German Lieder in The Nineteenth Century

STUDIES IN MUSICAL GENRES & REPERTORIES R. Larry Todd, General Editor

German Lieder in the Nineteenth Century Edited by Rufus Hallmark

The repertory of the nineteenth-century German lied offers a world of expressiveness condensed into brief moments of musical time. This collection of essays by prominent scholars surveys representa¬ tive works of the major lied composers, as well as the styles, forms, and poetry that characterize this body of music. The book begins with a chapter by Harry Seelig on the literary context of the nineteenth-century lied, arguing that Goethe practically single-handed¬ ly created German Romantic poetry and influ¬ enced poets and composers alike. Subsequent chapters focus on the contributions of individual lied composers. Susan Youens presents an overview of Schubert’s songs and discusses in detail his text¬ setting and style in selected songs; Rufus Hallmark does the same for Schumann, extending his discus¬ sion to the composer’s little-known late songs and songs for more than one voice; Virginia Hancock makes a case for treating Brahms’s folk-tune and folk-lyric settings on an equal footing with his Kunstlieder; Lawrence Kramer examines Wolf’s distinctive approach to the lied in light of the con¬ temporary emergence of psychiatry; Barbara A. Petersen discusses the broad range of musical aes¬ thetics found in Richard Strauss’s lifetime of lieder composition; and Christopher Lewis writes on the special way in which Mahler’s songs evoke the Romantic dilemma. In counterpoint to these studies of the masters, Jurgen Thym’s contribution highlights five com¬ posers whose lieder are less widely discussed and performed in English-speaking countries: Carl Loewe, Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, Franz Liszt, Robert Franz, and Peter Cornelius; John Daverio writes on the song cycle as a reflection of Romantic imagery and aesthetics; and Robert Spillman emphasizes the practical issues of the singer’s communication with an audience in German.

(Continued on back flap)

German Lieder In the nineteenth Century

Studies in Musical Genres and Repertories R. Larry Todd, General Editor Published: Keyboard Music Before 1700

Alexander Silbiger, Editor

DUKE UNIVERSITY

Eighteenth-Century Keyboard Music

Robert L. Marshall, Editor

BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY

Nineteenth-Century Keyboard Music

R. Larry Todd, Editor

Duke Univeristy «

Twentieth-Century Piano Music

David Burge

Eastman School of Music

German Lieder in the Nineteenth Century

Rufus Hallmark, Editor

QUEENS COLLEGE, CUNY

Txuentieth-Century Chamber Music

James McCalla

BOWDOIN COLLEGE

In Preparation: Nineteenth-Century Chamber Music

Stephen E. Hefling, Editor

CASE WESTERN Reserve UNIVERSITY

The Symphony: 1825-1914

D. Kern Holoman, Editor

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, Davis

German Lieder In the nineteenth Century

Edited by Rufus Hallmark QUEENS COLLEGE, CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK

SCHIRMER BOOKS An Imprint of Simon & Schuster Macmillan NEW YORK

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Copyright © 1996 by Schirmer Books An Imprint of Simon & Schuster Macmillan All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher. Schirmer Books Air Imprint of Simon & Schuster Macmillan 1633 Broadway New York, NY 10019 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 95-31767

Printed in the United States of America printing number 123456789

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data German Lieder in the 19th century / edited by Rufus Hallmark, p. cm.—(Studies in musical genres and repertories) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-02-870845-8 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Songs, German—19th century—History and criticism. 2. Music and literature. I. Hallmark, Rufus E., 1943II. Series. ML2829.4.G47 1996 782.42'0943'09034—dc20

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This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

This book is dedicated to the memory of Christopher Lewis (194 7-1992)

Contents Preface

Acknowledgments

Contributors 1. The Literary Context: Goethe as Source and Catalyst

xvii 1

Harry Seelig Folk Song Origins-Goethe’s Contribution-Rationalism and Romanticism-Goethe and Schubert-Romantic Poetry and Romantic Lieder-Romanticism’s Aftermath-Naturalism and Denouement

Franz Schubert: The Prince of Song

Susan Youens Schubertian Song-Schubert and Poetry-Schubert Revising Schubert-Schubert and the “Miracle Year” of 1815-1817 to 1822

Robert Schumann: The Poet Sings

Rufus Hallmark Early Career and the Liederjahr— Poets and Poetry-The Character of Schumann’s Songs-Interpretations-Songs for Multiple Solo Voices-Late Songs

Johannes Brahms: Volkslied/Kunstlied

119

Virginia Hancock Folk Songs-Hybrid Songs-Art Songs-The Vier emste Gesdnge

Crosscurrents in Song: Five Distinctive Voices

153

Jurgen Thym Carl Loewe-Fanny Hensel-Franz Liszt-Robert FranzPeter Cornelius

Hugo Wolf: Subjectivity in the Fin-de-Siecle Lied

186

Lawrence Kramer

vii

viii

Contents

The Oedipal Regime-The Lucky Third Son-The Scrutinizing Mode: Confession & Recognition-Oedipal Careers: The Songbooks-Sampling Oedipus: Four Songs

Gustav Mahler: Romantic Culmination

218

Christopher Lewis Early Songs-Publication and Reception-The Dilemma of the Romantic Artist-The Wunderhom and Gesellen Lieder-Ruckert

Richard Strauss: A LifeUme of Lied Composition

250

Barbara A. Petersen Poets and Poetry-The Early Songs-The 1880s-VierLieder Op. 27-1895-1906-The Lied in Transition-Orchestral Songs and Orchestrated Lieder

The Song Cycle: Journeys Through a Romantic Landscape

279

John Daverio The Romantic Song Cycle as a Genre-The Prehistory of the Romantic Song Cycle- Schubert’s Song Cycles: Biedermeier Sensibility and Romantic Irony-Schumann’s Song Cycles: The Composer as Poet and Historian-Experiments, Dramatic Cycles, and Orchestral Lieder

10. Performing Lieder: The Mysterious Mix

313

Robert Spillman Communication-Faithfulness-Understanding-TechniqueStyle-Presentation

Index

329

Preface

Du, Lied aus voller Menschenbrust, Warst du nicht, ach, was fullte noch In arger Zeit ein Herz mit Lust ? —Frage, Justinius Kemer Thou, song from the fullness of the human breast, If thou didst not exist, ah, then what In grave times would fill a heart withjoy ?

Not too long ago, when I mentioned to a colleague that I was editing a book on the German lied, he remarked, “Isn’t that awfully precious?” Many regard the lied as a genre that is both dated and overrefined. Here is a large body of music, touted in music history texts and specialized studies (vested interests, one might argue), but otherwise neglected. Young singers would generally prefer to move up to opera; song is the spinach they have to eat as growing children (though few of them will make it to the opera stage). Most young pianists care little for the vocal repertory, in which they feel relegated to mere accompaniment. This particular body of song is, moreover, in German, one of the least obliging European lan¬ guages to sing, much less to learn. Singers begin with the pure vowels and easy consonants of Italian, and they are familiar with that language from the melodious operas of Mozart, Verdi, and Puccini—not to mention the Italianate pronunciation of church Latin: German—with its comparatively harsher and more difficult sounds, a vocabulary with many fewer cognates, and a forbidding grammar—isn’t nearly as inviting. (Observers note that the German-speaking emigre generation of the first half of the twentieth century, which constituted—it is argued—the major devotees of the lied, is dying off and not being replaced.) Then there are the sentiments of the poems these lieder have as their texts. What does a postmodern youth in the age of environmental plunder know of ihe beauty and allure of nature? When light pollution in large, sprawling urban areas is so severe that one cannot see the stars, who knows the real darkness and mystery of night? Who can hear of Romantic love sickness without feeling one is eavesdropping on incurable neurotics? Can ix

Preface

the world of today be congenial to such sentiments as a yearning for the infinite, a belief in a higher, other reality, even hope itself? Even more basically, who reads poetry anymore, in any language—much less memo¬ rizes, recites, enjoys, and treasures it? Furthermore, the musical scene today is not the same as that of the nineteenth century, which, as Carl Dahlhaus has observed (Dahlhaus 1989, 5), provided a very different context for lieder. Although the age’s instrumental music and opera are emphasized in performance and teach¬ ing today, nontheatrical vocal and choral music was dominant at the time. The nineteenth-century public were readers, quite conversant with poetry, and associated literature with music more freely than today’s. Vocal music was performed by the lay public; song was a staple in domestic music¬ making, and amateurs filled the ranks of ubiquitous community choral groups. So, all told, perhaps the German lied is a bit precious for today’s world (especially the non-German-speaking one). I seem to be arguing for the irrelevance of the book that lies before you. Yet nothing could be further from the truth. As a singer as well as a scholar, I am a fervent proponent of the lied, as are many musicians and musical scholars. Why? To put it plainly, in the repertory of the nineteenthcentury German lied one finds a wealth of musical beauty. Here we have musical expressiveness in crystallized form, the operation of musical ele¬ ments—melody, harmony, rhythm, vocal and piano timbre—in a con¬ densed time frame. By “operation,” I mean not only the describable, chartable course of technical musical events (though these events and their analysis constitute an important and satisfying part of the musician’s study), but also the emotional concomitants of the lied, an affective con¬ tent that scholars are growing less reluctant to talk about. Nearly every major (and minor) composer wrote songs, and for many their songs are among their best efforts. For some, such as Schubert and Mahler, the lied was a central genre, without which our perception of these composers would be disfigured. For others, such as Hensel, Franz, and Wolf, the lied was their almost exclusive arena of activity, without which they would prac¬ tically disappear from our hearing. For still others, such as Schumann and Brahms, song was one part of a balanced, multifaceted compositional ac¬ tivity, yet one without which the physiognomy of nineteenth-century music would not be the same. In short, only at the peril of gross musical igno¬ rance does one neglect this repertory. It is not the purely musical elements alone, but their combination with the verbal text and the interaction with the singer that set the art song apart and imbue it with some of its most special and attractive qualities. Al¬ though chamber music has the intimacy of a song recital and opera the beauty of the human voice, in neither is there the unique bond of eye con¬ tact between musician and audience. Singers and instrumentalists alike ac¬ knowledge this crucial distinction. (The young singer finds this one of the hardest things to become accustomed to.) A good song recitalist becomes

Preface

the persona in the poem-song and engages each member of the audience in the shared lyrical experience of poet and composer (see Chapter 10 below and Cone 1974, 57—80 and 115-135). To use a hackneyed but apt expression, the singer bares her or his soul and draws the sympathetic beholder-listener into an aesthetic, psychological, and emotional experi¬ ence evoked by the words and mediated by the music. For some, the words get in the way of the music. But for others, this apparent drawback is the very thing that keeps the lied potent. The lied invites us, as in no other common modern situation (beyond school and college classrooms), to read poetry. It enlivens thoughts and feelings, delineated by the text, that we thought were no longer part of our sensibilities. The music insinuates them, and we discover that this medium defines and releases feelings that are riot so outdated or superseded as we had thought. (Consider: Did we once believe that Technicolor, wide screens, flawless special effects, and sexual explicitness had rendered the movies of the 1930s and ’40s second rate, outmoded, and irrelevant?) We need not depend for our enjoyment on a museum recreation of what lieder meant when they were new; with intelligence and imagination we can find those possible readings that still speak to us today. Through lieder, many musicians have their only significant contact with German literature (other than a novel or two in translation)—the na¬ tive literature of many of the most important and beloved composers in the Western European canon. This is the body of philosophy, prose fic¬ tion, drama, and poetry that (together with its English counterparts) gave voice to the cultural consciousness named Romanticism. Though no one challenges the existence of Romanticism in late eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century Europe, it admits no easy definition dependent on a simple set of traits. An understanding of this phenomenon is best formed inductively, through the slow accretion of impressions. There could be no better place to start than with the poetry and music of the German lied. Here one encounters Goethe and Schiller, the collectors and imitators of German folk poetry, and other poets of the first Romantic generation; then their successors—the spiritual symbolist Eichendorff, the balladist Uhland, and the hard-surfaced and curiously modern Heine, to name but a few. These figures, though active and frequently set to music well before midcentury, persist into the songs of Brahms, Wolf, Strauss, and Mahler. Many who are considered lesser figures by literary historians and critics were nevertheless prized and set to music—for example, the poet Friedrich Riickert, who was favored especially by Schumann and Mahler. And the pianist? Far from serving as a mere accompanist, the pianist who delves into lieder will soon discover what balanced partners voice and instrument are, and how crucial to the total effect of the song the piano writing is and how gratifying it is to play. By the same token, the singer must not think her- or himself the sole focus of the audience’s attention,

xii

Preface

but must learn the mutual attentiveness and pleasure of chamber music¬ making. jjc

s|c

The nineteenth-century German lied is often said to have been “born” on 14 October 1814, when Franz Schubert composed “Gretchen am Spinnrade.” The quantity and quality of Schubert’s songs were important, even crucial, determinants in music history, so much so that it is not farfetched to suppose that without his example many of the composers in this book might have ignored this genre altogether or devoted much less creative ef¬ fort to it. But there are other factors to keep in mind: (1) the predecessors of the eighteenth century: the two “Berlin schools” (the second one in¬ cluding the prolific lied composers Johann Friedrich Reichardt and Carl Friedrich Zelter), as well as the songs of Gluck, Haydn, and Mozart; (2) Schubert’s predecessors and contemporaries in the early nineteenth cen¬ tury, such as Beethoven and the Viennese balladist Johann Rudolf Zumsteeg; and (3) the tradition of domestic music-making, the growing popularity of the piano, and the market for accessible keyboard music and keyboard-accompanied song. Although these factors are not treated in this book,1 a fourth, crucial factor—the lyric impulse of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century poetry—is discussed in the opening essay, by Harry Seelig. Seelig essen¬ tially argues for the seminal role of Goethe in launching the new, unbut¬ toned lyricism in German poetry. In the subsequent chapters on individual composers, the authors treat the six time-honored masters—Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Wolf, Mahler, and Strauss. These chapters are not su¬ perficial surveys but fresh, well-investigated, thoughtful essays that discuss a limited number of songs in detail. The authors have been encouraged to give attention to less well-known repertory and to produce original, provocative, and specific (but not overly technical) discussions that draw the reader into the heart of each composer’s style. Susan Youens begins by tempering the pervasive notion of Schubert’s originality with a discussion of his indebtedness to other composers; she then surveys his choices of poets and musical styles in preparation for a meaningful look at selected songs from different periods. In my chapter on Schumann, I argue that he (more than Schubert) offered heavily inter¬ pretive readings of the poetry he set to music. Though I deal with the fruits of the 1840 “song year,” I also devote much attention to the later songs and try to shake them free of the ignorance and prejudice that shroud so much of Schumann’s late music. Virginia Hancock, writing about Brahms, also offers a corrective essay that treats his folk-tune and folk-lyric settings on an equal footing with his Kunstlieder. Lawrence Kramer looks at the lieder of Hugo Wolf in the broader cultural context of the Vienna of his day, which included the practice of “mental science”; he sees Wolf as involved in nineteenth-century discourse on psychology and sexology and, at the same time, in his own, personal rite of passage. In her

Preface

xiii

chapter on Richard Strauss, Barbara Petersen discusses the great range of poetry and musical aesthetics found in his eight remarkable decades of lied composition. To provide a proper context for his penetrating essay on Mahler’s songs, Christopher Lewis does nothing less than present a funda¬ mental reconsideration of the notion of Romanticism, on the basis of which he then draws new inferences about the messages in Mahler’s songs. Jurgen Thym’s longer chapter is devoted to a representative selection of other composers who are little discussed and seldom performed in English-speaking countries. His discussions of Carl Loewe, Robert Franz, Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, Franz Liszt, and Peter Cornelius impart the distinctive character of each of these composers, whetting readers’ curios¬ ity to hear and learn more about their songs and those of other, compara¬ ble lied proponents. Although I considered organizing this book systematically by genre and form, as in a recent German book on the lied (Durr 1984), I decided to proceed by composer. But John Daverio’s chapter on the song cycle raises conceptual and historical issues, both literary and musical, that merit extended treatment. Finally, Robert Spillman’s chapter on perfor¬ mance deals with the practical issue of communicating in what, for most users of this book, is a foreign language; he puts matters related to this problem ahead of questions of musical technique and style. Students will find this chapter tantamount to a series of master classes, and more experi¬ enced hands will find themselves nodding in agreement with his helpful ideas. In late summer 1992, not long after he had submitted his chapter on Mahler, Christopher Lewis was killed in an automobile accident. In accor¬ dance with the wishes of the other contributors, this book is dedicated to his memory. Rufus Hallmark

Notes 1. For a discussion of the piano, see Nineteenth-Century Piano Music, ed. R. Larry Todd (New York, 1990), especially Leon Plantinga’s essay “The Piano and the Nineteenth Century,” 1-15.

Bibliography (NOTE: The following works are recommended for further reading about the Ger¬ man lied and the art song in general.) Brody, Elaine, and Robert Fowkes. The German Lied and Its Poetry. New York, 1971. Cone, Edward. The Composer’s Voice. Berkeley, 1974.

XIV

Preface

Dahlhaus, Carl. Nineteenth-Century Music. Trans. J. Bradford Robinson. Berkeley, 1989. Durr, Walther. Das deutsche Sololied im 19. Jahrhundert. Wilhelmshaven, 1984. Fischer-Dieskau, Dietrich. The Fischer-Dieskau book ofLieder: The texts of over 750 songs in German. London, 1976. Gorrell, Lorraine. The Nineteenth-Century German Lied. Portland, 1993. Ivey, Donald. Song: Anatomy, Imagery, and Styles. New York, 1970. Kramer, Lawrence. Music and Poetry: The Nineteenth Century and After. Berkeley, 1984. Landau, Anneliese. The Lied. The unfolding of its style. Washington, DC, 1980. Miller, Philip, ed. and trans. The Ring of Words: An Anthology of Song Texts. New York, 1966. Moser, Hans Joachim. Das deutsche Lied seit Mozart. Tutzing, 1968. -. The German Solo Song and the Ballad. New York, 1958. Prawer, Siegbert S., ed. The Penguin Book ofLieder. Baltimore, 1964. Radcliffe, Philip. “Germany and Austria.” In A History of Song, ed. Denis Stevens, 228-64. London, 1960. Rev. ed. New York, 1970. Smeed, J. W. German Song and its Poetry 1740-1900. London, 1987. Stein, Jack. Poem and Music in the German Lied from Gluck to Hugo Wolf. Cambridge, MA, 1971. Whitton, Kenneth S. Lieder: An Introduction to German Song. London, 1984. Winn, James. Unsuspected Eloquence: A History of the Relations between Poetry and Music. New Haven, 1981. Wiora, Walter. Das deutsche Lied: Zur Geschichte und Asthetik einer musikalischen Gattung. Wolfenbiittel and Zurich, 1971.

Acknowledgments

I wish to thank R. Larry Todd, the general editor of this series, for inviting me to produce this book and for his periodic gentle urgings and helpful suggestions. The book owes much to the confidence, patience, and prodding of Schirmer Books editor in chief Maribeth Anderson Payne and to her successor, Richard Carlin. In addition, I most gratefully ac¬ knowledge the cooperation of all my fellow contributors, who were able with equanimity and generosity to bear up through the vicissitudes of the production of a book with ten authors, one of whom was also the some¬ times foot-dragging editor.

Contributors

JOHN DAVERIO, Associate Professor of Music at Boston University, is the author of Nineteenth-Century Music and the German Romantic Ideology and of a forthcoming book on Robert Schumann’s life and works. He has written articles on a variety of nineteenth-century topics and is preparing the entry on Schumann for the next edition of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.

RUFUS HALLMARK, Professor of Music at Queens College, City Univer¬ sity of New York, is the author of The Genesis of Schumann’s Dichterliebe and of a forthcoming book on Schumann’s song cycle Frauenliebe und-leben. He has also written articles on the songs of Schumann and Schubert, and will edit a volume of songs for the new complete edition of Schumann’s works. VIRGINIA HANCOCK, Associate Professor of Music at Reed College, is the author of Brahm’s Choral Compositions and His Library of Early Music and of numerous articles on Brahms in scholarly journals and collections of essays. LAWRENCE KRAMER, Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Fordham University, is the Author of Music and Poetry: The Nineteenth Century and After, Music as Cultural Practice in the Nineteenth Cen¬ tury, and, most recently, Classical Music and Post-Modern Knowledge. He is working on a book about Schubert’s songs. He serves as coeditor of the journal 19th-Century Music.

CHRISTOPHER LEWIS was an Assistant Professor of Music at the Univer¬ sity of Alberta, Edmonton. In addition to his book Tonal Coherence in Mahler’s Ninth Symphony, Lewis wrote several articles on Mahler, Schoen¬ berg, and late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century tonality, including a study of the compositional chronology of the Kindertotenlieder. His article “The Mind’s Chronology: Narrative Times and Tonal Disruption in PostRomantic Music” is forthcoming. BARBARA A. PETERSEN, Assistant Vice-President for Concert Music Ad¬ ministration at Broadcast Music, Incorporated, wrote Ton und Wort: The XVII

xviii

Contributors

Lieder of Richard Strauss. She is the author of articles for both The New Grove Dictionary of American Music and The New Grove Dictionary of Opera.

HARRY SEELIG, Associate Professor of German Languages and Litera¬ tures at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, is the author of a number of musicoliterary studies, including articles on the character of Suleika in Schubert’s songs, Hugo Wolf s setdngs of Goethe’s Divan lyrics, nineteenthcentury settings of Goethe’s “Wanderers Nachtlieder,” and a comparative reconsideration of Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 and Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten.

ROBERT SPILLMAN, Professor on the faculty of the College of Music at the University of Colorado, Boulder, is the author of The Art of Accompany¬ ing: Master Lessons from the Repertoire. More recently he coauthored Poetry into Songwith Deborah Stein. JURGEN THYM, Professor and Chair of Musicology at the Eastman School of Music, wrote an extended study of Schumann’s Eichendorff set¬ tings and edited 100 Years of Eichendorff an anthology of nineteenthcentury songs on his poetry. He has also co-authored articles (with Ann Clark Fehn) on lied settings of sonnets and of Persian ghasels. He is the editor of volumes in the collected works of Arnold Schoenberg and co¬ translator of several treatises of music theory, including Kirnberger and Schenker. $

SUSAN YOUENS, Associate Professor of Music at the University of Notre Dame, is the author of Retracing a Winter’s Journey: Schubert’s Winterreise, Schubert: Die schone Mullerin, and Hugo Wolf: The Vocal Music. Her new book is Schubert and His Poets.

German Lieder In the Nineteenth Century

CHAPTER ONE

The Literary Context: Goethe as Source and Catalyst Harry Seelig

Because the nineteenth-century German lied and German Romantic poetry are both so inextricably associated with music—the lieder most ob¬ viously, the poems less explicitly—this introduction will trace their origins in the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century literary-musical cul¬ ture that gave rise to each genre. The very term lied clearly indicates a symbiosis of literature and music. In addition to designating a fully inde¬ pendent literary text in and of itself, as well as the art songs that are the subject of this book, it has often been used in the titles of large-scale works in poetry (e.g., Schiller’s Das Lied von der Glocke) and in music (e.g., Mahler’s Das Lied von derErde) that have very little to do with the miniature forms we are primarily concerned with here. Yet the basic and still current understanding of lied is that of an autonomous poem either intended to be sung or suitable in its form and content for singing (Garland 1976, 535).

Folk Song Origins For all its subtlety and complexity, the German lied has its origin in the simple German folk song. German lieder generally consist of two or more stanzas of identical form, each containing either four lines of alter¬ nating rhymes or rhymes at the ends of the second and fourth lines only. This pattern also defines the basic four-line stanza of the Volkslied or folk song, which—with its abab or abed rhyme scheme—is arguably the most important source of the nineteenth-century art song. The German term 1

The Literary Context: Goethe as Source and Catalyst

Volkslied was coined by the philologist, theologian, and translator-poet Jo¬

hann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803) after reading the spurious popular poetry of “Ossian” as well as the authentic examples in Bishop Thomas Percy’s Reliques of Ancient English Poetry of 1765. Herder thereupon avidly collected folk songs and in 1778-79 published two volumes thereof. Some¬ what later, Romantic theorists such as Friedrich Schlegel and the brothers Grimm took these verses to be a kind of spontaneous expression of the collective Volksseele or soul of the folk; this rather mystical term received further conceptualization in their theories on Natur- und Kunstpoesie, or nature and art poetry (Garland 1976, 900). The search for the poetic roots of the German people reached its apex in the work of Clemens Brentano and Achim von Arnim, who col¬ lected and published the many folk songs and quasi-folk songs of Des Knaben Wunderhom (1806-8). Goethe—reflecting the nascent nationalism of central European literary Romanticism—felt that this excellent source of lieder had a place in every German home. His praise is understandable, given his experience over thirty years earlier as a student in Strasbourg col¬ lecting folk songs in the Alsatian countryside, under the tutelage of his mentor Herder. It was the infectious poetic spirit of Herder—who had meanwhile published a second edition of his seminal Volkslieder, now known as Stimmen der Volker in Liedem (1807)—and the earlier folk-song versions of “Heidenblumlein” that had inspired Goethe to write one of his best-known early poems, “Heidenroslein.” The folk-song-like simplicity and freshness of Goethe’s “Sah ein Knab ein Roslein stehn” was so invigo¬ rating that Herder had enthusiastically quoted from it in his Ossian-essay of 1773, which introduced the word Volkslied and, also, led to the false as¬ sumption that “Heidenroslein” was a true folk song. Both real folk song and its imitations, then, ushered in an entirely new lyric style. Although lieder had been written by German poets during the cen¬ turies preceding Herder, it is a peculiarity of the art song’s heritage that its presumably primordial forerunner, believed to be a spontaneous expres¬ sion of the Volksseele, arose as a concept only with the Romantic theories of the early nineteenth century. Just as the Romantic lied finds its theoretical origin in the retroactive speculative constructs of Romantic theoreticians, Romantic poetry derives its fundamental impetus from the vast and varied poetic achievement of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, whose musically in¬ spired lyricism served as the wellspring of German Romantic poetry even while it stood in opposition to some of the Romanticists’ lyric intentions.

Goethe’s Contribution Although German literary classicism is all but synonymous with Goethe’s vast oeuvre from as early as 1786 onward, and coexists with Ger¬ man Romanticism through the first three decades of the nineteenth cen-

The Literary Context: Goethe as Source and Catalyst

tury, the word “romantic” was first used only in 1798 by Friedrich Schlegel. In influential public pronouncements, he formulated the quintessentially romantic concept of “progressive Universalpoesie” to express the almost infi¬ nite scope of German Romanticism’s aesthetic aspirations. By “progres¬ sive” and “universal” Schlegel meant not only that the basic epic, lyric, and dramatic genres of the literary enterprise should be imaginatively com¬ bined and juxtaposed, but also that this endeavor should involve interdis¬ ciplinary elements from the other arts, particularly music: “It embraces everything that is poetic, from the most comprehensive system of art... to the sigh or kiss which the poetic child expresses in artless song.”1 He sin¬ gled out Goethe’s novel Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (Wilhelm Meister’s Appren¬ ticeship), the first edition of which was published with musical settings of the interpolated lyric passages “sung” by Mignon and the Harper, as one of the seminal events and accomplishments of the (Romantic) age.2 “Nur nicht lesen! immer singen!” (Don’t ever read it! always sing it!) With these urgent and sonorous words (from his twelve-line poem “An Lina”), Goethe addresses the central cultural-aesthetic issue of the entire art-song century. Although this seventh line has attracted the most atten¬ tion from critics, it is the last quatrain that actually explains why Goethe feels that lieder should be sung and not merely read: Ach, wie traurig sieht in Lettern, Schwarz auf weiB, das Lied mich an, Das aus deinem Mund vergottern, Das ein Herz zerreiBen kann! (Staiger 1949, 93)

Ah, how sad the lied looks to me, in letters black on white, which your voice can sing divinely as it breaks a loving heart!

And the actual musical performance qua lied transcends the mere physical proximity of the lovers, which was primary when she originally played and sang his songs to him at the piano (as the first quatrain describes it). A similarly proto-romantic articulation of this fundamental concep¬ tion can be found in Herder’s writings (Martini 1957, 214): “Melodie ist die Seele des Liedes . . . Lied muB gehort, nicht gesehen werden” (Melody is the soul of song . . . song must be heard, not seen). Goethe’s clarion call always to sing his otherwise “incomplete” lieder expresses in nuce the aspi¬ rations of poets as well as composers throughout the nineteenth century.3 Goethe’s lyric insistence, “immer singen!”—taken together with Schlegel’s “artless song” and programmatically “progressive” view of the Mignon and Harper settings by Reichardt (see Schwab 1965, 31)—emphatically antici¬ pates the importance of musical settings of poetry in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Musical settings of many kinds of poetry had been a vital part of aris¬ tocratic and bourgeois social activity since the optimistic and confident En¬ lightenment spirit of the mid-eighteenth century had taken hold in the three hundred-odd domains that made up the German territories of cen¬ tral Europe. A five-volume novel published in 1770-73, in which songs are

The Literary Context: Goethe as Source and Catalyst

sung—usually at the piano—some fifty times illustrates this literary-musical activity and justifies the conclusion that the accompanied song was the most important aesthetic feature of everyday bourgeois life (Albertsen 1977, 175; cf. Smeed 1987, xii). Numerous theoreticians have sought to ex¬ plain the interrelatedness of poetry and musical settings throughout this period (and up to the present day).4 Moreover, the social-aesthetic di¬ chotomy between Volkslied and Kunstiled (art song), as well as the more modern theoretical distinction between “musical” and (more or less) non¬ musical poetry, further complicates an already problematic situation. The latter distinction engages primarily those theoreticians who feel that only less “musical” poems allow enough aesthetic “space” for the lied composer to add something musical and meaningful to the text, achieving a true literary-musical synthesis.

Rationalism and Romanticism Such antinomies are fundamental to the speculative theorizing of German Romanticism itself. Yet the philosophic basis for Romantic aes¬ thetics is best understood as an inevitable development of the preceding era, the Age of Enlightenment. Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century panEuropean rationalism is the logical antecedent of European Romanticism generally, and has provided more than enough “reason” for the aesthetic speculation in abstract and metaphorical terms that has been thriving ever since. From this perspective, it is appropriate that throughout his long life Goethe worked to improve and renew in a rational way the more ordinary literary genres of his day; these efforts proved of great consequence for the development of the lied. He was joined regularly by members of Weimar society, meeting weekly to read and sing poetry; as Max Friedlander (v.31, vii) has attested, some of Goethe’s amateur associates in Weimar were more prolific composers of lieder than many professional musicians of the time. In seeking to ennoble ordinary verse through skillful parodies of exist¬ ing songs, Goethe inspired and participated in a form of dilettantism that is hard to comprehend today. In Weimar, well before 1800, the poetic lied was thoroughly grounded in the regular practice of group singing, which, in turn, inspired numerous parodies: “Selecting simple and well-known melodies, the poets supplied texts that could be sung at sight to popular tunes” (Sternfeld 1979, 13). “Goethe . . . wrote parodies by creating new text to older tunes and rhythms, without any implication of irony” (Stern¬ feld 1979, 8) using an age-old technique to generate poetry of first-rate quality. Given this robust activity, it is no wonder that many of Goethe’s poems were first published alongside their musical settings (Albertsen 1977, 177). Thus twenty of Goethe’s early poems were published in musi¬ cal settings in the Leipziger Liederbuch of 1769.

The Literary Context: Goethe as Source and Catalyst

The ubiquitous folk song “Da droben auf jenem Berge” illustrates the interdependence of literary and musical traditions; Sternfeld (1979, 12) explains, “poems wandered as freely as melodies and by 1802 both the model and Goethe’s parody were being widely circulated.” Sternfeld docu¬ ments the popularity and parodistic potential of “Da droben auf jenem Berge” by juxtaposing the first stanzas, respectively, of the folk song itself, Goethe’s original parody as well as a second version, and three even more varied parodies by Heine, Uhland, and Brentano.5 Brentano’s version “seems to derive more directly from the folk song” (Sternfeld 1979, 12) even as its first line alters the traditional “droben auf dem Berge” image to the more distinctively Romantic “im Abendglanze,” underscoring the vast possibilities inherent in the folk-song tradition. (It was Clemens Brentano, of course, who together with Achim von Arnim collected and published the many folk songs and quasi-folk songs of the consistently popular com¬ pendium Des Knaben Wunderhom of 1806-08.) When Goethe arrived in Strasbourg in 1770, he met Herder, who had rapturously welcomed Johann Georg Hamann’s postulation of the pri¬ macy of poetry in human language through mystical epigrams like “Die Poesie ist die Muttersprache des menschlichen Geschlechts” (‘Poetry is the mother tongue of the human race,’ Rose 1960, 159). These attitudes pro¬ vided the perfect antidote for Goethe’s literary experience in Leipzig, where his youthful linguistic exuberance had been criticized by the con¬ trolled and mannered rhetoric of conservative figures like Johann Christoph Gottsched and Christian Furchtegott Gellert, who reigned supreme in matters poetical as well as moral. Herder had heeded Hamann’s call to unleash the sensuality of language through the original¬ ity of linguistic genius (Sprachgenie), and encouraged Goethe to trust his heart and imagination rather than the arbitrary rules and regulations of the Leipzig academic establishment (Blackall 1959, 481). The crucial difference between Goethe’s innovative lyric power and the older mode of poetry (as exemplified in the works of Friedrich Gottlob Klopstock, whose ecstatically poetic religious epic in classical hexameters had catapulted him to fame as the mid-eighteenth-century literary genius par excellence) may be seen in the juxtaposition of two lines from Klopstock’s “Die fruhen Graber” of 1764: s-

O wie war glucklich ich, als ich noch mit euch Sahe sich roten den Tag, schimmern die Nacht. O how happy was I when still in your company I saw the day’s red dawn, the shimmering night.

with the opening quatrain of Goethe’s “Maifest” of 1771: Wie herrlich leuchtet

How glorously Nature

Mir die Natur!

glows for me!

Wie glanzt die Sonne!

How the sun sparkles!

Wie lacht die Flur!

How the fields laugh!

The Literary Context: Goethe as Source and Catalyst

In Klopstock’s poem there is antithesis, but in Goethe’s there is reci¬ procity. Throughout “May Celebration,” subjective and objective terms in¬ terpenetrate, at times to the point of indistinguishability: O Erd’, o Sonne,

Oh earth, oh sun,

O Gluck, o Lust,

Oh bliss, oh pleasure,

O Lieb’, o Liebe

Oh love, dear love

“The unprecedented fluency of this rhyming litany seems at a single stroke to render obsolete the gawky sentiment of the previous quarter of a cen¬ tury. It is no wonder that the received chronology of modern German lit¬ erature dates its beginning from 1770” (Boyle 1991, 157-58). One of the supreme examples of Goethe’s new-found trust in the sen¬ suality of poetic language is Gretchen’s lament (at her spinning wheel) for the absent Faust: “Meine Ruh ist hin, / Mein Herz ist schwer” (emphasis added). Not only is this ten-stanza sequence of short (mostly iambic dime¬ ter) lines a brilliant example of Goethe’s ability to distill “one of the most poignant scenes in all dramatic literature” (Stein 1971, 71) into purest lyri¬ cism, but its ingenious structure, as reflected by Schubert’s inspired set¬ ting, makes it the first and foremost example of what the German lied was to become.

Goethe and Schubert Many commentators have considered 19 October 1814, the day Schu¬ bert actually composed “Gretchen am Spinnrade,” the birthday of German art song, but few have seen that the stanza-by-stanza development of Goethe’s poem actually dictates—in the perfection of aesthetic symbio¬ sis—a musical form that mediates between strophic and throughcomposed structure. Just as Schubert’s startling composition (at age seventeen) breaks new ground in “musicopoetics” (Scher 1992, 328-37), so did Goethe’s seemingly straightforward lyric stanzas probe new depths in human emotion rendered as poetry. The crucial refrain-that-is-not-arefrain, the stanza that begins the whole, is central to the thrust of the poem. Meine Ruh ist hin,

My peace is gone,

Mein Herz ist schwer,

My heart is sore,

Ich finde sie nimmer

Never will I find it,

Und nimmermehr.

Nevermore.

It recurs twice at strategic points within the poem but not at the end, as a true refrain would, and obviously inspired both the melody and the ono¬ matopoeic accompaniment, which reflects the spinning-wheel imagery in its relentless sixteenth-note motion. But the text itself, couched in qua¬ trains of increasing intensity and expanding reference—moving from

The Literary Context: Goethe as Source and Catalyst

Gretchen’s person and psychic condition to Faust’s physical attributes, as she idealizes them, and finally to an emotional agitation of grief that “has become indistinguishable from sexual desire” (Kramer 1984, 152)—calls for varied musical treatment as it builds from an anguished but moderated outcry (the very first instance of the “refrain”) to “a violent and open ex¬ pression of sexual fantasy” (Kramer 1984, 153) in the climactic final qua¬ train: Und kussen ihn, So wie ich wollt, An seinen Kussen Vergehen sollt!

And kiss him As my heart would choose, In his kisses To swoon, to die away!6

The composer ultimately returns to the first two lines of the refrain— “Meine Ruh ist hin, / Mein Herz ist schwer”—as a musically apt denoue¬ ment, but which nevertheless vitiates the “stunning effect” (Stein 1971, 72) of the poem’s deliberately abrupt ending. Goethe achieves this stunning effect, as Jack Stein observes, by ending both poem and scene (in the Faust drama) at the moment of highest intensity, on the words “An seinen Kussen vergehen sollt”: “The theater audience is left limp with empathy as the curtain closes. But the song is so much more aggressive in impact that the effect of breaking it off at this climax would be brutal. Hence, the nec¬ essary tapering off” (Stein 1971, 72). Schubert’s ending can be seen as a combination of both possibilities: (1) the “breaking off” has been transferred to the final statement of the refrain, which is then truncated after the “reason” for Gretchen’s an¬ guish—in the text—is revealed to be her heavy heart; (2) the “tapering off” results from the reiteration of the very first statement of the song’s basic melodic-harmonic substance. Inasmuch as this denouement does not contain any trace of the innovative merger of strophic variation and through-composition developed elsewhere in the composer’s profoundly progressive setting, the music parallels Goethe’s dramatic literary “trunca¬ tion” in its own terms. In the earliest form of Goethe’s play (the Urfaust), the poem’s strate¬ gic enjambment combines “Und halten ihn” and “Und kussen ihn” into one eight-line stanza, which gains even more energy and urgency from the brutally honest words “SchoB” and “Gott!” (womb and God), in place of “Busen” (bosom):

■*'

Mein SchoB, Gott! drangt Sich nach ihm hin. Ach durft ich fassen Und halten ihn Und kussen ihn, So wie ich wollt, An seinen Kussen Vergehen sollt!

My womb, God! drives Me toward him so, Oh could I clasp And hold him close And kiss him As my heart would choose, In his kisses To swoon, to die away!

The Literary Context: Goethe as Source and Catalyst

The enjambment itself is brilliantly reflected in Schubert’s musical exten¬ sion, strengthening both enjambed stanzas. Furthermore, the music em¬ bodies the spirit of Goethe’s earlier, more explicit outburst (“Mein Schofi, Gott!”) in an extended ascending melodic sequence that, in its relation to the whole setting, makes this song innovative and archetypal at the same time. The pivotal position of “Meine Ruh ist hin” in the development of the German lied is thus a function of its unique form—its strategically recur¬ ring “refrain”—as well as its ever-intensifying content, which might have been set in the traditional strophic manner by a less comprehending and less sympathetic composer. Goethe’s revolutionary sense of dramatic de¬ velopment within the confines of lyric poetry facilitated the advent of through-composed art songs. In reacting musically to'Goethe’s develop¬ mental (dramatic) lyricism, Schubert rendered strictly strophic settings as something less than representative of the German Kunstlied at its best. The paradigmatic Romantic lied can be characterized as a modified strophic setting in which a given poem’s individual stanzas are autonomous literarymusical entities as well as interrelated units seamlessly integrated into the overall development of the word-tone synthesis. Goethe’s role in fostering this innovation can be seen by comparing Schubert’s settings of “Meine Ruh ist hin” (D. 118) and “Als ich sie erroten sah” (When I saw her blush, D. 153), the “light and slight little” song (Capell 1957, 89) that Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau has deemed a “more sub¬ jective” Schubertian counterpart to “Gretchen am Spinnrade” (FischerDieskau 1972, 72). Bernhard Ambros Ehrlich’s five quatrains of trochaic tetrameter represent a perspective opposite that of “Gretchen”: a mascu¬ line outpouring of rhapsodical praise, generated by desire for the femi¬ nine beloved: All’ mein Wirken, all’ mein Leben Strebt nach dir, Verehrte hin! Alle meine Sinne weben Mir dein Bild, o Zauberin! [I]

All my effort, all my life Strives toward you, revered one! All my senses conjure up Your image, oh enchantress!

Wenn mit wonnetrunk’nen Blicken Ach! und unaussprechlich schon, Meine Augen voll Entzucken Purpurn dich erroten seh’n. [V]

When with rapture-laden glances Oh, how unspeakably beautiful! My ecstasy-intoxicated eyes Behold your crimson blush.

The contrast between Ehrlich’s cascade of metaphoric adulation—the muses, a lyre’s harmony, the soul’s storm, and Aurora’s sunset are sum¬ moned to descriptive service in stanzas 2-4—and the avoidance of obvious poetic embellishment in “Gretchen” (except in the description of the “magic stream” of Faust’s forceful words: “seiner Rede / Zauberfluss”) could not be greater. But Schubert chose to give Ehrlich’s flowery verses a through-composed setting, revealing the influence a poem can have on a

The Literary Context: Goethe as Source and Catalyst

setting. Fischer-Dieskau points to some similarities in the rhythm, melodic shape, and sixteenth-note accompaniment Figuration of both, but the ef¬ fect of “Als ich sie erroten sah” is disappointing: not only are the accompa¬ niment figures empty arpeggios throughout, but the smattering of melodic interest attending the first strophe degenerates thereafter into desultory arpeggiated meanderings as well, particularly in the fourth and fifth stanzas. These two settings demonstrate that a modified strophic form, how¬ ever varied and unorthodox, is the more appropriate form for musical set¬ tings of lyric poetry, which, after all, usually exists in strophes of one form or another. Yet Romantic lieder are apt to be formally anything other than the simple strophic settings of their eighteenth-century predecessors. Three factors help explain this change. The first, as “Gretchen am Spinnrade” indicates so poignantly, is Goethe’s timeless “structural” lyricism it¬ self. The second is the emerging awareness of an individual self, which evolves into the self-consciousness of distinctly Romantic poetry, if the in¬ sights of poet and literary critic W. H. Auden can be taken at face value.7 Equally important is a third element in Romantic poetry: reverence for na¬ ture. This deeply felt worship of nature, articulated with specific reference to German Romanticism by Madame de Stael in 1810, stresses that—in di¬ rect contrast to the classical literary representation of man as determined by external societal forces—Romantic literature sees man’s actions and be¬ havior as primarily governed by inner energies and emotions. Although mindful that the Romantic personality tends toward unbridled emotional¬ ism, and that its enthusiasm for the moon, the forest, and solitude runs the risk of mindless faddishness, Stael considers the unusual wealth of feeling coming to the fore in Romanticism as a particular strength of the Germans in poetic, religious, and even moral terms (Peter 1985, 102-3). These characteristics infuse the specifically Romantic poems chosen by most lied composers, but they are especially prominent in Goethe’s lyrics. “Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt,” one of the four Mignon songs from Wilhelm Meister, embodies in astonishingly concentrated lyrical form the proto-Romantic emotional fervor and self-awareness: Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt, WeiB, was ich leide! Allein und abgetrennt Von aller Freude, Seh ich ans Firmament Nach jener Seite. Ach! der mich liebt und kennt,

Only one who knows longing knows what I suffer! Alone and cut off from all joy, I gaze at the firmament in that direction. Ah, he who loves and knows me

1st in der Weite. Es schwindelt mir, es brennt

is far away. My head reels, my body blazes.8 Only one who knows longing knows what I suffer!

Mein Eingeweide. Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt, WeiB, was ich leide!

The Literary Context: Goethe as Source and Catalyst

Although Goethe concentrates all of Mignon’s passion into only one strophe, the symmetry occasioned by the repetition of rhymes and lines— verses 1-2 and 11-12 are identical—has led most composers to employ strophically varied forms that reflect this ABA structure in their settings. The extreme prosodic economy of employing but two alternating rhymes throughout twelve dactylic trochaic lines is rare enough, but there is also the repeated expression of extreme yearning, in which longing and aloneness have become so poignandy merged that the cause of the anguished suffering—the distant lover—is all but forgotten by the reader. This radi¬ cal compactness of lyric texture may have influenced Schubert to expand and enrich his early strophic settings so ingeniously. Another single strophe of utter succinctness, “Uber alien Gipfeln ist Ruh,” exemplifies two Romantic themes—man’s reverence for nature and his self-consciousness—with simplicity, brevity, and profundity, making it “probably the most praised poem in the German language” (Plantinga 1984, 121). Its integration of form and content is so complete and infi¬ nitely nuanced as to offer an inexhaustible subject for aesthetic and cul¬ tural analysis: Uber alien Gipfeln Ist Ruh, In alien Wipfeln Spurest du Kaum einen Hauch; Die Vogelein schweigen im Walde. Warte nur, balde Ruhest du auch.

Over all summits Is peace, In all treetops You feel Hardly a breath; The birds in the woods are hushed. Just wait, soon You too shall rest.

“There is in it not a simile, not a metaphor, not a symbol” (Wilkinson 1962, 21). Yet a profounder poetic paradox is unimaginable: nature and man have here been totally fused and fatefully juxtaposed. Only man can be conscious of how and why: the “Hauch” of breeze and breath is both figurative and literal, since the air of man’s breath is dependent on the oxygen of nature’s breeze; even the birds are unnaturally mute in the face of this inscrutable existential dichotomy. The topic is timeless even as the persona measures time. Goethe’s title “Ein Gleiches” makes reference to the earlier “Wander¬ ers Nachtlied” of 1776: “Der du von dem Himmel bist,” which Schubert set in July 1815 (D. 224). “Uber alien Gipfeln ist Ruh” was written in 1780 and set by Schubert before May 1824 (D. 768); its title is therefore best ren¬ dered as “Another Wanderer’s Night Song.” This explicit reference to the night song genre is crucial to a full understanding of the poem, since the pervasive stillness invoked and evoked in it is normally experienced in the evening twilight, in celebration of which countless Abendlieder (evening songs) have been written. The theme of night is particularly prevalent in Romantic poetry. Hymen an die Nacht (Hymns to the Night), by Novalis

The Literary Context: Goethe as Source and Catalyst

(Friedrich von Hardenberg), the most lyrical and influential of the early Romanticists, undoubtedly inspired countless Nachtlieder of later poets and composers; “Nacht,” “Nacht liegt auf den fremden Wegen,” “Nacht und Traume,” “Nachtgesang,” “Nachts,” “Nachtwandler,” and “Nachtzauber” are only some of the titles in Fischer-Dieskau’s compilation. The impact of Goethe’s unadorned poem on all subsequent lyric style and lied composition is impossible to exaggerate. Its radically concen¬ trated, nonmetaphorical character or “objective” lyric style seems even leaner when juxtaposed with the first eight lines of a sonnet written in Britain at about the same time and about the same theme by William Wordsworth: It is a beauteous evening, calm and free, The holy time is quiet as a Nun Breathless with adoration; the broad sun Is sinking down in its tranquility; The gentleness of heaven broods o’er the Sea: Listen! the mighty Being is awake, And doth with his eternal motion make A sound like thunder—everlastingly.

Not only is the poetic language of British Romanticism richer in similes, metaphors, personifications, and symbols than its German counterpart, but the subtle elegance of its diction has little of the direct access to the emotions and Volksseele (folk soul) that were the concern of Herder and Goethe in the 1770s and 1780s, and which became the goal of the German Romanticists after the turn of the century. It was the directly affecting, concisely “objective” lyric evocation of evening on Goethe’s part that prod¬ ded Schubert to a superlative 14-measure setting, in which the all but im¬ perceptible movement from inorganic through organic and animate nature to mankind itself is given the musical “objective correlative” that constitutes another highpoint in the history of the Romantic lied.9 The consistently stressed final syllable of each line of Wordsworth’s sonnet points to another salient aspect of German Romantic poetry: the propensity for unstressed syllables (whether rhymed or unrhymed) at the ends of lines. The first four lines of Goethe’s “Nachtlied” demonstrate the regular alternation of unstressed and stressed rhyme words in final position: Uber alien Gipieln 1st Ruh, In alien Wipfeln Spiirest du

(unstressed) (stressed) (unstressed) (stressed)

In German prosodic terminology, the term klingend (resonating) de¬ scribes the unstressed verse ending, while stumm (mute) designates the stressed alternative. The more frequent occurrence of unstressed rhyme words in

The Literary Context: Goethe as Source and Catalyst

German—as compared to English—is caused by such multisyllabic forms as infinitives (uniformly ending in -en), strong participles (e.g., gesprochm, sprechmrf), and the plural conjugations of verbs, not to men¬ tion all the nominal, pronominal, and adjectival declensions that the three genders and four cases of a highly inflected language require. This struc¬ tural difference between German and English, which does not offer its poets a superabundance of unstressed final syllables, can explain at least partially why German lyric poetry strikes many ears as particularly “musical.”10

Romantic Poetry and Romantic Lieder Ultimately most noteworthy and defining for the poetic structures un¬ derlying the nineteenth-century or Romantic German lied is the propor¬ tion of line and stanza types in the poetry that was set, as represented in Fischer-Dieskau’s Texte deutscher Lieder (1968). About half of the 750 song texts consist of quatrains with three or four stresses per line, the form most readers associate with the Romantic poetry of, say, Eichendorff or Heine. There is, then, a substantial number of folk-like, romantic verses in the lied texts set to music. But the other half of the texts demonstrate that composers did not hesitate to set quite diverse poetic forms to music as well. In fact, the variety of forms (and themes) once again points to the multifaceted oeuvre of Goethe as the obvious source of this diverse lyric outpouring. A history of the German lied might be written on the basis of Goethe’s poems alone, so influential on composers and so diverse in content, style, and form were they (Abert 1922, 107; Forbes 1972, 59). No other poet in¬ duced Beethoven to attempt four and Schubert seven settings of the same poem, “Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt.” Nor could another poet prompt three composers like Schubert, Schumann, and Wolf to try their hands on the Mignon and Harper poems, or for that matter, even two of them— Schubert and Wolf—to tackle the large-scale, unrhymed, lyrically philo¬ sophical “hymns” Ganymed, Prometheus, and Grenzen der Menschheit. A good example of the difficulty Goethe’s classical lyrics posed for the development of Romantic poetry is Brentano’s “Der Spinnerin Nachtlied,” which could be seen as a combination of elements from Goethe’s “Gretchen am Spinnrade” and “Wanderers Nachtlied”: Es sang vor langen Jahren Wohl auch die Nachtigall, Das war wohl suBer Schall, Da wir zusammen waren.

Many years ago there surely Sang the nightingale, That was a lovely sweet sound, Because we were together.

Ich sing’ und kann nicht weinen, Und spinne so allein . . .

I sing and cannot weep, And do my spinning so alone . . .

The Literary Context: Goethe as Source and Catalyst Der Mond scheint klar und rein,

The moon shines clear and pure,

Ich sing’ und mochte weinen.

I sing and would like to weep.

In six quatrains Brentano’s lovelorn maiden projects the new Romantic sensibility and self-consciousness in a nostalgic and rhapsodic style suggest¬ ing strophic setting. Yet its meandering repetitions of the same prosodic sounds—vowels, semivowels, diphthongs, and alliterative words—seem to beg for more than strophic musical treatment. Such a series of trimeter quatrains is found in many Romantic poems—preeminently by Eichendorff—including those of Schumman’s Liederkreis Op. 39, to take a familiar example. The poem “Mondnacht” con¬ tains three iambic trimeter quatrains; in fact, of the twelve poems in the endre cycle, three are in two quatrains, five are in three, and four are in four. But the meandering and repetitious quality of the Brentano poem is foreign to the structured development favored by Eichendorff: Es war, als hatt’ der Himmel

It was as though the sky

Die Erde still gekuBt,

Had softly kissed the earth,

DaB sie im Blutenschimmer

So that in gleaming blossoms

Von ihm nun traumen muBt.

She’d now dream (only)11 of him.

Die Luft ging durch die Felder,

The breeze ran through the fields,

Die Ahren wogten sacht,

The ears of grain swayed gently,

Es rauschten leis die Walder,

The woods did rustle faintly,

So sternklar war die Nacht.

The night was so starry and clear.

Und meine Seele spannte

And then my soul spread out

Weit ihre Flugel aus,

Its wings so wide and far,

Flog durch die stillen Lande,

Flew over the quiet landscapes

Als floge sie nach Haus.

As if it were flying home.

The explicit movement within and between the individual stanzas here is a crucial difference between Eichendorff and other Romantic poets gener¬ ally.12 Although “Mondnacht” manifests all the figurative devices— metaphors, personification, onomatopoeia, and “as if” subjunctives— commonly associated with the atmospheric nature imagery of Romantic poetry, it also reveals a carefully crafted structure very much like that of Goethe’s “Uber alien Gipfeln,” where there is an “order of the inner process of nature as known by the mind, an organic order of the evolution¬ ary progression in nature, from the inanimate to the animate, from the mineral, through the vegetable, to the animal kingdom, from the hill-tops, to the tree-tops, to the birds, and so inevitably to man” (Wilkinson 1962, 317). But here the structure is Romantically transmuted from the external order of nature to the internal but equally natural realm of the psyche: in Eichendorff s vision, the persona imagines a “marriage”13 between heaven and earth in the nighttime sky—sealed by a metaphorical kiss and sanc¬ tioned by a continuing dream—that not only causes the grainfields and forests to sway and rustle empathetically in a breeze but also enables his

The Literary Context: Goethe as Source and Catalyst

soul to spread its wings and take flight through the nocturnal countryside, as if “flying home”—the utopian goal of virtually all German Romantic poetry. This combination of poetic order and psychic drama inspired the imaginative musical forms, somewhere between strophic and throughcomposed, through which Schumann projected the poet’s evocatively structured landscapes. The music feels as strophic as the poem in fact is, but it sounds as rhapsodic as the spatially conceived poetic imagery seems. Even when the poem and the setting are both clearly strophic, as in the first song of Dichterliebe—where the poem consists of two brief quatrains and the music has “an improvisational quality suggested by the freeflowing accompaniment figures of the piano” (Brody and Fowkes 1971, 119)—the overall effect can be anything but conventio'nally strophic. It is the prosodic structure of the poem, however, as much as anything else, that portrays the yearning for release that is the overwhelming burden of the verses: Im wunderschonen Monat Mai,

In the wondrous month of May,

Als alle Knospen sprangen,

When buds were bursting open,

Da ist in meinem Herzen

Then it was that my heart

Die Liebe aufgegangen.

Filled with love.

Im wunderschonen Monat Mai,

In the wondrous month of May,

Als alle Vogel sangen,

When all the birds were singing,

Da hab’ ich ihr gestanden

Then it was I confessed to her

Mein Sehnen und Verlangen.

My longing and desire.

The poem’s lyric structure goes further toward actual release than does Schumann’s setting, which delays the musical release—that is, the dominant-tonic resolution—until the third measure of the next song, “Aus meinen Tranen sprieBen” (From my tears burst). The latter contains no fewer than six dominant-tonic cadences, lavishly compensating for the un¬ resolved harmonic “tension” of the first song. Even if the poetic “bursting forth” of “Im wunderschonen Monat Mai” does not find overt musical real¬ ization until Schumann’s second song, in which fully blossoming flowers literally “burst forth” from the persona’s tears, Heine’s quatrains provide the structural integrity and varied rhythmic movement that inspired Schu¬ mann to compose such an evocatively “delaying” musical texture. Heine’s mostly sentimental, often ironic, and occasionally sarcastic poetry contributed markedly to the development of the Romantic lied. A typically German way of dealing with the adversities of life in post-1815 Eu¬ rope was “sentimental lament,” which is—according to Meno Spann (1966)—the prevailing quality in the love poems of Heine’s Book of Songs that makes them “unbearable to read” in our time. These poems nonethe¬ less produced exquisite lieder in the settings of Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, and other composers. “What inspired the composers was the per¬ fect structure, and often elegant antithesis of these ballad-like lyrics, in

The Literary Context: Goethe as Source and Catalyst

which unfortunately all of nature with her weeping little flowers and golden little stars and pale roses and saddened larks sympathizes with the unhappy love of the poet whose heart bleeds or breaks whenever rhyme, meter, or climactic effect require it” (Spann 1966, quoted in Komar 1971, 113). A particularly good instance of the perfect poetic structure that Heine could achieve is this jewel-like merging of alliteration and ono¬ matopoeia: Leise zieht durch mein Gemut

Gently through my soul

Liebliches Gelaute.

Sweet bells are pealing.

Klinge, kleines Fruhlingslied,

Sound, tiny song of spring,

Kling hinaus ins Weite.

Sound out far and wide.

Kling hinaus, bis an das Haus,

Sound out as far as the house

Wo die Blumen sprieBen.

Where the flowers are blooming.

Wenn du eine Rose schaust,

And, should you see a rose,

Sag, ich laB’ sie griiBen.

Convey from me a greeting.

The first two lines, “with their gorgeous liquid alliteration, are a good ex¬ ample of what an inspired opening will do to make a poem famous for¬ ever; apart from Goethe and Eichendorff, hardly any poet was as skilled in extracting such sounds from the German language. But the whole poem continues to be superb. Although it contains not a single pure rhyme, the lattice of near-rhymes and near-assonances gives it a genuine musicality” (Sammons 1969, 182-83). This “genuine musicality,” paradoxically, may help explain why there is only one setting (Mendelssohn’s Op. 19a, No. 5, “Gruss”) of “Leise zieht durch mein Gemut” listed by Fischer-Dieskau (1972): the metaphorical musicality of poetry may preclude or leave no space for actual music.

Romanticism’s Aftermath Heine’s younger contemporary Eduard Morike (1804-75), though humorous and witty, did not share the older poet’s vitriolic tendencies, but embodied instead the “holdes Bescheiden” (graceful resignation) that epitomizes the Biedermeier period: a German version of the Realism that reigned in the aftermath of the Vienna Congress of 1815. Germanists are prone to call this general literary movement Poetic Realism, which suggests why the lyrical style of a poet like Morike might not immediately attract the musical interest of cosmopolitan composers like Schumann and Brahms, though both did set several of Morike’s poems.14 It remained for Hugo Wolf (1860-1903) to discover the modernity and musical utility of Morike’s poetry in general, over a decade after the poet’s death. Two poems, both set by Wolf, express graphically the introspective conservatism and subtle sensitivity of Morike’s paradigmatic nineteenthcentury worldview that looks both backward and forward:

The Literary Context: Goethe as Source and Catalyst Herr! schicke was du willt,

Lord! Send what Thou wilt,

Ein Liebes oder Leides;

Delight or pain;

Ich bin vergnugt, daB beides

I am content that both

Aus deinen Handen quillt.

Flow from Thy hands.

Wollest mit Freuden

May it be Thy will neither with joys

Und wollest mit Leiden

Nor with sorrows

Mich nicht uberschiitten!

To overwhelm me!

Doch in der Mitten

For midway between

Liegt holdes Bescheiden.

Lies gracious moderation.

Morike’s “Verborgenheit” anticipates the infinitely nuanced psychic ambivalences of a later Freudian and fin-de-siecle age: LaB, o Welt, o laB mich sein!

Leave, O world, oh, leave me be!

Locket nicht mit Liebesgaben,

Tempt me not with gifts of love,

LaBt dies Herz alleine haben

Leave this heart to have alone

Seine Wonne, seine Pein!

Its bliss, its agony!

Was ich traure, weiB ich nicht,

Why I grieve, I do not know,

Es ist unbekanntes Wehe;

My grief is unknown grief,

Immerdar durch Tranen sehe

All the time I see through tears

Ich der Sonne liebes Licht.

The sun’s delightful light.

Oft bin ich mir kaum bewuBt,

Often, hardly aware am I,

Und die helle Freude zucket

As pure joy flashes through

Durch die Schwere, so mich drucket

The oppressing heaviness

Wonniglich in meiner Brust.

—Flashes blissful in my heart.

LaB, o Welt, o laB mich sein! . . .

Leave, O world, oh, leave me be!

The ambivalence and importance of “Verborgenheit” for its time—1832, the year of Goethe’s death15—can be seen in the difficulty of translating its tide: the translation by Bird and Stokes (1977) as “Obscurity” insufficiendy renders the pleasurable withdrawal from society pracdced by mid¬ nineteenth-century poets in the wake of Goethe’s very public aesthetic triumphs. Although many successors no doubt felt intimidated by the legacy of Goethe’s lyric achievement, Morike reacted with a degree of po¬ etic introspection that represents a major step on the road toward late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century symbolist poetry. “His subtle inter¬ weaving of thought, mood, emotion, impression, and suggestion; the en¬ chanting mellifluousness of his words, phrases, and rhythms, are unrivaled in any lyric poetry that had gone before” (Stein 1971, 155). Morike’s plea for undisturbed Verborgenheit perceptively foresees the subconscious realm of the Freudian age—“Oft bin ich mir kaum bewuBt” (often I am hardly aware, line 9)—even as it registers the “unbekanntes Weh” (unknown grief) that this seductive probing of the extremes of the human psyche will entail (line 6).1®

The Literary Context: Goethe as Source and Catalyst

Another example of Morike’s pre-impressionist sensitivity is the fol¬ lowing two-line excerpt from “Im Fruhling” (“In Spring”)— Es dringt der Sonne goldner KuB

The sun kisses its gold

Mir tief bis ins Geblut hinein;

Deep into my veins;

—the imagery of which goes further even than Goethe’s evocative metaphors, but the theme of which—a lover lying on a hilltop in spring¬ time (“Hier lieg ich auf dem Fruhlingshugel,” line 1), borne on the wing of a cloud—is unthinkable without the equally cloud-borne spring paean “Ganymed” (Ganymede) that Goethe had written some fifty-four years ear¬ lier. Yet Goethe’s influence did not guarantee public success by any means. The significance of Hugo Wolfs fifty-three settings, in 1888, for the general popularity and critical acceptance of Morike’s poetry some five or more decades after its original publication, is legendary.17 But although Morike’s fame is indelibly connected with Hugo Wolf, his poetry has not found as many different composers as, say, Friedrich Riickert (1788-1866), whose poetry has been set as often as Heine’s and Eichendorff s, though not nearly as often and as consistently as Goethe’s (Fricke 1990, 18).18 Harald Fricke candidly admits that the lyric quality of Riickert’s poetry is not as high as that of Goethe, Eichendorff, and Heine: he shrewdly ana¬ lyzes their lyric structure and finds that—although their diction is typically non-“musical”—they are rich in “varied repetition” (variierte Wiederholung) and relatively sparse in themes or subjects. Although Riickert’s poems do not stray far from the usual Romantic topics of love, suffering, distress, na¬ ture, season, and pious devotion, the use of these themes is carefully lim¬ ited; no more than “two-and-a-half” such subjects are presented in a given poem. In addition to the lyrical poem, another poetic genre, the ballad, has been an important source of art song settings. Because this genre can be characterized as a combination of epic, dramatic, and lyric elements, its appeal to composers who want to tell a story as dramatically as possible, even while they evoke a pervasive mood, is obvious. The most celebrated composer of ballads, Carl Loewe (1796-1869), provided many settings of Goethe’s ballads, as well as a brilliant alternative to Schubert’s famous “Erlkonig.” But he is generally given greatest credit for his evocative rendition of the horrific “Edward,” a grisly dialogue between a young man and his mother, translated from a Scottish source by Goethe’s mentor Herder.20 Almost all the poets so far considered wrote ballads as a matter of course, so that Heine’s “Die beiden Grenadiere” (The Two Grenadiers) of 1819-20, set by Schumann in a dramatic through-composed version, is not unusual. However, both Heine’s Bonapartism (Sammons 1969, 4-5) and Schumann’s climactic quotation of the “Marseillaise”—in 1840—represent a response to the era’s invidious censorship that emboldened creativity even as it sought to restrict its existence. The Swabian poetjohann Ludwig Uhland (1787-1862), whose “Fruhlingsglaube” is the only work of the

The Literary Context: Goethe as Source and Catalyst

poet that Schubert set, served the development of the Romantic lied in at least two respects: his folk song-like poems have often been taken to be au¬ thentic Volkslieder—Uhland’s scholarly updating of earlier folk song collec¬ tions in his Alte hoch- und niederdeutsche Volkslieder of 1844—45 no doubt enhanced their apparent genuineness21—and his masterly ballads in¬ spired Schumann and Liszt to rhapsodic musical emulations. Some of the same poems by Goethe and Heine prompted both Liszt and Schumann to compose lieder that are staples of today s art song canon. Another poet who inspired Schumann and Liszt is Nikolaus Lenau (1802-50), an Austrian of German, Hungarian, and Slavic descent, whose poems met with enthusiastic reception in 1832 and thereafter no doubt because “they echoed the Weltschmerz of the times” (Brody and Fowkes 1971, 218).22 Georg Friedrich Daumer (1800-75), on'the other hand, reflected another passion of the times: Orientalism. He translated the Per¬ sian poet Hafiz (1300-88) and wrote pseudo-Oriental poetry; Brahms set nineteen Daumer poems, including lyric versions of Hafiz’s originals. The repetitions of the word wonnevoll (blissful) in “Wie bist du meine Konigin,” Op. 32, No. 9 reflect the Persian ghazel, which, in its German re¬ alizations, is perhaps the most “unusual and highly patterned structure” (Fehn and Thym 1889, 33) that Romantic lied composers chose to set. Whereas the sonnet’s length and meter are strictly limited to fourteen pentameter lines, the ghazel can vary in length from four to perhaps fifteen couplets; its meter is freely chosen by the given poet. Only the rhyme is constant, but it binds each ghazel absolutely by virtue of its twofold appear¬ ance in the first couplet, whereafter it recurs at the end of every subse¬ quent couplet. Friedrich Schlegel was the first German poet to use the ghazel in 1803, but it was Joseph Hammer-Purgstall’s 1812 translation of the fourteenth-century poet Hafiz, master poet of the ghazel, that inspired Goethe’s West-ostlicher Dwan of 1819 and established the literary fashion of German Orientalism that enthralled Riickert and Platen in the 1820s, as well as Daumer, Geibel, and Keller (1819-90). Daumer’s Orientalism was by no means the first instance in which more or less exotic (or foreign) prosodic forms were prized in German po¬ etry and art song. Already during the later eighteenth century, odes and sonnets found favor as well. The strict Classical meter of Holty’s ode “Die Mainacht” is reflected in the carefully declaimed melody and richly chro¬ matic harmony of Brahm’s Op. 43, No. 2, which conforms to the prosodic strictures of the asclepiadean ode even as it expresses late Romantic musi¬ cal sensibility. The sonnet, a highly shaped poetic form “not obviously and immediately compatible with the musical idiom of the nineteenth-century lied” (Fehn and Thym 1986, 1), was prized at the end of the eighteenth century by A. W. Schlegel, whose translations of Petrarch were widely read, encouraging Goethe, Platen, Eichendorff, Riickert, Uhland, Heine, Morike, and Rilke to try their hands at it. Schubert set eight sonnets to music, including three by Petrarch in Schlegel’s translation; Pfitzner set

The Literary Context: Goethe as Source and Catalyst

Petrarch’s ninety-second sonnet in Forster’s translation, and there are two each by Burger and Eichendorff. Mendelssohn, Wolf, and Strauss set only one sonnet each, Brahms two. (Liszt’s three sonnet-settings are notin Ger¬ man translation, but in Petrarch’s original Italian.) As these translations of Petrarch suggest, foreign poems (in wellcrafted German equivalents) provided sources for many later Romantic poets and composers. Schubert, Schumann, and Brahms all set translated poems ranging from Anonymous to Burns, Byron, Moore, Pope, Scott, Shakespeare, and the Bible. Schumann used the translations of a French¬ man of noble descent, Adelbert von Chamisso (1781-1838), who fled the Revolution and spent the rest of his life in Prussia. Chamisso left France at age 9 for Berlin, where—among many other literary pursuits—he trans¬ lated the poems of Hans Christian Andersen and Pierre Beranger into German; these, together with his cycle Frauenliebe und -leben (Woman’s Love and Life), account for sixteen of Schumann’s settings. But it was the translations of Emanuel Geibel (1815-84) and Paul Heyse (1830-1914) that—in addition to numerous Schumann settings—provided the poetic raw material for the ninety settings that make up Hugo Wolf s major cycles of 1891 and 1895: the Spanish and Italian Songbooks. Although translated texts constitute “at least half of Wolf’s lieder,” as contrasted with 5 percent for Brahms, they account for a modest but significant share of the poems set by Richard Strauss (Petersen 1980, 36).

