Tandaradei

This winter semester (2026/27), the Freiburg Saturday University embarks on a musical journey through time featuring 15 songs, ballads, and their stories.

Around 1100, Sextus Amarcius Gallus Piosistratus wrote in his Sermones about the singers of that time:

So when the minstrel appeared, and the fee had been agreed upon, and he was about to take his lute out of its leather case, people came running from every nook and cranny, watching intently and murmuring softly as the minstrel ran his fingers across the strings—which he had fashioned from moist sheep intestines—and as they produced now a bright tone, now a dark one. He often plays the resonant strings in fifths: just as the shepherd’s sling struck down the great Goliath, just as the shrewd little Swabian outwitted his wife with a similar trick, just as the astute Pythagoras discovered the eight modes of song, and just as the nightingale’s pure voice sings out joyfully. 

Last Saturday, Professor Hans-Jochen Schiewer gave a lecture on Walther von der Vogelweide’s ballad of fulfilled love, which balances concealment and revelation.

This medieval Minnesänger (minstrel), who lived from about 1170 to  1230, is one of the few poets and singers of his time who is mentioned in historical documents alongside his works, specifically in the travel accounts of Bishop Wolfger von Erla of Passau, where we read: Walthero cantori de Vogelweide pro pellicio v solidos longos (To Walther the singer of the Vogelweide, five shillings for a fur coat.)

Walther’s best-known poem, along with the above illustration from the Codex Manesse, is:

Ich saz ûf eime steine, dô dahte ich bein mit beine, dar üf satzte ich min ellenbogen. ich hete in mine hant gesmogen daz kinne und ein mîn wange. dô dâhte ich mir vil ange, wie man zer werlte solte leben.

I sat down on a rock, then I crossed my legs, and rested my elbows on them. I cupped my chin and one of my cheeks in my hand. Then I thought long and hard about how one should live in this world.

Wilhelm von Kaulbach, Under der linden, 1867, commissioned by King Ludwig II of Bavaria

Prof. Schiewer's talk and the following text are about Walther’s poem Under der Linden, in which a girl recounts an encounter with her beloved.

 

Under der linden an der heide, dâ unser zweier bette was, Dâ muget ir vinden schône beide gebrochen bluomen unde gras. Vor dem walde in einem tal, tandaradei, schône sanc diu nahtegal

Under the linden     tree on the heath,     where our bed once stood,     there you may find     both beautiful     broken flowers and grass.     Before the forest in a valley,      tandaradei,      the nightingale sang so beautifully.

Ich kam gegangen zuo der ouwe: dô was mîn friedel komen ê. Dâ wart ich empfangen, hêre frouwe, daz ich bin saelic iemer mê. Kuster mich? wol tûsentstunt: tandaradei, seht wie rôt mir ist der munt.

I came walking     to the meadow:     there my beloved had come.     There I was welcomed,     as a noble lady,     so that I am ever more blissful.     Did he kiss me? A thousand times:     tandaradei,     see how red my lips are.

      

Dô het er gemachet alsô rîche von bluomen eine bettestat. Des wirt noch gelachet inneclîche, kumt iemen an daz selbe pfat. Bî den rôsen er wol mac, tandaradei, merken wâ mirz houbet lac.

There he had made     such a rich     bed of flowers.     People still laugh     secretly     if anyone comes to that same path.     By the roses he surely wants     tandaradei,     to notice how much I’m smiling

     

Daz er bî mir laege, wessez iemen (nu enwelle got!), sô schamt ich mich. Wes er mit mir pflaege, niemer niemen bevinde daz, wan er und ich. Und ein kleinez vogellîn: tandaradei, daz mac wol getriuwe sîn.

That he lies with me - if anyone were to know (God forbid!), I’d be so ashamed. What he did with me, no one, not a soul, knows of it but he and I. And a little birdie: tandaradei, that must surely be true.

The linden tree and the nightingale recur in the song. 

One day we want to dance beneath the green linden trees and watch them grow;
and when we do, we’ll find two kinds of linden trees - one tame and one wild -
but the tame one is the most beautiful and the largest, with leaves, flowers, and fruit.

The German soul is torn as to whether the gnarled oak or the gentle linden tree is the Germans' tree. In some places, both trees are venerated.

And then there is the linden tree on the Reeperbahn:

In Hamburg, where the nights are long,
so many lovely hours long ...
you stop beneath a linden tree,
your kisses mingle with the breeze.

Red Baron remembers a recording by some American Sisters but could no longer find it on the Internet. Instead, listen to a recording with iconic Lili Marleen singer Lale Andersen and enjoy her strong German accent.

Literary critic Marcel Reich-Ranicki wrote in the Frankfurter Anthologie about Walther von der Vogelweide's Under der linden:

 
It is a perfect poetic creation: Not a single word is missing here, and not a single one can be dispensed with. And just as the girl telling the story seems not only simple and natural, but also a little coquettish, so the poem combines perfect naivety [...] with the utmost artistic sophistication. Walther’s artistry is free from the taint of artificiality. Both the poet and his beloved are distinguished by what has endured through the centuries [...] and what eludes any scholarly definition: charm and grace. Not until a much later era did Germany again have a poet who wrote verses of comparable beauty: Goethe.

The original melody for “Under der Linden” has not been preserved. All modern musical settings use traditional medieval melodic patterns with characteristic fifth chords to sing the text. Keep in mind that in those days, male minnesingers interpreted the girl’s experiences. This is also the case in this modern musical setting.

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