Thomas Moore's "Irish Melodies" & "Popular National Airs" - What is available online?

These days I am working quite a lot with two of Thomas Moore's important and influential song collections: both the Irish Melodies and the Popular National Airs. It is always helpful to have these publications available online and thankfully most of the original editions as well as some later complete editions have been digitized. 

The Irish Melodies

There is no need to say here anything about this one, it is surely one of the most popular and most successful song collections ever published and a lot of these songs are still well known:

• A Selection of Irish Melodies. With Symphonies and Accompaniments by Sir John Stevenson MusDoc and Characteristic words by Thomas Moore Esq., 10 Volumes, J. Power, London, 1808-1834

The first two volumes are available at the Internet Archive. They belong to the Drs Whitby Music Collection by the University of Western Ontario, one of the best collections of historical sheet music and songbooks I have ever seen in the Internet: 

• https://archive.org/details/selectionofirish00stev 

The Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in München has also already digitized a considerable part of its massive musical holdings. Recently they have added the first 7 volumes of the Irish Melodies to their digital collection. They also have a copy of Vol. 8, but for some reason that one hasn't been scanned yet. I hope they will add it in the near future: 

• 2 Mus.pr. 532-(1-7) [Click on Einzelbände to see the individual volumes] (also available at the Internet Archive)

Volume 8, 9 and 10 of the original editions are to my knowledge at the moment not available online. Therefore it is necessary to use one of the complete editions of Moore's collection. The Internet Archive has for example - among others - these three and they are all useful:

• Moore's Irish Melodies. With Symphonies and Accompaniments by Sir John Stevenson and Characteristic Words, Oliver Ditson & Co., Boston, n. d. [1852]
  https://archive.org/details/mooresirishmelod00stev_0 
• J. W. Glover (ed.), Irish Melodies with Symphonies and Accompaniments by Sir John Stevenson Mus. Doc. and Characteristic Words by Thomas Moore Esq., New Edition, Dublin, n. d. [1859]
  https://archive.org/details/irishmelodieswit00glov 
• Moore's Irish Melodies. With the Celebrated and Unsurpassed Symphonies and Accompaniments of Sir John Stevenson, Mus. Doc. and Sir Henry Bishop. Illustrated by Twenty Original Steel Engravings, After W. P. Frith, R. A., A. Elmore, R. A. &c. With a Biography of Thomas Moore and An Essay on the Music of Ireland, The London Printing And Publishing Company & A. W. Cittens, London & New York, n. d., 2 Vols
  https://archive.org/details/mooresirishmelod01stev
  https://archive.org/details/mooresirishmelod02stev

The Popular National Airs

The great success of the Irish Melodies encouraged Moore and his publisher to try out the same formula for national airs from all kind of different countries and in 1818 the first volume of this collection appeared. Here he offered new lyrics with melodies that were described as Indian, Spanish, Portuguese, Sicilian, Venetian, Scotch, Italian and Hungarian. Sir John Stevenson was again responsible for the music. Five more volumes would follow and from No. 2 onwards Henry Rowley Bishop wrote the arrangements:

• A Selection of Popular National Airs with Symphonies and Accompaniments by Sir John Stevenson MusDoc; Henry R. Bishop]. The Words by Thomas Moore, Esq., 6 Volumes, J. Power, London, 1818-1828

Again the BStB, München helps out with scans of the first three volumes: 

• 4 Mus.pr. 35243-(1-3) [click on Einzelbände; also available at Google Books: Vol. 1, Vol. 2, Vol. 3 ]; also at the Internet Archive

Unfortunately they don't have copies of Vols. 4-6 and as far as I know no other library has yet digitized them. Therefore it is necessary to use a complete edition of this collection. I found only one that is available online:

• Charles W. Glover (ed.), National Airs, with Words by Thomas Moore, Longman, Green, Longman & Roberts, London 1860
  http://books.google.de/books?id=rztNAAAAcAAJ
  https://archive.org/details/MooreNationalAirsCompleteEdGlover1860 

This is the so-called "People's Edition of Moore's National Airs" and the editor has simplified the arrangements a little bit. In the preface he notes that "it has been my study to arrange the symphonies and accompaniments in the simplest appropriate form, so as to render the whole easy of execution". Nonetheless this edition is very helpful and I have used it quite a lot.

