A form especially cultivated by the Minnesinger was the aubade (Tagelied) which originated with the Provençal Troubadours. In its German form it usually represents a lover, lingering near his beloved, whom the watchman’s trumpet call announcing the dawn’s approach speeds on his homeward way. In the earliest known Tagelied, by Diet von Eist (1180), the song of a bird is heard instead of the watchman’s call, but in later examples the horn-call assumes greater prominence and is even represented by a melody without text at the beginning or in the middle of a verse. In one by Wizlaw such a sequence of apparently superfluous notes at the end of the first verse puzzled transcribers until recently, when its significance was discovered. In subsequent verses of this example words are supplied for the notes of the call.

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List du in der min-ne dro,
ichse den lech-ten mor-ghen fro.
De vo-ghe-l’n sin-ghen den tac,
her ist ho.

The ‘instrumental’ portions may perhaps have been hummed in imitation of the horn, but the principle is the same. Still later we find examples, such as the Nachthorn and Taghorn of the Monk of Salzburg, which are marked Auch gut zu blasen (‘Also good for blowing’).

The Tournament of Song in the Wartburg.

One of the early names of Minnesingers is that of Tannhauser, or Tannhäuser, who was born between 1210 and 1220. To him is credited a Busslied (song of penitence), but it was probably in existence long before customary among penitents, and only later ascribed to him. The participation of Tannhäuser in the song tournament of the Wartburg as represented in the Wagner opera, is obviously a dramatic license of the composer, as the event took place before his birth, in 1208. One of the most striking figures is Nithart von Riuwenthal, who endeavored to infuse new life into the courtly formalism of Minnegesang by drawing upon the folk song and folk dance.[80] He called the new genre which he created, and which was a mild parody upon the peasant tunes then popular in rural Austria and Bavaria, dörperliche singen (village singing), in contrast to the höfische singen (courtly singing) of this class. His dance songs differ from other Minnesinger’s lyrics in their syllabic structure, as of necessity their pronounced rhythm did not admit superfluous syllables. The melodic correspondence between rhyming verses already noted in Troubadour chansons is a prominent feature with Nithart, but more remarkable than this is the fine imitation of melodic elements corresponding to short rhyming lines within simple verses (Stollen or Abgesang).