Als die gold'ne Abendsonne

[Johan Björklund]

This was said to be the anthem of the SA, but does anyone know the origin of the melody itself? Is it an older folkloristic song that the SA wrote lyrics to, or did they even originally compose it?

[Arminiusder Cherusker1]

In my music sheet of "Als die gold'ne Abendsonne" is only marked

Words: Karl Heinz Muschalla
Composer: nach einem Gesellenlied in der SA überliefert

/Rudi

[Johan Björklund]

Hi Rudi, unfortunately my german is a bit rudementary. Composer: Does this mean an old guild, journeyman song, which the SA has taken over ?
Regards Johan

[maxxx]

Exactly! Your german is not that rudimentary....

[Ivan Ž.]

"Als die gold'ne Abendsonne" is a folk song. Muschalla adapted the old lyrics for the SA.

It was NOT the anthem of the SA, but it was one of their more popular songs.

Cheers,
Ivan

[HaEn]

This was a fairly well known "Wandervogel" song, reworded to fit the need of the SA. A "Wandervogel" was a hiker (wanderer) who in small groups hiked through the land, just for the fun of it, meanwhile singing as they went, often accompanied by mandolin or guitar. In Holland they were called "trekkers", and naturally we had our own dutch versions of many german hiking songs. "Als de gouden avond zonne, wijken moest voor 't licht van de maan, van de maan, kwamen beide wandelvrienden same in een dorpje aan," etc. (nice pictures from my youth)
HN

[Jerard Maiki]

Recently I listened to an interesting version of this song in trio, does anyone know some info about it?

March starts at 16:48: https://archive.org/details/DieGeschich ... aTeil1.mp3

I have listened to another version that is the same but instrumental, are the performers the same?

[Ivan Ž.]

Hello, Jerard

It is Hans Zander's march "Als die gold'ne Abendsonne", with the song of the same name in trio. The instrumental recording was made by the Leibstandarte band for Clangor, in 1933. Performers of the above-posted vocal version (copied from the DS LP "Der Röhm-Putsch", vol. 1) are unknown to me, but it sounds like a radio recording (and I know of no commercial recordings of Zander's march apart from the Clangor one).

Cheers,
Ivan

[Jerard Maiki]

Thank you Ivan, another mistery solved. It's unfortunate that the vocal version is a radio recording, I would have liked to hear a better quality recording of that

[Ivan Ž.]

You're welcome, but don't forget that the radio tracks were actually superior to commercial recordings, and much rarer (see also this post). The sound quality of the reproduced files, in both cases, largely depends on one's reproducing equipment and the original record's condition.

PS
I forgot to mention that the discussed (likely-radio) track was probably made during WWII (I haven't found such a recording listed in pre-WWII radio papers; unfortunately, I don't have the wartime radio recording lists, so I can't confirm my assumption).

[akate12]

I am trying to find as many sources for this song as possible.
Does anyone have the sound source for the record in the [link] below and is willing to upload it?
I am curious to know if its the same sound source as the famous one with vocals.

viewtopic.php?f=81&t=129087&start=60#p1918905

[Image replaced with a link to its source by the host, I. Ž.]

[Jerard Maiki]

Not sure what famous recording are you referring to, I guess the SA-Sturm 33 Maikowski version, the recording in the [link] that you posted is an instrumental potpourri called "Wir singen und marschieren" composed by Franz Kühn, that contain a part of the song "Als die gold'ne Abendsonne"

[akate12]

Thanks for the reply.
I wonder if I can somehow listen to that soundtrack.