“Mei liaba Scholi!” (“My dear Scholi!”) is most likely one of the most famous expressions of astonishment and bewilderment in German speaking countries. But only few people might know that Scholi (also known as Joly) really existed and that he was the descendent of a French family of pastry cooks which had immigrated to Salzburg. After being chased out of the University of Salzburg in 1783 until his death in the Bavarian village Kay (near Tittmoning) in 1823, Ferdinand Scholi earned his living as author and composer of poems, plays and songs characterised by an occasionally open social criticism. Some of his works written in regional dialect are still known in the Austrian-German border region. Hence recording a supposedly unknown song by Ferdinand Scholi in 2016 was like the discovery of a dinosaur’s bone. Yet even though the text was not by him, as a first research brought to light, tracing back the song’s history remained an exciting endeavour. It led to other poets and composers connected with the Bavarian educated class of the late 19th century and to Ferdinand Scholi’s historical re-localization initiated by plays and publications by Cesar Bresgen in the 1980s which still have a lasting effect on memory cultures in the Bavarian-Austrian region.