 

By the way, I am somewhat surprised that the National Airs have rarely been discussed by the Moore scholars. There is no critical study and as far as I know nobody has yet tried to identify the tunes and its sources. But this was an influential and groundbreaking and also very successful collection. Some of the songs became really popular. Even the reviews at that time were very positive (see f. ex. The Quarterly Musical Magazine And Review, 1, 1818, pp. 225-229 & 5, 1823, pp. 67-74, The Gentleman's Magazine 90 I, 1820, p. 521):

"This is certainly one of the most pleasing collections of the kind we ever recollect to have met with. We have, however, less to do with the music itself, than the delightful poetry which accompanies it, and which comprizes, according to our ideas of beauty, some of the most highly polished specimens of the art of Songwriting we know in the English language [...]".

A rival publisher apparently liked it so much that he hired songwriter Thomas A. Bayly as well as Bishop and Stevenson for a competing collection with the title Melodies of Various Nations (4 Vols, c. 1822-30). But Moore's work was also known outside of Britain and served as a model for other editors interested in these kind of international national airs. Friedrich Silcher from Tübingen, one of the most important German producers of "Volkslieder", used more than 20 tunes from Moore's Popular National Airs (as well as some more from the Irish Melodies) for his own Ausländische Volksmelodien (4 Vols., 1835-41, at the Internet Archive). Some of these German versions - with translations or new words mostly by poet Hermann Kurz - became very popular, for example "Stumm schläft der Sänger" (H. 1, No. 1; i. e. "Here Sleeps The Bard"), a song that even today still belongs to the repertoire of male choirs.

 

The Irish Melodies and the Popular National Airs have of course also been included in numerous collections of Moore's - more or less - complete works. But in most cases the music has been left out. But there is one massive edition where the tunes were included:

• The National Moore. Centenary Edition Including the Airs of the Irish Melodies, National Airs &c And a Memoir by J. F. Waller, William Mackenzie, London & Dublin, n. d. [1880] (pdf available in the online catalog of the British Library, [select "I want this"])

These are 700 pages of Thomas Moore's works - I can't say if it is complete - and for every song not only from the two collections discussed here but also from others the tune has been included. Not at least this is a very beautiful book and very enjoyable to read and leaf through and well worth the download.

"Ausländische Volkslieder" in 19th-Century Germany - Some Important Collections 1829-1853 (Part 2)

Go back to Part 1

By all accounts neither Wolff's Braga nor Zuccalmaglio's and Baumstark's Bardale left a lasting impression. But the year 1835 also saw the publication of the first of  four volumes of a collection that turned out to be the most successful and influential of these kind of compilations of foreign songs:

• Friedrich Silcher, Ausländische Volksmelodien, mit deutschem, zum Theil aus dem Englischen etc. übertragenem Text, gesammelt und für eine oder zwei Singstimmen mit Begleitung des Pianoforte und der Guitarre gesetzt, 4 Hefte, Fues, Tübingen, 1835-1841 (available at the Internet Archive; also a later edition, c. 1870)

Friedrich Silcher (1789-1860; see Bopp 1916; Dahmen 1989; Schmid 1989), Musikdirektor at the University of Tübingen and a very popular and successful composer, arranger, music educator and choirmaster, happened to be one of the most influential promoters and editors of "Volkslieder" in Germany. Like many others he was fascinated by foreign tunes and of course he was a great admirer of Herder's Volkslieder (see Bopp 1916, p. 100-105, Schmoll-Barthel in Schmid, pp. 114-9). 