Naturalism and Denouement Even more interesting in literary terms, however, is Strauss’s en¬ counter (in the mid-1890s) with the poets—and the poetry—of Natural¬ ism. These socially engaged contemporary poets—particularly Richard Dehmel (1863-1920), John Henry Mackay (1864-1933), and Detlev von Liliencron (1884-1909)—were then considered quite “modern” and even “revolutionary.” In 1898-99 Strauss set three of Dehmel’s new “social lyrics” (Petersen 1980, 170), “Der Arbeitsmann” (Op. 39, No. 3), “Befreit” (Op. 39, No. 4), and “Am Ufer” (Op. 41, No. 3). The grimly realistic (i.e., “naturalistic”) protest of the vainly laboring father, who is nonetheless mindful of nature’s bounty and his family’s rightful place therein, gains a Nibelungen-like aura of joyless futility in Strauss’s darkly Wagnerian set¬ ting of “Der Arbeitsmann” (The Laborer): Wir haben ein Bett, wir haben ein Kind,

We have a bed, we have a child,

Mein Weib!

My wife!

Wir haben auch Arbeit, und gar zu

We also have work, and work for

zwelt, Und haben die Sonne und Regen und Wind, Und uns fehlt nur eine Kleinigkeit,

two, And have the sun and rain and wind, And just one bit we lack

The Literary Context: Goethe as Source and Catalyst Um so frei zu sein, wie die Vogel sind:

To be as free as are the birds,

Nur Zeit.

Just time.

The second stanza—omitted here—describes a Sunday stroll through nature’s fields of grain, where the family’s clothing is as fine as that of the birds. The third equates human needs with an impending storm and cul¬ minates in the oxymoron that expresses hope and hopelessness simultane¬ ously—human deprivation as a “brief” eternity: Nur Zeit! wir wittern Gewitterwind,

Just time! We sense windy storms ahead,

Wir Volk.

We People.

Nur eine kleine Ewigkeit;

Just one brief eternity;

Uns fehlt ja nichts, mein Weib,

Naught do we lack, my wife, my child,

mein Kind, Als all das, was durch uns gedeiht,

Save all that flourishes through us,

Um so kuhn zu sein, wie die Vogel

To be as bold as are the birds:

sind: Nur Zeit.

Just time.

The extreme economy of rhyming words is a structural feature that makes the unrhymed, single occurrence of Volk (people) an emphatic call for social justice in the intimate context of the (nuclear) family. Strauss brightens the gloomy F-minor texture with a major harmony when wife, child, and sun are mentioned, but in the crescendo-enhanced F-sharpminor context of the anticipated storm, the F-major fortissimo harmony supporting Volk underscores the political message as well. In the poem “Befreit” (Freed), Dehmel displays the psychological am¬ bivalence and ecstatic rhetoric typical of Nietzsche’s influence on the poets and composers of this age: although Dehmel said that the three qua¬ trains describe a man speaking to his dying wife, the threefold refrain “O Gluck!” (Oh happiness) suggests that the “liberation” involved is the “ultimate devotion which has ‘freed’ the loving pair from suffering to a point which not death itself can threaten” (Del Mar 1972, 316). An even more Nietzschean utterance of Dehmel’s in 1896, “Am Ufer” (On the Shore), evokes a twilight-nighttime hallucination far removed from Goethe’s serene nocturnal vision of 1780: Die Welt verstummt, dein Blut erklingt;

The world grows mute, your blood resounds;

In seinen hellen Abgrund sinkt

Into its bright abyss sinks

Der feme Tag,

The distant day,

Er schaudert nicht; die Glut umschlingt

It shudders not; the glow engulfs

Das hochste Land, im Meere ringt

The highest land, in the sea wrestles

Die feme Nacht,

The distant night,

Sie zaudert nicht; der Flut entspringt

It lingers not; out of the tide

The Literary Context: Goethe as Source and Catalyst Ein Sternchen, deine Seele trinkt

A small star springs, your soul

Das ewige Licht.

The eternal light.

drinks

Psychic eons seem to have passed between the late-eighteenth-century simplicity and harmony of Goethe’s “Warte nur, balde / Ruhest du auch” (Just wait, soon / you too shall rest) and the anthropomorphic aestheti¬ cism of Dehmel’s fln-de-siecle conception of the bond between mankind and nature that can be expressed only metaphorically and synesthetically as “deine Seele trinkt / das ewige Licht” (“your soul drinks / the eternal light”). This “shoreline” vision, so fatefully poised on the threshold of the twentieth century, received another setting in 1908, by Anton Webern, that heralds the atonal musical idiom that the younger Strauss’s postWagnerian chromaticism sought but did not attain (Velten 1986, 464-67). Even more prophetic is a very different “shoreline” vision by an all but ig¬ nored earlier German poet who precariously bridges German Classicism and Romanticism: Friedrich Holderlin (1770-1843). At some time be¬ tween 1799 and 1803, the tormented Holderlin wrote a short poem whose imagistic concentration and radically disjunctive view of life, whose intoxi¬ cated Romantic lushness and despairing, existential hopelessness, have rarely been equaled, even by deliberate modernists (Hamburger 1970, 268): Mit gelben Birnen hanget

With yellow pears the land,

Und voll mit wilden Rosen

And full of wild roses,

Das Land in den See,

Hangs down into the lake,

Ihr holden Schwane,

You lovely swans,

Und trunken von Kussen

And drunk with kisses

Tunkt ihr das Haupt

You dip your heads

Ins heilignuchterne Wasser.

Into the hallowed, the sober, water.

Weh mir, wo nehm’ ich, wenn

But oh, where shall I find,

Es Winter ist, die Blumen, und wo

When winter comes, the flowers, and

Den Sonnenschein

The sunshine

Und Schatten der Erde?

And shade of the earth?

Die Mauern stehn

The walls loom

where

Sprachlos und kalt, im Winde

Speechless and cold, in the wind

Klirren die Fahnen.

Weathercocks clatter.

Except for the adjective heilignuchtem (holy-sober), “Halfte des Lebens” (The Middle of Life) is written in the language of common speech. But as Hamburger points out (1970, 269), “it creates new rhythms—as the ex¬ pression of a mood so new as to be terrifying. This dynamic syntax, which became typical of the early twentieth-century Expressionists, literally speaks for itself without any poetic or emotional embellishment. Yet the

The Literary Context: Goethe as Source and Catalyst

vast difference between Holderlin’s drastic conjunction of two diametri¬ cally opposed seven-line stanzas and Goethe’s single eight-line strophe “Uber alien Gipfeln” is a measure of the capacity of German poetry to ex¬ press the vicissitudes of human experience during the extended period when the major Romantic lieder were composed. In his schizoid but lyri¬ cally conjoined utterances, Holderlin pits man’s classically discerned one¬ ness with a harmoniously perceived and aesthetically experienced nature (in stanza 1) against a Kafkaesque twentieth-century anxiety (in stanza 2) that calls into question the very existence of such relationships. By con¬ trast, Goethe’s late-eighteenth-century confidence in the secure place of man in the natural scheme of things seems a long lost utopian dream. Given the century that passed before Holderlin’s schizophrenically prophetic poetic insights could be discovered, it is understandable that it took another half-century for them to be set (in 1958) to congenial music by the English composer Benjamin Britten (19 1 3-76).23 The ingenious use of carefully controlled intervalic movement of the melody and arpeggiated ostinato harmonies to express two contrasting strophes—in radi¬ cally differentiated ways for summer and winter—makes Britten’s setting a paragon of musico-poetic congruence, as well as an apotheosis of Schu¬ bert’s through-composed lied ideal. Just as the quintessential (musical) Romantic lied is all but unthinkable without the folk song tradition of pre¬ ceding centuries, it is inconceivable that the many-faceted nineteenthcentury lied would not continue to influence receptive composers in the decades thereafter.

APPENDIX: Lyric Poets and Lied Composers An Explanatory Note on Anthologies To help establish the literary background against which the individual poems chosen by lied composers can be better understood, Tables 1.1 and 1.2 enumerate respectively the “canonic” lyric poets in German literary his¬ tory between 1750 and 1920, irrespective of musical settings, and the specifically lied-associated poets listed by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (1968). The seventy lied poets in Table 1.2 must be seen together with thirty-four of the literary poets in Table 1.1; Fischer-Dieskau’s compendium thus con¬ tains a total of 104 lied poets. Yet thirty-four primarily literary poets have produced more than half of the 750 lied texts Fischer-Dieskau considers to be viable art song settings in our time. Most standard literary anthologies—which cover the entire range of German poetry from the Middle Ages to the mid-twentieth century—aver¬ age about 350 poems and approximately fifty poets for the period under discussion.24 But Conrady (1991) greatly increases coverage of the period in question with 567 poems by eighty-four poets. Seminal examples of the nineteenth-century lied repertoire are included, among them three poems

The Literary Context: Goethe as Source and Catalyst

Table 1.1.

Major German Lyric Poets 1750-190025 Poet

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38.

Christian Fiirchtegott GELLERT (1715-1769) Friedrich Gottlieb KLOPSTOCK (1724-1803) Christian Friedrich Schubart (1739-1791) Matthias CLAUDIUS (1740-1815) Gottfried August Burger (1747-1794) Ludwig Christoph Heinrich HOLTY (1748-1776) Johann Wolfgang von GOETHE (1749-1832) Friedrich von SCHILLER (1759-1805) Friedrich HOLDERLIN (1770-1843) Novalis (Friedrich von Hardenberg, 1772-1801) Friedrich Schlegel (1772-1829) Ludwig TIECK (1773-1853) Clemens BRENTANO (1778-1842) Justinus KERNER (1786-1862) Ludwig UHLAND (1787-1862) Joseph von EICHENDORFF (1788-1857) Friedrich RUCKERT (1788-1866) August von PLATEN (1796-1835) Annette von Droste-Hiilshoff (1797-1848) Heinrich HEINE (1797-1856) Nikolaus LENAU (1802-1850) Eduard MORIKE (1804-1875) Ferdinand FREILIGRATH (1810-1876) Friedrich HEBBEL (1813-1863) Theodor STORM (1817-1888) Theodor Fontane (1819-1898) Klaus GROTH (1819-1899) Gottfried KELLER (1819-1890) Conrad Ferdinand MEYER (1825-1898) Detlev von LILIENCRON (1844-1909) Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) Richard DEHMEL (1863-1920) Arno Holz (1868-1933) Stefan GEORGE (1868-1933) Christian MORGENSTERN (1871-1914) Hugo von Hofmannsthal (1874—1929) Rainer Maria RILKE (1875-1926) Hermann HESSE (1877-1962)

Setting

[ 6] [ 3] [ 1] [3] [ 2] [ 5] [67] [14] [ 5] [—] [ 1] [15] [3] [12] [4] [35] [22] [ 6] [ 1] [62] [6] [39] [ 3] [ 3] [ 3] [ 2] [7] [ 4] [ 8] [ 5] [—] [ 4] [—] [15] [ 3] [—] [16] [4]

NB: The bracketed numbers in right column indicate the number of musical settings included in the Fischer-Dieskau Book of Lieder (Bird and Stokes 1977). This includes musical settings of poems by all of the poets above except Novalis (10), Nietzsche (31), Holz (33), and Hofmannsthal (36). CAPITALIZED names indicate that three or more poems have been set.

The Literary Context: Goethe as Source and Catalyst

Table 1.2. Additional Lied Poets26 (1821-1902)

36 Julius Mosen

(1803-1867)

2 Hans C. Andersen

(1805-1875)

37 Wilhelm Muller

(1794-1827)

3 Achim von Arnim

(1781-1831)

38 Chr. A. Overbeck

(1755-1821)

4 OttoJ. Bierbaum

(1865-1910)

39 Alexander Pope

[tr. Herder]

5 G. G. N. Lord Bvron

(1788-1824)

40 Joh. L. Pyrker

(1772-1847)

6 A. von Chamisso

(1781-1838)

41 Oskar v. Redwitz

(1823-1891)

7 Karl Candidus

(1817-1872)

42 Fdr. Reil

8 Peter Cornelius

(1824-1874)

43 Robert Reinick

9 Felix Dahn

(1834-1912)

44 C. L. Reissig

(1800-1875)

45 Ludwig Rellstab

(1799-1860)

11 Emanuel Geibel

(1815-1884)

46 JG. v. Salis-Seewi$

(1762-1834)

12 Hermann v. Gilm

(1812-1864)

47 Adolf F. v. Schack

(1815-1894)

13 Heinrich Hart

(1855-1906)

48 J. V. v. Scheffel

(1826-1886)

14 Karl Henckell

(1864-1929)

49 M. v. Schenkendorf

(1783-1817)

15 Joh. G. Herder

(1744-1803)

50 Johannes Schlaf

(1862-1941)

16 Paul von Hevse

(1830-1914)

51 F. X. v. Schlechta

(1796-1875)

17 H. v. Fallersleben

(1798-1874)

52 Hans Schmidt

(1854-1923)

18 Joh. Geo. Jacobi

(1740-1814)

53 G. P. Schmidt v. Lubeck( 1766-1849)

19 Alovs Jeitteles

(1794-1858)

54 Franz Schober

(1796-1882)

20 August Kopisch

(1799-1853)

55 AloysSchreiber

(1763-1841)

21 Franz Kugler

(1808-1858)

56 Ernst Schulze

(1789-1817)

22 Emil Kuh

(1828-1876)

57 Felix Schumann

(1854—1879)

23 Carl G. Lappe

(1773-1843)

58 Sir Walter Scott

(1771—1832)

24 Christian L’Egru

[Schumann]

59 Joh. Gab. Seidl

(1804-1874)

25 K. G. R. v. Leitner

(1800-1890)

60 Shakespeare

(1564-1616)

61 Karl Simrock

(1802-1876)

(1729-1781)

62 Josef v. Spaun

(1788-1865)

28 Hermann v. Lingg

(1820-1905)

63 F. L. zu Stolberg

(1750-1819)

29 John H. Mackav

(1864-1933)

64 J. Stoll

30 Gustav Mahler

(1860-1911)

65 Chr. Aug. Tiedge

(1752-1841)

31 Frdr. Matthison

(1761-1831)

66 Joh. Nepomuk Vogl

(1802-1866)

32 Joh. Mavrhofer

(1787-1836)

67 Chr. Felix WeiBe

(1726-1804)

33 Michelangelo

(1475-1564)

68 Josef Wenzig [Brahms: Opp. 48, 43]

34 Alfred Mombert

(1872-1942)

69 M. Wesendonck

(1828-1902)

35 Thomas Moore

(1779-1852)

70 M. von Willemer

(1784-1860)

1 Hermann Allmers

10 Georv F. Daumer

26 K. v. Lemcke (b. 1831) 27 G. Ephr. Lessing

[Brahms]

[Schubert: D. 889, 917] (1805-1852) [Beethoven: Op. 75]

[Beethoven; Schubert]

NB: Where no dates of birth and/or death are available, the composer or translator associated with a given poet is cited in brackets.

from Chamisso’s Frauenliebe und -leben, a half-dozen Eichendorff poems (set by Schumann and Wolf), two of Riickert’s Kindertotenlieder, and two Wilhelm Muller excerpts from Die schone Mullerin as well as three from Die Winterreise. A singularly influential anthology—The Oxford Book of German Verse—reveals the change in literary and musical taste over the course of the twentieth century: its earlier version of 1915, edited by H. G. Fiedler to

The Literary Context: Goethe as Source and Catalyst

draw deliberately on the lied for its contents, contained many musical ref¬ erences in its endnotes as well as an extensive index of lied composers, all of which—because of “the commanding position enjoyed by German com¬ posers at the beginning of the present century”—proved to be an “invalu¬ able aid in Fiedler’s successful effort to popularize German poetry for primarily English readers. Yet, in E. L. Stahl’s third edition of 1967 the links between German music and poetry “are no longer considered to be of primary importance, . . . nor is music held to be the ideal condition to which poetry invariably aspires” (p. vi). These two editions demonstrate both the close bond between the lied and the lyric poem at the turn of the century and its gradual but inevitable dissolution since then.

Notes 1. “Die romantische Poesie ist eine progressive Universalpoesie. . . . Sie umfaBt alles, was nur poetisch ist, vom groGten wieder mehrere Systeme in sich enthaltenden Systeme der Kunst bis zu dem Seufzer, dem KuB, den das dichtende Kind

aushaucht

kunstlosen

Gesang.”

“Athenaums-Fragment”

no.

116

(Schlegel 1964, 38-39; trans. from Eichner 1970, 57). 2. “Athenaums-Fragment” no. 216: “Die Franzosische Revolution, Fichtes Wissenschaftslehre und Goethes Meister (emphasis added) sind die groBten Tendenzen des Zeitalters” (Schlegel 1964, 48). 3. Goethe’s letter to Zelter of 21 December 1809 states that “das Lied durch jede Composition erst vollstandig werden soil” (Geiger 1902, 260). 4. See, e.g., Barricelli (1988), Brown (1948), Cone (1957), Kramer (1984), Mosley (1990), and Scher (1990). 5. Goethe’s and Heine’s parodies retain the original first line (but little else!); Uhland deviates to “Da droben auf dem Hugel,” and Brentano ventures far¬ thest afield with “Es stehet im Abendglanze.” 6. Translation from Kramer (1984, 152). Kramer’s perceptive “deconstruction” of both text and music richly documents the “undeniable effectiveness” of Schu¬ bert’s radical emulation and transformation of Goethe’s progressive “sexual fantasy” (Kramer 1984, 155). 7. According to Auden (1950, xii-xiv) mankind redefined itself toward the end of the eighteenth century so that, by the beginning of the nineteenth, man is clearly self-conscious and—like God, but unlike the rest of nature—can say “I” as he senses his ego to be sovereign over against self, which is part of nature. In this self (apart), man can see or imagine possibilities (other than they actually are); he can even foresee his own death. If self-awareness and the power to con¬ ceive of possibility are defining elements in man, Auden concludes, then the hero whom the poet must celebrate is himself, for the only consciousness acces¬ sible to him is his own. 8. Literally, “my intestines are burning” (as in the biblical expression “her bowels yearned”), as Brody and Fowkes (1971, 44) helpfully elucidate. They also point out that the seemingly impure rhymes “leide” and “Freude” (lines 2 and 4) would pass muster in Goethe’s Frankfurt dialect. 9. T. S. Eliot’s felicitous phrase (from The Sacred Wood) for the metaphorical

The Literary Context: Goethe as Source and Catalyst equivalent of particular lyric correspondences has been borrowed by many in¬ terdisciplinary scholars for designating musico-poetic congruencies. Prawer

(1952, 18) cites this “extreme dictum” in its original context. 10. To cite an extreme example: in Ludwig Rellstab’s poem “In der Feme” (Far from Home), the sixth poem of Schubert’s Schwanengesang, the heavy use of present participles is poetically unthinkable in English: Wehe, den Fliehenden, Welt hinaus ziehenden!— Fremde durchmessenden, Heimat vergessenden, Mutterhaus hassenden, Freunde verlassenden Folget kein Segen, ach! Auf ihren Wegen nach! Schubert was able to make a musical virtue of this by setting the participles to a consistent rhythm of dotted quarter, eighth, and quarter in alternate measures throughout the entire composition. An example of how the abundance of suffixes can seemingly overwhelm meaning is Mayrhofer’s amphibrachic tour de force “Beim Winde”: Es traumen die Wolken, die Sterne, der Mond, Die Baume, die Vogel, die Blumen, der Strom, Sie wiegen und schmiegen sich tiefer zuriick, Zur ruhigen Statte, zum tauigen Bette, zum heimlichen Gluck. Schubert responded with an inspired setting that assimilates the prosodicsemantic substance of “Beim Winde” even as it transcends the poem’s linguistic limitations. 11. Eichendorffs poem has “nun” (now); Schumann’s text wrongly reads “nur” (only), which Sams (1969, 98) renders as “must dream of him alone and con¬ siders to be either a “mistranscription” or a “revealing error, as in other songs.” 12. Seidlin (1978) analyzes in convincing detail the “architectonically” threedimensional or spatial quality of the typical Eichendorffian landscape; “Mondnacht” is clearly a case in point. 13. According to Sams (1969, 7) a very persuasive case can be made—by way of Schumann’s system of musical ciphers—for a musical marriage (Ehe) between heaven and earth in notational symbolism of (German) E-H-E (H = B1); cf. Sams 1969, 98) in the initial measures of the bass line supporting these words in the text. 14. The juxtaposition of “cosmopolitan” and “provincial” could hardly be more apt: the urban and urbane north-German Heine spent the last twenty-five years of his life in exile in Paris, whereas the rural south-German Morike inhabited rustic villages around Stuttgart throughout his life. Schumann set “Die Soldatenbraut (Op. 64, No. 1), “Das verlassene Magdlein” (Op. 64, No. 2), and “Er ist’s” (op. 79, No. 24); Brahms set two longer Morike poems, “An eine Aolsharfe” (Op. 19, No. 5) and “Agnes” (Op. 59, No. 5), as well as five humorous quatrains of supposed sisterly harmony: the duet “Die Schwestern” (Op. 61, No. 1).

The Literary Context: Goethe as Source and Catalyst

15. Although “Verborgenheit” was first published in 1838, it was not widely known until Wolf s composition some fifty years later. 16. What Morike’s poetry portends for literary developments of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries may be analogous to what Wolf s musical settings signify for the art-song aesthetics of the following century. In a perceptive re¬ view of Hans-Herwig Geyer’s investigation into Hugo Wolf s Morike settings (1991), Amanda Glauert (1993) persuasively amplifies on Geyer’s passing sug¬ gestions. 17. But as Sams (1961, 60-61) points out, it took eight years for Hugo Wolf to “pre¬ pare” himself for the sudden burst of creativity that resulted in the fifty-three Morikelieder. This was so, Sams claims, because “Morike’s lyrics demanded (and indeed helped to create) a new tonal language for their satisfactory translation into musical terms. . . . Morike’s poetry had by then [1888] been in print for well over half a century; composers from the pioneering Schumann and Robert Franz onwards, including Brahms, had already set [some of] it to music. By the time that Wolf first read Morike, in the 1870s, the words of ‘Das verlassene Magdlein’ had appeared in some fifty published settings, and those of ‘Agnes’ in more than eighty.” 18. Fricke (1990, 18) adds that in spite of Goethe’s overall superiority in numbers of lied settings for each poem, only about twenty-five Goethe poems are suc¬ cessful “hits” as art songs, and Riickert can claim almost that many. 19. Fricke (1990, 20) uses this fraction to indicate that two motives or themes are generally developed individually, then joined in a concluding synthesis, so that the limits of the lied as miniature will not be breached. 20. Both Plantinga (1984, 256-57) and Brody and Fowkes (1971, 183-92) see in Loewe’s op. 1 treatment of Herder’s problematic translation crucial historical significance. 21. It remained for twentieth-century scholarship to debunk the romantic folk-soul theories and to demonstrate that instead of an anonymous oral-aural folk tradi¬ tion mysteriously producing uniquely polished lyric utterances, necessarily un¬ known individuals—often members of the intelligentsia—actually created every so-called folk song, which was often an “abgesunkenes Kunstlied, jedenfalls nie vom Volke selbst gedichtet” (von Wilpert 1961, 679) or “a debased art song, in any case never written by the people collectively.” Sternfeld’s parody-concept cited earlier is a salient part of this scholarly endeavor (Sternfeld 1979, 8). 22. Weltschmen (sadness over the woes of the world) refers to the sentimental pes¬ simism that flourished in the repressive political climate before and after Goethe’s death. Lenau’s despair over bourgeois civilization and admiration for the allegedly wild and lonely lives of gypsies found poignant expression in Liszt’s setting of Lenau’s seven-stanza ballad “Die drei Zigeuner”

(Brody-

Fowkes 1971, 219-22). Schumann set six Lenau poems in his Op. 90. 23. Britten’s arguably non-German compositional idiom can be seen as the viable “alienating” catalyst that makes Holderlin’s almost Kafkaesque vision aestheti¬ cally acceptable and even (moderately) popular. By contrast, Harald Genzmer’s setting of “Halfte des Lebens” (in Genzmer 1967, 54-56) demonstrates a less immediately accessible twentieth-century German compositional style similar to that of Hermann Reutter or even Boris Blacher. 24. For example, Echtermeyer and von Wiese (1966), the staple of schools and uni¬ versities both in Germany and abroad, contains in the section entitled “Auf-

The Literary Context: Goethe as Source and Catalyst klarung, Empfindsamkeit und Sturm und Drang” 18 Volkslieder, 3 Volksballaden, and 48 other poems by fifteen poets; in “Hohepunkte Klassischer Lyrik” a total of 99 poems are the work of only four poets—54 by Goethe, 25 by Schiller, 19 by Holderlin, and 1 by Heinrich von Kleist; among the “Romantiker” one finds 84 poems by fourteen poets; and in “Von der Romantik zum Realismus” fifty poets supply 127 poems. The more scholarly multivolume literature series Klassische Deutsche Dichtung divides “Balladen” and “Lyrik” into separate volumes, the first of which includes 171 ballads by forty-four balladeer-authors, and the second includes 297 lyric poems by some fifty-five poets. Reclam UB’s 1984 edition of Deutsche Gedichte presents 290 poems by 105 poets within the approxi¬ mate parameters of the lied repertory; a companion (Reclam UB) volume— Gedichte der Romantik—presents an up-to-date (1984) compilation of some three hundred exclusively German Romantic poems by thirty-one Romantic poets, only twelve of whom are included in Fischer-Dieskau (1968*).

25. As compiled by Fritz Schlawe, NeudeutscheMetrik (Stuttgart, 1972), 97-103. 26. From Bird and Stokes (1977). Underlining indicates that in Fischer-Dieskau’s view two or more poems by the respective poet have inspired important or suc¬ cessful settings.

Bibliography Abert, Hermann. Goethe und die Musik. Stuttgart, 1922. Albertsen, Leif Ludwig. “Goethes Lieder und andere Lieder.” In Deutsche Literatur zur Zeit der Klassik, ed. Karl O. Conrady, 172-87. Stuttgart, 1977. Auden, W. H., ed. “Introduction.” In Romantic Poets, xii-xxv. New York, 1950. Barricelli, Jean-Pierre. Melopoiesis: Approaches to the Study of Literature and Music. New York, 1988. Becker, Peter. ‘“Nicht nur lesen! Immer singen! Und ein jedes Blatt ist dein!’: Versuch uber ein liederliches Goethewort.” Musik und Bildung 18 (1986): 224-26. Bird, George, and Richard Stokes. The Fischer-Dieskau Book of Lieder. New York, 1977. Blackall, Eric A. The Emergence of German as a Literary Language 1700-1775. London 1959. Boyle, Nicholas. The Poetry of Desire (1749-1790). Vol. 1 of Goethe: The Poet and the Age. Oxford, 1991. Britten, Benjamin. Sechs Holderlin-Fragmente, Op. 61. London, 1962. Brody, Elaine, and Robert A. Fowkes. The German Lied and Its Poetry. New York, 1971. Brown, Calvin S. Music and Literature. Athens, GA, 1948. Reprint. Hanover NH 1987. Bruford, W. H. Germany in the Eighteenth Century: The Social Background of the Literary Revival. London, 1971. Capell, Richard. Schubert’s Songs. London, 1957. Cone, Edward T. “Words into Music: the Composer’s Approach to the Text.” In Sound and Poetry: English Institute Essays, ed. Northrop Frye, 3-15. New York, 1957. Reprint, in Edward T. Cone, Music: A View from Delft, 115-23. Chicago 1989. Conrady, Karl Otto. Das grofie deutsche Gedichtbuch. Miinchen, 1991. Dahlaus, Carl. Nineteenth-Century Music. Trans. Bradford Robinson. Berkeley, 1989.

The Literary Context: Goethe as Source and Catalyst

Del Mar, Norman. Richard Strauss: A Critical Commentary of His Life and Works. Vol. 3. London, 1972. Draper, Hal. The Complete Poems of Heinrich Heine. Boston, 1982. Echtermeyer, Theodor. Deutsche Gedichte. Rev. Benno von Wiese. Diisseldorf, 1966. Eichner, Hans. Friedrich Schlegel. New York, 1970. Fehn, Ann C., and Jurgen Thym. “Sonnet Structure and the German Lied.” Presen¬ tation at the 1986 conference of the German Studies Association, Albu¬ querque, 27 September 1986. -. “Repetition as Structure in the German Lied: The Ghazal.” Comparative Liter¬ ature 41 (Winter 1989): 33-52. Fischer-Dieskau, Dietrich. Texte deutscher Lieder: Ein Handbuch. Munich, 1968. -•. Auf den Spuren der Schubert-Lieder. Wiesbaden, 1972. Forbes, Elliot. “Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt: An Example of a Goethe Lyric Set to Music.” In Words and Music: The Scholar’s View, ed. Lawrence Berman, 59-82. Cambridge, MA, 1972. Fricke, Harald. “Riickert und das Kunstlied.” Ruckert-Studien 5 (1990): 14-37. Friedlander, Max, ed. Gedichte von Goethe in Compositionen seiner Zeitgenossen. Vols. 11 and 31 of Schriften der Goethe-Gesellschaft. Weimar, 1896 and 1916. Reprint as Gedichte von Goethe in Kompositionen, Hildesheim, 1975. Garland, Henry and Mary. The Oxford Companion to German Literature. Oxford, 1976. Geiger, Ludwig, ed. Briefwechsel zwischen Goethe und Zelter in den fahren 1799 bis 1832. Leipzig, 1902. Vol. 1 of 3. Genzmer, Harald. “Halfte des Lebens.” In Lieder und Gesdnge in Dichtungen von Friedrich Holderlin. Vol. 5: Schriften der Holderlin-Gesellschaft. Tubingen, 1967. Geyer, Hans-Herwig. Hugo Wolfs Morike-Vertonungen: Mannigfaltigung in lyrischer Konzentration. Kassel, 1991. Glauert, Amanda. Review of Hans-Herwig Geyer, Hugo Wolfs Morike-Vertonungen: Mannigfaltigung in lyrischer Konzentration. Notes 48 (1993): 1451-52. Hamburger, Michael. Contraries: Studies in German Literature. New York, 1970. Knaus, Herwig. “Im Reich der Nacht: Wort und Ton im burgerlichen romantischen Lied um 1870.” Musikerdehung 42 (October 1988): 19-26. Kramer, Lawrence. Music and Poetry: The Nineteenth Century and After. Berkeley, 1984. Martini,

Fritz.

Deutsche Literaturgeschichte von den Anfangen bis zur Gegenwart.

Stuttgart, 1957. Moser, Hans Joachim. Das deutsche Lied seit Mozart. Tutzing, 1968. Mosley, David L. Gesture, Sign and Song: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Schumann’s Liederkreis Opus 39. New York, 1990. Ossenkop, David. Hugo Wolf: A Guide to Research. New York, 1988. Peter, Klaus. “Der spekulative Anspruch: Die deutsche Romantik im Unterschied zur franzosischen und englischen.” Jahrbuch des Freien Deutschen Hochstifts (1985): 101-50. Petersen, Barbara A. Ton und Wort: The Lieder of Richard Strauss. Ann Arbor, 1980. Plantinga, Leon. Romantic Music. New York, 1984. Prawer, S. S. German Lyric Poetry. London, 1952. Rose, Ernst. A History of German Literature. New York, 1960. Sammons, Jeffrey L. Heinrich Heine, The Elusive Poet. New Haven, 1969. Sams, Eric. The Songs of Hugo Wolf. London, 1961. -. The Songs of Robert Schumann. London, 1969.

The Literary Context: Goethe as Source and Catalyst

Scher, Steven P. Literatur und Musik: Ein Handbuch zur Theorie und Praxis eines komparatistischen Grenzgebietes. Berlin, 1984. -. “The German Lied: A Genre and Its European Reception.” In European Ro¬ manticism: Literary Cross-Currents, Modes, and Models, ed. Gerhart Hoffmeister, 127-41. Detroit, 1990. -. “Musicopoetics or Melomania: Is There a Theory behind Music in German Literature?” In Music and German Literature, ed. James M. McGlathery, 328-27. Columbia, SC, 1992. Schlegel, Friedrich. Kritische Schriften. Munich, 1964. Schuh, Willi. Goethe-Vertonungen: Ein Verzeichnis. Zurich: Artemis, 1952. Schumann, Robert, Dichterliebe, ed. Arthur Komar. Norton Critical Score. New York, 1971. Schwab, Heinrich W. Sangbarkeit, Popularitdt und Kunstlied: Studien zu Lied und Liedasthetik der mittleren Goethezeit 1770-1814. Regensburg, 1965. Seaton, Douglass. The Art Song: A Research and Information Guide. New York, 1987. Seidlin, Oskar. Versuche uber Eichendoiff. Gottingen, 1978. Smeed,J. W. German Song and Its Poetry 1740-1900. London, 1987. Spann, Meno. Heine. New York, 1966. Stahl, E. L. The Oxford Book of German Verse. Oxford, 1967. Staiger, Emil./. W. Goethe: Gedichte. Vol. 1. Zurich, 1949. Stein, Jack M. Poem and Music in the German Lied from Gluck to Hugo Wolf. Cam¬ bridge, MA, 1971. Sternfeld, Frederick W. Goethe and Music. New York, 1979. Stoljar, Margaret Mahony. Poetry and Song in Late Eighteenth-Century Germany: A Study in the Musical Sturm und Drang. London, 1985. Velten, Klaus. “Doppelinterpretation: Richard Dehmels Gedicht ‘Am Ufer’ in Vertonungen von Richard Strauss und Anton Webern.” Musik und Bildung 18 (1986): 464-67. Whitton, Kenneth. “The Lied." In Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau: Mastersinger, 179—255. London, 1981. -. Lieder: An Introduction to German Song. London, 1984. Wilkinson, Elizabeth M. “Goethe’s Poetry.” In Goethe: Poet and Thinker, 20-34. Lon¬ don, 1962. von Wilpert, Gero. Sachworterbuch der Literatur. Stuttgart, 1961.

CHAPTER TWO

Franz Schubert: The Prince of Song Susan Youens

The word lied immediately calls Schubert’s name to mind, prior to Beethoven, Schumann, or anyone else. This is not because of chronologi¬ cal pride of place—there were numerous lied-composing predecessors and contemporaries—or the staggering size of Schubert’s oeuvre—-Johann Friedrich Reichardt, for one, produced an even more elephantine body of songs—but because of the quality of the music and Schubert’s transforma¬ tion of received genres. In his brief creative career, Schubert endowed both the lied and the song cycle with a profundity and a musical complex¬ ity they had lacked until he began “indefatigably” to compose songs.1 Later composers would look to Schubert as their Ur-ancestor, the “Shake¬ speare of song.” Although, as both older and new research demonstrate (Friedlander 1902, Alberti-Radonowicz 1923, and West 1989), Schubert did not spring fully formed from Jove’s head, he overshadowed all others in his passion for poetry and the brilliance with which he transmuted it into music. The sum total of his harmonic originality, his mastery of melodic beauty (or his willingness to abdicate this in the service of musicopoetic revelation), and the depth to which he delved beneath the surface of his chosen verses constitute nothing less than a new aesthetic of the lied (see Capell 1973, Georgiades 1967, L. Kramer 1986, and Reed 1985). Schubert’s wish to modernize the lied implies a certain indebtedness to prior composers, and indeed many relationships link Schubert’s songs with those of his predecessors and contemporaries. For example, at the start of his setting of Goethe’s “Der Fischer” (The Fisherman), the Vien¬ nese composer Anton Eberl (1765-1807) separates almost every syllable of text by rests. Did Schubert know this song and use this particular device 31

Franz Schubert: The Prince of Song

when he set Franz Xaver von Schlechta’s “Widerschein” (Reflection, D. 949) in 1819 or 1820? The parallels between the two poems are obvious: in Goethe’s poem, a fisherman is lured into the ocean by a siren-like mer¬ maid; in Schlechta’s brief poem, a fisherman waits for his beloved on a bridge and stares into the brook. She is hiding in the bushes, and her image is reflected back at him, almost enticing him into the waters. Schlechta both encapsulates Goethe’s famous poem within smaller bound¬ aries and rescues his own poetic persona from a watery death, thus revising Goethe. Schubert, like Eberl, breaks his melodic line—its arpeggiated con¬ tour already a mimicry of Eberl’s—into syllables separated by rests: a musi¬ cal metaphor for suspense and anxious waiting (Ex. 2.1). In the giant ballads of Johann Rudolf Zumsteeg (1760-1802), the young Schubert found a model of tonal audacity and virtuoso writing for the piano (Maier 1971). When, in the middle of August Burger’s “Lenore” of 1797, the grief-stricken protagonist tells her mother that life without her beloved Wilhelm is hell and then prays for death, Zumsteeg dramati¬ cally breaks off the unharmonized C-minor pronouncement about hell and sets the succeeding prayer “Lisch aus, mein Licht, und ewig aus!” (Go out, my light, and forever) in Dl. major. Schubert might have noted for fu¬ ture reference the semitonal jolt upwards. The progressive tonality in these ballads and their episodic form, the sections of alternating recitative, Gluckian arioso, and operatic blood and thunder, were, for Schubert, an invitadon to experiment. Whatever Zumsteeg did, Schubert would outdo (Deutsch 1958, 26-27).* And could Schubert have remembered Reichardt’s setting of Goethe’s “Erlkonig” when he came to compose Matthias Claudius’s “Der Tod und das Madchen” (Death and the Maiden, D. 531) in February 1817? In this declamatory piece (Deklamationsstuck), Death sings his mingled enticements and threats as pianissimo recitation—whis¬ pers within the boy’s fevered mind—mostly on the repeated pitch D, ac¬ companied by block chords that shadow the rhythmic patterns of the vocal part. The elf-king’s words are thus stripped of all human lyricism, ren¬ dered eerily solemn. In Schubert’s song, Death is a raptor of the young and a seducer, if a more comforting one than the apparition in Reichardt’s “Erlkonig,” and sings in similar chantlike tones. Christoph Wolff has proposed Gluck’s Alceste and the cemetery scene of Mozart’s Don Giovanni as influences on “Der Tod und das Madchen,” and the pendant setting of Joseph von Spaun’s “Der Jiingling und der Tod” (The Youth and Death, D. 545), both from March 1817 (Wolff 1982); perhaps Reichardt’s compo¬ sition provided in addition a model from the realm of lieder (Ex. 2.2). Schubert was clearly predisposed to ballad and lied composition from the start. Several of his earliest extant manuscript fragments, probably from

*For a discussion of Zumsteeg’s and Schubert’s related settings of Schiller’s “Die Erwartung” (D. 159), see Fehn 1983, 229-44.

Franz Schubert: The Prince of Song EXAMPLE 2.1a. Anton Eberl, “Der Fischer” Romanze

Franz Schubert: The Prince of Song

EXAMPLE 2.1b. Schubert, “Widerschein” (D. 949)

Langsam, zogernd

ss JrT'J' f • r ^ -pjf-.-- r fp=/ 4): it

r—r g fp-=— fp=I -I -fifi*JVg.-_----a, -4t-;-

i*' fr

_^r«*

L h-^-—fVm ^ ^ s Ft a P 7 ) 7 ■ \7 )7 P p—-a-a±±za^—. ip--P= 1—HP

X k # r*s ^ *

Ham ein

Fi - scher

auf

der

Bru

;

eke,

i-p-n TTi a—1— m J

die Ge-lieb

saumt.

schmoll - end

ft-

Franz Schubert: The Prince of Song Example

2.2. J. F. Reichardt, “Erlkonig” Singstimme

PP t

J’lij Kind,

$ i$

dur - ren

Blatt - em

w-— *-

sau - selt

der

Wind

Willst. fei Pianoforte

e i»P

frjyjvlj' jlj

Kna-be, du

mit

j' 11

jdjjijlj ^Ij JU

mir gehn? mei-ne Toch - ter

sol-len dich

war - ten

schon, mei-ne

K i j ^ i j n id m f l^'r p 7 f 'f p r p r p i

1810, are songs,2 and it was in this medium that he first won public recog¬ nition with his Op. 1, his setting of Goethe’s “Erlkonig,” D. 328, in March 1821.3 Although he did not consider himself solely a song composer,4 he did compose more than six hundred songs in his short life, a feat un¬ matched by any other lied composer. The songs encompass his entire ca¬ reer: “Der Hirt auf dem Felsen,” D. 965, and “Die Taubenpost,” D. 965a, of October 1828 were among his last completed compositions, and there are few periods of his life from which song composition is entirely absent. It was his project to elevate song to the rank of a major genre, and he did so with respect to every known category of song: folklike strophic song, ex¬ tended through-composed songs (Gesange), ballads, and the song cycle. Because Schubert was so prolific, only the merest fraction of his oeu¬ vre can be discussed here. To avoid list-making and meaningless general¬ izations, I discuss the principal characteristics of Schubert’s songs; the poetry; his revisions and multiple settings; and individual songs from sev¬ eral periods. Though the periods are drawn somewhat arbitrarily for the

Franz Schubert: The Prince of Song

sake of convenience, the examples nevertheless reflect important divisions of Schubert’s songwriting life: the miraculous song year of 1815; the years 1817-21; the special year of brilliance 1822; and the period between the two cycles (Die schone Mullerin D. 795 and Winterreise D. 911). Although much is omitted, I compensate by directing attention to worthy if less wellknown songs and to Schubert’s protean word-tone relationships, in which so much of the pleasure and the power of Schubert’s songs reside.

Traits of Schubertian Song One aspect of Schubert’s project to modernize the lied was to remove it in part from the realm of amateur performers. Although Schubert could and did compose simple strophic lieder im Volkston (in folk song style) and composed almost one hundred such songs between 1814 and mid-1816, (on this facility see Allen 1989, Frisch 1986, Mainka 1957, and Schnapper 1937), many of his songs far exceed the average technical demands of his day, except in ballad composition; even in balladry, he outdid his peers. As a Leipzig cridc wrote, the piano part “is very rarely mere accompaniment” in Schubert’s lieder (Deutsch 1946, 718), and the accompaniments he de¬ vised for such powerful songs as Goethe’s “An Schwager Kronos” (To Coachman Chronos, D. 369) and Johann Mayrhofer’s “Auflosung” (Disso¬ lution, D. 807) were not for the inept. Even the “easier accompaniment” (leichterer Begleitung) he provided for “Erlkonig” in its third version is sur¬ passingly difficult. Nor did he spare the singer. He liked uncomfortably high tessituras, a predilection that occasionally impelled requests for trans¬ position from his publishers: the setting of Johann Mayrhofer’s “Die Sternennachte” (The Starry Nights), D. 670 of 1819, was published as Op. 165, No. 2, transposed down to Bt major from its original key of Dt major, in which the vocal line is indeed poised high above the earth.5 Another frequent Schubertian trait is onomatopeia, or descriptive music. Although word-painting has occasionally drawn fire from oppo¬ nents of programmatic elements in music, Schubert’s onomatopeia is never an end unto itself. Each instance is explicable both in purely musical terms and as a depiction of external phenomena cited by the poet, or of emotional states. For example, the sixteenth-note breeze that rises from the bass in the piano introduction to Marianne von Willemer’s “Suleika I,” D. 720, heralding Suleika’s initial questions “What does this motion sig¬ nify? Does the East Wind bring me glad tidings?” includes the dominantseventh chord of C major, unexplained until later in the song when, to the same harmony, she bids the airy messenger depart (Ex. 2.3). The bell tolling midnight in Schubert’s setting of Johann Mayrhofer’s “Gondelfahrer” (The Gondolier, D. 808, mm. 24-29), is both the consequence of the harmonic progression in the piano introduction (tVI—I) and a charac¬ teristic patch of word-painting (Ex. 2.4). Similarly, the grace-note figures

Franz Schubert: The Prince of Song Example 2.3. “Suleika I” (D. 720)

& Was be

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tet

die

gung?

$ m

p-p—p-

Franz Schubert: The Prince of Song

EXAMPLE 2.4. “Gondelfahrer” (D. 808) 21

Franz Schubert: The Prince of Song

in the piano introduction and postlude of the setting of Friedrich von Schlegel’s “Der Schmetterling” (The Butterfly, D. 633) simultaneously es¬ tablish the F-major tonality and depict the butterfly’s darting up and down. The perfect fourths and fifths also foreshadow the bagpipe-like country dance strains of the song proper: “Why should I not dance?,” the butterfly asks, to rustic figuration.6 In an especially witty instance of poetic depiction, the pianist in Goethe’s “Der Sanger,” D. 149, “sings” a minia¬ ture Mozartian piano sonata while the minstrel of the song’s title com¬ ments on the listeners’ astonishment in the vocal line. Schubert’s contemporaries recognized that his word-painting was more meaningful than most: a critic in 1828 praised him for going beyond the mere imita¬ tion of sounds to make the listener aware of “higher things in these im¬ pressions” (Deutsch 1977, 759). As a student in the Royal Seminary, Schubert had been enamored of Gluck’s operas, and he not only made many attempts to garner fame as an opera composer but incorporated operatic elements into many of his songs. He even experimented in August 1815 with the fusion of small strophic song with operatic style: his setting of Gabriele von Baumberg’s “Der Morgenkuss,” D. 264, is a mere nine measures in length but other¬ wise resembles an aria in style. His reverence for Mozart’s operas is evident when he cites the duet “Konnte jeder brave Mann” from Die Zauberflote at the beginning of his setting of Goethe’s “Heidenroslein” (Wild Rose, D. 257), one of several Mozartian reminiscences (Sams 1978). More com¬ monly, Schubert interjects recitative into song, as in his third setting of Friedrich von Matthisson’s “Der Geistertanz” (The Ghost’s Dance, D. 116) of October 1814; at m. 13, Schubert breaks off the f dance strains (the faintly Baroque dotted rhythms remind us that these are specters from the past) to ask “Why do the dogs whimper beside their sleeping masters?” in dramatic recitative style. Perhaps the most famous example of recitative in lied was also composed that same month: the end of “Erlkonig,” when the horror of the song’s denouement is heightened by the sole recitative phrase. There are even songs almost entirely in recitative, such as Schu¬ bert’s two settings of Friedrich Klopstock’s “Die Sommernacht” (The Sum¬ mer Night, D. 289). Of the piece’s fewer than 30 measures, only 6 are purely songlike; Schubert thus toys with the very definition of lied. Although Schubert’s musical language throughout his life was founded on Classical form and function, he was also recognized in his own day as one of the most original, even visionary, of new composers in his tonal language. The dialectic between the two tendencies is perhaps the fundamental hallmark of his songs. Contemporary critics often referred, disapprovingly, to Schubert’s radical harmonic language, his “disordered and purposeless musical modulation and side-tracking” or the “unwar¬ rantably strong inclination to modulate again and again, with neither rest nor respite, which is a veritable disease of our time and threatens to grow into a modulation-mania” (Deutsch 1946, 166, 355). Others were more

Franz Schubert: The Prince of Song

positively impressed. In a review of a performance by the great soprano Anna Milder of Schubert’s songs in June 1825, the critic of the Berlinische Zeitung calls Schubert “a thoughtful song composer, fond of modulation” (Deutsch 1946, 421). He was indeed fond of radical harmonic gestures of many kinds. Sudden semitone shifts both upward and downward, such as one finds in “Auf dem FluBe” (On the Riverbank) in Winterreise, would not become commonplace until the last quarter of the century, and Schubert s use of progressive tonality (ending in a different key from the beginning) also belongs to the later era of Liszt and Wagner. The episodic construc¬ tion of ballads often led to conclusion in a key other than the opening tonality, but such practice in a lied, for example, Goethe’s “Ganymed,’ D. 544, of 1817, was rare; the ascent to a different tonal plane serves here as a metaphor for the youth’s apotheosis. Schubert’s setting of Mayrhofer’s gloomy, powerful “Auf der Donau” (On the Danube, D. 553) of 1817 be¬ gins in El. major, ends in FI minor, and articulates Cl> major in the middle, going against convention and transforming the listener’s tonal expecta¬ tions for three-part song form (Denny 1989). The more irate reviewers could perhaps be forgiven their bewilderment or anger when confronted with such harmonically original songs as “Freiwilliges Versinken” (Volun¬ tary Oblivion, D. 700) of 1817 (?), “Du liebst mich nicht” (You do not love me, D. 756) of 1822, and “DaB sie hier gewesen” (That she has been here, D. 775) (Muxfeldt 1991, 55-70). Another signature element of Schubert’s harmonic language is his fondness for mediant relationships, especially common-tone modulations. In lieder, sudden tonal shifts are often emblematic of removal from one sphere to another, whether from night to day, from waking consciousness to dreams, or from present experience to memory. One example occurs in his setting of the twelfth stanza of Friedrich Schiller’s ode “Die Gotter Griechenlands” (The Gods of Greece, D. 677) of November 1819, express¬ ing the essence of longing for the “grandeur that was Greece;” Schubert, a schoolmaster’s son, was drawn to mythological themes for many of his lieder. From the pantheon of gods and goddesses in this poem, Schubert selected a single stanza in which the poetic speaker laments for a lost springtime world of fable; Schiller’s preoccupation with the transience of beauty and the evanescent nature of life are all the more intense for the lack of context. The song is framed on either side by the yearning question “Schone Welt, wo bist du?” (Fair world, where are you?) in A minor, fol¬ lowed by the plea “Return again” in the parallel major. When the speaker realizes in m. 15 that only in song does the “magic land” live on, FI is toni¬ cized as the tonal emblem of the enchanted realm—so near and yet so far in tonal terms. In another example, B major at the beginning and end of Matthaus von Collin’s “Nacht und Traume” (Night and Dreams, D. 827) of 1822 (?), one of Schubert’s most beautiful songs, is the tonality of dusk and dawn, or of night’s arrival and departure at the beginning and end of the poem, whereas the G-major chords of mm. 15-19 are emblematic of full immersion in “holy Night” (heil’ge Nacht) (Ex. 2.5).

Franz Schubert: The Prince of Song EXAMPLE 2.5. “Nacht und Traume” (D. 827) 13

Franz Schubert: The Prince of Song

In “Die Gotter Griechenlands” one also finds the use of contrasting parallel major and minor keys (Kindermann 1986), one of Schubert’s fa¬ vorite devices. In the songs, the minor mode often symbolizes tragedy, whereas the major represents bygone happiness, the antithesis of dark and light keys that share the same tonic underscoring their kinship. One exam¬ ple from Schubert’s last years is all the more moving for the restraint with which the contrast is used. In “Das Lied im Griinen” (Song of the Green¬ wood, D. 917) of 1827, to a text by Friedrich Reil (1773-1843), the one touch of the parallel minor occurs at the words “Grunt einst uns das Leben nicht fiirder” (When, one day, life no longer blossoms for us, mm. 141-44)—not the first but the second time those words are sung, as if fur¬ ther reflection had brought out their inherent darkness (Ex. 2.6). The minor mode is coupled with rhythmic augmentation in the left-hand part, in contrast to the walking bass that prevails elsewhere in the song; the invo¬ cation of old age and approaching death is sufficient to slow the previous motion. Reil’s poem is a meditation on memories of a bygone youth spent reading “Horace and Plato, then Wieland and Kant” in the countryside, memories to sweeten old age (one notes with amusement the proper pro¬ gression of the Latin and Greek classics first, followed by German litera¬ ture and philosophy). Taking his cue from Reil, Schubert refuses to allow more than one telling hint of the darkness of inevitable death, returning seamlessly to A major and the earlier quarter-note motion in the bass. The pastoral achieves its fullest meaning in the underlying awareness of dark¬ ness, and the A major at the end shines all the brighter for the one touch of minor. Of Schubert’s melodies, his friend Leopold von Sonnleithner said that their beauty was “an independent, purely musical one . . . even though it follows these [the words] closely in every respect and always interprets the poet’s feeling profoundly” (Deutsch 1958, 337-38). Friedrich Schlegel’s words in the little-known masterpiece “Der Flub” (The River, D. 693) about “pure song” (rein Gesang)—flowing, curling, transforming, holding the listener enraptured—impelled from Schubert a particularly beautiful example of “pure song” (Ex. 2.7); music itself is the subject in this lied. But Schubert was willing to abnegate conventional melodic beauty in the ser¬ vice of harsher poetic expression, as in his setting of August Graf von Platen-Hallermunde’s “Du liebst mich nicht” (You do not love me, D. 756), in which the poetic persona writhes in Wagnerian chromatic anguish and repeats “You do not love me” to a cadential figure (Agawu 1989). The unbearable fact of ending is thus driven home in self-flagellating fashion. If Hector Berlioz’s famous comment that he valued Schubert’s music be¬ cause it “contains nothing of what certain people call melody” is somewhat perverse, there is also an element of truth in it. Other typical traits include Schubert’s fondness for the German and Neapolitan sixth-chords,7 his characteristically rich pianistic textures, his frequent use of a single unifying figuration in the piano throughout a

Franz Schubert: The Prince of Song

EXAMPLE 2.6. “Das Lied im Grunen” (D. 917)

133

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Franz Schubert: The Prince of Song

Example 2.7. “Der FluB” (D. 693)

Langsam

Franz Schubert: The Prince of Song

song, and his practice of stating the principal musical material in the piano introduction. The most important hallmark of all, however, is the close poetico-musical correladon. Where Schubert is at his best, both the larger architecture and the smaller details closely reflect his interpreta¬ tion of the poet’s verse. When he sounds nothing but the tonic D-minor chord for the first six measures of Goethe’s “Gretchen am Spinnrade” (Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel, D. 118), followed by the chord of the flatted seventh degree (C major), a diminished-seventh harmony disso¬ nant with the continued pedal on C, and a return to D minor, he conveys the violent atmosphere in which this poisoned love will play out its course. Also characteristic is the mingling of descriptive and psychological wordpainting: the spinning-wheel figuration in the right hand “spins” restlessly about the third of the tonic chord, not its root, in a manner suggestive of an idee fixe as well as of the circular motion of the wheel. In another example, Franz Xaver von Schlechta’s “Totengraber-Weise” (Gravedigger’s Air, D. 869) of 1826, Schubert creates great tension between the chorale model whose conventions he adopts—rhythmic squareness, rigidly symmetrical phrase structure, largely syllabic text setting, blockchordal texture for the piano—and a radical tonal design. The gravedigger who sings this song reassures those he buries that death is not final: even as the body becomes the prey of worms and turns to dust, the sendent heart lives on until resurrection. In Schubert’s symbolism, Death in FI minor shares the same tonic, the same structural pitches, with the assurance of res¬ urrection in FI major—they are opposite sides of the same coin—yet there is no resting place on either one. Even the ending sounds unstable, suscep¬ tible to still more change after the final bar, because the tonal shifts that prevail throughout the song continue in the postlude.8 Schubert creates a new variant of an antique structural premise: the rigidity of the design and the pervasive chromaticism are symbolic of death’s all-inclusiveness and mystery. If Schubert does not touch upon all chords and keys, there are more than enough harmonic shifts to make the tonal symbolism apparent (Ex. 2.8). Furthermore, he goes between different registral levels—high, middle, and low—throughout the song, which thus traverses the planes of the grave, the middle earth of the living, and paradise. Every detail mirrors Schlechta’s insistence that death is not cessation of life but continued mo¬ tion and metamorphosis en route to heaven. The song is a demonstration of the essential Schubertian art of lieder: myriad compositional decisions closely reflect the poetic text, but in the language of music.

Schubert and Poetry Although critics in the 1820s and 1830s praised Schubert’s choice of poetry, twentieth-century scholars have found cause for complaint. There is no denying that some of the unidentified poems, such as “Wiegenlied”

Franz Schubert: The Prince of Song

Example 2.8. “Totengraber-Weise” (D. 869)

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Franz Schubert: The Prince of Song

(Cradle Song, D. 498), or the poetry by amateur versifiers in Schubert’s circle are negligible. Schubert could and did fashion beautiful songs from mediocre poems whose images appealed to him; his setting of Friedrich Leopold Graf zu Stolberg-Stolberg’s “Auf dem Wasser zu singen” (To Be Sung on the Water, D. 774) is one example. However, Eduard Bauernfeld (1802-90), a writer and member of the Schubert circle, thought highly of Schubert’s literary sensibilities: “In literature, too, he was anything but un¬ versed,” he wrote, concluding that “a man who so understands the poets is himself a poet” (Deutsch 1958, 230). Another of Schubert’s friends, Anselm Huttenbrenner (1794—1868), recalls the composer’s saying that, with a good poem, “one immediately gets a good idea; melodies pour in so that it is a real joy. With a bad poem one can’t make any headway; one tor¬ ments oneself over it and nothing comes of it but boring rubbish” (Deutsch 1958, 182-83). Schubert set fifty-nine poems by Goethe and thirty-two by Schiller, many in multiple versions. While he may not have been the first to discover how apt Wilhelm Muller’s (1794-1827) poems were for music, he did so soon after their publication and with immortal results. But if Schubert was voracious in his appetite for poetry, and atten¬ tive to poetic nuance, he was not averse to editing the poems he set in order to render them more “composable.”9 One of the most drastic exam¬ ples shows Schubert omitting over half of Mayrhofer’s “Erlafsee” (Lake Erlaf) for his 1817 setting, D. 586, fundamentally altering the poem. Schu¬ bert omits everything enigmatic in Mayrhofer’s poem (such as a “Feenbild” who weeps and a river that will finally submerge a sawmill—Nature victorious over industrial encroachments), leaving only the lyrical descrip¬ tion of the lake at sunset and the half-melancholy, half-peaceful effect of its beauty on the poetic persona.10 Schubert’s songs span the literary gamut from eighteenth-century Sturm und Drang and Anacreontic and pre-Romantic verse, to Romanticism and those poets such as Wilhelm Muller and Heinrich Heine who went be¬ yond their Romantic forebears. He began by inheriting the poets of Mozart’s generation. Gabriele von Baumberg (1766-1839), known as the “Sappho of Vienna,” wrote the text of Mozart’s lied “Als Luise die Briefe ihres unvertrauten Liebhabers verbrannt” (As Luise Burned the Letters of her Unfaithful Lover, K. 520) and inspired five completed songs and one fragment from Schubert. Gotthard Ludwig Kosegarten (1758-1818), a mentor and friend to the artists Philipp Otto Runge and Caspar David Friedrich, was a favorite with Austrian and German song composers, and Schubert joined the procession of Kosegarten composers with twenty strophic songs composed between June and October 1815, plus a single more complex creation in May 1817, “An die untergehende Sonne” (To the Setting Sun, D. 457). The poetry of Friedrich von Matthisson (1761-1831) was similarly popular with song composers in Schubert’s day for its sentimentality and elegance, and Schubert’s twenty-nine settings of Matthisson, mostly composed in 1814-16, constitute an important stage in

Franz Schubert: The Prince of Song

his development as a composer. Matthisson’s friend the Swiss poetjohann Gaudenz von Salis-Seewis (1762-1834) inspired twelve songs in 1816-17 and a masterpiece, “Der Jungling an der Quelle” (The Youth by the Stream, D. 300), perhaps composed in 1821 (Youens 1989). In 1813-16, Schubert also set twenty-three songs to poems by Ludwig Holty (1748-76), a founding member of the proto-Romantic poets called the Gottinger Hainbund; these include “An den Mond: Geuss, lieber Mond” (To the Moon: Pour, dear moon, D. 193), one of Schubert’s loveliest early songs. Friedrich Gotdieb Klopstock (1742-1803), who left spellbound an entire generation of writers by making, in Schiller’s phrase, “everything lead up to the infinite,” was a source for thirteen Schubert songs in 1815-16, including the gem-like “Das Rosenband” (The Rosy Ribbon, D. 280). Matthias Claudius (1740-1815) also inspired thirteen songs, eleven of them composed between November 1816 and February 1817, including three extraordinary songs: “An die Nachtigall” (To the Nightingale, D. 497), “Am Grabe Anselmos” (At Anselmo’s Grave, D. 504), and “Der Tod und das Madchen” (Death and the Maiden, D. 531). In the realm of ballad composition, the fashion for Ossian settings in Schubert’s youth is apparent in his nine Ossian ballads composed between June 1815 and February 1816 (Kinsey 1973). These tales, supposedly writ¬ ten by the blind Gaelic bard Ossian, were actually a notorious literary fraud: James MacPherson (1736-96), a Scotsman obsessed with Scottish nationalism, invented a Gaelic challenger to Homer and insisted on the antique authenticity of the works long after the hue and cry had been raised concerning their contemporary origins. In 1815, Schubert was still attracted to ballad composition and had rediscovered Goethe, whose char¬ acter Werther is a passionate devotee of Ossian. The popularity of this po¬ etry was still so great in the 1820s that Anton Diabelli began the publication by installments of the Schubert Nachlass in July 1830 with the Ossian ballads. However, Schubert soon outgrew the poetic repertoire of his youth, including poets such as Johann Georg Jacobi (1740-1814), although the cluster of seven Jacobi songs in August and September 1816 includes the justly famous “Litanei auf das Fest aller Seelen” (Litany for the Feast of All Souls, D. 343) and the dramatic scena “Lied des Orpheus (als er in die Holle ging)” (Song of Orpheus as He Went Into Hades, D. 474; see Wing 1993). Schubert and his friends were particularly devoted to the two giants of the era, Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805) and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832). David Gramit has even speculated that the Dioscurii, or twin stars, in Mayrhofer’s “Lied eines Schiffers an die Dioskuren” (Song of a Sailor to the Dioscurii, D. 360), are Goethe and Schiller, to whom the reverent sailor-poet dedicates the rudder by which he steers his course (Gramit 1987, 54-55). Schiller’s aesthetic concepts were important to the youthful Schubert’s circle of friends, and the first true lied, rather than an extended ballade, that can be securely dated is his setting of Schiller’s

Franz Schubert: The Prince of Song

“Der Jiingling am Bache” (The Youth at the Brook, D. 30) of September 1812, recast three days later in the minor mode; in 1819, he returned to the same poem and set it twice more. Perhaps because Schiller’s poetry at times lacks the kind of sensual imagery, rhythm, or motion that most easily quickened Schubert’s musical imagination, the composer set seven of the Schiller poems two and even three times in an attempt to capture the right tone (Johnson 1993b). He did not even complete his first attempt to set “Gruppe aus dem Tartarus” in 1816 (Brown 1954) but returned to the poem a year and a half later, composing perhaps the most magnificent of the Schiller songs.11 The poem begins “Horch!” (listen), and there are sounds and images aplenty to inspire music: the rivers of Hades forced through hollow rocks; the groans and sighs of the dead souls; and eternity sweeping in circles over their heads. Schubert’s Schiller songs span the gamut from mammoth ballads such as “Der Taucher” (The Diver, D. 77), to small, insouciant poems like “An den Fruhling” (To Spring, D. 283 and 587), to the astonishing chromatic harmonies of “Der Pilgrim” (The Pil¬ grim, D. 794); there is no one “Schiller style,” any more than there is a sin¬ gle “Goethe style” for such variegated poetic oeuvres. Goethe was a greater catalyst for stylistic experiment on Schubert’s part, despite the conservative Viennese literati’s faint mistrust of the great writer. Goethe imposed a unity of dominant concerns on a massive body of work, heterogeneous in style and form; he found a way of experiencing and writing in which the thing experienced is always infused with the emo¬ tions of the experiencing subject and is therefore rendered symbolic. It seems to have been the seventeen-year-old Schubert’s discovery of poetry in general, and of Goethe in particular, that was the catalyst for the “song year” 1815, which actually began with “Gretchen am Spinnrade” in Octo¬ ber 1814. If Schubert’s attraction to Goethe dwindled over the years (twenty-eight settings in 1815, one in 1824, four in 1826, and none in the last two years of his life), this poet was nonetheless the inspiration for many of the composer’s greatest songs, including “Schafers Klagelied,” D. 121; “Rastlose Liebe,” D. 138; “Meeresstille,” D. 216; “An den Mond,” D. 296; “Wandrers Nachtlied,” D. 224 and D. 768; “Auf dem See,” D. 543; “Ganymed,” D. 544; the “Harfenspieler” songs D. 478, 479, and 480; “Geheimes,” D. 719; and “Der Musensohn,” D. 764. Unfortunately, Goethe was not impressed. Schubert’s friends prepared two manuscript collections of songs in 1816 and sent one of them to the great poet; it was sent back without acknowledgement (Durr 1978). Nine years later, Schubert tried again, sending the Goethe songs of his Op. 19 (“An Schwager Kronos,” “An Mignon,” and “Ganymed”) to the poet and asking for permission to dedicate the opus to him. Goethe did not reply. Schubert’s friends included both professional and amateur poets whose works he set to music. The most notable of those collaborations was with Johann Baptist Mayrhofer (1787-1836), one of the principal intellec¬ tual influences on Schubert in his late teens and early twenties. Of the

Franz Schubert: The Prince of Song

forty-seven Schubert songs to texts by this pessimistic poet, both neoclassi¬ cal and proto-Expressionist in his enigmatic, idiosyncratic symbolism, al¬ most all are among the composer’s best; “Sehnsucht” (Longing, D. 516), “Fahrt zum Hades” (Journey to Hades, D. 526), “Memnon,” D. 541, “Einsamkeit” (Loneliness, D. 620), “Die Sternennachte” (Starry Nights, D. 670), “Der Sieg” (The Victory, D. 805), and “Abendstern” (Evening Star, D. 806), are among the many masterpieces from the Mayrhofer songs. Another writer among Schubert’s friends was Johann Gabriel Seidl (1804—75), a more conventional poet than Mayrhofer; although Schubert once re¬ turned some poems to Seidl, complaining that there was “nothing of music” in them, he found wonderful music in such poems as “Im Freien” (In the Open, D. 880), “Sehnsucht” (Longing, D. 879), “Der Wanderer an den Mond” (The Wanderer’s Address to the Moon, D. 870), and “Am Fenster” (At the Window, D. 878), all composed in March 1826 (Schubert had a propensity all his life to compose songs to one poet at a time). Schubert would return to Seidl in 1828 to compose the Vier Refrainlieder, D. 866, and “Die Taubenpost,” D. 965a, published as the final song in Schxoanengesang, D. 957. Others in the Schubert circle were amateur poets who inspired a number of significant lieder. Franz Seraph Ritter von Bruchmann (1798-1867), the son of a wealthy merchant, wrote the poetry for the beautiful “Am See” (On the Lake, D. 746) and “Schwestergruss” (Sister’s Greeting, D. 762); Franz von Schober (1796-1882), a wealthy, somewhat dissolute dilettante, provided the poems for “Am Bach im Friihling” (At the Stream in Springtime, D. 361) and the famous “An die Musik” (To Music, D. 547). The songs to texts by Franz Xaver von Wssehrd Schlechta (1796-1875), a government employee and occasional poet, include the charming “Fischerweise” (Fisherman’s Song, D. 881) and “Liebeslauschen” (Serenade, D. 698). In 1822 Schubert attended the literary salons of the writer Caroline Pichler (1769-1843), who wrote “Der Ungliickliche” (The Unhappy One, D. 713). At her salon Schubert met the Viennese professor of philosophy, playwright, and literary critic Matthaus von Collin (1779-1824), closely associated with the Viennese Romantics and poet of three of Schubert’s best songs: “Der Zwerg” (The Dwarf, D. 771), “Wehmut” (Melancholy, D. 772), and “Nacht und Traume,” D. 827, as well as the brilliant aria “Herrn Josef Spaun, Assessor in Linz (Epistel)” (To Joseph von Spaun, Taxman in Linz, D. 749). Spaun, one of Schubert’s oldest friends, had left for Linz in 1821 and had not written, so Schubert and his friends reproached him with a delightful spoof in best Rossini style. In the last years of his life, Schubert discovered still other poets for song composition, including Ernst Schulze (1789-1817), whose Poetisches Tagebuch (Verse Diary) was the source for ten songs composed in 1825-26. The unhappy Schulze, obsessed by unrequited love for two sisters,

Franz Schubert: The Prince of Song

recorded his delusions and sufferings in poems such as the powerful “Uber Wildemann” (Overlooking Wildemann, D. 884), premonitory of Winterreise, and “An mein Herz” (To my Heart, D. 860). Schubert’s mastery of varied strophic design is evident in one of his best-loved songs, also from Schulze’s Poetisches Tagebuch: “Im Friihling” (In Spring, D. 882), whose melody is reminiscent of the theme-and-variations movement of Schubert’s Symphony No. 2 in B[„ D. 125 and of a love-duet from his Singspiel Die Freunde von Salamanka D. 326 (Johnson 1993a). The year after the Schulze songs, Schubert rediscovered the poetry of Karl Gottfried von Leitner (1800-1890) through his friends the Pachler family in Graz; he had already set Leitner’s “Drang in die Feme,” D. 770, in 1823, and now returned to the Styrian poet to set six more lieder, including the ex¬ quisite barcarolle “Des Fischers Liebesgliick” (Fisherman’s Happiness in Love, D. 933) and “Der Winterabend” (The Winter Evening, D. 938; see Feil 1991 and Seebass 1990), which Graham Johnson rightly characterizes as “one of the great song achievements of Schubert’s final year” (Johnson 1992a). The ten songs to texts by Ludwig Rellstab (1799-1860) also belong to the last year: according to both Beethoven’s amanuensis Anton Schindler and Rellstab himself, the poems came to Schubert from Beethoven’s Nachlass. The seven songs published in the compilation Schwanengesang D. 957 in 1829 include the powerful “Aufenthalt” (Resting Place) and “In der Feme” (Far Away)—the latter an anti-litany in which an alienated wanderer pronounces not a blessing but a curse upon himself— as well as one of the most famous of all serenades, “Standchen” and the last of Schubert’s “brook songs” and spring songs: “Liebesbotschaft” (Love’s Message) and “Fruhlingssehnsucht” (Spring Longing). Of the re¬ maining Rellstab songs, “Auf dem Strom” (On the River, D. 943) for tenor, piano, and horn was possibly composed in Beethoven’s memory and first performed on 26 March 1828, on the first anniversary of Beethoven’s death (Hallmark 1982; Solomon 1979; Durrl979). The autograph manuscript of Schubert’s six songs to poems by Hein¬ rich Heine is dated August 1828, but there is reason to believe that Schu¬ bert began their composition earlier, perhaps with the initial intent of forming a cycle (R. Kramer 1985 and 1994). The texts were taken from a sequence of poems entitled Die Heimkehr (The Return Home), first pub¬ lished in part 1 of the Reisebilder (Travel Scenes) in 1826, then in the Buch der Lieder in 1827. In these early poems, Heine used the folksong forms he learned from Wilhelm Muller, the poet of the Schubert song cycles, and employed various Romantic ideas to often anti-Romantic ends. His corro¬ sive irony was new to German lyric poetry, and his vivid imagery appealed to composers throughout the century, with Schubert in the vanguard. Both these songs and Winterreise—the two sets are similar in many ways— compel one to wonder what could have followed such radical creations, far in advance of their time, had Schubert lived longer. Among the many pow-

Franz Schubert: The Prince of Song

erful passages in these songs, harbingers of Schubert’s last year, are the un¬ harmonized Bts at the beginning of “Ihr Bild” (Her Picture)—which Reed (1985, 261) characterized as a gesture of “runic precision” and Heinrich Schenker as a tonal analogue for the act of staring (Schenker 1921; Ker¬ man 1962)—as well as the fully accomplished fusion of lied and recitative in the declamatory vocal writing of “Der Doppelganger” (The Spectral Double) and the mysterious introduction to “Die Stadt” (The Town) whose expressionistically repeated diminished-seventh chord is never resolved.

