.

FM: (…) Ich wollte noch etwas in Bezug auf die Zeit nach der Wende fragen. Das Spiel mit den Texten und der Subtext haben ja sehr viel Inhalt geboten. (…) Wie hat sich die Szene nach der Wende entwickelt?

PS: Es war nicht vorbei, aber die Inhalte änderten sich mehrfach. Es wurde mehr internationale Folklore gespielt, vielfach auch ohne Text oder Instrumentals, Musik anderer Länder, die man nicht verstanden hat, weil man die Sprache nicht beherrscht hat (…) oder eben Irish Folk oder andere Sachen. Das fing ja schon zu DDR-Zeiten an, mit der Volkstanzszene. Beim Volkstanz spielten Texte ja auch keine große Rolle. Da ging man in erster Linie hin, um zu tanzen.

[01:13:11]

JW: (…) Das ist es hier übrigens, also eigentlich der komplette zweite Teil des Songs. Es fängt an mit drei, vier Strophen und dann kommt ein Zwischenspiel, das wir bei Eric Burdons „San Franciscan Nights“ geklaut haben.

FM: (summt die Melodie und Jürgen steigt ein)

JW: (…) Danach, der zweite Teil, ist im Prinzip dieser Text hier.

FM: (Notiert die Quelle) (…) Ich finde es interessant, was das für Einflüsse waren.

JW: Ja, die Einflüsse waren zum Teil sehr bizarr. (…) Die Nummer kannst du dir aufschreiben, das ist die Nummer 39 im ersten Band, Seite 120 (…) und der erste Teil ist noch woanders her (…)

FM: Der Titel, der hier drinsteht, ist „Hier können wir nicht bleiben“. (…)

PS: Das ist ja für DDR-Verhältnisse schon einmal ein Titel! (lacht) (…) Ich glaube, das hätte man so in einem Liederheft gar nicht verwenden können. Dann hätte man schon, um es durchzubekommen, eine andere Titelzeile genommen. Das ist schon sehr provozierend.

JW: Beim Stichwort „Volkstanz“ wollte ich noch anmerken, dass das Ganze mit der politischen Doppelbödigkeit der Folkszene ja wirklich schlagartig aufhörte.

PS: Aber die Tendenz gab es in den 80er Jahren schon und nicht nur beim Volkstanz. Ich kann mich noch erinnern, dass dann schon Gruppen (…) kamen, die dann Irish Folk gemacht haben oder wie die „Raben“, die vorwiegend Irish Folk gespielt haben und mal ein paar wenige

105 deutschsprachige Sachen mit dabei hatten. Das sind Gruppen, die nach 85‘ entstanden sind. (…) Da kam auch die Mittelaltermusik auf (…), „Tippelklimper“ und „Shepperpipe“ und irische und schottische musikalische Einflüsse kamen dann schon mit hinein. Nach der Wende haben die kritischen Texte dann niemanden mehr interessiert.

JW: In den 70ern (…), 79‘ oder 80‘, fing das ja schon an. Da hatten wir ein Konzert mit Gerhard Schöne an der Filmhochschule Babelsberg. Da war er noch ganz jung und so richtig kannte ihn noch keiner. Er stand dann einsam mit seiner völlig verstimmten Gitarre da und er hatte sich ja selbst das Gitarrenspiel beigebracht. (…) Er hat es eigentlich bis heute beibehalten, dass er eine Gitarre spielt, die man eigentlich gar nicht spielen kann. (…) Ich habe ihm zugehört und dachte, das war putzig. Es kam jemand, der nicht sonderlich kritische Sachen gesungen hat. Aber es war interessant, weil seine Sachen eine völlig andere Temperatur hatten. Ich bilde mir ein, dass dies für mich der Punkt war, an dem ich dachte, jetzt kommt etwas Neues. Die Liedermacher wachten jetzt wieder langsam auf und durften dann auch wieder auftreten (…). Da war dann das Monopol, welches die paar Folkies gefühlt innehatten, weg.

[01:17:41]

PS: Wobei es ja eigentlich auch eher parallel ablief.

JW: Ja, danach.

PS: Man hatte in den 70ern ja ein paar Leute gehabt (…). Es gab ein paar Liedermacher, es waren nicht viele, aber…

JW: Ja, die haben uns aber eigentlich nicht interessiert. (…) Dämmler war als Live-Künster nicht ernst zu nehmen. Wir haben im großen Garten in Dresden einmal mit Dämmler zusammengespielt und da trat er dann mit zwei Mädchen auf, zwei Kirschen mit ganz kurzen Röcken und alle haben sich derartig beölt, weil es überhaupt nicht ging. Das war völlig daneben (lacht).

PS: Das ist ihm dann ja zum Verhängnis geworden.

JW: Ja und bei der Musik hat er es richtig ausgelebt und das war richtig albern. (…)

PS: Um 1980 herum kam dann eine richtige Welle an Liedermachern auf, Wenzel, zum Beispiel, Gundermann und viele andere. (…) Krawczyk kam dann auch von „Liedehrlich“ aus der Folkszene mit dazu. Da kamen dann viele die sagten „Naja, mit Gruppe ist nicht so mein Ding, ich will meine eigenen Sachen machen. Aber es sind wirklich interessante Sachen dabei gewesen.

FM: (…) Als Resümee, was ist ein Kerngedanke, der euch beim Thema Folkszene im Gedächtnis geblieben ist? Gab es eine Art Kernidee, die man als Erbe der Szene bezeichnen könnte? (…)

106

JW: Das ist schwer zu sagen. Das hat sich ja in den letzten 25 Jahren sehr verändert. Zum Beispiel, wie Pfeffi vorhin meinte, fährt Jens-Paul Wollenberg nicht mehr nach Rudolstadt, weil er meint, es wird dort kein Urfolk mehr gespielt. Ich bin ja in der Leitung des Festivals und stelle das auch fest, wenn wir jedes Jahr im Herbst die Programmauswahl treffen. Da sieht man Namen und Bands, die Bücher mit sieben Siegeln sind. Das kennt man alles überhaupt nicht. Wir werden ja mittlerweile älter und wachsen auch ein Stück weit raus. Das ist dann auch normal. (…) Ich bin dann auch wie ein alter „Dubliner“, der gerne „I’ll Tell Me Ma“ singt und man kann nur hoffen, dass das bis zum letzten Atemzug noch geht. (…) Aber man ist nicht mehr trendgebend. Das ist dann so und man muss es akzeptieren. Vor ein paar Jahren hat in Rudolstadt ein Trio aus dem Westen namens „Deitsch“ gespielt und die wurden dann als das Folk-Revival gehypt. [01:22:11]

FM: Gudrun Walter und Jürgen Treyz, richtig?

JW: Genau, Gudrun Walter. Sie hat dann irgendwo ein Interview gegeben und es wurde gefragt, wo sie die Songs herhatte (…) und sie hatte keine Ahnung, dass es in den 70er Jahren sowohl im Westen, als auch im Osten eine Folkszene gegeben hat. Es ist vielleicht auch gar nicht sinnvoll, dass es so ist. Ich meine, wir haben erst später, nachdem wir angefangen hatten, zu spielen, einen kleinen Blick in die „Wandervogel“-Liederbücher geworfen. Ich habe dann auch festgestellt, dass das eigentlich auch nicht unser Repertoire ist, weil es dann doch noch ein bisschen anders roch.

FM: Ja.

JW: Das ändert sich dann später noch einmal und man sieht es nach einigen Jahren etwas toleranter, aber damals waren wir ja ganz nah dran. (…) Für uns war damals Folklore wie revolutionärer Sprengstoff und Liedgut. „Der Hauptmann von Strasbourg“ oder so etwas hat einen gar nicht interessiert, obwohl der „Wandervogel“ eigentlich mit ähnlichen Ideen angetreten ist zu seiner Zeit, also 80 Jahre vorher. Jetzt ist es auch wieder so, eigentlich, als hätte es die Folkszene gar nicht gegeben. Die gab es und für uns war es wichtig. Nun werden wir aber auch schon grau und sterben bald. Gottlob gibt es ein paar Platten, die man sich bei Interesse noch anhört. Aber eigentlich braucht jeder dieses Erweckungserlebnis, dass er selbst dorthin kommt. Das ist das, was auch die meiste Laune macht.

PS: Ich kann hier auch noch anknüpfen. Mir fällt zum Beispiel immer mal wieder auf, dass der Chef von unserem „Black Raven Pub“ in Hoyerswerda immer mal wieder Gruppen einlädt. Vorwiegend ist es Irish Folk oder auch Blues. (…) Es sind aber auch immer mal Gruppen dabei, die alte deutschsprachige Folklieder spielen, die man noch von „Folkländer“ oder „Wacholder“ her kennt. Das Interessante, wenn ich manchmal hinhöre, ist, dass manchmal junge Leute aus dem Publikum kommen und sagen: „Mensch, wo habt ihr denn das her? Das ist ja ein geiler Titel.“. Das sind die deutschsprachigen Titel, vorwiegend die Sauflieder (lacht) oder auch die politischen Lieder: „Das sind alte Folklieder aus der DDR-Folkszene.“. Dann

107 sagen sie: „Achso? Das kannte ich gar nicht.“. Klar, woher sollen die jungen Leute das wissen? Da sieht man, dass es Leute nach wie vor gut finden. Es ist eigentlich schade. Ich würde mir wünschen, dass es irgendwann eine Gruppe gibt, (…) die damit Erfolg hat. Ich kann mir gut vorstellen, dass ein, zwei Gruppen diese Lieder mit modernem Arrangement spielen und dann damit auch Geld verdienen können. Ich meine, dass es jüngere Leute machen. Es gibt ja auch noch ein paar von den älteren Bands, die noch auf Tournee sind. (…) Es fällt mir noch auf, dass sich die Szene der Singebewegung vom Festival des politischen Liedes einmal im Jahr im Februar trifft. Die Rockmusiker treffen sich regelmäßig, aber die Folkszene nicht, bestenfalls in Rudolstadt auf der Straße (…). Das wundert mich eigentlich, denn gerade die Folkszene war mir am sympathischsten von allen in der DDR. Es gab ja die Bluesszene und die Jazzszene, Rock und alles Mögliche. Die Folkszene war mir am sympathischsten, weil ein Zusammenhalt da war. Das hat man gemerkt. Die kannten sich alle untereinander und lagen sich in den Armen, wenn man sich wiedergetroffen hat. Die ganze Szene war ein Herz und eine Seele. Das ist nach der Wende alles ein wenig auseinandergegangen. Jeder hat sein eigenes Süppchen gekocht (…).

[01:28:20]

FM: Ich kann euch aber sagen, dass von irischer Seite aus (…) das Interesse an der DDR- Folkszene enorm ist. (…)

JW: Meine Theorie wäre ja die Folgende (…). In Rudolstadt (...) ist hinter dem Markt eine Gasse, wo fast nur Bands spielen, die normalerweise nicht im Programm spielen. Da spielen auch die alten Herren der Szene und spielen altes Zeug, was auch von uns oder auch von „Wacholder“ stammt oder mit neuen Texten versehen ist. Es kommt dort spitzenmäßig gut an. Es stehen dann riesige Trauben von Leuten und es wird richtig gefeiert. Ich weiß aber nicht, ob, wenn sie dort eine „Folkländer“-Nummer spielen, eine Verbindung zum Irischen herstellen würden. Sie würden sagen: „Ah, „Folkländer“ oder „Wacholder“ haben es ihrer Zeit so gespielt und dann machen wir es so nach.“. Die erste Generation bei uns hatte ja irische Anleihen, aber ich glaube, dass würden die Leute heute gar nicht mehr bemerken, weil es sich alles stark vermischt, vor allem die Hörgewohnheiten. Damals war es ungeheuerlich, dass wir solch ein Zeug gespielt haben. (…) Bevor wir mit „Folkländer“ angefangen haben, war ich schon so entflammt, dass ich mit Platten und Plattenspieler herumgezogen bin und Vorträge über das gehalten habe, was ich über das Thema wusste. Das war eigentlich lächerlich und heute würde man sagen, es müsse wegen Unkenntnis eigentlich verboten werden. Dann habe ich alles, was ich über Musik und Geschichte zusammenkratzen konnte, den Leuten erzählt und ein paar Titel gespielt. Einmal habe ich in Bad Blankenburg im Harz einen Vortrag in einer Pädagogikfachschule gehalten. Da waren lauter Studentinnen und ich habe ihnen Songs wie „I’ll Tell Me Ma“ oder Auswandererlieder vorgespielt und dann haben sie alle dagesessen und gefragt: „Was sind denn das für Lieder?“. Man hat es damals überhaupt nicht einordnen können, wo das plötzlich herkam. Das war von der ganzen Musizierhaltung und den pentatonischen Gesängen her so, dass man sie im Deutschen gar nicht hatte. Also man hätte sie im Deutschen auch, müsste aber die Songs ganz anders behandeln. Das war damals wirklich wie ein Ohrenputzer. Das hat man natürlich heute nicht mehr. Ich merke das immer, wenn wir

108 die Bühnenbilder für das Festival machen. (…) Jahrelang habe ich es immer so gemacht, dass ich eine kleine Anlage mit dabeihatte und immer ein wenig Beschallung im Saal gemacht habe. Ich habe mitunter auch irisches und schottisches Zeug gespielt. Ich merke, dass die Reaktionen mittlerweile ganz abgestumpft sind. Die Leute haben ganz andere Interessen. Es geht jetzt in Richtung Weltmusik und Fusion. (…) [01:33:55]

PS: Mir fällt noch etwas ein. Wir hatten ja diese Kategorien, weil man nicht wusste, wo man die Folkszene eingliedern soll. Es war auch so, dass in den 80er Jahren das Fernsehen darauf einstieg. Die Gruppe „Horch“ und „Landluper“ (…) tauchten dann in irgendwelchen Unterhaltungssendungen auf und spielten alles Mögliche (…). Meine Eltern hatten diese Fernsehzeitung, „FF-Dabei“, und da waren Künstlerfotos drin von „Horch“, „Landluper“ und „Arbeiterfolk“ (…). Die wurden dann als Volksmusik bezeichnet. Ich dachte, das kann man doch nicht machen, die als Volksmusik, mit „V“, zu bezeichnen. Das geht doch nicht! Da wird ein Vergleich mit den Volksmusikleuten aufgestellt. Jemand von der Gruppe „Wacholder“ hat mir einmal gesagt, sie treten in irgendeiner Sendung auf, aber meinte, ich solle mir das lieber nicht ansehen. (…) Da hatten sie dann solche weißen Anzüge an. Oh mein Gott, wie sieht denn das aus? Dann haben sie ein unverfängliches Liebeslied und keinen politischen Text gespielt. Es wurden ja immer Sachen herausgesucht, die unbedenklich waren. (…) „Wacholder“, also Kieß und Scarlett, sagten mir dann: „Einmal und nie wieder!“. (…) Dann waren sie weg vom Fenster und wurden nicht mehr eingeladen.

JW: Für mich war noch die Gesangskultur ganz wichtig. Ich war ja der Leadsänger von „Folkländer“ und diese „Dubliners“-Masche hat mich völlig infiziert. Ich fand das richtig großartig. Die haben ja gar nicht zusammen gesungen, sondern nur gleichzeitig. Das war anders als beispielsweise bei den „Watersons“, die das mehrstimmige Singen ja richtig stilisiert haben. Bei mir ist das heute noch so, wenn ich mit meinem „Duo Sonnenschirm“-Kollegen Herrn Beckert (…), der ja überhaupt nicht vom Folk kommt, auftrete. (…) Jetzt ist es immer noch so, dass, wenn ich eine Ansage mache, es wie in den 70ern bei den „Dubliners“ so ist, dass ich aus dem Stand heraus anfange, zu singen, ohne Intro: „Jetzt ist mir so und jetzt singe ich.“. Dann spielen auch alle irgendwie mit. Da brauchte in etwa drei Takte, bis alle dort waren, wo sie sein mussten. Das mache ich heute noch gerne. Jedes Mal (lacht) sagt der Kollege Beckert: „Das geht nicht, du musst ein Zeichen geben, dass wir gleichzeitig anfangen!“. Ich sage: „Warum denn? Es ist improvisiert und spontan (…).“. Das ist also noch ein Relikt aus dieser Zeit, was ich verinnerlicht habe, weil es mich damals umgehauen hat. Bei den „Dubliners“ gab es das ja, aber die beiden „Fureys“, also Finbar und Eddie haben das auch gemacht.

[01:38:40]

(Ulrich Doberenz betritt den Raum, begrüßt alle Anwesenden und sie sprechen über einen Dokumentarfilm zum Festival in Rudolstadt)

PS: Wieso ist es eigentlich so, dass Rudolstadt immer das einzige Folkfest geblieben ist (…)? Gut, es gibt noch ein paar kleine und ich habe es ja in den 90er Jahren bei mir in

109 Hoyerswerda auch versucht. (…) Das habe ich dann „Parkfest der Weltkulturen“ genannt. Ich war dann bei der mobilen Jugendarbeit beschäftigt und glaubst du, ich habe Unterstützung von der Stadt bekommen? „Ja, machen Sie mal, Herr Ständer.“. Hoyerswerda hatte ja gerade in den 90er Jahren wegen der Randale gegen Ausländer einen schlechten Ruf. Ich habe das auch damit begründet und dann etwas Geld bekommen. Aber dann haben sie mir das Geld gestrichen, es sei für Sozialarbeit und nicht für Veranstaltungen gedacht. (…) Damit war das Ding dann gestorben und es hat sich keiner dafür engagiert, ich habe mit so vielen Leuten in der Stadt gesprochen. (…) Es interessiert die Leute nicht. Deshalb wundert es mich, dass Rudolstadt immer durchgezogen wird (...), aber die anderen nicht immer. [01:41:01]

JW: Naja, (…) die Eiferei, die wir in den 70er Jahren in der Folkszene hatten, hat sich dann auch in den Anfangsjahren von Rudolstadt fortgesetzt. (…)

PS: Ich weiß noch, dass ich bei der PROFOLK Sitzung dabei war, wo darüber beraten wurde, wie PROFOLK das unterstützt.

JW: Anfangs war es eine logische Fortsetzung dessen, was wir über die gesamten Jahre gemacht haben. (…) Es ist ja in den DDR-Jahren viel passiert und das hat sich dann in Rudolstadt fortgesetzt. In Rudolstadt gab es ja auch Folk-Besessene. (…) Es hat ja auch gleich stattgefunden und wurde nach der Wende gleich fortgesetzt. (…)

PS: Es kommt ja noch hinzu, dass in den 90er Jahren diese Mittelalterszene aufkam. Da sind auch eine ganze Reihe Folkies mit hineingewandert, zum Beispiel die „Findlinge“, die Mittelaltermärkte bespielen, „Spilwut“, Roman Steisand und „Tippelklimper“. (…)

JW: Die Mittelalterszene ist ja nochmal ein ganz anderes Kapitel.

PS: Ich treffe aber auf Mittelaltermärkten öfter irgendwelche Gesichter wieder (…).

JW: Es fahren ja auch ganz viele von denen nach Rudolstadt.

PS: Ja. (…) Vorhin waren wir noch von einem Thema abgekommen und du wolltest mich noch nach einem Folkfest fragen.

[01:44:15]

FM: (…) Wir hatten ja über die Folkwerkstätten als zentrale Organisationspunkte geredet. Wie war das denn, als du das Folkfest in Hoyerswerda organisiert hast. War es da ähnlich?

PS: Naja, es ist ja so, dass ich das am HdjT in Berlin gesehen hatte, was ein Kumpel von mir (…) organisiert hat. Dann kamen noch ein paar andere Veranstalter mit dazu (…) und ich dachte mir, dass wir so etwas in Hoyerswerda auch haben müssen. Dann kam glücklicherweise noch dazu, dass ich im Kreiskabinett für Kulturarbeit saß und es ihnen vorgeschlagen habe

110 (…). Sie meinten: „Ja, na klar. Mach doch! Du bekommst Geld dafür.”. Dann kam noch etwas von der Stadtverwaltung und ich habe es einfach mehr oder weniger alleine zusammenbekommen. (…) Später meinten die vom Schloss, dass es da nicht ginge, weil zu viele Leute da waren und später haben wir es in einem Jugendklub veranstaltet. (…) So haben wir es auf die Reihe bekommen und es klappte ganz gut. Ich kann mich noch an das erste Mal erinnern. (…) Da kam mir eine Gruppe auf der Straße entgegen und meinte, ob es hier ein Bluesfest gäbe. Ich meinte, dass es hier im Schloss ein Folkfest gibt. Da schauten sie mich an und meinten: „Wir kommen aus Karl-Marx-Stadt. Dann gehen wir eben mal zum Folk, Hauptsache, es gibt Bier dort.“ (lacht). (…) Günstigerweise hatten wir in Hoyerswerda jedes Jahr um den ersten Mai herum Kulturtage der Jugend. (…) Dann war auch immer ausreichend Geld vorhanden, sodass ich fünf, sechs Gruppen zum Folkfest einladen konnte. (…) Wir hatten sowieso finanziell eher keine Probleme. Damals, als wir den FMP Klub hatten, hat die Stadtverwaltung die Verträge bezahlt. (…) Die Einnahmen waren aber nie so hoch, dass sie die Kosten gedeckt hätten.

[01:47:50]

JW: So war es in der DDR ja auch nicht gedacht. Es war ja so, dass die Kultur durchgängig subventioniert war, nicht nur die Hochkultur, sondern alles andere auch. Dadurch bekam jeder, der Kultur gemacht hat, seinen Etat zugewiesen.

FM: Ja, das stimmt. Das hatte ich auch noch im Hinterkopf. Es war ja so, dass man, wenn man professionell Musik gemacht hat, einen bestimmten Etat zugewiesen bekam.

JW: Ja, man hatte seine Spielerlaubnis und wusste, was man verlangen durfte.

PS: Da habe ich auch ein schönes Beispiel. Im Saal des FMP Klubs (…) haben wir Volkstanz zum Mitmachen gemacht. „Folkländers Bierfiedler“ waren ja da mit dabei. Meistens haben wir dann auch noch eine andere Gruppe eingeladen, entweder Blues oder Jazz, die dann in der Pause gespielt haben. (…) Dadurch, dass „Folkländers Bierfiedler“ die Tänzer mitbrachten und diese Verwandte und Bekannte mit dabei hatten (...), war der Saal voll. Dann haben sie alle mitgemacht, es war ein schöner Abend und besser konnte man es sich nicht vorstellen. Dann haben wir die Abrechnung zur Stadtverwaltung gebracht und die sagten: „Was? 25 Besucher waren da! Dass muss ja ein Totentanz gewesen sein!“. Ich meinte, nein, es sei eine schöne Veranstaltung gewesen. (…) Da hat die Stadtverwaltung natürlich ganz schön Miese gemacht, aber was will man machen? Die haben das aber locker bezahlt und nie Probleme gehabt.

JW: Genau.

FM: Super, ich danke euch für das Interview (…) und danke, dass ihr euch die Zeit genommen habt.

Interview Ende: [01:50:28]

111 APPENDIX B: Interview with Jürgen B. Wolff and Reinhardt “Pfeffi” Ständer

English Translation

Date: 12th April 2017 Time: 12:30 Location: Loewenzahn Records, Shakespearestraße, Leipzig Format: Samsung S3 Mini, internal microphone Interviewer: Felix Morgenstern Interviewees: Jürgen B. Wolff, Reinhardt „Pfeffi“ Ständer Key: JW: Jürgen B. Wolff; PS: Reinhardt „Pfeffi“ Ständer Length: 01:50:40

It is a rainy Wednesday morning. I stand at the train station in Leipzig and nervously await the arrival of Pfeffi, who has, specifically for this interview, travelled from Hoyerswerda to Leipzig. During his time in the GDR, Pfeffi Ständer worked for the Kreiskabinett für Kulturarbeit in Hoyerswerda, a centralised institution established by the East German government to regulate the management of the arts. Here, he was responsible for organising events and through his work, Pfeffi came into contact with the folk music scene. His train arrives just after 12. He has sent me a description of his appearance and I instantly recognize him. We go to a snack bar for lunch. We take the tram and talk about my studies in Ireland. Pfeffi offers me to play a gig in his local pub in Hoyerswerda, “The Black Raven”, on my next visit to Germany. At Shakespearestraße, Jürgen welcomes us. I only know him from photographs in books. Jürgen was one of the leading personalities in the folk music scene and lead singer with the seminal group “Folkländer”. He introduces himself in a rather formal manner. Pfeffi and Jürgen briefly exchange news about their friends and acquaintances before Jürgen asks us to take a seat in his office. He offers coffee and poppyseed cake. Around us, the room is filled with CDs and posters advertising the Rudolstadt festival, a major German folk and world music festival, which is organised and promoted by Jürgen’s office. On the shelves, I notice two concertinas. Jürgen asks me about my studies in Ireland. Apparently, my story opens a space for our interview, as Jürgen shows great interest. After discussing anecdotes about Ireland, Jürgen starts talking about his time as a folk musician in the GDR:

Time: [00:00:00]

FM: Well, today is April 12th, I am sitting here with Pfeffi Ständer and Jürgen B. Wolff and today, we are talking about folk music in the GDR. First of all, (…) I thank you both for taking the time to talk to me today. (…) As my initial question, what aspects of the GDR folk music scene remain most memorable and important to you? What are your associations and what did it feel like? What was it like for you, Jürgen?

112 [00:00:40]

JW: (…) Well, personally, (pause) the most important thing at the time was the option to make acoustic music. (...) Of course, the Singebewegung (‘youth song movement’) existed in the GDR (...).

FM: Hm.

JW: It was directed and sponsored to a great degree by the state, but never matched the Zeitgeist. At the start, around 1970, I set out to study and there was a Singeklub (‘youth song club’) at our boarding school, where we sang. The Singeklub was much bigger than the audience it attracted. Afterwards, I returned to Plauen, where I was born, and thought of what I could do next. (…) Of course, we all didn’t have enough money. So, we could not just start and buy electric equipment and play rock music or something like that. It simply didn’t work financially. Then, Irish folk music came along and I saw the Sands Family at the festival of political song in February 74’. I was completely flabbergasted. I had been familiar with The Dubliners before then, but to see such a band with its relatively ordinary instrumentation of guitar, bass, violin, mandolin, whistle, and a bit of bodhrán liveThen they played and sang their political songs and that was really good…to sing in multiple voices and to play things that purely fascinated me…I cannot even retrospectively comprehend that fascination. When I started studying in the GDR, disco music became big. Before that, some live-bands simply played music in canteens and suddenly, disco music became fashionable. Then someone simply set up a mixing desk and put on a few discs or LPs. From the very start, this was something that bored me. It was absolutely sickening. Then this music, which was played by the Sands Family and The Dubliners and which was rather complex, provided a good alternative. With minimal resources and a lower degree of musical prowess, one could sing a song that even sounded good. We tuned violins in fifths and that was sufficient. I mean, if you had the finger on the ‘D’, it was sufficient. Then we put in a hell of a lot of practice, on mandolin, whistle and God knows what else. Then we already started applying it to German stuff. I was in charge of a Singeklub in Plauen. In March 74’, I went to college in Leipzig. In the space of half a year, in between hearing Sands Family in February and the following summer, we completely rearranged the Singeklub. We threw everyone out that didn’t fit in and seven or eight people remained. It was with them that we played proper acoustic music. On the final stretches, the group existed for maybe seven or eight years, including me. The band was good enough. Maybe, this wasn’t true regarding the level of technicality, but we matched up in terms of our esprit and obsession. That was a great experience. When I came to Leipzig, this influence generated Folkländer and drew in the response from people that I suddenly got to know everywhere, in Berlin, Erfurt, Halle, and so on. There were freaks everywhere, who played and tried to set something up.