Therefore he set out to compile his own collection with altogether 41 songs from all kind of countries. In these 4 booklets we can find tunes described for example as Scottish, Irish, Spanish, Danish, Norwegian, Indian, Persian, French and Russian. A considerable number of the texts - sometimes translations, but also new poems - were from the pen of Swabian poet Hermann Kurz (1813-1873; see Wikipedia, see Dahmen 1987, pp. 71-3), a friend, relative and former pupil of Silcher with whom he worked closely together at that time.

Silcher's most important source were clearly Thomas Moore's popular collections, both the Selection of Irish Melodies (10 Vols., 1808-1834) and the Selection of Popular National Airs (6 Vols., 1818-1828), the latter the most important British compilation of international songs (see in this blog: "Melodies of Different Nations": Anthologies of International "National Airs" in Britain 1800-1830 - Pt. 2). Moore of course had written new poetry for all these tunes. For 15 of the 41 songs in his collection Silcher noted "nach Moore". In these cases he used the tunes as well as translations of Moore's lyrics. We can find here three pieces from the Irish Melodies: "The Last Rose of Summer" ("Des Sommers letzte Rose"), "Minstrel Boy" ("Der junge Harfner zog bewehrt") and "I saw thy form in youthful prime" ("Im Mai des Lebens"). 12 more were taken from the Popular National Airs, for example two of Moore's excursions into Scottish song: "Here comes the Bard" ("Stumm schläft der Sänger") and "Oft in the stilly night" ("Oft in der stillen Nacht") but also "When through the Piazetta" (Venetian; "Wenn um die Kanäle"), "Hark! The Vesper Hymn is stealing" ("Russian"; "Horch, die Wellen tragen bebend"), "How oft when watching the stars" (Savoyardian; "Oft wenn erbleicht der Sterne Pracht"), or "The Gazelle" (Indian; "Hörst Du nicht ein Silberglöckchen").

Besides these Silcher also borrowed at least 8 more melodies from Moore's publications, but without acknowledgment, and combined them with new poems, most of them written by Kurz: for example the tunes of "Avenging and bright" and "Oh we had some bright little isle" - both from the Irish Melodies - were used for "Seht wie düstere Wolken" and "Herr Peter"; "Das Mondlicht scheint zur Fülle" was supplied with the Portuguese tune of "Flow on, thou shining river" from the Popular National Airs. 

Even two songs by Robert Burns were set to tunes from Moore's collections. Apparently Silcher had, unlike Wolff and Zuccalmaglio, no access to the original Scottish publications. I always wondered about the tune he used for "Mein Herz ist im Hochland", Ferdinand Freiligrath's translation of "My Heart's in the Highlands" and now I see that it is the as yet unidentified "Scotch Air" of "O Guard Our Affection" in volume 5 of the Popular National Airs. And for Wilhelm Gerhard's translation of "My love is like a red, red rose" ("Dem rothen Röslein gleicht mein Lieb") he decided for "My lodging is on the cold ground" from Moore's "Believe me, if all those endearing young charms" (Irish Melodies II) which the latter had taken from the second volume of Thomson's Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs (No. 76, with "Farewell, thou fair day" by Burns; see Chinnéide 1959, p. 120). But I have to admit this works quite well. We see here that Silcher, like many others in Germany, only knew Burns from the translations that began to appear in the second half of the 1830s. 

All in all at least 25 of the 41 songs in Silcher's Ausländischen Volksmelodien were derived from Moore's publications and most of them had not yet been available in Germany at that time, as one reviewer in the Morgenblatt für gebildete Leser noted (Vol. 30, 1836, p. 180, at Google Books). The rest of this collection is made up of assorted songs from for example Scandinavia, Russia or France that were taken from other sources. Not at least he was among the first to publish German versions of two popular British hits: "Home, Sweet Home" by John Howard Payne and Henry Bishop - with the tune wrongly described as "Irish" - and "Blue Bells of Scotland".

