"Books with Songs and Dances" 1917-1922

Books 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20

Books 15-20 are each between 20 and 50 cm thick, Book 15 was originally 60 cm thick, and on its cover Wölfli remarks: "The Book of 36 kilos burst in two, St. A. II." Today, the Book 17, at 50 cm, is the thickest preserved volume.

In these Books Wölfli used many different kinds of paper, adjusting their size to the Book format by folding them in various ways. He availed himself of brown wrapping paper, gift-wrapping paper, used paper tablecloths complete with coffee stains, cardboard packaging for steel wool, city maps, railway schedules, casino posters, clinical reports, and doctors' diplomas. The Books 15-19 are numbered by Wölfli; the Books 18 and 19 bear the additional titles “First Zion-Book” and “Second Zion-Book.”

The "Songs," "Polkas," "Mazurkas", and "Marches" of these Books consist of dialect, phonetic rhymes, and solmization. The dances are titled with women's names--"Santa Ida," "Santa Lina,"--or they have invented names--"Kannari", "Dalaari". Occasionally they are named for real people or real events, for instance, "Dr. Morgenthaler Polka" and the "Plebiscite Polka." As in the preceding Geographic and Algebraic Books, Wölfli celebrates events and persons from his earlier stories in an endless variety of ways. An important new element of these Books is the numbering system with which he orders the musical compositions. This system forms the basic principle of organization, since what constitutes the text is less and less a narrative progression of content. Rather, fragments are accompanied by passages of dialect and solfège.

Wölfli classifies the musical compositions according to type of dance, voice, tempo, beat, measure, and song number. Decisive for the sequence of the respective dances are the song numbers. The longest dance "Santa Ida and Santa Lina-Polka," encompasses 2,755 song numbers. When he bound the Books in the middle of a song sequence or dance, Wölfli often inserted another totally different song or dance sequence. For instance, a mazurka would be introduced in the sequence of a polka. This interruption would assure a continual linkage over several Books, for the reader would have to wait for the continuation of suspended songs or dances.

Here is an example of Wölfli's way of listing these songs from Book 15, p. 2952:
"6. Song: No 1,092 [dialect rhyme and solmization] 32. Makes 4,096 beats, St. Adolfina, Polka. Santa-Ida-Polka. 152. Song. Beat-number, 45,056...
7. Song: No. 1,093. [dialect rhyme and solmization] 16. Makes 4,096 beats, St. Adolf-Great-Great-God and Father,-Crown-Prince and Princesses,-Polka. Santa Ida, 153. Song, Beat-Number, 49,152."


(Elka Spoerri)