(Ger.).
Medieval round-dance song. It played an important role in the texts of Neidhart von Reuental's summer songs and was also one of the structural constituents of songs by, among others, Gottfried von Neifen and Ulrich von Lichtenstein (known as tanzwîsen: ‘dance-tunes’) in the 13th century.
The Reigenlied is not a form, in the conventional sense of that word, but rather a conceptual mould for performance – a model for oral realization. For this reason it survives only very rarely in direct musical sources. However, the choice of this manner of realization by such authors as der Harder and Michel Beheim for their Meisterlieder makes it possible to establish its characteristics. Musically it is characterized by ternary rhythm, the use of repeated notes and an unusual amount of melodic phrase-repetition. Poetically, its stanzas are marked by the cumulative effect of a single monosyllabic rhyming sound, and by a preference for lines containing four stresses. The result is a uniformity which corresponds appropriately with the regular movement of the round-dance.
How this conceptual mould for performance related to existing practice in the singing of songs remains an open question in view of the scarcity of primary source-material. The cries of ‘He’ or ‘Hei’ which occur in Ich spring an disem ringe (Lochamer Liederbuch, no.42), for example, and also stamping and clapping, belonged to the actual presentation of a Reigenlied. They reflect its basic function as a means of expressing joie de vivre in springtime.
The use of reien (Reigen) as a model in performance was a test of versatility for authors of Meisterlieder. In a number of songs it clearly relates to the content of the poem. These include songs whose texts celebrate joy at the Redemption, at the Virgin, or even at mortal woman. Particularly instructive is an anonymous Meisterlied Die dryzehen reyen in the Colmar Liederhandschrift (Runge, no.57), in which God's plan for salvation is cast as an initial reien which is then followed by a series of reien from the fall of Lucifer through the Redemption to the Last Judgment. The characteristics listed above are particularly clear in this example.
P. Runge, ed.: Die Sangesweisen der Colmarer Handschrift (Leipzig, 1896/R)
C. Petzsch: ‘Rufe im Tanzlied’, ZDADL, xcv (1966), 204–11
C. Petzsch: ‘Frühlingsreien als Vortragsform und seine Bedeutung im Bîspel’, Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte, xlv (1971), 35–79 [cites earlier bibliography, which should be taken in conjunction with a monograph on the Reigenlied in the Handbuch des deutschen Volksliedes]
C. Petzsch: ‘Eine Möglichkeit des Wiedergewinnens mittelalterlicher Reigenmelodien’, SM, xiii (1971), 225–31
CHRISTOPH PETZSCH