[00:05:18]

FM: So, you first came into contact with the Irish soundscape through your memorable experience at the festival of political song?

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JW: Yes, there was a soundscape that was common among The Dubliners in their original line-up and the Fureys were similar, although they added uilleann pipes as well. I had a sampler, which included other bands. We copied it from there and tried to figure out, what they were doing.

FM: Yes.

JW: The beauty or the most fascinating thing to me was, that the instruments didn’t actually play in a polyphonic texture, as it was familiar from arrangements in classical music. Instead, they all referred to the principal melody line.

FM: Yes.

JW: Occasionally, they played harmonies in thirds or fifths, but the principal idea was (laughs), to copy exactly what was happening in the lead vocal line. I had never studied music and never took lessons. I have always been and still am self-taught. I have always just listened to it in a way that satisfied my own needs and sounded harmonious. The mesmerizing thing was that everyone sang the same thing. However, it was incredibly dynamic. There were a few aspects that absolutely fascinated me and with Folkländer…Are you familiar with Folkländer?

[00:07:21]

FM: Yes, I listened to a few things (…), namely “Wenn man weiß, wer fragt” or what was that one called again?

JW: Yes, “Wenn man fragt, wer hat’s getan”.

FM: Exactly (laughs).

JW: Yes, that already was the final phase of Folkländer in the 80s. We made another sampler of recordings in the early years. We put a rehearsal recording of “Wild Rover” on that. We recorded that in the first two months and I thought, it was alright. It’s not spectacular, but we captured the character of the piece quite well. From then on, it progressed quite quickly and we started focusing on the content of the Irish material. We played “Roddy McCorley”, for example. I liked that. That’s a song which tells the story of someone who is brought to the gallows to be hanged, because he stirred up a riot (clears his throat). Back then, we had the issue that we actually didn’t know the German folk song repertoire, because it wasn’t available. Well, it was available, but we didn’t know which printed collections to look for.

[00:08:58]

FM: Yes.

114 JW: That was fascinating back then, things like “Foggy Dew”, a song about the…

FM: …Easter Rising…

JW: ...Easter Rising in 1916 in Dublin, exactly. That was another piece that we played at the very beginning, and songs of emigration, like “Good Bye, Muirsheen Durkin” and things like that. Then there were recruitment songs, like the one about the “Fusiliers”, what was that called?

FM: Oh, “McAlpine’s Fusiliers”, The Dubliners recorded that.

JW: Yes, The Dubliners sang that as well. There was a whole range of things. (…) Of course, it didn’t last very long. We started playing with Folkländer early in 76’ and organised the first workshop in Leipzig in the autumn of that year.

FM: The folk music workshop.

JW: We invited everyone we knew, sat around a table and said: “We cannot let it happen, that we all sit here and play all this Irish and Scottish stuff. We now have to commit ourselves to engaging with German folk songs, be it a short-term or a long-term engagement.” We did precisely that with Folkländer. We relatively swiftly started playing German material. For one year, we decided to play a mixed repertoire and from 78’ onwards it was German. However, the style remained in this Irish…

FM: Timbre?

JW: ...Attitude. There are several examples of that on this recording. (…) Then we came across the Steinitz collection. When I first held it in my hands, it was a revelation. It was a similar revelation to the Sands Family concert in 74’. (…) I found the first edition in an antiquarian bookshop. I was in college at that time and we were constantly bombarded [laughs], because three members of Folkländer were in the same tutorial group, although that group only consisted of six people. We studied art at the university here. The tutorial groups were small. Moreover, we played in a band. Our lecturer was watching me anyway, because my drawing was never really meticulous: “And now they also play music. That is totally unacceptable!”

[00:11:58]

FM: (laughs)

JW: Then they wanted to fail me after the second year and the whole thing was completely on edge. Nevertheless, I sat at home and didn’t draw or write, but read Steinitz’ collection like a crime novel (laughs). It was already this crazy back then. Soon it was obvious that the themes discussed in Irish songs appeared in the German songs in a slightly different fashion as well. However, we hadn’t noticed that before.

115

FM: Yes.

JW: One only knew songs like “Im Schneegebirge” or “Wenn alle Brünnlein Fließen“. That was sufficient for the choirs, but not for us. (…)

FM: Yes, that’s interesting. How did you experience the scene, Pfeffi? Of course, you viewed the scene from a different perspective, as an event organiser.

[00:12:54]

PS: Yes, I come from Hoyerswerda and there I was initially involved with a youth club in the mid-70s, around 73’ and 74’. That was the time Jürgen mentioned in reference to the beginnings of the folk music scene. In Hoyerswerda we had a song club that later became known as “Brigade Feuerstein”, in association with Gundermann. I frequented those events and I developed an interest in them. Of course, I thought, it didn’t always have to be rock music. I liked this new thing and could relate to it better. Back then, the song clubs played a lot of political material that one didn’t always fully support. I liked the musical side and they actually sometimes played folk music and songs. I can recall that Gundermann once played a song by Steeleye Span to which he added German lyrics. Of course, that happened in other song clubs as well, not just in Hoyerswerda. I mean, after all, Jack Mitchell and a few others also came out of this scene.

FM: Yes.

PS: In Leipzig, we also had Singeklub Plus, they did similar things. Sometimes, they only played one or two songs, but other times, they put on a programme of songs from the Peasants’ War. That was somehow more exciting than the political songs that were performed in the GDR. (…) In my own case, a friend of mine, Cäsar Langnickel, who was a journalism student in Leipzig and who I knew from the song club, approached me one day: “Can you support the newspaper of the youth song movement’s workshops somehow? Perhaps, you know an event organiser? I have heard that you are a talented artist and writer.” I told him that I was interested and I did it. I met a lot of new people at those workshops. (…) I remember that Cäsar Langnickel once wrote an article about the naissance of the folk music scene for the youth song movement’s newspaper, which was affiliated with the FDJ (abbreviation for: Freie Deutsche Jugend/ ‘Free German Youth’). I thoroughly read that article and Folkländer actually appeared in there as well. He wrote that they started by playing Irish stuff, but now, they luckily sang in German, which made the material more widely accessible. I naturally gained more interest in that and I don’t know, if you participated in the Merseburg youth song movement in 77’. I think that’s where I saw you for the first time.

[00:16:07]

JW: Hm.

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PS: I saw Folkländer in Merseburg in 1977 and said: “Oh, that’s it. I like that.”

FM: Yes.

PS: The folk festival at Haus der jungen Talente (‘house of the young talents’, abbreviated “HdjT”, a performance space affiliated with the youth song movement) took place in 78’. (…)

JW: No, that took place here in 79’.

PS: But there was also one in 78’ at Haus der jungen Talente in Berlin. I remember that precisely, because I finished my studies at that time. Back then, a lot of fellow students from Meißen came to Berlin, because Stoffel became director of the Singezentrum (‘song performance space’). He helped organising the event at Haus der jungen Talente. (…) That was the first time I saw not only Folkländer, but also a range of other bands. An Irish band was there as well (…).

JW: Was that not a band from West Berlin?

PS: I don’t know, but I know that there were Irish and good Bulgarian and Hungarian groups there. That was the first time I recognized that that was actually a brilliant thing. From 78’ onwards, I organised events myself. In 78’, after my time in college, I started working at the Kreiskabinett für Kulturarbeit in Hoyerswerda. I invited the first folk bands and helped directing them to other youth clubs. I can also recall that we organised culture days in 79’ and invited Schotten-Schulle and Klanghaufen (…). The spectators were completely enthusiastic, because they didn’t know this stuff existed. Those were ordinary citizens. Then you also played on the market in Leipzig as part of the book fair. That must have been around 78’. I remember seeing you there and standing there for a long time to listen to the concert. Those were formative life experiences. I liked the texts most, but the music appealed to me as well. That was something completely different. We knew GDR rock music and the texts that were sung. We didn’t even bother listening to Schlager (‘folk-style music’) and we knew what the youth song movement was doing. But that was something completely different.

FM: Yes.

PS: As I explained earlier in the tram, the material included content that was originally rooted in other centuries and that could be related to the GDR reality.

FM: Yes.

PS: If one complained about rulers, for example, who oppressed the folk and left nobody out of the country, (…) that did not appear as drastically in the texts (…), one could interpret that accordingly. There were songs of emigration and oppositional soldiers’ songs. (…) We all were in the army at some point and we actually enjoyed it, when anti-military songs were

117 played and were used to critique the military. Things that occurred in the song were just like what happened in the NVA (Nationale Volksarmee, ‘National Peoples’ Army’). One mightn’t have been running the gauntlet in the NVA, but one knew what was meant by that expression. I made use of that at a later point, that was 84’, I think. Back then, they called me to the reservists’ service in Doberlug-Kirchhain. The local cultural officer was very well educated and proposed that those who were talented in the areas of culture and art could tell him and they would be granted special leave (laughs). I said, I would give a presentation on the GDR folk music scene and focus on soldiers’ songs. I didn’t mention anything about their oppositional character. He responded: “Oh, I actually don’t know anything about that, but you can do that and go home for it.” I brought AMIGA records, a few excerpts and texts with me and delivered an hour-long presentation on oppositional soldiers’ songs. I thought, I’d risk that. Of course, there were officers and soldiers sitting in the audience.

[00:21:27]

FM: How did the audience receive that?

PS: The audience was completely enthusiastic and even the officers approached me and told me how interesting it was: “But that did refer to circumstances in the past, right?” I affirmed, but everybody knew what was meant. The soldiers knew it anyway and even the officers weren’t as silly, as to not understand the comparison. However, around 84’ the whole thing had already progressed, so that they could not use it against me. I thought, I’d simply try and risk that.

FM: Of course, it was the sub-text that played a prominent role in the folk music scene more generally.

PS: Yes.

FM: I can imagine that it was exciting for the artists themselves.

PS: Hm.

FM: For example, one might find something ambiguous in Steinitz’ collection, something that had ambiguous song texts.

PS: Yeah.

FM: What would you say, Jürgen?

JW: We advanced a somewhat keen theory. Folkländer was formed in the spring of 76’ and started playing music. By autumn 76’, Biermann was expatriated. Then there was a major cut in the GDR’s cultural policy.

118 PS: Yes.

JW: A lot of people that were interested in this kind of thing were silenced. The hope for a flourishing GDR state (…) and growing opportunities that installed itself in the aftermath of the famous 10th Weltfestspiele suddenly vanished. Nothing really developed anymore. The state- critical Liedermacher almost was speechless. This went on for a couple of years. I would claim that it was in between 76’ and 80’ that the then existing folk music scene, consisting of no more than fifteen bands, celebrated. We just told them, it was traditional material and indicated, where we found it. I developed a veritable meticulousness regarding the sources (…).

PS: Yes, yes.

JW: We thought a lot about the sources. Whether it was always correct remains questionable, as we always adjusted the song texts.

PS: Yes, yes.

JW: Well, I almost never directly copied lyrics from a literary source, but always modified them, because we thought, all that was simply archaic German and if one sings it, people won’t be able to understand it. It somehow had to be formulated in a catchy manner. Of course, the main idea remained intact, but it always ended up being rewritten. We later applied that to our work as Duo Sonnenschirm. At some stage, we merely retained the idea and rewrote the whole text. I don’t know, if you are familiar with the song “The Old Woman from Wexford”.

[00:25:13]

FM: Yes, that rings a bell.

JW: We played that and reworked it (laughs). There even is a story behind that. (…) That must have been around 87’, I think. They told us, we could travel to the West, to Cyprus.

PS: (laughs)

JW: Then we figured that we had to come up with something special for our Cyprus-trip. We rehearsed a Greek song, the folkloristic part, and we also had to do something else. We took the song “The Old Woman from Wexford” and retold the story. My colleague was a professional puppeteer. I sang and he used his puppets to tell the story. We thought, that was somewhat boring and therefore, we decided to tell the story in German. So, we travelled to Cyprus, where they speak English, and sang an English-language song in German (laughs).

FM: (laughs)

119 JW: We used these weird puppets to tell the story. (…) They even robbed these puppets afterwards, because they thought it was hilarious.

PS: Hm.

JW: They were gone.

PS: I can even remember seeing the puppets. (…)

JW: Later we had bigger puppets.

PS: Yes, they were different.

JW: They still exist, but at the start they were small hand puppets. (…) What can I say? It was a normal way of dealing with traditional material.

FM: Yes.

[00:27:05]

JW: Well, strict fidelity to the sources didn’t really suit us. (…) At some stage, we brought out a series of song booklets. We published seven or eight booklets. In the 80s, I even made plans to study musicology and to get a degree, because I was so fascinated. I realised however, that I wasn’t suited for it, as we attacked the material in a manner that was too anarchic.

PS: Yes.

FM: Pfeffi, I noticed that you wanted to say something at an earlier point.

PS: Yes, but I can’t recall it.

JW: See, Pfeffi, it happens too quickly. It’s horrible.

PS: Yes, yes. (laughs)

FM: I meant to ask you about your work at the Kreiskabinett für Kulturarbeit.

PS: Hm.

FM: I read Wolfgang Leyn’s book and he describes you as their “man within the state apparatus”.

PS: Yes.

120 FM: In certain ways, you were a bridge. Did this play out for Folkländer in some way back then? Was it the case that you approached people like Pfeffi and asked for more performance opportunities? (…)

JW: No, I mean, the scene was much more interconnected than today.

PS: Right, the country was much smaller and much more neatly arranged.

JW: That is one aspect. Secondly, there weren’t as many hit songs and the possibility to launch a professional career was scarce.

PS: Yes.

JW: Pfeffi studied in Meißen, right?

PS: Yes (clears throat).

JW: There was a school for club directors (Klubleiterschule) in Meißen and I would carefully argue, that 70 per cent of youth club directors in the GDR spent three years studying in Meißen.

PS: They all knew each other (…) and stayed in contact after studying there. (…)

FM: Yes.

PS: (…) We all knew each other and gave each other recommendations. I can vividly recall that I spoke to a lot of people and suggested seeing numerous folk music bands, because they were brilliant. (…) There were many, who took my advice.

[00:30:03]

JW: Thanks to Pfeffi and Brigade Feuerstein, the scene in Hoyerswerda became extraordinarily active and that is still projected today (…). There were a few strongholds, as Wolfgang Leyn has mentioned in his book. Specifically, those were Erfurt, Plauen, and Hoyerswerda. Interestingly, those are towns that did not normally provide the necessary infrastructure to nourish the scene and nothing else happened there. Plauen didn’t even have a university of applied sciences that would have educated engineers. (…) The folk music scene primarily attracted a student audience…

PS: Yeah.

JW: …It was only secondarily attractive to the less educated masses.

121 PS: I have to come in here. Those people primarily had fun, because of the drinking songs. They responded to that and people were ecstatic. (…) They also responded well to the more problematic political songs.

JW: That’s correct. However, if you were booked by the centralised agency (Konzert- und Gastspieldirektion), you had to do something else than Folkländer.

PS: Yes.

JW: We often reached our limits with Folkländer (…), whenever we came, through unfortunate circumstances, to frequent these gatherings. That was simply not possible.

PS: Actually, it was closer to cabaret. You could only organise that on smaller stages and not in bigger halls.

JW: Yes, it was too intellectual, they didn’t understand it. (…) The whole thing almost had elite-character and we retained that until the 80s.

FM: Yes, highly intellectual. I just thought of something. I read about the folk opera “Die Boten des Todes”. How was that? Did you help out, Pfeffi, when it was restaged?

PS: (…) Jürgen can tell you something about the original version of the folk opera, whereas I was also there. I watched it from behind, through a curtain, which had a slash. They didn’t let me in: “Do you have a permit? No!” I thought it was over (…). Then, someone came and said: “Pfeffi, come with me, I just discovered something!” The curtain had a slit and you could watch what was happening on stage. We watched the entire dress rehearsal, those in charge never noticed (…). Jürgen can tell you more about that. The book describes the whole thing as well. One year later, I asked Beckert, if we could stage the opera in Hoyerswerda. The members of the FMP club had staged a short piece, but I didn’t like the content. I thought, “Die Boten des Todes” was a brilliant piece and we could rework it for a smaller ensemble. I asked Beckert for the script. He responded: “Of course, here you go.” I had a look at the script, shortened it, edited those passages that were too critical and we performed it. (…) In total, we staged it three times, I think. Nobody noticed that the piece was in fact forbidden. Of course, we didn’t tell anyone.

[00:34:38]

JW: Well, there were many grey areas of censorship. (…) Those in charge were never fully certain: “No, you can’t do that now.”, things like that. Completely censoring something was tough.

FM: Yes.

122 JW: I still remember when we performed the folk opera, as part of a workshop in January 1982. (…) Three weeks later, Folkänder were asked to play at the festival of political song in Berlin. At first, I thought, if they cut our support act, they would cancel the entire gig, but that never happened. We all drove to Berlin. Usually, the FDJ central council would host a reception. We attended. Then, Hartmut König, who directed the youth song movement, was there as well. He was…

PS: …deputy secretary of culture…

JW: …He approached me and told me: “Well, that was stupid.” (laughs) “We had to discuss, whether to allow you to perform at the festival and not everybody agreed.” Then he added: “Well, I put in a good word for you.”

PS: (laughs) I doubt that. (…)

JW: Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Nevertheless (…), we also played a piece from the folk opera at the concert and never announced it as such. Even the radio recorded the performance. I am not sure, whether it was actually broadcast, but the recording exists. That was recorded on a sampler as “Wenn die Bettelleute tanzen” (“When Beggars Dance”), or more aptly, “Wenn die Folkloristen tanzen” (“When Folk Musicians Dance”). Again, we adapted the text. (…) We played the famous piece „Nach der Schlacht“ (“After The Battle”) by Renft as part of the programme and adapted it in a folk music style.

PS: Yes.

JW: It was like that. Renft was practically forbidden, because they were all expatriated in 76’ or emigrated, this means that they put in an application for an exit visa. Renft was not to be played by official media. However, I don’t know, whether they actually enforced that. There were always recommendations. There was no pushing and nobody talked about it. That’s why we could play certain songs and that didn’t have any impact on us. You have to conceptualise the GDR and its policy as akin to an elastic band. Sometimes, we could be very restricted, but after that, it was all forgotten.

[00:38:20]

FM: Yes.

JW: When Wacholder played their “Hammer Rehwü” in Cottbus, they banned it. Then they went to the FDJ central council and it was all forgotten.

PS: They went to the ministry of culture, because they knew someone there (…), who put in a good word for them. It is highly interesting, that a lady employed by the district council, who banned it, also confiscated their artist permits. Afterwards, she handed them back their

123 permits. (…) Furthermore, they went to Berlin and got her fired. (…) It’s amazing what was sometimes possible.

FM: That’s interesting, because English literature on the subject focuses a lot on the sub- text that was inherent in pieces like the folk opera. Wolfgang mentioned in his book that you worked for the central committee for musical folklore. What was that exactly?

JW: Committees like that existed in several areas of folklore. In Leipzig, there was a…

PS: …Zentralhaus für Kulturarbeit (‘centre for cultural occupation’)

JW: …That was the organised hub, where everybody was politically organised. You could not simply do something in the GDR, it had to be regulated and controlled. They wanted that. There was amateur theatre, dance, cabaret, and God knows what else. When we organised the first folk music workshop in Leipzig in 76’, (…) we noticed that we were then constellated as a folk music scene. A folk scene was unprecedented in the GDR. The GDR only witnessed folk dance, as was performed at the festival in Rudolstadt. They claimed that it was in fact part of the youth song movement, but we responded that we emerged out of that and wanted to get away from it. (…) If we submit ourselves to the imperatives of the collective, it would be the end of the folk music scene. Then we took the initiative and founded our own folklore committee, abbreviated FINK (Folklore- Initiativkomittee) to defend our rights as artists in front of the ministry of culture. Performing proved problematic in the GDR, because one needed to be classified as an artist at first and then be granted a permit.

[00:42:35]

FM: A Profi-Pappe (‘professional permit’)?

JW: The permit was available on both professional and amateur levels. (…) However, you needed a red pass. If they didn’t know the genre, you could not be classified. One or two people were responsible for forwarding the information to the ministry. The ministry of culture banned the folklore committee. They argued, that such a committee could not exist, as it equipped us with bottom-up agency. They hat to regulate everything from the top. (…) Afterwards, we all met up at a lake in Berlin and drank a lot (…). They then offered us to install a centralised committee from above, which included members of all the important bands. That took time and that was interesting as well. During the five years that it took for the committee to be finally installed in 81’, the folk music scene was most active. Then, they summoned the committee. I was co-chair, Dr. Bernd Eichler from Berlin became chair, and a few others were summoned as well. Actually, the group already consisted of the right people, but from the very beginning, we noticed that something went wrong (laughs). They had all the documents detailing the decisions already printed and ready to be signed.

PS: That was typical for GDR circumstances.

124 JW: (…) We only had to sign that, it was unbelievable. Of course, we refused and set conditions ourselves. Even certain members of the committee (…) didn’t understand, why we kept resisting (clears his throat). The experiences we gained as part of this group were incentives for organising the folk opera. The primary idea is that the grim reaper is defeated and lies in a ditch. The merry folk band rescues him from his misery. He expresses his gratitude by offering the musicians to send his messengers. Contrary to the original tale, the messengers are portrayed as those, who destroy everything, the police, the cultural administration…

PS: …the bar owners…

JW: …the bar owners, who never let anyone play…

PS: …principals and teachers…

JW: (…) As far as that, the whole thing was well thought through. It was obvious that it didn’t have many socialist attributes (everybody laughs).

PS: I can remember Wenzel running across the stage with a huge ear made of cardboard (…). Then I thought: “Oh my God, how is this going to pass through censorship?”

JW: Then everything happened quite quickly. Two years after that, I was relieved of my duties and I don’t know, whether they explained any reasons for that. Perhaps, it was for the better, because it wasn’t going to be saved anyway. Then we repeatedly organised those workshops as Folkländer. We already had a reasonably good reputation and successfully manoeuvred past the authorities. Each time, it was more annoying and around 84’ or 85’, we held the last workshop. They told us, it was over and a folk workshop was never to be held again in Leipzig. It was too anarchic. Then they transferred those workshops to the rural provinces, to Ilmenau, Neubrandenburg, and God knows where else.

PS: Yes, yes.

JW: And then, nobody came anymore.

PS: I can recall that the last workshop was somehow exhausted. There was a rift between folk musicians and the authorities that nobody could fix. (…) I noticed that and it was clear to me, that it wasn’t going to work any longer.

[00:48:15]

JW: There were all sorts of things. They closed the Malzhaus club in Plauen. That was a prime venue for many members of the folk music scene, because it was aptly suited for folk music gigs. Roughly 130 people fitted into the cellar venue and then, one could hardly breathe. To play a concert there was a revelation. (…) There were no bathrooms and catering facilities (…) in a building dating back to the 12th century (laughs). I founded the club in Plauen myself,

125 but left when I went to college. However, they maintained the club and resisted the authorities. Eventually, they decided to close the venue. Protest was widespread. (…) In the summer of 82’, they closed it, but retained a budget. We decided to spend all the money in the last four weeks and invited all sorts of people to host theatre performances and folk music concerts (…). Then it was over. (…) In the aftermath, a lot of satirical songs emerged and we (laughs) held a workshop to show, that it was customary among folk musicians to transmit material in a traditional manner.

FM: Yes.

JW: (…) We resorted to the three Malzhaus-songs as the examples. All artists were there (…) and then we played and got on the authorities’ nerves. During the event, somebody went over to the red telephone and called the Stasi ministry to inquire, whether everything evolved to plan: “We cannot simply sing those songs, how is that possible? I thought, the Stasi had already closed the venue.” Consequently, somebody wrote an article in the Wochenpost newspaper (…). They never did anything. (…) Since they didn’t react, they could, after 89’, argue, that they would take over the house completely. Originally, the club only consisted of the cellar. Now they use the entire house. (…)

FM: Jürgen already talked a lot about the folk music workshops. What was it like at the folk fest in Hoyerswerda, which you helped organising?

[00:52:48]

PS: Yes, but I wanted to re-iterate something, because it is highly interesting. (…) Last year, I gave a talk about the youth song- and club-scene in Hoyerswerda. I also mentioned the Malzhaus, precisely because at that time, we had already founded the so-called FMP club, Feuerstein’s Musik-Podium. Interestingly, we experienced the exact opposite. Everybody counted on the fact that the club was going to be closed eventually. Back then, we invited big names, such as Bettina Wegner and Stephan Krawczyk, who were all already banned at that point (…). Of course, members of the folk music scene were also there, Jens-Paul Wollenberg, for example, who didn’t have a permit and whose registration code I always made up (laughs). Nevertheless, the club existed from 1980 to 88’. We closed it ourselves in 88’, because we already had a bigger one in Hoyerswerda. (…) We invited many folk music bands, about half of the people, and we had jazz and Liedermacher there as well. Over the entire eight years, nothing happened and nobody decided to close the club. Surprisingly, no Liedermacher was the cause of any complications. (…) There was a reason for it. Some members of Brigade Feuerstein, the Hoyerswerda youth song club, were members of the city’s administration board. I don’t know, how they managed to get in there. One guy worked as city council for cultural affairs, another one was responsible for housing. Then we also knew a cultural council in the FDJ regional administration, who supported us. Even he performed songs with critical content. He sang songs by Hannes Wader and things like that. He defended us in front of the FDJ regional council: “The FMP club is brilliant and we have to maintain it at all costs!” We enjoyed the privilege of fools, so to speak and nobody thought of closing the club. (…) In the

126 mid-90s, I spoke to Bernd Nitzsche, the former city council for cultural affairs, about the Stasi- issue (…) and I asked him, why the club was never closed, although they had so many reasons at hand. He told me: “Listen, I once spoke to somebody. He was involved with the Stasi ministry and I asked him, why the club was never closed. (…) I mean, you regularly came to events, sat in the back, wrote some things down, and left again.” He responded: “Well, on the way home, we always asked ourselves what we would do with the information that we had just gathered. Do we report it or not? We decided not to tell anyone, because they sang about the right things. We also didn’t know what else to do at the weekends. We didn’t want to sit at home and watch the popular show Ein Kessel Buntes on television.” (…)

FM: Well, that was unusual.