These two as well as a considerable amount of the others, like "Stumm schläft der Sänger", "Das Mondlicht scheint in Fülle" and "Horch, die Wellen tragen bebend", became part of the common song repertoire and were regularly recycled later in other songbooks. In fact Silcher was a musical professional who knew very well what the people liked to play and sing. His collection was clearly far more appealing to the practising amateur musicians and singers than those by Wolff and Zuccalmaglio and became much more popular. 

But of course we should not forget that collections like this one were far from being authentic in an ethnological sense. All the tunes were taken from earlier printed sources and many of them then combined with new, modern words. This of course led to misunderstandings and confusion. 

In 1851 the well known critic, editor and writer Wolfgang Menzel (1798-1873) published a comparative anthology with the title Die Gesänge der Völker. Lyrische Mustersammlung in nationalen Parallelen. He of course also used some texts from Silcher's collection. For example we can find here "Das Mondlicht scheint zur Fülle" (p. 350). Menzel called it "Portugiesisches Liebeslied" but simply missed the fact that this text had never even come near Portugal because it was written by Hermann Kurz for the "Portuguese" tune Silcher had borrowed from Moore's Popular National Airs. For some reason Kurz was not named as the author and therefore it looked like a translation of an original song (in Heft 1, No. 6).

Nonetheless more collections of this type kept on coming even though none of them was as successful as Silcher's Ausländische Volksmelodien. He tried it a second time with Stimmen der Völkern in Liedern und Weisen, two small booklets published in 1846 and 1855 (now available at the Internet Archive). The title of course was a tribute to Herder's great collection. But apparently this work didn't leave such a big impression. Other editors also were busy with these kind of anthologies. Of particular interest is an attempt at a more scholarly collection of which only the very first part appeared. Here we can find only chapters about French and British songs and the start of one about Belgish and Dutch "Volkslieder" : 

• Joh. Friedr. Kayser, Orpheus. Neue Sammlung National-Lieder aller Völker. Mit historischen und kritischen Anmerkungen. 1. Abtheilung, 1. Heft: Ausländische Musik, In Commission bei Wilh. Jowien, Hamburg, n. d. [1854] (date from Hofmeister, April 1854, p. 536; available at the Internet Archive and Google Books)

This is an exceedingly rare book. To my knowledge there is not a single copy in German libraries. It only came to light again because the lone extant copy at the Dutch National Library was digitized and then made available in Google Books. I can't say anything about the author but he seems to have been something like an expert on this topic as well as an knowledgeable translator. Of course Kayser was still deeply embedded in romantic thinking. In the introduction he claimed - as it was common during that time - that one can learn about "den Charakter eines Volkes" from their songs (p. 1). He was also not completely sure about the terminology. "National-Gesänge" is of course a translation of the English term national air. This is then mixed up with national hymns and he sets out to discuss the French and English patriotic hymns like the "Marseillaise", "Rule, Britannia" and "God Save The King". 

But the chapter about Britain also includes some Irish songs, all of course by Moore: for example "The Last Rose of Summer", "The Origin of the Harp" and the very first German publication of "Erin! The tear and the smile in thine eyes". Thankfully Kayser offered for every song the original tune and text and added his own translation. His concept was not that bad but this ambitious collection was closed down after the first booklet. 

These four publications presented here - Zuccalmaglio's and Baumstark's Bardale, Wolff's Braga, Silcher's Volksmelodien and Kayser's Orpheus - demonstrate different approaches to this topic as well as different grades of success. In fact only Silcher's collection left a notable mark in the popular repertoire. But they all reflect the immense fascination with songs and tunes from other countries. Nonetheless one should not forget that during that time the original tunes were still hard to get by. Much more common were anthologies of translations like Wolff's Halle der Völker and Menzel's Gesänge der Völker. A greater number of melodies - for example from Ireland and Scotland - were made available only since the 60s and 70s. I will discuss some of these important collections later.