Schubert Revising Schubert At least 113 songs exist in more than one version (Hollander 1928 and Flothuis 1982), providing ample evidence of this hardworking com¬ poser’s critical attitude toward his compositions and his willingness to pro¬ vide new versions for particular singers. Far from composing like a sleepwalker, as the erroneous myth about Schubert’s creative processes would have one believe, he felt compelled to revise his music in myriad ways. These ranged from slight alterations of detail—for example, the only changes Schubert made to the second version of Schiller’s “An den Friihling,” D. 283, was a transposition from Bt to A major and a slightly altered ending—to the entirely new setting of a given text. The distinctions be¬ tween alternative versions are not always clear; for example, the so-called second version of Goethe’s “Meeresstille,” D. 216, is best characterized as an extensive revision rather than a new, independent composition (Jackson 1991). In contrast, the November 1815 version of the Harper’s song “Wer sich der Einsamkeit ergiebt” (Whoever Surrenders Himself to Lone¬ liness), from Goethe’s Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre has only its A-minor tonal¬ ity in common with the two September 1816 settings of the same text. One of the most striking examples of Schubert’s returning to the same poetry many times is the Mignon song “Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt” (Only One Who Knows Longing), also from Wilhelm Meister. Both the adolescent Mignon and her companion, the elderly Harper—later re¬ vealed to be her father as the result of an unknowingly incestuous union with his sister—are haunting creatures who symbolize the power of Ro¬ mantic poetry to cast a magic veil over a squalid existence. In this enig¬ matic work, whose echoes of Old Testament language are all the more powerful for its brevity, Goethe depicts isolation and suffering so intense that it throws the mind into turmoil. Schubert first set the poem on 18 Oc¬ tober 1815 in At major, then wrote a more elaborate version in F major the same day. (Both are numbered D. 310 and are entitled “Sehnsucht,” Long¬ ing.) The following year, Schubert set the poem two more times, once in D minor under the title “Lied der Mignon” (D. 359)12 and again in A minor

Franz Schubert: The Prince of Song

in September 1816 with the title “Sehnsucht” (D. 481). Three years later, he returned to the poem and set it in E major for two tenors and three basses (D. 656), and again in January 1826 (or possibly 1827) as the duet in B minor “Mignon und der Harfner,” (D. 877/1). (In the novel, Goethe describes Wilhelm’s overhearing the pair singing this poem as a duet, in a strange language that Wilhelm could only imperfectly transcribe.) Schu¬ bert was evidently reluctant to compose the duet and did so at the request of the publisher, but it is nevertheless a masterpiece. At the same time, he also composed his last solo version of the song, the “Lied der Mignon” D. 877/4. The second setting of a text is sometimes a virtual repudiation of the first, as is the case with the two settings of Theodor Korner’s “Sangers Morgenlied” (Minstrel’s Aubade, D. 163 and 165) of 27 February and 1 March 1815 (Johnson 1989). The first version is a buoyant greeting to the sun in G major, with energetic melismas propelling the vocal phrases forward at strategic points. Schubert took his point of departure from the first stanza, in which the poetic persona ecstatically greets the sun, whose light is “breaking victoriously through the night.” But the word “Ach” (Ah) at the beginning of stanza 2 is the signal for a change of tone and greater gravity. Schubert ignored the “Sehnsucht” (yearning) awakened by the arrival of day in the second verse and set the subsequent ponderings on the soul’s striving to the merry strains of the first verse, words and music now being at odds with one another. Perhaps disturbed by the discrepancy, Schubert returned to Korner’s poem two days later in order to compose a setting in which the musical atmosphere derives from the second stanza, not the first, and therefore reflects the greater part of the poem. This second ver¬ sion, marked Langsam and in a far more reverential mood, is a foreshad¬ owing of mm. 16-21 of “MorgengruB” (Morning Greeting) from Die schone Mullerin (D. 795) of 1823, at the words “So muB ich wieder gehen” (So I must go away). The latter’s morning mise-en-scene and mood of yearning might have suggested the harmonic, motivic, figurational, and rhythmic resemblances to the song composed eight years earlier. Schubert occasionally used music composed earlier to one poem as the basis for a setting of another poem by a different poet. In October 1815, Schubert composed three little-known but beautiful songs to poems by Josef Ludwig Stoll (1778-1815) a physician’s son and journalist who had died the previous January: “Lambertine,” D. 301; “Labetrank der Liebe” (Love’s Reviving Potion, D. 302), whose distant echoes of Zerlina’s “Vedrai carino” seem appropriate; and “An die Geliebte” (To the Beloved, D. 303). This last is tenderly erotic, the lover drinking his beloved’s tears in a symbolic evocation of lovemaking (Heine would use the same symbol¬ ism to more corrosive effect in “Am Meer,” one of six Heine songs set by Schubert). The poem ends with the ecstatic-melancholy recognition that the lover assumes the beloved’s sorrows as well as the rapture of love. In

Franz Schubert: The Prince of Song

November 1816, Schubert set Matthias Claudius’s “An die Nachtigall” (To the Nightingale, D. 497); the resemblances between the two poems are ob¬ vious but the gender is reversed, a male persona speaking in Stoll’s poem, a female in Claudius’s. The point of view is reversed as well, Claudius’s poem presenting a charming depiction of female experience, in which the woman takes delight in her return to herself, to a regained individuality, after love-making. Her love for the sleeping man by her side is not ques¬ tioned—he is Amor or Love itself—but she has her own guardian spirit and her own capacity for delight apart from eroticism. “To the Nightin¬ gale” is a plea for Nature’s foremost symbol of love to be silent. Schubert alters the beginning of “An die Geliebte” to respond to the greater psychological depth of “An die Nachtigall.” The earlier song lacks a piano introduction, and the right-hand part in mm. 1-8 doubles the vocal melody, its interlocking descending thirds a variant of what would later become Brahms’s “Death” motive for the “little death” of love. When Schubert repeats the first four measures of “An die Geliebte” as the piano introduction to “An die Nachtigall,” he refines it with more chromatic ges¬ tures and extends the phrase to culminate in a cadence on tonic. One imagines the lover drowsily drifting toward sleep throughout the introduc¬ tion, his eyes finally closing with the arrival at tonic; there is no cadence on the tonic in “An die Geliebte” until the end of the texted strophe. When the texted body of the song begins, the poetic persona tells us that her beloved has gone to sleep. This is to a repetition of the same music, includ¬ ing the descending chromatic figure in mm. 5-6, that gives the introduc¬ tion a languid erotic aura. In a characteristic detail of interpretive prosody, Schubert varies the melodic line from mm. 5-8 of “An die Geliebte” to em¬ phasize the poetic persona’s gratitude to her guardian angel, who has sung the beloved to sleep. This is accomplished through a grace-note an¬ ticipation (m. 18) that produces a touch of Schwungjust right for the senti¬ ment (Ex. 2.9a). Since in some contemporary associations of music with gender the subdominant was considered feminine and the dominant masculine, the subdominant emphases in “An die Geliebte” may be emblematic of the woman’s presence, and mm. 22-29 of “An die Nachtigall” (Ex. 2.9b) acquire an added significance. Harmonically, this passage to the words “Und ich kann frohlich sein und scherzen. / Kann Jeder Blum’ undjedes Blatt’s mich freu’n” is a simple IV-V-I progression in which the subdomi¬ nant that is her emblem is elaborated by its dominant. The jauntiness of the dotted rhythmic patterns, entirely absent from “An die Geliebte,” and the quickened prosodic pace will make any listener smile, and the refusal of strong cadential closure is tantamount to a declaration that she will not drift off to sleep as he has done. The vocal line stays poised on and around the dominant pitch (D) throughout mm. 24-34, not descending to the tonic pitch until the last syllable—another indication of a poetic persona

Franz Schubert: The Prince of Song

Example 2.9a. “An die Geliebte” (D. 303) Massig w

r-P»o

m J

W lJ

3, dass ich W ohl halt sie

-=—r j 7

dir zo

vom gemd

mf P

% 1

» mm"±—

9J ' • m r— -n n— — stil len auf__ der

.0 1 1 ^ 1 —

ft o TMU # «J

if O y * a

Au Wan

ge, ge

in ei - n em und v/ill s ch

lie heiss

m• ^ -m—

1 J• m -#-m- w-

* 1

n it—: be der

j®.* ^

determined not to succumb to the erotic languor that has carried off her lover. In the last vocal phrases (mm. 30-37), Schubert borrows the scalewise contrary motion between the outer voices in m. 13 of “An die Geliebte,” extending and repeating it in G minor for the exhortation to the nightin¬ gale not to sing. At the climactic prolongation of high G, at the word “A[mor],” we hear the flat submediant harmony that traces its lineage back to the chromatic passing tone in the piano introduction and appears nowhere else in the song. The same linear chromatic figure appears in the postlude, where it has the quickened rhythmic pattern of the woman’s laughter and jesting of mm. 24ff. Schubert sounds the 2-measure cadential phrase twice, the second time with the upper neighbor ornamenting the dominant, as if attempting to hold on to the upper register, but each time descending to the tonic. She too, despite her best intentions, has drifted off to sleep. Typically, Schubert not only conveys the poetic protagonist’s emotions but adds to the poem in ways that are plausible extensions of the text, although not expressly stated.

Franz Schubert: The Prince of Song

EXAMPLE 2.9b. “An die Nachtigall” (D. 497)

*=P Er

liegt

und schlaft

mei

nem

p Her -

zen.

pi i

Franz Schubert: The Prince of Song

Schubert and the “Miracle Year” of 1815 1815 was an annus mirabilis in which Schubert composed approxi¬ mately one hundred fifty songs of every kind: ballads such as Theodor Korner s gripping “Amphiaraos,” D. 166; small volkstumlich songs in strict strophic form, such as Goethe’s “Der Rattenfanger,” D. 255;13 the fusion of ballad and lied in “Erlkonig” (more the latter than the former); and much else. The miracles actually began in October 1814, when Schubert set “Gretchen am Spinnrade” (Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel, D. 118; see L. Kramer 1984, 150-56), which was followed quickly by “Nachtgesang” (Night Song, D. 119), “Trost in Tranen” (Consolation in Tears, D. 120), “Schafers Klagelied”

(Shepherd’s Lament, D.

121),

and “Sehnsucht”

(Yearning, D. 123). The flood tide continued throughout the year to come: while the Congress of Vienna was redrawing the map of Europe, Schubert was redefining the lied. Goethe’s “Die Spinnerin” (The Spinner, D. 247) is one of the many strophic lieder in quasi-folk song style from that year. The song is another example of Schubert’s affinity with the female poetic persona, here a young weaver who has been seduced and abandoned, facing disgrace alone. Something of her tragic stoicism—“Wie kann es anders sein?” (How can it be otherwise?), she asks—is embodied in the poet’s trochaic rhythms and austere image of the broken strands of thread that symbolize both her lost maidenhood and the rent fabric of her life. John Reed calls this song “a triumphant vindication of Goethe’s views on the supremacy of the strophic song” (Reed 1985, 194), and, as Graham Johnson points out, the perception that “one of life’s sad old stories is happening yet again is built into the very form of the song” (Johnson 1990). The tessitura is very high; although Schubert might have composed this and other high so¬ prano songs for Therese Grob, with whom he was supposedly enamored and who had a high D, it is difficult to think of a young man in love com¬ posing Goethe’s cautionary fable of seduction for his sweetheart. Musicopoetic explanations for the song’s character seem more compelling, including the association of B minor with mournfulness—it would later be the tonality of “Die liebe Farbe” in Die schone Mullerin, similarly a funeralmarch lied—and the use of the high tessitura to convey the poetic per¬ sona’s gender and her essential innocence. Despite its small size (eleven measures, with no piano introduction), “Die Spinnerin” is an artful construction. The rhythmic pattern in the ac¬ companiment is that of a pavane, reminiscent of the second movement of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. Above it, Schubert spins a melodic line in sixteenth notes whose threadlike contours are filled with chromatic inflec¬ tions, echoed in the piano. For all the simplicity of the B-minor and D-major harmonies, the melodic chromaticism seems quietly indicative of the erotic passion that has produced catastrophe (Ex. 2.10). The spinning motion never stops: where the singer has a quarter note at the end of each

Franz Schubert: The Pnnce of Song

Example 2.10. “Die Spinnerin” (D. 247) Massig

■ ■ K. 3 -r—7-

sto scha

cken, den?

fim f m—Jam f —-F- ^

fi; g

r i

mn m

n£J ^

— r i

m - —~ r 1

r±>nr± m

n J

1 r ~r~

na - he und den

trat ein_scho - ner_ jun - ger Mann Mein dem Flach - se _ glei-ches Haar,

^JbJ r 1

ajt i# +r.i m ■ U T» v-y i i

■ffar■finn

—

nir zum >lei - chen

^ r »pP J_lir_r

P -

Franz Schubert: The Prince of Song

two-measure phrase, the piano fills in the beat with more sixteenth-note motion and continues spinning throughout the postlude. The postlude, furthermore, is an extension and elaboration of the descending motion traced in mm. 1-2 and 5-6, from the high B that appears only at that point to the tonic pitch an octave lower. This symbolism of inexorable descent is quietly powerful, especially when reiterated for the extent of seven stanzas.

From 1817 to 1822 This period includes most of the six-year span commonly called the “years of crisis,” during which Schubert was struggling to make a name for himself and to become an independent composer (see Aderhold, Durr 1985, and Litschauer 1985). During this period, Schubert experimented with progressive tonality in lieder, with the mysticism of Novalis (Friedrich von Hardenberg, 1722-1801) and Friedrich von Schlegel (1722-1829), and with further development of the Romantic lied. His taste in poetry changed, and the large number of strict strophic songs from 1815 gave way to a predominance of other forms, although Schubert would never aban¬ don strophic form altogether (Die schone Mullerin has eight such settings— nine if one includes “Tranenregen”). In a review of the Op. 21 songs, a bemused Leipzig critic wrote, “Herr F. S. does not write songs, properly speaking, and has no wish to do so . . . but free vocal pieces, some so free that they might possibly be called caprices or fantasies” (Deutsch 1946, 353). An example of Gesangirom an¬ other collection (Op. 24) is “Gruppe aus dem Tartarus,” D. 583, composed in September 1817 to Schiller’s 1782 poem about entry into the under¬ world. The “group” is an amorphous, unknown mass of dead souls, with¬ out names or identities. The terrified new arrivals, deprived of all volition, are forced from horror to horror just as the weeping water is forced through hollows in the rocks. Schiller invites the composer to sound muf¬ fled figures in the piano before the poetic speaker bids us “Listen!” The poet then creates a series of magnificent images, especially that of Eternity as a giant avian creature sweeping in unending circles above the bowed heads of the new arrivals and breaking Saturn’s scythe in two. For this powerful poem, Schubert uses, at greater length than any¬ where else in his songs, the cliche of linear chromaticism associated with horror, yielding a chromatic fog that envelops the tonality and blankets it from eye and ear. Yet the forces that drive the terrified souls to their con¬ frontation with Eternity are nothing if not purposeful, and so too is the musical design. The first segment of the chromatic sequence in mm. 1-20 begins on the unharmonized pitch C, which will blaze forth in full harmo¬ nization at m. 64 with the first invocation of the word Ewigkeit (eternity). Long before the souls of the dead ask one another anxiously if the end is nigh, phrases have repeatedly been resolved, attenuating the tension of

Franz Schubert: The Prince of Song

nonresolution to the utmost, after which the musical engines drive for¬ ward again. When the voice enters on D in m. 7, anticipating the D-minor point of arrival at the allegro in m. 21

(“Ach! Schmerz verzerret ihr

Gesicht”), it echoes the melodic minor sixth defined by the rising chro¬ matic bass lines of mm. 1-3 and 4—6. As the groaning becomes more audi¬ ble, the unharmonized texture is replaced by dissonant chords (V of A minor) followed by a chromatic rise to the allegro; the length of the dread journey is symbolized by the tonal distance between V of A and D, tonics separated by a tritone. In the allegro we finally see and hear the pain-distorted throng. The circling motion of Eternity is already foretold in the wheeling configura¬ tion of the vocal phrases, and there are now two chromatic voices, produc¬ ing chromaticism within chromaticism, symbolic of the Gruppe on their last journey; the voice-leading produces augmented triads, associated in the expressive world of Schubert lieder with extremities of anguish. The ac¬ cented dissonance of El. against D on the downbeat of m. 32, at the words “Hohl sind ihre Augen,” comes from m. 11, “wie durch hohlerFelsen”: Schu¬ bert emphasizes the skeletal analogy in the most direct way possible. The choice of Fit minor as a temporary resting place in mm. 40-47, the key of the Trauerlauf is as far as possible from the ultimate C major of Eternity; the tritone between keys is again a symbol of the dread length of that “sor¬ rowful course.” Not until the word Ewigkeit is there a true tonal arrival, and the effect is shattering. In a final instance of tonal symbolism, Schubert re¬ peats the culminating lines “Ewigkeit schwingt uber ihnen Kreise, / Bricht die Sense des Saturns entzwei” twice (with internal word repetitions as well), the first time on Dl>, the second time on Ctt as V7 of FI (Ex. 2.11). Sat¬ urn’s scythe is twice broken, once on the flat side, once on the sharp side, and the C of eternity triumphs. The postlude is unforgettable: C major is now C minor, and the tension-fraught ascending chromatic motion is now a descent. The final arpeggiated C-minor chord high in the treble, like a last despairing echo from far away, is chilling. Hugo Wolf would perhaps learn from this song and others like it that allmahlich verklingend (gradually fading away) postludes are musical metaphors for spatial distance. EXAMPLE 2.11. “Gruppe aus dem Tartarus” (D. 583)

(continued)

Franz Schubert: The Prince of Song

Another song from these years is an unicum, Schubert’s only solo song to a text by the Viennese writer Franz Grillparzer (1791-1872): “Berthas Lied in der Nacht” (Bertha’s Song in the Night, D. 65S), composed in Feb¬ ruary 1819. Grillparzer was in contact with the Schubert circle through his kinship with the Sonnleithner family and his relationship with Katharina Frohlich and her three musical sisters, although there is no record that he ever met the composer; a great admirer of Schubert’s music, he would later write the much-debated epitaph on Schubert’s grave: “Music has here buried a rich possession but even fairer hopes.” He wrote “Berthas Lied” in 1817 for his play Die Ahnfrau (The Ancestress) but did not ultimately include it in this fate-tragedy. The poem is a small, lovely thing in which night and sleep are personified, night as a creature with gently moving giant wings that envelop the hills and valleys, sleep as an “adorable child” who whispers to the sleeper. The fourth line of each stanza rhymes with every other last line on the dark, lulling / u/ sound associated in the German language with rest because it is the defining vowel in the word Ruhe; each stanza comes to rest on the most restful sound in the language. In the fourth and final stanza, the poetic speaker turns to the reader to ask whether “you” can sense the ap¬ proach of Sleep; here, the previous internal rhyming couplets are replaced by the yawning /ah/ sounds of “A/mest,” “Na/ien,” “Alles” and the doubled “slumbering” words Schlummer and Schlummre in succession: a lulling-tosleep in rhyme and rhythm. Schubert sets this poem “Sehr langsam” in f, each beat prolonged not only by the very slow tempo (a rarity in his songs) but by the subdivision of the beat into eighth and sixteenth notes. The 2-measure piano introduc¬ tion is divided in half, the first measure in a unison texture and the second harmonized, culminating in a half cadence on the dominant of El. minor, prolonged by a fermata. The effect of the semitone motion upwards from the unharmonized Bt at the end of m. 1, heightened by its leading tone, to the Cl> major chord at the beginning of m. 2 (6 as upper neighbor to 5) continues the rising motion, as if night were spreading outwards and up¬ wards, enveloping more of the musical landscape. The unison texture and the ambiguity of the implied harmonies are beaudfully expressive of the mystery of nightfall. Schubert repeats the words of stanza 1 in their en¬ tirety; in this twofold setting, the metaphor of night enveloping the land¬ scape and the corresponding metamorphosis within the human soul from care and sorrow to peace are represented by the change—not a jarring modulation but gradually, gently effected—from an ambiguously stated El. minor, as veiled and mysterious as night itself, to Gl> major by m. 8. One notices in particular the beautiful use of the flatted sixth degree (EU> fore¬ shadowing the alternation between Fit minor and F# major to follow (Ex.

2.12). Sleep appears as the enharmonic kin to night, in F# major, with occa¬ sional harmonies borrowed from the parallel minor in a drowsy motion al¬ ternating between the two modes. The texture of this long, soft drifting off to sleep is extraordinary, beginning with an ostinato on the dominant pitch C# in the outer voices of the piano in syncopated rhythmic patterns through¬ out mm. 8-15. (Wolf, who loved perdendosi effects of all kinds, would adopt

Franz Schubert: The Prince of Song

Example 2.12. “Berthas Lied der Nacht” (D. 653) Sehr langsam

5 0 ■ I?. L i m t.-i r, n V a

~u- ■ ~ ) r J_I ■ r.

—

1 1

W Ft 1 11

Nacht um -hiillt

mit

fT77 r~r

rt i . . L. i# i I?. k v— m w i n ~ VV; v

'~T~n ^it i ^ r

i M i P,l bVi L 1. xP‘ w 1 * g b -1

n j.

-K. ...—:—ir-Pfti 1> m n 7 / 7 j y we - hen-dem Flit-gel, um-hiil - let r nm '

P r b

V die

i n' i m x i iiii % z a. m w 7 -1 1

LJ| .m

r 'f

~i, m •i 12

this pattern as a stylistic hallmark.) The left and right hands do not strike their Ctt simultaneously but alternate, so that the air is filled with a soft, in¬ cessant murmuring. Neither piano nor voice reaches the tonic Ft until m. 15, the singer’s phrases ending in mm. 9-10, 11-12, and 13-14 on the sec¬ ond scale degree, drowsilyjust short of arrival at sleep. In essence, Schubert

Franz Schubert: The Prince of Song

attenuates an ostinato so as to remove almost every trace of tension and ren¬ der it lulling; only when the poet invokes eyes wakeful from sorrow does Schubert introduce a rising chromaticism in the tenor part (m. 13), imme¬ diately soothed and corrected in m. 14 by the descent to the tonic. Sleep comes gradually, and the first arrival at tonic restfulness in m. 15 is followed by still more variations on the ostinato and the melodies of sleep and night. When the poetic speaker twice asks “Fiihlst du sein Nahen? ahnest du Ruh?” (mm. 15-18), the accompaniment sways back and forth between tonic and dominant harmonies—but without tonic clo¬ sure in the topmost voice and without resting on the tonic chord. The nearness of sleep and rest is thus promised in tonal terms. In the section marked langsamer werdend (becoming slower, mm. 19-27), Schubert makes wonderful use of the lowered leading tone in Fit although the plagal impli¬ cations never result in resolution, much less modulation, the restfulness is unmistakable. The syncopated patterns cease in m. 25 as sleep finally weaves its spell, but one notices that the fifth sounds as the topmost voice of the final tonic chord in m. 27, a last, faint invocation of sleep as hover¬ ing in midair. In this extraordinary example of Schubert’s uses of parallel major and minor keys, the darkness of night and sleep and the comfort they provide for grieving humanity are conveyed in the subtle alternation and admixture of the two modes. Mahler must have learned how to cap¬ ture the essence of a musical drifting off to sleep and death in his “Die zwei blauen Augen” from songs such as this.

Schubert in 1822 In 1822, the last year Schubert was to enjoy in full health, virtually every text he set turned to gold. One of the most magnificent songs of a magnificent year is “Wehmut” (Melancholy, D. 772), a setting of Matthaus von Collin’s “Naturgefiihl” (Feeling for Nature). The sight of Nature in springtime awakens both joy and sadness, the alliteration of “wohl” and “weh” underscoring their close relationship.14 The poetic persona reflects that, just as the beauty surrounding him will die and vanish, so too will hu¬ manity and all its works. The poem is an artful construction, its slow, solemn rhythm created in part by the strong syllable at the end of each line and the pause that follows before the next line begins. One notes in particular the long pauses after lines 3 and 6: after each of the rhyming iambic tetrameter couplets in lines 1-2 and 4-5, the following line is clipped shorter, emphasizing both the unquiet heart and spring joy. Lines 7-10 are all tetrameters; the stanza “gains weight,” increases in intensity, leading to the final austere memento mori in line 11, which is again abbrevi¬ ated, consisting entirely of verbs whose actions signify the end of all action (“entschwindet und vergeht”—vanish and perish). Schubert’s 2-measure piano introduction states the descending bass tetrachord long associated with lamentation in music, its aura of antique solemnity heightened by the slow tactus in equal half notes, the D-minor

Franz Schubert: The Prince of Song

tonality, and the flattened seventh and sixth degrees (C, Bt) in the bass de¬ scent (mm. 1-2). When the descending tetrachord and its attendant har¬ monies are restated for the singer’s first words, Schubert expands the initial compass upwards for the singer; both the breadth of the woods and fields and the all-embracing nature of the persona’s meditation on ulti¬ mate things are evoked in the contrary motion between the topmost voice and the bass. When the dominant chord sounds, at the end of the tetra¬ chord, the bass remains on the dominant pitch throughout mm. 5-9; the use of the tonic major chord for “wold” and the minor for “weh” furnish another example of the most common signification that such contrasts bear in Schubert lieder. The ominous foreboding that melancholy will lead to dread knowledge is evoked by the fixation on the dominant, pre¬ monitory of the dominant pedal in mm. 16-18, when the intimations of mortality cannot be staved off any longer. But in the initial section, that underlying knowledge is obscured by present awareness of Nature’s springtime array, and therefore the dominant pedal points do not resolve to tonic D minor until m. 25 and the return of the A section—the culmina¬ tion of a musical architecture in which everything leads to the words verschwindet und vergeht. In mm. 10-11, resolution is literally arrested and then transformed at the word Schonheit (beauty) into one of the most af¬ fecting of all Schubert’s mediant harmonic relationships, when the lead¬ ing tone (Ot) of tonic D minor becomes the (momentary) fifth of FI major. We hear a resolution to an apparent tonic but it does not, cannot last, for all its cadential assertions of rootedness and fullness, and instead moves on to D major for the evocation of “Fruhlingslust” at the end of the A section. The tonal symbolism is deeply moving: Nature’s beauty is defined not in a tonality that is sustained and endures but only as a momentary articula¬ tion. Indeed, Schubert’s “cadence” occurs before the end of the poetic sentence. “Fruhlingslust” and its cadence do not last either, and “wohl” be¬ comes “weh” immediately in m. 15, returning to the dominant chord and to suspenseful foreboding for the beginning of the B section. There is no break, no rest, anywhere in the piano accompaniment: the processes that carry us to our final doom are inexorable, and so too are the slowly shift¬ ing harmonic progressions in this lied. In Schubert’s brilliant conception, the enumeration of all that must eventually vanish is set to a chromatically varied reversal of the lamenta¬ tion tetrachord in the bass, returning the poetic persona to the D-minor resolution that was avoided earlier. Just as the cliche of ascending chro¬ maticism carried the damned souls of Schiller’s “Gruppe aus dem Tar¬ tarus” to their confrontation with Eternity, it carries the poet/singer to his quiet confrontation with the verb entschwindet. A measured tremolando evokes both the sounding winds and the poetic persona’s muted agitation, the harmonic rhythm becoming gradually more rapid. Every detail is com¬ pelling; for example, the solemn quasi-chanting on a single pitch until the word Schonheit (beauty, m. 23) impels both a lyrical blossoming of the melodic line and an E-major harmony rather than the E-minor chord of

Franz Schubert: The Prince of Song

the preceding measure. Humanity lingers and contemplates Nature’s love¬ liness for an extra two measures, before the harmonic rhythm accelerates alarmingly in m. 24. The portentous rhythms in the vocal line of mm. 16-20, in which the accented syllable of every iambic foot is elongated as a dotted quarter note, are broken in the last half of m. 20 at the first men¬ tion of humanity. “Und auch der Mensch” (and humanity too), the singer states, the prevailing rhythmic pattern diminished to half its former dura¬ tion for the anacrusis on the first three words, so that the crucial word Mensch on the downbeat can be prolonged even more. As he would do later at the end of Muller’s “Der Wegweiser” (The Signpost) from Winterreise, and throughout “Der Doppelganger,” Schubert accompanies the grim revelation at the end with block chords, one per measure, in funereal succession. (The Neapolitan chord near the end of each of these songs is another point of resemblance.) Only the utmost aus¬ terity would do for words that Schubert repeats several times, prolonging the poet’s curt conclusion throughout fifteen measures and descending not merely through the tetrachord but the entire length of the octave. There is no more “Schonheit” to deflect the mind and ear from the stark pronouncement that “everything must vanish and perish.” In the postlude, the supremacy of minor is starkly confirmed, foreshadowing the manner of the Heine songs.

Between Die schone Mullerin anti Winterreise Although the Midas touch of 1822 is not always evident in the songs composed between the two Muller cycles, there are masterpieces aplenty from this period, including his settings of the Orientalist and poet Friedrich Riickert’s “DaB sie hier gewesen,” D. 775, “Du bist die Ruh’,” D. 776, “Lachen und Weinen,” D. 777, and “Greisengesang,” D. 778, this last perhaps composed in late 1822 and 1823 (the dating is uncertain). Schubert’s setting of Karl Lappe’s “Im Abendrot,” D. 799, is possibly from 1825, as are his settings of Jacob Nicolaus Craigher’s “Totengrabers Heimweh” (Gravedigger’s Homesickness, D. 842) and the Walter Scott songs. His much-loved setting of Schlechta’s “Fischerweise” (Fisherman’s Tune, D. 881) dates from 1826, as do the equally well-loved Shakespeare songs “Standchen” (Serenade, D. 889) and “An Sylvia” (To Sylvia, D. 891). In 1824, Johann Mayrhofer’s collected poems were published by sub¬ scription, but Schubert was not among the subscribers, as the two men had parted company by then. Schubert would, however, have known of the vol¬ ume and was drawn back to his friend’s verses for four more settings, in¬ cluding “Auflosung” (Dissolution), one of Schubert’s mightiest songs. One of Mayrhofer’s recurring themes, his belief that only artistic creativity could provide consolation for the miseries of existence, is expressed, ap¬ propriately, in poetry itself. When creative powers well up from within, the poet of Auflosung,” D. 807, wants all else to disappear, even what is most

Franz Schubert: The Prince of Song

beautiful in Nature. The sun cannot equal the fiery rapture of poetry, and he imperiously bids it begone; even music and the beauty of spring—his foremost consolations at other times—are unwelcome intrusions. At the culmination of this powerful poem, he wishes that the entire world might dissolve and disappear, leaving only the ethereal choirs of poetry. In graphic illustration of the death-ecstasy that he courts with such intensity (Mayrhofer would kill himself in 1836), the poetic form begins to dissolve as well, the line lengths varying from dimeters—such brief, proto-Expressionistic rhythms are characteristic of Mayrhofer—to tetrameters, and swaying unpredictably between trochees and iambs. There is, in particular, a marvelous enjambment in the final two lines of the poem to emphasize the word nimmer (never). Poetic devices such as these are lost in music, but Schubert took note of the poet’s emphasis and repeats the word to an arpeggiated vocal phrase spanning an octave and a half and culminating in a downbeat emphasis on tonic high G (mm. 43-44). In “Auflosung” the poet tells music to be silent (“Verstummet, Tone”) in order that “himmlisch singen” (heavenly song) might supersede earthly tones; Schubert contravenes that command by translating the heavenly singing into lied. The poet’s engulfing rapture becomes incessant vibra¬ tory tone, with tremolandos in the bass and arpeggios that swoop and plunge in the right hand, the essential inwardness of the experience pre¬ served in the piano and pianissimo dynamics at beginning and end. It is the furious injunctions to the outside world to “leave me alone,” to “go under,” that prompt fortissimo and forzando outbursts. Like Mayrhofer, Schubert creates form in the beginning of dissolution: “Auflosung” is a three-part song-form in which the boundaries between sections dissolve, harmonic events near the ends of the A and B sections fuse with the start of each succeeding section, and the final A section is thoroughly varied. The smallest compositional decisions tell of a universe dissolving in a Turneresque rapture,

everything in counterposed, dissolving motion,

against which the singer hurls one of Schubert’s most grandiose vocal lines: the poet/singer is stronger than Nature at this moment (Johnson 1991). Where Mayrhofer bids “Spring beauty” to go away and leave him alone, Schubert seems as if ready to repeat mm. 7-13, but a diminishedseventh chord replaces the B-minor harmony from before and is followed by a massive semitone shift upwards to the Neapolitan At major. The radi¬ cal harmonic jolt is unprepared; Schubert understood those words as an outburst that should erupt with special violence, even from music already as turbulent as this. Knowing the misanthropic poet personally, he in¬ vested the phrase with maximum intensity. It is as if a black hole had opened and swallowed the detested springtime world of G major. The “gentle powers” that well up from within in the B secdon do so on the At-major harmony to which the poet-composer bade the world go away (mm. 24-32). Something of both the desperation with which the poet clings to the “powers” and the vulnerability of the experience are reg-

Franz Schubert: The Prince of Song

istered in the fact that Schubert does not truly establish At by any means other than repetition. He even destabilizes it in mm. 31-32 by means of the C-minor chord and its dominant, which resolves deceptively at the end of the phrase—to an ALmajor harmony. At the moment when the poet invokes heavenly song enveloping him, Schubert begins to dissolve the si¬ multaneously fierce but tenuous hold on A!>; the enharmonic transforma¬ tion of At into C# minor and the subsequent unstable B-major chords prompt the furious-ecstatic imperatives to “go under, world.” When G major returns in the final section, the poet-singer repeatedly attempts to vault into the empyrean and remain there, but finds himself unable to do so; the vocal line leaps to high G repeatedly, but always on the weak beat of the measure and always falling back downwards. In mm. 59-60, the singer, in an Olympian gesture, vaults above the limits of the high G to A and a dominant-seventh chord that has not been heard until this climactic point. The passage is powerful, ecstatic, and desperate—and doomed to failure. The G-major harmonies ascend even higher and more distant than before, then die away, and the final low pleas of “Geh unter, Welt” are tinged with minor coloration and engulfed by tremolandos as the “heavenly song” vanishes. Surveying the Schubert lied corpus, with its fragments and multiple versions, its poets ranging from mid-eighteenth-century worthies to the “moderns” of Schubert’s own generation, its forms ranging from minia¬ tures to mini-operas, one is overwhelmed by its variety and quality. To each element retained from the songwriting traditions that preceded him, whether strict strophic forms, through-composed structures, recitative in¬ corporated within lied, or word-painting, Schubert added his original con¬ ception. Everything is subjected to alteration by a creative intelligence that reinvented the lied in a poetic light; even where he warps, ignores, contra¬ dicts, drowns out, alters, and obscures aspects of his chosen poetry, Schu¬ bert is responding to verse in ways and at depths unavailable to his predecessors or contemporaries. Schubert’s lieder left their impression on later composers. His set¬ tings of Friedrich Schlegel’s “Der FluB” (The River, D. 693) and Karoline Louise von Klenke’s “Heimliches Lieben” (Secret Love, D. 922) are possi¬ ble precursors of Robert Schumann’s manner of bridging vocal phrases by means of a seamless melody combined with broken chords in the piano in¬ terludes, as the latter’s setting of Goethe’s “Liebeslied” (Love Song, Op. 51, No. 5). Johannes Brahms said, “There is no song by Schubert from which one cannot learn something”;* it was perhaps from songs like “Totengrabers Heimweh” that Brahms found his “death motif,” the series of falling thirds whose culmination is “O Tod, wie bitter bist du” (Oh

*Max Kalbeck, Johannes Brahms, 4 vols. (Vienna, 1904), vol. 1, 230.

Franz Schubert: The Prince of Song

Death, how bitter thou art) from the Vier emste Gesange (Four Serious Songs, Op. 121). Adolf Friedrich von Schack’s lines “Gib dich zur Ruh’, bald stirbt sie auch” (Go to your rest; soon [my heart] will die) at the end of “Herbstgefuhl” (Autumnal Mood, Op. 48, no. 7) impelled from Brahms a quotation of the ending of “Der Doppelganger.” Hugo Wolf, who once asked in exasperation “Must I keep silent because a great man lived before me and wrote wonderful songs?,” would also convert echoes from Schu¬ bert’s songs into covert recollections within his own works, as when Schu¬ bert’s “Geheimes,” D. 719, is transmuted into Wolfs “Mein Liebster ist so klein” from the Italienisches Liederbuch. Despite their different approaches to song composition, each paid homage in his own way to a composer whom the Viennese rightly dubbed the “Prince of Song.”

Notes 1. More than one reviewer of Schubert’s songs used the expression “indefatiga¬ ble”

(unermudlich).

See Deutsch

1977,

474

(Berlin Allgemeine Musikalische

Zeitung, 21 Dec. 1825) and 607 (Leipzig Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung, 4 April 1827). 2. Two hefty fragments particularly compel attention: D. 1A, 239 measures of an untexted song in C minor, and D. 39, a setting in C major of twenty-nine lines from Gabriele von Baumberg’s “Lebenstraum” (Dream of Life). See Hoorickx (1982-84), Brown (1954 and 1961), and Landon (1969). 3. “Erlkonig” was popular with composers; see During 1972. Joseph von Spaun’s famous account of Schubert rapidly composing this song in one inspired mo¬ ment (see Deutsch 1958, 131) is contradicted by other accounts. A fair copy of this song with a simplified accompaniment was made for Goethe in 1816; see Durr (1978, 43-56). 4. Joseph von Spaun wrote in 1858, “There is a prejudice that Schubert was born only to be a song writer” (Deutsch 1958, 140). Biba (1979, 106—13) points out that Schubert’s music was second in popularity only to that of Rossini on the programs of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde; that Anton Diabelli paid Schu¬ bert high fees for his songs; that the most famous instrumental and vocal soloists of the day regularly performed Schubert’s works; and that the numer¬ ous manuscript and album copies of his compositions reflect his renown. 5. On other occasions it was likely the accompaniment that prompted a pub¬ lisher’s' request for lowered transposition. The first version of his setting of Goethe’s “Der Musensohn,” D. 764, is in At major. The appoggiatura-laden ac¬ companiment is more difficult to play in that key than in its final key of G major. 6. Similar bagpipe figures appear in mm. 67-74 of “Eifersucht und Stolz” (from Die schone Mullerin) to different and bitter effect. 7. Zumsteeg’s frequent use of German sixth-chords as the pivot for swift tonal changes might be the origin of Schubert’s liking for that same harmony. 8. In November 1822, Schubert had composed another song in the rare tonality of F# minor-major, to another text in which humanity is promised a beautiful, ecstatic afterlife: his setting of Franz von Bruchmann’s “SchwestergruB,” D. 762.

Franz Schubert: The Prince of Song For all their differences of form and figuration, both songs are characterized by the unstable swaying back and forth between parallel modes and even by the “tolling bell” evocation on Ct in the topmost voice at the beginning.

9. One critic reproached Schubert for making a textual change in the setting of Mayrhofer’s “Antigone und Oedip,” D. 542: “The treatment of a text should show the same respect for a poet’s work with which we honour a composer’s creation” (Deutsch 1946, 207). 10. Perhaps the composer’s knowledge of the poet’s personality influenced the striking prosodic gesture at the beginning; taking his cue from Mayrhofer’s syn¬ tax in line 1 (“Mir ist so wohl, so weh”), he underscores the poet’s solipsism by means of the descending leap of a minor sixth on the anacrusis. 11. An early example of Schubert’s discomfiture with Schiller’s Denk-Poesie or “thought poetry” (versified philosophy) can be found in the setting of “Hoffnung” (Hope, D. 251), composed 7 August 1815. The poem is a miniature philosophical meditation to the effect that the world waxes old and then young, whereas humanity is born to strive for betterment. Schubert, a bit comi¬ cally, strives for profundity by setting the song in the unusual (for the early songs) key of G> major; he reset the poem, possibly in 1817, adopting an en¬ tirely different approach (D. 637). 12. Schubert would later use the same type of chordal figuration that one finds in mm. 17-24 of the D-minor “Lied der Mignon,” at the words “Ach! der mich liebt und kennt ist in der Weite,” in mm. 26-36 of “Am Feierabend,” from Die schone Mullerin, in which the beloved is psychologically (not physically) distant and the poetic persona is similarly in turmoil at the realization. 13. Schubert deliberately ignored the whiff of sulfur and brimstone in this poem, and it was left to Hugo Wolf at the end of the century to convey its demonic overtones. 14. In his setting of Ernst Schulze’s “Der liebliche Stern” (The Lovely Star, D. 861), composed in 1825, Schubert would be similarly inspired by the compound of “wohl” and “weh” in stanza 1 of that poem.

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Franz Schubert: The Prince of Song

Brown, Maurice J. E. “Some unpublished Schubert songs and song fragments.” Music Review 15 (1954): 39-102. -. “Schubert: Discoveries of the Last Decade.” Musical Quarterly 47 (1961): 293-314. Capell, Richard. Schubert’s Songs. London, 1928. Reprint. New York, 1977. 2d ed. London, 1957. 3d ed. London, 1973. Clercq, Robert O. de. “Schuberts Erlkonig in einigen bemerkenswerten Ausgaben.” Schubert durch die Brille 8 (January 1992): 39-44. Denny, Thomas. “Directional Tonality in Schubert’s Lieder.” In Franz Schubert-Der Fortschrittliche? Analysen-Perspektiven-Fakten, ed. Erich Wolfgang Partsch, 37-54. Tutzing, 1989. Deutsch, Otto Erich. Schubert: A Documentary Biography. Trans. Eric Blom. London, 1946. Reprint. New York, 1977. -■—. Schubert: Memoirs by His Friends. Trans. Rosamond Ley and John Nowell. London, 1958. Dittrich, Marie-Agnes. Harmonik und Sprachvertonung in Schuberts Fiedern. Hamburg, 1991. Durhammer, Ilija. “Zu Schuberts Literasthetik.” Schubert durch die Brille 14 (January 1995): 5-100. During, Werner-Joachim. Erlkonig-Vertonungen: Eine historische und systematische Untersuchung. Regensburg, 1972. Durr, Walther. “Aus Schuberts erstem Publikationsplan: Zwei Hefte mit Liedern von Goethe.” In Schubert-Studien: Festgabe der Osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zum Schubert-Jahr 1978, ed. Franz Grasberger and Othmar Wesseley, 43-56. Vienna, 1978. -. “Wer vermag nach Beethoven noch etwas zu machen?” In Musik-Konzepte: Sonderband Franz Schubert, ed. Heinz-Klaus Metzger and Rainer Riehn, 10-15. Munich, 1979. -■. “Schubert’s Songs and Their Poetry: Reflections on Poetic Aspects of Song Composition.” In Schubert Studies: Problems of Style and Chronology, ed. Eva Badura-Skoda and Peter Branscombe, 1-24. Cambridge, 1982. -■.

“Entwurf—Ausarbeitung—Revision:

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Arbeitsweise

Schuberts

Beispiel des Liedes ‘Der Ungluckliche’ (D. 713).” Musikforschung 44 (1991): 221-36. -■. “Franz Schuberts Wanderjahre: Einfuhrung in das Generalthema.” In Franz Schubert: Jahre der Krise 1818-1823, ed. Werner Aderhold, Walther Durr, and Walburga Litschauer, 11-21. Kassel, 1985. -. “Schuberts Lied ‘An den Tod’ (D 518)—zensiert?” Qsterreichische Musikzeitschrifit 38 (1983): 9-17. Fehn, Ann Clark, and Rufus Hallmark. “Text and Music in Schubert’s Pentameter Lieder: A Consideration of Declamation.” In Studies in the History of Music, vol. 1: Music and Language, ed. Ronald Broude, 204-46. New York, 1983. Feil, Arnold. “Franz Schubert ‘Des Fischers Liebesgluck’: Considerazioni sull’ analisi strutturale e sull’ interpretazione.” Richerche musicali 4 (1980): 71-80. -. “Zur Genesis der Gattung Lied, wie sie Franz Schubert definiert hat.” Musikoloski Zbomik 11 (1975): 40-53. Flothuis, Marius. “Franz Schubert’s Compositions to Poems from Goethe’s ‘Wil¬ helm Meister’s Lehrjahre.’” In Notes on Notes: Selected Essays by Marius Flothuis, ed. Sylvia Broere-Moore, 87-138. Amsterdam, 1974.

Franz Schubert: The Prince of Song

-. “Schubert Revises Schubert.” In Schubert Studies: Problems of Style and Chronol¬ ogy, ed. Eva Badura-Skoda and Peter Branscombe, 61-84. Cambridge, 1982. Friedlander, Max. Das deutsche Lied im 18. Jahrhundert: Quellen und Studien. 2 vols. Stuttgart, 1902. Reprint. 3 vols. Hildesheim, 1970. Frisch, Walter. “Schubert’s Nahe des Geliebten (D. 162): Transformation of the Volkston." In Schubert: Critical and Analytical Studies, ed. Walter Frisch, 175-99. Lin¬ coln, 1986. Georgiades, Thrasybulos. Schubert: Musik und Lyrik. Gottingen, 1967. Gramit, David. “The Intellectual and Aesthetic Tenets of Franz Schubert’s Circle.” Ph.D. dissertation, Duke University, 1987. Hallmark, Rufus. “Schubert’s ‘Auf dem Strom.’” In Schubert Studies: Problems of Style and Chronology, ed. Eva Badura-Skoda and Peter Branscombe, 25-46. Cam¬ bridge, 1982. -, and Ann Clark Fehn. “Text Declamation in Schubert’s Settings of Pentame¬ ter Poetry.” Zeitschrifl fur Liter at urwis sens chaft und Linguistik 9, Heft, 34 Das Lied (1979): 11-80. Hollander, Hans. “Franz Schubert’s Repeated Settings of the Same Song-Texts.” Musical Quarterly 14 (1928): 563-74. Hoorickx, Reinhard van. “Schubert’s Earliest Preserved Song-Fragments.” Revue beige de musicologie 36-38 (1982-84): 145-61. Jackson, Timothy. “Schubert’s Revisions of ‘Der Jiingling und der Tod,’ D. 545a-b, and ‘Meeresstille,’ D. 216a-b.” The Musical Quarterly lb (1991): 336-61. Johnson, Graham. “Schubert and his Friends.” Liner note for The Hyperion Schubert Edition, vol. 4, Philip Langridge, tenor, Graham Johnson, piano. Hyperion CDJ 33004 (1989). Includes eight of the Korner songs. -. “Schubert in 1815.” Liner note for The Hyperion Schubert Edition, vol. 7, Elly Ameling, soprano, Graham Johnson, pianist. Hyperion CDJ 33007 (1990). -. “Death and the Composer.” Liner note for The Hyperion Schubert Edition, vol. 11, Brigitte Fassbaender, mezzo-soprano, Graham Johnson, piano. Hyperion CDJ 30011 (1991). -•. “Lieder der Nacht.” Liner note for The Hyperion Schubert Edition, vol. 15, Margaret Price, soprano, Graham Johnson, piano. Hyperion CDJ 33015 (1992). [Johnson 1992a] -■. “Schubert and the Classics.” Liner note for The Hyperion Schubert Edition, vol. 14, Thomas Hampson, baritone, Graham Johnson, piano. Hyperion CDJ 33014 (1992). [Johnson 1992b] -■. “Schubert and the Strophic Song.” Liner note for The Hyperion Schubert Edi¬ tion, vol. 18, Peter Schreier, tenor, Graham Johnson, pianist. Hyperion CDJ 33018 (1993). [Johnson 1993a] -■. “Songs to Texts by Friedrich von Schiller (1759-1805).” Liner note for The Hyperion Schubert Edition, vol. 16, Thomas Allen, baritone, Graham Johnson, piano. Hyperion CDJ 33016 (1993). [Johnson 1993b] Kerman, Joseph.

A Romantic Detail in Schubert’s Schutanengesang." Musical Quar¬

terly 48 (1962): 36-49. Kindermann, William. “Schubert’s Tragic Perspective.” In Schubert: Critical and Ana¬ lytical Studies, ed. Walter Frisch, 65-83. Lincoln, NE, 1986. Kinsey, Barbara. “Schubert and the Poems of Ossian.” Music Review 34 (1973)22-29.

Franz Schubert: The Prince of Song

Kramer, Lawrence. Music and Poetry: The Nineteenth Century and After. Berkeley, 1984. -. “The Schubert Lied: Romantic Form and Romantic Consciousness.” In Schubert: Critical and Analytical Studies, ed. Walter Frisch, 200-36. Lincoln, NE, 1986. Kramer, Richard. “Schubert’s Heine.” 19th-Century Music & (Spring 1985): 213-25. -•. “Distant Cycles: Schubert, Goethe and the Entfernte.” Journal of Musicology 6 (Winter 1988): 3-26. -. Distant Cycles: Schubert and the Conceiving of Song. Chicago, 1994. Krebs,

Harald.

“Tonart und Text

Schuberts Liedern

mit abweichenden

Schlussen.” Archiv fur Musikwissenschaft 47 (1990): 264-71. KreiBle von Hellborn, Heinrich. Franz Schubert. Vienna, 1865. Landon, Christa. “Neue Schubert-Funde: Unbekannte Manuskripte im Archiv des Wiener Mannergesang-Vereines.”

Osterreichische Musikzeitschrift 24

(1969):

229-332. Translated as “New Schubert Finds,” The Music Review 31 (1970): 215-31. Litschauer, Walburga, ed. Neue Dokumente zum Schubert-Kreis: Aus Briefen und Tagebuchern seiner Freunde. Vienna, 1986. Maier, Gunter. Die Lieder Johann Rudolf Zumsteegs und ihr Verhaltnis zu Schubert. Goppingen, 1971. Mainka, J. “Das Liedschaffen Franz Schuberts in den Jahren 1815 und 1816: Schu¬ berts Auseinandersetzung mit der Liedtradition des 18. Jahrhunderts.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Berlin, 1957. Motte, Diether de la. “Die Aufhebung von Zeit in Schuberts endlosen Liedern.” In Franz Schubert—Der Fortschrittlichel Analysen-Perspektiven-Fakten, ed. Erich Wolf¬ gang Partsch, 201-12. Tutzing, 1989. Muxfeldt, Kristina. “Schubert Song Studies.” Ph.D. dissertation, State University of New York at Stony Brook, 1991. Orel, Alfred. “Die Skizze zu Franz Schuberts letztem Lied.” Die Musik 29 (1937): 765-71. Partsch, Eric Wolfgang, ed. Franz Schubert—Der Fortschrittliche? Analysen-Perspek¬ tiven-Fakten. Tutzing, 1989. Porhansl, Lucia. “Schuberts Textvorlagen nach Ignaz Franz Castelli.” Schubert durch dieBrille 14 (January 1995): 101-4. Reed, John. The Schubert Song Companion. Manchester, 1985. Sams, Eric. “Notes on a Magic Flute: The Origins of the Schubertian Lied.” Musical Times 119 (1978): 947-48. Schachter, Carl. “Motive and Text in Four Schubert Songs.” In Aspects of Schenkenan Theory, ed. David Beach, 61-76. New Haven, 1983. Scheibler, Ludwig. “Franz Schuberts einstimmige Leider, Gesange und Balladen mit Texten von Schiller.” Die Rheinlande (April-September 1905): 131-36, 163-69, 231-39, 270-74, 311-15, 353-56. Schenker, Heinrich. “Franz Schubert: Gretchen am Spinnrade.” Der Tonwille 6 (1923): 3-8. Schnapper, Edith. Die Gesange des jungen Schuberts vor dem Durchbruch des romantischen Liedprinzipes. Bern, 1937. Schwarmath-Tarjan, Ermute. Musikalischer Bau und Sprachvertonung in Schuberts Liedern. Tutzing, 1969.

Franz Schubert: The Prince of Song

Seebass, Tilman. “Classical and Romantic Principles in Schubert’s Lieder: Auf dem See and Des Fischers Liebesgliick.” In Studies in Musical Sources and Style: Essays in Honor of Jan LaRue, ed. Eugene K. Wolf and Edward H. Roesner, 481-504. Madison, WI, 1990. Solomon, Maynard.

“Schubert and Beethoven.”

19th-Century Music 3

(1979):

114-25. Spies, Gunther. “Studien zum Liede Franz Schuberts: Vorgeschichte, Eigenart und Bedeutung der Strophenvarierung.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Tubin¬ gen, 1962. Steglich, Rudolf. “Das romantische Wanderlied und Franz Schubert.” In MusaMens-Musici: Im Gedenken an Walther Vetter, ed. Institut fur Musikwissenschaft der Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin, 267-76. Leipzig, 1969. Utz, Helga. Untersuchungen zur Syntax der Lieder Franz Schuberts. Munich, 1989. Waidelich, Till Gerrit, ed. Franz Schubert-Dokumente 1817-1830. Vol. 1: Texte. Tutzing, 1993. West, Ewan Donald. “Schubert’s Lieder in Context: Aspects of Song in Vienna 1778-1828.” Ph.D. dissertation, Oxford University, 1989. Wing, Marjorie. Schubert’s Dramatic Lieder. Cambridge, 1993. Wolff, Christoph. “Schubert’s ‘Der Tod und das Madchen’: Analytical and Explana¬ tory Notes on the Song D 531 and the Quartet D 810.” In Schubert Studies: Prob¬ lems of Style and Chronology, ed. Eva Badura-Skoda and Peter Branscombe, 143-72. Cambridge, 1982. Youens, Susan, “Memory, Identity, and The Uses of the Past: Schubert and Luciano Berio’s Recital I (for Cathy).” In Franz Schubert—Der Fortschrittliche? Analysen— Perspektiven-Fakten. Tutzing, 1989. -. Schubert’s Poets and the Making of Lieder. Cambridge, 1996. Zeman, Herbert. “Franz Schuberts Teilhabe an der osterreichischen literarischen Kultur seiner Zeit.” In Schubert-Kongrefi Wien 1978: Benefit, ed. Otto Brusatti, 283-304. Graz, 1979.

CHAPTER THREE

Robert Schumann: The Poet Sings Rufus Hallmark

Robert Schumann (1810-56) was probably the most literary and wellread composer of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. His father was a book dealer in Zwickau, and books were always a part of his life. At fifteen he founded a literary club, as he would one day found a mu¬ sical journal; at its meetings he and his friends read plays, novels, and po¬ etry aloud to one another. Though a life-long devotee of novelist Jean Paul Richter, his taste was catholic, and throughout his life his diaries disclose almost constant reading on a grand scale. By the time he was twenty, he wrote, “The most significant writers of just about every country were famil¬ iar to me” (Eismann 1956, 1:17). For a while the young Schumann even expected he would become a writer. Given this strong literary bent and the musical creativity that subsequently blossomed, it would seem he was des¬ tined to combine the two in song.

Early Career and the Liederjahr In his late teens (1827-28), Schumann attended and participated in evening musicales in the home of a local doctor and wrote about a dozen songs for his wife.1 These compositions show Schumann’s early interest in the Swabian poet Justinius Kerner (five settings), to whose work he would return a decade later, but otherwise they bear little resemblance to the later songs. His setting of Kerner’s “An Anna” (Werke, XIV/1: 34), for example, shows Schumann perfectly capable of joining a text comfortably to an at¬ tractive melody, but not yet adept at creating an appropriate mood. The

Robert Schumann: The Poet Sings

verses are addressed by a soldier dying on the battlefield, to his beloved, yet Schumann wrote it as a polonaise in a major key. The dance rhythm and mood would be well suited years later to the flirtatiousness of Geibel’s “Der Hidalgo” (Op. 30, No. 3) or “Botschaft” (Op. 74, No. 8), where simi¬ lar rhythmic gestures evoke a bolero, but here these effects sound flip¬ pant.2 Schumann does match the music to the words line by line, providing diminished-seventh chords, for example, for the words “carried pale from the batdefield.” This rather madrigalesque response, however, is deficient from the perspective of Schumann’s later ideal of capturing the mood (Stimmung) of a poem as a whole. Brunswick composer Gottlob Wiedebein counseled him to strive for “poetic truth” and to “harmonize all parts together” (Eismann 1:40). Schumann recast the piece some years later as the second movement (“Aria”) of his Piano Sonata in F# Minor Op. 11. Another Kerner song, “Im Herbste” (Werke XIV/1: 36), comes closer to Schumann’s later style. Its subdued, innig (intimate and sincere) melody and harmony project the poem’s sensual and ardent mood rather than its individual images (Ex. 3.1). This song, too, was later incorporated into a piano work, the slow movement of the Piano Sonata in G Minor Op. 22.

EXAMPLE 3.1. “Im Herbste,” mm. 1-5 Langsam und ausdrucksvoll

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Robert Schumann: The Poet Sings

After these youthful efforts, Schumann devoted the first decade of his mature composing career to music for the piano, much of it with literary or extra-musical associations. Allusions, titles, words, even letters assisted the composer with his aesthetic program. Papillons is direcdy related to Jean Paul’s novel Die Flegeljahre\ Rreisleriana refers to Capellmeister Kreisler in E. T. A. Hoffman’s novella. Carnaval has the masked ball of the prelenten Carnival season as its premise, each piece bearing a character’s name, and many of the melodies are constructed around permutations of the musical letters common to Schumann’s name and the city Asch, where an early sweetheart lived (S [Es], C, H, A = El>, C, B1!, A). The Variations Op. 1 are based similarly on the pitches in the name Abegg. Kinderscenen (Scenes of Childhood), with its famous “Traumerei,” contains a piece enti¬ tled “Der Dichter spricht”—The Poet Speaks—suggesting that Schumann considered himself a tone poet (Tondichter) and that the essence of poetry is the mood or nonverbal message established, whether by linguistic means or, as here, by wordless piano music. Schumann would, however, again ap¬ preciate actual poetry as an impetus and opportunity for composition; eventually it would coax the poet to sing. By his late twenties Schumann was known as the founding editor and frequent contributor to the Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik—his literary talent harnessed to write musical criticism—and as the composer of piano music too puzzling to please crowds in the concert hall and too thorny for ama¬ teurs at home. He felt he was reaching a creative impasse in his piano com¬ position, and he wanted to make a mark in the serious, public genres of symphony and opera. He also was secredy engaged to and determined to marry the esteemed concert pianist Clara Wieck, but her father was throw¬ ing up every barrier to their marriage, to the point of making accusations against Schumann’s character in court. This personal situation added to the composer’s creative dilemma, for one of Herr Wieck’s allegations was that Schumann had insufficient income to support his daughter. During this time, probably in the autumn of 1839, Schumann began to compose songs again, after an eleven-year hiatus. Though no song man¬ uscript of this period is securely dated before January 1840, Schumann, in his letters to Clara, refers to new compositions that do not correspond to any piano music. He describes his composing as being qualitatively differ¬ ent, and in mid-February of the new year he explicidy alludes to lieder. “I’ve written six notebooks of songs, ballads, and little four-voice pieces.” In the course of a little more than one year (late fall 1839 through January 1841), Schumann completed approximately two hundred works for solo voice (or voices). The year 1840 became, in his words, “mein Liedeijahr” (see Eismann 1: 147). Schumann felt this body of work to rank among his best achievements, and he published eight sets of songs between the sum¬ mer of 1840 and the end of 1841 (about a third of the ones he had com¬ posed). In light of the significant turn to song his compositional career was

Robert Schumann: The Poet Sings

about to take, it is ironic that in mid-1839 Schumann had asked a younger composer, “Have you perhaps, like me, never considered vocal composi¬ tion to be a great art form?”3 Schumann’s question, much cited and dis¬ cussed, may simply indicate a generally low opinion of many of the songs that came his way as a reviewer for the journal, or it may imply dissatisfac¬ tion with his own early efforts. It may also reflect the pervasive early Ro¬ mantic view that instrumental music was superior to texted music. Even if one disregards this pronouncement, Schumann’s “conver¬ sion” from solo keyboard music to song seems an abrupt turn. A number of explanations have been put forward (see Feldman, Plantinga 1967, Sams 1965, Walsh 1971, and Turchin 1981). One common suggestion is that the composer broke into song because he was inspired by his antici¬ pated marriage to Clara, but the underlying reasoning is fuzzy on several accounts. Robert and Clara had been in love for years and had even made a secret pledge eventually to be wed, in spite of her father’s objections. In the winter of 1839-40, when he began to write songs, their marriage was still far from certain. Furthermore, by no means all the poems Schumann set have to do with happy love, or even with love at all. Finally, and most importantiy, Clara had already been a constant source of inspiration; he had composed much piano music with her in mind. His feelings toward her cannot logically be advanced to explain a change in genre, though they unquestionably continued to inspire him in whatever he did.4 But, al¬ though rejecting this explanation as facile and sentimental, one may still view Clara as a catalyst; she had been encouraging Robert to compose songs, for example, and he enjoyed hearing her sing. Subtle changes in Schumann’s piano music have been traced; compo¬ sitions of the late 1830s, such as Kreisleriana (Op. 16) and the Noveletten (Op. 21), have more songlike melodies than the earlier, more rhapsodic works. Thus the turn to vocal music can be understood as part of a more gradual stylistic change. Another artistic factor may have been Schumann’s interest in and ambition to compose an opera. In 1840 he was beginning to look for a suitable subject and libretto, and he may have thought of composing lieder as a prelude to vocal music for the stage. To these personal and artistic factors may be added economic ones. In 1838-39 Schumann was deeply concerned that the public, and profes¬ sional pianists (sometimes even Clara), did not appreciate his piano music, and that he needed to compose something to bring in more income and to satisfy Wieck. If one adds this to his dissatisfaction with his recent piano music, to the success of the songs published as supplements to the Neue Zeitschrift, and to the sheer fact that success in song composition had made many a nonperforming composer well known, then the cumulative weight of these factors seems ample grounds for his move, whether or not by con¬ scious decision. Mendelssohn may also have been an influence. On 30 January 1840 the two composers spent the evening together. The next day, Schumann

Robert Schumann: The Poet Sings

wrote the earliest unambiguously dated song, “Schlusslied des Narren”— the fool’s closing song from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, published years later as Op. 127, No. 5. It has been surmised that Mendelssohn, already a published song composer, encouraged Schumann to try his hand at this genre. If we trust inferences from his letters, Schumann had already started to write songs, but a positive word from such a respected colleague could certainly have given his tentative beginning a fresh impetus.