PS: Of course, he could say something like that after the Wall had come down. He would never have dared to say things like that in GDR times. However, I can imagine that all people are different. Even among them, you could have a few that said: “What about it? (…) If we tell stories, they will shut the club down.”

[00:57:54]

JW: You never got away with anything, but it wasn’t productive at all for them. Although they did that in Plauen, more and more people left the country. Consequently, 600 to 700 young people emigrated and applied for exit visas. Most of them were granted. They shot themselves in the legs, because it didn’t add to their reputation. Who even supported that?

FM: Yes.

JW: In contrast to Hoyerswerda, the club entirely came to fruition through our own initiative.

PS: We also founded the club through our own initiative. The club developed, when members of the youth song club Hoyerswerda (…) put in a request for practice rooms with the city council. (…) They granted the facilities and proposed a contract. Then, they rehearsed there. When I came back from college, Nitzsche approached me and told me: “You know, Pfeffi, the practice rooms are empty at the weekends. We would like to build up a stage for smaller-scale arts events. You probably even know people in Hoyerswerda, folk music bands and Liedermacher, who would participate, right? What do you think?” With the help of volunteers, we built a stage and a cellar bar. Of course, Bernd was city council for cultural affairs and knew where to get the money for that. He told the council, how important the whole thing was and promised that nobody would get carried away. (…) In fact, there was no order from above, we did it ourselves. (…) If the lady from Cottbus that took away the permits from members of Wacholder, as I mentioned earlier, was city council for cultural affairs, it would have been a disaster, truly! Possibly, the club would have never existed. She would have tried everything to ban the club. You have to remember that it was different, depending on the council and the region. It always depended on the people that were in charge.

127

[01:01:10]

JW: You could say that it was like that in GDR times.

PS: It’s still like that.

JW: It always depended on peoples’ interests. In general, one could classify the GDR as a dictatorship where nothing was possible. If something was not allowed, it was definitely forbidden. Indeed, that’s how it was, but it was handled differently depending on the context.

PS: The cultural secretary of the FDJ district committee, who also played Hannes Wader, was summoned to another committee. We were given a new secretary. I don’t know where he came from, but he was the opposite of the former secretary. From 85’ onwards (…) his sole mission was to make things difficult for us (…): “Listen, the things you organise in this club may appeal to some people, but not to the working man! The working man wants to go to the disco and is interested in card games and soccer, but not in this stuff. Who would possibly be interested in that?” (…) However, he didn’t have much power and things already progressed much more quickly at that stage. The whole thing started around 85’ or 86’, at that point, Gorbachev had already been to the GDR. Nevertheless, he had to give up at some stage and had to realise that there was no point in pursuing us. The scene had already progressed too much.

FM: It is intriguing to witness some of the nuances. It wasn’t all black or white…

PS: Yes.

FM: …but there were many shades of grey in between, to use figurative speech.

[01:03:18]

PS: Among the functionaries, there were a few die-heart comrades, who were absolutely in line with the party, while there were more approachable ones as well. They would tell you that they shared your point of view and were merely accepting orders from above. They always tried to mediate a compromise. One was dealing with a wide spectrum of personalities.

FM: Interesting. Jürgen, I meant to ask you about a song that you recorded with Folkländer. It’s called “Ich verkauf’ mein Gut und Häuselein”. I was drawn to that, because the accompaniment texture reminded me of Planxty. The melody was accompanied on Waldzither.

JW: There was a mandolin as well.

128 FM: I’m planning to look at Steinitz’ collection tomorrow and would like to know, if there are prominent examples that you have specifically extracted from there. (…) Where did you find “Ich verkauf’ mein Gut und Häuselein”?

JW: There are at least variants of that in Steinitz’ collection. I’d have to look that up.

(Jürgen gets up and looks for Steinitz’ collection in his shelves)

FM: I ask, because my listening experience reminded me of that sound.

JW: We brought out a record in Rudolstadt that specifically focused on Steinitz. Do you know what I’m talking about, Pfeffi?

PS: Yes, I have that at home, but I can’t recall the name of it. (…) We obviously ensured to permanently indicate the old song text sources. We also brought out song books and I designed those published by Wacholder. In fact, we meticulously noted the sources, even page numbers, so that authorities could not come after us: “You merely invented this and this is no cultural heritage. You wrote the lyrics yourselves!” We wanted to avoid that and were fortunate that the GDR promoted the notion of its cultural Erbe (‘heritage’). This allowed folk musicians to escape censorship: “We don’t mean it like that, that’s part of our cultural Erbe and refers to the 1848 Revolution. Of course, we don’t want to provoke a revolution in the GDR.” (Laughs)

[01:06:39]

FM: Yes, that’s exciting, I was specifically fascinated by the ways the Erbe was played with when I first read about the scene. Especially in terms of the 1848 Revolution, there are song text that could be applied to socialism’s real, existing circumstances.

PS: Many used versions of song texts. If they knew that there was nobody in the audience, who took notes, they even played the heftier version. (…) For example, one might choose to dramatize aspects by adding content. However, one played the original version from 1872, if it was clear, that there were functionaries sitting in the audience. This way, one could stay out of trouble.

FM: Was it really the case that (...) the audience generally understood the sub-text, if artists stood on stage and sang that?

PS: Yes, generally, people understood what the text referred to, for example, if censorship was addressed. (...) Wacholder once sang a version of Goethe’s “Heideröslein”: „Sah ein Fürst ein Büchlein stehn‘/ Büchlein in dem Laden / und der Fürst verbot das Büchlein in dem Laden / Büchlein aber nahm kein’ Not / denn es wurde verteilt, ging von Hand zu Hand, and so on.“ (laughs).

FM: And the audience understood this, yes?

129

PS: Everybody knew what was meant by that reference. Most GDR citizens understood what this old song text referred to, although it wasn’t written in the GDR.

[01:09:26]

JW: (reads through Steinitz’ collection)

FM: Was the emigration song “Ich verkauf’ mein Gut und Häuselein” popular?

PS: Of course, there were several emigration songs.

JW: We liked playing that and it continued to be played in the 90s.

PS: Wacholder played a lot of emigration songs. I remember that, because I designed Wacholder’s song books. Of course, I noticed that a lot of songs like that one appeared. We always ensured that the citations were correct (…) and that they do not lend themselves to censorship.

FM: Demands for increased freedom of travel were then current.

PS: Yes, everyone knew this (…): “A proud ship passes through the lonely waves and carries our German brothers forth to America”. Everyone knew that America didn’t actually refer to America. Instead, it could have been the Federal Republic of Germany.

FM: Yes.

JW: This is Steinitz’ collection and that song has to be in here somewhere.

FM: Ah, the songs are categorised according to themes and genres.

JW: The version of the song that we interpreted combined two different versions.

FM: I wanted to come back to the progress of the scene after German reunification. The creative reinterpretation of texts and the sub-texts apparently supplied a great deal of content. (…) How did the scene develop after reunification?

PS: Well, it wasn’t over, but frequently, the content changed. People increasingly played international folk music, even without text and just as instrumental pieces. They played music from different parts of the world and sang in languages that one could hardly understand (…). They also played Irish folk music and things like that. That even started in the GDR with the folk dance scene. Texts weren’t important for folk dancing. The dancing was the primary focus.

[01:13:11]

130

JW: By the way, that’s it here, the full second part of the song. At the start, there are three or four verses and then we added an interlude, which we copied from Eric Burdon’s “San Franciscan Nights”.

FM: (hums the melody and Jürgen follows)

JW: The second part consists of this song text here.

FM: (notes the source) (…) It’s interesting to hear the different influences.

JW: Yes, they were quite strange, actually. (…) You can notate the number as well, it’s number 39 in the first edition, page 120 (…). We took the first part from somewhere else (…).

FM: The title is “Hier können wir nicht bleiben” (“We Cannot Stay Here”). (…)

PS: That title is appropriate for GDR circumstances! (Laughs) I doubt that one could have used something like that for a song book. First of all, one would have picked a different title. That’s very provocative.

JW: In relation to folk dance, I wanted to add that the political ambiguity of song texts rapidly ceased to have an effect on the listener.

PS: However, back then, this tendency didn’t just apply to the folk dance context. I can remember that some groups (…), like the Raben played Irish folk music and merely sang a few German-language songs. Those groups were formed after 85’. (…) Medieval music emerged at that time as well among groups like (…) Tippelklimper and Shepperpipe, who resorted to Irish and Scottish musical influences. After reunification, critical song texts weren’t really in vogue anymore.

JW: That even started in the 70s (…), around 79’ and 80’. We played a concert with Gerhart Schöne at the film academy in Babelsberg. He was very young at that time and nobody really knew him. He stood there lonely with his out-of-tune guitar. He was a self-taught guitarist and to this day he has retained the habit of playing an unplayable guitar. (…) I listened to him and thought, that was cute, kind of. He never sang specifically critical songs. It was interesting, because his songs conveyed a completely different mood. That was the point at which I through that we had reached a new period. The critical Liedermacher awakened and were allowed to perform again (…). The creative monopoly, which folk musicians had at the time, was suddenly exhausted.

[01:17:41]

PS: However, let’s bear in mind that this was a parallel development.

131 JW: Well, after that.

PS: There were a few musicians in the 70s (…). There were a few Liedermacher, not many, but…

JW: Of course, but we didn’t have much interest in them. For example, you couldn’t have taken Dämmler seriously as a live-artist. We once played with Dämmler at the great garden in Dresden. He performed with two young girls with short skirts. Everybody thought, it was hilarious, because you simply couldn’t do that. That was completely out of order (laughs).

PS: That was his downfall.

JW: Yes, and he used music as a channel for this kind of expression and that was really immature. (…)

PS: Around 1980, a veritable wave of Liedermacher emerged, Wenzel, for example, Gundermann, and many others. (…) Krawczyk, a folk musician, joined this movement with his group Liedehrlich. Then, a couple of people concluded that they would rather launch a solo- career. They were interesting things, nonetheless.

FM: (…) What would you summarise as a core achievement of the folk scene? Is there a sort of core idea that one might characterise as the legacy of the scene?

JW: That is a hard question. It fundamentally changed in the course of the last 25 years. For example, Jens–Paul Wollenberg continues to refuse to come to Rudolstadt. He thinks, the festival doesn’t offer any Urfolk anymore. I am co-directing the festival and notice that, whenever we put the festival programme together each autumn. There are names and bands that are like a book with seven seals. Nobody recognizes them. I mean, we certainly get older and maybe outgrow the whole thing. That’s normal. (…) I am like one of The Dubliners, who likes singing “I’ll Tell Me Ma” and I can only be hopeful to retain that ability until the very end. (…) However, we do not set trends anymore and we have to accept that. A few years ago, a folk-duet from West Germany, called Deitsch, performed at the festival and they were championed as exponents of the folk music revival.

[01:22:11]

FM: Gudrun Walter and Jürgen Treyz, right?

JW: Exactly, Gudrun Walter. She gave an interview somewhere and was asked where she got the songs from. She told the interviewer (…) that she didn’t know that a folk scene existed both in the West and the East in the 70s. Maybe, it doesn’t even make sense. I mean, I only glanced over the Wandervogel song books much later. However, I noticed that the repertoire didn’t suit us, because it ‘smelled’ differently.

132 FM: Yes.

JW: That changed as the years went on and one judges that with more tolerance, but back then, we were extremely close to what was happening. (...) To us, folklore represented revolutionary gun powder and a treasury of songs. We weren’t interested in songs like “Der Hauptmann von Strasbourg”, although the Wandervogel movement had forwarded similar ideas 80 years previously. People act as if the folk music scene never existed in the first place. It did exist and it was important to us. We go grey and will die soon. Thank God for the few records that were made, so that people can listen to it. However, you really need the revelation of discovering all that yourself. That’s the most exciting part.

PS: I can add something here. I have noticed that the owner of our “Black Raven Pub” in Hoyerswerda occasionally invites Irish folk or blues bands. (…) Some bands even sing old German folk songs, familiar from Folkländer or Wacholder. Interestingly, I am sometimes approached by audience members at concerts. They remark: “Brilliant, where did you get this title from? That’s catchy.” Those are German songs, primarily drinking songs (laughs), but sometimes political songs as well: “Those are songs associated with the GDR folk music scene.” Then they reply: “Ah, really? I didn’t know they existed.” Sure, where would young people learn about something like that? It is apparent that people continue to respond to this material positively. It’s a pity, really. I would love to hear a band (…) that successfully performs this stuff. I could imagine one or two bands who would play those songs in a modern arrangement and make a living as professionals. I mean, younger people. Of course, a few of the older bands are still on tour (…). Furthermore, I notice that the youth song movement scene continues to organise gatherings in February each year. Rock musicians regularly meet up, too. Merely the folk musicians don’t meet up regularly, maybe only in Rudolstadt, on the street (…). I am surprised, because it was especially the folk music scene that conveyed the most sympathetic character in GDR times. There was a jazz scene, a rock scene and many other things. The folk scene was positively different, because of its cohesion. One could notice that. They all knew each other and exchanged big hugs when they met up. The entire scene was a heart and soul. This gradually drifted apart after the Wall came down. Everybody did their own thing (…).

[01:28:20]

FM: I can assure you that the (…) Irish interest in the GDR folk scene is avid. (…)

JW: I propose to advance the following theory (…). In Rudolstadt (…), there is a lane behind the market where bands perform that don’t participate in the official programme. There one can find the old exponents of the scene and they play the old pieces, derived from Wacholder and adapted with new song texts. The response is overwhelming, with large gatherings of people who celebrate. I don’t know, if they would associate a Folkländer piece with an Irish soundscape. They would say: “Ah, Folkländer or Wacholder played that in this style and we decide to copy that.” The first generation of folk musicians was drawn to the Irish style, but I doubt that people would notice that influence nowadays, as the listening habits have become

133 more mixed. Back then, it was unheard of to play that kind of stuff. (…) Prior to starting out with Folkländer, I was deeply fascinated and travelled around with a few records and a record player and delivered presentations on this topic. Back then it was ridiculous and it actually would have had to be banned for lack of knowledge. I told the audience everything that I could gather on music and history and played a few tracks. Once, I went to Bad Blankenburg in the Harz region and delivered a presentation at a technical school in front of a lot of young students. I played songs like “I’ll Tell Me Ma” and a few emigration songs, but they all sat there and asked: “What are those songs?” They could not categorise this material. The musical attitude and pentatonic vocal arrangements were practically non-existent in Germany. Well, they did exist in the German case, but one had to handle them completely different. Back then, that was like cleaning your ears. Nowadays, that doesn’t exist anymore. I notice that when we arrange the stage set for the festival. (…) For years, I brought a small PA system to fill the hall with sound. I occasionally played Irish and Scottish material as well. I notice that the reactions are increasingly indifferent. People have different interests. They are drawn for world- and fusion music. (…)

[01:33:55]

PS: There is something else. It was challenging to categorise the folk music scene. In the 80s, television then came into play. The bands Horch and Landluper (…) appeared on some talk shows and played all sorts of things (…). My parents had a TV guide called “FF-Dabei”, which included photos of Horch, Landluper, and Arbeiterfolk (…). They classified them as Volksmusik. I thought, one cannot do that, to classify them as Volksmusik, with “V”. That was impossible! They compared them to Volksmusik exponents. One member of Landluper told me that they were performing as part of one of those talk shows, but he warned me, not to tune in. (…) They wore white suits. Oh my God, what does that look like? Then they sang a harmless love song without any political message. One always selected harmless material. (…) Wacholder, I mean Kieß and Scarlett, told me: “That’s it, once and for all!” (…) Then they disappeared and weren’t invited again.

JW: Personally, the singing style was also important. I was lead singer with Folkländer and this Dubliners’ singing style completely infected me. I thought, it was great. They didn’t even sing in unison, just simultaneously. That was even different to the likes of the Watersons, who stylised singing in multiple voices. Even today, when I perform with my Duo Sonnenschirm colleague Mr. Beckert. (…) I still model my announcements on the 70s Dubliners’ style of spontaneously starting to sing, without any introduction: “Now I feel like it and I start to sing.” Then everybody somehow joins in. I need roughly three bars to get everybody in sync with each other. I still like doing that. Every time, my colleague, Beckert, tells me: “That doesn’t work, you have to cue me when we start!” I respond: “Why? That’s improvisation and spontaneity (…).” That’s one of the remnants from that period which I internalised, because it baffled me back then. The Dubliners did that and of course, Finbar and Eddie Furey did it, too.

[01:38:40]

134 (Ulrich Doberenz enters the room and introduces himself. Pfeffi, Ulrich, and Jürgen talk about a documentary film on the festival in Rudolstadt.)

PS: Why has Rudolstadt always been the only folk fest (...)? Well, there are a few smaller- scale festivals and I tried to organise a few in Hoyerswerda in the 90s. (...) I called it “Festival of World Cultures”. I was working for the mobile youth organisation and do you think I got any financial support from the city council? “Yeah, go ahead Mr. Ständer, you can organise that.” At that time Hoyerswerda had a bad reputation, because of the riots against foreigners. I used that as an argument and received a bit of money. However, then they cut my budget, it was meant for welfare work and not for event organisation. (…) That was the end of it and nobody became proactive. I talked to a lot of people in the town. (…) People aren’t interested. That’s why I’m so surprised that Rudolstadt is doing well, while other festivals can’t always start up.

JW: Well, the spirit of motivation that characterised the folk music scene in the 70s also had an impact on the early years of Rudolstadt. (…) [01:41:01]

PS: I remember sitting in the PROFOLK meeting where they discussed possibilities for support.

JW: Initially, it was a logical continuation of the kind of things we did all those years. (…) A lot of things happened in the GDR and that was continued in Rudolstadt. There were folk music enthusiasts in Rudolstadt as well. (…) It happened straight away and was swiftly continued after reunification. (…)

PS: In addition to that, the medieval music scene emerged in the 90s. A lot of folk musicians joined them, the Findlinge, for example. They play at medieval markets. Then there are Spilwut, Roman Streisand, and Tippelklimper. (…)

JW: The medieval music scene is a completely different chapter.

PS: Yet, I meet a lot of familiar faces at medieval markets (…).

JW: A lot of them come to Rudolstadt as well.

PS: Yes. (…) We lost track earlier and you wanted to ask me about a specific folk fest.

[01:44:15] FM: We were talking about the folk music workshops as central organisational settings. How did you experience organising the folk fest in Hoyerswerda? What was that like?

PS: Well, I first witnessed that at the Haus der jungen Talente in Berlin. A friend of mine (…) helped organising that. There were a few event organisers as well and I thought we should

135 organise something like that in Hoyerswerda. Luckily, I was involved with the Kreiskabinett für Kulturarbeit and suggested it (…). They responded: “Of course, go ahead! We will support that financially.” Then I received sponsorship from the city council and I managed to somehow organise it myself. (…) Later, the owners of the local castle told me that it wasn’t feasible, because it drew too many people. Then we organised it in the local youth club. (…) That’s how we managed to organise it and it went fairly well. I still remember the first time. (…) I met a group of people on the street and they asked me about the local blues festival. I told them about the folk fest at the castle. They looked at me and said: “We come from Karl-Marx-Stadt. Well, why not, we’ll go to the folk fest. The main thing is that they serve beer there.” (Laughs) (…) Fortunately, we organised youth culture days in Hoyerswerda every May. (…) Thus, there was always a sufficient budget to invite five or six bands to play at the folk fest. (…) We didn’t have many financial struggles, anyway. Back then, when we owned the FMP club, the city council paid for the contracts. (…) However, the income was never so high that it could cover the costs.

[01:47:50]

JW: That was never the point in the GDR. Culture was fully subsidised, not only high art, but everything else as well. Everyone involved in cultural work received a budget.

FM: Yes, that’s right. I thought of that as well. One could avail of a certain budget as a professional musician.

JW: Yes, one was granted a performers’ permit and knew what to ask for.

PS: I have a nice example for that. We organised a participatory folk dance event (…) at the FMP club. Folkländers Bierefiedler performed as well. Most times we invited another group as well, either blues or jazz musicians, who played during the interval. (…) Because Folkländer brought dancers, friends, and family (…), the hall was filled. Then they all participated and it was a nice evening. I couldn’t have imagined it to be any better. We brought the bill to the city council and they exclaimed: “What? You had 25 visitors? Well, that must have been a dance of the dead!” I told them that it was a nice event. (…) They obviously lost out on a lot of money, but what can you do? They paid that without any bother and there were never any problems.

JW: Exactly.

FM: Super, I thank you both for the interview (…) and I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me.

End of Interview: [01:50:28]

APPENDIX C: Interview mit Gert Steinert

136 Deutsche Originalfassung (Original Transcription in German)

Datum: 12. April 2017 Zeit: 16:15 Ort: Georg-Schumann-Straße, Leipzig Format: iPhone 5S, internes Mikrofon Interviewer: Felix Morgenstern Interviewee: Gert Steinert Abkürzungen: FM: Felix Morgenstern; GS: Gert Steinert Dauer: 45:02

Es ist kurz vor 16:00. Ich laufe schnellen Schrittes vom Hauptbahnhof zu Gert Steinerts Wohnung. Nachdem ich außer Atem die Treppe hochgestiegen war, begrüßte mich Gert in seinem Wohnzimmer mit Tee, Kuchen und einer Reihe Bücher, Liederhefte und mit Bildmaterial. Gert hat zu DDR-Zeiten in der Folkszene mitgewirkt und ist auch jetzt noch mit der Skiffle-Band affiliert. Als wir uns setzen, befragt er mich zu meinem Studium in Irland. Wieder scheint meine Faszination mit irischer Musik den nötigen Gesprächsstoff zu liefern, um das Interview zu beginnen:

Zeit: [00:01]

FM: Es ist der 12. April 2017. Ich sitze hier mit Gert Steinert und wir reden heute über das Thema „Folkszene in der DDR“. Als erste Frage, wie hast du die Folkszene in Erinnerung? Was ist besonders im Gedächtnis geblieben und gibt es einen Hauptgedanken oder ein Thema, was dir als Assoziation sofort einfällt?

GS: Also mir fällt bei der Folkszene ein, dass ich das ja damals beim Studium und dann neben meinem Beruf gemacht habe und dass man dort wirklich sehr nette und intensiv denkende und mitarbeitende Leute kennengelernt hat, die das völlig ohne kommerziellen Hintergrund und mit einer riesigen Freude an Musik gemacht haben. Das fand man so nicht auf der Straße. Da wir damals keinen offiziellen Zugang zu diesem schönen Irish Folk hatten, was über das Folk-Revival in der Bundesrepublik rüberkam, also mit „Zupfgeigenhansel“ oder „Liederjan“, war natürlich klar, wenn man es hörte, es gab natürlich auch schon Kontakt über die Radio- und Fernsehübertragung, dass es toll war. So etwas wollte man auch auf Deutsch machen.

FM: Ja, (…) war es also wichtig, dass man den Klang übernommen hat und dann das mit deutschen Texten verknüpft hat?

137 GS: Der Klang war erst einmal schon klasse, (…) was kann man gegen eine Uilleann Pipe oder solch einen schönen Klang anstinken mit einem Hümmelchen oder so etwas (lacht). (…) Es gibt ja auch einen Dudelsack im Niederlausitzer Bereich, wo Pfeffi herkommt. Da gab es auch ein Dudelsackfestival in Schleife (…).

FM: Ja. (...)

GS: Das ist im damaligen Braunkohlegebiet und dort hat man den sorbischen Dudelsack gespielt. So etwas ist natürlich ein ganz anderer Klang, aber es war für uns schön, so etwas zu hören. Wer also Interesse hatte…Es gab ja eine ganze Reihe, die weniger von der Profi-Seite herkamen, aber es waren durchaus auch Profimusiker dabei, die sich dafür interessierten.

FM: Hast du zu der Zeit auch selbst Musik gemacht und Musik gelernt?

GS: Ja, ich habe ja erzählt, dass ich nur als Kind drei Jahre lang Cellounterricht hatte. Das hat mir aber nicht gefallen und war mir alles zu akademisch. Danach habe ich dann für ein paar Jahre mit privatem Gitarrenunterricht angefangen. Aber dann hörte das dann auf dem Gymnasium, damals Oberschule, auf. Ich bin damals in den Singeklub gegangen, weil dort von der Schule damals die besten Gitarristen waren und man konnte denen auf die Finger gucken. Aber wir haben natürlich in den Pausen und wenn wir unterwegs waren nicht die roten Lieder gespielt. Da weiß ich noch, dass wir Neil Young und solche Sachen gespielt haben: „Guck mal, wie er das spielt! (…) Das war interessant.“. (…) Mit diesen kleinen Tipps bekommt man viel mehr mit. Das hat meine Gitarrenlehrerin mir nicht gezeigt.

[03:41]

FM: Ja, da waren dann schon diese Einflüsse vorhanden. Warst du selbst bei der ersten Folkwerkstatt 76‘ mit dabei?

GS: Nein, 76‘ war ich nicht mit dabei. Ich habe ab 78‘ erst studiert (…) und habe drei Jahre in Leipzig studiert und musste dann zwei Jahre noch in Rostock studieren, weil man die Hälfte des Studienjahres aus meiner Sektion hier in Leipzig an drei Unis verteilt hat. (…) Die Uni war ziemlich baufällig und da waren es zu viele Leute in einem Haus. Dann hat es mich nach Rostock verschlagen und dort war jemand, der mir avisiert wurde: „Gert, wenn du gern Gitarre spielst (…), da ist jemand hier in Rostock, der schon in einer Gruppe gespielt hat. Wenn du zu ihm gehst, kannst du mit ihm zusammenspielen.“. Ich ging dann zu ihm hin. Er hatte eine Folkgruppe gegründet, die hieß „Knappsack“. Ein Knappsack ist ein norddeutscher Begriff für „klamm im Beutel“, also finanziell.

FM: Ja.

GS: Die haben schon ein sehr schönes Repertoire gehabt, eine Mischung aus (…) dem „Zupfgeigenhansel“-Repertoire und auch anderer guter Sachen, die auch in Leipzig schon gespielt wurden. Eine Gruppe in Leipzig hieß „Zensi“, nach einer Studentenkneipe benannt

138 (…). Da war auch schon ein sehr gutes Grundrepertoire da und es war interessanterweise eine der ersten Gruppen, die auch jiddische Sachen gemacht hat. Da hatten wir damals schon mehrere jiddische Lieder gesungen. Das hat auch Spaß gemacht, weil wir dann mehrstimmig gesungen haben und hatten Cello, Geigen, Gitarre, eine Mandoline und Bernd, der Chef der Truppe (…), hat auch Konzertina gespielt.

[05:52]

FM: Ja.

