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"Leck mich im Arsch" is a playful composition by Mozart from 1782, likely intended for social gatherings among friends.
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Key Points
- "Leck mich im Arsch" is a canon composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
- The literal translation of the title is "Lick me in the arse."
- The original text was changed by publishers to a more decent version.
- Handwritten texts with the original phrases were discovered in 1991.
- The canon is thought to be a party piece for Mozart's friends.
Summaries
26 word summary
"Leck mich im Arsch" is a round composed by Mozart in 1782, believed to be a party piece for friends. References and further reading are provided.
79 word summary
"Leck mich im Arsch" is a canon composed by Mozart in 1782. Sung as a three-part round, it is believed to be a party piece for his friends. The title translates to "Lick me in the arse
The text excerpt provides a list of references and further reading related to the topic of "Leck mich im Arsch," a controversial composition attributed to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The references include sources such as the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians Online
Raw indexed text (7,290 chars / 1,165 words / 309 lines)
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For the Insane Clown Posse recording, see
Leck mich im Arsch (Insane Clown Posse song)
. For the original phrase, see
Swabian salute
"Lick my ass" redirects here. For the sex act, see
Anilingus
Leck mich im Arsch
" (German for "Lick me in the arse") is a
canon
in
B-flat major
composed by
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
K.
231 (K. 382c), with lyrics in German. It was one of a set of at least six canons probably written in
Vienna
in 1782.
[1]
Sung by six voices as a three-part
round
, it is thought to be a
party piece
for his friends.
[2]
Contents
English translation
Publication and modern discovery
Lyrics
See also
Notes
Further reading
External links
English translation
Edit
The German
idiom
used as the title of the work is equivalent to the English "Kiss my arse!" or American "Kiss my ass!"
[3]
However, the literal translation of the title is "Lick me in the
arse
".
Publication and modern discovery
Edit
After Mozart's death in 1791, his widow,
Constanze
, sent the manuscripts of the canons to publishers
Breitkopf & Hrtel
in 1799 for publication. The publisher changed the vulgar title and lyrics of this canon to the more decent "
Lat froh uns sein
" ("Let us be glad!"). Of Mozart's original text, only the first words were documented in the catalogue of his works produced by Breitkopf & Hrtel.
[4]
A score containing what may possibly be the original text was discovered in 1991. Handwritten texts to this and several other similar canons were found added to a printed score of the work in an historical printed edition acquired by
Harvard University
's Music Library. They had evidently been added to the book sometime after publication. However, since in six of the pieces these entries matched texts that had, in the meantime, independently come to light in original manuscripts, it was hypothesised that the remaining three may, too, have been original, including texts for K. 231 ("Leck mich im Arsch" itself), and another Mozart work, "
Leck mir den Arsch fein recht schn sauber
" ("Lick my arse nice and clean", K. 233; K. 382d in the revised numbering).
[2]
Later research revealed that the latter work was likely composed by
Wenzel Trnka
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8]
Lyrics
Edit
The text rediscovered in 1991 consists only of the repeated phrases:
[9]
"Leck mich im Arsch"
0:00
MIDI
file, 2:16
Problems playing this file? See
media help
Leck mich im A... g'schwindi, g'schwindi!
Leck im A... mich g'schwindi.
Leck mich, leck mich,
g'schwindi
etc. etc. etc.
where "A..." obviously stands for "Arsch"; "g'schwindi" is a dialect word derived from "
geschwind
", meaning "quickly".
The
bowdlerised
text of the early printed editions reads:
Lat uns froh sein!
Murren ist vergebens!
Knurren, Brummen ist vergebens,
ist das wahre Kreuz des Lebens,
das Brummen ist vergebens,
Knurren, Brummen ist vergebens, vergebens!
Drum lat uns froh und frhlich, froh sein!
Let us be glad!
Grumbling is in vain!
Growling, droning is in vain,
is the true bane of life,
Droning is in vain,
Growling, droning is in vain, in vain!
Thus let us be cheerful and merry, be glad!
Another semi-bowdlerized adaptation is found in the recordings of
The Complete Mozart
edition by
Brilliant Classics
[10]
[11]
Leck mich im Arsch!
