Today 150 years ago the German composer Friedrich Silcher died. There is not much buzz around him these days, he appears to be out of fashion. But this is really a pity: he composed many of well known songs that are a basic staple of the German folkloristic song repertoire. When I was a child, we did have a record in which a choir sang many of his songs. At that time I did not pay attention to the composer, but I took these songs in: "Aennchen von Tharau", "Ich weiss nicht was soll das bedeuten" (Loreley), and many other songs which capture very well the feeling and attitude of the early romantic period in the first quarter of the 19th century in Germany.
I do not know much about him or his life. There are a few sites that can be found by a Google search. He appeared to have been a quite modest man, somewhat silent, as the images indicate, and I can imagine his demeanor, with his Swabian dialect that is still spoken today around the area where he lived. His music reflects this modesty: no loud temperamental outbursts, just very modest melodies, trying to express the content of the song texts with harmonic turns that can be sung by the average human. And these melodies do have a somewhat evocative power, when they accompany the stories that are told in the songs.
It is a pity that his music is today rarely heard. I plan to create a CD with recordings of a collection of his music, probably with some "musical reflection" by myself.
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