GS: Das war auch sehr gut. Es war, glaube ich, auch kein Bandoneon, aber es war eine sehr schöne Mischung. Da war auch ein bisschen Flöte mit dabei und mehrstimmiger Gesang. Das kam dann dafür, dass wir wenig gemacht haben, ganz gut rüber. Die jiddische Musik war auch sehr interessant, weil es zu der Zeit im deutschsprachigen Raum kaum jemand machte. Jalda Rebling würde mir einfallen, als eine der ersten in der damaligen DDR, die ich kannte. Das war damals sehr interessant für einige und wir hatten vor allem in der ersten Zeit guten Zuspruch. Aber wie bei jeder Studentenband, wenn die Jahrgänge zu Ende gehen, (…) hatten wir dann nicht mehr dieses Profil (…). Danach hatte ich Lust und war von Rostock aus 82‘ das erste Mal bei einer Folkwerkstatt in Leipzig. Die war ja immer in Leipzig. (…) Das war zentral (…). Dann war ich mit der Rostocker Gruppe „Nach der Arbeit“ in einer dieser Werkstätten in Ilmenau, in einer unsäglichen weiten Entfernung, weil die Werkstätten ja von Leipzig weggeleitet wurden und es zwischen „Folkländer“ mit Jürgen und den zentralen Organisationen Spannungen gab. (…) Wir haben uns damals schon gewundert, warum nun wieder Ilmenau an der Reihe war, weil es ja weit unten in Thüringen war. Das war nicht schlecht, aber hier wäre es viel zentraler gewesen.

FM: Ja.

GS: Von da an war ich eigentlich immer dabei und wollte nach dem Studium auch gern dabeibleiben. Ich habe dann danach in Leipzig gleich gebaggert, irgendwo in einer Band mit Gitarre und Mandoline einsteigen zu können. In den zwei Bands, die es gab, war aber alles besetzt. Da blieb mir nur, als ich herkam, als Tänzer anzufangen.

[08:43] FM: Ah.

GS: Mit der Band haben wir ja damals Volkstanz gemacht. „Folkländer“ hat ja damals ihre Tanzgruppe „Kreuz und Square“ gegründet. Sie haben schon sehr pfiffig zum Volkstanz gespielt. (…) Es war natürlich interessant, dass als Abspaltung andere Musiker die „Tanz- und Spring-Band“ gegründet hatten. Das war vor allem auch eine Volkstanz-Band. Da bin ich in die Tanzgruppe hineingekommen, damit ich an die Szene anknüpfen konnte. Dort habe ich meinen Freund Rüdiger kennengelernt und wir haben „Lumich“ so etwa um 85‘ als Band aus der Wiege gehoben. (…)

139 FM: (…) Habt ihr mit „Lumich“ ähnliches Repertoire gespielt, wie „Folkländer“? Habt ihr euch auch an Volksliedsammlungen, also zum Beispiel am Steinitz, orientiert?

GS: Ja, hat jeder. (…) Das war ja, wie das ABC zu lernen. Unser Repertoire, von der Instrumentierung her, war (…) zunächst einmal Volkstanz, Straßenmusik und Kinderprogramme. Für den Volkstanz hatten wir eine Instrumentierung, bei der ein rockiges Element mitschwang. Wir hatten E-Gitarre, einen kleinen Synthesizer, Schlagzeug, Gitarre und E-Bass und waren über Mikrofone verstärkt auch eine viel wuchtigere Kapelle als eine rein akustische Band. Da hat Rüdiger als seine musikalische Leistung Arrangements geschrieben und dann haben wir als Polonaise (…) „Ballo Ongaro“ gespielt. (…) Die anderen Titel waren natürlich ein bisschen rockiger instrumentiert und da war dann auch „Whiskey in the Jar“ als eine Irish Folk Sache mit dabei. Wir haben auch von „Planxty“ die „Planxty-Polkas“ gespielt. Dave Robb hatte mir von „Planxty“ eine Platte mitgebracht und die war großartig. Das haben wir nachgespielt und haben es aber für uns verändert. Dann sind wir zum Beispiel von Dur nach Moll gegangen, anders als das die „Planxtys“ gespielt haben. So gut wie die sind wir auch musikalisch nie gewesen. Aber es hat Spaß gemacht. (…) Weil wir das auch noch erweitern wollten, um ins Rockige mit hineinzugehen, haben wir dann noch von Chubby Checker „Come On, Let’s Twist Again“ gespielt. Das war für die jungen Leute eine Nummer zum Abhotten und für uns natürlich auch. Das hat einen Spaß gemacht und es war eine große Nummer. Wir waren zum Beispiel die ersten, die so etwas mit reingenommen haben. (…) Dann hat jeder mal so etwas gemacht, aber es richtig ernsthaft zu machen und für den Volkstanz anzubieten, da waren sie alle damals ziemlich platt.

[12:08]

FM: Das hört sich gut an. (…) Es scheint ja so zu sein, dass vor allem dieses soziale Gruppenmusizieren so attraktiv war. (…) Als ich mit Jürgen geredet habe, kamen wir auf das Verhältnis zwischen Musikern und Staat, also das man gerne mit dem Repertoire experimentierte und schaute, wie weit man gehen konnte, um die Zensur von Material zu umgehen. (…) Habt ihr das ähnlich erlebt (…)?

GS: Nein, bei uns war es ja eher Tanz und im tieferen Sinne Unterhaltung. Wir waren natürlich auch textorientiert, aber, wenn wir zum Volkstanz gespielt haben, war ja keine politische Botschaft dahinter. Da war das Tanzen wichtig und dass es mit der Tanzgruppe funktionierte. Wir hatten dann einen Tanzmeister und zwei, drei Tanzpaare, die das Publikum animiert haben. Bei der Straßenmusik waren hin und wieder ein paar schräge Nummern dabei. (…) Aber wir haben nicht ausgetestet, wie weit es geht, sondern es ergab sich. Da wir nicht die Folkband der allerersten Stunde waren, hatten wir (…) das Glück und die Schmach, dass wir nicht die ersten gewesen sind. Die anderen hatten schon irgendwelche Schläge abbekommen und wussten schon, was sie nicht machen durften. Da wussten wir, was geht und was nicht geht. Dann waren wir auch, wie gesagt, keine Politband in dem Sinne, das muss man klar sagen. (…) Wir haben auch zum Beispiel „Fiddler’s Green“ gespielt, auch die große Nummer von den Iren. Das ist eine tolle Sache, was kann man darüber sagen? Es ist doch einfach große Kunst, über einen Seemann und das Leben der Leute zu singen. (…) Es gab aber auch andere

140 Lieder, „Ein stolzes Schiff“, was wir auch sehr gern gespielt haben. Das war schon auch eine große Nummer. Die Auswanderer-Thematik war ja zu der Zeit sehr aktuell. Viele sind aus der DDR abgehauen. Sobald du so etwas spieltest, war natürlich die Problematik im Hinterkopf mit drin. Dann waren auch durchaus Anklänge für die Leute da: „Das ist so!“. Das haben wir aber nicht als Politprogramm gesehen, sondern einfach als Realität und wir haben auch offen darüber gesprochen. Wir wollen nicht abhauen, wir wollen hierbleiben und mit Freunden und Familie hier weiterhin unser Ding machen.

[15:10]

FM: Ja, (…) wie wurden zum Beispiel die „Planxty-Polkas“ vom Publikum aufgenommen?

GS: Das war großartig, toll! (…) Luka Bloom finde ich auch großartig. Den kannte ich bisher nur aus dem Radio und er hat hier in der Moritzbastei ein Konzert gegeben, wo leider zu wenig Leute dawaren. Das war toll (…). Das war alles sehr nah. Diese Musik ist damals sehr gut angekommen. Immer wieder spielte man „Whiskey in the Jar“. Das ist eine klasse Nummer und war natürlich eine schöne Polka zum Rumhotten. Die Titel bleiben natürlich immer klasse, wenn du sie nicht total schräg spieltest.

FM: (…) Du warst ja auch in der „Skiffle Band“ und der „Losen Skiffle Gemeinschaft“, richtig?

GS: Bin ich jetzt noch! (…)

FM: Wie kam das zustande? Waren die Ursprünge auch noch in dieser Zeit?

GS: Ja, die gab es dann schon und die „Skiffle Band“ gibt es jetzt schon 41 Jahre. Ich bin erst im Jahreswechsel 1990/91 da reingekommen. Ich war ja aus der damaligen „Lumich“ Folk Band ausgetreten, weil ich vom Beruf her das nicht mehr geschafft habe und die eben Profis werden wollten. Das war noch zu DDR-Zeiten so geplant, aber da konnte ich nicht mitmachen. Es tat mir leid und war auch traurig, aber ich musste aussteigen. Ich (räuspert sich) hatte dann seit 89‘ und Anfang 90‘ keine Musik mehr gemacht und dann kam die Privatisierungswelle der damaligen DDR. (…) Ich musste mich als Zahnarzt privat niederlassen, die Polikliniken wurden alle geschlossen und wir wurden entlassen. Wenn du dich schnell gekümmert hast, warst du sozusagen eher im Rennen und konntest früher und ohne Unterbrechung auch schon weiterarbeiten. (…) In der „Skiffle Band“ spielte damals schon ein Bassist, der auch um die Wende herum (…) als neuer Bassist in die Band kam. Der war bei uns bei „Lumich“ eineinhalb Jahre lang Bassist. Daher kannte ich die Band, habe immer mal zugehört und fand die toll, weil sie auch immer mal politische Ansagen gemacht haben. Der Waschbrettspieler hat als Conférencier des Abends Ansagen zu tagespolitischen und zeitpolitischen Themen gemacht. Das konnte auch ein Witz sein, aber auch etwas Schräges, wie die Ausreiseproblematik (…). Da konntest du dich natürlich sehr gut schräg darüber lustig machen. Es war natürlich für mich eine Ehre, als der (…) erste Gitarrist bei „Skiffle“ auch nach der Wende in die ehemalige Bundesrepublik übersiedelte und da wurde die Position frei. Er wusste, dass ich zu der Zeit

141 nichts hatte und da kam die Anfrage, ob ich mitmachen würde. (…) Das war natürlich eine Ehre, in einer solchen Band einsteigen zu können. Da habe ich dann mal angespielt und es ging gleich. Das hat dann funktioniert und seitdem bin ich da.

[19:35]

FM: Ja und was war das musikalisch für ein Stil? (…)

GS: (…) Skiffle ist ja eine Vorläufermusik des Rock. Du kennst ja John Lennon und die „Quarrymen“. Das ist ja auch eine Skiffle-Band gewesen. Waschbrett, Kontrabass, Banjo, verschiedene Gitarren und Akkordeon hatten wir ja auch. Wir hatten auch eine Geige am Anfang, da war ich aber noch nicht dabei. (…) Es ist auch eine reine Männerband geblieben. Dann kamen auch Bläser dazu und das war natürlich klasse, mit Trompete (…), Saxophon, Klarinette, Flöte, (…), Kornett, so in dieser Richtung. Das ist das Profil und wir machen eine Art Musikkabarett (…). Wir spielen auch alte Dixie-Nummern, verarbeitet für die Besetzung der Band und wenn wir einen Schlager spielen, der sonst von einer Frau gesungen wird, singt dann ein Mann und es stehen da acht Herren dahinter und machen es so ernsthaft und sauber, wie es geht. Nicht, dass es verhohnepiepelt und nur schräg dahergeboten wird. (…) „St. Louis Blues“ ist unsere Einstiegsnummer. Das ist ein Standard für alle möglichen Dixie- und Blues- Bands (…). Auch Titel von Rock-Bands, von Udo Lindenberg (…) und ganz Verschiedenes ist dabei. Es ist wirklich eine Mischung aus Rock, Chanson, Liedern und Schlagern, die dann für uns acht verarbeitet sind.

FM: (…) Habt ihr dann auch professionell aufgenommen, auch zu DDR-Zeiten schon?

GS: Nein, zu DDR-Zeiten nicht. Da gab es keine Möglichkeit. Aber nach der Wende wurden dann zwei CDs von „Skiffle“ mit Hilfe produziert, weil es ja teuer war. (…) Die beiden Platten wurden von Klaus Koch, dem ehemaligen Chef der Moritzbastei hier in Leipzig aufgenommen, (…) der ein Label in Berlin leitet. Er hat das produzieren lassen und vorfinanziert. Dann wurden die beiden CDs etwa im Abstand von zehn Jahren gemacht.

FM: (…) Weil du gerade von den klanglichen Einflüssen geredet hattest…Es gab ja in der DDR zu Zeiten der Folkszene eine Renaissance des Dudelsackspiels und Dudelsackbaus (…). Wie präsent war denn das hier? Gab es hier auch Leute, die mit Dudelsäcken zu tun hatten?

[23:33]

GS: Wenige. Von denen, die Dudelsack gespielt haben, würde mir nur von der ex-Leipziger Band „Zensi“ (…) ein Freund mit Spitznamen „Alphorn“ einfallen. (…) Er lebt, glaube ich, jetzt in Gera. (…) Später gab es dann hier den Dudelsackspieler Jörn Römer. Er ist auch jetzt noch mit dem Rudolstädter Folkfestival verbunden, indem er die Straße der Instrumentenbauer aufbaut und betreut. (…)

142 FM: (…) Wenn ihr für den Volkstanz gespielt habt, wart ihr dann bei dem Festival auch aktiv?

GS: Als „Skiffle“?

FM: Ja oder überhaupt (…).

GS: „Lumich“ gab es ja dann leider nicht mehr, die haben sich 90‘ mit dem Tod von Rüdiger auflösen müssen, weil er der musikalische Chef der ganzen Sache war und das ließ sich so nicht halten. Mit „Skiffle“ waren wir mal da. Da gab es (…) eine Art Ostalgie-Bühne. Wir haben zum Beispiel im Programm einen ehemaligen Song der Lieder-Szenerie und der sogenannten Singeklubs gespielt, „Sag mir, wo du stehst!“.

FM: Ja!

GS: Diesen Titel haben wir verballhornt mit einer Melodie von (Pause) Santana und (Pause) mit „Oye Como Va“, also einem von diesen großen Titeln. Das war die Idee und so ist „Skiffle“ mit der Musik gut gewesen, dass wir es auf andere Melodien legen oder verbiegen und (…) das konnten wir dann auf eine Ostalgie-Bühne bringen. (…)

[26:51]

FM: (…) Kannst du dich noch daran erinnern, wie der Übergang war? Gab es überhaupt einen klaren Übergang zwischen der Singebewegung oder den Singeklubs und der Folkszene? (…)

GS: (…) Es ist mir gut in Erinnerung geblieben, dass wir uns eigentlich mit diesen Singeklubs überhaupt nicht zusammentun wollten. Die waren auch in den 80er Jahren schon sehr…das hat mich auch nur noch stückweise interessiert. Wir wollten unser eigenes Ding machen und die Folkszene bot das. Die Lieder und das Material war da und es gab Vorlagen (…) auch ein, zwei Langspielplatten mit Irish Folk drauf (…). Dann gab es auch das Festival des politischen Liedes, wo auch immer wieder klasse Leute, wie die „Sands Family“ auftraten (…).

FM: Warst du selbst mal dabei?

GS: Nein, du kamst ja nicht an Karten heran. Wenn du niemanden kanntest, war es illusorisch und dann habe ich gesagt: „Ihr könnt mich mal!“. Dann haben wir das selbst gespielt. Wir haben das abgehört und es für uns gespielt. Dann haben wir uns getroffen und im Grunde war es immer eine Mischung (…). Matthias Uhlmann, was mein Parallelklassenkamerad war (…), sagte dann, weil wir uns trafen und uns über schöne Musik unterhielten, (…) dass es um Interesse an Bob Dylan, John Lennon und Neil Young ging. Das waren unsere Ansätze und er sage: „Klasse, da kann ich dir jemanden empfehlen, der hat schöne Liederbücher (…)“. Es war auch jemand aus unserer Schule. Der hatte schöne

143 Liedertexte abgeschrieben, mit Akkorden dazu. Mehr brauchtest du nicht, konntest dich hinsetzen und üben. Dann trafen wir uns mal abends in einem Garten und haben Sachen von Bob Dylan gespielt und versucht, einstimmig oder zweistimmig dazu zu singen. Es war ja erst einmal der Versuch, dass man überhaupt solche Texte hatte und miteinander etwas anderes spielte. Das musste gar nicht englisch sein.

[30:00]

FM: Ja.

GS: Das hat mit Englisch oder nicht-Englisch nichts zu tun gehabt, sondern es waren tolle Lieder und die haben uns eben sehr bewegt. Das war der Ansatz. Als dann „Folkländer“ auftauchten, sagte mir Matthias Uhlmann: „Du, wenn es dir so gefällt, da gibt es jetzt eine Gruppe, (…) die singen deutsche Sachen. Das wäre doch klasse!“. Da bin ich mit hingegangen und war gleich als Schüler schon voll infiziert. (…) An der Uni Leipzig hatten sie mal ein Konzert in einem Hörsaal gegeben und das war großartig. Das war toll. Dann habe ich auch, wenn ich hinfahren durfte, immer bei Festivals geschaut, ob die da spielen (…). Damals gab der Jürgen Wolff dann als Haupteditor (…) diese tolle kleine Reihe deutscher Volksliederhefte heraus. (…)

FM: Kannst du mir darüber noch etwas erzählen? (…)

GS: Ja, da kann ich dir nur sagen, dass es natürlich toll war. Das waren die Grundlagen (…). Heute macht man es ja auch, (…) dass man eine CD hat und wenn du Glück hast, ist im Booklet eben der Text mit drin. Mehr brauchst du ja nicht und kannst es dir im Grunde zusammensuchen. (…) Erik Kross hat da auch viel mitgemacht. Später war er bei „Wacholder“ aus Cottbus mit dabei. Das war natürlich toll aufbereitet, da waren die Noten, die Texte und dann dazu noch geschichtlicher Hintergrund. (…) Es war hervorragend, also sehr tolle Feldarbeit und Grundlagenarbeit. (…) Es gab ja dann in Leipzig einen Folk-Klub und da war ich zusammen mit Jürgen in der „AG Feldforschung“. Es war schön, wir hatten in Leipzig die Möglichkeit, über die deutsche Bücherei uns zu bestimmten Themen Sachen herauszusuchen. Es gab Verschiedenes, was man lesen konnte, aber darauf musstest du erst einmal kommen! (…) Wir haben beispielsweise einmal zum Thema Räuberfeste, einer alten Festtradition in Sachsen-Anhalt, sinniert und da waren wir auch in der deutschen Bücherei und bei kleinen angelehnten Festen in Sachsen-Anhalt (…). Es gab da viele kleine Dinge, die musstest du dir aber schwer erarbeiten. Die lagen nicht zufällig auf der Straße, wenn du nicht jemanden kanntest oder aus dem Dorf kamst.

[33:35] FM: Also intensive Feldforschung (...).

GS: Ja, jedenfalls musstest du dich ein bisschen bemühen und dranbleiben.

FM: Wenn ihr in die Bücherei gegangen seid, gab es da spezielle Sammlungen?

144

GS: Nein, keine speziellen Sachen. Also ich habe dann unter „Räuberfeste“ nachgeschaut und da waren ja die üblichen und sehr guten Liedersammlungen, wie der Steinitz, im Wesentlichen durchforstet. Das hatten ja die Bands der ersten Stunde ganz gründlich getan (…). Dann kam ja ganz Verschiedenes, ob das nun wieder neue Liedersammlungen waren oder auch Sammlungen, die von der Kirche mit ins Gespräch kamen, weil sie sehr auf den Text orientiert waren und darin kein Schwachsinn stand. (…) Das waren gute Liederbücher für gesellige Runden. Das war erst einmal der Ansatz und dann konnte man auch mal verschiedene Dinge durchaus schräger interpretieren oder den Text auch leicht verbiegen.

FM: Ja.

GS: Das ging, das war doch kein Problem (…). Es gab mal ein altes Lied im Volkstanzbereich, das haben „Folkländers Bierfiedler“ gespielt (…). Die haben gesungen: „Die Luft ist rein, von Leipzig bis nach Espenhain“. Das ursprüngliche Lied ist aber: „Die Luft ist rein, von Plauen bis nach Falkenstein“. So hieß das im Original. Das konntest du natürlich umbiegen (…) und da ist es einem schon aus der Nase gefallen, wie der Dreck im Süden von Leipzig hochstieg. Jetzt ist das ja alles viel sauberer. (…)

FM: Damals hatte es, denke ich, auch einen aktuellen Bezug.

GS: Ja, damals waren das so kleine Reizpunkte und es war außerdem ein richtig schöner Tanztitel. Das Ganze mit solchen kleinen schrägen Textvarianten zu würzen, das waren Ideen von Jürgen und diesen Leuten (…). Manne Wagenbredt war auch ein wichtiger Kopf, weil er wirklich ein riesen Repertoire hat und auch international unglaublich viele Leute kennt. Er ist mit der „Sands Family“ und solchen Leuten bekannt. (…) Er hat über diese Bekanntschaften eben viel eingerührt (…). Wir hatten auch zu DDR-Zeiten Bomben-Bands wie die „Oysterband“ (…), das ist eine klasse Folk-Rockband und auch heute noch voll aktiv. Die hatten wir zwei, dreimal auch schon in der DDR. Da hat Ulli Doberenz dann über den Folk- Klub versucht, mit der FDJ das einzurichten. Wir haben zum Beispiel als „Lumich“ auch zweimal mit der „Oysterband“ gespielt. Wir waren natürlich die Vorband und haben etwas aus unserer Ecke gemacht und die haben dann ein schönes Konzert und auch etwas zum Tanz gespielt für alle, die wollten. Das war groß.

[37:34]

FM: (…) Es ist bei dem jetzigen Gespräch interessant, dass der Tanzaspekt beleuchtet wird. Der Volkstanz wird natürlich in Wolfgang Leyns Buch auch behandelt. (…) War der Volkstanz ursprünglich von den ungarischen Táncház, also der Tanzhaus-Bewegung, beeinflusst?

GS: Klar, das war ja das Vorbild. Soweit ich das weiß, waren die Tanzmeisterinnen der ersten Stunde Sigi Lemke und Sigi Doberenz. Die hatten das, glaube ich, über die Tanzhausszene in Ungarn kennengelernt. Es gab auch noch andere. In Berlin gab es eine Bewegung, die „JAMS Tanzhaus“ hießen. (…) Im Grunde war Ungarn das Vorbild und das

145 haben wir im Urlaub mal gesehen: „Klasse, das können wir doch auch!“. Dann musste man nur eine Band gründen, die in der Lage war, lang genug zu spielen. (…) Da musste es erst der Tanzmeister und ein paar Tanzpaare erklären und zeigen. (…) Wolfgang Leyn kann dir auch noch mehr darüber erzählen, er ist ja von der ersten Stunde an dabeigewesen. Wolfgang war und ist auch heute noch als Musikjournalist viel mit Interviews unterwegs. Er hat auch ein sehr gutes Personen- und Namensgedächtnis und kann viele Details dazu liefern, die ich damals im Folk-Bereich nicht 1A, sondern 1B bis C erlebt habe, weil wir später kamen. Ab 74‘ und 75‘ waren die „Folkländer“ da und wir waren praktisch zehn Jahre später da. Dazwischen ist schon einiges passiert und andere Bands hatten sich auch schon gegründet. Es waren aber im Tanzbereich nicht so viele unterwegs. Das waren dann eher schon Gruppen wie „Wacholder“. Dann gab es in Erfurt die Szene mit „Brummtopf“ und „Saitensprung“, auch Bands der ersten Stunde. (…) Ich war erst intensiv ab 82‘ dabei.

FM: (…) Als die Wende kam, was hat sich da verändert? Wie hat die Folkszene dann aus deiner Sicht weitergelebt?

GS: Das kann ich gar nicht genau sagen, weil ich mit der Wende aus der Folkszene ausgestiegen war und nach dem wirklich sehr tragischen Tod von meinem Freund hatte ich erst einmal die Türe zugemacht. (…) Natürlich war es unglaublich bitter, den besten Freund zu verlieren…

FM: Na klar. [40:56]

GS: Da habe ich ganz lang dran gekaut und wollte auch in der Folkszene nicht so bemitleidet werden. Wir waren immer unzertrennlich und es war klar, dass „Lumich“ Rüdiger und Gert waren. Ich habe lang gebraucht, bis ich da wieder angedockt habe. Heute ist das wieder ein bisschen überwunden, sodass ich mich mit vielen wieder gut verstehe. Die Szene hatte genau wie andere populäre Musiker nach der Wende große Probleme, im Geschäft zu bleiben. Das musst du dir mal selbst von gestandenen Bands wie „Wacholder“ erzählen lassen. Das war für die sicher schwer genug. „Folkländer“ gab es ja schon nicht mehr. Die waren „Bierfiedler“ und hatten sich dann glaube ich schon aufgelöst. Jürgen hat ja mit Dieter Beckert das „Duo Sonnenschirm“ gegründet (…). Die waren natürlich in einer ganz anderen Rubrik. Das waren Liedermacher, die politisch kritisch daherkamen, aber auch sehr witzig uns schräg. Das war, wie sie es selbst nennen, „Brachialromantik“ und dazu muss man die Texte eben hören. Es ist schräg und klasse und musikalisch sehr gut gemacht. Sie spielen zum Glück auch nach einer mehrjährigen Unterbrechung immer mal wieder. (…) Aber es ist eben nicht mehr so wie früher. Es ist inflationär gefragt und es ist schwierig, davon zu leben.

FM: Das meinte Pfeffi vorhin auch. Die haben vor ein oder zwei Wochen in Hoyerswerda gespielt und da ist auch das Problem, dass die Nachfrage eben nicht mehr so groß ist. Das scheint so zu sein und ist natürlich schade.

146 GS: Veranstalter wie Pfeffi, der wirklich allerbesten Willen hat, haben nicht so viel Geld für Werbung. Wenn du Werbung hättest, könntest du die Leute auch animieren, dass sie kommen. Dann musst du aber schon vier Wochen oder drei Monate im Voraus plakatieren. (…) Es ist ja mittlerweile so, dass alle über das Fernsehen alles kennen (…). Auf MDR gibt es mittwochs eine Folksendung namens „Folk und Welt“, die 21 Uhr läuft. Davor, um 20 Uhr, gibt es eine Stunde lang eine tolle internationale Liedersendung. Das ist klasse und da sind solche Leute mit drin, aber ansonsten ist das kaum noch im normalen Radio zu hören. Dann gibt es eben nur noch uns alte Fans, die sie kennen und das ist auch schön. (…) Neulich hatte Jürgen eine Ausstellung mit den Plakaten für Rudolstadt, Erstentwürfe und solche großen Entwürfe, in der Stadtbibliothek Leipzig. Dazu hatte „Duo Sonnenschirm“ eine Stunde lang ein Konzert gespielt. Der obere große Saal war sehr voll und es war klasse. Das ist nach wie vor gut.