Poets and Poetry As Schumann began to write songs, he sampled the work of various poets; in the course of his career he set verse by about sixty writers. In his poetic affinities, Schumann has traditionally been characterized as a Ro¬ mantic lied composer, but recent scholarship has begun to contest this view and to regard him as an artist poised between Romanticism, which had become a dated literary phenomenon and sensibility by the 1840s, and Biedermeier materialism, realism, and resignation (Dahlhaus 1974, Kross 1981). Though one thinks of his mysterious and mystical settings of poems by Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff, of the distraught lover of his Heine songs, and of his (obligatory?) treatments of the famous lyrics from Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister, there are few other poems of German Romanti¬ cism among his songs, and Heine’s status is debatable. Only three by Schiller, six from the Wunderhorn collection of folk poetry, and five by balladist Uhland could be properly added to that category, and these are rather slim works. ^ At the same time there is his attraction to the poems of Adelbert von Chamisso, Friedrich Ruckert, and Robert Reinick, which exemplify Ger¬ man middle-class domestic values, tinged with exhausted Romantic im¬ agery. The personae in these poems do not sing of romantic passion and yearning but find meaning in conjugal jove, religion, and national pride. Nature is no longerATset of symbols for spiritual realities, as in the poetry of Eichendorff or the paintings of Caspar David Friedrich, but a mirror of human feelings and an index of beauty. Chamisso’s poetic cycle Frauenliebe und Leben embodies the age’s stereo¬ typed conception of womanhood as subservient wife and mother (Solie); though Schumann’s music brings Chamisso’s rather flat character to life, the assumptions behind the texts today seem rather unpalatable. In the Ruckert songs Op. 37 (jointly composed by Robert and Clara), the artist, anxious that he will be unable to realize his creative goals, finds compensa¬ tion in love and companionship (Hallmark 1990). The distraught lover of Heine-Schumann does not commit suicide, like Goethe’s Werther or Schubert’s young miller, but finds consolation and reconciliation. Schumann also composed songs to poems by Emmanuel Geibel and Justinius Kerner. The poetry of Geibel, especially his translations of Span-

Robert Schumann: The Poet Sings

ish love songs (which inspired two of Schumann’s multivoiced cycles, Opp. 74 and 138), is full of earthy realism—humorous, melancholy, angry, flirta¬ tious. Kerner, whose verse the composer had first set as a seventeen-yearold, bears traces of a romantic outlook, but one that has turned somewhat sentimental and pessimistic. Chamisso, Geibel, Kerner, and Ruckert, to¬ gether with Eichendorff, Goethe, and Heine, are the poets on which Schu¬ mann drew most heavily for his Lieder; approximately half of his three hundred songs are on texts by these seven poets. Closely following are Robert Burns, Hoffmann von Fallersleben, Elisabeth Kulmann (a German emigre in Russia), and the Austrian Nicholas Lenau, with eleven songs each. These eleven poets are the source of two-thirds of Schumann’s songs. From the remaining fifty poets, Schumann often set fewer than five poems, in many cases a single lyric. .-Like literature in general, poetry and song can be divided into three broad categories according to their “voice”: lyrical, dramatic, and narra¬ tive. In the lyric poem or song, the speaking persona is the lyrical self, a first-person voice expressing itself about or in relation to the love of an¬ other, of nature, God, and so forth. Dramatic poems are also called Rollengedichte in German; in a dramatic song the singer takes on a role, becomes a character. Narrative songs tell a story, and the singer is the neu¬ tral narrator; the commonest sort of narrative poem is the ballad (Ballade). To these categories it is necessary to add a fourth: folk poems and songs. Folk song is more a mode than basic literary type and can usually be placed in one of the first two categories—a lyrical utterance (e.g., a spring song) or a character type (e.g., a highland widow, a gypsy maiden)—and, of course, the literary ballad is a folk-derived genre. But folk poetry (and its imitations) usually has a distinctive voice, simpler in diction and tone, less artful, more naive than literary creations in lyrical and dramatic veins. For this reason, and because folk song was brought to the fore in this pe¬ riod, it is a useful category for late eighteenth- and early nineteenthcentury poetry and lieder. About half of Schumann’s songs are lyrical: for example, the Heine love songs of Opp. 24 and 48; most of the Eichendorff songs, Op. 39; the Kerner, Reinick, and Ruckert songs, Opp. 35-37; most of the songs pub¬ lished as Lieder und Gesange (Opp. 27, 51, 77, and 96); the Neun and Lenau songs, Opp. 89 and 90; and the Ruckert Minnelieder, Op. 101). The remain¬ der are distributed in roughly equal numbers in the other categories. The dramatic songs include Frauenliebe Op. 42; the various Wanderlieder; the Geibel pseudo-medieval songs, Op. 30; “Der Soldat” and “Der Spielmann,” Op. 40, Nos. 3 and 4; “Die Soldatenbraut” and “Das verlassne Magdelein,” Op. 64, Nos. 1 and 2; the Husarenlieder, Op. 117; and the Maria Stuart songs, Op. 135. Among the narrative songs are the ballads: the Chamisso and Beranger songs of Op. 31—including “Die Lowenbraut” and “Die Kartenlegerin”—the Romanzen und Balladen (Opp. 45, 49, and 53), includ¬ ing “Die beiden Grenadiere” of Heine and “Fruhlingsfahrt” of Eichen-

Robert Schumann: The Poet Sings

dorff; Heine’s “Belsatzar,” Op. 57, Goethe’s “Die wandelnde Glocke,” Op. 79, No. 17, and Schiller’s “Der Handschuh,” Op. 87; the non-balladesque stories “Die Lotosblume,” Op. 25, No. 7, “Zigeunerleben,” Op. 29, No. 3, “Im Walde,” Op. 39, No. 11, most of the Hans Christian Andersen songs, Op. 40, Nos. 1 and 2, and “Ein Jungling liebt ein Madchen,” Op. 48, No. 11 and “Die Meerfee,” Op. 125, No. 1. The folk and folk-like songs include the various Burns solo songs of Myrthen, Op. 25; the duets of Op. 34; “Verratene Liebe,” Op. 40, No. 5—a Greek folksong translated by Chamisso; the real folk poems from Des Knaben Wunderhom and the imitations in the Jugendliederalbum, Op. 79; and the Spanish folk songs in Geibel’s transla¬ tions in Opp. 74 and 138. These categories are not firm, and many poems cross from one into another. One could, for example, construe the Burns serenades—set down as dialogues—as dramatic songs; one could consider some nonballadesque narrative poems to be essentially lyrical, with an implicit “I” as an observing persona. But the four-part classification generally holds. This classification is useful for several reasons. First, it is an enlighten¬ ing alternative to the use of poets’ names as a way of evaluating Schu¬ mann’s literary interests as a song composer. The exercise provokes certain perceptions, such as the realization that Dichterliebe and Frauenliebe und Leben, although cycles for a male and female singer, respectively, are not necessarily counterparts, for the former can be thought of as lyrical poetry, the latter as dramatic. One can perform or hear the Heine songs as direct lyrical utterances of the singer, the Chamisso songs as role-playing. Second, it calls attention to the number of non-lyrical songs. Schumann is thought of first and foremost as a lyrical lied composer, and more than half his songs fall into this category; but his interest and creativity in the other

categories—particularly

the

dramatic

and

narrative

songs—is

greater than is generally recognized. Third, this apportionment makes clear a significant difference between Schumann and some of the other major lied composers. He drew much more heavily on folk poetry than had Schubert; his interest in the folk “voice” was different from that of his younger protege Brahms, who drew not only on the texts but on the tradi¬ tional tunes of folk songs as well. But Schumann did not draw heavily on the most famous folk poetry collection of the century, Des Knaben Wunderhorn, from which Mahler and others took many texts.

The Character of Schumann’s Songs In the course of February and March 1840, Schumann set around forty poems by (in alphabetical order) Burns and Byron (both in German translation), Chamisso, Goethe, Heine, Thomas Moore (also in transla¬ tion), Ruckert, Shakespeare, and others. Although his anticipated marriage to Clara may not have prompted his outburst into song itself, it did moti-

Robert Schumann: The Poet Sings

vate Schumann in March to gather twenty-six of these songs into a musical bouquet for his bride. He entitled the collection Myrthen (myrtles, tradi¬ tional German bridal flowers), and arranged for an especially decorative tide page, the dedication “Seiner geliebten Braut” (to his beloved bride), and publication on their wedding day (September 12). Though Myrthen seems more a special collection than a cycle,5 many of the other songs Schumann composed in 1840-41 do belong to cycles. Indeed, the composition of groups of songs to poems by a single poet, with a narrative line or a common theme and arranged in related keys, is Schu¬ mann’s characteristic manner with songs, just as his habit with piano music had been to combine many short pieces into coherent cycles, each with a general title. In this one perceives a continuity that bridges the shift to the composition of lieder. -Schumann would often plunge 'into a frenzy of composition for a few days, and in this way he produced no fewer than seven cycles (a total of seventy-nine songs) in eleven months (February 184CGJanuary 1841; see Table 3.1). Other published collections of songs from 1840 are also arguably united in varying ways and degrees by poet, theme, genre, and key, even if they are not explicit cycles. Both Op. 30 and Op. 31 are portrait galleries on poems of Emanuel Geibel and Chamisso, respectively. The Op. 40 songs are translations by Chamisso, four of poems by Hans Christian An¬ dersen and one adapted from a Greek folksong; each of these five songs is in only one of two closely related keys (G Major and D minor). The songs of Opp. 45, 49, and 53 are all narratives, as their titles indicate (Romanzen und Balladen, sets I, II, and III). There are also detectable poetic and tonal connections between the songs of the two collections of Lieder und Gesange, Opp. 27 and 51. The three part-songs for solo voices, Op. 29, should also be mentioned here. Settings of poems by Emanuel Geibel, they are arranged in a graduated sequence: duet, trio, and quartet. As Table 3.1 demonstrates, Schumann’s opus numbers, which corre¬ spond to date of publication, obscure the chronology of his song composi¬ tion. Though he composed nearly two hundred songs for solo voice (s) in the one year, he did not publish all immediately. The reason was likely both artistic and economic; he withheld songs, both anticipating the need for emendation and probably seeking to spread out his earnings. The old idea of Schumann as a composer swept away with inspirational frenzy, scrawling finished masterpieces at a fevered pace, in in need of refine¬ ment. To be sure, Schumann was capable of rapid work. His manuscripts, however, reveal that deliberate and painstaking revision followed the ini¬ tial notation of a song. From his sketches of the vocal melody, through the full drafts, in which he added the piano part, to the fair copies prepared for the publishers, Schumann emended at every stage, altering and refin¬ ing details of melody, rhythm, and harmony, changing meters, even omit¬ ting whole sections. This thoroughgoing self-criticism extended to entire cycles, both before publication—trimming the twenty Heine songs to the

Robert Schumann: The Poet Sings

Table 3.1. Song Cycles, 1840--41 mid-Feb.

Heine, Liederdreis1

Op. 24, pub. 1840

early May

Eichendorff, Liederkreis^

Op. 39, pub. 1842

mid-May

Heine, Zwanzig Lieder*

(rev. ed. 1850) Op. 48 Dichterliebe pub. 1844 mid-July

Chamisso, Frauenliebe und Lebeni 3 4

Op. 42, pub. 1843

July-Aug.

Reinick, Sechs Gedichte5 6 7

Op. 36, pub. 1841

Nov.-Dee.

Kerner, Zwolf GedichtJ*

Op. 35, pub. 1841

January 1841

Ruckert, Zwolf Gedichte1

Op. 37, pub. 1841

1. An integral poetic cycle of Heine’s creation, entitled simply Lieder and included in the Buck der Lieder. On Op. 24, see Hockner. 2. The poems were selected from Eichendorff s novellas Am dem Leben eines Taugenichts and Ahnung und Gegenwart; their sequence was reordered. Clara and Robert may have selected the poems together, for they are recorded in the couple’s text notebook in Clara’s hand. The first edition of the cycle opened with “Der frohe Wandersmann” (D major) and did not contain “In der Fremde” (FI minor); the latter was substituted for the former in the second, revised edition of the cycle, and the discarded song was republished as Op. 77, No. 1. See Knaus 1974 and Finson 1994. 3. Schumann set twenty poems from the “Lyrisches Intermezzo” of the Buck der Lieder and drafted a tide page to that effect. Later he removed four songs and published the remaining sixteen with the familiar programmatic tide. The four omitted songs were eventually published as Op. 127, Nos. 2-3 and Op. 142, Nos. 2 and 4. See Komar 1971 and Hallmark 1977 and 1979. 4. Based on the integral cycle of poems by Chamisso. Schumann omitted the ninth poem. See Hallmark (forthcoming) and Solie. 5. Selected from the poet’s Am dem Liederbuch eines Maters (From the Songbook of a Painter). 6. Two other 1840 Kerner songs—“Sangers Trost” and “Trost im Gesang”—share themes with the songs of Op. 35 and may have been part of this compositional activity. These were published later as Op. 127, No. 1 and Op. 142, No. 1, respectively, along with other songs, including the Heine songs that were removed from Dichterliebe. On Op. 35, see Turchin 1987. 7. Robert composed nine songs in January and Clara, at his request, composed four more, in June. Like most of Schumann’s Ruckert texts, diese are all from the poet’s large collection Liebesfruhling (Love’s Springtime). With one of Clara’s songs dropped, the songs were published as Robert and Clara’s single joint opus. See Hallmark 1990.

sixteen in Dichterliebe—and after, as with the second edition, in 1850, of the Liederkreis Op. 39, with the first song replaced, as well as other changes. (See Hallmark 1977, 1979, and 1984, and Hirschberg). Similarly, it ap¬ pears that Schumann was deliberate about publication, not wanting to “flood the market” and thus bringing out the products of this “Liederjahr” over a period of seven years. The Myrthen collection illustrates many stylistic features of Schu¬ mann’s songs. Goethe’s “Freisinn” (No. 2) is a prototype of Schumann’s

Robert Schumann: The Poet Sings

Wanderlieder, a major-key marching song propelled by dotted rhythms on weak beats (see Ex. 3.10a below).6 The song is in ABA form, as are about a quarter of the Myrthen songs (Nos. 1, 2, 5, 11, 19, 21, and 25). In “Freisinn” (as in Nos. 1 and 5), the form results from the composer’s reprise of the poem’s opening strophe (or lines), a not unusual textual gambit for Schu¬ mann, for which he is often criticized. In many of Schumann’s ternary forms (though not “Freisinn”), the initial section (usually the poem’s first stanza) closes on a chord other than the tonic. This makes the form more dynamic; the open-ended first part “leans” more toward a continuation, and the middle section, usually in another key, increases this expectation. The musical reprise is then necessary to close the tonal motion of both preceding parts, and the resultant song is tauter than a simple ternary form in which the initial A section cadences in the tonic. Five of the seven ternary songs in Myrthen use this more dynamic tonal construction (Nos. 5, 11, 19, 21, and 25).7 “Mein Herz ist schwer” (No. 15) from Byron’s Hebrew Melodies, is a request by a morose King Saul for the solace of David’s harp playing. It exhibits the brand of contrapuntal piano writing that Schumann em¬ ployed as well in a number of expressive songs,8 especially in postludes;9 the diminished-fourth figure in the vocal melody is also characteristic.10 This song also illustrates Schumann’s occasional employment of a declam¬ atory vocal style. In the opening quatrain (mm. 7-16), the phrase structure corresponds to the cesura and enjambment rather than to the lines of the poetry, repeated pitches are used in the manner of recitative, and some words receive marked pitch and agogic accents. These features stand in stark contrast to the song-like setting of the next four lines (mm. 21-36), where the arpeggiations suggest that the harp has begun to play (Ex. 3.2, “Aus den Hebraischen Gesange,” Op. 25/15: see opposite). Only five of the Myrthen songs are stropic (Nos. 14, 17, 18, 20, and 22); two others are modified strophic songs (Nos. 6 and 13). This reflects the much lower proportion of strophic settings among Schumann’s songs as compared, for example, with Schubert’s. For poems having four or more stanzas, Schumann often employed rondolike structures; in Myrthen there are five such songs (see Table 3.2). Schumann used this recursive rather than merely repetitive form with great flexibility, producing unity within

Table 3.2. Rondolike Forms in Myrthen, Op. 25 3

Der Nussbaum

AAABA'CD

Talisman

ABACA

Lied der Suleika

ABABA

Aus den hebraischen Gesange

aABaCB'a (a = piano)

Rats el

ABABA'

(a) mm. 1-3 Sehr langsam

Robert Schumann: The Poet Sings

variety in myriad incarnations.11 Some might designate these simply as through-composed settings, but the recurrence of whole stanzas of music in the tonic seems to conflict with the connotations of the latter term. The idea of rondo or rondolike procedure provides a more concrete formal category in which to place many Schumann settings of longer poems. The dominance of many types of nonstrophic but recursive forms reflects Schu¬ mann’s grasp of a poem as a whole rather than as a succession of similar parts and his interpretation of the mood of the poem rather than his set¬ ting of its external form (cf. Busse 47). Alongside his rich piano accompa¬ niments, this formal complexity reveals Schumann’s almost complete rejection of the eighteenth-century lied ideal, though many contemporary composers and critics still held to it. Schumann was critical of composers who relied too much on perva¬ sive accompaniment figurations. In a song review in the Neue Zeitschrift in 1839, he wrote: “With Franz Schubert the retention of a single figure throughout the whole song appeared as something new; young composers should be warned against letting this become a mannerism” (Schumann 1914 1: 432). Yet his songs show that he knew the practice could be win¬ ning when used sparingly and with originality. As important as the figura¬ tion itself is the inventiveness with which the composer varies it and provides contrast. The justly famous accompaniment to “Widmung” (Op. 25, No. 1) manages not to cloy because the composer stops doubling the rhythmically compelling arpeggiations after three measures and moves them to an inner voice. In “Der Nussbaum” (No. 3) the ascending sixteenthnote arpeggios flow uninterruptedly (as in Mendelssohn’s “Auf Flugeln des Gesanges”), but Schumann (unlike Mendelssohn) added a contrasting arch of piano melody that recurs every few measures, sometimes in unison with the voice, and that is developed in the middle of the song. Twice in the Myrthen songs (Nos. 11 and 25), Schumann pervasively used a common accompaniment rhythm ( * IT1 \

) but in both cases

the potential triviality of the figuration is a ground on which arresting fea¬ tures are etched. In “Mutter, Mutter!” (No. 11), the bass line makes a long stepwise descent, initially of thirteen notes (mm. 7-14), then through two octaves (mm. 31-38). In “Ich sende einen Gruss” (No. 25) a right-hand upper-neighbor figure (c-dt-c) punctuates the vocal phrases, and, seven measures before the end, a line unexpectedly emerges in the piano’s up¬ permost register, first leaping up by a minor seventh and then descending by step to the tonic. Three songs from Myrthen—“Widmung” (No. 1, middle section), “Die Lotosblume” (No. 7), and “Du hist wie eine Blume” (No. 24)—share a dis¬ tinctive Schumann piano figuration: repeated chords in a moderate or slow tempo, often—as here—in the right hand over more slowly moving notes in the left.12 The effect is intensified when both hands play the repeated chords, as in portions of these songs and of “Lied der Suleika” (No. 9). In part through the piano writing, these songs present a prototypical Schu-

Robert Schumann: The Poet Sings

mann mood of sincerity, warmth, and tenderness. But the prominence of the piano in Schumann’s songs has to do with more than just arresting fig¬ uration, harmony, and illustration. It has always been recognized that Schumann was a piano composer turned to songwriting. A review of his songs in the Allgemeine Muiskalische Zeitung, for example, noted that “Schu¬ mann’s songs are ... a continuation of his character pieces for piano, . . . the rich treatment of the piano is retained and often forms in the accompa¬ niment the most important side of these songs. That the author was origi¬ nally a piano composer is everywhere noticeable” (Eismann 1956, 1: 127). If with Schubert the piano became equal to the voice, if still separate, with Schumann the voice and piano have become more integrated. The piajio now sings as well, in alternation or in combination with the voice. In “Freisinn” (No. 2), the piano anticipates phrases of the vocal melody. In “Der Nussbaum” (No. 3), the high-register piano motive, which is intro¬ duced at the outset, is used to complete vocal phrases and to provide tran¬ sitions between others. It infiltrates the vocal line, undergoes transposition and chromatic modification, and finally serves as the cadencing motive of the concluding stanzas. The voice follows the piano in imitation in “Haupt¬ mann’s Weib” (No. 19), and a few measures later the piano bass has a dis¬ tinct countermelody. In more than half the songs in Myrthen, the piano has a significant postlude, that is, one that does more than simply reiterate the music of the vocal cadence. Such codalike episodes manifest melodic, harmonic, rhyth¬ mic, and contrapuntal interest of their own. Many seem to discharge the energy that remains after the singing stops. This pent-up energy may be rhythmic (Nos. 1 and 6; the propulsion must be spent), melodic (Nos. 9, 10, 12, and 19; the vocal endings alone are inconclusive), formal (Nos. 15, 18, and 20; matching prelude and postlude create a frame), and tonal (No. 9; the texted portion ends in a different key). Sometimes the piano seems to add its own afterstatement even when the song is satisfyingly com¬ plete at the vocal cadence (Nos. 11, 24). The last two songs (Nos. 25, 26) are the exceptions that prove the rule, for they end with what is essentially a restatement of the cadential vocal phrase. But not even the postlude of the penultimate song sounds repetitious, for it replays the piano’s counter¬ melody to the closing vocal phrase as a solo an octave lower.

Interpretations “Du bistwie eine Blume” (Myrthen, Op. 25, No. 24) has a Heine poem as its text. The import of the short, outwardly simple pair of quatrains can easily be misperceived as superficial sentimentality: ‘You are so sweet and pretty that you bring tears to my eyes: I pray God that you will not change!” But when one considers the poet, the context of his sophisticated Buch der Liecter, and the elements of the verse that seem to mock and undercut their sentimentality, one senses that the text cannot be read so simply. Nor does

Robert Schumann: The Poet Sings

Schumann do so, though his reading may not accord with what one per¬ ceives to be the poet’s intent. Heine appears to be thumbing his nose with the hackneyed simile (“Thou’rt like a flow’r”) and with the three plain, monosyllabic adjectives. Nevertheless, for “Wehmut” (sadness) to follow these two lines—as if by cause and effect—is unexpected. When Heine ut¬ ters his prayer and repeats the same three adjectives, a ploy either thread¬ bare or parodistic, it is hard not to read this poem as ironic and sarcastic (especially beside the many less ambiguously ironic poems in this collec¬ tion). This is a characteristic Schumann song in many ways. At first glance one might say that the two stanzas of the poem are set strophically, with some modifications: in stanza 2, Schumann subtly alters .and revoices the chords, raises them to a higher register, and adds pedal. But in truth the song is not strophic; rather it is a 16-measure period (with introduction and coda); the first stanza (mm. 2-9) ends with a cadence on the domi¬ nant (mm. 8-9), and the ending of the second stanza (mm. 10-17) is ad¬ justed to bring about a full close. This is a typical Schumann gambit for a two-strophe poem.13 Other Schumann staples in this song include the oc¬ casional insertion of triplets (mm. 2, 10) for reasons of text setting or rhythmic expressiveness;14 the turn figure (mm. 3, 11) ;15 and the cadential gesture—sol-ti-do—in the voice (mm. 16-17).16 The song also alters the original poetic text, a frequent occurrence in Schumann’s lieder (Hall¬ mark 1987). In his manuscripts and in the first edition, the adjectives in the second line read “So schon, so rein und hold,” canceling the rhyme with line 4 (“hinein”; see Ex. 3.3). Whereas many of Schumann’s text changes seem to have been consciously planned, this one, like a few oth¬ ers, appears to be a slip of the pen; Heine’s word order and rhyme should be restored (as it was in the Peters edition). Schumann’s approach to the half cadence (mm. 7-8) does more than create a stopping point at the end of stanza 1. The melodic tritone (el>-a) and the harmonic progression—augmented-sixth chord, with the synco¬ pated O in the bass, to V4, a chromatic alteration that is a bit heavyhanded for the purely cadential function—registers the incongruency of feeling “Wehmut” when beholding the young woman. The musical em¬ phases in the second stanza (recitative and chromaticism, mm. 14-16) and the briefly agonizing tone of the postlude also seem to strain against what is otherwise a straightforward setting. Both Heine and Schumann, in different ways, intend something other than what is immediately apparent in this poem. The poet, one imagines, means that the woman addressed merits no better than his quite conven¬ tional description and that this condition is the source of his melancholy. When he imagines a prayer, it is not for her to blossom and mature from the stereotyped creature he sees, but, spitefully, to remain the same! The composer, one conjectures, accepts the opening pronouncement as sincere (note the expressive leap of a seventh at “so schon”), and experiences with

Robert Schumann: The Poet Sings Example

3.3. “Du bist wie eine Blume,” mm. 1-10 Langsam

schon.

und hold;

ich schau' dich an

und

Robert Schumann: The Poet Sings

profound melancholy the inevitability of decay (mm. 7-8). Even as he prays that she might remain young, fair, and pure, he knows the futility of such a wish (mm. 14-16 and postlude). The piano is the agent of this unsettling commentary. Here, as in his great and most famous cycle (Dichterliebe), Schumann seeks to reveal the love and pain he sensed in the poet’s heart rather than the bitter sarcasm that had formed to cover his hurt. This is a radical misrepresentation of Heine, but not a sentimental trivialization. (For other readings of the song, see Sams 1969, 74, and Brauner 1981, 270.) By contrast, one seldom feels that Schubert was willfully at odds with a poetic text he set; this may be one of the most significant differences be¬ tween these two great lied composers. Schubert, it is generally held, chose texts to which he felt sympathetic. Schumann could select a poem that was not a perfect match for his sensibility and proceed to impose his interpre¬ tation upon it, whether by subverting its meaning, exaggerating it, or adding a new element. Thus, by reinterpreting a poem musically, Schu¬ mann himself became the poet singing his (appropriated) poem. Schumann’s setting of Kerner’s “Stille Thranen” (Silent Tears, Op. 35, No. 10) is more nearly in accord with its poet, at least at first. This is surely one of Schumann’s most beautiful songs, and also one of the most demanding vocally. Clearly for the tenor voice (the piano stays largely in the tenor range), it has a high tessitura and sustained high Gs, As, and one Bk Its chromatic passing tones and appoggiaturas add expressive intensity to the melodic line. The piano part is lush, containing repeated chords in the right hand in a slow f meter (sehr langsam) over pedalled bass notes, often doubled on octave lower (the left hand descends to CC), and an ex¬ pressive interlude and postlude (Ex. 3.4). Kerner’s three quatrains draw a simile between nocturnal rain and tears, both of which go unnoticed by sleepers who awake to behold only clear sky and clear eyes. Schumann’s music illustrates the incongruity be¬ tween appearance and reality through its own incongruities of musical grammar. First, as the voice passes from g through g# to b (as the harmony moves from c major to A minor), the bass remains on C and moves through B down to A only two measures afterward (a motion to which the song draws more attention later). Second, where one might expect a pro¬ gression from A minor (vi) through D (ii) to a half cadence on G (V) at the midpoint of the stanza (a harmonization that would fit the melody), the music proceeds through a dominant minor triad to a cadence on a Cmajor chord with minor seventh, V7 of F (IV). Third, the outer voices move in parallel fifths to this cadence (mm. 8-9), although they are ame¬ liorated by that unexpected B!> that is held through. The second half of the stanza begins in F with a transposition up a fourth of the first phrase (mm. 11-13 = mm. 3-5), followed by a cadence back to the tonic, C. In this phrase the bass again moves tardily, here from F to D in mm. 12-15. Whereas the vocal melody tells one story to the audience, the piano stands behind, shaking its head and suggesting another.

Robert Schumann: The Poet Sings EXAMPLE 3.4.

“Stille Tranen,” mm. 1-10

Sehr langsam

jh}

r - =— -i—j--i-i-S—--^4-r«bist

vom

—-

p kTklM. .

— \—:—

....

./ JK ■

1 m

i.F 3».

1 1 ML.. B B

— 1

1 1 1 m -i \ . zsg;:.

•

ml .

1 w

1 * »1 a1-a—ar —a -- a a~ -»-a-aw—n—;■a-a-a-a-a-

—

5^. 1

r t

4 ilj ^

j r=r ^-

Schlaf_

p-.-

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£=-- ~F

er - stan

den

und wan

deist

-6----

■

i' T.® A

LI I 1 ~a MM a a M. a 4E a

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■■

JJ ^*7 aaaaa

’abl

-ir-n 5e durch_

die

[

JJJJ. 34* «...^ a a fig a i"i

‘ds-r

1- jjjj a aaaa a a if a

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in ► i 1 * j.ijL i?. > ^ j ^ j -L 111 i i =F=1 — ^=F=F^ J •e-. 1 4rr r r r ^

Robert Schumann: The Poet Sings The next stanza, a middle section with contrasting music, moves to At,

and then to Ck (Moves to keys related by thirds are typical of Schumann.) This leads through a Neapolitan progression to Bt as dominant seventh of Et major, and we then hear the third stanza set to a reprise of the opening period in this new key. Here the climactic vocal phrase, “In stillen Nachten weinet / Oft mancher aus den Schmerz” (Often in silent nights many a per¬ son weeps out his sorrow), peaks on the high Bl at the word “Schmerz”— the highest note in all of Schumann’s songs. The next phrase, instead of proceeding to a close in Et approaches a cadence in C minor (through iv6 and iif) but unexpectedly lands on I4 in C major—this to the words “Und morgens dann ihr meinet / Stets frohlich sei sein Herz” (and then, come morning, you think his heart is always happy). Again a musical incongruity underlines the distinction between truth and appearance. No sooner has the voice cadenced (m. 49) than the piano is off again, now playing the music of stanza 1 in the original C major (and in the tenor register) but without the voice. The tardy bass motion from C to AA is highlighted with a trill. The voice enters at the midpoint of the musical phrase, repeating the closing lines of the poem. Under this line the bass does move down (F-E-D, mm. 57-59) and becomes part of a more natural progression, this time leading convincingly toward the C-major cadence. But again the reality of the music undercuts what seems about to happen, bringing us up short with an unusual deceptive cadence. Prompted by this inconclusiveness, the piano plays a postlude whose complexity belies the simplicity of the voice’s melodic cadence. There is no authentic cadence after the one in m. 49; the cadence at m. 63 is deceptive, and the postlude carries us around the circle of fifths (D-G-C-F), ending with a weak plagal cadence in C. There is no clear cessation of the sorrow wept over in the night (of course the fact that this song occurs in a cycle partially accounts for its inconclusiveness). Although Schumann’s music does not go against the grain of Kerner’s poem as it does with some Heine lyrics, it goes beyond the poem in the depth of its expressivity. Though the sorrowful weeper in Kerner’s poem is referred to in the third person, one might infer that the generalized “mancher” (someone) is only a disguise for the speaker. But in Schumann’s song, the identification of the singer with the melancholy figure is explicit, as the passion is so great and so personally expressed. The momentous quality of Schumann’s music gives a different import to the poem. Whereas Kerner’s emphasis is on the irony in the beholder’s ignorance of “someone’s” grief, Schumann seems to say that the “someone,” who is the speaker himself, is concealing his sorrow behind a front of heroic stoicism. Night is a Romantic theme prominent in Schumann’s music, and nowhere is it more magnificently and variously treated than in the Eichendorff Liederkreis Op. 39. Unanimity between text and music is probably strongest in Schumann’s treatment of this poet (see Thym 1974 and 1980), the prime example being the justifiably beloved and much dis-

Robert Schumann: The Poet Sings

cussed “Mondnacht” (Op. 39, No. 5; cf. Brinkmann 1990, Sams 1969). In their haunting subject matter, nature imagery, and evocative mood, Eichendorffs poetry, Schumann’s songs, and the paintings of Caspar David Friedrich form a constellation of remarkably similar artists in their respective media; Friedrich’s Man and Woman Beholding the Moon is an apt companion piece for the Eichendorff-Schumann “Mondnacht.” “Zwielicht” (Twilight), the tenth song of the Eichendorff Liederkreis, portrays

the

mysterious,

sinister

aspect

of approaching

night.

(Cf.

Friedrich’s The Great Copse and The Evening.) The poem’s first stanza attrib¬ utes terrifying qualities to dusk, breezes, and clouds, and asks what this dreadful feeling betokens. The second stanza warns against letting a fa¬ vorite deer graze alone in the forest, where there are hunters. The third stanza counsels against trusting a friend at this hour. The last stanza most gravely warns that many are lost in the night. There is, then, a progression from a vague feeling of uneasiness to explicit fear of loss or death. Dusk imparts a premonition of evil. The hunters are a real danger, but they can be avoided. Human deceitfulness is less easily detectable; hunters blow their horns and we hear their voices, but our supposed friends can dissim¬ ulate. Finally we come face to face with the supernatural forces of night; all one can do is to be alert and cheerful, but nevertheless “Manches geht in Nacht verloren” (much vanishes at night). Schumann’s song begins with a single strand of chromatic melody and develops into a two- and three-part contrapuntal texture. Tonally am¬ biguous for five measures (the 2-measure cell could continue repeating it¬ self sequentially), the piano prelude starts toward a cadence in E minor in m. 6, but even then an F1! (flat supertonic) threatens the certainty of the close. As the first stanza begins, the piano plays the prelude again, this time with a distinct bass line, but after two notes this breaks off and hence¬ forth appears only sporadically. The voice follows the piano’s top line heterophonically. The last line of the quatrain is delivered as recitative, and a distinct half cadence emerges (bass notes C-BB; see Ex. 3.5). The second stanza is much the same, although the bass notes persist into the stanza a little longer. In the third stanza an active, rising bass line and an excited, higher-climbing vocal line give clearer directedness to the harmony but lead to a momentary stopping point that is—deceitfully—not in E minor but in C# minor. In the last stanza the ambiguous polyphonic lines give way to explicit, repeated chords over a distinct continuous bass line in half notes with octave doublings. The gradual crystallization of the harmony stanza by stanza is a musical analog of the progression of thought in Eichendorff s poem. Schumann, moreover, learned from Schubert’s “Erlkonig” the chilling effectiveness of ending such a song with a plain recita¬ tion of the last line (cf., too, the ending of “Belsatzar,” Op. 57). Schumann thus sings this poem very much as one imagines Eichendorff would speak it; Schumann’s interpretation neither contradicts nor exceeds the poet. (Much the same could be said of Schumann’s settings of his favorite poet, Riickert.)

Robert Schumann: The Poet Sings

EXAMPLE 3.5. “Zwielicht,” Op. 39/10, mm. 1-15

Langsam

Robert Schumann: The Poet Sings

Of Schumann’s narrative and dramatic songs from 1840—besides the well-known “Die beiden Grenadiere” (Heine, Op. 49, No. 1)—the Hans Christian Andersen poems (in Chamisso’s translations) should be mentioned. The middle three pieces—“Muttertraum,” “Der Soldat,” and “Der Spielmann”—are especially poignant, for which the outer two— “Marzveilchen” and “Verratene Liebe”—form light-hearted frame. The first two stanzas of “Muttertraum” tell of a mother holding her baby boy; forgetting life’s grief and hardship, she is filled with hope for his future. In the third stanza, a raven with its young predicts a grim future for the boy: “Your angel will be ours; the robber will be our meal.” In the piano pre¬ lude the right hand traces a chromatic line in sixteenths, the bass entering a measure later in syncopated quarters. As the voice enters, the piano figu¬ ration continues, the D-minor key seems odd and sinister for the scene of maternal love. The key turns to F major for the second stanza (hopeful¬ ness). The prelude is heard again, pianissimo, and the third stanza begins like the first, but when the raven speaks the piano changes to repeated sixteenth-note chords over quarters; the last line is sung quietly on a reiter¬ ated low A. A varied statement of the prelude concludes the bleak song (Ex. 3.6). The overall means and effect of “Muttertraum” are strongly reminis¬ cent of “Zwielicht.” The resemblance provides an opportunity to consider briefly Eric Sams’s theory about motives in Schumann’s songs (Sams 1969, 11-26 and passim). There are many melodic contours and figures, piano rhythms and textures, and the like, that permeate Schumann’s songs (cf. the enumeration of common material in the discussion of “Du hist wie eine Blume” above). Sams identifies many recurring motives but perhaps goes too far in insisting that each figure has a crystallized symbolic mean¬ ing, or that each instance of the same figure in different songs means the same (or a similar) thing. Furthermore, he occasionally describes an ele¬ ment inaccurately. In short, although Sams is provocative and helpful, his book should be read with caution. For example, noting the similarity between the openings of “Mutter¬ traum,” “Zwielicht,” and “Aus den hebraischen Gesange” (“Mein Herz ist schwer,” Op. 25, No. 15), Sams defines his Motif 33 rhythmically as a string of even notes beginning off the beat, after a rest, and tonally as E minor (Sams 1969, 18). Two of these songs fit this description—“Mein Herz ist schwer”

and

“Zwielicht”—but

they

resemble

each

other

less

than

“Zwielicht” and “Muttertraum” do, even though the latter begins on the beat and is in a different key (D minor). In these two songs, the minor¬ mode melody regularly falls and rises, mostly in thirds; another voice en¬ ters in a staggered rhythm; and the key center is blurred by chromaticism and sequence. In “Mein Herz ist schwer” the lines all descend, mostly by step and half step; there is no staggered counterpoint; and despite the chromaticism, the E-minor tonality is never in doubt because the lines and implied harmonies all hover around the dominant.1'

Robert Schumann: The Poet Sings

Example

3.6. “Muttertraum,” Op. 40/2, mm. 1-8

Langsam

. -1 ifj— ♦ j j ^ j j i^=

Q \ 0,

■>■*

\JSTS^

FfHf**- f »

,■ r , -gq[p "r

f —q J

P-=|

Robert Schumann: The Poet Sings

Sams also claims that “Muttertraum” shares a “rocking figure” (at the word “Wiege,” cradle, mm. 9ff.) with “Hochlandisches Wiegenlied” (Op. 25, No. 14), “Schone Wiege meiner Lieder” (Op. 24, No. 5), and “Lust der Sturmmacht” (Op. 35, No. 1). He defines this motive (Motif 35A) as “pro¬ longed bass notes . . . together with a rocking movement in both hands” (Sams 1969, 18). I can perceive no similarity between the opening of “Highland Lullaby” and the passage in “Muttertraum,” nor do I find that either fits the description of Motif 35A. Op. 24, No. 5 and Op. 35, No. 1, on the other hand, correspond loosely to Sams’s motive: both have sus¬ tained tonic pedals, and the left thumb and right hand alternate notes of the superimposed chords. In only one of the songs (Op. 24, No. 5) does the text refer to a cradle, and Sams offers no explanation for the use of this motive in the other (Op. 35, No. 1). Furthermore, in neither song does the piano part particularly resemble rocking; the tempos are simply too fast (bewegtin Op. 25, No. 4, kraftig, leidenschaftlich in Op. 35, No. 1).

Songs for Multiple Solo Voices A substantial but largely ignored body of Schumann songs is for two or more solo voices with piano.18 Some of these songs were published sep¬ arately as duets and trios (Op. 29, 34, 43, 78, 103, and 114), but many are parts of cycles (Opp. 37, 74, 101, and 138) or of the Liederalbum fur die Jugend (Op. 79). Though one tends to think of the later multivoice cycles (“fur ein und mehrere Singstimmen”) in this regard—the Spanisches Liederspiel Op. 74, the MinnespielOp. 101, and the Spanische Liebeslieder Op. 138— Schumann’s interest in multivoice songs began in 1840. These songs deserve to be better known and more frequently per¬ formed because of their sheer beauty; Schumann lavished far more musi¬ cal imagination than his contemporaries on such compositions, and they should be considered part of his lied production proper.19 Many duets of the time are relatively simple strophic parlor songs with two treble voices singing in rhythmic unison—often in parallel thirds and sixths—over un¬ remarkable accompaniment. Among Schumann’s some nineteen duets, about half would fit this description except that their melodic charm and harmonic-contrapuntal ingenuity surpass the merely pretty, and their pianism exceeds the conventionally accompanimental. The rest of the duets exhibit more interesting musical form and richer polyphonic texture. Schumann had great fun with poems that are dialogues or that implic¬ itly suggest two characters, such as the soprano-tenor duets of Op. 34. “Liebesgarten” (Reinick, Op. 34, No. 1) is in the first person plural: “wir zwei, mein Lieb und ich” (we two, my love and I). The two voices begin each stanza together in parallel melodic lines but then have solo phrases and independent counterpoint. “Liebhabers Standchen” and “Unterm Fenster” (Op. 34, Nos. 2 and 3), both translations of Robert Burns poems,

Robert Schumann: The Poet Sings

are serenade dialogues between an impetuous youth (tenor) beseeching admission and a maiden (soprano) refusing it. During much of “Liebhabers Standchen” the two voices sing their respective text portions simul¬ taneously, creating complicated rhythmic counterpoint; this, together with the minor key and fast tempo, match the turbulence of the winter storm from which the boy seeks a haven. In “Unterm Fenster” the question-andanswer dialogue proceeds in a rollicking § meter, with melodic phrases that alternate between the soprano and tenor; at the conclusion the voices overlap, and the duet is concluded by a piano postlude. In “Familien-Gemalde” (Family Portrait, A. Grim, Op. 34, No. 4) a young couple—hence the duet—contemplate their future as they gaze at the maiden’s grandparents. Though Schumann’s melody seems a bit too sweet, converting the poem’s sentimentality to notes, the song is notable for its dueting technique and the piano posdude. The tenor sings the first stanza alone; when the second voice, the soprano, enters at the second stanza, it sings the original tune, the tenor providing a countermelody. This technique later served Schumann in “In der Nacht,” Op. 74, No. 4 and “Ich bin dein Baum,” Op. 101, No. 3 (see below). The song also ex¬ hibits one of Schumann’s longest postludes. After several stanzas, the singers end on a dominant-seventh chord, and the piano concludes the song by playing the opening stanza alone, varied and developed. This wordless, leisurely close suggests the contemplation by each couple of their past and future, respectively. (The procedure and effect are similar to the famous reprise in Frauenliebe und leben of the first song as postlude to the last, and to the postlude in “Mein Wagen rollet langsam,” Op. 142, No. 4, one of the four songs from the 1840 Twenty Lieder of Heine omitted when the songs were published as Dichterliebe.) The Drei Gedichte von Emanuel Geibel Op. 29, for two, three, and four voices must be mentioned among the multivoice songs of 1840. “Landlisches Lied,” No. 1, treats the theme of romancing youth, here in a de¬ scriptive poem about springtime, when couples go dancing in the village. The piano plays a spirited duple-meter dance, and the two treble voices chase each other in close imitation, as two dancers might mimick each other’s steps. The strophic form is rounded off by a coda in which the young lovers praise Maytime. The second song, entitled simply “Lied,” is a small masterpiece. Geibel’s poem describes through suggestive images the sadness of a person whose beloved is far away: the garden flowers have wilted (stanza 1), the hearth fire has gone out (stanza 2), the world is de¬ cayed, the heart dead (stanza 3). Schumann’s song, cast in Bar or AAB form, portrays the mood in a dolorous tempo and minor key and in lan¬ guorous counterpoint full of dissonant suspensions and overlapping phrases. Though scored with three undesignated treble clefs, this song is beautifully effective with one male and two female voices; this is the nat¬ ural solution if one assumes that a conventional quartet is on hand to per¬ form the last song (Ex. 3.7).

Robert Schumann: The Poet Sings Example 3.7. “Lied,” Op. 29/2, mm. 1-11 Langsam 1 te Stimme

100

Robert Schumann: The Poet Sings “Zigennerleben” (Gypsy Life), No. 3, the only quartet Schumann

composed in 1840, quickly dispels the enervated mood of the second song with its vivacious nature. The piece opens with a pounding dance rhythm (stanzas 1-2); this music returns at the end (stanza 7), making a large ternary form. The middle section (stanzas 3-5) describes the gypsies’ activ¬ ities around their evening campfire—cooking, eating, drinking, story¬ telling, singing, dancing, and finally sleeping. Schumann distinguishes each activity with differing melodies, keys, tempos, accompaniments, and textures, even featuring a series of one-line solos and duets.

Late Songs After the burst of song composition in 1840-41, Schumann composed almost no lieder until 1847. Many find Schumann’s later songs—like his later music in general—wanting, in comparison with his earlier composi¬ tions. But it is harsh to fault Schumann because his style evolved or be¬ cause the late songs are not carbon copies of the early ones. One should perhaps speak of his late lied styles. Moreover, he was drawn to new and different poets in his later years. Of his previously favored poets, only Goethe and Ruckert continued to interest him significantly, and the num¬ ber of settings by Geibel increased. In the later years there are practically no songs on poems by Heine, Eichendorff, Kerner, Chamisso, or Burns. The only new poets on whom Schumann drew for more than five poems were the popular Hoffmann von Fallersleben (Op. 79, selections), the Aus¬ trian Nicholas Lenau (Opp. 90, 117), and Elisabeth Kulmann (Opp. 104, 114). Otherwise Schumann sampled Morike, Uhland, Platen, and a num¬ ber of other, relatively undistinguished, poets. There were strong new currents in lied aesthetics at midcentury, and Schumann was demonstrably affected by them. Among these, according to Ulrich Mahlert’s brilliant study, was an interest in more realistic and dra¬ matic declamation of text. Mahlert (1983) quotes at length from lied criti¬ cism from the years around 1848, showing, on the one hand, that there were conservative viewpoints that still preferred the strophic song with melodious vocal lines shaped into regular phrases and, on the other, that progressive opinion preferred songs with more dramatic, theatrical, even operatic settings of poetic texts and musical forms that followed the sense rather than the structure. Schumann’s songs had always admitted irregu¬ lar, dramatic declamation and malleable forms, but Mahlert argues that these are more pronounced in later songs, and he cites examples from the Spanisches Liederspiel (Op. 74) and the Wilhelm Meister songs (Op. 98a). The opening of “Melancholie” (Op. 74, No. 6, marked Mit Affekt) un¬ folds less as a melody than as a series of exclamations, in metrically dis¬ placed and strongly accented notes, culminating with a melisma, more operatic than lied-like (Ex. 3.8). These qualities, compounded with the ir-

101

Robert Schumann: The Poet Sings Example

3.8. “Melancholie,” Op. 74/6, mm. 1-11

Mit Affect, aber nicht schnell

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102

Robert Schumann: The Poet Sings

regular phrase structure (2 + 6) and the suspensions in the piano bass, im¬ part a supercharged, dramatic character to the song. Later, mid-phrase leaps of ninths and tenths intensify the mood still more. Though he uses motivic repetition, Schumann does not base whole phrases on repeated rhythms or melodic repedtion and sequence, abandoning another recog¬ nizable feature of conventional lieder. Even the reprise at the end, so often literal in Schumann’s songs, is completely overhauled. The late lyric songs, in particular, are usually found wanting, whereas the dramatic songs, such as “Melancholie”—the songs in which the singer assumes a role—are less criticized for failing to live up to earlier standards. The two Morike settings in Op. 64, each presenting a different young fe¬ male persona, are good examples in a very different vain. “The Soldier’s Girl” (“Die Soldatenbraut”) brags about her uniformed boyfriend: “For the King he would shed his blood, but for me he’d do just as well”—a re¬ mark shaded with a possible double-entendre.20 She pines for his dis¬ charge from military service and for their wedding. Schumann gives the song a jaunty march, which alludes to the soldierly boyfriend and gives his sweetheart a plucky personality at the same time. In the middle section the girl gets a bit starry-eyed, thinking of marriage; the music is slower and the vocal melody loses the dotted rhythms of the march (they remain in the piano’s tenor). Drum rolls bring us to the reprise of the first stanza. Al¬ though one cannot prove that Schumann was thinking of the ribald read¬ ing suggested above, his music gives the words the right harmonic and rhythmic accents and offers listeners five opportunities to make the infer¬ ence—at the ends of the first and last stanzas and again (to different music) in the postlude (Ex. 3.9). “Das verlassne Magdelein” (Op. 64, No. 2; also set by Wolf) is a very different maid who has been forsaken by a faithless boy. In the first stanza she matter-of-factly tells of rising early at the cock’s crow to light the hearthfire; in the first couplet of the second stanza she remarks on the beauty of the flames but stares into them sorrowfully in the second cou¬ plet; in the third stanza it suddenly comes to her that she dreamed of the “treuloser Knabe” all night, and now (fourth stanza) she weeps as day breaks, and wishes it were over. Schumann has matched the bleak mood of the poem with austere music—three-part harmony, a minor key, and re¬ lentless repetition of motives: the descending and rising phrases of the tune and the continuously sinking bass line. The song construes the six¬ teen lines of the four quatrains as 6 + 6 + 4: mm. 1-12 (lines 1-6) are trans¬ posed up a fourth in mm. 13-26 (lines 7-12), with an altered ending, and mm. 27-35 (lines 13-16) are a varied reprise of mm. 1-9. The partition of stanza 2 conflicts with the poem’s form but agrees with its sense. The music gradually becomes more oppressive: Schumann eventually expands from three- to four-part harmony (m. 23 to the end), and each return of the opening music is intensified with greater dissonance (mm. 12-13 and mm. 26-27).

103

Robert Schumann: The Poet Sings EXAMPLE 3.9.

“Die Soldatenbraut,” Op. 64/1, mm. 6-11

-—=— r 1)—r-ISn—["■ ■ major, m. 4). This, coupled with the syncopated vocal line, prevents any sense of rest here. After this is yet another unexpected move: instead of functioning as a V of V (El), the Bl> chord progresses to G

106

Robert Schumann: The Poet Sings

Example 3.11.

(a) “Lied der Suleika,” Op. 25/9, mm. 1-8 Ziemlich langsam

(continued)

Robert Schumann: The Poet Sings

107

(b) “Ihre Stimme,” Op. 96/3, mm. 1-8 Nicht schnell

Zau

Me S

ber

sen

rr" Tn rr" Tn i

108

Robert Schumann: The Poet Sings

major (altered vii). Only then, at the end of the stanza, does Schumann allow a conventional half cadence to V, and even this is undercut by the deceptive move up c in the bass (m. 8). The sense of an almost unseg¬ mented musical flow continues in the new music of the middle stanzas; thoughts of the distant lover possess the lyric protagonist and will not let go.22 A second distinction concerns thematic construction. The piano’s bass c (m. 8) begins a restatement of the initial motive of the vocal melody, a recurring, fragmentary musical idea that functions like a leitmotif, here emblematic of the beloved’s voice. Its ghost is then heard in the upper reg¬ ister of the piano, at the words “Doch drangt auch nur von feme dein Ton zu mir sich her” (Yet if the sound of your voice reaches me even from afar; m. 17). The motive occurs twice more in the last stanza (which is set to a varied musical reprise of the opening section) and, finally, varied and aug¬ mented in the short postlude (mm. 24, 31, 36-38).23 Many of the later songs have an economy of emotion that distin¬ guishes them from their older cousins. This may be what Fischer-Dieskau and others identify as a greater objectivity in Schumann’s later works. This understated quality can be heard in the songs of Op. 107 (1850). The poems are by lesser poets, with the exception of “Der Gartner” by Morike, but they are not without appeal. Most of the poems are tinged with sad¬ ness, but Schumann does not give melancholy free rein (which he does, say, in “Hor’ ich das Liedchen klingen” or “Ich hab’ im Traum geweinet” from Dichterliebe). Sams takes this for a failure of nerve (Sams 1969, 259-62, 268-9) when just the opposite may be true: all of Schumann’s tra¬ ditional skill is at work, but in a new vein. Opus 107 begins with “Herzelied” (Titus Ullrich), portraying the tor¬ ment of a “miserable dreamer” on the brink, but stopping short, of sui¬ cide. Its delicate tissue of dissonant counterpoint and appoggiaturas, the vocal melody continued by the piano between text phrases, the voice’s in¬ conclusive ending resolved by the piano, the two stanzas cast as a period— all recall a quintessential 1840 composition, “Im wunderschonen Monat Mai” (Op. 48, No. 1). The second song, “Die Fensterscheibe” (also by Ull¬ rich) has the everyday circumstantial quality of a Morike poem, and Schu¬ mann’s music is proto-Wolfian in its economy and austerity. A young woman washing her windows is so startled when “he” passes by that she breaks a pane; she reflects that though the noise drew his attention, he never noticed that he had broken her heart. Schumann tailors his B-minor music to this modest affect: a short introduction with mild dissonance; speechlike melody within a small compass; vocal silence, chromatic har¬ mony, and major tonic that set up and underscore the telling line “Da gebt er stolz vorbei!” (mm. 9-11). The last stanza—the one drawing the analogy between windowpane and heart—does not overdramatize the maiden’s sadness or mope in an extended postlude. “Der Gartner” (No. 3) has a naive quality attributable to the exuber-

Robert Schumann: The Poet Sings

109

ant and obvious portrayal of the horse’s prancing and the plain harmony coupled with chordal texture. By placing it among other songs that are explicidy about loneliness, Schumann invites us to consider that the gar¬ dener’s delight in the princess’s beauty may mask his sense of isolation from people of her social class. In “Die Spinnerin” (No. 4), Goethe’s Gretchen has been transposed from her solitary chore to cottage industry, her passionate grief transmuted to a young girl’s dejection over not having a sweetheart; the pathetic heroine of Faust has been objectified to a lower middle-class everywoman. After continued study, these songs, by different poets and about dif¬ ferent protagonists, cohere more and more. One perceives that Schumann has fashioned a song group about different kinds of loneliness—suicidal depression, rejection in love, social isolation, and friendlessness. One might even argue that the protagonists also have in common a lower social class with which a post-1848 Schumann hereby expresses sympathy: a Putzfrau or cleaning maid, a gardener, a cottage-industry weaver, a farm boy (as evidenced by the folk imagery and diction and strophic variation of this poem). Thus the “objectivity” of these songs is due pardy to the fact that they are not the confessions of a single, subjective lyrical self—the poet—but the thoughts and feelings of several different people. Rather than the plight of the isolated or alienated Romantic ardst, these songs portray the general human condition. By linking these poems together, the poet in Schumann sings a social message that is not inherent in any of the poems taken alone. In common with Schumann’s earlier songs, how¬ ever, these end with implied consolation. In the last song—“Abendlied,” with a starlit night and the spiritual (Engel Fusse?) embodied in the piano triplets—Schumann leaves us with his closing thought: “Cast off, my heart, what ails you and what frightens you!” Schumann’s nascent interest in the multivoice song cycle in 1841 (ex¬ pressed in his and Clara’s cycle for soprano and tenor from Riickert’s Liebesfruhling Op. 37) grew stronger in the late 1840s and prompted the two cycles on Geibel’s translations of Spanish poetry, Opp. 74 and 138, and the Minnelieder Op. 101, again on poetry of Riickert. These cycles con¬ tain a number of fine solo songs, such as the passionate “Melancholie” (discussed above) and the ebullient “Der Kontrabandist” (both from Op. 74); the pair of tenor solos “O wie lieblich ist das Madchen” and “Weh, wie zornig ist das Madchen” from Op. 138, which continue the character of the Jugendlieder; and “Mein schoner Stern” (Op. 101, No. 4), with its lush seventh- and ninth-chords in circle-of-fifths motion (for a moment one thinks of Faure). But the most beautiful pieces in these cycles are the duets, which expand the technique and expressiveness of Schumann’s ear¬ lier achievements in the genre. The opening song of the Spanisches Liederspiel Op. 74 is a vivacious soprano-alto duet (“Von dem Rosenbusch, O Mutter”). Though the voices always sing together rhythmically, the propelling triplets and luscious

110

Robert Schumann: The Poet Sings

melodic intervals and harmonies make the music irresistible. The real piece de resistance, however, is “In der Nacht” for soprano and tenor (later set by Hugo Wolf as a solo). The poem’s persona is wakeful with care while others sleep, and his/her thoughts turn always to the absent beloved. The poem is a solo lyric, but by setting it as a duet Schumann makes it the simultaneous expression by the two separated lovers of their yearning for each other. The mood is set by the slow 7-measure piano pre¬ lude, which exhibits a neo-Bachian motivic melody in G minor, after which the soprano sings the six-line poem alone in an expansive setting (mm. 8-50!). One is unaware that the piece is a duet until the tenor enters dra¬ matically at the height of the soprano’s cadential phrase (see Ex. 3.12). As the tenor sings the original melody, the soprano repeats the verse, her new notes forming a disjunct, expressive counterpoint to the tenor line (e.g., note the intertwining nurnicht dus, mm. 57-60). A similar procedure is used in “Ich bin dein Baum, O Gartner,” Op. 101, No. 3. Ruckert’s poem portrays a male-female relationship in an al¬ most Biblical metaphor of tree and gardener (reminiscent of the Song of Solomon), and the two-stanza dialogue—one stanza spoken by each—sug¬ gests a musical setting for two voices. Schumann gives the soprano (tree) a melody that remains pretty much the same, but after one stanza the tenor (gardener) joins in, singing a different countermelody to each repetition of the soprano’s song. There is no denying that Schumann’s catholic taste and emotional disposition occasionally led him to set flimsy, sentimental, even bathetic poetry. When his music merely matches rather than surpasses such verse, the result may be a disappointment.24 Even so, it is hard not to appreciate Schumann’s noble attempt. In “Resignation” by Julius Buddeus, Op. 83, No. 1, the first stanza professes ardent love as evidenced by numerous physical manifestations, but the second stanza deflatingly reveals that “You will never embrace me.” Though his love is hopeless, the persona is con¬ soled by the expectation of reunion in the hereafter (Ex. 3.13). The bathos is not helped by the fact that the circumstances and the feelings of the addressee are not clarified; it is ambiguous whether she simply does not love him or is prevented from doing so. Schumann alternates a very declamatory and quasi-recitative style (for the exclamations and rhetorical questions) with a more lyrical vocal line and flowing accompaniment (for the despondent statements and re¬ sponses). The melody and harmony are full of chromatic passing tones and appoggiaturas, which flavor the song but never seriously obscure the keys (Dl> major and the parallel enharmonic minor, Cl). A four-note rising chromatic line (often in dotted rhythm in the tenor register) is a percepti¬ ble motive throughout the song (mm. 1, 4, 14, 16, 25, 31-32, 42-44), re¬ flected in the vocal line (mm. 3, 8, 10, 18-19, 20-21) and imitated diatonically in the bass (mm. 19-20, 21-22) and in inversion (mm. 8, 10, 35, 37). One comes away with admiration and affection for the song, a de¬ sire to hear it performed really well, and wishing that its text had been worthy of the loving musical interpretation that Schumann gave it.

Robert Schumann: The Poet Sings EXAMPLE 3.12. “In der Nacht,” Op. 74/4, mm. 42-52 42

(Soprano)

111

112

Robert Schumann: The Poet Sings

EXAMPLE 3.13. “Resignation,” Op. 83/1 (a) mm. 1-6 Nicht schnell, mit freiem Vortag

JS.h

b\ K a ... J_L_U_i. ..

k" :■ Lv1

herz

nig-lich;

h 11

— ■

-i

a J

nrls——k-N—Nrn 5—^ 1 \ i i 1-1— n i rK -i )-kaH—m — l UJ h

dass nim-mer ich’s ver - heh - le; heiss

lie - ben

(continued)

Robert Schumann: The Poet Sings

113

(b) mm. 18-21

Notes 1. These early songs do not appear in the practical editions (such as Peters). Three were edited by Brahms and published in 1893 as a supplement to the complete edition of Schumann’s works (Werke, XIV/1: 34—37). Six more were edited by Karl Geiringer (Robert Schumann: Seeks friihe Lieder, Vienna; 1933), and one was published as a supplement to Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik 100 (1933), Notenbeilage 1. Another was edited by the present author (Hallmark 1984, 101-2). One remains unpublished and one is lost. 2. Another early song, “Lied fur ***” (Hallmark 1984, 101-2), composed to Schu¬ mann’s own poem for a girlfriend, is also a polonaise. Both poem and music gush with teenage infatuation but little real substance. These pieces are proba¬ bly related to an early set of eight polonaises for piano, some of which were used by the composer in Papillons Op. 2. 3.

. . sind Sie vielleicht wie ich, der ich Gesangskomposition . . . nie fur eine

114

Robert Schumann: The Poet Sings

grosse Kunst gehalten?” Robert Schumanns Briefe: Neue Folge, ed. Gustav Jansen (Leipzig 1886), 143. 4. Of course one can read personal significance into the songs. Indeed, whatever Schumann was composing was probably bound up with his personal feelings, in many cases about Clara. For example, in his manuscript of “Ich sende einen Gruss” (Op. 25, No. 25), beside the setting of the lines “Aus Schmerzensstiirmen, die mein Herz durchtosen, / Send’ ich den Hauch, dich unsanft ruhr’ er nicht!” (out of storms of pain, which rage through my heart, I send a breath; may it not touch you untenderly), Schumann wrote in the margin: “In Erwartung Claras” (in expectation of Clara). The fact that Schumann makes a point of a connection to Clara in a few specific cases confirms the interpreta¬ tion that in general she was not the instigating cause. 5. Myrthen arguably has a coherent succession of keys but none of the other unify¬ ing characteristics of song cycles, such as a single poet, shared poetic theme or mood, narrative linkage, or prominent shared motives. Schumann’s title, how¬ ever, may allude to other collections. Schumann drew five of the poems from Friedrich Riickert’s large compendium of love poems Liebesfriihling, which is subdivided into “StrauBe” (bouquets). Bridal myrtles were traditionally woven into a garland or Kranz, and Liederkranz was a common designation for song collections. In the final song, titled by Schumann “Zum Schluss” (in conclu¬ sion), Ruckert’s poem reads “Hier . . . hab’ ich dir den unvollkomm’nen Kranz geflochten, Schwester, Braut!” (Here . . . have I woven an imperfect garland for you, sister, bride). For further discussion of cycles, see chap. 9. 6. Cf. “Wanderlied” (Op. 35, No. 3), “Fruhlingsfahrt” (Op. 45, No. 2), “Der frohe Wandersmann” (Op. 77, No. 1; originally the opening song of the Eichendorff Liederkreis in its first edition), “Ins Freie” (Op. 89, No. 5), “Die Hutte” (Op. 119, No. 1). The march topos also figures in the ballad “Die beiden Grenadiere” (Op. 49, No. 1), but without the leavening of the regular dotted rhythms. “Mein altes Ross” (Op. 127, No. 4) is a rare minor-key version. See Turchin 1987 on Wanderlieder cycles, including Schumann’s Op. 35. 7. Compare “Intermezzo,” “Die Stille,” “Wehmut,” and “Fruhlingsnacht” in the Eichendorff Liederkreis (Op. 39, Nos. 2, 4, and 9). The cadence at the end of the A section may also be to a key other than the dominant, as in “Dein Angesicht” (Op. 127, No. 2). 8. Cf. “Auf einer Burg” and “Zwielicht” (Op. 39, Nos. 7 and 10), “Im Rhein, im heiligen Strome” (Op. 48, No. 6), “Stirb, Lieb’ und Freud’” (Op. 35, No. 2), and “Muttertraum” (Op. 40, No. 2). 9. E.g., “Intermezzo” (Op. 39, No. 2), “Er, der herrlichste von alien” (Op. 42, No. 2), “Und wussten’s die Blumen,” “Hor’ ich das Liedchen klingen” (Op. 48, Nos. 8 and 10), “Fruhlingsfahrt” (Op. 45, No. 2), and “Tragodie” (Op. 64, No. 3). 10. Cf. “Mutter, Mutter” (“Lied der Braut I,” Op. 25, No. 11, mm. 8 and 32), “Ich sende einen Gruss” (Op. 25, no. 25, m. 15), “Susser Freund” (Op. 42, No. 6). 11. As in “Schone Wiege meiner Leiden” (Op. 24, No. 5): AABA'CDA'; “Familiengemalde” (Op. 34, No. 4): AA'BA"CDA"'; “Wanderlied” (Op. 35, No. 3): AAABCA; “An den Sonnenschein” (Op. 36, No. 4): ABA'CA; “Er, der herrlich¬ ste von alien” (Op. 42, No. 2): AABA'CC'A; “Du Ring an meinem Ringer” (Op. 42, No. 4): ABACA; “Helft mir, ihr Schwestern” (Op. 42, No. 5): ABACA; “Fruhlingsfahrt” (Op. 45, No. 2): AAA'BBA"; “Die beide Grenadiere” (Op. 49* No. 1): ABA'CA"B'DEF, where E and F quote the “Marseillaise.”

Robert Schumann: The Poet Sings

115

12. Cf. Dichterliebe, Op. 48 (Nos. 5 and 7), Frauenliebe und -leben, Op. 42 (passages in Nos. 2, 4, 5, and 6), “Sonntags am Rhein” (Op. 36, No. 1), “Stille Thranen” (Op. 35, No. 10), and “Mein schoner Stern” (Op. 101, No. 4). 13. The two stanzas of “Ich will meine Seele tauchen” (Op. 48, No. 5) are set in the same way. The half-cadence ending may be used in longer poems, too, as in the three stanzas of “Schone Fremde” (Op. 39, No. 6), “Mondnacht” (Op. 39, No. 5), and “Ich hab’ im Traum geweinet” (Op. 48, No. 13); and on an expanded, but still analogous scale, for the four stanzas (grouped in pairs) of “Waldesgesprach” and “In der Fremde” (Op. 39, Nos. 3 and 8). On a still larger scale, compare “Warte, warte, wilder Schiffmann” (Op. 24, No. 6); the throughcomposed music for the first three stanzas ends on the dominant (m. 54), after which the last two stanzas are set to the same music as the first three (the piano playing the first eleven measures alone), with a tonal adjustment at the end. The process is not unrelated to Schumann’s way with ternary forms; see above. 14. Compare Op. 25, No. 11. See also Op. 24, Nos. 3, 4; Op. 39, No. 3; Op. 42, No. 6, and Op. 48, No. 5. 15. Compare other uses of the turn in Myrthen, Nos. 1, 9, 11, 21, 24, and 25. See also Op. 39, Nos. 2, 3; Op. 42, Nos. 2, 5; and Op. 48, No. 5. 16. The same figure occurs in Myrthen, Nos. 8, 11, 12 (piano), 24, and 25, and also, for example, in Op. 37, No. 6 and Op. 127, No. 2. A similar stock melodic ca¬ dence is la-sol-do, as in Op. 25, Nos. 1, 18 (piano); Op. 39, No. 12; Op. 42, No. 7; Op. 48, No. 3; and Op. 79, No. 16. 17. Perhaps as significant as the “twilit melancholy” (Sams 1969, 18) resemblance between “Zwielicht” and “Muttertraum” is the motivic connection between them and their major-key counterpart “Mondnacht,” also beginning with a de¬ scending melody in skips, with another voice syncopated against it. This E major/E minor juxtaposition of similar motivic material in the same cycle, contrasting two different poems about night, seems a more important textual and musical parallel than the other cited instances. 18. A number of the male-female duets are recorded by Jan DeGaetani and Leslie Guinn, with Gilbert Kalish, piano (Nonesuch FI-71364, 1979). 19. Eric Sams’s work-list in the New Grove Dictionary (1980, 16, 857-64) includes all the songs for solo voice—one or more—as it should. It is unfortunate that the prominent discussion of the songs in Sams 1969 omits the multivoice songs, especially when they are parts of integral cycles; even more lamentable is the dispersal of such cycles in practical editions. In Walker 1972 discussion of vocal duets, trios and quartets is included illogically in Louis Halsey’s essay on choral music! 20. Even if it is unlikely that the maiden might be suggesting the flowing out of an¬ other body fluid, and if the expression Blut lassen means “to die,” the line might still evoke dying as the age-old metaphor for orgasm. Another possible reading is that the maiden fears her soldier might throw his life away in the mistaken belief that his death is an act of courage for country and sweetheart, whereas in reality (stanza 2) his life is cheap; she longs for his release from military service to save him from his own bravado. Schumann’s jaunty music arguably does not support this interpretation. 21. E.g., “Der weisse Hirsch,” “Das Schwert” (Uhland), and “Die Ammenuhr” (Des Knaben Wunderhom) are unfinished songs probably intended for the Jugendliederalbum; a completion of “Das Schwert” has been published (Hallmark 1984).