Go back to Part 1

Literature:

• August Bopp, Friedrich Silcher, Stuttgart 1916
• Veronica ní Chinnéide, The Sources of Moore's Melodies, in: The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, Vol. 89, No. 2 (1959), pp. 109-134
• Hermann Josef Dahmen, Friedrich Silchers Vertonungen schwäbischer Dichter, in: Suevica. Beiträge zur Schwäbischen Literatur- und Geistesgeschichte 4, 1987, pp. 67-90
• Hermann Josef Dahmen, Friedrich Silcher, Komponist und Demokrat. Eine Biographie, Stuttgart & Wien 1989
• Manfred Hermann Schmid (ed.), Friedrich Silcher 1789-1860. Die Verbürgerlichung der Musik im 19. Jahrhundert. Katalog der Ausstellung zum 200. Geburtstag des ersten Tübinger Universitätsmusikdirektors, Tübingen 1989 (Kleine Tübinger Schriften, Heft 12)

"Ausländische Volkslieder" in 19th-Century Germany - Some Important Collections 1829-1853 (Part 1)

During the 19th century German music fans were fascinated with what was called "ausländische Volkslieder" or "National-Lieder": national airs from other countries. Of particular importance were a couple of book-length collections that promised to give an exemplary overview of this genre. Thankfully all these publications have been digitized and are now easily available for research and study.

What kind of songs were included, what were the editors' sources, what did they actually know about other countries' and cultures' music?  Interestingly the first relevant publication - apart from the Abbé Vogler's interesting Polymelos (1791, 1806, see in this blog: Abbé Vogler's Collections of National Airs) - came out only in 1829. That was rather late compared to Britain: there had already been a great fashion for these kind of anthologies from 1800 to 1830 (see in this blog: "Melodies of Different Nations": Anthologies of International "National Airs" in Britain 1800-1830).

• Eduard Baumstark & Wilhelm von Waldbrühl, Bardale. Sammlung auserlesener Volkslieder der verschiedenen Völker der Erde mit deutschem Texte und Begleitung des Pianoforte und der Guitarre, herausgegeben und dem Herrn Geheimen Rathe und Professor Dr. A. F. J. Thibaut hochachtungsvoll gewidmet, I. Band, Friedrich Busse, Braunschweig, 1829 (available at BSB: Mus.pr. 2623-1 & at the Internet Archive )

This collection was dedicated to Prof. Thibaut (1772-1840, see Baumstark 1841) in Heidelberg, a jurist but also an influential music theorist. Since the early 20s he was busy collecting books of national airs. The second edition of his  famous Über Reinheit der Tonkunst includes a chapter "Über Volksgesänge" in which he discusses the history of the genre and the most important publications available at that time (1826, pp. 74-93). In fact he had acquired an impressive collection of relevant literature, mostly from Britain, including for example four volumes of Thomson's Scottish Airs, a nearly complete set of Moore's Irish Melodies as well as Parry's Welsh Melodies and Horn's Indian Melodies (see Verzeichnis, 1842, pp. 40-3). Thibaut's Singverein, his own very ambitious choir, used to perform these songs (see Baumstark, Blätter, f. ex. pp. 160-81). Since circa 1820 he was busy compiling a manuscript of Alte National-Gesänge: arrangements of German and international national airs - including translations - for four voices (RISM 453009283). Both editors spent some time in Heidelberg and sang with Thibaut. And of course they were able to use his resources for their own works.

Wilhelm von Waldbrühl (i. e. Wilhelm von Zuccalmaglio, 1803-1869) was a very interesting character and he later became one of the more controversial collectors and editors of so-called "Volkslieder" during that era. In fact he was so carried away by his passion for this genre that he sometimes wrote songs himself - or at least edited heavily what he had collected - and passed these pieces off as creations of the "folk" (see Friedlaender 1919). This was of course not uncommon at that time. The sound and the style of the songs was much more important than their provenance. If the "folk" didn't deliver every skilled writer and composer could learn to produce "Volkslieder" that sounded right. Johannes Brahms for example, who didn't care much about "authenticity" and couldn't stand nitpicking scholars like Ludwig Erk, liked and admired Zuccalmaglio's work (see Noa 2013, pp. 333-6). This collection of foreign songs was one of Wilhelm von Zuccalmaglio's earliest publications (see Yeo 1993, pp. 79-90). Here he worked together with Eduard Baumstark (1807-1889), a young economist and jurist who later made himself a name as a politician and university professor.