FM: Mensch, lauter Material. Ich danke dir!

Interview Ende: [44:45]

147 APPENDIX D: Interview with Gert Steinert

English Translation

Date: 12th April 2017 Time: 16:15 Location: Georg-Schumann-Straße, Leipzig Format: iPhone 5S, internal microphone Interviewer: Felix Morgenstern Interviewee: Gert Steinert Key: FM: Felix Morgenstern; GS: Gert Steinert Length: 45:02 minutes

It is coming up to 4pm. I am in a hurry, walking from Leipzig’s central station to Gert Steinert’s flat. Out of breath after climbing the stairs, Gert welcomes me to his sitting room and offers tea and cake. He has also spread out a few song books and photographs on the table. Gert was involved in the GDR folk music scene and is still affiliated with the Skiffle-Band. We talk about my studies in Ireland. Repeatedly, my fascination with Irish music seems to provide enough context to launch the interview: Time: [00:01]

FM: Today is April 12th 2017. I sit here with Gert Steinert to talk about the folk music scene in the GDR. First of all, what do you recall about the folk music scene? Is there something that became ingrained in your mind, perhaps a main thought, an association that you might want to share?

GS: In terms of the folk music scene, I recall that I was studying at that time and was involved in it besides my job. I got to know really friendly, intellectual, and proactive people, who were involved in folk music without pursuing any commercial aspirations. The enjoyment of music was the most important thing. You couldn’t find something like that on the street. Of course, we didn’t have full access to this beautiful Irish folk music, something we only knew from the West German revival and bands like Zupfgeigenhansel and Liederjan. It was clear, back then we already came into contact with it via radio and television, that it appealed to us. We wanted to sing something like that in German.

FM: So, (…) it was important to transfer the soundscape and to combine it with German texts?

GS: The sound was amazing, first of all, (…) how could a Hümmelchen (German bagpipe) compare to the beautiful sound of the uilleann pipes (laughs)? (…) They also have a bagpipe- type in the Niederlausitz region, where Pfeffi is from. They also organised a bagpipe festival in Schleife (…).

148 FM: Yes.

GS: That’s in a former coal mining area and they play a Sorbian bagpipe there. That’s a completely different sound, of course, but it was nice for us to listen to something like that. Those who were interested in that…There was a whole range of people who didn’t play professionally, but there were a lot of professionals, who gained interest as well.

FM: Did you play and learn music at that time?

GS: Yes, I told you earlier, as a kid, I only took three years of cello classes. I didn’t like it. It was too academic. Then I took private guitar lessons for a couple of years. I stopped playing in secondary school. I frequented the Singeklub (‘youth song club’) at that time, because I could watch some of the best guitarists from our school play. Of course, we never played the “red songs” in the breaks and when we were on the road. I remember that we played Neil Young and those things: “Look, how he plays that! (…) That’s interesting.” (…) We learned a lot of little tricks that my guitar teacher would never show me.

[03:41]

FM: Yes, those were your influences. Did you attend the first folk workshop in 76’?

GS: No, I wasn’t there in 76’. I only went to college in 78’ (…). I spent three years studying in Leipzig and had to go to Rostock for two years, because they split up my faculty and distributed students to three universities in Leipzig. (…) The university needed to be renovated and couldn’t hold that many people. I came to Rostock and somebody recommended this guy: “Gert, if you want to play guitar (…), there is someone in Rostock, who has already played in a band. If you go to him, you might play together.” So, I went to him. He had founded a folk band called Knappsack. Knappsack is colloquial North German slang for being a poor guy.

FM: Yes.

GS: They had a nice repertoire, a mixture of (…) the Zupfgeigenhansel repertoire and other good things that were played in Leipzig at the time. Another Leipzig band was Zensi, they were named after a student pub (…). They had a solid repertoire and interestingly, they were one of the first bands to play Jewish music. Back then, we sang several Jewish songs. That was fun, because we sang polyphonically and had an instrumentation consisting of cello, violins, guitar, a mandolin, and Bernd, the front man (…), played concertina.

[05:52]

FM: Yes.

GS: That was also quite good. He didn’t play button accordion, I believe, but it was a nice mixture nonetheless. We added a bit of whistle and polyphonic vocal textures. Although we

149 were kind of minimalistic, we delivered it well, I think. Jewish music was especially interesting, as there were no bands that played that at the time in the German-speaking region. Jalda Rebling was one of the first in the GDR that I knew of. People were interested and we received a good response, especially at the start. However, as is the case with most student bands when the courses disintegrate, (…) we lost our profile (…). Then I became motivated and went to my first folk music workshop in Leipzig in 82’. It was always held in Leipzig. (…) That was very central. (…) Then I joined the Rostock band Nach der Arbeit and we went to one of the workshops in Ilmenau, which was far away, because they transferred the workshops away from Leipzig when tensions emerged between Jürgen, Folkländer, and the central authorities. (…) At that time, we wondered, why we were sent to Ilmenau, because it was far down south in Thuringia. It wasn’t bad, but it would have been more central here.

FM: Yes.

GS: From then on, I was part of the scene and wanted to stay in it after college. I immediately tried to get into a band, on the off-chance that they would be looking for a guitarist or a mandolin player. The two existing bands however, didn’t have any vacancies. The only opportunity I had when I arrived, was to start as a dancer.

[08:43]

FM: Ah.

GS: Back then, our band played for folk dances. Folkländer formed their dance band Kreuz und Square. They provided up-tempo music for dancers. (...) It was interesting to see the formation of off-spring dance bands like the Tanz- und Spring-Band. That was another folk dance band. It was through my time with the dance band that I got into the scene. There, I got to know my friend Rüdiger and together we formed the band Lumich around 85’. (…)

FM: (…) Was Lumich’s repertoire comparable to that played by Folkländer? Did you also resort to folk song collections like the one compiled by Steinitz?

GS: Yes, everybody did. (…) That was like learning the ABC. Regarding our repertoire, (…) we initially played for folk dancing, street music and children’s entertainment. Our folk dance instrumentation recalled a rock music element. We had electric guitar, a small synthesizer, drums, guitar, electric bass and we used microphones for amplification. That’s why we were a much more forceful group than an acoustic band. Rüdiger contributed arrangements and we played “Ballo Ongaro” (…) as a polonaise. (…) The instrumentation chosen for other pieces was much more rock-influenced. For example, we also played the Irish folk piece “Whiskey in the Jar”. We also played Planxty’s polkas. Dave Robb brought over a Planxty record and it was great. We copied some of it, but adapted it for our needs. For example, we changed the tonality from major to minor keys, different to the way Planxty played it. Of course, we never matched their level of musicality, but it was fun. (…) As we wanted to augment the plethora with the element of rock music, we also played the Chubby Checker hit

150 “Come On, Let’s Twist Again”. For us and the younger crowd, that was a piece that allowed everyone to rave it up. That was fun and it was a great piece. We were the first to introduce that sort of thing. (…) Afterwards, everyone did something like that, but to do it properly and to incorporate it for folk dancing impressed people.

[12:08]

FM: That sounds good. (…) It seems like you were particularly drawn to social group musicking. (…) When I spoke to Jürgen, we also talked about the relationship between musicians and the state. In fact, we talked about the strategies of testing out how far one could go to avoid censorship of artistic expression. (…) Did you experience that in a similar fashion (…)?

GS: No, we played for dancing and that was entertainment in its very essence. Of course, we also focused on the texts, but when we played for folk dances, we did not convey a political message. The dance was as important as ensuring that the dancers stayed together. We had one dancing master and two or three couples, who animated the audience. In relation to street music, we played a few weird pieces. (…) However, we didn’t test, how far we could go, but it was somewhat obvious. We were lucky and unlucky at the same time, as we weren’t the first to do that. The others had already taken a beating and knew how far they could go. Then we knew what we could and couldn’t do. We weren’t a political band; one has to clearly state that. (...) For example, we also played “Fiddler’s Green”, yet another great Irish song. That’s a brilliant song, what more can you say? To sing about a sailor and the life of the people is art. (…) There were other songs as well, “Ein stolzes Schiff”, we also liked playing that. That was a great piece. The theme of emigration was current at that time. A lot of people left the GDR. As soon as a piece was played, the issues surfaced in peoples’ minds. That resonated with people: “That’s actually how it is!” We didn’t regard that as a political programme, but as something that was real and existing. We talked openly about that. We didn’t want to leave. We wanted to stay and mind our own business, together with friends and family.

[15:10]

FM: Yes, (…) how were the Planxty-polkas received by the audience?

GS: That was great, brilliant! (…) I think; Luka Bloom is great as well. I only knew him from listening to the radio and he even played a concert at the Moritzbastei. Unfortunately, only a few people attended. It was great (…). It was all very close to us. That kind of music was well received at that time. “Whiskey in the Jar” was played frequently. That’s a brilliant piece and a nice polka to rave it up to. The songs were always great, as long as one didn’t play them completely out of tune.

FM: (…) You played in the Skiffle-Band and the Lose Skiffle Gemeinschaft, right?

GS: I still play with them! (…)

151

FM: How did that come about? Did that originate in GDR times?

GS: Yes, the band already existed back then. The Skiffle-Band has existed for a total of 41 years. I only joined in between 1990 and 91’. I left the folk band Lumich at that point, because I couldn’t juggle that with my job and they wanted to become professional musicians. They had planned that in the GDR, but I couldn’t commit to it. It was a pity and very sad, but I had to leave the band. I (clears his throat) hadn’t played music since 89’ or 90’ and then privatisation commenced in the GDR (…). As a dentist, I had to work privately, the polyclinics were closed and we were laid off. If you put in the effort straight away, you became more competitive, so to speak, and could more swiftly return to employment. (…) The bass player playing with the Skiffle band at that time (…) had only joined the group after reunification. He was a bass player with Lumich for one and a half years. That’s how I got to know the band, I frequently listened to them and thought they were great, because they occasionally made political statements as well. The wash board player was emcee of the evening and regularly commented on current political issues. That could be guised as a joke or else conveyed in a political slant, for example by commenting on the issue of emigration (…). Of course, you could make fun of that. I was honoured when the (…) original guitarist, who played with Skiffle, decided to emigrate to the Federal Republic and the position became available. He knew that I was unemployed at that time and asked me, if I would like to join the band. (…) Of course, it was an honour to play in a band like that. I tried it out and it worked straight away. Since then, I have been a member of the band.

[19:35] FM: What style of music did you play with the band? (…)

GS: (…) Skiffle is a genre of music that preceded rock music. You know John Lennon and the Quarrymen, I am sure. They were also a Skiffle band. I mean, we also had instruments like wash board, double bass, banjo, several guitars, and accordion. At the start, we also had a violinist, but back then I hadn’t joined the group. (…) We remained a purely male band. We added brass instruments at some point and that was great. We added trumpet (…), saxophone, clarinet, whistle, (…) and cornet, that kind of thing. That was the profile and we put on a kind of musical cabaret (…). We played old Dixie pieces and adapted them for the band’s instrumentation. Whenever we played a Schlager piece that was usually sung by women, we had eight men behind the lead singer, who performed that as seriously and sharp as possible. We didn’t want to make fun of it or display it in an inappropriate manner. (…) Our opening number was “St. Louis Blues”. That’s a Dixie- and blues standard (…). We also sang songs played by rock bands or by Udo Lindenberg (…). There was a good blend of rock, chanson and folk songs that were adapted for eight musicians.

FM: Did you record professionally as well, I mean, in GDR times?

GS: No, not in GDR times. It wasn’t possible, but we received help and released two CDs as Skiffle. That was expensive, of course. (…) The two albums were recorded by Klaus Koch,

152 who worked at the Moritzbastei here in Leipzig. (…) He is in charge of a label in Berlin. He produced it and financed it as well. The second CD was then brought out ten years after the first one.

FM: (…) You just mentioned the sonic influences…There was a revival of bagpipe playing and making in the GDR (…). How prominent was that here in Leipzig? Were there people here that were involved with bagpipes? [23:33]

GS: Not many. Among those that played bagpipes, I can recall a friend of mine, who played with the ex-Leipzig band Zensi (…). He had the nickname “Alphorn”. (…) He now lives in Gera, I think. (…) Later, there was a bagpiper called Jörn Römer. He is still affiliated with the Rudolstadt Folkfest and helps out with the instrument makers. (…)

FM: (…) As a folk dance band, were you also involved with the festival?

GS: As Skiffle?

FM: Yes, even in general (…).

GS: Lumich didn’t exist anymore at that point. We split up in 1990 after Rüdiger’s death. I mean, he was the musical director of the whole thing and it simply wasn’t feasible anymore. We were there with Skiffle once. There was an Ostalgie- stage (‘East German nostalgia- stage’). For example, we included a song associated with the youth song movement and their Singeklubs, called “Sag mir, wo do stehst!” (“Which Side Are You On?”).

FM: Yes!

GS: We performed a satirical version of this song with a melody line (pause) borrowed from Santana and (pause) “Oye Como Va”, one of the big hits. Skiffle mastered this concept musically, because we experimented with melodies and adapted them (…). We could then perform it on an Ostalgie- stage. (…)

[26:51]

FM: Can you remember the transition? Was there a clear transition between the youth song movement and the folk music scene? (…)

GS: (…) I remember not wanting to be associated with the Singeklubs. By the 80s, they were already kind of…I was only partially interested in them. We wanted to do our own thing and the folk music scene facilitated that. The songs and the material were available and (…) there were a few Irish folk music records as well (…). Then there was the festival of political song, where great artists like the Sands Family performed (…).

153 FM: Did you ever get a chance to attend the festival?

GS: No, we didn’t get tickets. It was illusionary, if you didn’t know somebody, but I said to myself: “Screw it!” we just played that ourselves. We listened to it and played it. We met up and performed a mixture of things (…). Matthias Uhlmann, a course mate from a parallel class (…), told me, because we frequently met and talked about good music, that we should be interested in Bob Dylan, John Lennon, and Neil Young. Those were our approaches and he argued: “Excellent, I can recommend somebody, who has a lot of song books (…).” There was somebody else at our school. He transcribed beautiful song texts and put chords to them. You didn’t need anything else, really, and could sit down and practise. We once met up in a garden, played songs by Bod Dylan and harmonised our singing. That was our attempt at using the song texts and at playing something else together. It didn’t even have to be in English.

[30:00]

FM: Yes.

GS: It didn’t really matter, whether it was in English or not, but those were songs that moved us. That was the start. When Folkländer emerged, Matthias Uhlmann told me: “If you like that kind of material, there is a band, (…) they play German stuff. That would be cool!” So, I went and became totally infected, even as a student. (…) They played a concert at the university in Leipzig, in a lecture theatre. That was great. If I was allowed to go to festivals, I always attended the band’s concerts (…). Back then, Jürgen Wolff edited and published (…) a short series of German folk song books, “Kleine Reihe deutscher Volksliedhefte” (“A Selection of German Folk Song Booklets”).

FM: Can you tell me more about that?

GS: Yes, I can tell you that it was great. Those were the basics (…). Even today, (…) some CDs provide booklets with text as well, if you’re lucky. You don’t really need more and you can figure out the rest. (…) Erik Kross contributed to that. He later joined the Cottbus band Wacholder. That was well done, because they added notation, song texts, and historical background information. (…). They layered a solid foundation and conducted fieldwork professionally. (…) Jürgen and I were in a fieldwork seminar group. That was great, because we could use the German Library to conduct research on specific themes. There were a couple of things one could read, but first, one had to figure it out! (…) For example, we reflected on robbers’ feasts, an old tradition in the Sachsen-Anhalt region (…). We went to the German Library and attended a few folk fests in Sachsen-Anhalt. However, there were also a lot of things that you had to work hard for. They weren’t simply to be found on the street, if you didn’t know somebody from the village.

[33:35]

FM: That was intense fieldwork, actually.

154

GS: Yes. Well, you had to put in a bit of effort.

FM: Did you consult specific collections at the library?

GS: No, nothing specific. We looked up robbers’ feasts and came across the seminal collections like Steinitz’ book, but they were exhausted to a great degree. The pioneering bands had already conducted thorough research in this regard (…). Then there were different things that emerged, whether they were song collections or collections published by the clergy, which were incredibly text-focused and didn’t contain any nonsense. (…) Those were suitable song books for social gatherings. That was the start and afterwards, one could re-interpret things in a more innovative way and change the song texts.

FM: Yes.

GS: That was relatively unproblematic (…). There once was an old song performed for folk dancing by Folkländers Bierfiedler (…). They sang: “Die Luft ist rein, von Leipzig bis nach Espenhain” (“The air is clear, from Leipzig to Espenhain”). However, the original song is: “Die Luft ist rein, von Plauen bis nach Falkenstein” (“The air is clear, from Plauen to Falkenstein”). That was the original text. Of course, you could bend that (…) and people instantly recognized that it referred to the pollution in Southern Leipzig. Now it is much cleaner. (…)

FM: I can imagine that it could be directly related to the circumstances back then.

GS: Yes, those were wound spots back then, but it was also a brilliant folk dance tune. Jürgen and those people came up with the idea of adding spiced-up lyrics (…). Manne Wagenbredt was equally important, because he had an exhaustive repertoire and knew a lot of people. He is friendly with the Sands Family and people like that (…) and out of these acquaintances grew new opportunities (…). In GDR times, we also knew excellent bands like the Oysterband. They are a great folk-rock collective and continue to be active. They had already been to the GDR two or three times. Back then, Ulli Doberenz negotiated that with the folk club and the FDJ. Lumich also performed with the Oysterband on two or three occasions. We were the support act, played our repertoire, and they played a great concert and accompanied the folk dance evening for all those interested. That was brilliant.

[37:34]

FM: This interview strikes me, because it sheds light on the folk dance facet. Wolfgang Leyn also writes about folk dancing. (…) Was the folk dance scene originally influenced by the Hungarian táncház movement, the dance house movement?

GS: Of course, that was the model. As far as I know, the first two dancing masters were Sigi Lemke and Sigi Doberenz. I believe, they were introduced to that via the dance house scene in Hungary. In Berlin, a movement called JAMS Tanzhaus existed. (…) Hungary was the primary

155 role model, which we knew from vacation: “Excellent, we can do that as well!”. One just needed a band that could play long enough. (…) Wolfgang Leyn can tell you more about that, he was there from the start. Wolfgang was and still is a music journalist, who travels a lot with his interviews. He can recall names and people really well and can provide details that I cannot explain as clearly, simply because I wasn’t there from the start. Folkländer were around in 74’ and 75’, we only joined ten years later. In the meantime, a lot of things changed and new bands formed as well. However, there weren’t as many who were involved in folk dancing. Wacholder was one of the more prominent ones. The Erfurt scene consisted of bands like Brummtopf and Saitensprung, they were some of the first bands. (…) I only intensely immersed myself in 82’.

FM: (…) What changed after reunification? How did the scene develop, from your point of view?

GS: I can’t actually answer that precisely, because I left the folk music scene after reunification. Following the tragic death of my friend, I wanted to be alone. (…) Of course, it was immensely tough to lose your best friend...

FM: Of course.

[40:56]

GS: It took me a long time to get over that and I didn’t want to be pitied by members of the folk music scene. We were inseparable and it was clear that Lumich had to be Rüdiger and Gert. It took a long time for me to catch up with that. I have somehow overcome that today and I get on really well with a lot of people. Like other genres of popular music, musicians in the scene struggled to sustain themselves financially after reunification. You can talk to successful bands like Wacholder about that. They surely had a hard time. Folkländer didn’t exist anymore, they were Bierfiedler and had already split up. Jürgen then formed Duo Sonnenschirm with Dieter Beckert (…). Of course, they were part of a different category. They were Liedermacher, who were thinking politically critical, but were equally funny and innovative. They called it Brachialromantik, you have to listen to the song texts to understand that. It’s quirky, great, and musically well done. Fortunately, they continue to perform, even after taking a break for several years. (…) However, nothing is as it was. There is no real demand for it and it is difficult to make a living out of that.

FM: Pfeffi mentioned that earlier. They played in Hoyerswerda, about one or two weeks ago and it was problematic, because there was no considerable demand for it. That’s what it seems to be like and it’s a pity, of course.

GS: Event organisers like Pfeffi, although they might display strong will power, don’t have enough money at their disposal to promote those events properly. It is through advertisements that you entice people to attend. Consequently, you have to design posters months or weeks in advance. (...) Nowadays, we know everything through television (...). MDR broadcasts the

156 show “Folk und Welt” every Wednesday at 9pm. Before that, at 8pm, they broadcast a fabulous international song programme. That’s great and features some of the old guys, but they are non-existent in normal radio programmes. Then, merely old fans like us remain, but that is nice, too. (…) Recently, Jürgen organised an exhibition at the Leipzig City Library, displaying poster adverts and drafts for the folk festival in Rudolstadt. To complement this, Duo Sonnenschirm played an hour-long concert. The upper hall was well filled and it was brilliant. That continues to be good.

FM: Excellent, so much material. Thank you!

End of Interview: [44:45]

157 APPENDIX E: Interview mit Wolfgang Leyn

Deutsche Originalfassung (Original Transcription in German)

Datum: 12. April 2017 Ort: Café der Buchhandlung „Ludwig“, Hauptbahnhof, Leipzig Zeit: 19:00 Format: iPhone 5S, internes Mikrofon Interviewer: Felix Morgenstern Interviewee: Wolfgang Leyn Abkürzungen: FM: Felix Morgenstern; WL: Wolfgang Leyn Dauer: 01:03:47

Es ist mittlerweile Abend geworden. Ich betrete erneut die imposante Bahnhofshalle in Leipzig und sehe mich um. Mit blauem Regenmantel bekleidet läuft Wolfgang Leyn schnellen Schrittes in das Café der Bahnhofsbuchhandlung „Ludwig“. Ich folge ihm und nähere mich diskret Wir nehmen auf einer Empore über dem Buchladen platz, welcher allerdings wenig besucht ist. Leyn ist Musikjournalist und Szene-Chronist. Er hat 2016 mit seinem Buch „Volkes Lied und Vater Staat“ einen wichtigen Überblick über die Folkszene der DDR veröffentlicht. Da ich das Buch gelesen habe, kommen wir sofort ins Gespräch:

Zeit: [00:00:01]

FM: Also, ich sitze hier mit Wolfgang Leyn und wir sprechen heute über die Folkszene in der DDR. Herr Leyn, wie haben Sie denn die Folkszene im Resümee erlebt und was ist Ihnen als Hauptcharakteristik im Gedächtnis geblieben? (…)

WL: Ich denke, sie war eine relativ kleine Szene. Sie war überhaupt eine Szene, was heißt, dass sie in sich sehr eng verbunden war. Man war eigentlich miteinander mehr oder weniger befreundet, also nicht nur bekannt. Ich denke, in der Bundesrepublik hat es in dem Sinne eine solche Szene nicht gegeben, weil das Land viel zu groß ist. Da hat es wahrscheinlich oben eine Szene an der Nordseeküste und eine unten in Bayern gegeben und vielleicht noch im Ruhrpott. Die DDR war ein kleines Land und sie war zentralistisch organisiert. Das heißt, alle Dinge, die wir gemacht haben, die Festivals oder Werkstätten, hatten immer einen Gesamt-DDR- Maßstab. Man kam oft im selben Kreis zusammen und dadurch war man eben gut miteinander bekannt. Ich würde danken, dass war ziemlich wichtig. Zum Zweiten denke ich, dass die DDR Szene, was das Musikalische und das Können der Musiker (…) betrifft, besser war als die westdeutsche Szene.

FM: Interessant. Was mich persönlich besonders interessiert, da mein Hintergrund in irischer Musik ist, ich in Irland irische Musik studiert habe und selbst irischen Dudelsack

158 spiele, fällt mir beim Hören der Folkländer-Platten (…) auf, dass es ganz am Anfang diesen irischen Einfluss gab.

WL: Hm.

FM: Bestimmte Elemente wurden ja beibehalten, aber ich wollte fragen, woher denn dieser Bezug zum Irischen kam. Was hat das gerade in den Anfangsjahren stimuliert? [00:02:21]

WL: Naja, ich denke, da kommt Verschiedenes zusammen. Zum einen ist die irische Musik einfach eine sehr schöne Musik. Sie ist in gewisser Weise von ihren Instrumenten und Melodien her exotisch und wir haben sie als eine Musik kennengelernt, die damals den Dingen sehr nah war, die uns junge Leute so interessiert haben. Da waren Wein, Weib und Gesang, aber es konnte auch Bier, Weib und Dudelsack oder das Banjo sein. Musik, Trinken, Liebe und Rebellion, darum ging es in den irischen Songs, die wir kennengelernt haben. Wir haben sie im Wesentlichen über Platten kennengelernt (…). Es gab also diese eine polnische Platte von der wir gar nicht wussten, wer das eigentlich ist. Das war die einzige, die man hier in der DDR kaufen konnte. Dann kamen irgendwelche illegal importierten West-Platten. Dann gab es eben einen Menschen, den wir leibhaftig kennenlernten, Jack Mitchell, der leider nicht mehr lebt.

FM: Der war Anglistik-Dozent in Berlin, nicht wahr?

WL: Der ist 97‘ in Galway gestorben. (…) Ich glaube, seine Mutter war Irin und sein Vater war Schotte und aufgewachsen ist er in London, also er hatte das alles in sich. Seit Ende der 50er Jahre ist er in der DDR gewesen und hat mit der Singebewegung zusammengearbeitet und hat beim Festival des politischen Liedes (…) meistens die irischen und schottischen Bands organisiert. (…) Das war einfach ein charismatischer Sänger, der einfach als Typ authentisch war. Dann gab es damals diese Platten. Die „Dubliners“ kamen damals auf und das hat uns irgendwie imponiert. Dazu kam noch, dass es ganz gut in dieses anti-imperialistische Weltbild hineinpasste. Zum Beispiel war Irland ja die erste Kolonie Englands und dann gab es die IRA. (…) Wie soll man sagen, ohne viel zu überlegen waren die IRA für uns Helden und das stand in dieser Tradition der Aufstände. Ich höre heute noch Jack Mitchell „The Boys of Wexford“ singen. Da war eben 1798 nicht ganz fern, sondern es war durch ihn ganz nahe gerückt.

[00:04:54] (Kellnerin fragt, ob wir einen Kaffee bestellen möchten)

FM: Ja, ich war sehr beeindruckt, als ich mir anfangs die „Folkländer“-Sachen angehört habe und es gab ein Lied, welches mir im Sinn geblieben ist, nämlich „Ich verkauf’ mein Gut und Häuselein“, das Auswandererlied. Da ist gerade am Anfang das Zusammenspiel von Waldzither und Mandoline. Diese Textur hat mich zum Beispiel sehr an „Planxty“ erinnert. Ich weiß nicht, ob das bewusst war, aber…

WL: Nein, ich glaube, es ist unbewusst.

159

FM: Dieses Klangbild hat mich irgendwie angesprochen.

