Die schönste Kunst: ein Mensch zu seyn

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Songs from the time of German Enlightenment

Martin Hummel, Baritone
Glen Wilson, Harpsichord

1 Johann Sigismund Scholtze: Kirre mich nur immer, schmeichelndes Glücke 1:41
2 August Bernhard Valentin Herbing: Der Geizhals 1:35
3 Adolph Carl Kunzen: Der Verstand 3:16
4 Jehan Desfontaines: Komm, süßer Schlaf 3:11
5 Johann Valentin Görner: Der erste Mai (Hagedorn) 0:51
6 Johann Sigismund Scholtze: Ihr Schönen, höret an (J.Chr. Günther) 2:49
7 Georg Philipp Telemann: An Doris (Dreyer) 3:28
8 K. Lambo: Der Proselyt 3:07
9 Anonym: Der traurige Lukas (Weiße) 1:32
10 Georg Philipp Telemann: Über das niedersächsische „versapen“ (Richey) 0:41
11 Johann Friedrich Gräfe: Die Eitelkeit menschlicher Wünsche (Gottsched) 3:38
12 Georg Philipp Telemann: Fabel aus der Oper „Aesopus“ (Mattheson) 1:35
13 Johann Valentin Görner: Die verliebte Verzweifl ung (Hagedorn) 2:51
14 Georg Phillip Telemann: Die Einsamkeit 3:26
15 Johann Christoph Schmügel: Belindens Geschmack 2:05
16 Johann Friedrich Gräfe: Die Vergnüglichkeit 3:51
17 Johann Valentin Görner: Das Unfehlbare (Hagedorn) 2:33
18 August Bernhard Valentin Herbing: Die Antwort des trunkenen Dichters (Lessing) 1:19
19 Johann Ernst Bach: Die Unzufriedenheit (Gellert) 4:20
20 August Bernhard Valentin Herbing: Der blinde Amor (Ewald) 1:08
21 Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach: Die Zeit (Weiße) 2:14
22 Johann Christoph Schmügel: An den Schlaf (Gleim) 2:45
23 Adolph Carl Kunzen: Das schlechte Jahr 2:13

With the present CD, I have attempted to divine the sensitivities of man at the time of the
German Enlightenment (1720–80) by means of the song collections available to me.
During this period of the emergent middle classes, in which many people could not yet
read or write, poets and musicians attempted to capture the spirit of the time and to point
out its ideals in the small form of the art song. Freedom instead of absolutism, equality
instead of the system of the estates, scientific cognition instead of prejudice and superstition,
tolerance instead of dogmatism – these were the ideas of this new era, which were
optimistically called for by the educated middle classes and the students stemming from
them. Johann Christoph Gottsched demanded of contemporary poets that, in the sense of
the Enlightenment, they be the educators of their readership. It is thus not surprising that
instructing the contemporaries stands in the foreground in these songs.
Whereas in the majority of the poems this is done in a moralizing tone of voice, in my
selection I have often taken into account pieces that expose human shortcomings by
means of irony and with a wink of the eye. The different kinds of characters in society are
caricatured, or humorously criticized. The newly awakened self-awareness of the women,
who were finding their way into the German universities, prompted satirical songs. The
common grammatical sloppiness in Low German, which does not differentiate between
„er-soffen“ (drowned) and „ver-soffen“ (drunken), is just as much the target of satire as the
iniquities in the literary scene, where intellectual property is stolen for one’s own advantage
and the battle between the old and the new is fought. Whoever wants to challenge the
master’s claim of infallibility – which is occasionally still to be encountered today at various
universities – is served just as well as he who inquires about the quickest way to a great
career in society; the valid answer is always the same: „seyd dumm und reich!“ („be dumb
and rich!“).
(Martin Hummel)