 The book offered songs that were described for example as Persian, Hebrew, Italian, Scottish, Irish, Welsh or Russian, all in German translation, but without the original text. Arrangements for piano and the guitar were included. Thankfully the editors have also listed their sources. Most of these pieces were taken from earlier printed collections, those from Ireland, Scotland and Wales for example mostly from George Thomson's publications. For some songs they noted that they had collected them from oral tradition ("aus dem Volksmunde") but I wouldn't put too much trust in these claims.

This collection looked quite impressive but the reviewers weren't impressed (see AMZ 31, 1829, pp. 733-742; BAMZ 7, 1830, pp. 283-5). They didn't like the introduction, the song selection, the arrangements nor the translations. And by all accounts it wasn't such a big success. No further volumes were published. Some years later the same team tried it out a second time (see the advert in AMZ 37, 1835, Intelligenzblatt No. 2, p. 8). Here they also included the original texts. But only the first three booklets appeared and then this attempt also came to an end :

• Eduard Baumstark, Auserlesene, Aechte Volksgesänge der verschiedensten Völker mit Urtexten und deutscher Übersetzung, gesammelt in Verbindung mit A. W. von Zuccalmaglio, ein- und mehrstimmig eingerichtet, mit Begleitung des Pianoforte und der Guitarre, 3 Hefte, L. Pabst, Darmstadt, 1835-6 (Booklets 1 & 2 online available at BStB-DS: 4 Mus.pr. 474-1 & 4 Mus.pr. 474-2).

The same year another collection was published:

• O. L. B. Wolff, Braga. Sammlung Österreichischer, Schweizerischer, Französischer, Englischer, Spanischer, Portugiesischer, Brasilianischer, Italienischer, Holländischer, Schwedischer, Dänischer, Russischer, Polnischer, Litthauischer, Finnischer, u. s. w. Volkslieder mit ihren ursprünglichen Melodien mit Klavierbegleitung u. unterlegter deutscher Uebersetzung, 14 Hefte, N. Simrock, Berlin/Bonn, n. d. [1835] (see Hofmeister, September 1835, p. 93; available at Google Books; & the Internet Archive; booklet No. 5 with English, Scottish and Irish songs is missing in Google's edition but it is now available at SLUB Dresden and the Internet Archive; now also [added 28.3.19: Google Books [= BL]; Google Books [= Harvard])

Otto Ludwig Bernhard Wolff (1799-1851, see Steffen 1996; also: Wikipedia, ADB 44, 1998, pp. 9-12 & wikisource) was immensely knowledgeable and industrious writer who made himself a name as a novelist, translator, editor and scholar. In 1829 he became professor of literature in Jena. His output was simply astounding. Beside his works of fiction he also produced a number of voluminous anthologies, for example of German "Volkslieder" and of German and English poetry as well as an encyclopedia of literature in 8 volumes and a Conversations-Lexicon für Gebildete aus allen Ständen in 5 volumes. 

Wolff had at that point already published interesting compilations of French songs (Altfranzoesische Volkslieder, 1831, at the Internet Archive) and old Dutch songs (Proben Altholländischer Volkslieder, 1832, at the Internet Archive), but both without music. His Braga was his first and only publication where he included the tunes. As the title says here he offered all in all 14 booklets with songs from all kind of countries with both the original text and - for the most part - his own translation. At that time this was surely the most comprehensive collection of foreign national airs in Germany. Booklet No. 5 is dedicated to songs from Britain. The greatest part are from Scotland and the last four from Ireland.