WL: Es stimmt, das hat mir ein Amerikaner erzählt, für den ein Freund von mir die erste „Folkländer“-Platte in die USA mitgenommen hatte. Da sagte er: „Das klingt komplett irisch.“. Das waren deutsche Lieder, aber die Instrumentation und die Art und Weise, wie Jürgen Wolff gesungen hat, das klingt wie eine irische Stimme. Es liegt aber sicher daran, dass sein Erweckungserlebnis dieses 74er Konzert der „Sands Family“ beim Festival des politischen Liedes war und wir haben dann auch mit der irischen Brille das deutsche Volksliedgut uns angeschaut. Jürgen Wolff war ja damals der Meinung, deutsche Volkslieder könne man gar nicht mehr singen, es ist irgendwie alles entweder verkunstet oder verkitscht (…). Dann haben wir irgendwann erkannt, dass es dieselben Lieder auch im Deutschen gibt. Aber da hatte man natürlich das Vorbild des irischen Musizierens. (…) Ich weiß gar nicht, ob er dir von „Enniskillen“ in Greifswald erzählt hat.

FM: Ich habe von „Enniskillen“ gelesen. In Ihrem Buch werden sie ja erwähnt (…).

WL: Das waren ganz verrückte Typen. Die hatten ein Haus mit fünf Zimmern und haben die Zimmer nach irischen Grafschaften benannt und haben dann Schnitzeljagt gemacht, wobei dann die irische Fahne gefunden werden musste. Das waren ganz verrückte Dinge und sicher waren sie angeregt von irischen Liedprogrammen am Theater in Berlin, wo zu O’Casey Stücken irische Lieder gespielt wurden. Davon gibt es auch wenigstens eine Schallplatte. Dieses Irische war irgendwie immer präsent und es lag uns nahe, weil wir uns da gut eingefühlt haben und weil es exotisch war. Es hat uns irgendwie gereizt. (…) Alle haben in der Szene auch dieselben Platten gehört und die wurden auch ausgetauscht.

[00:07:56]

FM: Welche waren es vom irischen Einfluss her? Da gab es doch bestimmt einige ikonische. . WL: Ja, es waren sicher „Planxty“, die „Chieftains“ und die „Dubliners“. Später gab es auch noch ein paar andere. Dann gab es ja auch bei der Werkstatt 76‘ einen „Iren-Schulle“ und einen „Schotten-Schulle“. Die hießen beide Schultz und Schultze und der Eine hat mehr irische und der Andere mehr schottische Sachen gemacht. Das war immer da.

FM: Das war also omnipräsent.

WL: Später sind dann viele andere Sachen mit dazugekommen, viel Deutsches und später, in den 80ern, kamen auch Klezmer-Geschichten und Balkan-Sachen. Das war auch in gewisser Weise eine Modewelle, die es in der Szene gab.

FM: (…) Ich habe mich gefragt, woher der Fokuswechsel zum deutschen Material kam. Das war dann wahrscheinlich im Rahmen der Folkwerkstätten, richtig?

160 WL: Naja, es hat jemand die provokante Frage gestellt: „Wenn wir jetzt die irischen Lieder singen, wer soll dann die deutschen singen? Die Iren vielleicht?“. Wir haben ja diesen Wolfgang Steinitz entdeckt mit diesen deutschen Volksliedern demokratischen Charakters und all diesen Rebellenliedern und den Klageliedern. Die waren den irischen Liedern schon sehr verwandt. Die Iren sind ausgewandert und die Deutschen sind ausgewandert. Die DDR-Bürger haben Ausreiseanträge gestellt (lacht). Da gab es eine Menge Entsprechungen, aber (…) der Steinitz und die deutschen Volkslied-Archive und Bibliotheken sind, glaube ich, nie vorher und auch nirgendwo anders so genau durchforstet worden, wie damals in der DDR. Da waren Jürgen Wolff und Erik Kross Leute, die auch Bibliografien herausgegeben haben, um es anderen Bands (…) zu erleichtern und zu zeigen, wo man etwas finden konnte. Das ist ja viel Arbeit gewesen. Da war das Deutsche dann die zweite Entdeckung. Da war das Irische und (…) Folklore kann also etwas anderes sein, als nur schöne Trachtenfolklore. Dann kam die Erkenntnis: „Ah, das gibt es auch in unserem Erbe!“. Dann hat man geschaut und dann gab es auch Schweden und Ungarn. Die Ungarn waren dann für das Tanzen verantwortlich.

FM: Die Tanzhaus-Bewegung. (…) Das hat mir Gert Steinert erzählt, der ja mit „Lumich“ zusammengespielt hat und er sagte, dass er auch diese Tanzabende und das Spiel zum Volkstanz im Gedächtnis hat. (…) Ich schaue mir morgen an der Akademie der Künste in Berlin den Steinitz an und was mich interessiert, ist dieses Spiel mit doppeltem Boden. (…) Es wird ja oft beschrieben, dass Künstler Lieder der 1848er Revolution genommen haben und das dann auf die real existierenden Zustände im Sozialismus angewendet haben. War das etwas, was die Szene Ihrer Meinung nach ganz stark charakterisiert hat und eine der Hauptmotivationen war, so etwas kreativ-subversiv zu re-interpretieren?

[00:11:48]

WL: Ja, man muss natürlich sagen, dass die Szene keine politische Opposition gewesen ist. Es gab natürlich ganz verschiedene Motive, warum man diese Musik gemacht hat. Es gab auch Leute, die einfach Dudelsack spielen wollten und denen es egal war, welche Lieder kamen. Es gab andere, die damit schon sehr politisch umgegangen sind. Es gab auch Leute, die diese Provokation geliebt haben und es war auch ein Spiel. Wie weit kann man gehen und wann geht man zu weit? Ich habe es in meinem Buch in dem Interview mit Stephan Krawczyk erwähnt, wo also ein Spottlied aus dem 19. Jahrhundert von Glaßbrenner wörtlich genommen wurde: „Die Faultiere sitzen im Staatsrat und dann mussten sie antraben und sich rechtfertigen und haben dann das dicke Buch genommen: Hier steht’s!“. Jürgen Wolff hat es so formuliert, dass das die Eintrittskarte war, mit der man sich herausreden konnte. Das hat Spaß gemacht, so gegen den Strich zu gehen. Das war natürlich in der DDR etwas ganz Geläufiges, zwischen den Zeilen zu lesen. Das ist das, was heute verloren gegangen ist. Die Leute hören heute nicht mehr so genau zu. Ich kann mich erinnern, dass ich zu DDR-Zeiten für Radio Berlin International bei einer Pressekonferenz mit Heinz Rudolf Kunze war, der in der DDR ein Gastspiel gegeben hat. Ich habe ihn gefragt, ob es im Publikum Unterschiede gibt. Da sagte er: „Ja klar, in der DDR haben die ganz anders zugehört, weil man natürlich auf bestimmte Sachen gewartet hat, die zwischen den Zeilen standen.“. Im Westen muss man heute viel auffälliger und lauter sein, um überhaupt wahrgenommen zu werden. Ich frage mich aber andererseits,

161 warum wir uns heute Shakespeare-Stücke über einem britischen König anschauen. Das ist so, weil dort Probleme verhandelt werden, die es heute noch gibt. (…) Es ist einfach in aller Kunst drin, dass sie, wenn sie heute nichts mehr zu sagen hat, uninteressant ist.

FM: Es gab also demnach diesen intellektuellen Anspruch, der dann da war (…). Haben Sie das Gefühl, dass es vom Publikum fast schon universal verstanden wurde? (…)

WL: Ich denke, ja. Die Szene war anfangs sehr stark studentisch geprägt und alle Auftrittsorte waren Studentenklubs und Jugendklubs. In den Jugendklubs (…) waren natürlich schon die Leute da, die auch ein wenig mitgedacht haben. Es gab also nicht nur die, die nur abtanzen wollten.

FM: (…) Ich habe mich über den Übergang zwischen der Singebewegung und der Folkszene gewundert. Gab es irgendwann einen Punkt, wo gesagt wurde, (...) dass wir jetzt unser eigenes Ding machen wollten und sind unabhängig vom Staat eine Szene, die kreativ agiert? Gab es einen Punkt, an dem das artikuliert wurde?

WL: Ja, es gab eine Abnabelung. Die gab es eigentlich schon mit der Werkstatt im Oktober 1976 in Leipzig. Wobei Abnabelung hieß, dass wir nicht Singebewegung und Singeklubs sind und wir sind Folk, also etwas Eigenes. Da waren wir schon sehr selbstbewusst. Aber es gab keine Abnabelung oder (…) innere Emigration in der DDR, das ist Quatsch. Wir sind in die DDR hereingeboren worden. Ich bin Jahrgang 53‘. Es war auch nicht abzusehen, dass die DDR irgendwann einmal verschwinden würde.

FM: Ja.

[00:16:01]

WL: Das war jenseits jeder Vorstellung. Das heißt, mit der DDR musste man irgendwie leben, so wie man heute in diesem Land leben muss. Da gab es Institutionen und wir sind da ziemlich pragmatisch herangegangen. Ich weiß, als wir diese erste Werkstatt organisiert haben, hat Jürgen Wolff an der Grafik-Hochschule studiert und wir, als „Folkländer“, hatten den Grafikkeller, (…) also den Studentenklub, gemietet und ich kannte jemanden von der FDJ Bezirksleitung, der das Bezirks-Singezentrum Leipzig verantwortet hat. Ich sagte zu ihm: „Du Jürgen, ich brauche mal von dir ein bisschen Geld. Wir wollen eine Werkstatt veranstalten und wollen den Bands die Reisekosten bezahlen. Vor allem brauche ich aber deine Unterschrift als Mitveranstalter.“. In dem Moment, als er es unterschrieben hat, war es abgesegnet und es ist glücklicherweise genau so passiert, wie ich mir es erhofft hatte. Wir haben das Geld und die Unterschrift bekommen und wir haben unser Ding gemacht. Das ist ein treffender Begriff. (…) Jede Band musste auch eine Auftrittsgenehmigung haben und eine Einstufung. Dafür gab es diese Kabinette für Kulturarbeit. Die hatten also Laienkunst und Amateurkunst zu betreuen und das hieß Einstufung. Da musste man vorspielen und je nachdem, wer dann in dieser Kommission saß, (…) haben sie es eingeschätzt. Dann bekam man eine spezielle Güteklasse zugewiesen und daraus ergab sich dann der Anspruch an ein Honorar. Das heißt, du hast nicht

162 gegen Eintritt gespielt, sondern machtest einen Vertrag mit einem Jugendklub, schicktest es hin und es hieß, das Honorar sei soundso viel. Das hatten die zu zahlen. Es passierte auch, dass ein Klub schrieb: „Wir würden euch gern buchen, aber können es nicht bezahlen (…).“.

FM: Das gab es also, dass man einen bestimmten Etat zugewiesen bekam.

WL: Die Klubs hatten ein Budget (…) und die Jugendklubs waren kommunal unterstellt. Da gab es einen bestimmten Fond für Kulturarbeit. Bei den Studentenklubs lief es möglicherweise über die Uni, das weiß ich nicht so genau. (…) Die hatten ein Budget und dann haben sie überlegt, je nachdem, wer dort der Klubchef war (…), haben sie entweder nur Disko gemacht oder hatten mehr Ambitionen. Sie haben entweder einen Lyrikabend, einen Lichtbildervortrag, ein Folkkonzert, ein Blueskonzert oder Liedermacher organisiert (…). Dann gab es diese Klubleiterschule in Meißen-Siebeneichen. Dort sind viele der hauptamtlichen Klubleiter ausgebildet worden und viele von denen hatten ein kleines Netzwerk und gaben sich gegenseitig Empfehlungen (…).

[00:19:45]

FM: (…) Es fällt mir auf, dass die Bezeichnung „Folk“ ja, denke ich, im deutlichen Kontrast zu Volkslied steht. Kam diese Distanz daher, dass man meinte, Volkslieder seien romantisiert und verkitscht? Was hat „Folk“ für die Leute verinnerlicht? (…)

WL: Es ist auf jeden Fall ein Alternativbegriff. Volkslied war äquivalent mit dem romantischen Volkslied. Das war allgegenwärtig im Radio und auf Schallplatten und dann gab es Chöre, die das gesungen haben (…). Dann gab es auch die volkstümliche Musik, die ja sich als Volkslied bezeichnet hat. Das wollten wir nicht und es waren eigentlich unsere ärgsten Feinde (lacht). Wir wollten es einfach lockerer und engagierter haben. (…) Die Folkszene ist ja damals locker an die Dinge herangegangen. In Thüringen gab es zum Beispiel noch Streit, weil da noch Survival-Folk vorhanden ist. Die meinten dann: „Dieses Instrument muss mit jenem zusammenspielen und da spielt man dann in Terzen.“. Das war uns sowas von (…) egal. Wir haben ganz wild gemixt. Ich habe es „Abenteuer Instrumentierung“ genannt. Da kam eine Mandoline, eine Drehleier und noch eine Tin Whistle hinzu. Das musste irgendwie unseren Soundvorstellungen entsprechen und es war völlig unwichtig, ob das überliefert war. Nun kamen wir auch aus Gegenden, die nicht so folkloreträchtig waren. (…) Da kam einer aus dem Erzgebirge, einer aus Leipzig, einer aus Brandenburg und einer aus Mecklenburg. Welche landschaftliche Tradition hätten die denn pflegen sollen?

FM: Ja, das stimmt.

WL: Man hat sich eben getroffen. Das Irische war am Anfang verbindend, aber es gab auch andere Dinge. Die späteren Bands haben (…) dann gleich etwas Deutsches oder alte Musik gespielt. Aber die Tradition war kaum da (…). Es gab eine Ausnahme in Thüringen. Das war Horst Traut, der Musiklehrer. Der hat in der Singebewegung seit 76‘ in der kleinen Kreisstadt Neuhaus oder Oberweißbach (…) einen Singeklub und einen Schulchor gehabt und hat mit

163 denen Volkslieder gesungen. Er hat das ziemlich straff durchgezogen, auch wenn das in der Singebewegung eigentlich nur am Rande benutzt wurde. Er ist relativ schnell zur Folkszene dazugestoßen und war auch der Verbindungsmann zu dieser traditionellen Volksmusikszene in Thüringen. Aber ansonsten war es schwierig. Es gab eine Werkstatt, wo dieser Dialog gefunden werden sollte. Es war aber etwas Einmaliges und die Abstoßung war größer als die Anziehung.

[00:23:36]

FM: Weil Sie gerade das Abenteuer der Instrumentierung angesprochen hatten…Es gab ja diese Renaissance des Dudelsackspiels und auch des Dudelsackbaus in der DDR. Was hat das am Anfang stimuliert? War es nur die Exotik des Instruments? Was war Ihrer Meinung nach der Anstoß dafür? Das hat ja auch den Sound vieler Bands, beziehungsweise das Mittelalter- Revival, beeinflusst.

WL: Ich glaube, es war vor allem die Exotik, aber vielleicht auch, weil der Dudelsack romantisch für das Altdeutsche stand. Interessanterweise ist schon bei der Werkstatt 1976, wo definitiv kein Dudelsack gespielt wurde und es ihn auch noch gar nicht gab, auf der Einladung ein Dudelsack abgebildet gewesen. Da ist Dürer leicht verfremdet abgebildet und da hängt dann ein Mikrofon hinein. (…) Das hat schon damals eine Rolle gespielt und diese Abbildungen geisterten dann auch durch die Szene. Auf irgendwelchen Ausweisen sieht man gerne mal eine Dürer-Abbildung. Ich glaube, es war die Exotik und später kam dann sicher auch dazu, dass es in Berlin Bernd Eichler und „Schotten-Schulle“ in dieser Dudelsack- Bruderschaft gab. Die haben ja richtig versucht, das nachzubauen. Vorher wurden Dudelsäcke irgendwie mitgebracht. Einen schottischen hat sich Andy Wieczorek von seiner Oma aus West- Berlin mitbringen lassen. Der war dann aber „Made in Pakistan“ und nicht spielbar. Das war nicht so glücklich. Dann hat sich Jack Mitchell auch einige Sachen mitgebracht und Bernd Eichler hat angefangen, deutsche Dudelsäcke nachzubauen. (…) Es wurden auch die verschiedensten gebaut. Ich weiß, ich war dann auch in Dudelsackwerkstätten und es gab da natürlich den großen schottischen Dudelsack, die Northumberland Small-Pipes, verschiedene deutsche Dudelsäcke und irgendwelche Eigenentwicklungen. Das war dann auch eine Sache für die technisch und handwerklich begabten, die dann die Dinge vermessen und ausprobiert haben (…). Wie kann man den Sack so abdichten, dass er innen nicht schimmelt und woraus können Spielpfeife und Bordune gebaut werden?

FM: (…) Ja, ich kann mir vorstellen, dass es in der DDR schwierig war, an Instrumente heranzukommen und Instrumente zu kaufen.

WL: Definitiv. Dudelsäcke gab es überhaupt nicht. Ich sage immer, dass das die Kreativität des Mangels oder die Kreativitätsförderung durch den Mangel war. Wenn man eben so ein Ding spielen wollte, musste man es selbst bauen.

164 FM: Haben Sie mal gefragt, was die Strategien waren? (…) Hat man dann Besenstiele genommen und versucht, daraus eine Spielpfeife zu fertigen? Wie kann man sich das vorstellen? (…)

[00:27:16]

WL: Ja, also man hat alles genutzt. Es waren, glaube ich, nicht Besenstiele, sondern Spatenstiele. Die hat man dann von der bäuerlichen Handelsgenossenschaft erhalten und hat dann probiert, ob es mit dem Holz klappt. Das Wichtigste, habe ich mir sagen lassen (…), ist wohl, wie man diesen Konus der Spielpfeife fertigt. (…) Man hat ganz viel experimentiert. Warum Dudelsack? Da fällt mir noch ein, (…) wir konnten ja auch nicht zu irgendwelchen Festivals nach England, Frankreich, Schweden oder Finnland fahren. Das war nichtsozialistisches Wirtschaftsgebiet und das ging nicht. Aber es gab ein Festival, wo DDR- Folkies hingefahren sind. Das war Strakonice in Südböhmen. Das ist ein internationales Dudelsack-Festival. Da waren die Schotten und die Bretonen, die Schweden, die Westdeutschen, die Ungarn und die Bulgaren. Das war auch ein sehr persönliches Ding. Da war der Zeltplatz, da wurde abends musiziert und es gab Sessions. Es war also, wie man es aus der DDR kannte. Am Anfang gab es nach allen Konzerten Sessions.

FM: Session. Ist das vergleichbar mit dem irischen Kontext? War es so, dass man sich mehr oder weniger informell traf und zusammen Musik machte?

WL: Das lief am Anfang so. Ich sagte ja, die Bands hatten anfangs ihre Einstufung. Da gab es die Amateur-Pappe und 40 Mark oder so. Das hieß, die Bands waren billig und die Klubs konnten es sich leisten, zwei oder drei Bands an einem Abend einzuladen. Die kannten sich natürlich und trafen sich auch ständig wieder, weil es ein relativ kleiner Kreis war. Dann hatte man ein ziemlich großes gemeinsames Repertoire an deutschen Handwerkerliedern und irischen Kneipensongs, so wie „Wild Rover“, „Lustig, lustig, ihr lieben Brüder“, „Unser Handwerk, das ist verdorben“ und so weiter. Das kannten alle und meistens wurde in G-Dur gesungen. Das waren die berüchtigten G-Dur Sessions. Man rief sich eine Tonart zu und dann hat jeder, der konnte, ein Instrument genommen und dann wurde mit dem Publikum zusammen gesungen.

FM: Das war sozusagen dieses Session-Konzept.

WL: Ja, ja.

FM: Gab es dann (…) das auch, dass Sie eigene Sachen geschrieben haben?

[00:30:01]

WL: Das kam später (…). Es hing ja auch damit zusammen, dass ich, wenn ich traditionelle Lieder gemacht habe und Anstoß erregt habe, sagen konnte, wo es steht. Bei eigenen Sachen war es schwieriger. Ich denke, es sind in der DDR auch mehr alte traditionelle Volksliedtexte

165 neu vertont worden (…), als dass man Lieder umgetextet hätte. Ich denke, dass hat man im Westen mehr gemacht, ob es Wader oder „Liederjan“ waren, die dann einfach traditionelle Lieder mit neuen Texten gespielt haben. Da war man hier zögernder. Man hat sich ein bisschen ans Eigene herangetastet. (…) Viele der Steinitz-Lieder sind aus dem 19. Jahrhundert, also aus der Zeit der 1848er Revolution und des Vormärz. Es gab dann auch das beginnende Arbeiterlied, also nicht die Arbeiterhymnen (…). Dann kamen in den 20er Jahren Tucholsky und Weinert. Mit denen konnte man auch arbeiten, die hatten auch diesen doppelten Boden: „Mein liebes Publikum, bist du wirklich so dumm?“. Das konnte man schon eins zu eins aufnehmen. Im Prinzip ist das, was die Folkloristen mit diesen Dingen gemacht haben, ähnlich. „Karls Enkel“ hatte ja ein Liedertheater. Die haben traditionelle Goethe oder Eisler-Texte genommen und haben genauso mit diesem doppelten Boden gearbeitet, ehe dann „Wenzel und Mensching“ die eigenen Sachen gemacht haben. Eigene Sachen in der Folkszene wären ja dann auch wieder etwas anderes gewesen. Es war dann nicht mehr Folk, sondern wieder Liedermacher oder Singebewegung. Eigentlich verließ man das Genre. Es gibt auch Leute, die das relativ bruchlos gemacht haben, Krawczyk zum Beispiel. (…) Der hat dann schon 83‘ angefangen, Gedichte eines zeitgenössischen DDR Dichters zu vertonen. Das begann dann, einige haben es gemacht und andere haben es nicht gemacht. Jürgen Wolff ist in den 80ern aus „Folkländer“ ausgetreten, als das eine Tanz-Band, die „Bierfiedler“, wurde. Er hat dann aber das Kabarettistische und diese Brachialromantik gemacht.

FM: „Duo Sonnenschirm“.

WL: Das war dann etwas ganz Eigenes. (…) „Piatkowski und Riek“ aus Rostock (…) haben relativ schnell eigene plattdeutsche Texte gemacht.

FM: Was mich in Bezug auf neues Material interessiert hat wäre gewesen, ob es irgendwann zu einer Re-folklorisierung dieses Materials auf Ebene der Folk-Session gekommen ist.

WL: Das gab es in Einzelfällen, zum Beispiel bei Jens-Paul Wollenberg. Der hat Sachen gemacht, (…) die dann in den Sessions gesungen wurden. Aber es hat nicht so eine große Rolle gespielt. (…) Es war dann auch so, dass sich die Szene in den 80ern sehr schnell aufgesplittet hat. Es gab dann die erfahrenen Bands, die auch einen Berufsausweis hatten und dann gab es die Neuanfänger, also „Folkländer“. Die anderen Bands haben am Anfang Sachen von „Liederjan“ und „Zupfgeigenhansel“ und von Hannes Wader nachgesungen, also von West- Gruppen, die über Schallplatten bekannt waren.

FM: Ja. [00:34:05]

WL: Die nachwachsenden DDR-Bands haben dann Lieder von den „Folkländer“- oder „Wacholder“-Platten nachgesungen, also sozusagen aus dem eigenen Land. Was sollte man mit denen reden? Man war selbst schon ganz woanders. „Folkländer“ hatte eben dann 1981 oder 82‘ beim Festival des politischen Liedes auch ein Renft-Stück gespielt. Renft war in der DDR seit 1975 verboten. Wenn es in der DDR eine Kultband gab, dann war das damals Renft.

166 „Nach der Schlacht“ (…) ist eines der besten Renft-Lieder (…). Da kommen die Revolutionäre im Invalidenheim zusammen und fragen sich, ob sich die fehlenden Beine gelohnt haben. Sie stellen fest, dass es sich eigentlich nicht gelohnt hat. Das war sehr weit vorausblickend (…). Renft hat 1975 Auftrittsverbot bekommen. Die Band ist ja dann teils in den Westen gegangen und sie gab es dann irgendwann nicht mehr, aber die Lieder waren irgendwie da. Das haben sie beim Festival des politischen Liedes gemacht (…). Das war dann schon nicht mehr der traditionelle Folk.

FM: (…) Wenn ich morgen zur Akademie der Künste fahre und mir den Steinitz anschaue, können Sie mir da ein Beispiel nennen, was in der Szene ganz oft verwendet wurde?

WL: Ich denke, bei den Solldatenliedern findet man da was, „O König von Preußen“, das haben wir damals von Wader übernommen. (Pause) Es gab mal eine Gedenkveranstaltung für Steinitz und da habe ich mal durchgezählt. Es hat eigentlich anfangs jede DDR-Band mindestens ein Steinitz-Lied gesungen. Soldatenklagen, weil man dann im Hinterkopf immer die NVA hatte und dann Lieder von Handwerksgesellen.

FM: Auswandererlieder.

WL: Ja, Auswandererlieder. Ich denke das waren die häufigen Dinge. (…)

FM: Ich hatte ja in Irland mit David Robb zu tun und er hat sich sehr viel mit Steinitz befasst und hat sich aber auch mit Inge Lammels Liedersammlung „Das Lied im Kampf geboren: Lieder der Revolution von 1848“ beschäftigt. Wurde das dann auch verwendet oder nur Steinitz?

WL: Eigentlich nur Steinitz, es kam ja alles daher. Es gab in Berlin noch die Band „Arbeiterfolk“, die haben ganz gezielt diese Arbeiterballaden gespielt.

FM: Ja.

WL: (…) Die haben das musikalisch sehr überzeugend gemacht. Die kamen eigentlich aus der Singebewegung. Es gab immer mal Bands, die aus der Singebewegung übergelaufen sind zur Folkszene. Es machte auch in der Folkszene mehr Spaß. Wobei die Singebewegung, ich war bei den Werkstätten auch mit dabei, schon auch ein soziales, geselliges Leben hatte. Es waren junge Leute und abends wurde getrunken und gesungen. Vielleicht wurde bei den Folkloristen mehr geraucht und mehr getrunken und es ging länger (lacht).

[00:38:31]

FM: Ja, es ist sehr spannend und ich bringe das gerade in Perspektive. Ich habe natürlich viel darüber gelesen, aber es ist noch etwas anderes, wenn man selbst mit den Leuten spricht. (…) Als es dann zur Wende kam und vor allem nach der Wende, haben Sie das Gefühl, dass

167 der Mauerfall der DDR-Folkszene ein wenig den Nährboden entzogen hat? Der Subtext war ja nicht mehr da.

