This song justifies all that we have said about the poetic beauty of folk-songs. Within its short compass are contained elements of perfection that may well astonish those who look on folk-songs as immaterial to the development of the art of music. For this melody is as complete and perfect an expression of that natural idealism that seems to have animated human beings from the earliest times as is the present day music of our own ideals.
The next illustration is a well known German folk-song called "Sister Fair."
This melody is one of great beauty and tenderness. Like many other German folk-songs, it is full of quiet sentiment, not over-strained, but sweet and wholesome. It contains certain formal elements with which we are already familiar: (1) "Repetition," between the first motive in measures 1 and 2, between measures 5-6 and 7-8, and between measures 3-4 and 11-12; (2) "transposition," where the motive in measure 9 is inverted in measure 10 (this is an imitation of rhythm but not of melody); (3) "restatement after contrast," the last four measures being, in effect, a repetition of the first four with the first motive from measure 9 inverted; (4) "modulation," the first phrase being in A-minor, the second in C-major, and the last in A-minor again. This is a particularly clear example of a modulation, as the three phrases distinctly centre round their respective key-notes, or tonal centres. It should be noted that the modulation is not to the fifth above the key-note, as in most of the other examples, but to the third above. This is common in songs in the minor key.
Quite a distinct charm is imparted to the first phrase of this melody by the use at the _end_ of measure 2 of the little rhythmic figure that has already appeared at the _beginning_ of the first and second measures. There is an unexpected charm in this shifting of a motive from one part of a measure to another. We shall see this device of musical construction in many of the larger works that are dealt with in later chapters.
There are a great many beautiful German folk-songs which would be well worth study here did space permit. The student is referred to such collections as Reimann's "Das Deutsche Lied," where the best of them will be found.