 

Unfortunately he forgot to name his sources. But they are not too difficult to find out. The Irish pieces were of course all from Thomas Moore's Irish Melodies while the Scottish songs were lifted wholesale - nearly all even including the piano arrangement - either from R. A. Smith's Scotish Minstrel (6 Vols., 1820-1824) or from James Johnson's Scots Musical Museum (6 Vol., 1787-1803). The use of the latter is a little bit surprising because it was barely known in Germany and only very few scholars were familiar with this collection. 

The selection is quite good. We find here many of the common standards, like "MacDonald's Gathering", "Awa, Whig's, Awa", "The Campbells are coming" and "Lord Gregory". But interestingly Wolff was among the first to publish some of Robert Burns' songs in Germany complete with original words and music: "John Anderson, My Jo", "Green Grow The Rashes O" and "Duncan Gray". That was also quite uncommon. Until the mid-30s Burns was not particularly well-known in Germany and and very few of his works were available. And when he later became really popular his songs were usually only published in German translation without the tunes. Unfortunately Wolff didn't even name Burns as the author and so this chance was forgiven. But the same happened to Thomas Moore whose songs were also treated as anonymous "Volkslieder". Nonetheless this was an impressive collection  that included a lot of music that until that point had not been available in Germany.

Two years later he published another collection of his translations of foreign songs, this time without the music:

• O. L. B. Wolff, Halle der Völker. Sammlung vorzüglicher Volkslieder der bekanntesten Nationen, größtenteils zum ersten Male, metrisch in das Deutsche übertragen, 2 Bde., Johann David Sauerländer, Frankfurt am Main, 1837 (available at Google Books & BStB-DS: Vol. 1 : 6108804 L.eleg.g. 440 sd-1, Vol. 2: 6108804 L.eleg.g. 440 sd-2)

These two volumes include chapters about Britain, the Netherlands, France, Spain and Portugal, Scandinavia as well as one with a mixed bag of songs from a couple of other countries. Here he actually named his sources and added interesting notes for every song. For the British songs he used, besides Smith's Scotish Minstrel, also for example Ramsay's Tea Table Miscellany, Percy's Reliques, Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Ritson's Scottish Songs and Motherwell's Minstrelsy: Ancient and Modern (see Vol. 1, p. 2, at Google Books). But the selection is a little bit strange. There is not a single Irish song, not even one of Moore's. Instead it is made up mostly of Scottish texts, but for some reason none of Burns'. But Wolff again proved to be one of the most knowledgeable scholars of foreign song at that time in Germany. A decade later he compiled another - more representative - collection of texts: Hausschatz der Volkspoesie. Sammlung der vorzüglichsten und eigenthümlichsten Volkslieder aller Länder und Zeiten in metrischen deutschen Übersetzungen (Wigand, Leipzig, 1846, at Google Books)

Literature:

• Eduard Baumstark, Ant. Friedr. Justus Thibaut. Blätter der Erinnerung für seine Verehrer und für die Freunde der reinen Tonkunst, Wilhelm Engelmann, Leipzig, 1841 (at the Internet Archive)
• Max Friedlaender, Zuccalmaglio und das Volkslied in: Jahrbuch der Musikbibliothek Peters, Band 25, 1919, S. 53-80
• Marion Steffen, Der Improvisator als Anthologist. Zu Leben und Werk Oscar Ludwig Bernhard Wolffs (1799-1851), in: Helga Eßmann & Udo Schöning (ed.), Weltliteratur in deutschen Veranthologien des 19. Jahrhunderts, Berlin, 1996 (= Göttinger Beiträge zur Internationalen Übersetzungsforschung 11), pp. 450-470 
• Else Yeo, Eduard Baumstark und die Brüder von Zuccalmaglio. Drei Volksliedsammler, Köln, 1993
• Verzeichnis der von dem verstorbenen Grossh. Badischen Prof. der Rechte und Geheimrathe Dr. Anton Friedrich Justus Thibaut zu Heidelberg hinterlassenen Musiksammlung, welche als ein ganzes ungetrennt veräussert werden soll, Karl Groos, Heidelberg, 1842 (at the Internet Archive)

revised: 17.11.2015 

Go to Part 2