WL: Ja. Zum einen musste man nicht mehr durch die Blume singen. Das Publikum ging erst einmal woanders hin. Die Lieder verloren den doppelten Boden, die Szene verlor die Auftrittsorte, weil die Jugendklubs reihenweise geschlossen wurden und die Finanzierung unklar war. Das Publikum fuhr erst einmal in den Westen (…), zu den Festivals, wo man früher gern hingefahren wäre, aber nicht konnte. Das Publikum hatte plötzlich völlig andere Sorgen. Man verlor die Arbeit und plötzlich wurden die Mieten erhöht. Man hatte andere Prioritäten. Die DDR war ein Staat, der sich relativ wenig verändert hat, also sehr stabil war, bis hin zur Stagnation, wo sich einfach nichts mehr entwickelt hat. Aber es verlief alles in längeren Zeiteinheiten und danach stürzte das alles ab. Das war wie ein Programmabsturz im Computer. Alles, was gegolten hatte, war weg und man musste sich jetzt auf das Neue einstellen. Dann kamen natürlich die Leute aus dem Westen, die eben alles besser wussten und die das Geld hatten (…) und da musste man sich erst einmal orientieren. Es war schon ein Umsturz. Es gibt einige, die sagen, „Ja, wir können auch im Westen auftreten.“. Wir haben dann auch gemerkt, wie gut wir im Vergleich gespielt haben. Tanzbands, zum Beispiel, die dann plötzlich in Erlangen oder in Hannover aufgetreten sind…Dann merkten wir, dass wir deutlich besser als die anderen waren. (…) Ich habe im Buch den Vergleich aufgestellt, wie viele Profi-Bands in der DDR existierten. (…) Wenn man das hochrechnet, hätte es im Westen fünfmal so viele geben müssen. Die hat es nie gegeben und gibt es auch heute nicht. Die DDR hat dieses Genre, die Amateurkunst und die Volkskunst, gefördert. Man konnte die Behörden da auch beim Wort nehmen.

FM: Ja. (…) Wenn Sie gerade von Stagnation gesprochen haben. Gegen Ende war es ja so, dass die Folkwerkstätten nicht mehr in Leipzig stattfanden.

WL: Richtig.

FM: Sie wurden ja verlagert. Das hat wahrscheinlich dann auch Auswirkungen auf die Integrität der Szene gehabt. Was meinen Sie?

[00:42:05]

WL: Unbedingt. Leipzig war die zweitgrößte Stadt der DDR. Es war eine Studentenstadt. Es gab in dieser Stadt die meisten Bands. Es gab, glaube ich, in Leipzig mehr Bands als in Berlin, obwohl Berlin viel größer ist. Es war wirklich die Hauptstadt der Szene (…). Dann war auch Jürgen Wolff hier, der war wirklich der führende Kopf, der mit seiner doppelten und dreifachen Begabung als Sänger, Theoretiker und Künstler auch Plakate und Liedhefte herausgebracht hat. Leipzig ließ sich nicht kontrollieren. Dann ist man eben erst nach Ilmenau gegangen, dann nach Penzlin. Das war dann alles viel kleiner und da konnte nicht einfach unkontrolliert jemand hinkommen. Es war ja auch beim Festival des politischen Liedes so, dass dort viele Karten gefälscht wurden. Die wurden nicht einfach weitergegeben, sondern gefälscht, um da reinzukommen. Das war ganz professionell, man kannte dann irgendeinen Drucker (…). So

168 war es dann in Leipzig und das wollten die Behörden natürlich nicht. (…) Jens-Paul Wollenberg, zum Beispiel, sollte immer ferngehalten werden. Den haben sie als (…) Störenfried wahrgenommen. (…) Er war ein wichtiger Kreativer in dieser Szene und er war eine ganz andere Person als Jürgen Wolff, aber er gehörte dazu. Plötzlich war er irgendwie ausgeschlossen. Dazu kam die Differenzierung der Szene. Wie gesagt, die verschiedenen Generationen hatten sich eigentlich wenig zu sagen. Dann ging es in Richtung Instrumentierung, es wurden Dudelsäcke und Drehleiern gebaut. Da war das politische Lied weg oder es wurde getanzt. Es ging also mehr ins Technische und weg von der Politik. (…) Es hätte ja auch 1990 eine Werkstatt stattfinden sollen (…), hoch spezialisiert. Das war weit weg von irgendwelcher politscher Realität.

FM: Achso, es hat dann also immer stärker eine musikalische Spezialisierung und Professionalisierung gegeben. (…) War das im Einklang damit, dass man sich vom geselligen Gruppenmusizieren distanziert hat? (…)

WL: Ja, die Profi-Bands mussten es ja auch machen. Wenn Bands zwei Jahre hintereinander in den selben Klub kamen, mussten sie ein anderes Programm haben. (…) Sie haben dann auch den Ehrgeiz gehabt, geschlossene Programme zu machen. „Wacholder“, zum Beispiel, hat sich von „Wenzel und Mensching“ das Heine-Programm abgeschaut und haben es dann auch richtig durchgestaltet. Sie haben dann Dinge, wie ein 1848er Programm gemacht. Andere haben sich dann auf das Tanzen spezialisiert und wieder andere haben alte Musik mit etwas mehr lockerem Herangehen gemacht. Andere haben Klezmer Musik gemacht und was hat der Klezmer- Musiker mit dem alten Musiker zu tun? Da ist wenig Schnittmenge.

FM: Es hat sich also auseinanderbewegt.

WL: Genau. Es sei denn, man spielte dieselben Instrumente. Das war dann schon sehr speziell. Das hat natürlich die DDR Kulturbürokratie auch gut gefunden, weil das politisch ungefährlich war.

FM: Klar, da war dann der Zündstoff nicht mehr da.

WL: Der war weg.

FM: Spannende Geschichte (…). Sie sind ja Szene-Chronist. Was hat Sie dazu bewogen, diese doch sehr umfassende Darstellung der Szene zu veröffentlichen? Das gab es ja, denke ich, vorher noch nicht.

[00:47:51]

WL: Genau das war der Punkt. Mich hat geärgert, dass niemand ein solches Buch geschrieben hat. Es war eine spannende Geschichte und es war meine Jugend. Das spielte auch eine Rolle. Es hat großen Spaß gemacht und es ist da kreativ viel passiert. Es ist eben nicht schwarz-weiß, sondern die Szene hatte eben viele verschiedene Grautöne. Das hat mich gereizt.

169 (…) Dazu kommt, ich habe schon immer gesammelt. Ich habe die ganzen Plakate von den Werkstätten zu Hause und habe die meisten Liederhefte, die die Szene gemacht hat und eigene Schallplatten. Ich bin irgendwie ein Sammler und kenne sehr viele Leute aus den Anfangszeiten. Ich bin ja relativ kurz nur, von Anfang 76‘ bis Mitte 77‘, bei „Folkländer“ mit auf der Bühne gewesen. Dann bin ich rausgegangen, bin aber bis 89‘ zu diesen zentralen Werkstätten gefahren. (…) Ich habe auch in den 70er Jahren das Folkfest im Haus der jungen Talente in Berlin mitorganisiert und kannte die meisten Leute. (…) Als ich dann herausbekam, wo die Leute abgeblieben waren, habe ich einen Fragebogen herausgebracht und dann kam auch ziemlich viel zurück. Das hing auch damit zusammen, dass man sich eben kannte.

FM: (…) Mir fällt auf, dass es eine sehr eng vernetzte Szene war und es alles so war, dass jeder jeden kannte.

WL: Andy Wieczorek in Berlin hat mal gesagt, dass man dann die Leute kennengelernt hat, die man heute noch gern trifft.

FM: Ja, genau. Ich glaube, das beschreibt es ganz gut. À propos, Berlin, haben Sie noch eine Idee, ob es in Berlin noch jemanden gibt, den man interviewen könnte?

WL: „Schotten-Schulle“ könnte man noch fragen.

FM: Ja, „Schotten-Schulle“ lebt auch noch in Pankow, glaube ich.

WL: Wer noch spannend wäre, das ist aber nicht Berlin, ist Kieß, also Matthias Kießling in Cottbus, der auch heute noch mit irischen Musikern zusammen musiziert. (…) Dann gibt es noch einen Menschen, der ein wenig abgetaucht ist, Andreas Rogge.

FM: Ja, er hat meinen Dudelsack gefertigt. [00:50:42]

WL: Das ist ein Ossi, also aus Ost-Berlin. (…) Der hat in der Gruppe (Pause) „Spielmann“ gespielt und die Gruppe „Spielmann“ hat sich irgendwann dazu entschlossen, in den Westen abzuhauen. (…) Da war er auch dabei und hatte den Spitznamen „Gulasch“. (…) Das wäre interessant, ihn zu seinen Eindrücken und zu seinen irischen Intentionen zu befragen. (…) Er hatte wohl auch Probleme, dass die Iren fragten, was der Deutsche dort wolle. „Das machen wir doch selbst!“ (…) Kieß ist einer, der von Anfang an dabei war und einer von den drei Köpfen bei „Wacholder“ war. Er macht heute (…) Musik fürs Radio, für die Sorben, macht eigene Lieder und war auch einer von denen, die dann Lieder selbst geschrieben haben. Das ist ein Typ. (…)

FM: (…) Bevor ich mich mit dem Thema befasst habe, war mir gar nicht bewusst, dass Leipzig so stark vernetzt war.

WL: Es gab zehn Bands in Leipzig, zehn!

170

FM: Ja, das ist Wahnsinn. (…)

WL: Es gibt übrigens heute auch noch zehn Bands (…). Es gibt keine Szene mehr in dem Sinne und man hat miteinander wenig zu tun. Es gibt mehr spezialisierte Bands, die Klezmer oder irische Sachen machen. Jens-Paul Wollenberg macht mit seiner Band tolle eigene Lieder. (…) Es gibt verschiedene Bands (…), die man aber eigentlich dem Genre der Folk und Weltmusik zurechnen könnte. (…) Wie sind Sie zum Dudelsack und zum Folk gekommen?

FM: Ich bin zum Dudelsack gekommen, als ich damals in Berlin angefangen habe, irische Musik zu hören. Ich bin durch eine „Planxty“-Platte darauf gekommen. Ich war immer schon sehr Musik-affin (…). Da hat Liam O’Flynn, der Piper, Dudelsack gespielt und der Klang hat mich von Anfang an fasziniert. Es ist ja ikonisch und wird gern verwendet, um den Klang Irlands darzustellen. (…)

WL: Es ist auch lauter als die Harfe (lacht). [00:55:19]

FM: Es hat mich fasziniert, weil (…) es von der Fertigung her ein sehr ästhetisches Instrument ist. Aber es ist auch vom Spiel her für eine Dudelsack-Art sehr komplex. Man kann mit den Uilleann Pipes mehr machen, als mit den meisten anderen Dudelsäcken, die es auf der Welt gibt. Es braucht auch einfach sehr viel Zeit, um sich da hineinzufinden. Ich bin immer noch in dem Prozess (lacht), mir die Technik zu erarbeiten. Es klappt natürlich mittlerweile schon ganz gut, weil ich fünf Jahre lang intensiv das Instrument in Irland beim Studium gelernt habe. Das war auch der wichtigste Grund, warum ich nach Irland gegangen bin, weil ich einfach irische Musik intensiv studieren wollte. Ich wollte nach dem Abitur (…) etwas machen, was mich wirklich anspricht und das war eben Musik, speziell irische Musik. (…) Dann bin ich zur Aufnahmeprüfung an der Musikakademie nach Irland gegangen, habe es geschafft und bin seit 2012 in Limerick und studiere irische Musik. Ich habe meine Bachelorarbeit über irische Musik in Deutschland geschrieben und mehrere Musiker aus der Berliner Szene interviewt. Ich habe die Dynamiken der irischen Musik-Session in Deutschland erörtert. (…) Was ist für Leute wichtig, die außerhalb Irlands irische Musik spielen? Das war meine Bachelorarbeit und darüber bin ich dann im Bezug zum historischen Kontext (…) auf Folkmusik in der DDR gestoßen. Das ist ein Anhaltspunkt, weil in der DDR auch diese Affinität bestand. Das begeistert mich momentan, dass das ein Kontext ist, wo man es nachvollziehen kann. Dann gibt es diese spannenden Dynamiken, wie der doppelte Boden im Songtext. Man hat eben historische Quellen neu interpretiert und es gab also eine andere Interpretation des deutschen Volksliedes, die vorher so nicht vorhanden war. (…)

WL: Sie treffen ziemlich genau die Punkte, die da entscheidend waren. Die Singebewegung hat das romantische Volksliedverständnis übernommen. Interessanterweise wollte sich die DDR immer vom Westen abgrenzen. Aber wenn man sich die Volkslieder anschaut, gibt es so gut wie keinen Unterschied. (…) Das habe ich auch am Ende meines Buches beschrieben. Die

171 Szene, weder im Westen, noch im Osten, hat es geschafft, diese wiederentdeckten Lieder aus dem Steinitz ins öffentliche Bewusstsein zu bringen. Es sind nach wie vor Nischenkenntnisse.

FM: Ja, es sind Nischenkenntnisse und es ist vor allem so, dass es wichtig ist, so etwas auf internationaler Ebene bewusst zu machen. Das wird auch oft in den irischen Quellen zur Musik in Deutschland ausgelassen. Da wird zwar das, was im Westen passiert ist, kurz erwähnt, also „Liederjan“ und „Fiedel Michel“ (…). Aber das, was in der DDR passiert ist, wird ausgelassen. (…) [00:59:47]

WL: Das ist auch ein Grund, warum ich dieses Buch geschrieben habe. 84‘ gab es ein Buch über die westdeutsche Szene, (…) und über die DDR Szene gab es nichts. Die westdeutsche Szene hat auch heute noch keine Gesamtdarstellung, vielleicht auch deshalb, weil sie nicht dieses Szenebewusstsein hatte und weil sie auch früher schon abgeblättert ist. Wir hatten also den Vorteil des Späteren. Das ist jetzt Spekulation (…), aber wenn die DDR Szene nicht gewesen wäre, hätte es vielleicht mit Rudolstadt auch nicht geklappt. (…) Es ist ein Glücksfall, dass dort alles zusammenkam. Es ist also eine Stadt, die für Festivals geeignet ist und die Erfahrung hatte, eine Tradition, die anders werden wollte und musste und Leute, die das Vakuum füllen konnten. Dadurch, dass die DDR-Folkszene zum Schluss ein ganz starkes Tanzpotential hatte, konnte man dort andocken. Wenn es eine reine Liedszene gewesen wäre, hätte es da wenige Berührungspunkte bei diesem Tanzfest gegeben. Es gab Bühnentanz, Mitmach-Tanz und man kannte die Leute. Dann gab es diesen wunderbaren Bürgermeister, Dr. Franz, der für das Festival gebrannt hat und der auch Beschwerden zur Lärmbelästigung mal überhört hat. Die Festival-Chefin und Kulturdezernentin, Petra Rottschalk, und der Bürgermeister waren wichtig und natürlich auch die Leute in Leipzig, der Festivaldirektor Ulli Doberenz und Jürgen Wolff (…). Es sind ja nach wie vor auch viele Leipziger Leute dort vertreten. (…)

FM: Super, vielen Dank für das Interview. Das hat vieles für mich nochmal in eine neue Perspektive gerückt und es ist auch gut, persönlich darüber zu reden. Ich glaube, es ist auch ein Thema was sehr stark über persönliche Kontakte ablief.

WL: Ja. Auch über das Schreiben des Buches habe ich wieder neue Leute kennengelernt. Es hat großen Spaß gemacht und es bereichert einen auch irgendwie. Bei Rudolstadt bin ich, seit es das gibt, jedes Jahr dabei. Ich kann das Gott sei Dank auch mit der beruflichen Arbeit ein wenig verbinden. Was will man mehr? (…)

Interview Ende: [01:03:42]

172 APPENDIX F: Interview with Wolfgang Leyn

English Translation

Date: 12th April 2017 Location: Bookstore “Ludwig”, Central Train Station, Leipzig Time: 19:00 Format: iPhone 5S, internal microphone Interviewer: Felix Morgenstern Interviewee: Wolfgang Leyn Key: FM: Felix Morgenstern; WL: Wolfgang Leyn Length: 01:03:47

It is evening time. Yet again, I enter the magnificent hall of Leipzig Central Station and look around. Mr. Leyn is wearing a blue rain coat and quickly enters the café at bookstore “Ludwig”. I follow him inside and approach him discretely. We are sitting in a gallery above the bookstore, which is luckily not that busy. Leyn is a music journalist and chronicler of the folk music scene. In 2016, he published his seminal work “Volkes Lied und Vater Staat”, which provides an important overview on the folk music scene in the GDR. I have read the book, which enables us to start the conversation:

Time: [00:00:01]

FM: Well, I am sitting here with Wolfgang Leyn and we are talking about the folk music scene in the GDR. Mr. Leyn, how would you summarise your experience with the folk music scene and what did you retain as a primary thought? (…)

WL: I think it was a relatively small scene. In fact, it was a scene. This means that it was tightly interconnected. We were friends, not mere acquaintances. I believe that the Federal Republic didn’t bring forward a scene in this sense, because the country is too big. Maybe, there was a scene at the North Sea coast, another one in Bavaria, and one in the Ruhrgebiet. The GDR was a small country; it was centrally organised. This means that all the things that we did, be it festivals or workshops, had a broader significance for the GDR state. We frequently met up with the same people and thus knew each other well. I would say that was important. Secondly, I believe that the GDR scene, in terms of musical prowess of its artists (…), outdid the West German scene.

FM: Interesting. I am particularly interested in this, as my background is in Irish music. I went to Ireland to study Irish music and I play uilleann pipes. Whenever I listen to Folkländer records (…), I notice the Irish influence on the scene, which was pertinent at the start.

WL: Hm.

173 FM: I am aware that certain elements persisted, but I would like to know more about the underlying reasons for the draw to the Irish material. What stimulated this in the early years?

[00:02:21]

WL: I think that several things come together in this case. Firstly, Irish music is an aesthetic kind of music. Its instrumentation and melodies are exotic and we got to know it as a genre that was close to the kind of things we, as young people, were interested in. You had wine, girls and song, but it could have been beer, girls and pipes, or banjo as well. Music, drinking, rebellion, those were themes in the Irish songs we listened to. We primarily were familiarised with these songs through records (...). There was this one Polish record and its origins were obscure. That was the only folk record available for purchase in the GDR. Then we received some illegally imported records from the West. We also got to know one guy in the flesh, Jack Mitchell. Unfortunately, he already passed away.

FM: He taught English in Berlin, right?

WL: He died in Galway in 97’. (…) I think his mother was Irish and his father was Scottish. He grew up in London and internalised all these influences. He came to the GDR in the late 50s and worked with the Singebewegung (‘youth song movement’). At the festival of political song (…), he frequently invited Irish and Scottish bands. (…) He was a charismatic singer, a completely authentic guy. Then we had these records. The Dubliners emerged at that time and we were somehow impressed. In fact, it fitted in with our anti-imperialistic world views. For example, Ireland was England’s first colony und then there was the IRA. (…) How do I put it? The IRA were heroes to us at the time, because it was a tradition of rebellion. I can still hear Jack Mitchell singing “The Boys of Wexford”. Through him, 1798 was not far away at all, it was really close. [00:04:54]

(The waitress asks, if we would like to order coffee)

FM: Right. I was impressed, when I first listened to the Folkländer records and one song made a particular impression on me. It’s called “Ich verkauf mein Gut und Häuselein”, an émigré’s song. At the start of the track, I could detect an interplay between Waldzither and mandolin. The texture reminded me of Planxty. I don’t know, whether that was a conscious decision, but…

WL: No, I think that was unintentional.

FM: The soundscape appealed to me.

WL: You’re right, a friend of mine told me the same after he brought the first Folkländer record to the USA. An American friend told him: “That sounds completely Irish.” Those were German songs, but with the instrumentation and the lead vocal part, Jürgen’s singing style,

174 they sound Irish. Surely, that’s because he had a formative experience at the Sands Family concert in 74’, as part of the festival of political song. We also interpreted the German folk song repertoire through an Irish lens. Back then, Jürgen Wolff was convinced that one could not sing German folk songs anymore, because they were either kitsch or too artificial (…). Eventually, we realised that such songs also existed in German. However, Irish musicking remained our role model. (…) I don’t know, if he told you about the band Enniskillen in Greifswald.

FM: I read about Enniskillen in your book (...).

WL: They were crazy. They had a five-bedroom house and named the rooms after Irish counties. Then they organised a scavenger hunt and one had to find the Irish flag. These were mad things, and they were surely also inspired by Irish song programmes at the theatre in Berlin, where they accompanied O’Casey pieces with Irish songs. I think there is still at least one record of that circulating somewhere. The Irish element was omnipresent and it was particularly close to us, because we could adopt its feeling and it was exotic. That somehow appealed to us. (...) Everybody in the scene listened to the same records and exchanged them as well.

[00:07:56]

FM: Which Irish-inflected records were those? Surely there must have been a few iconic ones.

WL: Surely, those were records by Planxty, The Chieftains, and The Dubliners. Later on, there were others as well. Both Iren-Schulle and Schotten-Schulle attended the workshop in 76’. They were both called Schultz and Schultze. One of them played more Irish and the other one more Scottish stuff. They were always there.

FM: That, too, was omnipresent.

WL: Later on, we added a lot more things, a lot of German material and later, in the 80s, we were influenced by Klezmer and Balkan music. Those were fashionable styles in the scene, if you will.

FM: I wondered about the point at which you directed your focus to German material. That occurred in the context of folk music workshops, right?

WL: Well, somebody brought forward a provocative question: “If we choose to sing the Irish songs, who should sing the German ones? The Irish, perhaps?” We discovered Wolfgang Steinitz and his collection of democratic German folk songs, rebel songs, and laments. They were, of course, related to the Irish songs. The Irish emigrated and the Germans emigrated. GDR citizens applied for exit visas (laughs). There were numerous parallels, but I think that (…) the German folk song archives and libraries had never before been explored as intensely

175 as in the GDR. Jürgen Wolff and Erik Kross published biographies to assist other bands (…) in finding sources. That was a lot of work. The German material was a second revelation. The Irish stuff existed and we realised that folklore can be something other than neat folk dress. The revelation was: “Ah, we have a similar heritage!” Then we realised that it was similar in Sweden and Hungary. Hungary was responsible for our affinities towards folk dance.

FM: The dance house movement. (…) Gert Steinert talked about that earlier. Of course, he played with Lumich and particularly recalls the folk dance evenings, where they played for dancers. (…) Tomorrow, I am planning to visit the Academy of Arts in Berlin to look at Steinitz’ collection and I am especially interested in the creative subversion of ambiguous song texts. (…) A lot of scholars refer to the fact that artists resorted to songs of the 1848 Revolution and applied them to the real, existing circumstances in socialism. In your opinion, did this dynamic characterise the scene profoundly and did it perhaps represent a major motivation to re-interpret material in a creative and subversive fashion?

[00:11:48]

WL: Well, one has to acknowledge that the scene was everything but political opposition. There were numerous motivations for playing this kind of music. There were people, who simply wanted to play bagpipes and who didn’t care, which songs came up. Nevertheless, others decided to use texts politically. Some people loved provocation and it was like a game. How far can one go and where is the limit? In my book, I referred to this in the interview with Stephan Krawczyk, who played a 19th century song of mockery by Glaßbrenner and it was taken literally: “Die Faultiere sitzen im Staatsrat und dann mussten sie antraben und sich rechtfertigen und haben dann das dicke Buch genommen: Hier steht’s!”. (“The sloths were sitting in the state council. Then, they had to trot over and justify themselves and took the thick book: This is where it’s written!” Jürgen Wolff referred to this as the ticket one could use as an alibi. It was fun to deviate from the norm like that. It was common in the GDR to read between the lines. That’s lost nowadays. Nowadays, people don’t listen that attentively anymore. I remember being at a press conference at Radio Berlin International with Heinz Rudolf Kunze, who delivered a guest performance in the GDR. I asked him about the nuances in terms of audience responses. He responded: “Of course, they listened differently in the GDR, because one anticipated things that were written between the lines.” In the West, one nowadays has to be much more articulated and louder to even be acknowledged. In other terms, I wonder, why we go to watch Shakespeare pieces about British kings. Precisely, because those pieces raise issues that are still current. (…) Nowadays, it is required of all art to make statements. If statements are void, they’re not interesting anymore.

FM: Accordingly, there was a particular intellectual expectation (…). Did you feel that the audience understood that almost universally? (…)

WL: I think so, yes. At the start, the scene was aiming at student audiences and all venues were either student clubs or youth clubs. In the youth clubs, you would meet a few people that listened attentively. Of course, there were also those, who simply wanted to rave it up.

176

FM: (…) I wondered about the transition between the youth song movement and the folk music scene. Did you reach a point, at which you consciously articulated that you wanted to do your own thing and had to form a scene that was independent from the state in its cultural activities? Was there a specific point, at which that was articulated?

WL: Yes, there was a definite instance of cord clamping. That actually happened as early as the workshop in October 1976 in Leipzig. Cord clamping, in this case, meant that we clearly distinguished ourselves from the youth song movement and the Singeklubs as “folk”. However, there was no real cord clamping or inner emigration (…) in the GDR, that’s nonsense. We were born into the GDR circumstances. I was born in 53’. At that time, you couldn’t foresee that the GDR would cease to exist at some stage.

FM: Yes.

[00:16:01]

WL: That was beyond anyone’s imagination. This means that one had to adjust to the GDR, just as one has to adjust to this country, nowadays. Of course, there were institutions, but we approached that quite pragmatically. I remember that Jürgen Wolff studied at the Graphic Design Academy, where we organised the first folk music workshop. Back then, Folkländer rented out the student club in the cellar (…) and I knew somebody, who was employed in the FDJ district council and was responsible for the district’s song club in Leipzig. I said to him: “Jürgen, I need to borrow some money. We want to organise the workshop and cover travel expenses for the artists. First and foremost, however, I need your signature, as you are the co- organiser.” As soon as he signed it, the affair was approved and luckily, everything met my expectations. We received the signature and the money and we did our thing. That’s a fitting expression. (…) Every band had to have a permit and had to be classified. That’s what the cabinets for cultural affairs were responsible for. They had to supervise amateur performers and that’s why they needed to classify artists. One had to audition and depending on the commission’s members, (…) they classified artists. The individual remuneration was negotiated according to the quality that they attributed to the people they auditioned. Consequently, one did not play for entry fees, but negotiated a contract with the youth club that detailed the fees. They had to pay that. Occasionally, a club would respond: “Sorry, we would really like to book you, but we can’t afford it (…).”

FM: So, it was possible to avail of a certain budget.

WL: The budget was allocated to the clubs (…), which were organised communally. They had a specific budget, which was allocated for cultural work. I can imagine, that the student clubs were funded by the university, but I am not too sure. (…) Sponsorship decisions depended on the ambitions of the club directors (…), and whether they wanted to focus on disco music or other things. For instance, they could organise literary events, slide lectures, folk music concerts, blues concerts, or Liedermacher concerts (…). There was an academy for club

177 directors in Meißen-Siebeneichen. A lot of full-time club directors were trained there and they all formed a network, as part of which they gave each other recommendations (…).

