Otto Holzapfel (born February 5, 1941, in

Beeskow Beeskow (; , ;) is a town in Brandenburg, in eastern Germany, and capital of the Oder-Spree district. It is situated on the river Spree (river), Spree, 30 km southwest of Frankfurt an der Oder. History In 1518 the town was purchased by the Di ...

) is a German folklorist and researcher of traditional German folk song (

folk music Folk music is a music genre that includes #Traditional folk music, traditional folk music and the Contemporary folk music, contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be ca ...

Lied In the Western classical music tradition, ( , ; , ; ) is a term for setting poetry to classical music. The term is used for any kind of song in contemporary German and Dutch, but among English and French speakers, is often used interchangea ...

). He is a retired professor at the

University of Freiburg The University of Freiburg (colloquially ), officially the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg (), is a public university, public research university located in Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The university was founded in 1 ...

. His mother tongue is Danish. He studied in Frankfurt am Main; among his subjects were Scandinavian languages and literature with Klaus von See. In 1970 he was appointed curator (archivist) at the German Folk Song Archives in Freiburg, now Center for Popular Culture and Music, University of Freiburg. He led this institute until 1996. He was co-editor of the journal ''Jahrbuch für Volksliedforschung'' from 1984 to 1998 and editor of the ''Studien zur Volksliedforschung'' (volumes 1 – 17, 1991–1996). Special topics of Holzapfel are the traditional German folk

ballad A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and song of Great Britain and Ireland from the Late Middle Ages until the 19th century. They were widely used across Eur ...

and the tradition of the German folk song, European mythology and German-Danish genealogy. He has edited several volumes of the standard edition of the traditional German folk ballads ''Deutsche Volkslieder mit ihren Melodien: Balladen'' (10 volumes, 1935–1996), and he created a system for analyzing German quatrains (Schnaderhüpfel, four line lyric stanzas, Gstanzl). Since 2006 he supervises the German song index (''Liedverzeichnis')', now online.

Partial list of publications

* ith Julia McGrew and Iørn Piø, editors''The European Medieval Ballad: A Symposium''. Odense, Denmark: University Press, 1978. * ith Flemming G. Andersen and Thomas Pettitt, editors''The Ballad as Narrative: Studies in the Ballad Traditions of England, Scotland, Germany and Denmark''. Odense, Denmark: University Press, 1982. * „Graf und Nonne. An Analysis of the Epic-Formulaic Elements in a German Ballad“. In: Carol L. Edwards (editor): ''Narrative Folksong: New Directions''. Boulder, CO 1985, p. 179–193. * ''Vierzeiler-Lexikon: Schnaderhüpfel, Gesätzle, Gestanzeln ( Gstanzl), Rappeditzle, Neck-, Spott-, Tanzverse und verwandte Formen aus mündlicher Überlieferung'' (= Studien zur Volksliedforschung. 7–11). Volumes 1–5. Bern: Lang, 1991–1994. ISSN 0930-8636 * „Totenlieder deutscher Auswanderer in Kansas (USA)“. In: ''Jahrbuch für Volksliedforschung'' 31 (1986), p. 83–87.English summary, in: Philip V. Bohlman: ''Central European Folk Music. An Annotated Bibliography of Sources in German''. New York and London: Garland, 1996, S. 216–217. * ith Philip V. Bohlman">Philip_V._Bohlman.html" ;"title="ith Philip V. Bohlman">ith Philip V. Bohlman''The Folk Songs of Ashkenaz'' (= Recent Researches in the Oral Traditions of Music. 6). Middleton, WI 2001. * ith Philip V. Bohlman, editor] ''Land without Nightingales: Music in the Making of German-America''. Madison, WI 2002. * „Singing from the Right Songbook: Ethnic Identity and Language Transformation in German American Hymnals“. In: Philip V. Bohlman (editor): ''Music in American Religious Experience''. New York 2006, p. 175–194. * ''Liedverzeichnis: Die ältere deutschsprachige populäre Liedüberlieferung'' online Updat
Liedverzeichnis. Die ältere deutschsprachige populäre Liedüberlieferung.
online Update March 2023 (17 PDF-Dateien, zusammen 159 MB). - Otto Holzapfel: ''Liedverzeichnis''. Volumes 1–2. Hildesheim: Olms, 2006.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Holzapfel, Otto German folklorists 1941 births Living people Academic staff of the University of Freiburg Goethe University Frankfurt alumni German academic journal editors People from Beeskow