painters of his time as well which makes Klaus Groth the most painted poet in the 19th century. Several calamities in the following years hit Groth very hard. Doris Groth died in 1878 because of tuberculosis, and his youngest son died in 1889 from appendicitis. His eightieth birthday in 1899 gave cause for big festivities, especially in Kiel. The cities of Kiel and Heide respectively awarded him with the honorary citizenship. Only a few weeks after his birthday, Klaus Groth died on 1 June 1899. The big funeral service in Kiel was attended by many representatives of the government, politicians, contemporary poets, musicians, and artists. Works In his Low German lyric and epic poems, which reflect the influence of Johann Peter Hebel, Groth gives poetic expression to the country life of his northern home; and though his descriptions may not always reflect the peculiar characteristics of the peasantry of Holstein as faithfully as those of his rival Fritz Reuter - Groth strived to show the Low German language as well as the people who spoke it as something noble and worthy of high poetry -, Groth is a lyric poet of genuine inspiration. His chief works are Quickborn, Volksleben - in plattdeutschen Gedichten Ditmarscher Mundart (1852; 25th ed. 1900; and in (standard) German translations, notably by MJ Berchem, Krefeld, 1896); and two volumes of stories, Vertelln (1835-1859, 3rd ed. 1881); also Vær de Gærn (1858) and Ut min Jungsparadies (1875). Groth's Gesammelte Werke appeared in 4 volumes (Kiel, 1893). His Lebenserinnerungen were edited by E. Wolff in 1891; see also K. Eggers, K. Groth und die plattdeutsche Dichtung (1885); and biographies by A. Bartels (1899) and H. Siercks (1899). Music Since Groth and his wife were well acquainted with many musicians of their time, a lot of his poems were set to music. All in all, there are 1149 known musical versions of his poems by 224 composers. Johannes Brahms set thirteen High German poems to music, among them the poem "Wie Melodien zieht es mir leise durch den Sinn" that became Brahms' No. 1 of his Fünf Lieder, Op. 105. References Citations Cited sources Bichel, Ingel, Bichel, Ulf, Hartig, Joachim, ed. (1994): Klaus Groth. Eine Bildbiographie, Heide 1994, . Höhne, Peter (2010): Klaus Groth - Gesungene Gedichte. Klaus Groth und seine Komponisten, Hamburg: Arezzo Musikverlag. External links Selected poems with English translations lowlands-l.net 1819 births 1899 deaths People from