116

Robert Schumann: The Poet Sings

22. Similar melodic-harmonic fluidity and a tendency away from distinct phrase endings characterize “Liebeslied,” Op. 51, No. 5; “Die Blume der Ergebung, Op. 83, No. 2; “Die Tochter Jephthas” and “An den Mond,” Op. 95, Nos. 1, 2; and “Liebster, deine Worte stehlen,” Op. 101, No. 2. 23. Similar prominent melodic motives in voice and piano occur in “Liebeslied,” Op. 51, No. 5, “Gesungen!,” Op. 96, No. 4, and “Mein schoner Stern,” Op. 101, No. 4. 24. Schumann’s taste lapsed occasionally in 1840, too. Consider “Nur ein lachenlnder Blick” by Zimmermann and “Der Nussbaum” by Mosen. In the latter, Schumann’s musical conception surpassed the poet’s meager offering; the for¬ mer song, however, reminds us that Schumann could be quite ordinary.

Notes on Editions of Music and Texts The nineteenth-century complete edition is the most reliable source for Schu¬ mann’s songs: Robert Schumann Werke, ed. Clara Schumann, Johannes Brahms, and others, series X, XI, XIII (vols. 1-4), and XIV (supplement). (Leipzig, 1882-93. This edition was reissued by Gregg Reprints, and portions have appeared in the Lea Pocket and Kalmus Study Scores series. A new critical edition of the complete works is in progress (Robert Schumann: Samtliche Werke, Mainz). The old three-volume practical or performance edition of the solo songs by Max Friedlander is still issued by Peters. (The International edition is essentially the same.) Peters has begun to issue what are basically reprints of its earlier edi¬ tions of individual cycles, with the addition of excellent critical notes by Joachim Kohler. A publisher’s practice that interferes with our understanding of Schumann’s songs is the gathering of the most famous groups and cycles (Opp. 25, 39, 42, 48) intact in the first volume of practical editions, but breaking up other groups in order to add to the first volume a selection of favorite, individual songs. Thus, for exam¬ ple, the Peters edition includes the final, ninth song of the Op. 24 Heine Liederkreis in volume 1, but puts the first eight songs in volume 2. Just as confusing is the breaking up of cycles made up of songs for one to four voices (e.g., Opp. 37, 74, 101, 138) which get divided up systematically into solo, duet, trio and quartet anthologies! There is no edition from the original literary sources of the poems Schumann set, but such a valuable reference is projected as a volume in the new Schumann edi¬ tion. Most books and anthologies that print texts for Schumann’s songs furnish the version of the text that appears in the published song (e.g., the appendix of the German edition of Fischer-Dieskau’s book listed below) rather than the poetic text as it appeared in the literary source. Though Eric Sams did not print the original poems in his book, careful consultation of his annotations enables one to recon¬ struct the original poem in most cases; Thilo Reinhard similarly notes discrepan¬ cies between Schumann’s song texts and the poets’ originals. Individual scholarly studies of songs are usually careful to compare the original poem to Schumann’s emended text.

117

Robert Schumann: The Poet Sings

Bibliography NOTE: The standard English book-length surveys of the songs are those by Desmond, Fischer-Dieskau, Sams (1969), and Walsh. Agawu, V. Kofi. “Structural ‘Highpoints’ in Schumann’s Dichterliebe. ” Music Analysis 3 (1984): 159-80. [Anonymous]. “Robert Schumanns Gesangkomposition.” Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung 44 (1842): 30-33, 58-65. Brauner, Charles S. “Irony in the Heine Lieder of Schubert and Schumann.” Musi¬ cal Quarterly 67 (1981): 261-81. Brinkmann, Reinhold. “Lied als individuelle Struktur: Ausgewahlte Kommentare zu Schumanns ‘Zwielicht.’” In Analysen Beitrage zu einer Problemgeschichte des Komponieren. Festschrift Hans Heinz Eggebrecht zum 65 Geburtstag, ed. Werner Breig, Reinhold Brinkmann, & Elmar Budde, 257-75. Stuttgart 1984. Burkhart, Charles. “Departures from the Norm in Two Songs from Schumann’s Liederkreis.” In Schenker Studies, ed. Hedi Siegel, 146-64. Cambridge, 1990. Busse, Eckart, Die Eichendorff-Rezeption im Kunstlied, Wurzburg, 1975. Cone, Edward T. “Words into Music: The Composer’s Approach to the Text.” In Sound and Poetry, ed. Northrup Frye, 3-15. New York, 1956. Cooper, Martin. “The Songs.” In Schumann: A Symposium, ed. Gerald Abraham, 98-137. Oxford, 1952. Dahlhaus, Carl.

“Romantic and Biedermeier.” Archiv fur Musikwissenschaft 31

(1974): 22-41. Desmond, Astra. Schumann’s Songs. London, 1972. Eismann, Georg. Robert Schumann: Ein Quellenwerk uber sein Leben und Schaffen. 2 vols. Leipzig, 1956. Feldman, Fritz. “Zur Frage des ‘Liederjahres’ bei Robert Schumann.” Archiv fur Musikwissenschaft 9 (1952): 246—69. Finson, Jon. “Schumann’s Mature Style and the ‘Album of Songs for the Young.’” Journal of Musicology 8 (1990): 227-50. -. “The Intentional Tourist: Romantic Irony in the Eichendorff Liederkreis of Robert Schumann,” in Schumann and his World, ed. R. Larry Todd, 156-70. Princeton, 1994. Fischer-Dieskau, Dietrich. Robert Schumann: Words and Music: The Vocal Works. Trans. Reinhard Pauly. Portland, OR, 1988. Originally published as Robert Schumann: Wort und Musik: Das Vokalwerk. Stuttgart, 1981. Hallmark, Rufus. “The Sketches for Dichterliebe." 19th-Century Music 1

(1977):

110-36. -. The Genesis of Schumann’s Dichterliebe: A Source Study. Ann Arbor, MI, 1979. -. “Die handschriftlichen Quellen der Lieder Robert Schumanns.” in Robert Schumann: Ein romantisches Erbe in neuer Forschung, ed. Robert-SchumannGesellschaft, 99-117. Dusseldorf, 1984. -. “Schumann’s Behandlung seiner Liedtexte: Vorlaufiger Bericht zu einer neuen Ausgabe und zu einer Neubewertung von Schumanns Lieder.” In Schu¬ manns Werke—Text und Interpretation: 16 Studien, ed. the Robert-SchumannGesellschaft, 29-42. Dusseldorf, 1987. __ “The Ruckert Lieder of Robert and Clara Schumann.” 19th-Century Music 14 (1990): 3-30.

Robert Schumann: The Poet Sings

118

-. “Schumann and Ruckert.” In Schumann in Diisseldorf: Werke—Texte—Interpre¬ tation, ed. Bernhard R. Appel, 91-118. Mainz, 1993. -. Schumann’s Frauenliebe und Leben: Context, Composition and Interpretation. Ox¬ ford, forthcoming. Hindenlang, Karen. “Eichendorff s Auf einer Burg and Schumann’s Liederkreis, Op. 39.” Journal of Musicology 8 (1990): 569—87. Hirschberg, Leopold. “Merkwurdiges aus einem Schumann-Erstdruck.” Die Musik 21 (1929): 731-36. Hockner, Berthold. “Spricht der Dichter oder der Tondichter? Die multiple Per¬ sona and Robert Schumanns Liederkreis Op. 24.” In Schumann und seine Dichter, ed. Matthias Wendt, 18-32. Mainz, 1993. Knaus, Herwig.

Musiksprache und Werkstruktur in Robert Schumanns Liederkreis.

Schriften zur Musik, 27. Munich, 1974. Komar, Arthur. Schumann: Dichterliebe. New York, 1971. Kross, Siegfried. “Robert Schumann im Spannungsfeld von Romantik und Biedermeier.” Bonner Geschichtsblatter 33 (1981): 89-109. Mahlert, Ulrich. Fortschritt und Kunstlied: Spate Lieder Robert Schumanns im Licht der liedasthetischen diskussion ab 1848. Munich, 1983. McCreless, Patrick. “Song Order in the Song Cycle: Schumann’s Liederkreis, Op. 39.” Music Analysis 5 (1986): 5—28. Moore, Gerald. Poet’s Love: The Songs and Cycles of Schumann. New York, 1981. Mosley, David L. Gesture, Sign, and Song: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Schumann’s Liederkreis Opus 39. New York, 1990. Neumeyer, David. “Organic Structure and the Song Cycle: Another Look at Schu¬ mann’s Dichterliebe. ’’Music Theory Spectrum 4 (1982): 92-105. Ostwald, Peter. Schumann: The Inner Voices of a Musical Genius. Boston, 1985. Plantinga, Leon. Schumann as Critic. New Haven, 1967. -•. Romantic Music. New York, 1984. Reinhard, Thilo. The Singer’s Schumann. New York, 1989. Sams, Eric. “Schumann’s Year of Song.” Musical Times 106 (1965): 105-7. -■. The Songs of Robert Schumann. London, 1969. 3d edition. Bloomington, IN, 1993. -•. “The Songs.” In Robert Schumann: The Man and His Music, ed. Alan Walker, 120-61. London, 1972. Schumann, Robert. Gesammeite Schriften uber Musik und Musiker. 5th ed. Ed. Martin Kreisig. 2 vols. Leipzig, 1914. Solie, Ruth. “Whose Life? The Gendered Self in Schumann’s Frauenliebe Songs.” In Music and Text: Critical Inquiries, ed. Steven Scher, 219-40. Cambridge, 1992. Thym, Jurgen. “The Solo Song Settings of Eichendorff’s Poetry by Schumann and Wolf. Ph.d. dissertation. Case Western Reserve University, 1974. -. “Text-Music Relationships in Schumann’s ‘Fruhlingsnacht.’” Theory and Practice 5 (1980): 7-25. Turchin, Barbara. “Schumann’s Conversion to Vocal Music: A Reconsideration.” Musical Quarterly 67 (1981): 392-404. -. “Robert Schumann’s Song Cycles: The Cycle within the Song.” 19th-Century Music 8 (1985): 231-44. -. “The Nineteenth-Century Wanderlieder Cycle.” Journal of Musicology 5 (1987): 498-525. Walker, Alan, ed., Robert Schumann: The Man and His Music. London, 1972. Walsh, Stephen. The Lieder of Schumann. New York, 1971.

CHAPTER FOUR

Johannes Brahms: Volkslied/Kunstlied Virginia Hancock

Johannes Brahms (1833-97) composed lieder all his life. Among the portfolio of pieces that impressed Robert and Clara Schumann when he arrived on their doorstep in September 1853 were a number of songs. In 1896, at a gathering of friends after Clara’s funeral, Brahms played through his latest compositions, the Vier emste Gesange Op. 121.1 In all, the works he published for solo voice (or voices) and piano number 196 solo songs, twenty duets, sixty quartets, and fifty-seven arrangements of German folksongs (WoO 31, 33).2 Posthumous publications include twenty-eight additional folk song arrangements (WoO 32) and a few additional art songs, including the five Ophelia songs (WoO 22). Brahms’s practice was to accumulate songs over a period of time, then to publish a group or several groups at once, sometimes reaching back to pieces composed many years earlier. Although it is clear from the corre¬ spondence with his publishers that the order of songs within opus num¬ bers, which he assembled like “bouquets,” was important to him, in only a few instances is there evidence of advance planning.3 Moreover, it is gen¬ erally difficult to identify individuals or occasions that inspired Brahms to song composidon. There are a few occasional songs, like those written to celebrate the births of children to Bertha Faber (“Wiegenlied,” Op. 49, No. 4) and Amalie Joachim (Op. 91, No. 2). The poem “Komm bald” was a birthday gift to Brahms that he immediately provided with a setting (Op. 97; No. 5) for the celebrated contralto Hermine Spies. Two poems by Felix Schumann (Op. 63, Nos. 5, 6) were set as a gift for the eighteen-yearold poet and his mother, and a number of songs from the late 1850s were written for Agathe von Siebold, an amateur soprano with whom Brahms 119

120

Johannes Brahms: Volkslied/Kunstlied

was briefly in love. His friends sometimes discerned other personal con¬ nections that the reticent Brahms would not willingly have admitted: for example, in 1867 the depressed tone of a pair of new songs (Op. 48, No. 7 and Op. 49, No. 5), composed when Brahms was feeling his rootlessness especially keenly, so alarmed Clara Schumann that she strongly advised him to get married (13 November 1867).4 But mostly his inspiration seems to have come from the poems themselves. Brahms was an omnivorous reader, and poetry—especially modern poetry—was a special enthusiasm.5 Initially he read a poem as an uncriti¬ cal aficionado, trying to adopt the poet’s point of view (Jacobsen 1975, 76-77). Once a poem had attracted his attention as a candidate for musical setting—had “forced itself” on him, as he wrote to Mathilde Wesendonck (Jacobsen 1975, 56)—he evaluated it more critically, consider¬ ing, among other factors, whether it was already perfect in itself and thus provided no latitude for a composer.6 Indeed, after his early years, Brahms seems to have avoided setting works by “great” poets (as well as poems set by other major composers); rather, he made a distinction between what “might be called ‘poetic music’ (self-sufficient poetry) [and] ‘musical po¬ etry’ (poetry that invites musical elaboration)” (Braus 1988, 128). This point of view helps to account for the fact that Brahms set many poems considered inferior by literary authorities. Although he selected texts by Tieck, Heine, Eichendorff, Holty, Goethe, Platen, Morike, Brentano, and Storm, critics have inclined toward Jack Stein’s judgment that “well over half of his songs use mediocre-to-bad poems” (Stein 1971, 131). Among the poets who incur such criticism are several whose texts Brahms set repeatedly: Carl Candidus (6), Klaus Groth (11), Friedrich Halm (6), Karl Lemcke (7), and, above all, Georg Friedrich Daumer (1800-1875), a prolific author and translator whose poems Brahms used for nineteen of his solo songs and for the Liebeslieder-Walzer, as well as all but the last (by Goethe) of the Neue Liebeslieder-Walzer? The eroticism of some of the Daumer texts occasionally offended Brahms’s friends, and the quality of his verse has been assailed by numerous critics, but despite its weaknesses, this poetry evoked some of Brahms’s most compelling songs. As Malcolm MacDonald (1990, 351) observes, the listener cannot but be “impressed by his ability to identify with the emotional truth behind often undistinguished poems and place them in a setting that imparts the mem¬ orable resonance lacking in the words themselves.” Brahms has been accused of lack of respect for his poetic texts, espe¬ cially with regard to declamation and the repetition of words, phrases, and lines, and is often cited—usually in contradistinction to Hugo Wolf—as a composer who let the music outweigh the text. There are undoubtedly in¬ stances where Brahms was carried away by his own enthusiasm, several in the Magelone-Lieder Op. 33, where already ungainly songs are taken to extremes by textual repetition. But in many songs, repetition of the final line of a stanza or poem, often at a slower declamation rate (Platt 1992,

Johannes Brahms: Volkslied/Kunstlied

121

chap. 2), helps to provide a satisfactory conclusion, and individual words are often repeated for emphasis. From the time of his earliest published songs, Brahms was aware of the criticism of his declamation. Thus it seems clear that “faulty” declama¬ tion in his lieder is the result of conscious decisions. Certainly he studied the poems; according to his only composition student, Gustav Jenner, “he demanded first of a composer that he know his text thoroughly,” recom¬ mending recitation of the text and analysis of form and meter, with special attention to the location of pauses (Jenner 1990, 35). In many cases, Brahms’s critics have failed to recognize a rhythmic element long acknowl¬ edged in his instrumental music: his frequent disregard of bar lines. Ap¬ parent misaccentuations disappear when temporary, unnotated changes of meter, shifts of bar line, and hemiola are taken into account. In some instances, one must concede that Brahms chose to ride roughshod over the text for musical reasons. He clearly felt that it was possible to carry fi¬ delity too far, and in one of his few recorded remarks about Wolf, he told Heuberger (1971, 41), “Well, if one isn’t worried about the music, the declamation of a poem is very easy.” According to his own statements, once Brahms had decided to at¬ tempt a musical setting, he committed the poem to memory, spoke it aloud repeatedly, analyzed its meter, structure, and meaning, and waited for a kernel of melodic inspiration. After allowing the idea to germinate, he committed the song to paper, developing the complete vocal melody together with a contrapuntally convincing bass line. He continued with the remainder of the piano part and concluded with a ruthless revision of the whole (Henschel 1907, 22-23, 39; Jenner 1905, 35, 40-41; see also Finscher 1983b, 33, and Bozarth 1978 and 1983b for the most detailed work on Brahms’s compositional process). Brahms’s original melodic ideas were often derived from or closely re¬ lated to the German folk music that was his lifelong passion. He knew that many of his favorite tunes were not genuine folk music but eighteenthand nineteenth-century “improvements” or downright inventions; but their style was, as he told Clara Schumann, his “ideal” (27 January 1860). A great number of his melodies are constructed on incomplete arpeggiations of triads and seventh-chords—jodlerhaft melodies like that of “Minnelied,” Op. 71, No. 5 (Mahlert 1992, 89; Musgrave 1980 shows that Brahms’s supposed motto F-A-F, often cited as a source of such melodies, was a figment of Max Kalbeck’s imagination). The soaring melodies beloved of singers are mostly of this type, often with wide leaps that usually ascend but may also descend, especially at cadences. A melody of narrow compass often reflects an anxious or melancholy text. Further echoes of folk music include patches of modal coloring, hemiola, and occasional use of irregular meters. Text illustration also influences the construction and course of melodies, from obvious madrigalisms like ascent and descent to affective chromaticism or appoggiaturas.

122

Johannes Brahms: Volkslied/Kunstlied

Much has been made of the fact that in evaluating the songs of others Brahms first looked at the melody and bass (Henschel 1907, 44; Jenner 1905, 40), but it is also clear that he gave careful thought to his accompa¬ niments. Many are illustrative of the text, using the common currency of the lied—rushing waters, blowing winds, rustling leaves, singing birds, ser¬ enading guitars, and so forth. Other types of “musical images,” as Eric Sams calls them, can represent an almost unconscious response to the text, as in the case of “the idea of vision or dream expressed in slow up¬ ward arpeggios in the left hand, like a vague notion drifdng up from sleep towards the borderlands of consciousness” (Sams 1972, 9). An accompanimental figure can continue throughout a song or change in response to the text or for musical reasons. Changing an accompaniment pattern is one way Brahms articulated form in his songs. According to Jenner (1905, 30-31), he felt that a com¬ poser who failed to follow the form of the poem demonstrated “a lack of artisdc understanding or insufficient penetration of the text.” Although he claimed to prefer strophic form, recommending the study of Schubert’s songs as a basis for deciding when to write a strophic setting, relatively few of Brahms’s art songs are in simple strophic form. But in nearly every case where there is a division in the text, it is somehow clearly reflected in the musical setting; textual demarcations are obscured only for good reasons. Rudolf Gerber, whose article (1932) remains the most useful short discussion of form in Brahms’s songs, describes the ways in which Brahms set strophic poems. Simple strophic settings occur when the poem has few stanzas and little or no progression of ideas. The remaining songs are clas¬ sified as open or closed forms. Open form—strophic variation—can range in degree from slight modification in the last stanza to a radically progres¬ sive series of variations. Sometimes the common element undergoing vari¬ ation is not readily audible, although Brahms said, “If I want to retain the same idea, then it should be clearly recognized in each transformation, augmentation, inversion” (Frisch 1984, 31-32). In closed or rounded form—ternary or rondolike songs—motivic relationships between the outer sections and the central part or parts range from obvious to imper¬ ceptible. Only a few songs—principally some of the Magelone-Lieder—are unequivocally durchkomponiert. Gerber observes that if there is any hint of formal return in the poem, Brahms’s setting is invariably closed and his desire for musical closure occasionally overrides the sense of an “open” poem. The ternary form in which “the core idea of the first strophe is sub¬ tly varied to create a contrasted but related second strophe or central group, prior to the varied reprise of the first,” is “perhaps Brahms’s most characteristic contribution to the German tradition” (Musgrave 1985, 44). This discussion treats selected songs in four groups, emphasizing lesser-known songs that deserve wider exposure, particularly those with texts by minor poets. Nearly half of Brahms’s songs reflect his preoccupa-

Johannes Brahms: Volkslied/Kunstlied

123

Table 4.1. Folklike and Hybrid Songs, Listed by Opus Number Folklike Songs (Group II)

Hybrid Songs (Group III)

op. 7/4, 5

op. 3/1, 4

op. 14/1, 2, 5, 6, 7

op. 7/1, 2, 3

op. 43/3, 4

op. 14/3

op. 47/3

op. 19/2, 3, 4

op. 48/2

op. 48/1, 3, 4

op. 49/4

op. 49/1

op. 59/5

op. 69/1, 5, 7, 9

op. 69/2, 3, 4

op. 84/1, 2, 3, 4

op. 84/5

op. 85/3, 4

op. 97/4, 6

op. 95/1, 4, 5, 6

op. 105/3

op. 97/3 op. 107/3, 5

tion with folk music; because the folk-related songs are often neglected, they receive here more attention than they are typically accorded. Group I comprises his settings (approximately eighty) of traditional texts with their preexistent tunes, whereas Group II contains settings of folk texts for which Brahms composed his own melodies in imitation of folk tunes (twenty). Group III is made up of songs with folk or folklike texts set in a manner more characteristic of art songs while retaining volkstumlich quali¬ ties (thirty). (A list of the songs included in Groups II and III is found in Table 4.1.) The remainder, lyric songs or Kunstlieder, a little more than half the total (148), make up Group IV (see Table 4.2).

Folk Songs Brahms’s lifelong favorite source, Kretzschmer and Zuccalmaglio’s Deutsche Volkslieder mit ihren Original-Weisen (1838, 1840), provided the texts and tunes for the fourteen Volkskinderlieder dedicated to the Schumann children (WoO 31, 1858) and the twenty-eight settings in a manuscript sent to Clara in June 1858 (WoO 32, published 1926). He published no more solo arrangements for thirty-five years, although he maintained an enthusiastic interest in folk song, collecting and studying numerous addi¬ tional sources and providing arrangements for the choral ensembles he conducted.8 But scholarly attacks on the Kretzschmer-Zuccalmaglio collec¬ tion finally became more than he could bear, and he came to the defense of his old favorites, revising some of his earlier settings and adding new

124

Johannes Brahms: Volkslied/Kunstlied

4.2. Lyric Songs Listed by Opus Number (with references to published analyses)

Table

Key to references:

a. b. c. d. e. f. g. h. i. j.

Beller-McKenna (1994) Bozarth (1978) Bozarth (1983b) Bozarth (1983a) Braus (1988) Draheim (1992) Finscher (1990) Frisch (1984) Horne (1992) Goldberg (1992)

Op.

No.

3 6 7 WoO 21k 14 19 32 333 43 46 47 48 49 57b 58b 59 WoO 23 63 69 70 71 72 85 86 91 94

2, 3e>1 5Sko, 6eS 1J, 2S, 3, 4S, 5, 6e 61

k. 1. m. n. o. P-

qr. s.

Jacobsen (1975) Jost (1992b) Mahlert (1992) Pisk (1976) Platt (1992) Sams (1972) Schmidt (1984) Sick (1992) Stein (1971)

4 jm gkos leis, 2, 3, 4os, 5e, 6°, 7, 1, 2, 3k 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9k' ^ os ghkmpqs lb 2 3ebm 4^™ 1, 2, 4, 5k 5k, 7di 2m, 3, 5d 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 1, 2, 3, 4, 51, 6, 7C, 8d Is, 2, 3°, 4°, 6, 7, 8 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

6eo, 8ks 1,2, 3,4 1J, 2, 3, 4°, 5^ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5s leJ, 2eJ, 5, 6° 1^, 2, 3, 4\ 5, 6 1,2 1°, 2e, 3, 4f, 5° ( continued,)

Johannes Brahms: Volkslied/Kunstlied 95 96

2, 3, 7 ljuS, 2; 3jo? 4Jk

1, 2°, 5

105

1, 2ino, 4e,1 2 3 4 5

106

1, 2, 3, 4, 5

107

1,2,4

121a

1, 2, 3h, 4

125

1. An earlier version of this article appeared as “Brahms’s Liebe und Fruhling II, Op. S, No. 3: A New Path to the Artwork of the Future?” in 19th-Century Music 10 (1988): 135-56. 2. Braus (1992) presents a revised version of the same analysis. 3. See references in chap. 9 of this volume. 4. Also published as “Poetic-Musical Rhetoric in Brahms’s Auf dem Kirchhofe, Op. 105, No. 4” in Theory and Practice 13 (1988): 15-30. Schenker’s analysis of op. 105/4 appears in the same issue.

ones. In June 1894 he published the forty-nine Deutsche Volkslieder (WoO 33), of which forty-two are for solo voice and piano. Two songs from this collection exemplify the range of style in Brahms’s folk-song settings. The simple accompaniment of “Da unten im Tale” (No. 6, earlier set in a cappella versions for women’s and mixed choirs), with its interpolated off-beat pitches and steady eighth-note pulse, essentially follows the vocal line. Although the posdude that ends each stanza seems a natural continuation, it is in fact taken from another, origi¬ nal setting of the same text, “Trennung,” Op. 97, No. 6 (1886); the begin¬ ning of its melody, a three-note descent, provides the seed for the interlude the two settings share. (Brahms’s other settings of folk texts with original and traditional tunes are “Vor dem Fenster” [Op. 14, No. 1; WoO 33, No. 35], “Gang zur Liebsten” [Op. 14, No. 6; WoO 33, No. 38], “Spannung” [Op. 84, No. 5; WoO 33, No. 4], and “Dort in den Weiden” [Op. 97, No. 4; WoO 33, No. 31].) “Gunhilde” (No. 7), a tale of the flight, degradation, contrition, and redemption of a young nun, receives a much more elaborate setting. The folk melody begins in G major and ends in E minor. Four versions of the accompaniment are heard. The first, in stanzas 1-3, is taken largely from an earlier setting. The pace of the piano quickens for stanzas 4-6, which otherwise maintain the diatonic harmonies and plagal cadence of the first three stanzas. Following an interlude marked by imitation by inversion, the setting of stanzas 7-9 turns, surprisingly, to chromaticism and a conclud¬ ing authentic cadence. The last stanza recalls the slower pace of the begin¬ ning but with less reliance on G major, and the disappearance of the angel

126

Johannes Brahms: Volkslied/Kunstlied

that has substituted for the nun during her absence occurs in a choralelike phrase in block chords over a dominant pedal, with a final plagal cadence in E minor. Brahms’s settings of folk texts to his own folklike melodies (Group II) display a comparable range in style. Although his melodies sound like folk tunes, the songs sometimes diverge from strophic form, as in “Die Trauernde” (Op. 7, No. 5, 1852), a lament in Swabian dialect by a girl who has no lover. The three stanzas are in the form of a Reprisenbar (AABa; see Ex. 4.1) in A minor. Each of the first two stanzas is set to a predictable, even monotonous Stollen. As the Abgesang starts, however, the range shifts upward, beginning on the previous high pitch C and ascending to E, which is harmonized with an unexpected, even shocking; A-major chord. The cross-relation C-Cf is emphasized when these two measures are re¬ peated, but the outburst is brief and the song ends with a reprise of the end of the Stollen, a return to resignation.

EXAMPLE 4.1. Op. 7, No. 5, entire Langsam p espressivo

fUjUji j p l^1 Mei

9Tt

et denn

Z^=

wa - rum sterb i net, mir ischs gar so weh,

-*-N&

—9- - - -

‘

FF U-

und kei Schatz han i net, mi hot mer g’wis net g’seh.

Mue - ter mag mi net, Ge - stem isch Kirch-wein g’wa,

% w

■m-

-9

was i

tu tanz

i ja

i 3

do?

net.

«-i j /T —e 1 (continued,)

Johannes Brahms: Volkslied/Kunstlied

127

sostenuto

—=

2_n

LaBt

/ 1

die drei

=UP

1_1

IlT l

Ro-se stehn,

sostenuto

fl"

•-

4-F- r

T.r

—==

TO^ ir j H Y die

*j V ±

an dem

TO-7—ffp*- -*TT*-1< w—m— —1- ^-!

Kreu-zle bliihn:

t.r T- ■ r

- ha

#■

hent

= bJ

ihr das

' l-

-1

I■

—— «-■♦

-—1-m-J-

The songs of Op. 14, though not published until 1861, were all com¬ posed in 1858, the year of Brahms’s most energetic early involvement with folk song. Five are of the volkstumlich type, the largest number in any Brahms opus. Another “Trennung” (No. 5) is a lively song in which lovers must separate as dawn breaks. Its opening melodic gesture, an ascending fourth, recurs as a motive throughout the setting. Although stanzas 1-3 and 5 are identical, stanza 4 has a new melody, accompanied in the piano by descending chromatic lines as the text describes separation—“as hard as death”—and a few measures in the submediant major. This apparently simple song contains several features characteristic of many of Brahms’s lieder: variation of the first part to produce a contrasted but related mid¬ dle section, derivation of an important motive from the beginning of the melody, affective chromaticism, and use of chromatic third-related keys. Most of the folklike settings among the songs published in 1868 (Opp. 43, 46, 47, 48, and 49) were composed earlier. Only the famous “Wiegenlied” (Op. 49, No. 4) comes from 1868—and Brahms had learned the Viennese waltz song that inspired its accompaniment almost twenty

128

Johannes Brahms: Volkslied/Kunstlied

years before. The earliest, Op. 48, No. 2 (1853), “Der Uberlaufer,” is the plaint of a lover jilted by his sweetheart for—whom else?—a hunter. Its strophic setting in the natural minor mode, uncolored even by leading tones, oddly lacks any musical reference to the hunter’s horn. Brahms de¬ claimed the text of “Das Lied vom Herrn von Falkenstein” (Op. 43, No. 4) repeatedly and loudly while hiking on the Falkenburg near Detmold in 1857 (Kalbeck 1912-21, I: 313). His setting, with its unpredictable phrase lengths in the seven martial outer stanzas and its unexpectedly lyrical fifth and sixth stanzas, was a favorite of his friends, although the lengthy narra¬ tive lacks the same appeal today. The two imitation-Renaissance lieder “Ich schell mein Horn ins Jammerthal” (Op. 43, No. 3) and “Vergangen ist mir Gluck und Heil” (Op. 48, No. 6), both arranged from a cappella choral pieces, and the popular “Sonntag” (Op. 47, No. 3) all date from the years of Brahms’s activity with the Hamburg Frauenchor. For the remainder of his career, Brahms continued to produce these folklike songs slowly but regularly, usually one or two at a time every few years. “Agnes” (Op. 59, No. 5), composed in 1873, sets a poem by Morike on the deserted-maiden theme. The nine lieder of Op. 69, published in 1877, all have texts that are folklike in theme, language, and structure, al¬ though the melodies and piano parts present the widest possible variety of treatments. Of the three songs in Group II, the second “Klage” (Op. 69, No. 2), another maiden’s lament, shows Brahms in his gypsy mode but hides skillful counterpoint under the exotic surface. “Des liebsten Schwur” (No. 4) is thoroughly Germanic (in spite of its Bohemian text) in the defi¬ ant maiden’s arpeggiated vocal part, the thumping piano, and the many secondary dominants in the final line. “Abschied” (Op. 69, No. 3), in con¬ trast, is an unassuming but beautiful song on the “ferae Geliebte” theme, distinguished by the economy with which the melodic material is devel¬ oped from the first four notes of the vocal part. The last of Brahms’s essays in folk style, “Klage” (Op. 105, No. 3), is rarely performed. As in “Gunhilde,” the opening melody begins in the major and ends in the relative minor, followed by an interlude that returns to the original key. But when Brahms uses the passage as a postlude, the song unexpectedly ends in the major. This lied, marked “einfach und ausdrucksvoll” by the composer, exemplifies the idealized concept of an artful folk music that led him to his Deutsche Volkslieder.

Hybrid Songs “Liebestreu,” the song that Brahms chose to open his first set of lieder (Op. 3), is also the first of the group with texts on standard folk themes, melodies more artificial than folk tunes, and elaborate and varied accom¬ paniments. Despite what Sams (1972, 18) calls “Reinick’s sentimental mag¬ azine rhymes,” it is a splendid song. In other early songs, however, Brahms

Johannes Brahms: Volkslied/Kunstlied

129

yielded to the temptation to write overblown settings containing tremen¬ dously difficult piano parts and, as Finscher puts it (1983b, 35), “an excess of chromaticism” unmotivated by the text. Op. 3, No. 4, “Lied,” composed in July 1853, is a case in point. The text is an extended metaphor in which innocent creatures are threatened by beasts of prey; in the last stanza we learn that the singer is a girl trying to protect her endangered heart. The three stanzas—connected to one an¬ other by a short recurring interlude in unharmonized octaves

(Ex.

4.2a)9—are set identically until the conclusion of the third, where three interpolated measures provide a grandiose chromatic finale (Ex. 4.2b). The final phrase starts with an ascent by half steps in El. major (mm. 27, 43); the interpolation begins with a half-step slide upward and a sequential repeat of the ascent. The dominant-seventh chord on Cl. (lacking its third) that harmonizes the last pitch of the sequence becomes a German aug¬ mented sixth resolving to a tonic six-four chord in El. major; this moves through the parallel minor (the song’s tonic) on its way to the expected 4.2. Op. 3, No. 4 (a) mm. 27-31

Example

(continued)

130

Johannes Brahms: Volkslied/Kunstlied

Example 4.2.

(continued)

(b) mm. 43-48 43 -m-

-, r -2-/--J--/-

T V J

Maid!

Herz

Es bricht

vor

Weh

mir

und

das

Herz,

Leid,_

vor

rr rn it

v . /... bricht

Weh

mir das

und

Leid!

dominant seventh. The song ends with a slower version of the conclusions of the previous stanzas—what had been a minor subdominant chord is al¬ tered to an augmented fifth—and settles finally on an open fifth. Into these few measures is concentrated a treasury of ideas that Brahms ex¬ ploited throughout his life of song writing. At this stage, however, he had not yet learned a sense of proportion. The late 1850s saw the composition not only of Opp. 14 and 19, but of Op. 48, Nos. 1 and 3. The latter were not published until 1868, but a ver¬ sion of Op. 48, No. 1, “Der Gang zum Liebchen,” appears in the partbooks of the Frauenchor. In this strophic song, the motus perpetuum of the ac¬ companiment in the second half also serves as a postlude. The abandoned girl of Liebesklage des Madchens” (Op. 48, No. 3) sings an odd, indeter¬ minate song that never settles down to a clear key. Although a few of Brahms’s great songs are tonally ambiguous, this is not one of them. Two more songs published in 1868 have unknown dates of composition. “Am

Johannes Brahms: Volkslied/Kunstlied

131

Sonntag Morgen” (Op. 49, No. 1) hides sorrow under a cheerful face, con¬ cluding with a classic affecdve Neapolitan-sixth cadence (HI6-V7-i). The same harmony colors the similar and equally attractive “Gold uberwiegt die Liebe” (Op. 48, No. 4). Four of the songs of Opp. 85 and 95 are settings of translations of Eastern European folk texts by Siegfried Kapper. Two of the three transla¬ tions from the Serbian, “Das Madchen” (Op. 95, No. 1) and “Madchenlied” (Op. 85, No. 3), are set in irregular meters; in “Madchenlied,” trochaic tetrameter (“Ach, und du mein kiihles Wasser!”) is transformed into t when the last two syllables of each line are lengthened. At first glance, “Vorschneller Schwur” (Op. 95, No. 5) is an obvious example of varied strophic form: in the first stanza the girl swears off carrying flowers, drinking wine, and kissing boys, all in D minor; in the second she reneges on all three pledges in D major. The relationship of setting to text is more complicated, however. The poem is divided into two sections: the first, six lines long, is the girl’s oath (two repetitions are part of the poem), and the second begins with two connecting lines (“Gestern schwor das Madchen— / heute schon bereut es”) and continues with the six lines of her retrac¬ tion. The musical parallels, then, are between the first section and the last six lines of the second; the setting of the two central lines is almost recita¬ tive, based on the ascending third that opens the song, but also accom¬ plishing recitative’s traditional narrative and modulating functions. (The same formal technique appears in the very different “O kuhler Wald,” Op. 72, No. 3, where the first line of the poem’s second stanza is isolated and declaimed.) “Ade!” (Op. 85, No. 4, translated from the Bohemian) is an unusually cheerful song of farewell; for much of the song, a duet between the voice and a countermelody is masked by layers of rhythmic activity in the difficult accompaniment. “Entfuhrung” (Op. 97, No. 3) seems to be a throwback to Brahms’s earlier excesses of the ballad type. The galloping-horse accompaniment, with its syncopated bass, is effective, and his friends like the song; Elisabeth von Herzogenberg, for whose opinions he had great respect, thought the words “splendid” and the music “delicious” (Brahms 1909, 230). Several writers have suggested that the image of the hero riding into the night with his lady represents wishful thinking by the composer (Sams 1972, 56; MacDonald 1990, 348); the song’s title has been translated as both “abduc¬ tion” and “elopement,” but Frau von Herzogenberg’s approval proves the latter correct. Brahms’s last published opus of songs includes two songs with women narrators. The girl of “Madchenlied” (Op. 107, No. 5) is spinning, but un¬ like Schubert’s Gretchen she has never had a lover. Her melancholy is in sharp contrast to the exuberance of the young bride who sings the leaping melody and fractured rhythms of “Das Madchen spricht” (Op. 107, No. 3). (Brahms did not assume performances by women; Op. 107, No. 3 was pre¬ miered by the tenor Gustav Walter.) The poem is in two stanzas of identi-

132

Johannes Brahms: Volkslied/Kunstlied

cal meter, each containing five lines of three feet, with a variable number of syllables per line. The first stanza: Schwalbe, sag mir an, Ists dein alter Mann, Mit dem dus Nest gebaut? Oder hast du jiingst erst Dich ihm vertraut?

Swallow, tell me, Is it your old husband With whom you have built a nest? Or have you just recently Entrusted yourself to him?

The song begins with an introduction that gives no clue to its meter (Ex. 4.3, pp. 133-34); is it triple, as notated, or duple with two fermatas? The voice enters in unambiguous triple meter, but the third line, sung twice and accelerated so that its three accents fit into three adjacent beats, is a hemiola in both voice and piano. The shift to C major on the second beat of m. 11 provides a striking accent, so that the perceived downbeat moves to beat 2, where it is supported by the piano part until m. 15. The repositioned downbeat provides accentuation—previously unclear—for the text “o-der hast du jiingst erst.” But the line is then broken with a rest, and the enjambment into the next line is ignored. The two remaining beats of m. 15 lead to two bars in which the piano part contains a harmonic hemiola: the first beat of m. 16 is the diminished-seventh pivot that restores the original tonic, A major, and in that key the chords of mm. 16-17 fall into two-beat groups, vii°|/V-V6, vii07/ vi-vii07/V-Ijjf= -f-J—E»-^

s chwal

be.

sag

mir

~b an,

■—-h* |h ~s3=F=f-J^-J _V— m cJ ^ • —*/' ^—~ -c-^ LXJ -tf

^-\ 1=1 P

ar?,.

ft—-•——*-4 P-*

r""

rihf

± —- - J~

J-..—.J.-

(continued)

134

Johannes Brahms: Volkslied/Kunstlied

Example 4.3.

(continued,)

poco rit.

1 dich

J =-il J

LJ- IS ihm

ver

traut,

. . $=.

--a-*-

——

dich ihm ver - traut?

poco rit. _ _ __________________ _

Johannes Brahms: Volkslied/Kunstlied

135

Liebe” (Op. 43, No. 1) and “Verrat” (Op. 105, No. 5) are narratives—the former frequently performed, the latter, a grisly tale of revenge, almost never. Other such elaborate settings are “Sehnsucht” (Op. 49, No. 3), an overwrought setting of a slight poem; “Blinde Kuh” (Op. 58, No. 1), in which a game of blindman’s buff becomes a chase between the pianist’s two hands; and “Die Sprode” (Op. 58, No. 3), an artful setting of a text “aus dem Calabresischen” by August Kopisch that was revised after the first edition by Paul Heyse (Bozarth 1978, 140-42). The last two songs of this type are on texts by Lemcke: “Salamander” (Op. 107, No. 2) and “Willst du, daB ich geh?” (Op. 71, No. 4), in which the protagonist, ignoring barline meter, disingenuously asks whether he really must go out into the hos¬ tile night—depicted by a stormy piano part and numerous cross-rhythms. Elisabeth von Herzogenberg disapproved of this serious approach to the poem, saying that only a setting “in Volkslied style” would have been ap¬ propriate (Brahms 1909, 23). Brahms’s first opus consisting entirely of lyric songs is the Lieder und Gesange Op. 32 (1864), on texts by Daumer and the respected August von Platen. This set, a watershed in Brahms’s career as a composer of lieder, is described by Kalbeck (1912-21, 2:138) as “a sort of lyric Novelle, ... a highly personal history of the heart.” In the powerful first and fourth songs, both expressing alienation and futility—linked by Goldberg (1992, 192) to Platen’s homosexuality—the feeling of rootlessness is reflected in passages of uncertain tonality. The other Platen songs, Nos. 3, 5, and 6, re¬ spectively unite in text and music emotions of despairing numbness, vio¬ lent escape from unspecified fetters, and bitter resignation. Brahms’s first setting of a poem by Daumer, “Nicht mehr zu dir zu gehen” (Op. 32, No. 2), represents a remarkable change in style from any¬ thing

had

composed

earlier;

Friedlaender

(1928,

33)

describes

Brahms’s ternary setting as less a song in the traditional sense than “a declamation hesitating between a recitatif and an aria.” Indeed it is effec¬ tively anti-lyrical: in the first of the three stanzas (Ex. 4.4), the vocal melody sounds almost spoken, the second and fourth lines are interrupted by pauses (the repetition of “denn jede Kraft,” which extends the already longer fourth line, is Brahms’s), and the vocal part has no discernible meter. The only stable presence is the passacaglialike bass. Next to the as¬ cending scale of mm. 1 and 4 (inverted in the middle section), the most striking motive is the one in the piano associated with the words “beschloB ich”; other three-note figures in the voice are heard as variants of this one. The harmony is as indecisive as the vocal rhythm: V-i cadences are colored by alteration of the dominant (as with the augmented fifth in m. 8) or evaded, and there is only one authentic cadence. Kalbeck’s description (1912-21, 2:140) of the trapped, hapless lover—“on each syllable hangs a drop of blood”—seems appropriate. The ninth and last song, “Wie bist du, meine Konigin,” renowned as one of Brahms’s most beautiful lieder, is almost equally notorious for its

Johannes Brahms: Volkslied/Kunstlied

136

4.4. Op. 32,

Example

No.

2, mm. 1-10

Langsam

-JmA rA v A>

>* -i—— >-— n—;—P—;—- > « -^—* ■ ~ "-1-1^ ftJ ' J J J -J-J—“-•— Nicht mehr zu

dir

ge-hen,

J J r-i -1 m

und

ge - he

jUU kry* -f r f.f- ? 1 1 p _

be-schwor ich.

- -— \ J ■ :m

A - bend,

r-)

■S 9

und

f*-

—

je - den

be-schloB ich

denn je - de

Kraft,

-.J.

denn je - de

ij J J ^\-i———1-?—|— .f r r i

y f ^

-J

!■ l

•

__J5

— f \—L- -f—b-L -ut-«—s—■—i_* ^_ Kraft

und je-den

Halt

1 J i

r*Y 1

> vrg r

r r

i =t=

gza

J J =^r? r -.

—F

ver

p > i

---

lor icb .

J J * — /«

—W—*—

==*=t

p=# r rjjJ

dim.

L&--

n ^

■=

±.

Johannes Brahms: Volkslied/Kunstlied

137

faulty declamation. Daumer’s four stanzas are in iambic tetrameter; every stanza ends with the word wonnevoll and has an enjambment between the third and fourth lines. Brahms’s modified strophic setting preserves the enjambment, isolates and emphasizes through repetition the final “wonnevoll” of each stanza, and disrupts the meter, placing unaccented sylla¬ bles on strong beats, although there appears to be no justification for this on grounds of shifting downbeats or ambiguous accentuation. Bell’s sug¬ gestion (1979, 43) that Brahms’s idea for the main melody may have come from the first phrase of the last stanza—“LaB mich vergehn in deinem Arm!”—and that he found it too good to relinquish despite its poor fit with the other stanzas, seems plausible. It is supported by the fact that minor changes in the rhythm within strophes, often prompted by chang¬ ing accentuation, occur only in the second and fourth lines of stanzas and not in the first and third, which are always set to that melody or variants of it. The third stanza (Ex. 4.5), with its contrasting affect, provides in its brief course a virtuoso display of modulation, exploiting the enharmonic

Example 4.5. Op. 32, No. 9, mm. 44—60 44

(continued,)

138

Johannes Brahms: Volkslied/Kunstlied

EXAMPLE 4.5. (continued,) 52 -=^-lG= dort

ohn_

i^rr

i h

En - de

—r-'r-

-UL!brii

te,

-[V——2= won

ne -

1 f

identity of dominant-seventh and German augmented-sixth chords (see chap. 9 on the use of the “Neapolitan complex” in this passage). The shift from El minor (parallel minor of the tonic) to E major in m. 47 is accom¬ plished by reversing the conventional pattern: the chord on the first beat, Vs in E major, is the German sixth of the previous key. (This reverse German-sixth progression, rarely used by Brahms, is by no means unique; see, for example, Schumann’s “Im leuchtenden Sommermorgen.”) The change of mode in mm. 49-50 is reinforced by the linkage between the voice’s descending half step in m. 49 and the knell-like sixfold echo of the half step in the piano part;10 the same motive is reflected in the half¬ step slip from V7 in E minor to V7 in El minor between mm. 52 and 53.11 The return to the tonic minor is interrupted in m. 55 by one of Brahms’s favorite devices, a dyad that belongs equally to two keys, here used to move to Cl major. A seventh is added to the resolution to Cl in m. 58, and the re¬ sulting chord—enharmonically the same as that heard in m. 47—is the

Johannes Brahms: Volkslied/Kunstlied

139

German sixth that, used conventionally this time, returns the song to Elmajor for its final stanza. Two songs composed in May 1867 on texts by Adolf Friedrich von Schack rank, with Ein deutsches Requiem, most of which Brahms had just completed, among his most serious works. “Herbstgefuhl” (Op. 48, No. 7), the first of the songs often dubbed “autumnal,” was written when he was only thirty-four years old. The tonality is obscure until the end, and al¬ though it appears that D major will prevail (foreshadowing later deathas-refuge songs and confirming the message of the Requiem), the final phrase is in Fit minor; Brahms acknowledged its resemblance to Schubert’s “Doppelganger” (Friedlaender 1928, 75). Hugo Wolf might have recog¬ nized a premonition of his “Um Mitternacht” in the long prelude to “Abenddammerung” (Op. 49, No. 5), one of Brahms’s most powerful songs of nostalgia, in its low range, rocking piano figuration, and poignant dissonance. The eight songs of Op. 57 (1869-71) are settings of Daumer texts— Brahms’s only opus except the Magelone-Lieder devoted to the works of a single poet. The poems as a group express “hot passion and undisguised sensuality” (Friedlaender 1928, 83). Like Op. 32, the set might be read as a cycle,

beginning with the breathless urgency of No.

“Von wald-

bekranzter Hohe,” in which love is avowed, followed by several masterful songs expressing doubt and hesitation: “Wenn du nur zuweilen lachelst” (No. 2), “Es traumte mir” (No. 3), and “Ach, wende diesen Blick” (No. 4). The deserted lover of No. 5, “In meiner Nachte Sehnen”—more akin to Schubert’s Gretchen than the wistful maidens of Brahms’s folklike songs— recalls previous sexual encounters in the ceaseless accompaniment and ascending tessitura. The form is ternary, with two stanzas of the original four combined in the middle section, at the end of which a climax of rhythmic intensity coincides with the recollection of physical climax. In contrast, “Strahlt zuweilen auch ein mildes Licht” (Op. 57, No. 6) is a lovely miniature setting of a single stanza: the glances from the poet’s beloved do not, finally, convey the message he desires. The seventh song, “Die Schnur, die Perl an Perle,” in which the lover’s hope is rekindled, reaches a root-position tonic triad only in its final measure; much of this passionate song is over dominant pedals (often tonic six-four chords) in a variety of keys. The lover at last reaches fulfillment in “Unbewegte laue Luft” (No. 9), a song on the scale of some of the Magelone-Lieder but more successful be¬ cause of its musical unity. Elisabeth von Herzogenberg told Brahms that she had “broken many lances” (Brahms 1909, 34) in defense of its erotic text (the last two lines: “Komm, o komm, damit wir uns / himmlische Geniige geben!”). The setting, filled with yearning chromaticism, is distin¬ guished by a contrapuntally derived French augmented-sixth chord heard four times in the first four measures (Ex. 4.6a). This chord would normally

140

Johannes Brahms: Volkslied/Kunstlied

lead to El> major or minor; here, however, it functions as neighbor and sub¬ stitute dominant to the tonic E major and is instantly recognizable as un¬ usual—perhaps even unique—in Brahms’s style.12 Memorable on its own, it is underlined whenever the voice is present by the dissonant flat sixth degree of the scale, C1), sung against the tonic chord (m. 4). The languid beginning is briefly enlivened (although remaining dolce) by the plashing of a fountain in B major. At this point one expects continuation in the dominant or a common-tone shift to a third-related key; unanticipated, however, is a circuitous return to the original tonic (Ex. 4.6b) by way of chords that resemble French sixths (mm. 20-21) and a momentary tonicization of the Neapolitan key, F major (foreshadowed in the introduc¬ tion). The diminished seventh of m. 24 leads not to the expected dominant seventh in E major but to its tonic six-four, which disappears as the tempo quickens to Lebhaft, the dominant seventh finally arrives in m. 30 and leads to a twofold repetition of the initial melody and harmony. In the quiet but triumphant conclusion (Ex. 4.6c), three more appearances of the aug¬ mented sixth form part of the prolongation of the final tonic. Carl Candidus, an often-criticized poet, provided the text for the pow¬ erful, unhappy “Schwermut” (Op. 58, No. 5) and several other excellent songs (the best known of which is “Alte Liebe,” Op. 72, No. 1). The mood and the piano introduction are reminiscent of Schubert’s “Rast,” while a Wolfian key change on the word gedenkensatt—a common-tone shift be¬ tween third-related minor keys (El. minor and B minor)—is unique in Brahms’s songs, although such shifts between major keys are a normal part of his style. The song is built on a circle of descending major thirds, El. minor to B minor to G minor to El. major; in the final key, death is anticipated as a release from suffering. On the other hand, “Auf dem See” (Op. 59, No. 2), on a poem by Carl Simrock, presents a mood of cheerful tranquility, enlivened by hemiolas that ruffle the smooth waters a trifle. This opus demonstrates the range of Brahms’s choice of poets for lied texts. Single poems by Goethe, Morike, Simrock, and Daumer—whose coy “Eine gute, gute Nacht” (Op. 59, No. 6) is set to music that in several re¬ spects

resembles

Schumann’s

“Im wunderschonen

Monat Mai”—are

joined by four poems by his north-German compatriot Klaus Groth, whose poetry often evoked a nostalgic mood in Brahms. Although “Dein blaues Auge” (Op. 59, No. 8) is more often performed, the paired songs “Regenlied” and its shorter and better echo “Nachklang,” Op. 59, Nos. 3 and 4, are well known because of their reappearance in Brahms’s G-Major Violin Sonata Op. 78. One of Brahms’s best Lemcke settings is another nostalgic song, “Im Garten am Seegestade” (Op. 70, No. 1). Here, sounds heard in a seaside garden—trees, waves, and melancholy bird calls— combine to produce music “like a song of lost love and eternal longing.” Bird song appears again in the setting of Candidus’s “Lerchengesang” (Op. 70, No. 2), whose first line generates the languid mood and rhythm of the vocal part. The

Johannes Brahms: Volkslied/Kunstlied

141

Example 4.6.

(a) Op. 57, No. 8, mm. 1-5 (a)

Langsam

Lebhaft

(continued)

142

Johannes Brahms: Volkslied/Kunstlied

Example 4.6.

(continued)

li, -kii i r^ ^ n—^^ m n jgj-*-^4-p—iM-F-fjkQ

komm,

o komm,

mit_

wir

uns

65 , If +r D»-

^ himm

li-sche

nii

fr r rfrfr ■ r rfr i^t rrr rrrfrrf^ LD^eSF Eli, «====== t-m^iimri ri i-M jrp ritard. e dimin.

J # *-«-r«- —\- H -3-tf®y^- l ■«

■sa. 68

q>g

*i: y l

Johannes Brahms: Volkslied/Kunstlied

143

piano begins (Ex. 4.7) over a tonic pedal with a high, descending melody interrupted by rests; each accented treble pitch is an appoggiatura or dis¬ sonant passing tone belonging to the previous chord. The voice echoes the descending melody, but its triplets come from the rhythm of the word dtherische. Brahms’s only setting of a poem by Theodor Storm is “Uber die Heide

(Op. 86, No. 4, 1882), a short, densely constructed song based on a

stepwise three-note motive; it is dramatic without overstatement—a far cry from the kind of setdng Brahms might have written thirty years earlier. Another song of lost youth is the powerful “Mit vierzig Jahren” (Op. 94, No. 1), composed just before Brahms’s fiftieth birthday and one of his few settings of a text by Ruckert, in which a man at forty looks back at his youth, then presses toward his final destination—represented, as so often in Brahms, by a turn to the parallel mtyor. In the progressively varied strophic setting, the first two syllables of the first and third lines of each of the three four-line stanzas are set to the falling fifth Fit to B, harmonized differently each time.13 The most striking harmonization occurs at the re-

Example

4.7. Op. 70, No. 2, mm. 1-12 Andante espressivo

(continued)

144

Johannes Brahms: Volkslied/Kunstlied

EXAMPLE

4.7. (continued)

der

Ler -

chen himm - li-sche

Grii

Be,

turn to the tonic B minor, at the beginning of the third stanza (Ex. 4.8): a modulation to D minor during the second stanza, confirmed in a passage of unharmonized octaves (mm. 23-25), is reversed when Bt is enharmcnically changed to At, the third of the dominant of the original key. Brahms’s last two Daumer settings are “Schon war, das ich dir weihte” (Op. 95, No. 7) and the well-known “Wir wandelten” (Op. 96, No. 2, the only non-Heine text in this opus, which includes “Der Tod, das ist die kiihle Nacht,” Op. 96, No. 1). The text of the underrated Op. 95, No. 7 is a single six-line stanza in irregular meter, with the last line longer than the others. Gerber (1932, 41) calls the form a Reprisenbar: lines 1-2 and lines 3-4 are set to the same music, which is heard again, partially reharmo¬ nized, when line 6 is repeated at the end of the song. A sense of urgency and imbalance results from persistent left-hand syncopation, augmentedand diminished-fourth leaps in the vocal line, and musical as well as tex¬ tual enjambments. The last songs Brahms published before the gap that preceded the Vier emste Gesdnge (he was occupied with the Deutsche Volkslieder during some of this time) are the three sets Opp. 105, 106, and 107, which ap¬ peared in October 1888. Op. 105, for low voice, includes “Immer leiser

Johannes Brahms: Volkslied/Kunstlied

145

Example 4.8. Op. 94, No. 1, mm. 21-29 21

^--- ^-kf-i-

hier

nicht,

drii

r r

ben

gehts hin

W V

—t—$u-

ab.

Nicht

dim.

^3 ts

*):*„ -^==fc== WL p at

mend auf -

r T

. .. • p p

warts brauchst

1 -ft'—ft --Ai— •-sr—X*» i— M. r-. y-.\

du mehr

stei

—>■

dim.

gen,

die

146

Johannes Brahms: Volkslied/Kunstlied

wird mein Schlummer” (No. 2), one of the most frequendy performed of Brahms’s songs and the most often analyzed after “Die Mainacht” (Op. 43, No. 2, whose many analyses have been prompted by Brahms’s use of its first phrase as the subject of his “seed-corn” analogy). The text, his only setting of a poem by Hermann Lingg, was recommended by Eduard Hanslick (Kalbeck 1912-21, 4: 136); its two stanzas receive what might be described as a transformed strophic setting. The series of second-inversion triads underlying the rapid key changes at the end of each strophe drew the wrath of Elisabeth von Herzogenberg, who complained shortly after the song was composed, “You surely never wrote anything of the kind be¬ fore? I know of no other passages to equal it for harshness in the whole of your music, and flatter myself you will find some other means of express¬ ing the passionate yearning of the poem at that point” (Brahms 1909, 291). She remained unreconciled when the song was published two years later in 1888 (Brahms 1909, 358), the same year that Brahms told Jenner to “underline every six-four chord and consider carefully whether it is in the right place” (Jenner 1905, 37). In the first stanza (Ex. 4.9a) the bass descends by step, from a root-position E-major chord (relative major of the tonic, C# minor) to D (bass of a G-major six-four) and C (F-major six-four); the voice continues the sequence, but the accompaniment interrupts it, moving not to Bl> (V of El. major) but to B1! as bass of an E-minor six-four chord that resolves to a dominant seventh in that key. The end of the sec¬ ond stanza begins in the same way (Ex. 4.9b, p. 148), but this time the sixfour chords remain unresolved (compare m. 44 to m. 17); the voice and the bass move upward through a circle of minor thirds (G major, Bt major), and the climax of the song comes with fulfillment of the sequence: the voice’s highest pitch, initially harmonized by an augmented triad (m. 46), now in Dt major, the parallel major of the original tonic.

Postlude: The Vier ernste Gesange Op. 121 The texts of the Four Serious Songs are fruits of Brahms’s lifelong study of the Lutheran Bible. He was proud of his accomplishment in setting them, telling Heuberger, “You know, prose is difficult to set to music,” and showing him where the musical setting had been particularly difficult, but then going on in a contradictory vein, “Isn’t it good to speak and to sing?— really obvious? One could hardly compose more simply!” (Heuberger 1971 104-5). At the beginning of the cycle, death appears bleak and terrible, the outcome of a pointless existence. It is depicted musically in the dragging, stepwise melody that opens the first song; similar melodies appear in sev¬ eral of Brahms’s choral works (the most frequently cited is the second movement of Ein deutsches Requiem) and in “Nicht mehr zu dir zu gehen” (Op. 32, No. 2), a song, also in D minor, about hopeless love (see Ex. 4.4,

Johannes Brahms: Volkslied/Kunstlied

147

Example 4.9. Op. 105, No. 2 (a) mm. 14-22 14

und

off

net

—

dir.

- ^

ich

f-^1 =4=fcrZ J

er -

^ jt j "' j

-]■

dim.

y—ff-S—1

- -

[XU

-f—--e-

§s wach

und

wei

m w

Iy * * j

f— tl' JW -jL-E-l-1

ne bit - ter

lich.

! ! I II /

kt-

(continued)

148

Johannes Brahms: Volkslied/Kunstlied

EXAMPLE 4.9. (continued,) (b) mm. 41-47 41

i= ly-hh

J T.

i ^ i* j y JL bK

rit.

f J "^|

se,

f4yiflf

g f aP i

ifhreit L i J b J i *>= - =f±=±yi ^== bpW =y=Mf —

hast

mein

Herz

riihrt

mit

nem

Hugo Wolf: Subjectivity in the Fin-de-Siecle Lied

211

EXAMPLE 6.6. Wolf, “Auf einer Wanderung”

(a) “striding” theme, mm. 1-2 Leicht bewegt

immer staccato

mm m iu

(b) “expressive” theme, mm. 63-66

“Auf einer Wanderung” is a good example of the way in which topics of genuine independent interest are tacitly engaged with ideological for¬ mations. The quarrel of stasis and motion belongs to the psychology and philosophy of the Romantic imagination, but it also conforms to a latent oedipal logic. Wandering is a quintessentially virile activity; wandering women in the nineteenth century were identified either as madwomen or prostitutes or both. Men, to steal a phrase, could by contrast be frei aber froh. But the stasis of transcendence involves a dangerous proximity to the feminine. Morike’s transformative image, and the substance of Wolfs first climax, is the traditionally feminine image of passional-virginal roses. The closing image is even more explicitly feminine, interpreting the earlier roseate bliss as a Muse-given breath of love. What the piano “says,” there¬ fore, while the voice bathes itself in bliss, is that the illusion of transcen¬ dence entails the surrender of masculine autonomy. From the sound of that surrender, the piano, disenchantingly, strides away.

212

Hugo Wolf: Subjectivity in the Fin-de-Siecle Lied

“Der Feuerreiter” (Morike Songbook) Wolf performed this willfully overwrought Ballade more often than any other song he wrote. It obviously held a special meaning for him, something hard to separate from its oedipal thematics of heroic transgres¬ sion and sadistic punishment. A figure from folklore, the fire-rider is mys¬ teriously drawn from afar by fires he is forbidden to extinguish. Morike’s poem recounts the downfall of a “sacrilegious” fire-rider who disobeys this ban by extinguishing fires with a splinter from the true cross. Behind a hill (Golgotha?) there is one last fire; the fire-rider plunges boldly into a burn¬ ing mill, only to be incinerated while the infernal Foe grins amid hellfire from the roofbeams. Read in oedipal terms, the fire may allegorize either the anger or the passion of the Bad Father enshrined in the superego. The fire-rider can defy these forces by means of the sacred relic or magic charm that uniquely transforms a son’s suffering into redemptive power, but he cannot do so and live. Wolfs song is a study in extremes, wild, noisy, and agitated while the fire blazes, and increasingly hushed and fragmentary as the fire dies. Sur¬ plus melodrama deliberately jostles surplus pathos. This extremity is local¬ ized in the voice of the narrator, who overidentifies with the fire-rider; the vocal line runs the gamut from whispering to virtual shouting, suggesting panic during the fire and sentimentality in its aftermath. The piano exploits this hysterical quality in order to invest the voice, ventriloquistically, with the sadistic force of the fire-Father-Foe. The song opens with rampaging triplets suggestive of the moving flames, against which the movements of the fire-rider are narrated. Although the voice, fol¬ lowing Ballade conventions, asserts less rhythmic independence than usual, Wolf for the most part approximates its usual separation from the piano. At certain critical moments, however, voice and piano implode into unity. Twice the voice cries “hinter’m Berg, hinter’m Berg, brennt es in der Miihle” (“back o’ the hill, back o’ the hill, the mill’s on fire”) to a distinctive melodic figure; twice the piano, marked triple forte, accompanies in rhyth¬ mic unison, then repeats the melodic figure in the bass while the voice is silent (Ex. 6.7). The violent repetition makes it clear that the voice, in spite of itself, has become the piano’s messenger. What is meant as a cry of horror from a partisan of the defiant son is realized as a cry of vindictive triumph from the malicious father; for a moment, the voice catches fire. When the voice later recalls its outcry in order to proclaim the Foe’s triumph, “Hin¬ ter’m Berg, hinter’m Berg, rast er in der Miihle,” the piano does not even bother to join in; the voice is sufficiently alienated without that. One more repetition of the “hinter’m Berg” outcry, fading out over the gutted mill, remains. The voice utters it in an exhausted pianissimo, in an abbreviated form that serves to place the smoldering fire sub specie aeternitatis. “Hinter’m Berg,” the phrase now goes, “hinter’m Berg brennt’s.” Back o’ the hill it’s burning: the statement is now unconditional, the burn-

Hugo Wolf: Subjectivity in the Fin-de-Siecle Lied

213

Example 6.7. Wolf, “Der Feuerreiter” (Morike), “hinter’m Berg” figure, mm. 23-26

p.-. 25

f2.

I* n ».i f--J"—

1 0-

— ?-

r ^ ^ Jr jr

-** i

ing perennial. At this juncture, the piano begins to repeat, softly but obses¬ sively, rhythmic and melodic fragments, some literal, some varied, of the “hinter’m Berg” figure (Ex. 6.8). This process continues through the end of the song, endlessly disseminating the same message. The fire, as signifier, may be burned out; the fire it signifies keeps on burning. The career of the fire-rider has been futile; in the end, the voice cannot even bid him rest except by mournfully reinvoking the “hinter’m Berg” figure (Ex. 6.9). “Der Feuerreiter,” its concentration riveted on Wolf s most basic con¬ cerns, makes a fitting envoi to this survey of his songs. Reporting to a friend on a performance, in 1894, of his arrangement of the work for chorus and orchestra, Wolf wrote (Walker 1952, 331): “Der Feuerreiter” struck home like a bomb. ... It was fearfully beau¬ tiful. Everything was at high tension. The effect was shattering. What a shame, what a shame, that you were not there. You would have opened your eyes. The rhetorical figuration that links eye-opening truth to explosive vio¬ lence, in the process eliding pleasure and subsuming beauty, is no mere

214

Hugo Wolf: Subjectivity in the Fin-de-Siecle Lied

EXAMPLE 6.8. Wolf, “Der Feuerreiter,” mm. 92-96, 116-18

92 M

- *— *— m-

^- 0 “IT " 1-1-

hin - ter’m Berg,

hin - ter’m Berg

brennt’s!

jM* .—=—i-=—1 ^ » » f-

l####

— J I ^ J — 9-- 9-9- 9-

immer mehr abnehmend

ft fL ft fL fL

\l*\F-J1- t - -

tff-

i i i

-■ , -fL.—ft-—«L fin H_t w

ir. J

r 4^ --l —- r> r r 1r ?r t*

Husch!

J- fL fL

ft. ftL A ^► fL fL JL f_J ze:e E 11 ^ '■—4,1 o gj»—i a—^ c:e -fe-. // y Ill -R V L V- f w w •/ m r •/ i —-— -H‘7 t §21 J 7 1 / 7 V VH7- t _ 1 tJ

\\r V

da fallt’s in

sche ab.

till*

# t

—HI —p— 7

11*

n— —n~ 7—7— -hi-t -Tr^J — ^—*—

Pippp •j ,ft r fry -euk—,-m_ -CV v 1 ^ IT y ■ V ^-ft- —s*- -1-*i 1 4-^-1! / t_L U / n ivm n ;

■ r U n

Tv y i 7 U7

~T3~M

— i™

rtttz

^n-

h h h r«/ 7-3 i~7 ----

7-a —7— 1

Hugo Wolf: Subjectivity in the Fin-de-Siecle Lied

215

EXAMPLE 6.9. Wolf, “Der Feuerreiter,” mm. 122-25

eccentricity. On the contrary; it is the figuration most central to the psychocultural order to which Wolf s work belongs. For that reason it is most often a hidden figuration, obscured by enfranchising beauty and restoring the place of pleasure. The majority of Wolfs songs follow this practice, though often with the intention of being detected at it. But “Der Feuer¬ reiter” is a credo. It is Wolf s most extravagant song precisely because it is meant to be his most truthful.

