Hinterhuber[[1020]] describes the modern process; the waltz goes on awhile, then in a pause the throng sings a few stanzas, then the dance is resumed and youth after youth improvises, without ceasing, to a traditional tune. “They never sing the verses of local and popular poets, but all is original.” What is of particular interest in this process is the communal scene and occasion, mainly a village dance, the traditional tune, the frequent chorus, and, against this background, the individual performance of the singer. We seem to find here the point of departure for artistic poetry; for in the actual quatrain one seldom meets repetition, that inevitable note of the refrain and of the fissiparous single song which detaches itself, as among savages, from the refrain; and while the reapers’ song may be behind all this rude lyric of the hills, it is no festal recapitulation of communal labour, no echo of work or village triumph, that one hears, but rather the personal sentiment, either erotic or defiant, of the individual singer. Moreover it is always from one person and mainly to one person. Nevertheless, it must have dance, throng, communal conditions through and through, or it is not the schnaderhüpfl. So interesting a case as this excuses some breadth and detail in the treatment of it.
The home of the schnaderhüpfl is centred in the Bavarian Alps, spreading thence in many directions and to some remote districts, which may all be found described in the careful summary of Gustav Meyer; the concern now is not with the vogue but with the thing itself. It is slowly degenerating and even disappearing, in spite of its tenacity, its vigour, and the love for it felt by the peasants of those conservative regions. As with the rural refrain, so here, lewd fellows of the baser sort lay hold upon it as the communal and universal character of it lapses; near Weimar one may still hear peasants singing these quatrains in a kind of emulation, but the frankly erotic has become licentiously rotten. Here and there, however, it lives in its old estate, but by a very feeble tenure; singing societies, friends from the city, concert tunes, what not, are hounding it from its last retreats. The quatrains now gathered are mainly traditional, not freshly improvised like those of earlier days, and it is interesting to note how many variants can be found of one theme. Direct borrowing occurs, of course; but a more frequent process is the use of a popular initial line which is continued in varying fashion into a corresponding variety of verses. Something like this, but not really the same thing, is or was common in cheap theatrical exhibitions, where some catching but meaningless refrain introduces a series of local “hits.” The schnaderhüpfl, however, has a far more dignified way, reflecting a nobler mood whether of joy or of grief. Thus a pair of quatrains, perhaps amœbean in origin, from near Salzburg:[[1021]]—
When it’s cold in the winter,
And snow-tempests whirl,
How cozy and warm
In the room of my girl!
When it’s cold in the winter,
Go warm you a while;
And the love that is old
Cannot easily spoil.