[00:19:45]

FM: I notice, that the term “folk” is used in clear contrast to Volkslied (‘romantic folk song’). Is this, because people associate Volkslieder with romantic notions and kitsch? What did “folk” connote for people? (…)

WL: It’s definitely a terminological alternative. Volkslied is equated with romantic folk songs. This was omnipresent in the form of radio broadcasts, records and choirs that performed this material (…). Then there was volkstümliche Musik, which was framed as folk song. We didn’t want that and those were our most vicious enemies (laughs). We wanted to be more relaxed and engaged. (…) The folk music scene approached things in a much more relaxed manner back then. In contrast, there were arguments in Thuringia about remnants of the local folk tradition. They claimed: “Those instruments have to play together and one would have to play in thirds there.” We just didn’t care (…). We put together a wild mixture, something that I have referred to as “adventurous instrumentation”. We simply combined mandolins with hurdy-gurdy and tin whistle. It had to match our sonic ideals and it didn’t matter, whether the material was traditional. Well, we came from areas that didn’t have a particularly rich tradition of musical folklore, anyway. (…) One member came from the Erzgebirge region, another from Leipzig, one from Brandenburg and another one from Mecklenburg. Which regional traditions could we possibly have immersed ourselves in?

FM: Yes, that’s true.

WL: We just met up. The Irish element united us at the start, but there were more things after that. Later bands played (…) German material or old music straight away. However, the tradition was virtually extinct (…). There was an exception in Thuringia, a music teacher, called Horst Traut. As part of the youth song movement in 76’, he led a song club and a school choir in the small towns of Neuhaus and Oberweißbach and taught local folk songs. He continued to teach that, although the youth song movement largely neglected this material. He joined the folk music scene relatively swiftly and became a valuable conduit to the more traditional folk music scene in Thuringia. It was generally more difficult than that. At one of the workshops, we tried to open up a dialogue between us and them, but it was a once-off thing. Rejection was more significant than cooperation.

[00:23:36]

FM: As you just mentioned adventurous instrumentation...The GDR also witnessed a renaissance of bagpipe playing and making. What stimulated this at the start? Was the instrument itself exotic? Was that significant, in your opinion? Of course, it had an impact on the soundscape of many bands and influenced the revival of medieval music as well.

178 WL: I think, it was primarily exotic, but perhaps, bagpipes also symbolised the romantic, an Old German identity. Interestingly, although nobody at the workshop in 1976 played bagpipes, a set of bagpipes was displayed on the invitation. An image by Dürer was slightly alienated, because a microphone was placed in front of the instrument. (...) It was already current back then and these images continued to circulate among members of the scene. For example, Dürer’s images are also displayed on artists’ permits. I think, it was exotic and later, Bernd Eichler and Schotten-Schulle also formed a bagpipe community in Berlin. They actually tried replicating old types of bagpipes. Before then, bapipes were smuggled illegally into the country. Andy Wieczorek received a set of Scottish bagpipes from his grandmother in West Berlin. Unfortunately, that one was “Made in Pakistan” and hardly playable. That was unfortunate. Jack Mitchell also brought a few things and Bernd Eichler started manufacturing replicas of German pipes. (…) He built a range of pipes. I also went to bagpipe workshops. There were Scottish great highland pipes, Northumbrian small pipes, several German types of bagpipes, and a few novel developments. Those were things for people that were talented craftsmen and displayed the necessary technicality. They measured everything and tried out the instruments. (…) How can the bag be made airtight without becoming mouldy and what kind of material is most suitable for the manufacturing of chanters and drones?

FM: Of course, I can imagine, how difficult it was to gain access to musical instruments in the GDR, not to mention purchasing them.

WL: Definitely. There were absolutely no bagpipes. I always like to refer to this as the creativity of deprivation or the boost of creativity through deprivation. If one wanted to play this instrument, one would have to manufacture it oneself.

FM: Did you ever ask about strategies in this regard? (…) Did people use broom sticks and tried to transform that into a chanter? How might one imagine that?

[00:27:16]

WL: Well, people used everything. I think, there were no broom sticks, but spade sticks. One received them from the farmers’ trade union and tried out the wood. The most important thing, as far as I’m told (…), is obtaining the right bore on the chanter. (…) There was a lot of experimenting. Why bagpipes? I remember (…) that we couldn’t simply travel to festivals in England, France, Sweden, or Finland. Those countries were part of the non-socialist economic zone and impossible to travel to. There was one festival however, which was frequented by GDR folk musicians. That was the festival in Strakonice in South Bohemia, an international bagpipe-festival. There were people from Scotland, Brittany, Sweden, West Germany, Hungary, and Bulgaria, a very personal event. People held sessions on the camp site in the evenings. It was just like the GDR. All concerts led to sessions.

FM: Is the GDR folk music session comparable to the Irish context? Did one meet more or less informally to musick with each other?

179 WL: It was like this. As I mentioned, bands were categorised at the start. Amateurs received a matching permit and 40 Deutsche Mark. This meant that bands were cheap to hire and clubs could afford to invite two or three bands a night. Of course, they all knew each other and regularly met up, because it was a small circle of people. One had a reasonably large repertoire consisting of German craftsmen’s songs and Irish pub songs like “Wild Rover”, “Lustig, lustig, ihr lieben Brüder”, “Unser Handwerk, das ist verdorben”, and so on. Everybody knew these songs and most of the time, they were sung in G major. Those were the famous G-major- sessions. One would shout a key and then anyone who wanted to play grabbed their instrument and sang together with the audience.

FM: That was the session concept, so to speak.

WL: Yes, yes.

FM: Did you (…) write your own songs as well?

[00:30:01]

WL: That happened later (…). It had to do with the fact that traditional songs provided the license to sing about something offensive and to credit the source. That was more difficult in relation to newly composed material. Moreover, I think that people recorded more traditional folk song texts (…) than newly-adapted songs in the GDR. West German artists like Wader and Liederjan did that. They simply sang traditional songs with newly-written texts. One was more reluctant in the GDR. There were tentative moves to explore newly-composed songs. (…) A lot of songs in Steinitz’ collection date back to the 19th century, to the time of the 1848 Revolution and the Vormärz. Then, workers’ songs came up, not the workers’ hymns (…). In the 20s, Tucholsky and Weinert emerged. One could work with their texts, because they were equally ambiguous: “Mein liebes Publikum, bist du wirklich so dumm?” (“My beloved audience, are you really that stupid?”). One could copy that as it was. In fact, folk musicians dealt with this material in a similar fashion. There was Karls Enkel’s Liedertheater (‘song theatre’). Before Wenzel and Mensching did their own thing, they took traditional texts by Goethe and Eisler and exploited their ambiguities. If newly composed material dominated the folk scene, it would have been something else. It wouldn’t have been folk, but be associated with the youth song movement and Liedermacher. One left the genre, so to speak. Some people crossed genres more so than others, Krawczyk, for instance. (…) In 83’, he started to set poems written by a GDR poet to songs. That started back then. Some did it, while others refused. When Folkländer became the folk dance band Bierfiedler, Jürgen left the band. He continued to perform cabaret and so called Brachialromantik.

FM: As part of Duo Sonnenschirm.

WL: That was something completely unique. (…) Piatkowski and Riek from Rostock (…) soon sang in Low German.

180 FM: In relation to new material, was it traditionalised on the level of the folk session?

WL: That happened in some cases, with Jens-Paul Wollenberg, for example. His songs (…) were eventually sung in sessions. It didn’t really matter much. (…) The scene rapidly split up in the 80s. There were more experienced bands with professional permits and novices, like Folkländer. The other bands imitated stuff by Liederjan, Zupfgeigenhansel, and Hannes Wader at the start. Those were West German bands, familiar from records.

FM: Yes.

[00:34:05]

WL: The next generation of GDR bands imitated songs from Folkländer and Wacholder records. Those were bands from within the state. How would one talk to those, if it was clear that one’s own development was more advanced? Folkländer also played a piece by Klaus Renft at the festival of political song in 1981 or 82’. Renft had been banned in the GDR since 1975. Renft was an absolute cult-band in the GDR. “Nach der Schlacht” (“After the Battle”) is one of the most famous Renft-songs (…). It tells the story of revolutionaries, who gather in the invalids’ barrack and ask themselves, whether the missing legs were worth it. They conclude that it wasn’t really worth it. That was incredibly ahead of its time (…). Renft was banned from performing on stage in 1975. Although the band ceased to exist and went to the West, the songs somehow remained. They performed that kind of stuff at the festival of political song. (…) That wasn’t traditional folk music anymore.

FM: (…) I plan to visit the Academy of Arts in Berlin tomorrow to have a look at Steinitz’ collection. Can you give me an example of a song that was widely used in the folk music scene?

WL: I think you’ll find something among the soldiers’ songs, “O König von Preußen” (“Oh King of Prussia”). We learned that from Wader back then. (Pause) I once counted at a memorial event in honour of Steinitz. Back then, almost every GDR band played at least one song collected by Steinitz. Craftsmen’s songs and soldiers’ laments were especially popular, because one could relate that to the NVA (‘National Peoples’ Army’) experience.

FM: Songs of emigration.

WL: Yes, émigré’s songs. I think those were the popular pieces. (…)

FM: Back in Ireland, I spoke to David Robb, who spent a lot of time studying Steinitz’ collection and Inge Lammel’s collection “Das Lied im Kampf geboren: Lieder der Revolution von 1848”. Was the latter used as well or was it just Steinitz?

WL: Just Steinitz, actually, because everything seemed to derive from there. There was a band called Arbeiterfolk in Berlin. They specifically sang workers’ ballads.

181 FM: Yes.

WL: (…) They were musically convincing and actually emerged out of the youth song movement. In fact, there were always a couple of bands that grew out of this movement and subsequently joined the folk music scene. The folk music scene was more exciting, of course. However, the youth song movement, I attended those workshops as well, was also socially active. It included young people and in the evening time, one would drink and sing. Perhaps, members of the folk scene drank more, smoked more, and partied longer (laughs).

[00:38:31]

FM: Yes, that’s interesting. I try and put all of this into perspective. Of course, I have read a lot about it, but it is quite different to talk to people in person. (…) Do you feel that reunification erased the folk music scene’s fertile soil, so to speak? I mean, the sub-text was practically gone.

WL: Yes. On the one hand, one didn’t have to sing ambiguous material. The audience now went somewhere else. The song texts lost their ambiguous meaning and the scene lost its performance spaces, because youth clubs had to be shut down. The financial support was precarious. Suddenly, the audience travelled West, (…) to festivals that one would have loved to attend in the past. The audience was preoccupied with different things. We lost our jobs and rent increased. Priorities changed. The GDR was a relatively unchanging, stabile state, even as far as stagnating. Nothing really developed then. Everything took more time to unfold and in the end, it all crashed. That was like a system failure in a computer programme. Everything that was once valid, suddenly became invalid and one had to adjust to the new circumstances. Then people, who knew everything better and had money arrived from the West (…). One had to adjust to that. It was radical subversion. Some said: “Well, we could perform in the West.” Suddenly, we realised, how good we were in comparison to them. For example, certain dance bands that performed in Erlangen or Hannover…We realised that we were miles better than others. (…) In my book, I have compared the number of professional bands in the GDR to the West (…). If one calculates that, the West should have brought forward five times as many bands as the East. However, there were never as many and there still aren’t as many. The GDR state supported amateur arts and folk arts. You could count on the authorities in this respect.

FM: Yes. (…) Since you just mentioned stagnation. Towards the end, the folk music workshops didn’t take place in Leipzig anymore.

WL: Right.

FM: They were shifted elsewhere. I can imagine that this had an impact on the integrity of the scene. What would you say?

[00:42:05]

182 WL: Definitely. Leipzig was the second largest city in the GDR. It was a university town that brought forward the most bands. There were, I believe, more bands in Leipzig back then than in Berlin, although Berlin is much bigger. It was the veritable capital of the scene (…). The driving force was Jürgen Wolff, who also lived here and used his talent as singer, theoretician and artist to design posters and publish song books. Leipzig was out of control. Then they sent us to Ilmenau and later to Penzlin. Everything there happened on a smaller scale and was more controllable. It was also customary to forge a lot of tickets for the festival of political song. Tickets didn’t simply circulate, but they were forged to gain access to the event. That was done professionally, by a printer (…). That’s what was happening in Leipzig at the time and the authorities resented that. (…) Jens-Paul Wollenberg, for example, was to be kept out at any time. They perceived him as (…) a troublemaker. (…) He was an important creative personality within the scene and he was very different to Jürgen Wolff. However, he belonged to the scene. Suddenly, he was excluded. Additionally, the scene itself became more differentiated. As I mentioned, the different generations drifted away from each other. Instrumentation became important. People manufactured bagpipes and hurdy-gurdies. The political songs were gone or were replaced by folk dancing. Technicality was more important than politics. (…) In 1990, we were supposed to host a workshop (…), highly specialised. That was far removed from the political reality.

FM: Right, so there was an increasing musical specialisation and professionalization. (…) Was that in accord with a move away from the social, participatory model of group musicking?

WL: Yes, the professional bands had to do that. If bands played in the same club for two years in succession, they had to change their repertoire. (…) Furthermore, they aimed at arranging a more closed programme. Wacholder, for example, copied Wenzel and Mensching’s Heine-programme and properly arranged it. They performed things like an 1848-programme. Others specialised in folk dancing and some people reinterpreted old music with a more open arrangement. Others played Klezmer music, but what does a Klezmer musician have to do with an old musician? There is not enough common ground.

FM: So, it somehow drifted apart.

WL: Exactly. Except, if one played the same instruments. That was, of course, more specialised. The GDR’s cultural bureaucracy liked that, because it was less politically threatening.

FM: Of course, the gun powder was gone.

WL: It was gone.

FM: That’s a gripping story (…). Of course, you are a chronicler of the scene. What motivated you to compile this comprehensive overview of the scene? I would imagine that it is something that hadn’t been done before.

183 [00:47:51]

WL: That’s precisely the point. I was annoyed that nobody had tried to write such a book. It was an exciting part of history and an exciting part of my youth. That was significant, too. It was immense fun and it was very creative. It’s not black and white, but the scene reveals a lot of shades of grey. That was attractive to me. (…) Additionally, I have always collected stuff. At home, I have a collection of posters advertising the folk music workshops, I have gathered most of the song books that surfaced in scene and I have my own collection of records. I would somehow describe myself as a collector and I still know a lot of people who initiated the scene. I was only on stage with Folkländer for a short period of time, from the start of 76’ until midway through 77’. I left the group, but continued to go to the centralised workshops until 89’. I also helped organising the folk festival at the Haus der jungen Talente in Berlin in the 70s and knew the majority of people involved. (…) When I found out, where they had gone, I distributed questionnaires and I received a lot of feedback. Of course, we all knew each other.

FM: It strikes me as a closely interconnected scene and people knew each other.

WL: Andy Wieczorek from Berlin once remarked that back then, one got to know those people that one still likes meeting up with today.

FM: Exactly. I would argue that this describes it quite accurately. In relation to Berlin, would you have any suggestions of people, who could be potential interviewees there?

WL: You could interview Schotten-Schulle.

FM: Yes, I think Schotten-Schulle still lives in Pankow.

WL: I know, he doesn’t live in Berlin, but it would also be fascinating to talk to Kieß, that is Matthias Kießling, in Cottbus. He still plays with Irish musicians. (...) There is another guy, who went slightly off the radar, Andreas Rogge.

FM: Yes, he made my set of uilleann pipes. [00:50:42]

WL: He is an Ossi, which means that he comes from East Berlin. (...) He played in the band (pause) Spielmann and eventually decided to escape to the West. (...) He had the nickname “Gulasch”. (…) It would be interesting to ask him about his impressions and his Irish intentions. (…) Apparently, he was criticised in Ireland for being German and manufacturing their instruments: “We can do that ourselves!”. (…) Kieß was there from the very beginning and was one of the three band mates in Wacholder. Nowadays, he continues to work for the radio, for the Sorbs. He writes his own songs and was one of the people that did it back then. He is a character. (…)

184 FM: Prior to immersing myself in the topic, I was unaware of the fact that Leipzig had such a tightly-knit network of musicians.

WL: There were ten bands in Leipzig, ten!

FM: Yes, that’s incredible. (…)

WL: By the way, there are still ten bands in Leipzig today (…). There is no scene as such anymore and people aren’t really acquainted with each other anymore. There are more specialised bands that play Klezmer and Irish music. Jens-Paul Wollenberg’s band performs their own cool songs. (…) There are several bands that could be classified in terms of folk and world music. (…) How did you become introduced to the pipes and to folk music?

FM: I first became acquainted with the pipes, when I started listening to Irish music in Berlin. I came across the instrument on a Planxty record. I have always had affinities towards music. (…) Liam O’Flynn, the band’s piper, plays uilleann pipes and from the very beginning, I was fascinated with the sound. It’s iconic and is often used as Ireland’s sonic short-hand. (…)

WL: It’s also louder than a harp (laughs).

[00:55:19]

FM: I was fascinated, because (…) it is also an aesthetic instrument in terms of its manufacturing. However, the playing technique required is equally complex for a type of bagpipe. In fact, the uilleann pipes are capable of expressing more than most other types of bagpipes around the world. It also takes a lot of time to familiarise oneself with the instrument. I am still in the process (laughs) of acquiring the technique. Now, I am progressing quite well, as I have been studying the instrument for a total of five years as part of my university degree in Ireland. In fact, the main reason for coming to Ireland was my motivation to immerse myself in Irish music. After school, (…) I wanted to do something that truly appealed to me and that was music, specifically Irish music. (…) Then, I went to audition for the music academy in Ireland. I was successful and have been studying Irish music in Limerick since 2012. I wrote my undergraduate thesis on Irish music in Germany and interviewed several musicians in the Berlin scene. I analysed the dynamics of the Irish music session in Germany. (…) What is at stake for people that play Irish music outside of Ireland? It was through my undergraduate thesis that I came across the historical affinities and (…) folk music in the GDR. That’s a significant point of reference, because musicians in the GDR were the loci of this affinity. I am fascinated by the fact that one can trace affinities in this context. There are other interesting dynamics, as, for example, ambiguous song texts. One interpreted historical sources in a new fashion and the scene surfaced a then unprecedented re-interpretation of the German folk song concept. (…)

WL: You pretty much hit the points that mattered back then. The youth song movement adopted the romantic folk song concept. Interestingly, the GDR always strove to dissociate

185 itself from the West. However, in the case of folk songs, there are no significant differences. (…) I state this at the end of my book. The scene, whether in the West or in the East, wasn’t successful enough to engrain the rediscovered Steinitz songs in the public post-socialist consciousness. This is niche knowledge.

FM: Indeed, it is niche knowledge and awareness also has to be raised on an international level. Even in the Irish sources that cover music in Germany largely neglect this facet. They do mention West German developments briefly, like Liederjan and Fiedel Michel (…). However, they fail to account for what happened in the GDR. (…)

[00:59:47]

WL: That’s one of my reasons for writing this book. In 84’, somebody published a book on the West German scene, (…) but the GDR scene was mentioned nowhere. The West German scene is still not explored in its entirety. Perhaps, this is rooted in its lack of self-consciousness and its early demise. We profited from the advantage of a later development. Let me speculate (…). If the GDR scene didn’t exist, Rudolstadt wouldn’t have existed either. (…) It was happy coincidence that everything fell into place in that case. The town is aptly suited for festivals and exhibited experience in organising them. There was a tradition that strove to be different and had to become different and there were people, who could fill a vacuum. Since the GDR scene later had immense potential for the development of folk dancing, it provided further points of attraction. Had it been a purely song-based scene, the folk dance festival wouldn’t have been able to grow. There was stage dance, participatory dance, and a lot of familiar people. The fabulous mayor, Dr. Franz, was passionate about the festival and even overheard eventual noise complaints. Additionally, festival director and city councillor Petra Rottschalk, who was in charge of cultural affairs, was significant. People based in Leipzig, like festival director Ulli Doberenz and Jürgen Wolff (…), were important along the other people from Leipzig that were associated with the festival. (…)

FM: Super, thank you for the interview. I was able to put things into a new perspective and it was excellent to talk about this in person. I think it is a topic that is largely grounded in personal contacts.

WL: Yes. While writing my book, I also got to know new people. It was fun and it is very much self-fulfilling. Since it was first held, I have returned to Rudolstadt every year. Thank God, I can somehow combine that with my job. What more could you ask for? (…)

End of Interview: [01:03:42]

186

FACULTY OF ARTS, HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES RESEARCH ETHICS COMMITTEE INFORMATION LETTER (GERMAN)

Sehr geehrte/r Frau/Herr______, mein Name ist Felix Morgenstern und ich studiere momentan den Master of Arts in Ethnomusicology (Musikethnologie) an der University of Limerick (Universität Limerick). Um mein Studium erfolgreich abzuschließen, muss ich eine Abschlussarbeit verfassen. Als Teil dieser Arbeit mit dem Titel „Folk Music in the German Democratic Republic: Exploring Lived Musical Experience and Post-War German Folk Music Discourses“ untersuche ich die persönliche musikalische Erfahrung von Musikern, die in der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik Folkmusik gespielt haben. Ich betrachte diese Erfahrung insbesondere im Zusammenhang mit den historischen Rahmenbedingungen der performativen Volksmusikpraxis in Deutschland vor und nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg. Basierend auf Interviews mit Musikern und der Analyse von konkreten Texten und Klangbeispielen (Archivmaterial) im Rahmen meiner Recherche ziehe ich Rückschlüsse darüber, wie Folkmusik es Musikern in der DDR ermöglichte, ihre Kreativität trotz der vom DDR Regime ausgehenden Zensur zum Ausdruck zu bringen. Außerdem untersuche ich die dokumentierte Affinität der DDR Musiker gegenüber den Genres der traditionellen irischen und schottischen Musik und deren Einfluss auf das Klangbild der DDR Folkmusik-Szene im Hinblick darauf, wie der textuelle Inhalt klanglich vermittelt wurde. Aus diesem Grund möchte ich Sie einladen, selbst Teil meiner Recherchearbeit zu werden. Im Rahmen dieses Projektes möchte ich Sie gern interviewen und Ihnen Fragen zu Ihrem eigenen Hintergrund als jemand, der in der DDR-Zeit Folkmusik gespielt hat stellen. Das Interview wird ungefähr 30 Minuten dauern und wird in einem von uns beiden im Einverständnis festgelegten öffentlichen Ort stattfinden. Während des gesamten Interviewprozesses werde ich Ihren beruflichen und privaten Ruf schützen. Aufgrund meiner Herangehensweise an diese Studie, die die Arbeit bekannter DDR Künstler behandelt, kann Ihre Anonymität nicht garantiert werden. Falls Sie an dieser Studie teilnehmen möchten, werden Sie aufgefordert, in der Einverständniserklärung eine Box anzukreuzen, die Ihr Recht auf Anonymität aufhebt. Sie haben das Recht, bestimmte Fragen nicht zu beantworten und Sie sind in keinem Fall dazu verpflichtet, an dieser Arbeit teilzunehmen. Die Informationen, die im Rahmen dieser Studie erhoben werden, werden für einen Gesamtzeitraum von sieben Jahren sicher an der Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, Universtity of Limerick aufbewahrt und danach vernichtet. Sollten Sie weitere Fragen haben, können Sie entweder mich, meinen Betreuer (supervisor) oder das AHSS Research Ethics Committee kontaktieren. Ich freue mich auf das Interview mit Ihnen.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen, Felix Morgenstern Email: [email protected] Telefon: +353 (0)85-8171943

187

Betreuer (Supervisor): Dr. Colin Quigley Email: [email protected] Tel: +353-61-202966 Room No.: IW2.23, Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, University of Limerick, Ireland.

Diese Recherchearbeit wurde vom Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Research Ethics Committee überprüft und gestattet (approval number: 2017-02-07-AHSS). Sollten Sie dennoch Zweifel in Bezug auf diese Studie haben und den Wunsch haben, eine unabhängige Instanz zu kontaktieren, wenden Sie sich bitte an folgende Adresse:

Chairperson Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Research Ethics Committee AHSS Faculty Office University of Limerick Tel: +353 61 202286 Email: [email protected]

This research study has received Ethics approval from the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Research Ethics Committee (approval number: 2017-02-07-AHSS). If you have any concerns about this study and wish to contact an independent authority, you may contact:

Chairperson Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Research Ethics Committee AHSS Faculty Office University of Limerick Tel: +353 61 202286 Email: [email protected]

188

FACULTY OF ARTS, HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES RESEARCH ETHICS COMMITTEE INFORMATION LETTER

To whom it may concern,

My name is Felix Morgenstern and I am currently a student on the MA Ethnomusicology programme at the University of Limerick. To conclude my studies, I have to produce a thesis, entitled “Folk Music in the German Democratic Republic: Exploring Lived Musical Experience and Post-War German Folk Music Discourses”. As part of my thesis, I am investigating the lived musical experience of practitioners who played folk music in the German Democratic Republic, contextualising this experience in reference to the historical ramifications of folk music making in pre-, but particularly in post-war Germany. Based on the analysis of ethnographic interviews with practitioners and the exploration of concrete textual and sonic examples of archival material gathered in the course of my research, I will trace folk music’s capacity in equipping musicians with creative agency in a climate of political censorship of artistic expression in the GDR. Furthermore, I will investigate the scholarly documented influence of Irish and Scottish traditional music idioms on the GDR folk music soundscape in order to shed light on the sonic models in which this creative agency was embedded. I would like to invite you to take part in my research and I would like to interview you in relation to the subject matter explained above, asking questions regarding your own background as someone who performed folk music in the GDR. The interview will last for approximately 30 minutes and will take place in a public space we can both agree on. I will make an audio recording of the interview. At all times during the interview process I will take care to maintain your personal and professional reputation. Due to the nature of this research, as part of which I will be discussing the work of well-known artists in the GDR folk music scene, anonymity cannot be guaranteed. Therefore, you will be asked to waive your anonymity (by ticking a box in the consent form), if you wish to take part in this research. You have the right not to answer questions and you are not, in any way, compelled to engage the research. The data generated from this research will be stored securely at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, University of Limerick for seven years and then destroyed. Should you have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact me, my supervisor or the AHSS Research Ethics Committee. I am looking forward to the interview.

189 Yours sincerely, Felix Morgenstern Contact details: Felix Morgenstern Email: [email protected] Phone: +353 (0)85-8171943

Supervisor: Dr. Colin Quigley Email: [email protected] Tel: +353-61-202966 Room No.: IW2.23, Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, University of Limerick, Ireland.

Chairperson Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Research Ethics Committee AHSS Faculty Office University of Limerick Tel: +353 61 202286 Email: [email protected]

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