Notes 1. Criticism not based on the Wolf legend is hard to find. Radcliffe (1960) hews to the legend closely; Stein (1985) departs from it only by bracketing the interplay of text and music in order to take up the analytical question of extended tonal¬ ity. Youens (1992), published after this chapter was written, appears less to de¬ part from the legend than to refine and historicize it. 2. For a fuller account of this issue, see Kramer (1984, especially the chapter “Song”) and Agawu (1992). 3. For an influential account of the plurality of speakers and “personae” in the lied, see Cone (1974) (1-56). Cone arguably is too quick to subsume this plural¬ ity under a single “musical persona,” something he does even more strongly in Cone (1992). For critiques of Cone, see Kramer (1990b) (187-88) and (1992). 4. See the discussions in Deleuze and Guattari (1983), Thewelheit (1987), and de Lauretis (1983). 5. The formula for inversion was coined in mid-century by Karl Heinrich Ulrichs: anima muliebris virili corpore inclusa. For a history, see Chauncey (1982—83, 116), who observes that “inversion . . . did not denote the same conceptual phenom¬ enon as homosexuality . . . [but rather] referred to a broad range of deviant gender behavior.” 6. Heinrich’s brother-in-law Wilhelm Dlauhy had a small role in the performance, substituting for Wolf as singer-narrator toward the end of the song. Dlauhy does not, “appear” in the fantasmatic scene, the workings of which his presence would help to veil (even if, as may have happened, he was merely a fifth wheel).

216

Hugo Wolf: Subjectivity in the Fin-de-Siecle Lied

7. Goethe writes: Ach, diirft ich fassen Und halten ihn Und kussen ihn So wie ich wollt. (Ah, might I but clasp him And hold him And kiss him As I wish). Schubert, having set this, reprises: O konnt ich ihm kussen So wie ich wollt. (O could I but kiss him As I wish). “Konnt” initiates a chain of sforzandos in the piano; a strong expression of de¬ sire becomes a fierce one. For a full analysis of the complex text-music relations in this song, see Kramer (1984, 150-55). 8. The domestic piano, by contrast, symbolizes the restricted, heavily regulated subjectivity of women (see Leppert 1992). 9. For a fuller account of “Ganymed,” see Kramer (1990b, 166-75). 10. For more on Wolf s harper songs, including “Wer nie sein Brot,” see Kramer (1990a). 11. This caution might have been worded, “. . . cannot always keep even its ficti¬ tious, male-authored version of femininity from becoming a wild card,” were it not that under an oedipal regime all femininity is fictitious and male-authored. 12. For further discussion of such man-to-man negotiations across and through the feminine, see Sedgwick (1985, 1-27). 13. For an account of the type, see Hartmann 1964, 3-30.

Bibliography Agawu, V. Kofi. “Toward a Theory of Song.” Music Analysis 11 (1992): 3-36. Benjamin, Jessica. “Master and Slave: The Fantasy of Erotic Domination.” In Powers of Desire: The Politics of Sexuality, ed. Ann Snitow, Christine Stansell, and Sharon Thompson, 280-99. New York, 1983. Carner, Mosco. Hugo Wolf Songs. London, 1982. Chauncey, George, Jr. “From Sexual Inversion to Homosexuality: Medicine and the Changing Conception of Female Deviance.” Salmagundi 58-59 (1982-83): 114-46. Cone, Edward T. The Composer’s Voice. Berkeley, 1974. -“Poet’s Love or Composer’s Love?” In Music and Text: Critical Inquiries, ed. Steven Paul Scher, 177-92. Cambridge, 1992. de Lauretis, Theresa. “Desire in Narrative.” In Alice Doesn’t: Semiotics, Psychoanalysis, Cinema, 103-57. Bloomington, IN, 1983. Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari. Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans. Robert Hurler, Mark Seem, and Helen R. Lane. Minneapolis, 1983.

Hugo Wolf: Subjectivity in the Fin-de-Siecle Lied

217

Faas, Ekbert. Escape into the Mind: Victorian Poetry and the Rise of Psychiatry. Princeton, 1988. Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality. Vol. 1: An Introduction. Trans. Robert Hur¬ ley. New York, 1980. Freud, Sigmund. The Em and the Id. Trans, loan Riviere. Revised by Tames Strachey, New York, 1960. -■. Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis. Trans. James Strachey et al. New York, 1966. Hartmann, Geoffrey H. Wordsworth’s Poetry: 1787-1814. New Haven, 1964. Haywood, Jean I. The Musical Language of Hugo Wolf. Ilfracombe, 1986. Kinsey, Barbara. “Morike Poems Set by Brahms, Schumann, and Wolf.” Music Re¬ view 29 (1968): 257-67. Kramer, Lawrence. Music and Poetry: The Nineteenth Century and After. Berkeley, 1984. -■. “Decadence and Desire: The Wilhelm Meister Songs of Wolf and Schubert.” In Music at the Turn of Century: A Nineteenth-Century Music Reader, ed. Joseph Kerman, 115-28. Berkeley, 1990. [Kramer 1990a] -■. Music as Cultural Practice: 1800-1900. Berkeley, 1990. [Kramer 1990b] -■. “Victorian Poetry, Oedipal Politics: In Memoriam and Other Instances.” Vic¬ torian Poetry 29 (1991): 351-64. -. “Song and Story.” Nineteenth Century Music 15 (1992): 235-39. Kristeva, Julia. The Kristeva Reader. Ed. Toril Moi. New York, 1988. Leppert, Richard. “Sexual Identity, Death, and the Family Piano in the Nineteenth Century. In The Sight of Sound: Music Representation, and the History of the Body, 119-52. Berkeley, 1993. Mclver, William W. “The Declamation in Selected Songs from Hugo Wolf s Italienisches Liederbuch.” NATS Bulletin 34/2 (December 1977): 32-37. Newman, Ernest. Hugo Wolf. London, 1907. Reprint. New York, 1966. -. Liner note for Hugo Wolf Society. The 1931-1938 Recordings, reissued by EMI on 7 disks (1981), ALP 3996-4002. Ossenkop, David. Hugo Wolf: A Guide to Research. New York, 1988. Radcliffe, Philip. “Germany and Austria: The Modern Period.” In A History of Song, ed. Denis Stevens, 228-64. New York, 1960. Sams, Eric. “Hugo Wolf.” In The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie, 20:475-92. London, 1980. -. The Songs of Hugo Wolf. 2d ed. London, 1985. Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire. New York, 1985. Stein, Deborah J. Hugo’s Wolfs Lieder and Extensions of Tonality. Ann Arbor, 1985. Thewelheit, Klaus. Male Fantasies. Vol. 1:

Women, Floods, Bodies, History. Trans.

Stephen Conway in collaboration with Erica Carter and Chris Turner. Min¬ neapolis, 1987. Walker, Frank. Hugo Wolf: A Biography. New York, 1952. Youens, Susan. Hugo Wolf: The Vocal Music. Princeton, 1992.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Gustav Mahler: Romantic Culmination Christopher Lewis

In June 1915, just four years after Gustav Mahler’s death, the conduc¬ tor Willem Mengelberg wrote to Mahler’s brother-in-law Alfred Rose from Amsterdam: This season, we have

had beautiful Mahler performances—the

First—the Second—Third—Fourth—Seventh— Lied von der Erde— Kindertotenlieder—das Klagende Lied and many songs with orches¬ tra. Many of these works were repeated. You see from this that here we have a really strong Mahler cult set in motion.1 Although Mahler is known to the modern concert patron chiefly if not ex¬ clusively as the composer of gigantic dramatic symphonies, it is clear that in his own time and shortly thereafter his reputation as a creative artist de¬ pended equally on his songs. That his mature compositions fall exclusively into two radically different genres mirrors the extent to which his exis¬ tence as an ardst was divided by conflicting necessities that required both private and public expression. His responsibilities as a conductor made it difficult for him to find time for composition; both his professional call¬ ings were obstacles to the establishment of a functional family life. Musi¬ cally, these fundamental dichotomies were reflected in his continual attempts to reconcile the extrovert developmental drama of the symphony with the intimate lyricism of the song, the vast forces of the post-Romantic orchestra and its large audience with the small circle of friends implied by the very concept of chamber music, and the objective musical values of ab¬ solute music with the symbolically autobiographical world of music in¬ formed by literary and philosophical programs. Furthermore, the songs 218

Gustav Mahler: Romantic Culmination

219

are informed by two inherited traditions—those of the German art song and the German folk song. Mahler’s attempts to fuse the stanzaic structure and simple declamation of the folksong with the more sophisticated tonal design, melodic development, and contrapuntal texture of the art song were a constant barrier to his attempts to find critical acceptance for his songs.

Early Songs Mahler began composing as a precocious child, perhaps as early as the age of six. By the time he left his home in Iglau, Bohemia, to enter the Vienna Conservatory in 1875, he apparently had composed enough to earn an exemption from the harmony and counterpoint examinations. Unfortunately, Mahler destroyed virtually all his early compositions, and the only evidence we have of his juvenile lieder are two fragments and three songs that waited over a century for publication. These remnants are fascinating evidence that certain of Mahler’s artistic attitudes were formed before his twentieth year. The two fragments, which apparently date from about 1875,2 are eigh¬ teen neatly copied measures of a setting of Heine’s “Im wunderschonen Monat Mai” and almost twenty-two measures of a composition draft setting lines from the second and third of three Heine poems collectively titled “Tragodie.”3 “Im wunderschonen Monat Mai” is highly chromatic, remark¬ able chiefly for its dogged avoidance of the tonic C after the four-measure piano introduction. The “Tragodie” setting is musically very different: rather more diatonic, especially in the melodic line of the second strophe, with a much simpler, more syllabic declamation, a more straightforward phrase structure, a more conventionally metric rhythmic surface, and a much simpler homophonic texture. In short, “Im wunderschonen Monat Mai” is an attempt at a developed art song, whereas “Tragodie” in its rela¬ tive simplicity resembles a folk setting. Heine identifies the second of the poems in the set (the first part of Mahler’s text) as “a real folk song, which I heard in the Rhineland,”4 but Mahler alters the text in two ways. First, to make the structure and scansion of the two stanzas more closely parallel, he changes the opening couplet of the second stanza from “Ein Jiingling hatte ein Madchen lieb / Sie flohen heimlich von Hause fort” to “Es hatt’ ein Knab ein Magdlein [lieb]5 / Sie flohen gar heimlich von Hause fort.” Second, he writes a new stanza beginning with an altered version of the next poem: “Auf ihren Grab blau Blumelein bluhn.” In his mid-to-late teens, Mahler therefore already exhibits certain fundamental attitudes to song composition that he would never abandon: an attraction to both lyric poetry and folk texts; an ability to imitate folk style and to mix it with his own chromatic tonality; and a remarkable ease in adapting the poetry— whatever its source—to his creative needs. Mahler’s practice is a surpris-

220

Gustav Mahler: Romantic Culmination

ingly rare literal exemplification of Edward T. Cone s observation (1974, 18) that in song “the composer’s persona governs words as well as music. The words, that is, have become part of the composer’s message, utter¬ ances of his own voice. In sense, he composes his own text.” Early in 1880, Mahler composed three songs of a planned set of five dedicated to the object of one

of his

earliest passing infatuations,

Josephine Poisl.6 The poems are apparendy by Mahler. The first two songs, “Im Lenz” and “Winterlied,” are unremarkable except for their styl¬ istic diversity and tonal adventuresomeness, but the third song, “Maitanz im Griinen,” is a different matter. A straightforward landler, with a consis¬ tent homophonic texture, a strongly diatonic folklike tone, and a slightly modified strophic structure, it looks ahead not only to many later Mahler songs but also to his characteristic symphonic landler. Mahler included “Maitanz,” slightly revised and now called “Hans und Grete,” in his first set of published songs.

Publication and Reception The history of the publication, first performance, and reception by the public and the press of Mahler’s songs reveals some of the reasons for Mahler’s attitudes towards his place in the artistic world. There are six groups of published songs (see Table 7.1). The first volume of Lieder und Gesange comprises Group I, a set of five early songs. Volumes 2 and 3 form a completely distinct collection: nine songs with texts from Des Knaben Wunderhom, a collection of German folk texts published by Achim von Armin and Clemens Brentano in 1806 and 1808.8 Although they appeared in his first publication, these songs were probably composed between 1887 and 1890 and therefore constitute Mahler’s third group.9 The Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, begun in 1884 (see Roman 1991 and Mitchell 1980b, 92-93, 119-23), constitute Group II. Almost everything about the Gesellen-Lieder is problematical, even to the number of songs. On 1 January 1885, Mahler wrote (to Friedrich Lohr; Mahler 1979, 81): My signposts: I have written a cycle of songs, six of them so far, all dedicated to her [Joanna Richter, the current object of Mahler’s af¬ fection], She does not know them. What can they tell her but what she knows. I shall send with this the concluding song, although the inadequate words cannot render even a small part.—The idea of the songs as a whole is that a wayfaring man, who has been stricken by fate, now sets forth into the world, travelling wherever his road may lead him. Since no trace survives of music for more than the published four songs, Donald Mitchell (1980b, 123) suggests that by the word Lieder Mahler sim-

221

Gustav Mahler: Romantic Culmination Table 7.1.

Mahler’s Songs Date Published Title

Text

Composed

(Publisher)

Heine

P1875

ms.

b. Es fiel ein Reif

Heine

?1875

ms.

Fragments and juvenilia a. Im wunderschonen Monat Mai

1. Im Lenz

Mahler

1880

1990 (Schott)

2. Winterlied

Mahler

1880

1990 (Schott)

3. Maitanz in Grunen

Mahler

1880

1990 (Schott)

1880-83?

1892 (Schott)

Lieder und Gesange [aus der Jugendzeit], Vol. 1 4. Fruhlingsmorgen

Leander

5. Erinnerung

Leander

6. Hans und Grethe [cf. No. 3]

Mahler

7. Serenade aus Don Juan

de Molina

8. Phantasie aus Don Juan

de Molina

Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen

Mahler

1884P-96?

1897 (Wein¬ berger)

18. Wenn mein Schatz Hochzeit macht 19. Ging heut’ morgens ubers Feld 20. Ich hab’ ein gluhend Messer 21. Die zwei blauen Augen Lieder und Gesange

Brentano

[aus derJugendzeit], Vol. 2

and Arnim

1887-90?

1892 (Schott)

1887-90?

1892 (Schott)

9. Um schlimme Kinder artig zu machen 10. Ich ging mit Lust durch einen grunen Wald 11. Aus! Aus! 12. Starke Einbildungskraft Vol. 3

Brentano and Arnim

13. Zu Strassburg auf der Schanz 14. Ablosung im Sommer 15. Scheiden und Meiden 16. Nicht wiedersehen! 17. Selbstgefuhl (continued)

222

Gustav Mahler: Romantic Culmination

TABLE 7.1.

(continued) Date Published Text

Composed

(Publisher)

Group

Title

Lieder aus Des Knaben

Brentano

1899-1900

Wunderhom

and Arnim

(Weinberger)

22. Der Schildwache Nachtlied

1892

23. Verlor’ne Miih

1892

24. Trost im Ungluck

1892

25. Wer hat des Liedlein erdacht?

1892

26. Das Irdische Leben

1893? '

27. Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt

1893

28. Rheinlegendchen

1893

29. Lied des Verfolgten im Turm

1898?

30. Wo die schonen Trompeten blasen

1898

31. Lob des hohen Verstandes

1896

32. Es sungen drei Engel

1895

33. Urlicht

1893

34. Das himmlische Leben

1892

[Sieben Lieder aus letzter Zeit] 35. Revelge

Brentano

1899

1905 (Kahnt)

1901

1905 (Kahnt)

Ruckert

1901

1905 (Kahnt)

Ruckert

1901

1905 (Kahnt)

and Arnim 36. Der Tamboursg’sell (DKW)

Brentano and Arnim

37. Blicke mir nicht in die Lieder 38. Ich atmet’ einen linden Duft 39. Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen

Ruckert

1901

1905 (Kahnt)

40. Um Mitternacht

Ruckert

1901

1905 (Kahnt)

41. Liebst du um Schonheit

Ruckert

1902

1907 (Kahnt)

Kindertotenlieder

Ruckert

1905 (Kahnt)

42. Nun will die Sonn’

1901

43. Nun seh’ ich wohl

1904

44. Wenn dein Mutterlein

1901

45. Oft denk’ ich

1901

46. In diesem Wetter

1904

Gustav Mahler: Romantic Culmination

223

ply meant “song texts,” a common enough German usage. Mitchell’s hy¬ pothesis makes sense of Mahler’s phrase “the inadequate words cannot render even a small part,” as a musical setting would have rendered the whole. The Gesellen-Lieder were probably orchestrated between 1893 and 1896 (Roman 1991) and were published by Weinberger in versions for voice and piano and for voice with orchestra. The two scores differ signifi¬ cantly, for Mahler revised certain compositional features as he orches¬ trated. Performers now have the option of singing the cycle with piano using either Mahler’s score10 or a modern reduction of the orchestral score.11 Perhaps spurred by the publication of the Lieder und Gesange, in 1892 Mahler turned again to Des Knaben Wunderhorn for the texts for the fourth group of songs, all of which were scored for orchestral accompaniment. Having composed thirteen songs (No. 22-34 in Table 7.1), Mahler pub¬ lished them in orchestral score (1899-1900) but omitted “Es sungen drei Engel” because it was part of the Third Symphony. When they were repub¬ lished by Universal in 1905,12 “Urlicht,” the fourth movement of the Sec¬ ond

Symphony,

and

“Das

himmlische

Leben,”

used

the Fourth

Symphony, were also omitted, and the now traditional division into two volumes of 5 songs each was established.13 The piano-vocal volume con¬ tained 12 songs (lacking “Das himmlische Leben”), and later Universal Edition volumes also included “Revelge” and “Der Tamboursg’sell,” which were composed in 1899 and 1901, respectively.14 “Der Tamboursg’sell” was Mahler’s last Wunderhorn-Lied; all his later songs were to texts by Riickert, and they comprise Groups V and VI. “Blicke mir,” “Ich atmet’,” “Ich bin der Welt,” and “Um Mitternacht” were all composed and orchestrated in the summer of 1901 (Bauer-Lechner 1980, 225n. 11; Mitchell 1985, 122n. 3). “Liebst du um Schonheit” was composed later for Mahler’s wife, Alma, as a song for voice and piano (A. Mahler 1990, 60), and it clearly stands apart from the other four, not only in its medium but also in the intimacy of its conception and its real¬ ization.15 The four orchestral Riickert Lieder and the last two Wunderhorn songs were issued individually in 1905;16 “Liebst du” followed two years later in a piano version only,17 and after Mahler’s death all seven were gathered together under the title Sieben Lieder aus letzter Zeit,18 This convo¬ luted and at times uncertain history explains why the songs appear in such diverse groupings: as Four Riickert Lieder (the orchestral songs); as Five Rilckert, Lieder (the same in piano reduction, with “Liebst du”); and Seven Late Songs (the same, with the last two Wunderhorn-Lieder). Mahler’s sixth group of songs is, like the Gesellen-Lieder, a true cycle. In summer 1901, while working on the first four Rilckert-Lieder, Mahler com¬ posed and orchestrated three Kindertotenlieder to poems that Riickert had written after two of his children had died: “Nun will die Sonn’ so hell aufgehn,” “Wenn dein Mutterlein,” and “Oft denk’ ich, sie sind nur ausgegangen.” “Nun seh’ ich wohl” and “In diesem Wetter” were composed and

224

Gustav Mahler: Romantic Culmination

orchestrated in 1904 (Lewis 1987). The first edition appeared almost im¬ mediately, in both orchestral and piano versions.19 The record shows that, whatever may have been Mahler’s difficulties with the symphonies, after the initial breakthrough with the Lieder und Gesdnge in 1892 he was able to issue song collections at regular intervals, without inordinately long gaps between composition and publication. The sole exception seems to be the Gesellen-Lieder. Mitchell (1980b, 112) sug¬ gests that the cycle may have been withheld because Mahler was unwilling to reveal the extent to which the First Symphony cannibalized the songs, but Roman (1991) deduces that Mahler did not finish revising the piece until after 1894. In either case, it seems that the late publication was not due to any great reluctance on the part of the publishers. Notwithstanding the relatively prompt publication, first performances of the songs came sporadically, and in some instances only many years after the appearance in print; audiences were sometimes enthusiastic, but critics were generally uncomprehending. The first known public profes¬ sional performance of Mahler songs took place at a benefit performance in Prague on 18 April 1886 (see Table 7.2 for a list of the lieder pre¬ mieres). On a program with twenty-five other pieces, Betty Frank sang “Fruhlingsmorgen,” “Ging’ heut morgen,” and “Hans und Grethe,” with the composer at the piano. The simple folksong that closed the group was a special success; it was warmly applauded and had to be encored. Perhaps fortunately for Mahler, most of the critics were at another concert (La Grange 1973, 143, n. 48). At the next premiere, three years later, the re¬ views began to focus more directly on what was heard as the principal de¬ fect in Mahler’s conception of the lied. His originality was recognized, but he was taken to task because the style of the music did not suit the texts (La Grange 1973, 202). It is surely significant that in both these early per¬ formances, the greatest audience response was reserved for the most sim¬ ple, folklike song in the group. The orchestral Wunderhorn-Lieder fared no better. For the Berlin crit¬ ics in 1892, the novel and bizarre character of the music offered no point of contact with poems (La Grange 1973, 254). Although the audience at the Hamburg concert the next year enthusiastically applauded the songs, the reviews were brutal. Mahler was again attacked for writing extravagant, contorted music incompatible with his texts (La Grange 1973, 282f). The Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen were heard for the first time in pub¬ lic on 16 March 1896 in Berlin. The audience in the half-empty hall ac¬ corded the song cycle a reasonably warm reception (La Grange 1973, 355). After the concert Mahler admitted that he had attempted to outwit the critics: “The words of the songs are my own. I did not give my name in the programme to avoid providing ammunition for adversaries who would be quite capable of parodying the naive and simple style” (letter to Max Marschalk, 20 March 1896; in Mahler 1979, 178). Nevertheless, the Gesellen-Lieder were criticized for being boring, unsingable, too dramatic,

Gustav Mahler: Romantic Culmination

225

Table 7.2.

Premiere Performances of Lieder during Mahler’s Lifetime

18 April 1886, Prague. Fruhlingsmorgen Ging’ heut Morgens Hans und Grethe Betty Frank (soprano), Mahler (piano) 3 November 1889, Budapest. Erinnerung Scheiden und Meiden [also Fruhlingsmorgen] Bianca Bianchi (soprano), Mahler (piano) 29 April 1892, Hamburg. Aus! Aus! Nicht Wiedersehen [also Hans und Grethe] Richard Dannenberg (tenor?), Carl Armbrust (piano) 12 December 1892, Berlin. Der Schildwache Nachtlied Verlor’ne Muh’ Amalie Joachim (contralto), Raphael Maszkowski (conductor) 27 October 1893, Hamburg. Das himmlische Leben Wer hat dies Liedchen [sic] erdacht [also Verlor’ne Muh’] Clementine Schuch-Proska (soprano), Mahler (conductor) Der Schildwache Nachtlied Trost im Ungliick Rheinlegenden Paul Bulss (tenor), Mahler (conductor) 16 March 1896, Berlin. Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen Anton Sistermans (bass-baritone), Mahler (conductor) 14January 1900, Vienna. Das irdische Leben Wo die schonen Trompeten blasen (continued)

226

Gustav Mahler: Romantic Culmination

Table 7.2. (continued) [also Ging het’ Morgens iiber’s Feld, Die zwei blauen Augen, and Wer hat dies Liedlein erdacht] Selma Kurz (soprano), Mahler (conductor) 15 February 1900, Vienna. Selbstgefuhl [a/soWo die schonen Trompeten blasen and Die zwei blauen Augen] Eugen Gura (baritone), Mahler (conductor) 29 January 1905, Vienna. Lied des Verfolgten im Turm Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt Ich atmet’ einen linden Duft Blicke mir nicht in die Lieder [also Trost im Ungliick and Rheinlegendchen] Anton Moser (baritone), Mahler (conductor) Der Tamboursg’sell Kindertotenlieder Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen Um Mitternacht [also Schildwache Nachtlied] Friedrich Weidemann (baritone), Mahler (conductor) Revelge Fritz Schrodter (tenor), Mahler (conductor) 3 February 1905, Vienna. Repetition of the program of 14 January 1905, with the addition of: Lob des Hohen Verstandes [also Verlor’ne Miih’ and Wer hat dies Liedlein erdacht] Marie Gutheil-Schoder (soprano), Mahler (conductor) 14 February 1907, Berlin. Um schlimme Kinder artig zu machen Ablosung im Sommer [also Nicht Wiedersehen, Selbstgefuhl, Starke Einbildungskraft, Kindertotenlieder, Gesellen-Lieder, and Four Riickert Lieder] Johannes Messchaert (baritone), Mahler (piano)

Gustav Mahler: Romantic Culmination

227

and exhibiting faulty declamation and music too ornate for the texts (La Grange 1973, 356f). At Mahler’s first Vienna premiere (14 January 1900), his songs were enthusiastically applauded by the audience; “Wer hat dies Liedlein” had to be immediately encored. Again, the majority of the reviews found fault with the declamation, the incongruity of textual and musical styles, and the unvocal character of the melodic lines (La Grange 1973, 553f). The critic of the Neue freie Presse, however, was Eduard Hanslick, and his article, although revealing a certain puzzlement, was considerably more percep¬ tive: In the songs we heard yesterday . . . [Mahler] proclaims himself an enemy of the conventional and the customary, a “chercheur,” as the French would say, without implying any derogatory criticism by the use of this term. The new “songs” are difficult to classify: neither Lied nor aria nor dramatic scene, they possess something of all these forms .... [Hanslick compares the Lieder to Berlioz’s orchestral songs. He recalls Goethe’s remarks about the Wunderhom collection’s simple character.] Mahler, in the forefront of modernism, shows a desire, as so often happens, to seek refuge in the opposite extreme— in naivity, in unremitting sentiment, in the terse, even awkward lan¬ guage of the old folk song. However, it would have been contrary to his nature to have treated these poems in the simple undemanding manner of earlier composers. Although a folk-like character is re¬ tained in the vocal line, this is underlaid by a sumptuous accompani¬ ment, alert in its sprightliness and vivid in its modulation, which Mahler gives, not to the piano, but to the orchestra. ... It is impossi¬ ble to ignore the fact that there is a contradiction, a dichotomy, be¬ tween the concept of the “folk song” and this artful superabundant orchestral accompaniment. Yet Mahler has pursued this venture with extraordinary delicacy and masterly technique. As we stand at the be¬ ginning of a new century, we are well advised to say of each new work produced by the musical “Sezession” (Mahler, Richard Strauss, Hugo Wolf, etc.): “It may very well be that the future lies with them.”20 On 29 January 1905, a concert in the small hall of the Musikverein in Vienna was devoted entirely to Mahler’s lieder. Curiously, all the singers were men. In fact, shortly after this concert, Mahler stated that his songs were consistently conceived for the male voice.21 We cannot know whether he meant all his songs, almost all his songs, or merely a particular group such as the Kindertotenlieder. The last seems most likely, since the song movements in the second, third, and fourth symphonies all require a fe¬ male voice. Mahler often accompanied performances of his songs by women, enjoying the experience to such an extent that he once remarked that he was unable to hear a beautiful female voice without falling in love with the singer (La Grange 1973, 552).

228

Gustav Mahler: Romantic Culmination

The concert was sold out, and for once the enthusiasm of the public was echoed by the Viennese critics, who almost without exception recog¬ nized the extraordinary artistry of the songs, and especially of the Kindertotenlieder. The music of the cycle was found “fully worthy” of one of the best-loved German poets, and a number of critics remarked on the close and appropriate linking of the words and music. Nonetheless, the Wiener Abendpost decried both the overly refined instrumental effects and the over-reliance on obvious musical characterizations such as the waltz, landler, and march in the Wunderhorn-Lieder\ the reviewer also remarked on the music’s eccentricity (La Grange 1979, 584-85).22 It is ironic that it was not until just before he left Vienna that Mahler achieved some critical recognition for his lieder, and it is doubly ironic that he had devoted himself to a highly restricted poetic repertoire and still not been understood. His poetic tastes were remarkably consistent. On the one hand, the texts of the Gesellen-Lieder resemble the tone, structure, and language of the Wunderhorn poems; on the other, their symbolic meaning is linked to that of the Kindertotenlieder. The two great cycles, which in a sense frame Mahler’s mature song production, are both directly expressive of the dilemma of the Romantic artist and of Mahler’s situation as a composer constantly struggling against incompatible opposites.

The Dilemma of the Romantic Artist Being a composer was the source of a fundamental difficulty—alien¬ ation. To the Romantics, the artist is, by virtue of his calling, not a normal member of society; yet he must constantly seek acceptance by and recogni¬ tion from those from whom he is estranged. His life is given meaning only by his art—Schlegel said of himself that he had developed such a literari¬ ness of mind that living seemed to be synonymous with writing (Silz 1929, 46). Yet artistic creation no longer provided sufficient means to support life; Mahler earned his living as a conductor, composing primarily in the summer recess from the opera. The dilemma was more than merely practical, for in the Romantic household art and philosophy dwelt in the same room. Herder had taught the Romantics respect for the irrational; Kant had convinced them of the sovereignty of reason. They never questioned the validity of the instinctive and unconscious, yet neither could they deny the power of the intellect. As philosophers they tried to rationalize their feelings, and as artists they tried to give creative, expression to philosophic ideas. They were “tor¬ mented by endless dualisms of reason and feeling . . . [and] felt painfully the incompatibility of their poetic mission and their practical careers, the antithesis between them and their families” (Silz 1929, 84). Nineteenthcentury song is saturated with expressions of this pervasive Romantic dilemma. The often trivial surface meaning of the verse has an ironic in-

Gustav Mahler: Romantic Culmination

229

tent and is aimed at an inner circle who, because of their familiarity with the symbolic vocabulary, will understand all that is meant. To the Romantics, Woman symbolized “the more perfect representa¬ tive of humanity, and exemplified a union of physical and spiritual quali¬ ties which seemed indispensable” for perfect love, and for perfect humanity (Silz 1929, 125). Schubert’s miller-maid, Schumann’s reluctant Dichterbraut, the golden-haired maiden of the Gesellen-Lieder, all symbolize stability, acceptance and place. Their rejection of their suitors means loss of family—that is, an estrangement from all that the artist craves of society. It is as a symbol of estrangement that the Romantic song so frequently in¬ vokes Wanderlust. The wanderer is a metaphor for the process of art, which in turn is a metaphor for the process of life (this is especially true of the Kindertotenlieder). Engaged in “a search for meaning prompted by a dissatis¬ faction with the fragmentary, apparently inexplicable nature of experi¬ ence” (Brown 1979, 186), the wanderer is a symbol either of artistic escape or of artistic exile from conventional society (Gish 1963, 230, 234). Many Romantic protagonists plunge into death or madness; the latter is the spiritual analogue of the former. But even death represents an es¬ cape, a resolution of the artists’ dilemma, since it meant to the Romantics the “satisfaction of their craving for the infinite, a mystical restoradon to the original unity of life,” a liberation from the world into spiritual free¬ dom (Silz 1929, 155-56). This meaning is explicit in the last of the GesellenLieder. “There at last I’ve found some sleep, under the linden tree. It snowed its blossoms over me, I knew no more the evils of life.” Two succes¬ sive stages of existence—life and death—or two concurrent modes of existence—the real and the imaginary, the physical and the metaphysi¬ cal—may equally symbolize the central problem of humanity, the problem of the concreteness of human existence (Wellek 1964, 48-49). Thus, com¬ plex multiple layers of an existential duality are inherent in this Romantic conceit: the incompatibility of man and woman, on the surface; beneath that, the incompatibility of artist and society; and, under all, the question of the stability of the human self, or, if we like, of the incompatibility of body and soul. In the words of Rene Wellek, (1964, 50), “it is not merely alienation from society, or the question of artist and society: it is a much profounder malaise about the utter elusiveness of reality, the discontinuity of our self, the impossibility of human freedom.” Paradoxically, while his art is the source of the artist’s earthly estrangement, the permanence of his art is the artist’s best hope for continuity of self. Nature represents the ideal and the norm and is therefore the com¬ mon source of both art and symbolic love (or, in the broader sense, life). The attraction to folk models is an important indication of the connection between nature and art.23 Mahler said of the Wunderhom texts, “I have de¬ voted myself heart and soul to that poetry (which is essentially different from any other kind of ‘literary poetry,’ and might almost be called some¬ thing more like Nature and Life—in other words the sources of all po-

230

Gustav Mahler: Romantic Culmination

etry—than art) in full awareness of its character and tone” (letter of 2 March 1905 to Ludwig Karpath, in Mahler 1979, 284). Mahler here ex¬ plicitly invokes the crucial trinity of the Romantic artistic conception: Life (or Love), Nature, and Art.24 Mahler’s poetry and music are thus autobiographical in a special way: They are concerned not with describing the self—with giving poetic cur¬ rency to the events of a life—but with defining it (Goodson 1984)—with finding symbolic and metaphoric language to evoke the practical and philosophic ramifications of the Romantic dilemma, of the condition of being an artist. Life and death, light and dark, speech and silence, are all symbols of creative energy and impotence, since, for the Romantic artist, reality was not what he reported but what he created. It was a failure to un¬ derstand the seriousness of intent behind the naive surface of the Wunder¬ hom verse that allowed critics to find the sophistication of Mahler’s music inappropriate. However, even when the verse is simple, there is usually an attempt at expressing a meaning that relates directly to the experience of being an artist and therefore, in a deeper sense, to the experience of being. “Writing is not a naive phenomenon, and reading requires the deci¬ phering of signs” by means of which the artist attempts consciously to tran¬ scend reality (Thalmann 1967, 82). Mahler knew this perfectly well, and he knew also the danger of being read literally. Although real-life experi¬ ence may be the reason for a work’s existence, narration of simple events can never be its true content (see Mahler’s letter of 26 March 1896 to Max Marschalk, in Mahler 1979, 179).

The Wunderhom and Gesellen Lieder The poems in Arnim and Brentano’s Des Knaben Wunderhom are not pure folk expressions. The anthologists had no qualms about “touching them up,” in some cases to a considerable extent; only about a sixth of the collection was published unaltered (Dargie 1981, 100). Goethe, for one, saw no reason why the person who wrote down a folk poem should not have the same right to alter it as did those who passed it along orally.

Table 7.3.

“Wenn mein Schatz Hochzeit macht”: Structure of text Stanza 1: Love

Stanza 2: Nature

Stanza 3: Art

D Marriage of the beloved Bt Crying in a dark room G The beloved

El Blue flowers wither F Beautiful world

D No singing Bl Sleep in sorrow G Sorrow [the beloved]

Gustav Mahler: Romantic Culmination

231

Mahler adopted the same free attitude to the poetry he set, whether the source was folklore or art poetry. Mahler was very much aware of the “naive and simple style” (letter of 10 March 1896 to Marschalk, in Mahler 1979, 178) in the poems of the Gesellen-Lieder and pointed out that they are “in a certain sense related to the Wunderhorn” (letter to Karpath, 2 March 1905, in Mahler 1979, 284). But he failed to point out that the first of the Gesellen poems is actually a trope on one from Des Knaben Wunderhorn, he apparently believed that he had discovered the latter only in 1888, some years after he had composed “Wenn mein Schatz Hochzeit macht.”25 Mitchell’s explanation of the dis¬ crepancy seems most convincing. Mahler must have known some of the Wunderhorn poems as a youth, or even as a child: he “absorbed the Wunderhom spirit and style along with the very air he breathed,” and the “happy and fruitful accident that set him off on a solid and extensive exploration of the Wunderhorn anthology” was merely “the crystallization of a pre¬ occupation that had long been established.”26 Mahler was an accomplished versifier. He was able to impose on all the Geselle texts the external attributes of Volkstumlichkeit the vocabulary is simple, direct, and informal; the images—blue flowers, singing birds, a red-hot knife of sorrow, golden grain and golden hair, the linden tree los¬ ing its blossoms—are conventional; the lines are short and the rhyme schemes uncomplicated. The settings are not folk-song imitations, even though the music bears some resemblance to certain of the simpler Wunderhorn-Lieder. Example 7.1 illustrates the surface similarities of the first, second, and last Gesellen-Lieder With the Wunderhorn-Lied “Ich ging mit Lust.” The melodies are all diatonic, the harmonic rhythm is slow, and in all the songs a simple pedal point predominates. The textures are homophonic, and the melodies are either scalar or comprised of triadic arpeggiations. An antique air is lent to “Wenn mein Schatz” by the modal progression to the subdominant and the avoidance of the leading tone. These characteristics of Mahler’s “folk” style recur consistently in his music from “Hans und Grethe” to parts of the Ninth Symphony. In the case of “Ich ging mit Lust,” little of the remainder of the song contradicts the folk characteristics of its opening, but that is not true of any of the GesellenLieder. Not one is cast in strophic form; not one exhibits a conventional tonal design; and not one fails to link its music to its text with a sophistica¬ tion that absolutely belies the naive surface. The setting of “Wenn mein Schatz” is explicitly designed to articulate the Romantic trinity and expose the symbolic foundation of the cycle (see Table 7.3). In stanza 1, love has been denied and is cause for sorrow. In stanza 2, the world is lovely, flowers are blue,27 and a sweet bird sings. In stanza 3, both natural and artistic creation are dead. The repetition of the same tonal plan (indeed, the same music) for the first and third stanzas ar¬ ticulates the parallel between the loss of love and the loss of art. “When my love is married” (D minor) is paired with “Do not sing, do not bloom”; “I’ll

Example

7.1.

(a) “Wenn mein Schatz,” mm. 1-13

[J- = J] *)

Allegro

Auf den fortwahrenden Tempowechsel ist genau zu achten

mm 4

ft-*-

Langsam

Allegro

Wenn

mein

Schatz

Hoch - zeit

/7\

macht,

/7\

i 0

(b) “Ging heut’ morgen,” mm. 1-9 Gemachlich, nicht eilen £

Ging heut’

dim.

mor-gen

u - ber’s

Feld,

Tau

noch

m auf

den

Gra - sem

hing;

sprach

w* m zu

mir

der

lust’ - ge

Fink:

f .

H 'ri / -•

-s

_, •#

m. — •—

(continued)

From the Collected Edition, Vol. 13/1 (Joseph Weinberger, Vienna— Frankfurt/Main—London). Used by permission. (d) “Ich ging mit Lust,” mm. 1-12 Traumerisch, durchaus zart (Dreamily and tenderly)

mit starkem Pedalgebrauch (use Pedal freely)

hort’

die Vog-lein

sin

f -Lt

gen.

Pas m

£ 1

~9-W

From 24 Songs, Vol. ii (International Music Co., N.Y.). Used by permission.

234

Gustav Mahler: Romantic Culmination

go in my gloomy little room” (B!>) is answered by In the evening, when I go to sleep,” and “Weeping for my dear love” (G minor) is balanced by “I’ll think upon my sorrow.” The blue eyes of the beloved are mirrored in the blue flowers and connect to the third element of the trinity by virtue of their symbolic reference to artistic vision: the grief-stricken crying over loss of love occurs in a darkened room. In the final song of the cycle, all three images return. The blue eyes—the loss of love—have sent the protagonist as a wanderer to cross a gloomy heath at night (even more explicitly than in the Schubert cycles, loss of love is directly identified as the symbol for alienation); the blue flowers, now bereft of all color and life, return as the snow-white linden blossoms falling to earth; the protagonist’s night be¬ comes eternal. Many musical details articulate textual cross-references in the cycle. Example 7.2 shows one of the most powerful melodic links among the four songs (noted by Dargie 1981, 102). The texts associated with this recurrent gesture reveal the crucial moments of the plot: “my saddest day ... no more singing . . . can never bloom for me . . . knife in my breast ... on a black bier . . . taking leave . . . restful sleep [death] ... all is good again [life’s evils past].” The intricacy of the musical-textual structure of the Gesellen-Lieder belies the folk spirit that sometimes marks the surface of Mahler’s songs. The critics who objected to this eclectic spirit did not un¬ derstand that the fusion of the folkish and the artistic was for Mahler a powerful symbol representing the natural source of his art. If certain Schu¬ bert lieder are attempts to create folksong28 and Brahms’s folk settings are recreadons of real folk material, then Mahler’s Gesellen- and WunderhornLieder represent a third attitude: the desire to transform folk material and make of it true art songs. The Gesellen-Lieder provide much of the thematic material for the First Symphony; the songs must have been more to Mahler than a source of good tunes. The real-life event that was their immediate cause, an un¬ happy love affair, was not one he wished to commemorate publicly (La Grange 1973, 119-20). Having apparently been reminded of the affair, Mahler wrote (to Marschalk, 14 January 1897; in Mahler 1979, 207): “At any rate—please, my dear fellow—do not touch on the ‘fahrenden Gessellen’ episode in my life. (The connection with the First Symphony is purely ardsdc.)” Indeed it was; what Mahler wished to perpetuate as an “inner programme” for the symphony was the cycle’s symbolic recreation of the conditions rather than the events of his life. Through the 1880s and 1890s, his letters are studded with references to himself as a fahrender Gessele by which he always means his lack of artistic place. Having left home at the age of fifteen, in his journeyman years, he then served successive terms at Bad Hall (1880), Laibach (1881-82), Olmiitz (1883), Kassel (1883-85), Prague (1885-86), Leipzig (1886-88), Budapest (1888-91), Hamburg (1891-97), Vienna (1897-1907), and New York (1907-11). Just before he opened the formal negotiations that led to his appointment at the Vienna

Gustav Mahler: Romantic Culmination

235

Opera House, Mahler wrote to Anna von Miildenberg (March 1897, in Mahler 1979, 216), “Thank God my Wanderzeitis drawing to an end.” The Wunderhom songs that are incorporated in various ways into the Second, Third, and Fourth Symphonies likewise relate direcdy to Mahler’s personal experience of the Romantic dilemma—the alienation of the Example 7.2.

(a) “Wenn mein Schatz,” mm. 14-17

(b) “Wenn mein Schatz,” mm. 71-74

pi .

hab’

ich

mei-nen

trau -

r ir r ir r |J 1

ri-gen Tag’

All - es

Sing - en

ist

nun

hen

kann!

aus.

mir

nim - mer

nim

mer

blii

(d) “Ich hab’ ein gluhend Messer,” mm. 6-9

6 -fr-|

11 1

-0^-0-m---r

ein

Mes

ser

in mein - er

7 J-

Brust.

weh!’

(e) “Ich hab’ ein gluhend Messer,” mm. 68-71

68 Q

* P 7-.

-f-P

\im

— V-- 2Ich

wollt’

ich

lag’

auf

der

..-iP-

J- —

schwar

zen

Bahr”

(f) “Die zwei blauen Augen,” mm. 4-8 4

3 Da

ri-w

‘I

. -'

i -i— r

musst’ ich

Ab-schied

neh

v -

r r men vom

.... PL— -EsJal

ler

lieb

^ 141-0 -

sten

Platz!

(g) “Die zwei blauen Augen,” mm. 40-44 40

feE5= 5 * Auf

der

Stra

sse

steht

Lin

r r u den

baum

-P--P- p ur e hab’

ich

zum

sten

Mai

Schlaf

ge •

ruht

(continued)

236

Gustav Mahler: Romantic Culmination

Example 7.2.

(continued)

(h) “Die zwei blauen Augen,” mm. 50-57 50

wusst’

ich

nicht

wie das

ben tut,

war

les

4^7V “r t

-i—i

les

wie - der

gut!

Ach

9.m w

ha al

H -

les

— wie - der

gut!

From the Collected Edition, Vol. 13/1 (Joseph Weinberger,’Vienna—Frankfurt/ Main—London). Used by permission.

artist—and, at a second level of symbolism, to more metaphysical quesdons. “Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt” is, on the surface, a frothy phantasy, set to music with, as Mahler noted, a slightly Bohemian flavor (see La Grange 1979, 1004). In its reincarnadon as the scherzo of the Sec¬ ond Symphony, it appears powerful, sardonic, perhaps even tragic. The music of the two versions is essentially the same: in the scherzo, two mod¬ estly different statements of the first four-and-a-half strophes of the song frame a newly composed (but related) developmental trio section; the whole is concluded by an expansive coda. In the absence of the amusing verses, Mahler’s music is revealed as the setdng of the subtext, rather than the text, of the Wunderhom poem. That subtext, not very deeply concealed, has Mahler at its core. While working on the song, “he imagined eels, carps, and sharp-nosed pikes pushing their inexpressive faces out of the water and gazing at the saint with empty eyes before swimming away, not having understood a single word of his sermon. This image made him laugh aloud: he saw in it a de¬ lightful satire on human stupidity” (La Grange 1973, 275). That image must surely still have been in the back of his mind just a few years later as, at the Gesellen-Lieder premiere, Mahler refused to encore one of the songs: “No. They haven’t understood anything” (La Grange 1973, 355). Present¬ ing his gospel to the serried ranks of the uncomprehending public and the hostile critics, Mahler must have felt for St. Anthony not merely sympa¬ thy but downright fraternity. In his hands, the amusing folk tale becomes simultaneously a personal joke and a metaphysical statement. The same meaning is even more amusingly carried by “Lob des hohen Verstandes,” in which a donkey judges a singing contest between a nightingale and a cuckoo—and awards the prize to the cuckoo. The two irreconcilable worlds of St. Anthony and his fish are more ex¬ plicitly the poetic point of Das himmlische Leben,” the Wunderhom-Lied

Gustav Mahler: Romantic Culmination

237

that eventually became the finale of the Fourth Symphony. Mahler re¬ garded the song as crucial to his work of the 1890s (La Grange 1983, 249); no Wunderhorn text is more explicitly dualistic: “We revel in heavenly plea¬ sures / Leaving all that is earthly behind us.” In late 1909 Mahler wrote to Bruno Walter (Mahler 1979, 346): The day before yesterday, I did my First here [in New York]. Apparendy without getting much reaction. However, I myself was pretty pleased with that youthful effort! All of these works give me a pecu¬ liar sensation when I conduct them. A burning pain crystallizes: what a world this is that rejects such sounds and patterns as something an¬ tagonistic! Something like the funeral march and the storm that then breaks out seems to me like a burning denunciation of the Creator. And in each new work of mine (at least up to a certain period) this cry again and again goes up: “Not their father art thou, but their Tsar!” That is—what it is like while I am conducting! Afterwards it is all instantly blotted out. (Otherwise one just could not go on living.) This strange reality of visions, which instantly dissolve into mist like the things that happen in dreams, is the deepest cause of the life of conflict an ardst leads. He is condemned to lead a double life, and woe betide him if it happens that life and dream dow into one—so that he has appallingly to suffer in the one world for the laws of the other. The existential duality that so tortured Mahler is openly expressed in the Second Symphony when “Urlicht” prepares for the transfiguration of the Finale: “Man lies in deepest need, / Man lies in deepest pain, / Yes, I would rather be in heaven!” The Third Symphony draws extensively on two Wunderhorn sources, in addition to “Das himmlische Leben.” “Ablosung im Sommer” is, in a way, a sequel to “Lob des hohen Verstandes”; the cuckoo is dead, but the nightingale still lives, “and when the cuckoo’s time is up / She’ll start singing!” In “Es sungen drei Engel,” heavenly joy pro¬ vides surcease from earthly pain.29 It is hardly incidental that in all these songs, the “other,” transfigured, world is the world of art—implicidy in the gift of light (i.e., vision) in “Urlicht,” explicidy in the singing of the nighdngale and the angels.

Riickert Mahler’s turn from the Wunderhorn texts to the poems of Friedrich Riickert in summer 1901 marked a watershed in his career. As a poet, Riickert can hardly be classed with Eichendorff or Heine; his language is sometimes clumsy, and the structure of the verse rather self-conscious. But Mahler expressed for the simple homeliness of Riickert a “profound affin-

238

Gustav Mahler: Romantic Culmination

ity” (La Grange 1983, 346), writing to Webern and Schoenberg that, after the Wunderhom, he “could not set any poet except Riickert—it is above all lyric poetry, and everything else is secondary” (La Grange 1983, 576). As late as 1907, two years after his last Riickert setting, he wrote to Alma as she was about to join him, “Don’t forget my Oberon stuff. Bring my bicy¬ cling suit too, also Mommsen, Beethoven’s Letters. In fact, of the books, leave only Goethe and Shakespeare there. Bring Riickert” (A. Mahler 1990, 291). Mahler found in Riickert a voice that spoke about things that mat¬ tered to him, in a tone very different from that of the often sardonic and satirical Wunderhorn-Lieder. As in the earlier collection, it was the songs po¬ etic message that compelled Mahler to weave them into his symphonies. To inform the inner program of the Fifth Symphony, “Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen” was transformed into the famous Adagietto.30 The reference to artisdc transfiguration could hardly be more explicit: I am dead to the tumult of the world And at rest in a quiet place. I live alone in my own heaven, In my love, in my song.

“Ich atmet’ einen Linden Duft” turns on the image of a delicate fra¬ grance wafted from another world to color and bring life to this one. Mahler here anticipates the final cadence of Das Lied von derErde, also car¬ rying an image of eternal suspension between the earthly and the other¬ worldly. The feeling of being suspended between the two worlds is created by the song’s dissonant tonic sonority—a combination of D-major and B-minor triads—that never resolves. This tonic sonority is structural rather than merely decorative. Portions of the song are harmonized by the pro¬ longed double-tonic chord; at times, the dominants of D major and B minor are overlaid, or D and B are directly juxtaposed. A drastic plunge into Et articulates a change of address in the poetry, as the impersonal “a beloved hand” becomes personally directed: “the spray of lime you gently plucked.” Implications of both D major and B minor are delicately overlaid on El. before the final cadence returns to the double-tonic (see Ex. 7.3). This beautifully crafted song demonstrates clearly the distinction be¬ tween Mahler’s mature tonal idiom, founded on background structures derived from paired tonics, and the “progressive tonality” of some of the early songs (especially the Gesellen-Lieder). These early songs simply start and end in different keys, a dramatic device linked to the text and not un¬ common in Schubert songs (see Krebs 1981, 1985). With the orchestral Wunderhom settings of the early 1890s, Mahler begins exploring the struc¬ tural possibilities of true paired tonics. The most fully developed experi¬ ments in this vein carry sufficient tonal weight to become symphonic movements: the C/El. pairing of “Des Antonius von Padua” and the E/G of

Gustav Mahler: Romantic Culmination EXAMPLE

239

7.3. Harmonic plan of “Ich atmet’ einen linden Duft” i

sj A

42-md

— 9—

K D/B

’W1,1

-8-fi—r-r-r-

-r

d V/B

■9 ^

^ .

.. .

of self-quotation, Strauss quoted this song (and “Befreit,” Op. 39, No. 4) in the tone poem Ein Heldenleben Op. 40 (completed in 1898). Stiller Gang (Op. 31, No. 4) is important as the first of Strauss’s settings of Richard Dehmel’s verse and is a rarity within his works, as he created one version with viola obbligato.24 “Wenn” (Op. 31, No. 2) is noteworthy for its abrupt shift of tonality (Et to E major) in mm. 48-49. In a humorous footnote, Strauss advised singers who wished to remain within the nine¬ teenth-century tradition to sing the final seven bars a half step flat, thus ending in the key in which the song began. Three of Strauss s settings of poetry from Des Knaben Wunderhorn date from this period: “Himmelsboten” (Op. 32, No. 5), “Fur funfzehn Pfennige” (Op. 36, No. 2), and “Hat gesagt—bleibt’s nicht dabei” (Op. 36, No. 3).25 In “Fur funfzehn Pfennige” Strauss deftly contrasts the narrator with the two characters of the story (a clerk and a maiden) and makes much fun of the fifteen pennies or small change with elaborate sixteenthnote melismas. Strauss’s diary for 20 August 1897 mentions “at 2:30 com¬ posed a joyous little song from Des Knaben Wunderhorn,”26 The song’s humor is carried further by his marginalia in the Deutsche Staatsbibliothek autograph.27 He scolds himself for writing octaves between melody

Richard Strauss: A Lifetime of Lied Composition and bass

(mm.

15—16)

265

and for using “scheussliche Sdmmfuhrung!!”

(dreadful voice-leading) in mm. 38 and 29, especially the cross relation Fl-R He also challenges the prospective singer about a melismadc passage (mm. 21-22) with the remark, “Whoever can, sing it like [Eugen] Gura!” Finally, he advises in a footnote that if the song does not seem worth enough musically to the listener, he can get a refund for fifteen cents at the box office. Among the other songs in Op. 36, “Anbetung” (No. 4) is the first of Strauss’s lieder on poems by Friedrich Ruckert (1788-1866). His interest in setting Ruckert began and ended with choral works, resulting in a total of twelve lieder and seven choruses (some incomplete). Six Ruckert poems in the Persian ghazel form, which strictly incorporates both rhymes and re¬ frains in couplets, usually on the subjects of love and wine, attracted Strauss.28 The first of these was “Anbetung,” with the end rhyme -anken and the refrain “wie schon, o wie schon!” Intermingled with traditional song texts from Des Knaben Wunderhorn and poems from earlier generations are poems by Strauss’s contempo¬ raries, including two in an altogether more serious vein. These are by Dehmel and Henckell, both of whom contributed to the genre of Soziallyrik. These two songs, composed in June 1898 and September 1901, did not signal a new direction for Strauss as a lieder composer but remain iso¬ lated examples of his brief venture into the realm of social criticism in the lied. In “Der Arbeitsmann,” Op. 39, No. 3, Dehmel’s poem becomes an angry, bitter protest song. The dirgelike repetitions of two principal motives in the accompaniment and tritone descents on the refrain “nur Zeit!” contrast with birdsong trills, as the poet declares that the one thing the working-class man lacks in order to be as free as the birds is time.29 Henckell’s “Das Lied des Steinklopfers” (Strauss’s Op. 49, No. 4) ex¬ presses

the futility of man’s social plight,

stoneworker

(literally “stone

breaker”).

using the

Strauss’s

example

of a

atypically non-tonal

chord progressions, ponderous rhythmic motives, low range, and relent¬ lessly gloomy E

minor

reflect

the

heavy,

repetitive work

that this

stoneworker must undertake “fur’s Vaterland.” The declamatory vocal line is full of chromatic alterations and wide skips. At m. 45, Strauss introduces fragmentary text repetition (not in Henckell’s original poem) over a par¬ tial repeat of the opening accompaniment. Indicated to be sung in half voice (as if humming to oneself), the second half of the song reflects the despair of Henckell’s tormented and hungry laborer (Ex. 8.9). In 1904 an anonymous critic described the song as “extremely striking, extremely novel, expressing in the music the grimness, the hard hopelessness, the an¬ archistic tendency of the words. There is potent effect in the repetition of the few most significant phrases.”30

266

Richard Strauss: A Lifetime of Lied Composition

EXAMPLE 8.9. “Das Lied des Steinklopfers,” Op. 49/4, mm. 45-51 45

yon hier ab nur mehr mit halber Stimme (gleuchsam vor sich hinsummend).

Richard Strauss: A Lifetime of Lied Composition

267

The Lied in Transition Biographers have claimed that Strauss wrote lieder as Handgelenksarbeit (off-the-cuff creations), as a sort of release after completing larger works.31 This has some validity for the earlier years, when his major works were symphonic poems. But after completing Guntram at the end of 1892, he wrote only a few songs until after the opera’s premiere on 10 May 1894. Before trying his hand at a second opera, Feuersnot, he created several song groups (Opp. 43, 44, 46, and 47), then tapered off song composition as Feuersnot was in progress (1900—1). After completing this opera, he wrote seven of the eight lieder of Op. 49—clustered around another wedding an¬ niversary date. The concentration on song composition during the month of September in several different years is probably due in part to Pauline’s influence, but also had to do with available time, because most of his com¬ posing had to be relegated to the summer, when he was not conducting. Then the family would retreat to rural villages or alpine settings, where he could concentrate without interruption. As Strauss worked on Salome in 1903-4, only the Op. 56 songs were in progress. He completely abandoned lieder (except for many incomplete sketches)

during the

creation

of his

next four operas, Elektra,

Der

Rosenkavalier, Ariadne auf Naxos, and Die Frau ohne Schatten. Only after the last of these was completed in 1917 did he return to the lied. By then the Soziallyrik was forgotten and a different type of exterior motivation influ¬ enced his choice of poetry, especially in the collections of Opp. 66 and 67. In Krdmerspiegel Op. 66, texts specially written by the poet and critic Alfred Kerr enabled Strauss to express the conflict between the composer as artist and the publisher as businessman. In this autobiographical work, the com¬ poser declares war on the publishing industry; the texts of the twelve songs contain the names of publishers as well as references to Strauss’s composi¬ tions. Musical quotations from the latter reinforce the wit and irony of Kerr’s verses. The expansive and virtuosic piano part—with more pre¬ ludes, interludes, and postludes than in most of Strauss’s lieder—vary the mood from ironic and satirical to lyrical, charming, humorous, and dra¬ matic. Strauss originally titled this collection Die Handler und die Kunst, changing it to Krdmerspiegel three years later.32 The first half of Op. 67 consists of three slightly mad Ophelia songs from Shakespeare’s Hamlet (as translated by Karl Simrock); the second half is a trio of “bad-tempered,” rather cynical and adversarial songs from Goethe’s West-dstlicher Divan, one of Strauss’s favorite sources of poetry.33 Each half of this opus forms an independent minicyle. The Ophelia songs, clearly intended to be sung by a high female voice, are better known today than the Divan songs, which seem more appropriate for male voice. Apply¬ ing Goethe’s words to himself, Strauss comments here on his muse’s sub¬ servience to a publisher’s contract, the problems he had with meeting deadlines, and other business-related obligations.34

268

Richard Strauss: A Lifetime of Lied Composition

EXAMPLE 8.10. “Erschaffen und Beleben “(“Hans Adam war ein Erdenkloss”)

r iLUcjp s uns

fuh

ren

bei

der

Gla

if f

m r

ser Klang, zu

uns - res

1 f M %

5&.

The brief song “Zugemessne Rhythmen,” o. op. 122 (1935) also uses a West-ostlicher Divan poem; it offers another type of criticism, this time musi¬ cal—but also with deeper political implications. “Zugemessne Rhythmen” is one of several short “occasional” songs Strauss wrote in tribute to a col¬ league; here he was thanking writer Peter Raabe for his defense of modern German composers in response to a tirade (directed mainly at Hans Pfitzner’s opera Palestrina) by critic Walter Abendroth. Quoting a melody from Brahms’s Symphony No. 1 and principal themes from his own Ara¬ bella and Tod und Verkldrung, Strauss contrasted Brahms, as the older talent who enjoys established—if eventually hollow and abhorrent—forms and rhythms, with himself as the spirit who thinks up new forms. In the piano postlude, he introduces a theme from Wagner’s Die Meistersinger, further contrasting the “talent” of Brahms with the “genius” of Wagner.35

Richard Strauss: A Lifetime of Lied Composition

269

Throughout his lifetime of lieder writing, Strauss often used extravagandy wide vocal ranges. In his first song, “Weihnachtslied” (December 1870), the opening vocal phrase rises from b to e within two bars. Dra¬ matic leaps and register shifts are Strauss trademarks throughout his lieder, becoming even more prominent after the turn of the century. The resulting difficulties are among the reasons for the infrequent perfor¬ mance of many otherwise worthy songs. Strauss urged Hans Hotter, a fa¬ vorite interpreter of his works, to take on the challenges of his textually and musically more difficult songs.36 Free-ranging vocal lines are espe¬ cially characteristic of drinking songs such as “Bruder Liederlich” (Op. 41, No. 4) and “Der Pokal” (Op. 69, No. 2).37 The reckless hilarity of the 1922 “Erschaffen und Beleben” (o. op. 106) is a particularly lively example of Strauss’s schwunglich (excited) style. It begins with wide leaps of tenths and twelfths, continues with challenging vocal acrobatics that aptly mirror the text, and comes to a triumphant close with more leaps and wide-ranging melismas on the words Glaser and Tempel (see Ex. 8.10).38

Orchestral Songs and Orchestrated Lieder During the years when Strauss was accompanying his wife’s perfor¬ mances, they gave solo evenings of his lieder alone or of lieder alternating with chamber works, including sonatas and his two melodramas for piano and narrator. They also performed groups of lieder with piano accompani¬ ment as parts of orchestral concerts that he conducted. Such mixing of genres was accepted in the late nineteenth century, but having access to an orchestra surely led Strauss to think that making use of it would be even more aesthetically appealing.39 As early as 1878, Strauss had written a song with orchestral accompaniment, the ballad “Der Spielmann und sein Kind” (o. op. 46) .40 This childhood work was probably long forgotten by 1897. when he completed his first group of orchestral songs, the Vier Gesange fur eine Singstimme mit Begleitung des Orchesters Op. 33. During the ensuing decade he created two more sets of orchestral songs, obviously not for Pauline: Zwei grossere Gesange Op. 44 for low voice and Zwei Gesange Op. 51 for bass. Generally Strauss used the term Gesange for orchestral songs, restricting Lieder to those with piano.41 Two lieder from Op. 27, “Cacilie” and “Morgen!,” were among the four love songs Strauss orchestrated in September 1897 (a few days after his third wedding anniversary) for his wife to sing. The others were “Liebeshymnus” (Op. 32, No. 3) and “Das Rosenband” (Op. 36, No. I).42 This group, which the Strausses performed widely as “Vier Gesange fur Sopran mit Orchesterbegleitung,” signaled to the musical world that one of his most significant contributions to the lied genre would become the orchestral song, either initially composed with orchestral accompaniment or with an original piano part expanded. A few years after the 1897 orchestrations, Strauss created three more

270

Richard Strauss: A Lifetime of Lied Composition

drawn from different existing opus groups; the Strausses premiered these with the Berlin Philharmonic on 8 July 1900. Many other performances followed, and the group became commonly known as “Drei Mutterlieder,” once again reinforcing the close connection between work and family that runs throughout Strauss’s oeuvre. One of the three lieder, “Meinem Kinde” (Op. 37, No. 3), belongs to the collection that Strauss dedicated to Pauline to celebrate the birth of their only son, Franz, on 12 April 1897. Appropriately grouped with it were “Wiegenlied” (Op. 41, No. 1) and “Muttertandelei” (Op. 43, No. 2). A final orchestration in 1906 for Pauline was “Die heiligen drei Konige” (Op. 56, No. 6). The sketchbook for this song includes designations of orchestral instruments, and though it was first published as part of an opus of piano lieder, the orchestral version is clearly preferable.43 Its many instances of word painting are introduced with a realism reminiscent of the programmatic effects in such orchestral works as the recently completed Symphonia domestica, or the tone poems from a decade earlier (especially TillEulenspiegel and Don Quixote). For the next dozen years Strauss completed no more song collections. When he returned to writing lieder in 1918, it was with great concentra¬ tion and enthusiasm, for he created twenty-nine songs in four opus groups and orchestrated six songs in less than a year.44 Five of the orchestrations were most likely intended for Elisabeth Schumann, whom he first met in 1917 and for whom he wrote the Seeks Lieder nach Gedichten von Clemens Brentano Op. 68. Some of the orchestrations were included in her 1921 tour of America with Strauss as conductor and accompanist. Most of his subsequent orchestrations were made in 1933 (four songs) and 1940 (six songs, five of them from Op. 68) for the soprano Viorica Ursuleac, wife of conductor Clemens Krauss and creator of roles in five of Strauss’s operas. Strauss’s continuing creation of orchestrations as well as orchestral songs in the twentieth century was certainly influenced by these singers (among others) and by his increasing devotion to operatic composition. The mutual influences between genres also became stronger, with more operatic writing in his songs—reaching a peak with the florid coloratura of “Amor” Op. 68, No. 5, but also evident in other longer, more dramatic songs, as well as a few humorous “character” songs—and with set pieces in the operas. The latter include the tenor aria “Di rigori armato” in Der Rosenkavalier, the Composer’s arietta “Du Venus’ Sohn” in the prologue of Ariadne auf Naxos, and the sonnet “Kein Andres” in Capriccio. As Strauss began to abandon the nineteenth-century lied with piano accompani¬ ment, his songs grew in length as well. Up to 1902, the majority have dura¬ tions of one-and-a-half to four minutes. His orchestral “Gesange” are usually cast in larger forms, with “Notturno,” Op. 44, No. 1, the longest at thirteen minutes.46 Of the orchestrated songs, “Lied der Frauen” at eight minutes and “Die heiligen drei Konige” at six-and-a-half are not only the

Richard Strauss: A Lifetime of Lied Composition

271

longest but also stylistically the most effective in their complete symphonic versions.

Among Strauss’s over two hundred lieder are many worthy of study and performance beyond those mentioned here. Having begun as a composer with a traditional Romantic outlook, Strauss expanded the scope of lieder writing with both his large-scale orchestral songs and his small occasional and dedicatory pieces for voice and piano. As his songs from the period between the two world wars become better known, their position as impor¬ tant links between the well-known earlier songs and his final glorious Vier letzte Lieder can be better appreciated. However adventuresome and mod¬ ern some of these intervening songs were, it is the last songs that reaffirm Strauss’s reputation as a composer solidly in the nineteenth-century tradition.

