Musicology IV – It’s a Beautiful Life!

European Youth and Student Music

Introduction

Whilst a student in Germany I joined a traditional German student society and came across what Germany was like between 1850 and WWII it was a lovely liberal student culture in which everyones views were tolerated some thought it too permissive and allowed extremism to fester within it’s ranks but if it’s done properly it led to some of the greatest minds in history such as Albert Einstein, Gottlob Frege, Wittgenstein and many more to flourish within a culture of academic freedom and love making. at best it was like in the film Alt Heidelberg in the 1950s the culture people like Marlene Dietrich loved and said was killed in the war. It was really interesting as a Brit as they were very musical and Classical Musicians such as Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms were members so to live like them and even Karl Marx did as a student was truly interesting as it shows you how such creativity was born. unfortunately the Nazis got hold of it and formed thier own extreme version of it but the original members hated them for it a lot of them they were just forced to go along with it until in 1943 al student societies were officially banned so they actually count as having been oppressed by the the Nazis as they opposed them despite being liberal nationalists such as the first post war chancellor Konrad Adenauer who was a member of my association in Germany the KV or Kartellverband who were a pacifist and a religious order, standing for freedom, religion, and academia. The fun without the bullshit as my father used to say!

This is a lovely student song from one of the most European of all universities Université Libre de Bruxelles.

The ULB Hymn

The chorus translates as this I think:

Brothers charge your glasses

And toast your tutors

The woman we prize

And the fraternity!

And to our other dearly departed brethren

Forever our friends in truth

But we have only one mistress

And that’s you our freedom!

This is a sort of universal European Student song in Middle High Latin of Germanic origin Gaudemus Igitur! Let us be joyful!

Sung by the Italian Student of Pisa University in 2012.

This is another lovely one called Ergo Bibamus; Let us drink!

The Corner by the River Saale here and Rudelsberg Castle

O how wonderful it is to be an old boy of the German student masons!

Oh, to be a student as the violets are blooming!

Oh, Golden Academia!

Get out, lads!

It is when the German students were fighting the state for student freedoms namely their rights to study and do their dissertation on what they wanted and to maintain their legal independence and also a self declared right to declare arms. They sometimes literally had to die duelling with the aristocracy and army in the streets this song is a role call to get up and outside to see some action! It’s really beautiful because they won the legal right to study for all Germans and I want it for the UK here it’s a privilege at the teacher’s and uni’s discretion.