!!!Bänkelsänger

Baenkelsaenger ("bench singers"), minstrels of a low social class who 
performed instrumental music (e.g. dance music in taverns) as well as 
historic or topical songs with an educational content. Especially 
popular were heroic songs and street ballads, which usually dealt with 
recent crimes or other outrages. The most common instruments were the 
violin and the harp, but old instruments long obsolete in art music 
were also used, such as the bagpipe (as in the popular song Lieber  
Augustin) and the hurdy-gurdy. The music was sold either in 
merchants´ shops or by female street vendors, the so-called 
"Fratschlerinnen". Among the many composers of the Baenkelsaenger 
songs were schoolmasters, sacristans, craftsmen and innkeepers, and 
only some of them are known by name. They were despised by the town 
and state authorities, because they were vagrants and also because 
they were able to attract and influence the crowds. However, the 
authorities were not able to discipline them, not even during the 
Vormaerz (period from 1815 to the March Revolution of 1848). In Vienna 
in the second half of the 19%%sup th/%  century the role of 
Baenkelsaenger was largely taken over by the singers of Viennese 
popular songs (Wienerlied) and the folk singers. The Baenkelsaenger 
street music saw a last upswing in the period between the two World 
Wars. P>

!Literature
G. Gugitz, Lieder der Strasse, 1954.


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