Bibliographic and Discographic Notes First editions of Strauss’s lieder were generally issued within a year of their creation. The majority were sold to Joseph Aibl Verlag in Munich, Strauss’s first principal publisher, who issued works from the String Quar¬ tet Op. 2 (1881) to the Seeks Lieder Op. 37 (1898). Aibl published the songs singly and in small collections (“Hefte”). By the time the proprietor Eugen Spitzweg sold the firm in 1904 to Universal Edition in Vienna, Strauss had signed a contract with Adolph Fiirstner in Berlin, decided against remain¬ ing exclusively with one publisher, and placed songs with many different publishers. In 1912, Universal Edition reissued in four volumes Strauss’s fortythree songs previously published—and often reprinted—by Aibl;47 the songs were not grouped chronologically or by opus number, with songs from any one opus scattered throughout the four volumes. Later volumes added to the series included songs originally assigned to Daniel Rahter (Hamburg), F. E. C. Leuckart (Leipzig), Bote & Bock (Berlin), and C. A. Challier (Berlin). Adolph Fiirstner issued eight volumes of songs around 1909, each volume containing a single opus. The first American publication (edited by Huneker in 1910) included Opp. 10, 15, 17, 19, 21, 22, and 56. Plans for a complete edition of Strauss’s lieder, which had appeared under twelve different German and Austrian imprints, were initiated in the 1940s by Kurt Soldan, but World War II halted the project. For Strauss’s centenary, his publishers’ collaborations resulted in the fourvolume Richard Strauss: Gesamtausgabe der Lieder,48 The inclusion of the Jugendlieder made available the surviving songs from 1870 to 1883; another dozen inventoried by Max Steinitzer were lost or destroyed.49 The songs

272

Richard Strauss: A Lifetime of Lied Composition

without opus numbers were reprinted in a practical performing edition (see Editions, Nachlese). Recordings The available recordings of Strauss lieder are quite comprehensive, beginning with the first wax cylinder of “Zueignung” made in 1898. Of his¬ torical interest from the 1940s are issues on the Rococo label (later Preiser) with Strauss as accompanist for various singers. There are also a few examples of the composer as solo pianist (in versions of his songs with¬ out voice) and as conductor of orchestrated lieder. The single largest col¬ lection of Strauss lieder is Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau’s 1970 album Richard Strauss: Das Liedschaffen (EMI: Odeon 1 C 163-50043/51, reissued as Angel CD 63995), which includes 134 lieder. A discography compiled in 1972 (Morse and Norton-Welsh) lists dozens of recordings of the most popular songs (eighty for “Morgen!,” seventy-nine for “Standchen,” seventy-six for “Traum durch die Dammerung,” and so forth, to only one private recording of the orchestral Drei Hyrnnen Op. 71). Today, only a few of the lieder without opus numbers re¬ main unrecorded. As previously unknown songs have come to light, they have been performed, published, and recorded; among these are “Wer hat’s gethan?,” rediscovered in 1973, and “Malven,” in 1984.51 The Vierletzte Lieder continue to be favorites of many sopranos, and selected orches¬ trated lieder are also widely represented in recordings.52

Notes 1. Only the Schneiderpolka for piano, o. op. 1, predates the “Weihnachtslied” (o. op. 2). Two months after completing the last of the Vier letzte Lieder (o. op. 150), Strauss wrote a final song, “Malven” (AV 304), and sketched two further works, “Nacht” (AV 303, probably a song for soprano and orchestra) and “Besinnung” (AV 306, for chorus and orchestra). The cataloging of Strauss’s works was systemized in Asow (1959-74), which assigns AV numbers to incom¬ plete and lost works; the designation “o. op.” (ohne Opuszahl) applies to com¬ pleted works to which Strauss did not assign opus numbers. A subsequent chronological numbering system was created by Trenner (1993) but these “TrV” numbers are not yet in wide use. 2. Many writers, including Asow (1959-74, 1:39), give 1882-83 as the dates of composition for these songs, but they are now known to date from August to November 1885. Not published with the others was a ninth song, “Wer hat’s gethan?” (o. op. 84A), which came to light in the 1970s after the autograph of Op. 10 was given to the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York as part of the Mary Flagler Cary Collection (no. 198). The first publication of “Wer hat’s gethan?” (1974; see Editions) includes a facsimile of the autograph and an en¬ graved performing edition. 3. The three are the Zwei Lieder aus Calderon’s “Der Richter von Zalamea”o. op. 96 and the textless “Der Graf von Rom,” o. op. 102. The abandoned sketches began as

Richard Strauss: A Lifetime of Lied Composition

273

early as 1903, when his song output began to dwindle. Op. 56, with six songs composed in 1903-6, would be his last lieder collection for over a decade. 4. The circumstances surrounding Strauss’s return to lieder composition have been outlined by many authors; see especially Petersen (1980, 117-21), includ¬ ing the chronological table of songs written in 1918. 5. Some typical examples: in “Morgen!” (Op. 27, No 4): Seligen becomes Gliicklichen (line 3); in “Standchen” (Op. 17, No. 2), die iiber die Blumen hiipfen be¬ comes urn iiber die Blumen zu hiipfen. 6. These poets include Burns, Byron, Chamisso, Geibel, Goethe, Heine, Hoff¬ mann von Fallersleben, Korner, Lenau, and Uhland. Ruckert and Eichendorff appear, but later or in works other than solo songs. His Ruckert settings, begin¬ ning in 1897, include ten lieder, five choruses, and some incomplete works. With the possible exception of “Anbetung,” Op. 36, No. 4, Strauss’s Ruckert lieder have never achieved much popularity. Eichendorff s verses appear in two early choruses

(1876 and 1880), in Die Tageszeiten op. 76 (subtitled “Ein

Liederzyklus fur Mannerchor und Orchester”), and in a song, “Im Abendrot” (1948). 7. The Goethe settings are catalogued in Schuh (1952). Jefferson (1971, appen¬ dix D [p. 125]) lists twenty-one texts (none by Goethe) set by Straus and others. 8. Finck (1917, 287), one of many sources for this quote from Strauss’s answer to a questionnaire circulated in 1895 by Friedrich Hausegger. 9. Finck (1917, 287). For the original German, see Schuh (1976, 469; see also pp. 412-13). 10. In the lieder from Op. 10 to Op. 22, only one song (Op. 15, No. 1) is not by the poet of the rest of the opus. 11. Examples include Henckell’s “Das Lied des Steinklopfers,” set by Strauss as Op. 49, No. 4, and Dehmel’s “Der Arbeitsmann” Op. 39, No. 3. 12. “Der Fischer,” o. op. 33 is printed in Gesamtausga.be 3: 232 and Nachlese 14 (see Editions). 13. Sent by Strauss to a girlfriend, Lotte Speyer, in 1883, they remained unknown until published

(Drei Liebeslieder, see Editions)

in 1958 and premiered at

Carnegie Hall by Elisabeth Schwarzkopf 30 November 1958. The songs are also in Gesamtausgabe 3:159-73, reprinted from the earlier edition. 14. The letter appears in full in the first edition of “Rote Rosen” and in Holde (1958, 3). Although hard to render precisely into English, Strauss’s description was obviously intended to personalize Stieler’s poem, much as if he were writ¬ ing verses into the young lady’s autograph book, then setting them to music. 15. Joseph Aibl published eight songs, both individually and in two collections of four each, in 1887. A ninth song, “Wer hat’s gethan?,” o. op. 84A, was written with them but remained unpublished until 1974. The composer’s autograph used by the printer (Stichvorlage) reveals that it was once considered for inclu¬ sion in the group: an editor’s hand has marked it as Op. 10, No. 6 (see note 2). 16. Detailed discussions are found in Petersen (1980, 73) and the sources cited there. 17. Letter of 12 December 1895 in Grasberger (1967, 94-95). 18. Several examples are included in the discussion of text-inspired motives in Pe¬ tersen (1980, 77-81). 19. The soprano’s annotations can also be seen in her compilation (Schumann [1952]).

274

Richard Strauss: A Lifetime of Lied Composition

20. Strauss may have had second thoughts about this subject: Hans Hotter reports (in Kohler [1990]) lengthy discussions with Strauss about the important rela¬ tionship of both text and tonality in constructing a Strauss recital program. See Kohler (1990). 21. Rolf and Marvin plan to continue their revealing analysis (Rolf 1990) and ex¬ pand this study to include the other two songs of Op. 27. 22. Jefferson 1971, 58-59, and 1991, 118-22. In the latter, Jefferson includes “Malven” because it was the last song Strauss completed, without implying that it be orchestrated or that it has connections to the other five. 23. Max Reger’s 1899 setting of the same poem uses ascending, more chromatic, scales to set the same words. He certainly knew Strauss’s song, since it was among those he transcribed for piano alone. 24. Strauss set Dehmel’s poem within a few days of receiving the.as yet unpublished copy with a letter from the poet. The early song “Alphorn,” o. op. 29 has an ac¬ companiment of horn and piano; otherwise, only the Zivei Lieder o. op. 96, com¬ posed for Calderon’s play Der Richter von Zalamea, have obbligato instruments. 25. “Fur funfzehn Pfennige” lacks the usual umlaut on fiinfzehn, as it is in folk di¬ alect. A fourth Wunderhom song, “Junggesellenschwur,” and two Alsatian folk¬ song settings belong to Op. 49 (1900-1). 26. Strauss’s unpublished diaries are in the Richard Strauss Archive, along with a card file summarizing the most important musical annotations; at the time I used it the cards covered only the period 1896-1901. The date of 20 August 1897 is confirmed by the date on a sketch of the song; the final manuscript and later diary annotation for its completion are dated 2 September 1897. 27. Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Mus. ms. autogr. Richard Straus 3. 28. See Petersen (1980, 66-68). 29. The orchestration of this song brings out the birdlike trills even more, fore¬ shadowing the birdsongs in “Im Fruhling” and the larks in “Im Abendrot.” Throughout his life, from the 1877 song “Die Drossel,” o. op. 34, which begins with an ad libitum piano introduction as the thrush’s song, to these two of the Vier letzte Lieder, birdsong was a favorite device of Strauss’s. 30. Unsigned review of Strauss’s Carnegie Hall recital with David Bispham, “Richard Strauss Appears.” 31. Stories have long circulated that Strauss even dashed off lieder during intermis¬ sions of operas by other composers that he was conducting. 32. For more on these songs and on Strauss’s business dealings in general, see Pe¬ tersen (1980). 33. Strauss used Goethe’s poetry in thirteen lieder and brief “occasional” songs (fourteen if the uncertain attribution on “Das Bachlein” is accepted). In addi¬ tion, eleven incomplete sketches of other Goethe lieder survive in Strauss’s sketchbooks (1903-35). See Petersen (1980, 201-5). 34. See Petersen (1992, especially pp. 121-22). 35. See Del Mar (1978, 3: 397-99). A fuller description of the song is given in Schuh (53). 36. See Grasberger, 408. The Hotter-Klien recording of eighteen lieder (see Kohler) includes some of the more difficult and rarely performed songs, no¬ tably the Zwei Gesange Op. 51 and the Riickert lieder (o. op. 114, 115, and 121)—premiered by Hotter in 1964, honoring the composer’s centenary— along with the usual chestnuts. 37. Three other drinking songs also exhibit this style of vocal writing, as do the sue-

Richard Strauss: A Lifetime of Lied Composition

275

cessive stages of unfinished sketches of two Goethe poems, “Trunken mussen wir alle sein” and “So lang man nuchtern ist.” Examples from the sketches are in Petersen (1980, 53). 38. “Erschaffen und Beleben” stands in stark stylistic contrast to the three Ruckert lieder (composed in 1929 and 1935) with which Strauss grouped it in a manu¬ script under a single opus number with the title Vier Gesange fur Bass mit Klavier. 39. The mixing of orchestral and chamber forces did not prevent the four orches¬ trated songs of 1897 from appearing on programs alongside piano-accompanied lieder; see, for example, the 1898 program in Petersen (1980, 149). 40. The seven-minute song (with text by August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben) is printed with piano accompaniment in Nachlese 45, but not in Gesamtausgabe 3. It is contemporaneous with several lieder with piano that set texts by Geibel, Goethe, and Fallersleben, as well as fragments for a Goethe-based singspiel (Lila) and some short orchestral pieces. 41. An exception is the Drei Gesange alterer deutscher Dichter Op. 43, which is for voice and piano. But his usual distinction of the two terms makes it unlikely that Strauss would have used Lieder for the orchestral songs of 1948, which were given their group title not by the composer but by Ernst Roth at Boosey & Hawkes. (Trenner, in Gesantausgabe 3, 282). Will they someday be known as Funf letzte Gesange? 42. The piano version of “Das Rosenband” was composed on the day of their wed¬ ding anniversary. 43. See the discussion of this composition in Petersen (1980, 60 and 112). 44. The orchestrated songs were “Des Dichters Abendgang,” “Waldseligkeit,” “Winterweihe, Winterliebe,” and “Freundliche Vision,” all orginally dating from 1899-1900. 45. The first of the Op. 68 lieder to be orchestrated was No. 6, “Lied der Frauen,” in the 1933 group. There are also other orchestrations from 1935 and 1943, as well as the previously mentioned “Ruhe, meine Seele!” from 1948. 46. The four songs in Op. 33 range in duration from four to eight-and-a-half min¬ utes; the pair in Op. 44 are thirteen and six, those in Op. 51 are seven and three minutes long, and the durations of the Drei Hymnen von Friedrich Holderlin Op. 71 are approximately ten, six, and seven minutes. 47. Each volume was available for high, medium, or low voice. 48. The first printing was in a large format; the 1972 reprint is in octavo, but vol¬ ume and page numbers are identical in the two printings. 49. These lost songs belonged to Strauss’s aunt, Johanna Pschorr, a singer with whom he performed at family musicales and to whom twenty-six of his youthful songs were dedicated. These family gatherings, where Strauss performed his own works as well as works by Weber, Mendelssohn, and other nineteenthcentury composers, were among his first, rather traditional, musical experi¬ ences. These song manuscripts seem to have disappeared or been destroyed between the world wars. See Steinitzer (1911, 177-81); in later editions of the book, he moved the information from chap. 31 “Ungedruckte Jugendwerke,” to the index of compositions at the end of the book. Steinitzer’s incipits are the only surviving music for these songs. 50. Several songs are also available individually or in small groups, for instance a Song Album (six songs from opp. 47-69, for high voice only) from Boosey 8c Hawkes. 51. On “Malven,” see Petersen (1985).

276

Richard Strauss: A Lifetime of Lied Composition

52. There is even available a cassette recording (Turnabout CT-4830) of the 22 May 1950 world premiere of the Vier letzte Lieder by Kirsten Flagstad with Wil¬ helm Furtwangler and the London Philharmonia Orchestra.

Bibliography Anonymous. “Richard Strauss Appears,” New York Times, 28 February 1904, 7. Asow, E. H. Mueller von. Richard Strauss. Thematisches Verzeichnis. Nach dem Tode des Verfassers vollendet und herausgegeben von Alfons Ott und Franz Trenner. 3 vols. Vi¬ enna, 1955-74. Brosche, Gunter, ed. Richard-Strauss-Bibliographie, Teil 2: 1944-65. Vienna, 1973. -, and Karl Dachs, eds. Richard Strauss. Autographen in Munchen und Wien. Verzeichnis. Veroffentlichungen der Richard-Strauss-Gesellschaft Munchen 3. Tutzing, 1979. Del Mar, Norman. Richard Strauss. A Critical Commentary on His Life and Works. 3 vols. London, 1962-72. Reprint. 1978. Reprint. Ithaca, NY, 1986. Finck, Henry T. Richard Strauss. The Man and His Work. Boston, 1917. Gerhardt, Elena. “Strauss and his Lieder: A Personal Reminiscence.” Tempo 12 (1949): 9-11. Grasberger, Franz, and Alice and Franz Strauss. “Der Strom der Tone trug mich fort”: Die Welt um Richard Strauss in Briefen. Tutzing, 1967. Haider, Friedrich. “Neue Liedereinspielung und Probleme des Notentextes.” Richard Strauss-Blatter n.s. 23 (1990): 75-77. Holde, Artur. “Unbekannte Briefe und Lieder von Richard Strauss.” Internationale Richard-Strauss-Gesellschaft, Mitteilungen, no. 19 (November 1958): 2-6; no. 20 (February 1959): 8-15. Jackson, Timothy L. “Richard Strauss’s Winterweihe—An Analysis and Study of the Sketches.” Richard Strauss-Blatter n.s. 17 (1987): 28-69. -. “Compositional Revisions in Strauss’s ‘Waldseligkeit’ and a New Source.” Richard Strauss-Blatter n.s. 21 (1989): 55-82. -■. “The Last Strauss: Studies of the letzte Lieder.” Ph.D. dissertation, City Uni¬ versity of New York, 1988. -. “Ruhe, meine Seele! and the Letzte Orchesterlieder." In Richard Strauss and His World, ed. Bryan Gilliam, 90-137. Princeton, 1992. Jefferson, Alan. The Lieder of Richard Strauss. London, 1971. -•. “Richard Strauss’ Six Last Songs.” Richard Strauss-Blatter n.s. 24 (1991): 118-22. Kennedy, Michael. Richard Strauss. London, 1976. Revised. 1983. 2d rev. 1988. -(article), and Robert Bailey (work list, bibliography). “Strauss, Richard.” In The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians 18:218-39. 20 vols. London, 1980. Reprinted in The New Grove: Turn of the Century Masters. New York, 1985. Kohler, Stephan. Liner note in Lieder von Richard Strauss, Preiser SPR 3367, reis¬ sued as Preiser CD 93367 (1990). Krause, Ernst. Richard Strauss. Gestalt und Werk. Leipzig, 1955. 7th ed. 1984. 3d ed. Trans. John Coombs as Richard Strauss. The Man and His Work. London, 1964.

Richard Strauss: A Lifetime of Lied Composition

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Morse, Peter, and Christopher Norton-Welsh. “Die Lieder von Richard Strauss— Eine Diskographie.” Richard Strauss-Blatter o.s. 5 (1974): 81-123. Newman, Ernest. Richard Strauss, London, 1908. Ortner, Oswald, comp. Richard-Strauss-Bibliographie, Teil 1. Completed by Franz Grasberger; covers 1882-1944. Vienna, 1964. Petersen, Barbara A. “Richard Strauss as Composers’ Advocate, oder ‘Die Handler und die Kunst.’” In Richard Strauss: New Perspectives on the Composer and His Work, ed. Bryan Gilliam, 115-32. Durham, NC, 1992. -. “Richard Strauss in 1948-49: Malven, September und letzte Briefe an Maria Jeritza.” Richard Strauss-Blattern.s. 13 (1985): 3-20. -. “Ton und Wort:” The Lieder of Richard Strauss. Ann Arbor, 1980. Revised Ger¬ man edition. Trans. Ulrike Steinhauser. “Ton und Wort:” Die Lieder von Richard Strauss. Veroffentlichungen der Richard-Strauss-Gesellschaft Munchen 8. Pfaffenhofen an der Ilm, 1986. All references are to the English version. Rolf, Marie, and Elizabeth West Marvin. “Analytical Issues and Interpretive Deci¬ sions in Two Songs by Richard Strauss.” Integral 4 (1990): 67-103. Schlotterer, Reinhold, ed. Die Texte der Lieder von Richard Strauss, Kritische Ausgabe. Veroffentlichungen der Richard-Strauss-Gesellschaft Munchen 10. Pfaffenhofen an der Ilm, 1988. Schuh, Willi. Goethe-Vertonungen. Ein Veneichnis. Zurich, 1952. -, ed. Richard Strauss: Briefe en dieEltem 1882-1906. Zurich, 1954. -. Richard Strauss: Jugend und fruhe Meisterjahre: Lebenschronik 1864-98. Zurich, 1976. Trans. Mary Whittall as Richard Strauss: A Chronicle of the Early Years 1864-1898. New York, 1982. -. “Zur Vertonung des Divan-Gedichts ‘Zugemessne Rhythmen.’” In Richard StraussJahrbuch 1954, 122-24. Bonn, 1953. Schumann, Elisabeth, comp. Liederbuch/Favourite Songs. New rev. ed. London, [1952]. -. “Richard Strauss. Morgen. A Master Lesson by Elisabeth Schumann.” Etude (February 1951): 26, 56. Steinitzer, Max. Richard Strauss. Berlin, 1911. Enlgd. ed. 1927. Strickert, Elizabeth. “Richard Strauss’s ‘Vier letzte Lieder’: An Analytical Study.” Ph.D. dissertation, Washington University, 1975. Tenschert, Roland. 3x7 Variationen iiber das Thema Richard Strauss. Vienna, 1944. Trenner, Franz. Die Skizzenbiicher von Richard Strauss aus dem Richard Strauss-Archiv in Garmisch. Veroffentlichungen der Richard-Strauss-Gesellschaft Munchen 1. Tutzing, 1977. -. Richard Strauss. Werkverzeichnis. Vienna, 1985. Rev. ed. Veroffentlichungen der Richard-Strauss-Gesellschaft Munchen 12. Munich, 1993. Wilhelm, Kurt. Richard Strauss personlich. Munich, 1984. Trans. Mary Whittall as Richard Strauss. An Intimate Portrait. London, 1989. EDITIONS OF STRAUSS’S LIEDER Ausgewahlte Lieder. Piano Solo. (Mit beigefugten deutschen und englischen Text). Ed. Max Reger. 2 vols. Munich, 1899 (vol. 1); Vienna, 1904 (both). Drei Liebeslieder. New York, 1958. Forty Songs. Ed. James G. Huneker. Boston, 1910. Gesamtausgabe der Lieder. Ed. Franz Trenner. 4 vols. London, 1964-65. I: Opp.

278

Richard Strauss: A Lifetime of Lied Composition 10-41; II: Opp. 43-68; III: Opp. 69-77, 19 Jugendlieder, 20 songs without opus numbers; IV: 21 orchestral songs and the composer’s own orchestrations of 20 songs. Reprint. 1972.

Lieder-Album. 10 vols. Vienna, 1912- . Numerous reprints; 43 songs in vols. 1-4 cur¬ rently in print. Lieder-Album. 8 vols. London, n.d. [1909?]. Malven. London, 1985. Nachlese. Lieder aus der Jugendzeit und verstreute Lieder aus spateren Jahren. Ed. Willi Schuh. London, 1968. (21 early songs, 9 o. op. [1896-1942], 3 early sketches.) Thirty Songs. Ed. Sergius Kagen. New York, 1955. Wer hat’s gethan (H. v. Gilm). Erstausgabe des Liedes rnit vollstandigem Faksimile. . . . Af¬ terword by Willi Schuh. Tutzing, 1974. STRAUSS SOCIETY PUBLICATIONS Mitteilungen der Intemationalen Richard-Strauss-Gesellschaft. 1-62/63. Berlin, 1952-69. Richard Strauss-Blatter o.s. 1-13. Vienna, 1971-79. N.s. Tutzing, 1980- . (Semi¬ annual.) Verbffentlichungen der Richard-Strauss-Gesellschaft Munchen. Approximately annual se¬ ries of monographs, catalogues, and collections of correspondence or essays. Tutzing, 1977-84. Pfaffenhofen an der Ilm, 1986-89. Continuing with various publishers (Munich, Berlin).

CHAPTER NINE

The Song Cycle: Journeys Through a Romantic Landscape John Daverio

The Romantic Song Cycle as a Genre The song cycle, as a cultural product of nineteenth-century German musical Romanticism, discloses a paradoxical movement between the art¬ lessness, the noble simplicity demanded by the lied tradition, and the art¬ fulness that a cyclic form should display. It is this interplay of the naive and the artful, of miniaturism and large-scale grouping, that makes the song cycle a quintessentially nineteenth-century phenomenon. Contraries of this sort served as the point of departure for many early critical accounts. As the reviewer of Schubert’s Winterreise for the Munich Allgemeine MusikZeitung put it in an article of 28 July 1828, “the task of a song cycle, if it is to form a beautiful whole, seems to us to be to carry in the detail and variety of its parts the conditions of a continuous and increasing interest.” Two years earlier, the reviewer of Heinrich Marschner’s Seeks Wanderlieder von Wilhelm Marsano Op. 35 similarly noted that, although the cycle’s six songs might be sung individually, “nonetheless they also relate so closely to one another that they form a kind of tragic Liederroman-”1 Implicit in the designation as song cycle is an aesthedc claim: we ex¬ pect that the lieder in question will amount to more than a mere collection, that they will exhibit elements of musicopoetic cohesiveness extending be¬ yond the individual lied to encompass the entire set. Yet the song cycle has received relatively little close attention from scholars. It remains, as Barbara Turchin comments (1981, 6), “a genre in 279

280

The Song Cycle: Journeys Through a Romantic Landscape

search of a history.” Even during the nineteenth century, critical commen¬ tary was limited. Gustav Schilling’s Encyclopedic der gesammten musikalischen Wissenschaften (1837), though containing substantial entries for Lied, Liederspiel, and Liedertafel, has none for Liederkreis, and Hermann Mendel’s brief definition of Liedercyclus in his Musikalisches Conversations-Lexicon (1870-1879, 6:324)

(based on the “Liederkreis/Liedercyclus” article in

Arrey von Dommer’s 1865 revision of H. Ch. Koch’s Musikalisches Lexicon) includes but a passing reference to Beethoven’s An die feme Geliebte and Schubert’s Die schone Mullerin. Mendel’s description of the song cycle as a primarily poetic genre (“a series of lyric poems related in content and character”) reflects the orientation of most of the critics of the age, who stressed the importance of verbal and narrative relationships over musical factors.2 The nineteenth century’s equivocal attitude may be further gauged from the peculiar performance history of many cycles. Complete or nearcomplete renditions of cycles were not unknown in the first half of the century; in February 1818, Conradin Kreutzer performed several of his five Fruhlingslieder Op. 33 (three in Leipzig and four in Berlin), and according to Joseph von Spaun, Schubert sang the whole of Winterreise to his circle of friends.3 But the practice of selecting and presenting individual songs was the norm, in both public and private circles.4 Even by 1856, when Julius Stockhausen gave the first documented complete performance of Die schone Mullerin, Eduard Hanslick felt compelled to assert: “So far as I am aware, the idea [of singing an entire song cycle] is new”; four years later, he referred to the practice as an “experiment.”5 A degree of equivocation over the song cycle’s status as genre can also be inferred from publications like Schlesinger’s Collection des Lieder de Schubert (1838), which offered up selections from the composer’s great cycles. This uncertainty has spilled over into our century as well. The term Liederkreis apparendy did not merit a separate entry in the first edition of Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, nor does the song cycle figure in Carl Dahlhaus’s magisterial Die Musik des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts (1980), a selfstyled history of the musical genres of the age of Romanticism. And al¬ though the work of scholars such as Walther Durr, Luise Eitel Peake, and Barbara Turchin has shed much light on the Romantic song cycle, vexing questions remain. In the first place, there is the difficulty of idenufying the sets of songs that should occupy positions in a history of the cycle. Nineteenth-century commentators, who generally concentrated on the at¬ tributes of single songs, offer lithe help. The review of Schubert’s Winterreise in the 17 January 1829 issue of the Vienna Allgemeiner musikalischer Anzeiger is typical; although the reviewer recognizes it as a cycle (Cyklus), his songby-song description focuses on the detail at the expense of the whole.6 A lengthy two-part review of Schumann’s songs, in the 1842 volume of the Leipzig Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung does much the same; the discussion of the Heine Leiderkreis Op. 24—a work that satisfies the song cycle’s de-

The Song Cycle: Journeys Through a Romantic Landscape

281

mand for cohesiveness—differs little in approach from the reviewer’s com¬ ments on the Drei Gedichte von E. Geibel Op. 30, which clearly do not.7 One must also consider the great variety of terms employed to desig¬ nate song cycles and collections in the nineteenth-century sources: terms like Liederkreis, Liederzyklus, Liederreihe, Liedergabe, Liederroman, Liederstraufi, and Liederkranz, none of which can be assumed to reflect a given set’s de¬ gree of musicopoetic integrity. Schumann’s Myrthen Op. 25 was published as a “Liederkreis,” whereas his Frauenliebe und -leben Op. 42 was simply desig¬ nated as “Acht Lieder fur eine Singstimme mit Begleitung des Pianoforte” (in the Whistling print of 1843). Yet few would dispute that the former shows less obvious signs of musical and poetic unity than the latter.8 Opinions vary on what characterizes true cycles—roughly speaking, groups of self-sufficient but interdependent works—as opposed to collec¬ tions: groups of self-sufficient and independent works belonging to the same genre and sharing the same medium. Even Arthur Komar’s criteria for establishing “song cyclehood”—unity of poetic content, shared the¬ matic, harmonic, and rhythmic figures, continuity between adjacent songs, coherent tonal planning—represent less a set of prescriptions than a series of possibilities.9 Asjonathan Dunsby has pointed out (1983, 168), there sim¬ ply does not exist an analytical system that can adequately deal with works, like the song cycle, that he inelegantly but aptly describes as “multi-pieces.” Thus, for many writers, Schubert wrote only two cycles, Die schone Miillerin and Winterreise, whereas others would include smaller-scaled groups, such as the settings of the Harper and Mignon songs from Goethe’s Wil¬ helm Meister (D. 478 and 877, respectively) as well.10 Scholars have even ar¬ gued for the recognition of “hidden cycles”; Harry Goldschmidt (1974), for instance, has hypothesized that the six Heine songs of Schubert’s Schwanengesang, if rearranged according to the order in which the poems appeared in Heine’s Heimkehr, in fact constitute a coherent cycle,11 and Richard Kramer suggests (1988) that Schubert may have conceived a num¬ ber of “mini-cycles” (such as his settings of Goethe’s “An die Entfernte,” D. 765, “Am Flusse,” D. 766, “Willkommen und Abschied,” D. 767, and “Der Musensohn,” D. 764) whose cohesion was later masked by a publica¬ tion process that served entrepeneurial and not necessarily artistic ends.12 The point here is not to decide who may be right or wrong. Conflicting views and conjectures on the status of a group of songs as cycle or collec¬ tion might rather be taken as signs that we are dealing with a genre that is hardly fixed in the same sense as the symphony or sonata. The generic boundaries of the song cycle are fluid, dependent on the critical orienta¬ tion of the receiver. This brings us to a final problem: the song cycle is a fundamentally hy¬ brid genre, a Mischform, and histories have tended to do less well by these than purer types. Nonetheless, it is probably fair to say that the nineteenth century witnessed a revolution in its attitude to the whole genre question, an aesthetic shift that is apparent in both the criticism and the artistic

282

The Song Cycle: Journeys Through a Romantic Landscape

products of the age. For Friedrich Schlegel, one of the principle apologists for the new poetics, “All of the classical poetic genres are now ridiculous in their generic purity”;13 in fact, it was Schlegel’s view that the “modern” genre par excellence, the Roman or novel, was so significant precisely be¬ cause of its potential for bringing together or fusing the classical types— epic,

lyric,

and drama.14 The impulse

toward generic

mixture

that

informed the novels of Jean Paul, Novalis, and E. T. A. Hoffmann mani¬ fested itself in music as well; here too the Mischgedicht moved from the pe¬ riphery to the center of ardstic activity. Karl Kostlin, who contributed most of the music volume of Friedrich Theodor Vischer’s Asthetik oder Wissenschaft des Schonen (Leipzig, 1857), was perhaps the single nineteenthcentury theorist who attempted to cope systematically witji the issue.15 But whereas Kostlin found aesthetically suspect, for example, the mixture of epic and lyric qualities in the ballad, we might allow for the possibility that generic tension was at the very heart of the matter, and concede further that of all the lied-based genres, it was the song cycle that afforded the greatest scope for a creative interplay of this sort. Clearly, the song cycle resists definition. So far as the choice and arrangement of texts are concerned, we can hardly speak of a norm. A composer might draw on a preexistent lyric cycle (as Schumann drew on Heine’s Lyrisches Intermezzo for Dichterliebe), though few were set complete (the Schubert-Muller Winterreise is exceptional in this regard). But the in¬ terpolated lyrics in a Roman (like Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister) or a Kunstmarchen

(such

Ludwig

Tieck’s

Magelone)

could

also

provide

appropriate vehicle. A song cycle could also bring together a single au¬ thor’s poems not originally conceived as a unit (Schumann’s Eichendorff Liederkreis, Op. 39) or draw on a group of texts by many poets (Schu¬ mann’s Myrthen Op. 25). The musical possibilities—tonal disposition, motivic connections, affective sequence, and the like—are equally variable. The only requirement is a demonstrable measure of coherence. Schu¬ mann (1982, 262), referring to his Heine Liederkreis Op. 24, says as much in a letter to Clara of 24 February 1840: “In the past days I completed a large cycle (coherent) of Heine songs.” Critics and analysts should there¬ fore attempt to describe the nature and quality of this coherence as it manifests itself in individual cases.

The Prehistory of the Romantic Song Cycle: Performance or Work of Art? Commentators have recognized for some time the error of viewing Beethoven’s An die feme Geliebte Op. 98 (1815-16) as an absolutely origi¬ nary work, the first in an impressive line of nineteenth-century song cycles. Beethoven’s celebrated work was preceded by a tradition of convivial music-making involving lieder, a practice that continued well into the

The Song Cycle: Journeys Through a Romantic Landscape

283

nineteenth century (its influence may still be felt in works like Schumann’s Spanisches Liederspiel Op. 74), coexisting with and influencing the cultiva¬ tion of the song cycle as a high artform. A reviewer of Hans Georg Nageli’s Liederkranz auf das Jahr 1816, a collection of twenty-three songs, remarked that the chief purpose of these lieder was “the promotion of sociability” and that they were intended “for small circles [Kreise], where several peo¬ ple who are able to sing come together, but who, given the number and quality of their voices, could not make up a choir.”16 Publications like this were directed primarily at Liederkreise, social circles devoted to singing, writing poems, composing simple song melodies, and, according to one writer, playing elaborate party games with songs.17 In the early nineteenth century, when the institution was at its height, Goethe, Zelter, J. F. Reichardt, and F. H. Himmel all figured as leaders or members of such groups. A number of Muller’s Schone Mullerin poems originated as a part of the Liederkreis activities centered in the home of State Councillor Stagemann in Berlin (1816-17), and the famed Schubertiades, held in Joseph Spaun’s home from 1825 to 1827, and described so vividly in the diaries of Fritz and Franz Hartmann, featured not only per¬ formances of lieder and piano duets, but also dancing, meals, acrobatic stunts, and drinking bouts.18 In a word, the social context from which works like Die schone Mullerin and

Winterreise emerged represented a

melange of high art and bourgeois entertainment. Though the nineteenth-century Liederkreis (as an institution) provided a social frame for the nurturing of the song cycle, the cyclic idea was present in song composition and publications from some years before. Al¬ ready in the eighteenth century, prints appeared in which lieder were grouped by poet (witness the many collections devoted to settings from Gellert’s Geistliche Oden und Lieder) or subject matter (as in the 1747 edi¬ tion of Sperontes’ Singende Muse an der Pleisse). With the appearance, in late eighteenth-century England, of publications like James Hook’s The Seasons (ca. 1783) and The Hours of Love (1792), the song cycle can be said to have come into its own. It is tempting to posit a connection between these unpretentious works and the diminutive cycles (or cycles of diminu¬ tive songs) that German composers such as Reichardt and C. G. Neefe would produce shortly thereafter; Luise Peake (1980, 522) has in fact sug¬ gested that the romantic song cycle emerged from the confluence of the English predilection for setting related texts and the activities of the Ger¬ man Liederkreise. But in the absence of firmly documented links, we will have to settle for the notion that the romantic cycle was essentially the product of the convergence of a number of specifically German traditions. The narrative element that figures in many song cycles can be traced back to the Liederspiel, a genre more or less invented by Reichardt, whose Lieb und Treue (Berlin, 1800) amounted to a play with interspersed songs— many of them settings of lyric poems by Goethe and Herder. Although this work was performed in public (at the Berlin Royal Opera House), the

284

The Song Cycle: Journeys Through a Romantic Landscape

“play with songs” also figured in private circles. Stagemann’s Berlin Liederkreis (1816-17) brought together the composer Ludwig Berger and the poet Wilhelm Muller to collaborate on a projected Liederspiel—Rose, Die Mullerin—which in turn led to Berger’s cycle often songs, Die schone Mullerin (Berlin, 1818), Muller’s expanded cycle of twenty-three poems with Prolog and Epilog (published in the Sieben und siebzig Gedichte aus den hinterlassenen Papieren eines reisenden Waldhornisten, 1821), and ultimately Schubert’s twenty-song cycle (1823). A narrative thread likewise runs through the forty-six lieder of Himmel’s Alexis und Ida: Ein Schaferroman (1813), a setting of C. A. Tiedge’s pastoral idyll Das Echo, and Sigismond Neukomm’s setting of the same poet’s Aennchen und Robert (1815). Associative or affective links, on the other hand, impart a measure of poetic unity to the twenty brief songs of C. G. Neefe’s Bilder und Traume (1798) and to Ferdinand Ries’s Sechs Lieder von Goethe Op. 32 (1811). The latter work may well have served as a model for Beethoven’s An die feme Geliebte,19 In addition, it may not be purely coincidental that the song cycle began to flourish in tandem with the rise in popularity of the poetic cycle, a genre cultivated by poets from Ludwig Uhland and Heinrich Heine to Richard Dehmel and Rainer Maria Rilke.20 In the earlier part of the nine¬ teenth century, Uhland’s Wanderlieder and Fruhlingslieder (both published 1815) seem to have had a particularly decisive impact. Conradin Kreutzer was drawn to both cycles, setting all nine poems of the first and five poems from the second. As Barbara Turchin has shown (1987), Kreutzer’s Wan¬ derlieder (1818) initiated a significant trend in song cycle composition that would resonate in many subsequent works centered on wandering as ajaoetic theme: Marschner’s Sechs Wanderlieder Op. 35, Schubert’s Winterreise, Schumann’s Kerner Liederreihe Op. 35, and Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen.

The purely aesthetic quality of many of the earlier song cycles is slight. Kreutzer’s Wanderlieder, as important as they may have been in establishing a subgenre within the song cycle, remain unassuming compositions—one might say intentionally unassuming. This is just as true of the cycles of better-known (and perhaps more serious-minded) composers: Weber’s Leyer und Schwert songs (Opp. 41-43, 1815) come to mind. But it would be a mistake to view the majority of the early song cycles from the aesthetic angle alone; we should also consider the possibilities that they afforded for bourgeois entertainment. Berger’s Schone Mullerin songs may pale next to Schubert’s, but the circumstances that led to their creation were artistically vibrant by any standard. The plan to mount a “geselligen Liederspiel” based on the story of a journeyman miller lad’s fated love for Rose, the miller’s daughter, allowed Wilhelm Muller, Wilhelm and Luise Hensel, and Hedwig Stagemann to exercise their poetic talents and to participate as singing actors. Susan Youens has shown (1991) how the complex web of interpersonal relationships that obtained among the members of the Stagemann salon (including the composer Ludwig Berger and the poet

The Song Cycle: Journeys Through a Romantic Landscape

285

Clemens Brentano) made for intriguing parallels with the drama enacted in the “geselligen Liederspiel.”21 Berger’s cycle, then, came to life primar¬ ily as a “performance” for the members of a private company of song en¬ thusiasts and should be evaluated only secondarily as a “work” designed for aesthetic contemplation. It is in this aesthetic sense that Beethoven’s An die feme Geliebte does mark a point of origin, or at least a new orientation for the song cycle that would be of singular importance for the Romantics. If there was a genuine connection between this cycle and Beethoven’s Unsterbliche Geliebte,22 then we are faced with a transformation of life into art comparable to Goethe’s poetic sublimation of his love for Ulrike von Levetzow in the Marienbad Elegy, or Holderlin’s mediation of lived experience and craft in the late hymns. Beethoven, at any rate, may well have been the first composer to stamp the song cycle as a high art form and at the same time to articulate its chief compositional challenge: the fusion of art and apparent artless¬ ness. Here he was certainly aided byjeitteles’s poems, which were probably never published apart from Beethoven’s settings. Although each of the six, taken individually, is a rather conventional love lyric, the poetic cycle as a whole displays remarkable symmetries. The overall layout of the strophes in each poem, if songs 3 and 4 are taken as a unit, forms the pattern 4 + 3 + 8 + 3 + 4.23 In addition, there are alternations of trochaic and anapestic metrical patterns and of four- and six-verse strophes as one passes from poem to poem. This tension between convention and sophistication is reflected in the music at all levels: tonal, melodic, formal, and generic. The cycle’s tightly-wrought tonal plan (Elr-G-At-At-C-Et) is counterbalanced by quasiimprovisational transitions of intentional simplicity that emphasize the affective breaks between songs instead of smoothing them over. The melodic unity of the cycle results from the songs’ consistency of tone, so that gestural similarity (in particular, the sigh and echo figures that pervade songs 1, 2, 4, and 5) is of greater moment than motivic develop¬ ment.24 Dynamic, goal-directed processes are avoided at the formal level, too, as witness the prominence of the variation principle in the piano parts of songs 1, 3, and 4. Likewise, the recall of the music of the first song in the last (at “Dann vor diesen Liedern weichet”) is less a teleologically con¬ ceived gesture than an evocative one. If it underscores the poetic point that spatial and temporal distances can be overcome by singing these songs, it also suggests that the cycle hardly comes to an end: the peculiarly inconclusive gesture in the piano (a modified version of the cycle’s open¬ ing three measures) is a perfect cipher for infinite continuation. Last, the conflict between simplicity and artfulness is registered in the close of the last song, as the lied melody from the beginning of the cycle is treated in the manner of an operatic stretto, replete with quickening tempo, word repetitions, and fittingly ostentatious piano writing. Conviviality, in other words, gives way to artistic pretensions.

286

The Song Cycle: Journeys Through a Romantic Landscape

Schubert’s Song Cycles: Biedermeier Sensibility and Romantic Irony An dieferne Geliebte prefigures Beethoven’s late style in many telling re¬ spects, as Joseph Kerman (1973) has argued. But the song cycle as a genre remained a somewhat peripheral phenomenon in Beethoven s creative oeuvre. For Schubert, on the other hand, the cyclic impulse took center stage in various forms. His predilection for focusing on the works of a sin¬ gle poet and setting clearly definable groups of poems en masse led him between 1814 and 1816 to approach the lyric output of Goethe, Schiller, Klopstock, Holty, and Mayrhofer in this way. Unfortunately, his plan con¬ ceived in 1816 to bring out eight volumes of songs, each devoted to one poet’s works, came to naught. From 1821 on, Schubert’s songs were in¬ stead published in small volumes (Hefte), generally comprising three to four songs. For Walther Durr (1986, 29-30), editor of the lieder volumes of the Neue Schubert-Ausgabe, these volumes fall into three categories: songs grouped by poet (twenty-four Hefte), songs linked by dedicatee (fifteen) and songs related through musical and poetic content (twenty-four). The great Muller cycles, Die schone Mullerin and Winterreise, clearly be¬ long to Durr’s last category, but so do many publications whose status as cycles is less easy to determine. The published song-groups on texts from Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister surely merit consideration as cycles, given the po¬ etic interrelatedness of the component songs and the tonal, textural, and gestural ties that bind together each group. It is more difficult to view a publication like Schubert’s Op. 108 (1829) in these terms; here the com¬ poser (perhaps in consultation with his publisher Leidesdorf) assembled three songs (“Uber Wildemann,” D. 884; “Todesmusik,” D. 728; “Die Erscheinung,” D. 229), each the work of a different poet (E. Schulze, Schober, and Kosegarten) and each originally composed at a different time (1826, 1822, and 1815 respectively). Neither key scheme (D minorG major-E major) nor poetic content suggests a very strong cyclic intent.25 Many of the smaller cycles, then, may owe their existence to commercial concerns. The larger cycles, too, are not without definitional problems of their own. There is some justification, for example, in viewing Winterreise as an immense double cycle. Schubert probably first encountered Muller’s po¬ etic cycle during the winter of 1826-27 in the twelve-poem form in which it appeared in Urania: Taschenbuch auf das Jahr 1823 (Jahrgang 15). He must have regarded his settings of these twelve poems as a self-sufficient unit, opening and closing in D minor, for after No. 12, in Schubert’s Winterreise autograph, is the indication “Fine.” At some point before March 1827 Schubert happened on Muller’s expanded, twenty-four-poem cycle, in the second volume of the Gedichte aus den hinterlassenen Papieren eines reisenden Waldhomisten (1824). As Muller had interspersed his twelve new poems among the Urania texts, Schubert had little choice but to pick out those

The Song Cycle: Journeys Through a Romantic Landscape

287

not already set while retaining the ordering of the new poems from the Gedichte, except for switching the original order of “Nebensonnen” and “Muth.” Schubert’s autograph reflects the two-tiered compositional history of the cycle through its numbering of the new lieder, now designated as a “Fortsetzung,” as 1-12.26 Is Winterreise one cycle or two? Or are we asking the wrong question? Does not the peculiar history of the cycle rather com¬ plement its non-linear poetic progress, its intentional open-endedness? Die schone Mullerin (composed 1823; published 1824 as . . ein Cyclus von Liedern gedichtet von Wilhelm Muller”) does not raise such ques¬ tions. Muller’s twenty-five-poem narrative cycle is probably more coherent in structure than any other cycle of the period, and Schubert set it practi¬ cally complete, omitting only the Prolog, Epilog, and three poems. The con¬ census on Schubert’s less discussed larger cycle is that the poetry is generally simple, even naive in tone, and that the music is correspondingly unpretentious.27 Eduard von Bauernfeld, in “Some Notes on Franz Schu¬ bert” (1869), even commented that the composer’s melodies occasionally tended toward the “commonplace,” “trivial,” and “unrefined,” qualities that he detected in several of the Mullerin songs.28 The primary affect of the first half of the song cycle (up to the climactic No. 11, “Mein”) is in¬ deed suggestive of naivete, but this is a “second” naivete—much as Hegel spoke of a “second” nature—into which we can read premonitions of the coming catastrophe, the miller lad’s suicide by drowning. In retrospect, there is a troubling, sometimes menacing, quality in even the simplest strophic songs, projected in No. 1 (“Das Wandern”) through the piano’s incessandy repeated “mill-wheel” sixteenths, and in No. 7 (“Ungeduld”) through equally insistent triplets. Songs 8 through 10 then move from absolute simplicity of utterance to a brief but clear prefiguradon of the final tragedy (the turn to minor at the end of No. 10, “Thranenregen”), so that the verbal and accompanimental repetitions in the apparendy joyous No. 11, “Mein,” project an element of strain. The text provides Schubert with the opportunity to forge important musical links in the second half of the cycle, most notably in the four “green ribbon” songs: No. 12 (“Pause”) and No. 13 (“Mit dem griinen Lautenbande”), both in Bt; No. 16 (“Die liebe Farbe”) and No. 17 (“Die hose Farbe”), both in B. In the latter two, Schubert creates a telling disparity between song title and musical affect that perfectly mirrors the miller-boy’s bitter atti¬ tude toward the color green, his faithless lover’s favorite. “Die liebe Farbe” is set in a brooding B minor tinged with major, whereas “Die hose Farbe” reverses the pattern, its jaunty B major tinged with minor. The ironic tone within each song is compounded by the ironic relationship between them. Schubert’s prime means of binding together the entire cycle, however, hinges on the consistent employment of related accompanimental figures in songs poetically centered on the brook: Nos. 2, 3, 4, 6, 15, 19, and 20. These insistently repeating patterns are ultimately and fittingly stilled in the mesmerizing dactyllic rhythms of the last song, “Des Baches Wiegenlied.”

288

The Song Cycle: Journeys Through a Romantic Landscape

Unlike the Mullerin songs, Die Winterreise does not trace a linear narra¬ tive course. Schubert’s “laments over a sweetheart s faithlessness, as one of his contemporaries called them,29 appear to follow a path as aimless as that of the dejected, lovelorn wanderer who sings them. Schubert con¬ ceived his cycle (or double cycle) as an interweaving of musicopoetic topoi—chorales, horn calls, echoes—all potentially representative of infi¬ nite extension in time and space. Songs 5 (“Der Lindenbaum ), 6 (“Wasserfluth”), and 7 (“Auf dem Flusse”) are linked not only by their shared tonal center (E major/minor),30 but also by horn calls and choralestyle writing, evocations of a less troubled past. But the opening song, “Gute Nacht,” introduces the cycle’s principal musical topoi: obsessively repeating rhythms and shifts of mode, both familiar fropi Die schone Mul¬ lerin, though intensified here.

These features surface in other cycles that treat similar poetic themes, such as Marschner’s Wanderlieder; Schubert, however, deploys them on a much broader scale. In Winterreise, the steadily repeated rhythms in songs 1, 4, 10, and 13 (all of the Wanderlieder type) become musical symbols for rigidification and obsession. Similarly, the major-minor (or minor-major) alternations in songs 2, 11, and 16 can be read as musical expressions of an ironic self-awareness. In No. 11, the wanderer’s past state of dreamy bliss¬ fulness, represented by an easy-going | melody (a parody of a popular Singspiel tune) is called into question by flashes of minor at Und als die Hdhne drahen and by the turn to minor at the close of the third strophe and the last. Mayrhofer’s comment, in his 1829 obituary notice, was right on the mark: “The poet’s [Muller’s] irony [in Winterreise], rooted in de¬ spair, appealed to him [Schubert]: he expressed it in cutting tones.”31 A similar point can be made by considering formal structures: the fragile strophic design of No. 12 (“Einsamkeit”), for instance, seems at odds with the violent, melodramatic outbursts at “Ach, dass die Luft so ruhig!” But what of the overall shape and meaning of Winterreise'? In what sense is it a cycle? Though the poems can in no way be taken to chart a progressive, linear development toward a goal, Schubert’s musical plan is not without a logic of its own. Many of the topoi that inform the cycle are brought together in the strategically placed No. 20, “Der Wegweiser,” where the wanderer overcomes his preoccupation with and longing for death.32 This does not mean, however, that the last song, “Der Leiermann,” articulates a hopeful statement, that the wanderer’s bleak winter may give way to a more comforting spring.33 The song’s numbing tonal stasis, coupled uneasily with its obsessive repetition of the mechanical hurdy-gurdy figure, points to a demystified but grim future given over to the endless rendition of mournful tunes. The accent falls on the painful, not the hopeful, side of self-awareness. If the Biedermeier spirit is colored with irony in the Mullerin songs, it is wholly supplanted by an ironic con¬ sciousness in Winterreise.

The Song Cycle: Journeys Through a Romantic Landscape

289

Schumann’s Song Cycles: The Composer as Poet and Historian With Robert Schumann’s turn to lied composition in 1840, the song cycle reached a crucial turning point in its history. In less than a year, Schumann produced a series of cycles that explore all the possibilities of the genre: the Heine Liederkreis Op. 24; Myrthen Op. 25 (on texts by Goethe, Riickert, and Byron, among others); the Eichendorff Liederkreis Op. 39; Dichterliebe Op. 48; Frauenliebe und -leben Op. 49; and the Kerner Liederreihe Op. 35. On the one hand, these works—especially Dichterliebe and Frauenliebe und -leben—contributed much to subsequent notions of the ideal or typical song cycle. On the other hand, we should give due empha¬ sis to the radicality of conception that animated Schumann’s cycles, a qual¬ ity that they share with many of his sets of piano pieces from the preceding decade.34 For Roland Barthes (1985, 295), it was Schumann’s structuring of the piano cycles as a continual series of interruptions that makes them so striking. Indeed, the rapid-fire mood shifts that characterize Schumann’s cy¬ cles created real problems of comprehensibility for his contemporaries. An 1842 article considering, among other works, Opp. 24, 25, and 35, sug¬ gests that the “tangle of musical images” that Schumann was wont to intro¬ duce in his large-scale works often made it difficult for listeners to grasp their “logical progress and purposiveness.”35 For a reviewer of Dichterliebe, the latter was “a cycle of songs that rushed past fleetingly like butterflies [papillons], leaving us little time to take delight, lovingly, in their irridescent colors.”36 The “modernity” of the song cycles lies precisely here, in their employment of a fanciful montage technique that puts them on a par with the enigmatic collections of literary fragments cultivated so assidu¬ ously by the early Romantics. This might well have been the technique to which Schumann (1982, 279) referred in a letter to Clara of 31 May 1840, when, having just completed the Eichendorff Liederkreis, he proclaimed, “Sometimes it seems to me as if I were charting out wholly new paths in music.” This is not to say that Schumann’s application of the montage idea was devoid of musical logic. On the contrary, issues of coherence were of paramount importance for him; in his review of Carl Loewe’s Liederkreis in Balladenform, Esther Op. 52 (1835-36), Schumann took careful note of the unifying power of a clear tonal plan (centered, in Esther, on A minor/ major) and of thematic recall as well (the music of the second song’s “Gott Israels, wohin mich kehre” resurfaces in the third).37 In his own cycles, however, Schumann often causes us to reexamine notions of number and order normally considered requisite for musicopoetic coherence. Dichter¬ liebe was published in 1844 as a cycle of sixteen songs but first took shape, in the spring of 1840, as “20 Lieder und Gesange” from Heine’s Lyrisches

290

The Song Cycle: Journeys Through a Romantic Landscape

Intermezzo, and it may have originally been conceived as a setting of twentynine poems.38 The songs of the Eichendorff Liederkreis can be shown to form a logical sequence in any one of several orderings: that in which the poems were set to music, that of the published version of 1842, and the slightly altered sequence of the 1850 revision. Experiments with order can likewise be inferred from the source material for a singular and until re¬ cently neglected cycle, Robert and Clara’s jointly conceived Zwolf Lieder aus F. Ruckerts Liebesfruhling Op. 37/12.39 The Heine Liederkreis Op. 24 poses no problem of number or order¬ ing. It was conceived from the start as a setting of a pre-existent cycle, nine poems from the Junge Leiden section of Heine’s Buch der Lieder. Yet it entails an interesting approach to cyclic coherence. It could be said that Schu¬ mann actually thought, in this case, in terms of two modes of coherence, the first a “logical” coherence that would bind one song to the second, and an “associative” coherence that would relate non-adjacent songs. A mea¬ sure of narrative logic is already built into the texts, which trace the poet’s progress from dreamy despair (over his treacherous beloved) to a state of self-awareness in which recovery through art seems a real possibility. Schu¬ mann’s tonal plan, moving by thirds and fifths through D, B, E, A, and back to D, provides a logic of its own, as do the topical links that connect adjacent songs (e.g., the “horn chorale” of Nos. 2 and 3 the echoes of Nos. 3 and 4, or the recitativelike writing in Nos. 5 and 6). On the other hand, the appearance of similar accompaniment figures in songs 5 and 7 and of the chorale topos in songs 3 and 8 belongs to a stratum of associative re¬ currences that is no less powerful for its evocativeness. The interplay of “logic” and subtle association accounts for the peculiar but compelling character of the affective shifts—Barthes’s continual interruptions—that set off one song from the next. The Eichendorff Liederkreis Op. 39, in Schumann’s word his allerromantischstesj0 offers perhaps the most sophisticated solution to the prob¬ lem of imparting melodic coherence to a cycle of songs without violating the ethos of the individual lied as an unrepeatable lyric utterance. Clearly, Schumann wanted to avoid the kind of musical return that Loewe had em¬ ployed in Esther: the recall of a sharply chiselled and syntactically complete motive that might suggest an epic quality antithetical to the lied. Schu¬ mann’s solution involved introducing, in the piano part of the first song of the 1850 version of the cycle, “In der Fremde,” a motive distinctive enough to be recognized on its return in later songs but aphoristic enough to allow for developmental reshaping (see Ex. 9.1a). Though this B-Ftt-B motive plays a limited role in “In der Fremde,” as part of a countermelody to the vocal line, in the next song, “Intermezzo,” it is altered over the course of several bars so that the B-FI fifth is expanded to an octave (Ex. 9.1b). The piano sets off “In der Fremde” (song 6) with a variant of the original mo¬ tive (Ex. 9.1c), which pervades the remainder of the lied, resuming its original form just before the climax and then expanding to a sixth for the

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The Song Cycle: Journeys Through a Romantic Landscape

closing vocal phrase (“es redet trunken die Ferae,” Ex. 9.Id). “Friihlingsnacht,” the twelfth and final song of the cycle, then takes up the mo¬ tive in its new form (Ex. 9.1e). The unfolding of a brief but pliable motive thus arches over what Jurgen Thym (1974, 219-25) has defined as the cycle’s two expressive curves, the progress from melancholy to ecstasy marked off by songs 1-6 and 7-12. The motive is not developed with a rig¬ orous, forward-driving logic, nor should it be; its course is audible but un¬ derstated, in perfect keeping with the lied aesthetic. Dichterliebe, a musicopoetic compression of Heine’s sixty-six poem Lyrisches Intermezzo into a cycle of sixteen songs, is Schumann’s closest ap¬ proximation to the literary fragment collection (after the manner of col¬ lections like Friedrich Schlegel’s Ideen of 1800) in the realm of song.41 First to consider is the cycle’s tonal openendedness: though the large-scale harmonic plan favors motion by third or fifth between songs, the first song hovers between FI minor and A major, and the final song closes in Dk

EXAMPLE 9.1. Schumann, Eichendorff Liederkreis, Op. 39, Motivic Evolution (a) No. 1, mm. 10-12 (piano)

(b) No. 2, mm. 3-7 (piano) K. Q m

1L ti

fl fj k

lh^

—m

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.... _

la %4

w =

n #

(d) No. 6, mm. 20-24 (piano and vocal line)

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re - det trun-ken die Fer -

(e) No. 12, mm. 24, 26-27 (piano)

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ne wie von kiinf-ti-gem gros - sen Gluck

292

The Song Cycle: Journeys Through a Romantic Landscape

Some of the songs are so brief or harmonically ambiguous that they invite interpretation as extended upbeats to those that follow. Thus, the incon¬ clusive ending of the first song, “Im wunderschonen Monat Mai,” on the dominant-seventh chord of FI minor, seems to resolve onto the A major of the second song, “Aus meinen Thranen spriessen,” especially given the im¬ portance of A in the former. There is no lack of motivic interconnections among the songs; the point is to decide which ones are substantive. (Compare, for example, the settings of “Ich Hebe dich, so muB ich weinen bitterlich” in song 4, “und ich weinte noch lange bitterlich” in song 13, and “Ich senkte auch meine Liebe” in song 16.) But the structural integrity of the work is largely the result of Schumann’s interweaving of affective strata. This is not really a new phe¬ nomenon in the song cycle—we have noted a similar procedure in Schu¬ bert—but here it is controlled by a principal absolute-lyric stratum that reaches from the first song to the last. That is, songs 1, 5, 8, 10, 12, and 16 share similar poetic images (references to flowers, songs, lilies), attenuated accompanimental textures marked by delicate arpeggios, and even the¬ matic material. The varied recall at the close of song 16 of the piano’s postlude to song 12 brings a sharp mood contrast; it may be read as a yield¬ ing of the extroverted ballad tone of “Die alten, bosen Lieder” to the ab¬ solute inwardness of the lyric—a subtle reflection, in musical terms, of what Holderlin’s poetic theory designated as a Wechsel der Tone. Schumann’s setting of Adalbert von Chamisso’s Frauenliebe und -leben was anticipated by Carl Loewe’s of 1836-37. (Schumann set all but the ninth and last of Chamisso’s poems; Loewe’s eighth song exists only in sketch form, and his ninth was not published until 1868). Given Schu¬ mann’s high regard for Loewe as a ballad composer and his interest in Loewe’s Esther, it is likely that he knew the earlier work. The many similari¬ ties between the two support this idea: both are tonally unified cycles, Schumann’s in El, Loewe’s in A major/minor; both composers highlight the phrase taucht auf tiefstem Dunkel from the first song with expressive in¬ terval leaps; and the opening gesture of the second song, “Er, der herrlichste von alien,” features triadic, trumpet-call motives in both cases. But Schumann’s cycle surpasses Loewe’s in its use of discreet but recognizable gestural recurrences: the melodic sequences and pulsing accompanimen¬ tal eighths of the second song at Wandle, wandle deine Bahnen are echoed in the fourth at Ich will ihm dienen and in the sixth at Weijit du nun die Thranen, just as the vocal line’s chromatic shift from A to At in song 2 (at traurig sein) recurs similarly harmonized in song 4 (on Ringelein and erst belehrt). Intratextual references are enriched by intertextual ones, specifically at the piano’s brief interlude in song 6, “Siisser Freund” (mm. 32ff.), where Schumann alludes to the opening melody of the last song of Beethoven’s An die feme Geliebte (Ex. 9.2). Surely the recapitulation of the opening song melody in the piano postlude that concludes the work hearkens to the type of return that Beethoven had employed in his cycle, though there is

The Song Cycle: Journeys Through a Romantic Landscape

293

Example 9.2. (a) Schumann, Frauenliebe und leben, No. 6, mm. 32-34 (piano)

(b) Beethoven, An die feme Geliebte, No. 6, mm. 1-2 (piano)

Iii

no' operatic posturing here. The web of allusions amounts to nothing less than a historicizing of the song cycle, a lyric pronouncement of its past. Schumann’s portrayal, in song, of a woman’s love and life, is at the same time a historical account of a genre.42

After Schumann: Experiments, Dramatic Cycles, and Orchestral Lieder Cornelius Few composers of the late nineteenth century devoted their efforts to the song cycle as did Schumann. One who did was Peter Cornelius, who produced most of his cycles between 1853 and 1856 while an active mem¬ ber of Liszt’s circle at Weimar; these include Vater unser Op. 2, Trauer und Trost Op. 3, Rheinische Lieder Op. 7, and Weihnachtslieder Op. 8 (two some¬ what altered versions of the latter appeared in 1859 and 1870). They con¬ stitute an odd corpus of works. From Schumann, Cornelius adopted the idea of casting his cycles as tonal unities; only the Weihnachtslieder and An Bertha (1862-65/1873) begin and close in different keys. But Cornelius employed a number of his own devices. In most of his lieder, for instance, he drew on his own texts. Each of the Vater unser poems, therefore, repre¬ sents the composer’s paraphrase of a line from the prayer. Likewise, each lied in the cycle takes as its point of departure a brief melodic citation from the monophonic Pater noster. As Cornelius reported to Liszt, “Nine songs based on cantus firmi! Now that is new.”43 On the whole, the borrowed material is treated with remarkable vari¬ ety. In songs 1 and 7 the cantus firmus is restricted largely to the piano bass line, but in songs 3 and 4 it pervades both vocal and accompanimental parts. Songs 8 and 9 bring choralelike harmonizations, and song 6 is a contrapuntal tour de force, with a chromatic version of the cantus treated imitatively, then combined with augmented and doubly augmented forms. The Weihnachtslieder also incorporate borrowed material; the second and third versions, for instance, feature the chorale, “Wie schon leuchtet der

294

The Song Cycle: Journeys Through a Romantic Landscape

Morgenstern” in the piano part of song 3, “Drei Kon’ge wandern aus Morgenland.” Archaisms of another sort figure in Trauer und Trost, whose sixth song, “Der gliickes Fulle,” employs harmonic progressions suggestive of the Phrygian mode, particularly through an emphasis on the minor domi¬ nant. Cornelius’s peculiar blend of chromaticism and modally flavored di¬ atonicism, of sentimentality and Christian moralizing, remains an anomaly in the history of the song cycle.

Brahms Though more a part of the mainstream as a lied composer, Johannes Brahms maintained an equivocal attitude toward the soiyg cycle. By far the majority of his songs, like Mendelssohn’s, were published in groups more accurately described as collections than cycles, a term that he never used in connection with his song publications.44 Not that Brahms was uncon¬ cerned with questions of order—he once complained that “most male and female singers group his songs together [on their programs] in a quite ar¬ bitrary manner, considering only what suits their voices, and not realizing how much trouble he had always taken to assemble his song compositions like a bouquet.” Similarly, he informed Rieter-Biedermann with regard to the Lieder und Gesange Op. 59: “The two volumes differ in size, but I wish the order, which you will call a disorder, to be kept.”45 Indeed, one can often detect “minicycles” of songs on texts by the same poet embedded within what appear to be heterogeneously grouped lieder. It was Brahms’s practice to begin with clusters such as these, which were only later assembled into larger “bouquets” just prior to publication. Frequently the minicycles on a single author’s work share not only poetic imagery but musical material as well. Hence the two Hoffmann von Fallersleben songs entitled “Liebe und Fruhling” from Op. 3 are set in the same B-major tonality and are bound together by similar melodic and textural details. In much the same way, the Eichendorff songs from Op. 7, “Parole” and “Anklange,” both concerned with a young girl’s separation from her beloved, play on C and E tonalities and bring evocative horn-call figures as musical symbols for distance. Two of the Uhland settings from Op. 19, “Scheiden und Meiden” and “In der Feme,” are based on nearly identical melodies, their motivic parallelism again being generated by poetic con¬ tent; in the second lyric, the poet, parted from his lover, recalls the melody of the first, itself a song of parting. Similarly, two of the Op. 59 settings of Klaus Groth poems, “Regenlied” and “Nachklang,” and the paired Heine songs from Op. 85, “Sommerabend” and “Mondenschein,” are linked by clearly related melodies fashioned in response to textual images. Two of Brahms’s song collections, the Neun Lieder und Gesange Op. 32 (on texts from Daumer’s Hafis and Platen’s Romanzen undJugendlieder) and the Romanzen aus L. Tieck’s Magelone Op. 33, merit close attention, if only because they point up the disadvantages of circumscribing the limits of the

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song cycle as a genre too narrowly.46 Eric Sams (1972, 27) is one of the few who treats the Op. 32 Lieder (composed and published in 1864) as a cycle, largely because the texts that Brahms assembled convey a “story of lost love, remorse, and undying fidelity.” But the songs also use some remark¬ able harmonically integrative devices, an awareness of which may affect our reading of the overall poetic message. The most significant of these is the Schubertian succession of harmonies that Christopher Wintle calls the “Neapolitan complex”—I(i)-|,VI-i,II-German augmented sixth-I(i)^V-I(i)—a progression that plays an important role, at local and global lev¬ els, in Brahms’s instrumental music of the 1860s.47 Elements of the complex, in its darkly hued minor form, occur in the first of the Op. 32 songs, the somber Wanderlied “Wie rafft ich mich auf in der Nacht”; emphasis on the minor Neapolitan at O ivehe, rule hast du die Tage verbracht makes Brahms’s setting of the last strophe particularly poignant. The minor Neapolitan also colors the concluding cadence of the Cf-minor song 4, Der Strohm, der neben mir verrauschte, recalling the D-minor tonality of songs 2 and 3. Though the complex does not surface in the immediately following songs, they too are linked by harmonic means: diminished-seventh sonorities are used to dramatic effect in song 5 and in song 6, whose inconclusive ending on C makes for an extended dominant preparation for the next song (in F). But Brahms’s setting of the third strophe of the last song, “Wie bist du, meine Konigin,” brings the Neapolitan complex in its entirety; the line Und griine Schatten breiten sich, ob furchterliche Schwulle even pairs major and minor forms of the Neapolitan harmony. Thus, by hearkening back to the dark harmonic palette of the cycle’s earlier songs, Brahms places his “happy ending” in a questionable light. The deluded poet may be convinced that his unattainable beloved is “wonnevoll”; the composer tells us otherwise. Brahms’s first encounter with the Magelone tale—as first told in the late-twelfth-century poem of Bernard de Treviers and subsequently circu¬ lated in chapbooks and Volksbucher—may have occurred as early as the spring of 1847, when the young musician was serving as piano tutor to Lieschen Giesemann in Winsen.48 Perhaps by 1853, during his stay in the Schumann household, Brahms came to know the version in Tieck’s Phantasus (1812-16), the Liebesgeschichte der schonen Magelone und des Grafen Peter von Provence, a recasting of the old tale as a Kunstmarchen, each of its eigh¬ teen brief chapters culminating in a lyric poem.49 These poems (excepting those at the conclusion of chaps. 1,16, and 17) supplied Brahms with the texts for his Magelone Romanzen Op. 33, the cycle whose composition oc¬ cupied him at various points between 1861 and 1869 and which was pub¬ lished by Rieter-Biedermann in five Hefte of three songs each in 1865 (Hefte 1-2) and 1869 (Hefte 3-5). The work’s peculiar compositional and publication history, together with the fact that a clear narrative line cannot be inferred from the lyrics alone, has led some scholars, Walther Durr (1984, 304-9) and Leon Plan-

296

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tinga (1984, 431) among them, to wonder whether Brahms’s Magelone is a cycle or should be performed as such.50 There is strong evidence, how¬ ever, that Brahms composed songs 7, 8, 12, and 13 before the first six were published, a sign that he was thinking in cyclic terms from the start.51 In addition, though it is not possible to deduce the story of Peter and Magelone from Tieck’s poems alone, they do project a pattern of union, separation, and reunion—the course of true love in the abstract. There¬ fore, a connecting narrative (a summary of the story for which the poems furnish lyric interludes), such as Otto Schlotke’s of 1899, is not absolutely requisite to appreciating the Romanzen as a cycle.52 Brahms’s attitude was typically ambivalent. In a letter of March 1870 to Adolf Schubring he stated bluntly: “The Magelone Romanzen should not be thought of as a sin¬ gle entity, nor do they have anything to do with [Tieck’s] story; it’s only due to a certain German thoroughness that I set the poems up through the last number.”53 But in an exchange of 1866 with Max Friedlaender, Brahms came close to reversing himself on both points.54 Most telling is the composer’s rhetorical query, reported by Kalbeck (1912-21, I: 429): “Aren’t they [the Magelone songs], after all, a kind of theatre?” A fair amount of criticism has been leveled at the Magelone Romanzen, which have been variously described as “sprawling” or “undisciplined” structures, even “failures in the attempted genre.” The chief complaint has revolved around Brahms’s use of operatic elements such as excessive word repetitions, abrupt tempo shifts, and exaggeratedly declamatory writing, features that have been viewed as antithetical to the lied tradition.55 For some writers, the cycle’s stylistic oddities can be explained only in biograph¬ ical terms, by conjecturing that Brahms must have identified deeply with the hero of Tieck’s tale.56 It is possible, however, to view the anomalies in another light. An important impetus for Brahms’s settings of Tieck’s lyrics was certainly provided by his 1861 performances of Beethoven’s An die feme Geliebte, Schubert’s Die schone Mullerin, and Schumann’s Dichterliebe with the famous baritone Julius Stockhausen (the dedicatee of the Magelone songs) ,57 We can readily imagine the tradition-conscious Brahms planning to write a song cycle that could at once withstand comparison with those of his predecessors and assert its own individuality of concep¬ tion. Thus, Brahms may have modeled his “operatic” Lieder on Schubert’s ballads (more so than the songs from his cycles)—works like the Ossian Gesange (in particular, D. 150, D. 282, D. 293, D. 375, and D. 534) or “Atys,” D. 585.58 Similarly, the idea of setting the interpolated lyrics from a prose narrative as a single group might have derived from Schumann’s nine Lieder und Gesange aus Goethe’s Wilhelm MeisterOp. 98a (none of which exhibits operatic structures). It was Brahms’s achievement to have created a precise musical analogue to Tieck’s genetically hybrid Liebesgeschichte: if the Kunstmarchen occupies a middleground between simpler forms like the Volksrnarchen and grander ones like the Roman, then Brahms’s mix of lied

The Song Cycle: Journeys Through a Romantic Landscape

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and operatic elements mediates between the song cycle as fragment collec¬ tion and the bolder pretensions of opera. Although it is possible to hear in the Magelone Romanzen a sublimation of Brahms’s desire to compose an opera,59 it is probably more important to realize that here he contributed a startlingly experimental work to a genre whose history is determined by experimental works. Its key scheme, proceeding from and eventually arriving at El, moves principally by thirds and fifths, and thus is in line with the concentric plans of Beethoven and Schumann. But the break of a second between the eighth song (“Wir miiBen uns trennen,” in G>) and the ninth (“Ruhe, SuBliebchen,” in At) suggests a division of the whole into two lyric “acts,” the first (songs 1-8) tracing the course of Peter and Magelone’s blossoming love, the second (songs 9-15) devoted to their separation and reunion. Within each half, Brahms presents a varied mixture of Romanzen, some tending toward the ethos of the lied, and others incorporating stylistic and formal traits associ¬ ated with dramatic music; not every one of the Magelone songs is an opera aria in disguise. Thus, songs 4 and 5 (which, in Tieck’s tale, Peter sends to Magelone along with his precious rings) stem directly from the lied tradition. They are unified as a lyric pair by subtle linking devices similar to those em¬ ployed by Schubert and Schumann: the gentle sighs and accompanimental triplets of song 4 (“Liebe kam aus fernen Landen”) reverberate in the more emotionally charged atmosphere of song 5 (“Willst du des Armen”), whereas the contrasting key of the former song’s middle section (F) is taken over as the latter’s principal tonality. Likewise, Nos. 11 (“Wie schnell verschwindet”) and 12 (“MuB es eine Trennung geben”), both nearly per¬ fect examples of the Lied im Volkston, are perceived as a distinct pair. Sensi¬ tive to their role in Tieck’s story as laments sung alternately by Magelone and Peter, Brahms set both in minor keys, compound meter, and simple strophic forms. These Romanzen im Volkston furthermore provide a foil for the more operatically conceived No. 3 (“Sind es Schmerzen”), whose twopart, slow-fast design recalls that of the early nineteenth-century virtuoso aria, and for No. 10 (“Verzweiflung”), with its quasi-orchestral piano part and rhetorically heightened vocal line. Most intriguing, however, are the Romanzen that mediate the two qual¬ ities songlike and operatic. The ABA' form of No. 8 (“Wir miiBen uns tren¬ nen”), for instance, concords with patterns that Brahms regularly employed in his lieder, though the slow-fast tempo disposition of the AB unit points, as in No. 3, to the aria. The formal layout of No. 15 (“Treue Liebe dauert lange”) is much the same, though here the recurrence and transformation of the A material throughout the song adds another inte¬ grative feature. The positioning of the more dramatically styled Romanzen is by no means entirely fortuitous; No. 8 closes off the first lyric “act,” as No. 15 (a “duet” for the principals, Peter and Magelone) does the second.

