Utrecht sings: from Crambambuli to inimitable university song

It was a remarkable experience: I had shown a group of Finnish students around the university and they wanted to thank me for it. In the middle of Domplein, they gathered around me in a circle and chanted a student song from their collection Panem et Circenses. I didn't understand a word of it, but it turned out to be a drinking song. It was then that I realised once again how universal student culture really is.

Singing is of all times

In Utrecht, people also sing. Walking past the buildings of the social societies at the start of the new academic year, you often hear singing blowing out of the open windows into the street. Singing is of all times, only the shape sometimes varies.

Drinking songs are universal

When I returned home after that aubade on Domplein, I put the Finnish songbook I had been given as a souvenir next to my copy of the Utrecht Vademecum for den student. Liederenboek from 1883 (the first edition dated from 1862). It was in the same handy format and, to my surprise, I sometimes found the same titles in both collections, such as the drinking song Crambambuli.

The lyrics completely differ, but they both involve a particular alcoholic drink with the same nonsense name. In the student singing culture, drinking songs are the most famous. They also form the basis of the beer cantus: a singing and drinking party that has now made its way into student unions.

Singing transcends hazing

Singing together creates unity, which is why it is also part of the initiation rite that hazing actually is. But it is not always about drinking, and singing also transcends hazing. In the nineteenth century, for instance, serenades were also popular. In 1830, students heard that the well-known professor Schroeder van der Kolk had turned down an offer from Amsterdam, to stay at Utrecht University. To thank him for this, they serenaded him.

In student singing culture, drinking songs are most famous

Serenades with a political twist

In 1859, Italian actress Adelaide Ristori (also known as 'the Marquise'), famous throughout Europe, performed as Medea in the Utrecht theatre at Vredenburg. After the performance, enthusiastic students serenaded her by torchlight. There was a political aspect to this, by the way: it was a few days after the great battle of Solferino, which was important in the battle for Italian unification.

Definitely also political was the phenomenon Frits Coers, whose plaque can be seen hanging on the first floor of the Academy Building. In 1910, the never-graduated, eternal medical student Coers was the founder of a famous – still existing – singing group of the Utrechtsch Studenten Corps: 'Coers’ lied'.

Coers collected some 6,000 Dutch-language folk songs, some of which were also in the singing society's repertoire. In doing so, the singers became the interpreter of Frits Coers' underlying nationalist and Greater Netherlands political views.

Century-old song about the brevity of life

Utrecht University has a long singing tradition, which is still successful today with, among others, the USKO, the Utrecht Student Cantorij and, last but not least, the now world-famous Dekoor. But I had to gulp again when I put the Utrecht bundle from 1883 and the Finnish one from 2012 side by side.

In both volumes, at the very beginning is the well-known Gaudeamus Igitur, a song about the brevity of life. Its ancient melody probably goes back to a 13th-century song from Bologna. It was for a long time sung here at university ceremonies. Since then, it has been replaced by a University song that no one can (excusez) get out of their throats. But it apparently we shouldn't talk about that anymore. A shame nonetheless.