Goethe, Goethe!
Gtz von Berlichingen
! Zweiter Akt;
Die Szene kennt ihr ja!
Rufen wir nur ganz summarisch:
Hier wird Mozart literarisch!
Kiss my arse!
Goethe, Goethe!
Gtz von Berlichingen! Second act;
You know the scene too well!
Let us now shout the summary:
Mozart here gets literary!
This is a clear allusion to the line
"... er kann mich im Arsche lecken!"
(literally, "he can lick me in the arse" or idiomatically "he can kiss my arse") attributed to the late medieval German knight
Gtz von Berlichingen
, known best as the title hero of
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
's 1773
drama
. The text of the canon contains a slight error about the Goethe source: the line occurs in the third act.
[12]
[13]
See also
Edit
Difficile lectu
" a canon with a disguised Latin version of the same text
Bona nox
" "Good night", a multilingual scatological canon
Mozart and scatology
Notes
Edit
Eisen, Cliff
, et al.: "Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart",
Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
Online, ed. L. Macy (Accessed 9 September 2007),
(subscription required)
Jump up to:
Kozinn, Allan
(2 March 1991).
"Three Naughty Mozart Texts Are Found"
The New York Times
. Retrieved
19 September
2007
Schemann, Hans (1997).
English-German Dictionary of Idioms
. New York: Routledge.
ISBN
0-415-17254-3
Preface to the
Neue Mozart Ausgabe
Vol. III/10, p. X.
Plath, Wolfgang
Bennwitz, Hanspeter
; Buschmeier, Gabriele; Feder, Georg;
Hofmann, Klaus
(1988).
Opera incerta. Echtheitsfragen als Problem musikwissenschaftlicher Gesamtausgaben
. Kolloquium Mainz 1988.
ISBN
3-515-05996-2
Silke Leopold
; Jutta Schmoll-Barthel; Sara Jeffe, eds. (October 2005).
Mozart-Handbuch
. Stuttgart: Metzler. pp. 640, 653, 689.
ISBN
3-476-02077-0
Dietrich Berke
Wolfgang Rehm
; Miriam Pfadt (2007).
"Endbericht"
(PDF)
Neue Mozart Ausgabe
(in German). Brenreiter. Archived from
the original
(PDF)
on 22 July 2007
. Retrieved
10 September
2007
Catherine Carl; Dan Manley; Dennis Pajot; Steve Ralsten; Gary Smith.
"Koechel List"
. Mozart Forum. Archived from
the original
on 14 August 2007
. Retrieved
10 September
2007
Denis Pajot: "K. 233 and K. 234 Mozart's 'Kiss my Ass' Canons."
Mozart Forum
Archived
2009-02-08 at the
Wayback Machine
Brilliant Classics (2006).
"Mozart Edition, Complete Works"
. Foreignmediagroup.com. Archived from
the original
on 21 September 2007
. Retrieved
12 September
2007
integralemozart.info (2007).
"Mozart Complete Edition (Brilliant), Volume 8: CD 1, Canons"
(PDF)
(in German and Italian). Integrale Mozart. Archived from
the original
(PDF)
on February 19, 2009
. Retrieved
12 September
2007
"Gtz von Berlichingen/3. Akt (unexpurgated))"
(in German). Wikisource. Archived from
the original
on 18 September 2007
. Retrieved
12 September
2007
Project Gutenberg
"Gtz von Berlichingen/3. Akt (expurgated)"
(in German).
Project Gutenberg
. Retrieved
12 September
2007
Further reading
Edit
Zaslaw, Neal
(2006)
"The Non-Canonic Status of Mozart's Canons"
Eighteenth-Century Music
(2006), 3: 109123 Cambridge University Press.
doi
10.1017/S1478570606000510
External links
Edit
Leck mich im Arsch
Score
and
critical report
(in German)
in the
Neue Mozart-Ausgabe
Canon for 6 Voices in B-flat major, K. 231/382c
: Scores at the
International Music Score Library Project
Portal
Classical music
Retrieved from "
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Leck_mich_im_Arsch&oldid=1167997320
Last edited 6 days ago
by
Humphrey Tribble
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This page was last edited on 31 July 2023, at 04:10
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