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Brahms’s Magelone songs, therefore, do suggest a kind of theatre, but one of the sort to which Tieck alluded in the Phantasus, which constructs a stage for the imagination within the imagination. 60

Wagner If operatic traits are implicit in Brahms’s Magelone, they are explicit in Richard Wagner’s Funf Gedichte fur eine Frauenstimme mit PianoforteBegleitung on texts by Mathilde Wesendonk, composed between November 1857 and May 1858 and published in 1862. The majority of the songs, then, came into being while Wagner was at work on Act I of Tristan und Isolde. Although only two, “Im Treibhaus” (No. 3) and “Traume” (No. 5), are specifically designated “Studien” for Tristan, the musicodramatic im¬ pulse can be felt throughout. The form of “Der Engel” (No. 1), for exam¬ ple, only superficially adheres to a songlike ABA; the melodic return, at da der Engel schwebt, comes at the close of a verbal syntactic unit and receives such ambiguous harmonic support that the join between sections is skil¬ fully disguised. The design of the first song thus approximates that of the revised version of Venus’s aria “Geliebter, komm!” for the 1860—61 Tannhauser. Wagner, in other words, had already become a master of the “art of transition” (Kunst des Ubergangs) that he would describe to Mathilde Wesendonk in a letter of 29 October 1859 (Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. & ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington, New York, 1987, 475). “Stehe still!” (No. 2) likewise proceeds in a continuous, evolving form, the agitated “Rad der Zeit” music of the beginning giving way to a serene, prayerful second half. The principal material of “Im Treibhaus” (No. 3) would resurface in the opening portion of Act III of Tristan, but even within the confines of a relatively brief song the operatic pedigree of the music is clear; its freely developing, practically leitmotivic course is only in¬ terrupted for a recitativelike setting of Wohl, ich weifi es, arme Pflanze. In “Schmerzen” (No. 4), the operatic background is provided by the Ring, not Tristan; mention of “ein stolzer Siegesheld” calls up a reference to the Sword motive, whereas the close of the song brings dual allusions to Wotan’s characteristic cadence and the Sword motive in C, its associated tonality in the Ring thus serving as the key of the song. With “Traume” (No. 5) we return to the world of Tristan through the song’s prefiguration of the Abmajor love duet music of Act II. It is primar¬ ily this overriding dramatic tone that imparts cyclic coherence to the songs, for neither the key scheme (G-C minor/major-D minor-C-At) nor the compositional history of the set would seem to support a cyclic inter¬ pretation. But the final ordering of the songs (which differs markedly from the order of their conception),61 is not without a certain logic. The set was arranged to culminate in “Traume,” the most evocatively Tristanesque of the songs, its appoggiatura gestures on repeated settings of the word Traume and strong subdominant coloring having already been fore-

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shadowed in “Der Engel,” the first song. At the center of the set, Wagner placed the other Tristan study, “Im Treibhaus.” The symmetrical disposi¬ tion of the Tristan songs, together with their gradually intensifying expres¬ sive effect, makes Wagner’s songs a truly musicodramatic cycle.

Wolf The monumentality of design that came so naturally to Wagner seems to have eluded Hugo Wolf. “What does it signify,” he wrote in 1891, com¬ menting on his notoriety as a songwriter, “but the reproach that songs are all I shall ever write, that I am master of what is only a small-scale genre?”62 Schumann voiced similar feelings when, after completing the Eichendorff Liederkreis Op. 39, he wrote to Clara: “But I don’t want merely to continue writing so many little pieces; now I can seriously turn to opera.”63 It was a common nineteenth-century disease—not the cultivation of miniatures, but the troubling over their aesthetic integrity—and few artistic figures suf¬ fered from it as chronically as did Wolf. Chief among the symptoms was a dialectic interplay of grandiose conceptions and compressed utterance, a dialectic that runs through the whole of Wolf s lied output. He carefully planned the contents of his large song collections, as Eric Sams has pointed out (1983, 36), so that the “artistic unit” was not the individual lyric but the entire songbook, which then served to represent the oeuvre of a single poet, whether Morike, Goethe, or Eichendorff. Taken as a group, these songbooks—each an embodiment of the tension between an¬ thology and aphorism—brought to fruition the kind of project that Schu¬ bert had envisioned but abandoned as early as 1816. Within several of Wolf s large collections, smaller groupings of songs can be discerned. In the Morike lieder, for instance, Nos. 2 and 3 (“Der Knabe und das Immlein” and “Ein Stundlein wohl vor Tage”) share tempo, key, and thematic material. But pairs of this sort hardly count as cycles. Indeed, the closest that Wolf comes to the song cycle in the Beethoven-Schubert-Schumann sense is in his settings of the Wilhelm Meisterlyrics that head off his Goethe lieder (1890). Though music is provided for all ten of the Wilhelm Meister poems, only six of them are grouped into minicycles of three songs each: Harfenspieler I (“Wer sich der Einsamkeit ergibt”), II (“An die Turen will ich schleichen”), and III (“Wer nie sein Brot mit Tranen aB”); and Mignon I (“HeiB mich nicht reden”), II (“Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt”), and III (“So laBt mich scheinen”). A microcosmic history of the song cycle can be read out of the Wilhelm Meister lieder alone, for Schubert, Schumann, and Wolf all turned to the interpolated verse in Goethe’s Bildungsroman. Wolf more nearly approxi¬ mates Schubert in his fashioning of the lyrics into diminutive cycles; Schu¬ mann, on the other hand, set them all (excepting the Spottlied “Ich armer Teufel, Herr Baron”) as a single group in G minor/major, and an unusual one at that. Schumann’s cycle, Op. 98a, requires a baritone for the Harper

300

The Song Cycle: Journeys Through a Romantic Landscape

songs and a soprano for those of Philine and Mignon; the lyrics are further disposed so that songs for high voice and low voice alternate.64 Lawrence Kramer (1987) has sensitively detailed many of the points of contact and contrast between Wolf s and Schubert’s settings of the Harper poems. Ac¬ cording to his reading, the affective sequence of the Schubert songs (D. 478) moves from alienation to resignation and finally reaches stoical acceptance; Wolf rather views the poems in terms of a bleaker, latenineteenth-century Weltanschauung, so that his settings project a sense of paralyzing self-consciousness and tortuous immobility.65 It is possible that the Schumann songs provided a bridge between these varying outlooks. The C-minor tonality and languid chromaticism of Wolfs “An die Tiiren will ich schleichen” are paralleled in Schumann’s setting; likewise, the “frozen insensibility” (to quote Kramer) of Wolfs song is present in Schu¬ mann’s in the form of a mesmerizing, repeated accompanimental figure. Wolf s “Wer nie sein Brot mit Tranen aB” also may have taken its shape (as a buildup to a mighty climax, followed by a dissolution into near immobil¬ ity) and ethos from Schumann’s song. Wolf s Mignon songs, however, show fewer affinities with Schubert’s and practically none at all with those of Schumann. Schubert’s Gesange aus Wilhelm Meister Op. 62 (D. 877) consists of four songs: two settings of “Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt,” the first a soprano-tenor duet for Mignon and the Harper (B minor), the second a completely new setting for solo voice (A minor), followed by Mignon’s lieder “HeiB mich nicht reden” (E minor) and “So laBt mich scheinen” (B major). Whereas Schubert’s cycle forms a tonal unity (in B minor/major if performed with the duet version of the first song), Wolfs Mignon lieder—“HeiB mich nicht reden” (F), “Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt” (G minor), “So laBt mich scheinen” (A minor)— clearly do not. The dactylic rhythm that pervades the accompaniment of Wolf s first song, along with the | meter of the second, may stem from Schubert, but little else does. The single element that Wolf shares with Schumann involves the placement, in final position, of “So laBt mich scheinen.” This is an important detail, for Schubert also reserved Mignon’s prophetic utterance on her early death for the close of his cycle. In this case, in contradistinction to the Harper songs, Schubert and Schumann come forth with essentially positive readings, the former’s prayerful, the latter’s folklike in tone. Mignon, the mysterious and secre¬ tive child, may be destined to die young, but, at least for Schubert and Schumann, hers will be a redeeming death, a serene transfiguration of a naive spirit. Wolfs lieder, in contrast, are unremittingly dark; there is little hope for a sublime afterlife registered here. Even the F major of “HeiB mich nicht reden” is troubled by the intense chromaticism that also runs through the minor-key songs. The latter are marked by an even sharper cleft between advanced harmony, on the one hand, and simple accompa¬ nimental patterns and melodic shapes on the other. The naivete of Wolfs Mignon is more than a little tinged with neurosis. The hopefulness that

The Song Cycle: Journeys Through a Romantic Landscape

301

Schubert sensed in the Wilhelm Meister poems and that Schumann reserved for Mignon has litde place in Wolf s darker world.

Mahler Monumentality and miniaturism, progressive musical techniques and studied naivete, interact in different ways in Gustav Mahler’s song cycles, which belong as much to the history of the symphony as to that of the lied. Indeed, a complex generic interplay is embedded in the compositional history of the Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, a fin-de-siecle Winterreise in which Schubert’s troubled wanderer is replaced by a journeyman making his way through “eine schone Welt,” hoping for final peace “unter dem Lindenbaum.” Probably composed between 1883 and 1885, the Gesellenlieder were not published until 1897, when they appeared in versions for voice and piano and for voice and orchestra. In the meantime, most likely between about 1884 and 1888 and again from 1893 to 1896, Mahler con¬ centrated on his First Symphony, which draws liberally on the material of this cycle. Thus the two works, and the genres they represent, are mutually dependent. This is reflected partly in the fact that, although the songs were probably orchestrated after the main work on the First Symphony was complete, manuscript evidence suggests that Mahler had planned an or¬ chestral song cycle from the start.66 The mutual dependence of two genres—lied and symphony—that are in many ways antithetical can lead to knotty compositional problems. Flow, for instance, can a basically static, reflective form like the strophic song be converted into a dynamic sonata-allegro? This was the challenge that Mahler posed for himself in transforming the second of the Gesellen songs, “Ging heut’ morgen fibers Feld,” into the Immer sehr gemachlich of the first movement of the First Symphony. The solution entailed casting the open¬ ing of the song’s second strophe as a sonata-form first group, a reworked version of the third strophe as transition, and a variant of the first strophe as second group. The reason for the reversal of song strophes (the key to Mahler’s solution) is obvious: in the song, the third strophe effects a mod¬ ulation up a fifth, which could be used in the symphonic movement to make the transition from tonic to dominant required by sonata form. Con¬ versely, a song movement conceived as such from the outset might just as easily be informed with symphonic traits. The opening movements of Kindertotenlieder (“Nun will die Sonn’ so hell auf gehn”) and Das Lied von der Erde (“Das Trinklied vom Jammer der Erde”) can be heard as strophic song forms, yet each employs developmental and recapitulatory gestures more readily associated with the symphonic allegro. The relationship noted here between lied and symphonic movement can also be seen as existing between song cycle and symphony. The First Symphony enfolds a song cycle within itself: the first movement refashions the second Gesellen song; the trio of the second movement draws on “Hans

The Song Cycle: Journeys Through a Romantic Landscape

302

und Crete” from the first volume of Lieder und Gesange (1880-83); and the third movement invokes “Die zwei blauen Augen,” the last of the Gesellen songs. Kindertotenlieder, though technically an orchestral song cycle, is no less a lyric symphony, as witness its (arguably) sonata-form opening move¬ ment,

symmetrical

tonal plan

minor-Et/C minor-C minor-EWD

minor/major), and employment of large-scale reprise (the recurrence of the first movement’s bells in the last). With Das Lied von der Erde, which Mahler described as a symphony, the fusion of genres is nearly complete. Thus the song cycle, which entered the nineteenth century as the most personal of genres, was transformed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries into one of the most public. Though initially its subtle and elusive modes of achieving coherence may have supplied an alterna¬ tive to symphonic structuring procedures, the song cycle eventually (and ironically) came together with the symphony. But the two genres did not quite “fuse.” In Kindertotenlieder, and even in much of Das Lied, listeners cannot help but feel uncomfortable, as if eavesdropping on the most private of utterances. This sensation is intensified by the discrepancy be¬ tween the privacy of the message and the size of the forces used to convey it. Mahler thus makes explicit what is implicit throughout the Age of Romandcism: not only the centrality of the lied but the centrality of the poet-composer’s “I” straining to express itself.

Strauss The song cycles of Richard Strauss, whose nineteenth-century Weltan¬ schauung persisted into our own times, register a discrepancy as well. The cleft between style and medium that, on occasion, brings the lieder of Schumann, Brahms, and Wolf in touch with the dramatic, becomes the norm for Strauss. Although he once reported to the publisher Eugen Spitzweg that his Mddchenblumen Op. 22 (1886-88), a setting of a fourpoem lyric cycle by Felix Dahn, included some “very complicated,” even experimental songs,67 we are probably less apt to be taken by the extrava¬ gant imagery of the poetry or the harmonic idiom of the music than by the operatic allusions in the final song. The “dreamy-dark” plant growths that “yearn for distant places” from the edge of the pond bring melodic refer¬ ences to the Longing motive from Tristan, just as the alluring maiden’s attunement to the speech of the stars is suggested by piano figuration reminiscent of the Waldesweben. Strauss’s proclivity for self-conscious quotation intensifies in

the

Krdmerspiegel Op. 66 (1918), certainly one of the more bizarre products of the composer’s imagination. On the one hand, these settings of twelve frivolous and punning verses by Alfred Kerr represent Strauss’s closest ap¬ proximation to the dimensions and cohesiveness of the great nineteenthcentury cycles: the compelling if unusual tonal sequence, no less than the carefully graduated affective sequence and concomitant web of motivic

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connections—the fourth song is built largely on the opening figure of the second, which in turn draws on the beginning of the first; the piano postlude of the last song, in a move recalling Dichterliebe, recapitulates the prelude of the eighth song—contributes to the unity of the set. On the other hand, the satirical tone of both text and music—the work was in¬ tended as the composer’s “revenge” on the Berlin publishers Bote and Bock for an unfortunate contractual arrangement—is markedly at odds with the refined expressivity expected of the song cycle. Hence the some¬ times tasteless double entendres of the text (even Strauss’s name takes on its actual meaning as “bunch of flowers” in the second song) are matched by a veritable riot of quotations in the music, which includes references to Rosenkavalier (songs 2 and 10), Gdtterddmmerung (song 3), Tod und Verklarung (song 8), the Sinfonia domestica (song 11), Ein Heldenleben (song 11), Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony (song 11), and Till Eulenspiegel (song 12). In addition, the Schumannesque prelude to the eighth song would find a place in Strauss’s last opera, Capriccio, in the moonlight interlude prefac¬ ing the Countess’s final scene. In other words, the dramatic manifests itself negatively in Kramerspiegel, where the song cycle threatens to dissolve into a tissue of leitmotives. In the songs of the next set, Op. 67 (1918), quickly drafted to ward off an impending breach-of-contract suit from Bote and Bock, Strauss directs his dramatic impulses toward more serious ends. The second of the collec¬ tion’s two minicycles, a setting of three lyrics of disillusionment from Goethe’s Westostlicher Divan, takes shape as an operatic Gesangszene. An es¬ sentially declamatory and tonally ambiguous setting of “Wer wird von der Welt verlangen” prefaces the Ebmajor cantabile, “Hab ich euch denn je geraten,” the whole rounded off by the C-minor/major “Wanderers Gemiitsruhe,” an impetuously driving tour de force for the pianist. Even here, Strauss cannot resist the urge toward self-quotation: the first and sec¬ ond songs both allude to Die Frau ohne Schatten, the second to the Alpensinfonie. The allusions, however, are maintained within a musically satisfying frame. In addition, the final song of the group makes significant refer¬ ences to the preceding three-song minicycle, a setting of Ophelia’s “mad” lyrics from Hamlet in Karl Simrock’s translation, its moto perpetuo triplets echoing the languid chromaticism of “Sie trugen ihn auf der Bahre bloB” (the last Ophelia song), and its closing major-minor flourish evoking the startling mode shifts in “Guten Morgen, ’s ist Sankt Valentinstag” (the sec¬ ond Ophelia song).68 The text of the Goethe lyric enjoins the wanderer to ignore the filth and evil of the workaday world, which Strauss, via the refer¬ ences to the Ophelia songs, depicts as a senseless realm. Musicopoetic sub¬ stance for the Goethe setting and a measure of coherence for the entire diptych are thus ensured with a single stroke. Strauss’s so-called Vier letzte Lieder were completed during the spring and late summer of 1948, yet few would deny that their spiritual locus is in the nineteenth century. Links with the earlier century may be even more

304

The Song Cycle: Journeys Through a Romantic Landscape

tangible; Timothy Jackson argues (1983 and forthcoming) that the germi¬ nal idea for the set derives from the 1894 setting of “Ruhe, meine Seele!” (Op. 27, No. 1). Strauss revised and orchestrated the latter in June 1948, just after completing “Im Abendrot” from the Vier letzte Lieder. In Jackson’s view, the early song and the late orchestral lieder together form a coher¬ ent group, the placement of “Ruhe, meine Seele!” just before the terminal “Im Abendrot” making explicit the resolution of the musicopoetic ten¬ sions of what Jackson calls the Not motive in the final song. Regardless of whether we opt for four or five last songs, there can be little doubt that Strauss’s contact with the poetry of Eichendorff (“Im Abendrot”) and Her¬ mann Hesse (“Fruhling,” “Beim Schlafengehen,” “September”) in the years just before his death elicited musical responses whose blend of lyric intro¬ spection and symphonic effusiveness is rivaled only by Mahler’s example. The “public” dimension of the late orchestral lieder reveals itself in a wealth of connections with that most public of genres, opera, specifically represented here by Strauss’s final operatic testament, Capriccio. The rap¬ turous lyricism of the Dfmajor “Beim Schlafengehen,” its closing para¬ graphs serving as affective center for the set, resonates in tandem with the last phases of the Countess’s concluding monologue in Capriccio. (Another luminous Dl> ending comes to mind: the El^Dt appoggiatura gesture that marks the vocal close in “Beim Schlafengehen” replicates the concluding cadence in the trio of Rosenkavalier, Act III.) Strauss’s setting of the last words in “Im Abendrot”—ist dies etwa der Tod—likewise sets off multiple as¬ sociations; the often-mentioned allusions to Tod und Verklarung intersect with a more subtle reference to the deceptive resolution of the second quatrain of the Capriccio sonnet. Strauss’s approach to cyclic organization points to a more private mode of utterance. He left no definitive word on the order in which the songs should proceed, nor is this surprising, for their texts (“Fruhling” ex¬ cepted) tend to circle about the same theme: a final release in death that is neither ultrasensual nor morbid, but rather mystically transformative. Thus, practically all of the last songs are quite literally “last” songs, each with its distinctive orchestral color: a richly differentiated tutti in “Fruh¬ ling”; divisi strings, harp, and horn in “September”; solo violin in “Beim Schlafengehen”; and trilling flutes (to paint the text’s pair of larks) in “Im Abendrot.” Discreetly wrought connectives criss-cross from one song to an¬ other; the larks of “Im Abendrot” are prefigured in “Fruhling,” much as the terminal vocalise in “September” is echoed in the broad melismas of “Beim Schlafengehen.” Unity of tone also issues from a characteristic melodic-harmonic idea of coupling half-step motion in the upper voice with third motion in the bass. Variants of what remains an unstated Urform saturate the orchestral preludes to “Fruhling” and “September” and like¬ wise figure as emblems for “die gestirnte Nacht” in “Beim Schlafengehen” and for “der Tod,” the final conceit in “Im Abendrot.” The same gesture makes a link with the deceptive cadence in the son-

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net from Capriccio, which closes with a celebrated question mark. Resolved that the argument over the primacy of words or music must remain unre¬ solved, the Countess asks whether there is an ending for the projected opera simultaneously unfolding before us that “is not trivial” (nicht trivial ist). Although her dilemma does not bear directly on the poetic theme of the last orchestral lieder, it is clear that Strauss here hit upon an ending— for a career, and for a musical epoch-that was far from trivial. His decision belatedly to bring down the curtain on German Romanticism through the medium of the song cycle rings true indeed.

Notes 1. Quoted from Deutsch (1947, 795) and Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, Leipzig [AMZ] 30 (26 July 1826): col. 483. Translations are mine unless noted other¬ wise. 2. See Turchin (1981, 231). 3. AMZ20 (1818): cols. 198, 211; Deutsch (1947, 613). 4. For references to Schubert’s renderings of selected songs from Die schone Miillerin, see Deutsch (1947, 574). The first public performance involving Winterreise occurred on 10 January 1828 in Vienna, when the tenor Ludwig Tietze sang only its opening song, “Gute Nacht”; see Deutsch (1978, 577). Still, it should be kept in mind that the public performance of songs was very much a rarity in the first several decades of the nineteenth century; see Kravitt (1965, 207). 5. Hanslick (1870, 208-10). Only toward the end of the century, with the rise in popularity of the Viennese Liederabend, did the lied (and with it, the song cycle) begin its double life as private and public genre; see Kravitt (1965, 211-13). 6. See Brusati (1978, 23-24). 7. “Robert Schumanns Gesangkompositionen,” AMZ 44 (January 1842): cols. 33, 58-60. 8. Schumann’s autograph manuscript for Frauenliebe (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Hans 2, Mus. ms. autogr. Schumann 16/2) does, however, bear the designa¬ tion: “Cyklus v. acht Liedern” (see Ozawa 1989, 27). Beethoven’s An die feme Geliebte presents the opposite situation. Although the work was published in 1816 as a Liederkreis, Beethoven’s autograph contains the simple designation: “Sechs Lieder von Aloys Jeitteles.” 9. Komar (1971, 64—66). The difficulties connected with formulating a workable definition of the song cycle have also been addressed by Ruth Bingham (1993), who convincingly argues that we can best do justice to the pre-Beethovenian repertory, in particular, by taking into account the differing meanings attached to the term cycle in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. For ex¬ ample, Johann Bornhardt’s 12 Monate (ca. 1810) comprises a cycle in that the poetic texts describe a uniformly recurrent series of events. On the other hand, the notion of a cycle as a random grouping of points equidistant from a central locus is represented in topical cycles (where the poems circle about a single theme) like Friedrich Himmel’s and Friedrich Hurka’s settings of Karl Miichler’s Die Farben (1795). A third conceptual shape, which Bingham calls a

306

The Song Cycle: Journeys Through a Romantic Landscape

“sprung circle,” involves both topical centrality and fixed linear recurrence, as in Himmel’s 1808 cycle Die Blumen und die Schmetterling. Bingham further points out that some topical cycles, Weber’s Die Terrnperamente Op. 46 (1816) among them, use contrast, as opposed to motivic or tonal recall, to achieve unity. 10. See, for instance, the commentary in Durr (1984, 261-62). 11. Schwanengesang was assembled as a cycle by the publisher Tobias Haslinger, pos¬ sibly with the aid of Schubert’s friends. See also R. Kramer (1985, 213-19). 12. See also R. Kramer (1987). 13. Friedrich Schlegel, KritischeFragmente (1797), No. 60, in Schlegel (1967, 154). 14. See Fragmente zur Poesie und Litteratur II (1799-1801), No. 237, in Schlegel (1981, 273): “Character of the Roman. (1) Mixture of the dramatic, epic, lyric . . .” 15. See Dahlhaus (1973, 873-877). 16. AMZ18 (November 1816): cols. 810-11. 17. For Luise Eitel Peake (1968, 67ff., and 1982), many of the earlier song cycles embody a riddle that the participants in a “Liederkreis-game” must solve. Peake suggests that by following various verbal and musical clues, and drawing the ap¬ propriate inferences, the players of the game might learn, for example, that An die feme Geliebte was a representation of a giant teardrop, or that Die schone Miillerin takes the form of a meandering brook. There is little hard evidence, how¬ ever, for the existence of games like this. Peake (1982, 243) bases much of her case on the 1816 AMZ review of Nageli’s Liederkranz (see note 16), which, in her translation, states that members of a Liederkreis “can entertain themselves with a kind of song game.” But the reviewer actually refers to “eine Art von Liederspiel” (AMZ 18: 811), where Liederspiel is better rendered as “a play with songs” than as “song game.” 18. See Hanson (1985, 120-21). 19. See Peake (1982, 253-55). 20. See Mustard (1946). 21. See also Feil (1975, 23-26). 22. See Kerman (1973, 129-32). 23. The fifth strophe of the first song, as Kerman has conjectured (1973, 126), was almost certainly added by Beethoven to help motivate the musical recall at the end of the sixth song and therefore is not included in the count. 24. For a different view of the motivic substructure of the cycle, see Reynolds (1988). 25. See

Kramer

(1987,

670).

Kramer also

notes

that the

second

song,

“Todesmusik,” was first composed in G!>. 26. For further commentary on the Entstehungsgeschichte of Winterreise, see Feil (1975, 28), Stoffels (1987, 182-200), and Youens (1989, vii-xiii, and 1985b). 27. See, for instance, McKay (1977, 94). 28. See Deutsch (1958, 234). 29. Letter (22 January 1828) from Marie von Pratobevera to Josef Bergmann, in Deutsch (1947, 716-17). 30. Song 6 was originally cast in FI minor. A directive in the Stichvorlage for Abteilung I of the cycle calls for its transposition to E minor. 31. Deutsch (1958, 15). 32. See Susan Youens’s sensitive account (1987). Walter Everett (1990, 167-72) dis¬ cusses “Der Wegweiser” as an important center for the elaboration of the “grief” motive (the embellishment of the fifth scale degree by its semitone upper neighbor) that runs through many of the songs.

The Song Cycle: Journeys Through a Romantic Landscape

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33. Cf. McKay (1977, 94-100) andYouens (1985a, 128-35). 34. In some cases the links between song cycle and character-piece collection may be quite palpable. For example, Eric Sams (1975, 36) conjectures that some of the Heine Liederkreis songs may have originated as sketches for the Davidsbiindlertanze Op. 6. 35. “Robert Schumanns Gesangkompositionen,” AMZ44 (1842): cols. 31-32. 36. Neue Zeitschrift furMusik [NZJM] 23 (11 July 1845): col. 14. 37. NZJMb (1 November 1836): 143. 38. See Hallmark (1979, 18, 110-12). 39. See McCreless (1986, 18-19) and Hallmark (1990, 8-11). Clara contributed songs 2, 4, and 11 to the Op. 37/12 set, perhaps taking Robert’s No. 9 (“Rose, Meer und Sonne”) as the model for her No. 4 (“Liebst du um Schonheit”). 40. Letter to Clara of 22 May 1840 (in Schumann 1982, 278). 41. For a detailed account of Schumann’s creation of Dichterliebe out of the Lyrisches Intermezzo poetry, see Hallmark (1979, 110-25). Dichterliebe has probably re¬ ceived more concentrated attention than any of Schumann’s other song cycles; significant studies include Hallmark (1977), Komar (1971, especially 63-94), Pousseur

(1982),

and

Neumeyer

(1982).

Marston

(1991)

puts

forward

Beethoven’s Cf-Minor String Quartet Op. 131 as a tonal model for Schumann’s most often discussed cycle. 42. The portrayal is conceived from a distinctly male point of view; this line of thought is pursued in Solie (1992). 43. Quoted in Sams (1974, 841). 44. The only one of Mendelssohn’s song collections that displays cyclic traits is his Zwolf Lieder Op. 9 (1830); see Turchin (1981, 122-29). For a discussion of the genre-designating terms employed by Brahms in his lied publications, see Fellinger (1990, 380-82). 45. The first quotation as reported by Heinz von Beckerath; both in Fellinger (1990, 380-85). 46. For a discussion of Brahms’s Op. 121 as a cycle, see Whittall (1983). 47. See Wintle’s discussion (1982) of the E-Minor Cello Sonata Op. 38 and the AMajor Piano Quartet Op. 26. 48. See Boyer (1980, 267). Brahms’s library included a large number of Volksbucher; his undated copy of a collection published in Berlin, which contains a Historia von der schonen Magelona, is signed “Johs. Brahms 1857.” See Hofmann (1974), item 753 (pp. 122-23). 49. Tieck’s Marchen, which he published under the pseudonym “Peter Leberecht,” first appeared in 1797. As the employment of interpolated lyrics was a common feature in the Romane and Novellen of the literary Romantics, the song cycle may have drawn on an analogous device. Karen Hindenlang (1990, 584-86), for in¬ stance, has argued that “Auf einer Burg,” the enigmatic seventh song of Schu¬ mann’s Eichendorff Liederkreis, functions much like the lyric digressions in the prose works of the composer’s literary models. 50. Brahms’s equivocation over the cyclic status of the Magelone Romanzen is consid¬ ered in light of the publication history of the songs in Jost (1990, 43-46). Ac¬ cording to Jost, Brahms’s interest in fashioning a tightly-wrought cycle waned after he completed the first six settings. 51. For a detailed account of the cycle’s complex history, see Bozarth 1978 (4-6, 34-40) and 1983 (209-10, 215-18).

308

The Song Cycle: Journeys Through a Romantic Landscape

52. See Kalbeck (1912-21, 1: 428). For a more recent attempt at a connecting nar¬ rative, see Daverio (1989, 361-65). 53. Brahms (1920, 219). According to Kalbeck (1912-21, 1: 428), Brahms was “gen¬ erally opposed to the performance of all the Lieder as a cycle,” and when Brahms learned that the first two Hefte of Romanzen were not selling well, he suggested that Rieter reissue them mixed with some of his more popular songs (Kalbeck 1912-21, 2: 271)—hardly an indication that the cyclic integrity of the work counted for much. The songs were, however, performed as a cycle during Brahms’s lifetime; Kalbeck (1912-21, 4: 224) reports Ludwig Wiillner’s Meiningen performance during spring 1891 with the composer in attendance. 54. Friedlaender (1928, 39-40). 55. See Musgrave (1985, 38), Sams (1972, 25-26), Plantinga (1984, 431), Jost (1990, 48-49), and MacDonald (1990, 187). 56. Cf. Kalbeck (1912-21, 1: 429, 439), Sams (1972, 25), and Boyer (1980, 269-86). Jost (1990, 46—61) provides a provocative alternative; his analysis of Romanzen Nos. 3, 4, 9, and 13 purports to show just how far Brahms distanced himself from Tieck’s poetic world by employing musical devices that seem to contradict the sense of the poetry. Of course, any musical setting will transform to some de¬ gree the meaning embodied in a poetic text. The perfect fit between word and tone that both composers and critics have held up as an ideal for the lied is a chimera. Moreover, the force of Jost’s argument depends on the degree to which we are willing to accept that Brahms’s transformations of Tieck’s poetic meanings amount to out-and-out contradictions. For Tieck, the Sulima lyric (No. 13) may have been intended to suggest that Peter’s exotic admirer repre¬ sented a real alternative to his love for Magelone; Brahms’s music, on the other hand, may hint at Peter’s ultimate unwillingness to respond to Sulima’s over¬ tures (Jost 1990, 52-53). But whether the two points of view are mutually exclu¬ sive, as opposed to complementary, remains open to debate. 57. See Kalbeck (1912-21, 1: 424). 58. See also Krones (in Brahms: Kongress Wien 1983, ed. Susanne Antonicek and Otto Biba, 317-20, Tutzing, 1988). 59. On Brahms’s abortive attempts to find a suitable opera libretto, see Wirth (1983). 60. Tieck (1844-45, 2: 4). Ludwig Finscher has demonstrated that several of Brahms’s early Eichendorff settings (“Lied,” Op. 3, No. 6; “Parole,” Op. 7, No. 2; and “Anklange,” Op. 7, No. 3) must be viewed not only as musical responses to the individual poetic texts, but also as evocations of the scenes in the Romane from which the lyrics were drawn. According to Finscher (1990, 339), this amounts to “an internalization of Eichendorff s poetic world from which the songs surface as arrested moments of an internal monologue.” Although Fin¬ scher maintains that Brahms never again took this approach to lied composi¬ tion, it is in fact the basis for the “internalized theatre” of the Magelone settings. 61. The dates of completion are as follows: “Der Engel,” 30 November 1857; “Stehe still,” 22 February 1858; “Im Treibhaus,” 1 May 1858; “Schmerzen,” 17 Decem¬ ber 1857; Traume,” 5 December 1857. (Richard Wagner, Sdmtliche Werke, vol. 17, Klavierlieder, ed. Egon Voss, 119-20, Mainz, 1976). 62. Letter of 12 October 1891 to Oskar Grohe, quoted in Sams (1983, 36). 63. Letter of 22 May 1840, in Schumann (1982, 278). 64. This may also have been the mode of performance for Conradin Kreutzer’s Fruhlingslieder; see Peake (1979, 92). 65. Schubert and Wolf set the Wilhelm Meister poems in different orders; Wolf fol-

The Song Cycle: Journeys Through a Romantic Landscape

309

lowed the order established by Goethe in his Gedichte: “Wer sich der Einsamkeit,” “An die Turen,” “Wer nie sein Brot” (this differs from the order in the novel); Schubert reversed the order of the last two poems. 66. For a summary of the tangled history of song cycle and symphony, see Mitchell (1975, 27-32, 91-112) and chap. 7 of this volume. 67. See Schuh (1982, 141). 68. Brahms also set five Ophelia lyrics (in the A. W. Schlegel-Tieck translation) for an 1873 performance of Hamlet in Prague. Strauss’s songs have little in com¬ mon with these unassuming, quasi-folklike pieces, which in all probability he did not know. Karl Geiringer’s 1935 edition (G. Schirmer, New York) includes the melodies and the simple piano accompaniments that Brahms intended for rehearsal purposes only.

Bibliography Barthes, Roland. “Loving Schumann.” In The Responsibility of Forms, trans. Richard Howard, 293-98. New York, 1985. Bingham, Ruth. “The Song Cycle in German-Speaking Countries 1790-1840: Ap¬ proaches to a Changing Genre.” Ph.D. dissertation, Cornell University, 1993. Boyer, Thomas. “Brahms as Count Peter of Provence: A Psychosexual Interpreta¬ tion of the Magelone Poetry.” Musical Quarterly 66 (1980): 262-86. Bozarth, George S. “The Lieder of Johannes Brahms: Studies in Chronology and Compositional Process.” Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University, 1978. -. “Brahms’s ‘Liederjahr of 1868.’” Music Review 44 (1983): 208-22. -. ed. Brahms Studies. Oxford, 1990. Brahms, Johannes. Briefwechsel. Vol. 14. Ed. Wilhelm Altmann. Berlin, 1920. Brusati, Otto. Schubert in Wiener Vormarz: Dokumente 1829—1848. Graz, 1978. Dahlhaus, Carl. “Zur Problematik der musikalischen Gattungen im 19. Jahrhundert.” In Gattungen der Musik in Einzeldarstellungen: Gedenkschrift Leo Schrade, ed. Wulf Arlt, 840-95. Bern, 1973. Daverio, John. “Brahms’s Magelone Romanzen and the Romantic Imperative.” Jour¬ nal of Musicology 7 (1989): 343-65. Deutsch, Otto Erich. The Schubert Reader. Trans. Eric Blom. New York, 1947. -■. ed. Schubert: Memoirs by his Friends. London, 1958. -. Franz Schubert: Thematisches Verzeichnis seiner Werke in chronologischer Folge. Kas¬ sel, 1978. Dunsby, Jonathan. “The Multi-Piece in Brahms: Fantasien Op. 116.” In Brahms: bio¬ graphical, documentary and analytical studies, ed. Robert Pascall, 167—89. Cam¬ bridge, 1983. Durr, Walther. Das deutsche Sololied im 19. Jahrhundert: Untersuchungen zu Sprache und Musik. Wilhelmshaven, 1984. -. “Die Lieder-Serie der neuen Schubert-Ausgabe.” Musica 40 (1986): 29-30. Earl, D. L. “The Solo Song in Germany: 1800-1850.” Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University, 1952. Everett, Walter. “Grief in Winterreise: A Schenkerian Perspective.” Music Analysis 9 (1990): 157-75. Feil, Arnold. Franz Schubert: Die schone Mullerin—Winterreise. Stuttgart, 1975. Fellinger, Imogen. “Cyclic Tendencies in Brahms’s Song Collections.” In Bozarth (1990, 379-88).

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Ferris, David. “From Fragment to Cycle: Formal Organization in Schumann’s Eichendorff Liederkreis.” Ph.D. dissertation, Brandeis University, 1993. Finscher, Ludwig. “Brahms’s Early Songs: Poetry versus Music.” In Bozarth (1990, 331-44). Finson, Jon.

“The

Intentional Traveler:

Romantic Irony in

the Eichendorff

Liederkreis of Robert Schumann.” In Schumann and His World, ed. R. Larry Todd, 156-70. Princeton, 1994. Friedlaender, Max. Brahms’s Lieder. Trans. C. Leonard Leese. London, 1928. Goldschmidt, Harry. “Welches war die ursprungliches Reihenfolge in Schuberts Heine-Liedern?” Deutsches Jahrbuch fur Musikwissenschaft 1972 1 7

(1974):

52-62. Hallmark, Rufus. “The Sketches for Dichterliebe." 19th-Century Music! (1977): 110-36. -. The Genesis of Schumann’s Dichterliebe: A Source Study. Ann Arbor, MI, 1979. -■„ “The Ruckert Lieder of Robert and Clara Schumann.” 19th-Century Music 14 (1990): 3-30. -. Schumann’s Frauenliebe und Leben: Context, Composition, and Interpretation. Ox¬ ford, forthcoming. Hanslick, Eduard. A us dem Concertsaal: Kritiken und Schilderung aus den letzten 20 Jahren des Wiener Musiklebens. Vienna, 1870. Hanson, Alice M. Musical Life in Biedermeier Vienna. Cambridge, 1985. Hindenlang, Karen A. “Eichendorff s Auf einer Burg and Schumann’s Liederkreis, Opus 39 ."Journal of Musicology 8 (1990): 569-87. Hockner, Berthold. “The ‘Multiple Persona’ and Robert Schumann’s HeineLiederkreis, Op. 24.” Paper read at the 59th Annual Meeting of the American Musicological Society. Montreal, 1993. Hofmann, Kurt. Die Bibliothek von Johannes Brahms—Bucher und Musikalienverzeichnis. Hamburg, 1974. Jackson, Timothy. “The Last Strauss: Studies of the Letzte Lieder." Ph.D. dissertation, City University of New York, 1983. -. ‘“Ruhe, meine Seele!’ and the Letzte Orchesterlieder.” In Richard Strauss and His World, ed. Bryan Gilliam, 90-137. Princeton, 1992. Jost, Peter. “Brahms und die romantische Ironie.” Archiv fur Musikwissenschaft 47 (1990): 27-61. Kalbeck, Max.. Johannes Brahms. 4vols. Berlin, 1912—21. Kerman, Joseph. “An die feme Geliebte.” In Beethoven Studies, ed. Alan Tyson, 123-57. New York, 1973. Knaus, Herwig. Musiksprache und Werkstruktur in Robert Schumanns “Liederkreis. ” Schriften zur Musik, 27. Munich, 1974. Komar, Arthur, ed. Schumann: Dichterliebe. Norton Critical Scores. New York, 1971. Kramer, Lawrence. “Decadence and Desire: The Wilhelm Meister Songs of Wolf and Schubert.” 19th-Century Music 10 (1987): 229-42. Kramer, Richard. “Schubert’s Heine.” 19th-Century Music 8 (1985): 213-25. -. Review of Franz Schubert: Lieder (Neue Ausgabe Samtlicher Werke, IV/5), ed. Walther Durr (Kassel, 1985). Music Library Association Notes 43 (1987): 670-71. -. “Distant Cycles: Schubert, Goethe and the Entfernte. ” Journal ofMusicolosy 6 (1988): 3-26. -. Distant Cycles. Schubert and the Conceiving of Song. Chicago, 1994.

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Kravitt, Edward F. “The Lied in 19th-Century Concert Life." Journal of the American Musicological Society 18 (1965): 207-18. MacDonald, Malcolm. Brahms. New York, 1990. Marston, Nicholas. “Schumann’s Monument to Beethoven,” 19th-Century Music 14 (1991): 247-64. Massenkeil, Gunther. “Cornelius als Liederkomponist.” In Peter Cornelius als Komponist, Dichter, Kritiker und Essayist, ed. Hellmut Federhofer and Kurt Oehl, 159-68. Regensburg, 1977. McCreless, Patrick. “Song Order in the Song Cycle: Schumann’s Liederkreis, Op. 39.” Music Analysis 5 (1986): 5-28. McKay, Elizabeth Norman. “Schubert’s Winterreise Reconsidered.” Music Review 28 (1977): 94-100. Mendel, Hermann, ed. Musikalisches Conversations-Lexicon. 11 vols. Berlin, 1870-79. Mitchell, Donald. Gustav Mahler: The Wunderhom Years. Berkeley, 1975. Musgrave, Michael. The Music of Brahms. London, 1985. Mustard, Helen Meredith. The Lyric Cycle in German Literature. Columbia University Studies in German Literature, new series, 17. New York, 1946. Neumeyer, David. “Organic Structure and the Song Cycle: Another Look at Schu¬ mann’s Dichterliebe." Music Theory Spectrum 4 (1982): 92-105. Ozawa,

Kazuko.

Quellenstudien zu Robert Schumanns Liedern nach Adelbert von

Chamisso. Frankfurt, 1989. Peake, Luise Eitel. “The Song Cycle: A Preliminary Inquiry into the Beginnings of the Romantic Song Cycle and the Nature of an Art Form.” Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, 1968. -. “Kreutzer’s Wanderlieder. The Other Winterreise." Musical Quarterly 45 (1979): 83-102. -. “Song Cycle,” in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie, 17: 521-23. London, 1980. -•. “The Antecedents of Beethoven’s Liederkreis.” Music and Letters 63 (1982): 242-60. Petersen, Barbara. “Richard Strauss as Composers’ Advocate, oder ‘Die Handler und die Kunst.’” In Richard Strauss: New Perspectives on the Composer and His Work, ed. Bryan Gilliam, 115-32. Durham, NC, 1992. Plantinga, Leon. Romantic Music. New York, 1984. Pousseur, Henri. “Schumann ist der Dichter: Fiinfundzwanzig Momente einer Lekture der Dichter liebe." In Musik-Konzepte Sonderband: Robert Schumann 11, ed. Heinz-Klaus Metzger and Rainer Riehn, 3-128. Munich, 1982. Reynolds, Christopher. “The Representational Impulse in Late Beethoven, I: An die feme Geliebte.” Acta Musicologica 40 (1988): 43—61. Rosen, Charles. The Romantic Generation. Cambridge, MA, 1995. Sams, Eric. Brahms Songs. Seattle, 1972. -. “Peter Cornelius.” Musical Times 115 (1974): 839-42. -. The Songs of Robert Schumann. 2d ed. London, 1975. -. The Songs of Hugo Wolf. London, 1983. Schilling, Gustav, ed. Encyclopedic der gesammten musikalischen Wissenschaften, oder Universal-Lexicon der Tonkunst. 7 vols. Stuttgart, 1835-42. Schlegel, Friedrich. Kritische Friedrich Schlegel Ausgabe. Vol. 2: Charakteristiken und Kritiken I (1796-1801). Ed. Hans Eichner. Zurich, 1967. Vol. 16: Fragmente zur Poesie und Literatur I. Ed. H. Eichner. Munich, 1981.

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Schuh, Willi. Richard Strauss: A Chronicle of the Early Years 1864—1898. Trans. Mary Whittall. Cambridge, 1982. Schumann, Robert and Clara. Briefe einer Liebe. Ed. Hanns-Josef Ortheil. Konigstein, 1982. Solie, Ruth. “Whose Life? The Gendered Self in Schumann’s Frauenliebe Songs.” In Music and Text: Critical Inquiries, ed. Steven Scherr, 219-40. Cambridge, 1992. Stoffels, Ludwig. Die Winterreise. Vol. 1: Mullers Dichtung in Schuberts Vertonung. Bonn, 1987. Thym, Jurgen. “The Solo Song Settings of Eichendorff s Poems by Schumann and Wolf.” Ph.D. dissertation, Case Western Reserve University, 1974. Tieck, Ludwig. Phantasus. Berlin, 1844-45. Turchin, Barbara. “Robert Schumann’s Song Cycles in the Context of the Early Nineteenth-Century Liederkreis.” Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, 1981. -. “Schumann’s Song Cycles: The Cycle within the Song.” 19th-Century MusicR (1985): 231-44. -. “The Nineteenth-Century Wanderlieder Cycle.” Journal of Musicology 5 (1987): 498-526. Whittall, Arnold. “The Vieremste Gesange, Op. 121: Enrichment and Uniformity.” In Brahms: biographical, documentary and analytical Studies, ed. Robert Pascall, 191-207. Cambridge, 1983. Wintle, Christopher. “The Sceptred Pall: Brahms’s Progressive Harmony.” In Brahms 2: biographical, documentary and analytical Studies, ed. Michael Musgrave, 197-222. Cambridge, 1987. Wiora, Walter. Das deutsche Lied: Zur Geschichte und Asthetik einer musikalischen Gattung. Wolfenbuttel, 1971. Wirth, Helmuth. “Oper und Drama in ihrer Bedeutung fur Johannes Brahms.” In Brahms Studien. Vol. 5, pp. 117-39. Hamburg, 1983. Youens, Susan. “Retracing a Winter Journey: Reflections on Schubert’s Winterreise.” 19th-Century Music9 (1985): 128-35. [Youens 1985a] -■. “Winterreise: In the Right Order.” Soundings 13 (1985): 41-50. [Youens 1985b] -■. “Wegweiserin Winterreise." Journal of Musicology b (1987): 357-79. -. Introduction to Franz Schubert—Winterreise—The Autograph Score. New York, 1989. -. “Behind the Scenes: Die schone Miillerin before Schubert,” 19th-Century Music 15 (1991): 3-22.

CHAPTER TEN

Performing Lieder: The Mysterious Mix Robert Spillman

Upon hearing the soprano Victoria de los Angeles, Giacomo LauriVolpi was moved to state: “When listening to her, one perceives that ideal point at which, when words are sung, the thought and the sound meet; the point at which

two otherwise irreconcilable worlds find a common

ground.” This is high praise; it also describes perfectly what is so magical, elu¬ sive, and satisfying in concert singing. Most voice students aspire to the op¬ eratic stage, dazzled by the possibility of singing full-throated, passionate performances in costume, with orchestra and with scenery. There is a cer¬ tain comfort in being onstage with many other performers, partially anonymous behind the costume and the assumed character. For those who fall under the spell of the art song, however, there is nothing compa¬ rable to the intimacy, vulnerability, and connection with an audience that can be found in the solo recital. Feeling the lure of the concert stage does not guarantee success on it. A more compelling motivation for a musician to study, perform, and un¬ derstand any repertoire is love of the repertoire itself. Dreams of glory can be useful in getting started in music study, but the intensity of devotion re¬ quired to continue is enough to discourage many would-be stars. The ma¬ terial studied must provide the justification for the study. The German lied is a genre that rewards its students and devotees with almost limitless riches. The music is as varied as it is beautiful; both voice and accompaniment are involved in its subtleties and glories. The texts deal with an enormous range of subjects but emphasize intimate, per¬ sonal choice and emotion, a characteristic that corresponds to the inti-

313

314

Performing Lieder: The Mysterious Mix

macy of most lied performances: one singer and one pianist, facing an au¬ dience and armed with nothing but text, music, and personality. The vul¬ nerability required for lied performance becomes one of its greatest assets when grasped by intelligent performers and listeners and reflects the goal of personal expression inherent in the medium. The Romantic lied is, by definition, an attempt at presenting words and music in an equal marriage of expressiveness. The search for increased personality and truer expres¬ sion led the great composers of lieder to find solutions that were honest, daring, and personal, resulting in a body of work that requires an excep¬ tional level of personal commitment from its interpreters. Those who aspire to the successful performance of German lieder soon discover the complexity of their task; they must possess not only a de¬ pendable technique and a sense of what is beautiful, but also the under¬ standing of two languages, one musical and the other literary. It has always been the goal of great composers for the voice to bring together text, mu¬ sical sense, and performing skill, but the proportions have varied. In the Western musical tradition there is room for the recitative of Caccini and the formal phrases of J. S. Bach. The idea of singing can range from the limpid lyricism of Bellini’s bel canto to the speaking on pitch of a cabaret artist such as Lotte Lenya. Somewhere between these two lies the perfor¬ mance of lieder. The boundaries of the lied repertoire are easily defined: songs in the German language written in or around the nineteenth century, having its roots in the era of Romanticism. The overwhelming majority of the reper¬ toire is written for one singer and one pianist; any discussion of lied per¬ formance must start from this reference point. Since the latter half of the nineteenth century, lieder have been commonly performed in a concert setting: singer and pianist dressed more or less formally, the singer stand¬ ing, facing the audience and performing from memory, the pianist seated at right angles to the audience before the keyboard. Visual aids are kept to a minimum—no scenery or costumes, only the facial expression and body language of the singer and ideally a printed text and/or translation in the program (song recitalists should present the material in the original lan¬ guage). Given these stringent constraints, it is a tribute to the power of the material that anyone should be willing to invest the time and elfort needed to become an accomplished lied singer. What follows is a discus¬ sion of some of the necessary skills.

Communication Performing a song is nothing more or less than telling a story. It is the particular genius of Romantic lied that the accompanist is integrated in this task. The accompaniment supports, comments on, and illustrates the text; this presupposes a characteristic of music that has been a sticking

Performing Lieder: The Mysterious Mix

315

point of music criticism for more than a century: that music can of itself express, indicate, or represent extramusical things, whether thoughts, emotions, objects, or actions. This also presumes that both singer and pi¬ anist are continually engaged in getting their point across, making under¬ standable their concept of the action and emotion of the material. In lieder it is not merely the accepted meaning of a word or phrase that com¬ municates; the presentation of that word or phrase through a particular harmony, interval, rhythm, timing, color, nuance, facial expression, and body language either supports that accepted meaning or comments ironi¬ cally on it. The elements of melodic interval, harmonic language, and rhythm are the work of the composer; to achieve effective nuance in pre¬ sentation requires the thought and commitment of the performer. This commitment to the concept that a work of music can be expres¬ sive requires more than a generalized earnestness; otherwise a folksinger who sings in a flat monotone could easily become a lied performer. It also requires more than generalized perkiness or gloom, a level of expressive¬ ness beyond which many students of singing never venture. In addition, it requires more than the enjoyment of vocalism, for the success of a lied performance depends not on the beauty of the voice but on how beauti¬ fully the beauty of the voice accords with the meaning of the text. If the poem talks of beauty, we rejoice in the ravishing sounds presented by singer and pianist; if the text speaks of anguish, pain, or ugliness, then lim¬ pidity or opulence alone will not suffice. Nor will the simple desire to make one’s meaning clear; this desire must be fulfilled by faithfulness, un¬ derstanding, and technique.

Faithfulness The lied is not very rewarding for the singer who wishes to be praised for vocal prowess—Handel and Verdi have provided better and more ap¬ propriate opportunities for that. It is also not a genre congenial to the pi¬ anist whose highest goal is to play some works of, say, Liszt faster and louder than anyone else. It is also a difficult medium for those who seek fame by reinterpreting masterpieces; composer and poet provide enough subtlety, irony, hidden meaning, and shading so that anyone trying to make white black and black white is doomed to failure. Perhaps because the material is so complex and the work so arduous, the great performers of lieder are remarkable in their unanimous devo¬ tion to being faithful—to reproducing the music accurately and under¬ standing the poem thoroughly; personal expression that does not fit the music or text is intrusive. The lied singer also discovers very quickly that there is no place to hide on the concert stage, and that the audience has a disconcerting ability to read a performer’s mind. If he or she is not in ac¬ cord with the words and music of the song, there had better be an excel-

316

Performing Lieder: The Mysterious Mix

lent reason for such ambiguity or irony. If the performer is concentrating on his or her technique, the audience will, too; if fear is uppermost in his or her mind, that fact will reach the audience instantaneously. No cos¬ tume, no scenery, no diverting collegue will come to the rescue of the con¬ cert performer who does not remain attentive to the words and music at hand, and who does not have the means of presenting them clearly. The aspirant who wishes to succeed as a lied interpreter is thus forced to seek tools that will aid in understanding the meanings of the poet and the wishes of the composer.

Understanding Once a musician commits to a path of fidelity to a composer’s wishes, a number of questions present themselves, along with several practical considerations.

Appropriateness of Material For all practical purposes, this presents questions for the singer rather than the pianist: Do I have the range for this song? Do I have the ability to sustain the tessitura? Do I have the ability to sustain the tempo asked for? Would it require me to sing more loudly than I can? Am I of the same gen¬ der as the persona, and if not can I bring it off anyway? In the case of range, the song recital is at least one place where it is perfectly acceptable to transpose a piece of music in order to make its per¬ formance feasible. Transposition of individual pitches is generally frowned upon unless a composer expressly writes alternatives, as in “Der Tod und das Madchen” by Schubert and “Ballade des Harfners” by Schumann. On the other hand, piano passages are more likely to be altered to fit a trans¬ position, taking a low note up if it would be off the keyboard, for example. In the case of tessitura or phrase length, the singer must decide whether personal limitations would work against the effectiveness of the song. There is no room in this genre for taking a lied such as “Sapphische Ode” presto just because a singer is short of breath. Actually, there is no al¬ lowance for such a feat anyway, since Brahms marks this lied to be per¬ formed andante, and the genre requires a certain level of honesty from its practitioners. In the case of a tessitura that is too high or too low, the singer’s selfinterest will probably protect the composer, as the singer is not likely to ex¬ pose a weak part of his or her voice. The same is true of material that requires extremes of dynamics. If, however, someone decides to perform a song with pp and ff markings, such as “Gretchen am Spinnrade,” the singer’s dynamic range must go from the softest to the loudest that is com¬ fortably possible for that individual.

Performing Lieder: The Mysterious Mix

317

In the case of gender-specific material, such as Schumann’s Dichterliebe (dedicated to a female singer) or Frauenliebe und -leben, great artists such as Lotte Lehmann, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, and Christa Ludwig have tran¬ scended gender boundaries. This is again a question of the comfort level of the singer; no one seems to care if a male pianist plays Frauenliebe und -leben or a female pianist Dichterliebe, and if a singer can feel comfortable and dramatically involved while presenting words spoken by someone of the opposite sex, there is precedent for this practice. We should be care¬ ful, however, that this does not lead to a performance that is no more than uninvolved vocalization; just because a man thinks “Du Ring an meinem Finger” is a beautiful song does not mean he has the ability to carry it off successfully in performance. Rather, the performance must be convincing dramatically; this requires empathy for the speaker of the text that tran¬ scends simple narration.

Concept of Text Both singer and pianist have a duty and responsibility to consider the meaning of the poem, both of its individual words and of the moods, thoughts, or narrative being presented. This requires a large amount of homework, for the German speaker as well as the foreigner. The per¬ former who is not aware of the direction the text is taking every mo¬ ment will fall into

the

trap

of generalization,

projecting either an

expressionless vocalization or some generic gray area of meaning. For ex¬ ample, someone presenting “Die Forelle” of Schubert must have under¬ standing on several levels: what zappelt means, for example; what the phrase so lang dem Wasser Helle . . . nicht gebricht means (and why that phrase and grammatical construction are used); and, considering the song as a whole, whether it is about fishing or about somebody stealing one’s girl¬ friend.

Point of View Closely related to one’s understanding of the text is the decision of how closely one wishes to identify with it during a performance. There is a degree of Distanzierung in any performance of lieder; the well-dressed ma¬ ture woman standing in front of us is not poor, half-crazed Gretchen sit¬ ting at her spinning wheel. The text of “Gretchen am Spinnrade,” however, is written in the first person singular, and the listener will be cheated if he or she goes away from a performance of this song without comprehending at least some of Gretchen’s words, attitude, emotions, and situation. Most lied texts have an “I” in them somewhere; some are composed of simple narrative. These narratives give performers opportunities to find points of view congenial to themselves and to the texts. In “Heiden-

318

Performing Lieder: The Mysterious Mix

roslein,” for example, how tragic are those repeated Rosleins? Is the final line of each verse “Roslein auf der Heiden”) sympathetic, sorrowful, flip¬ pant, or a mixture? In Schubert’s “Meeresstille,” is the narrator terrified along with the sailor, and is he or she a voice of doom or (perhaps more farfetched) a soothing, comforting voice? Decisions about one s point of view need not be simple or automatic in first-person-singular texts. In “Heidenroslein,” again, is the boy careless, infatuated, or malicious? Is the hero of Winterreise slowly going mad, or is he painfully aware of his situa¬ tion at all times? Does he meet Death in the last song, or must he go on living? Almost everyone performing lieder loves contemplating the problem of finding and presenting a point of view. This is perhaps because this issue, no matter how enthusiastically contested, is much less painful and thorny than the task of successfully presenting the material. For that one needs technique.

Technique Diction Essential to any good lied performance is a clear, accurate presenta¬ tion of the text. The singer must have a good ear for phonetic sounds and the technique and willingness to reproduce them faithfully. The pianist should have an ear for vocal color in order to modulate dynamics and tim¬ ing to complement the various vowels and many thicknesses of consonants in the German language. Unless a coach, and therefore a teacher of singers, the pianist has less responsibility for the diction than the singer, who is frequently asked to do things that go against basic bel canto training. Vowel Formation

German has few diphthongs and many vowels held constant through¬ out their duration; this requires a singing technique with true attacks and an unwavering delivery. German also has a large number of vowel sounds; in addition to the regular vowels a singer must be able to distinguish among all the umlauted ones. Just because the voice is most resonant in a certain register when singing a closed e does not mean that one may sing a closed e there when an open e is written. Conversely, the fact that a com¬ poser sets a closed vowel in a register that is uncongenial to a singer’s con¬ cept of good basic singing does not allow the substitution of some generic open “univowel.” A singer is not allowed to change Wonne to wohne or Sohne to Sonne; such a transference changes the meaning of the word. On a more basic level, faithfulness requires that, for example, ist may not, in any register, sound like the English word east. Of course, all good singers modify their vowels; a listener, however, must believe that he or she

Performing Lieder: The Mysterious Mix

319

hears the correct vowel, and this requires more flexibility than many nonGerman speakers are willing to learn. All great composers have great ears, and if they wish to hear a certain word in a certain register they probably have a certain color in mind; altering a vowel can alter a composer’s intent as well as the poet’s. Consonants

Compared to the Romance languages, German has a high consonant content. Consonants often appear in clusters, and a singer aspiring to flu¬ ency must come to grips with such terrors as wo greift’s hin? (“Erstes Liebeslied eines Madchens,” Wolf/Morike) and dazzoischen schluchzen und stohnen (“Es ist ein Floten und Geigen,” Schumann/Heine, from Dichterliebe). Correct production of unvoiced consonants contradicts the mis¬ guided idea that correct Italianate vocal production requires a steady stream of vowels. Even Italian, as vowel-heavy as it is, has unvoiced conso¬ nants, including those which, when doubled, require that the phonation of the vocal cords be interrupted. In German, consonants may be expres¬ sively thickened more (randomly) than in Italian. All these considerations suggest that a singer regard a vocal line as being made up of a variety of sounds, not all of which require the phonation of the vocal cords. Fears that this is destructive to sound vocal technique are unfounded; it is in¬ structive to listen to singers known for superior beauty of tone and tech¬ nique, such as Fritz Wunderlich and Christa Ludwig, who pronounce every t and flip every r in a text. Elisions

It is a basic tenet of good Italian diction that words should be run together as if they form a single longer word that stretches from cesura to cesura. It is also characteristic of French diction that the final sound of each word is attached to the beginning of the next one. In opposition to this, German diction requires that every word and word-stem that begins with a vowel be separated from the preceding sound. This is anathema to those true to the “Italian” ideal of continuous vocalization. Their antipathy is to some degree due to the harmful effect a violent use of the glottal stop can have on the throat. One need not, however, bang one’s glottis like a frog in order to attack a vowel; a gentle release of breath will suffice to ef¬ fect the separation. The separation must, however, be there. Vocal “Line”

There are secret chapels at which singers, especially voice teachers, worship a sectarian idol known to initiates as “line.” This is commonly re¬ garded as the product of the minimization of consonants plus the manipu¬ lation of vowels to give the impression of each sound’s being of equal size and weight, with—here is the really deadly point—as little “distance,” or variation of color, between them. Again, however, great composers know

320

Performing Lieder: The Mysterious Mix

what a word sounds like; if they want a closed vowel on a particular low pitch, for example, it is likely that they do not want a loud sound. Everyone can learn from the palette of sounds produced by great artists such as Elly Ameling and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.

The Pianist As the preceding suggests, lieder require the singer to produce every sound of the German language in any register and over a wide range of dy¬ namics. An equal command of technique is required of the pianist. A very wide range of dynamics and balances (often called tone colors) with spe¬ cial emphasis on the lower range of dynamics, is necessary, as is a hairtrigger sense of timing, used to shade phrases rhythmically as well as to provide tight ensemble. Very desirable for a pianist working in the Ger¬ man Romantic song repertoire is the cultivation of a so-called singing sound: a touch that mimics the singing line through legato shadings and connections, and which avoids harshness. For both singer and pianist, therefore, the study of lieder should ex¬ pand one’s technique and expressivity. Thus enhanced, the palette of sound of both performers enables them to communicate the meaning of the poem to the listener. Although a medium as complex as the lied favors those who approach musical decisions through analysis and detailed thought, there are and have been great artists who achieve wonderful re¬ sults intuitively. Using either approach or a combination of the two, the study process is even more exciting than the selection of a point of view. Musicians, like any artists, love to deal with the manipulation of the medium itself.

Style Many important musical decisions must be made in preparing a lied for performance; most deal with general musical categories such as articu¬ lation or tempo, whereas others pertain to the style of the composer. The latter are the most problematical, as great composers can rarely be kept in a box of our defining.

A Composer’s Characteristic Style One must be careful in labeling a performance technique or a sound as typical of a composer. If we say that Schubert’s style is more detached and Strauss’s more legato, what are we to do with “Litanei” or “Fur funfzehn Pfennige”? If Brahms is a “legato” composer, how does one sing “Der Schmied”? If Mahler is even more of a “legato” composer, how does one perform “Des Antonius Von Padua Fischpredigt”? If Strauss is less florid

Performing Lieder: The Mysterious Mix

321

and heavier than Schubert (the Schubert of “Ellens zweiter Gesang”), what do we make of “Amor” or “Standchen”? We must be careful not to generalize. We can safely say that the pi¬ anos used by Brahms, Wolf, and Strauss were richer than those of Schu¬ bert’s time and that their singers were equipped to sing Wagner. It is probably correct to sing the long phrases in Brahms’s “Die Mainacht” with a somewhat heavier tone than the long phrases in Mozart’s “Abendempfindung” or Schubert’s “Litanei.” It is probably correct to say that Mozart relies more on terrace dynamics than Wolf does. Attacks are quicker in most lieder by Schubert than in most lieder by Mahler. We must, however, be prepared to deal with exceptions. If we say that “Romm, lieber Mai” is “typical” Mozart, that is, light in tone color, piano in dynam¬ ics, and slender of line, we must also remember that Mozart gave us “Das Veilchen,” “Die Alte,” and “Abendempfindung,” and that his lightness need not be monochromatic. Despite these caveats, intelligent choices can be made. We can refrain from performing “Abendempfindung” slowly, thickly, intensely legato, and molto rubato so that it sounds like one of Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder. We can perform the Emste Gesange of Brahms with warm, opulent sound, without haste, so that they need not be mistaken for Schubert’s “Der Rattenfanger.” With some trepidation, we might offer some examples of what is typical for a composer. Schubert sounds slender and buoyant, as in “Der Musensohn”—but he also wrote “Das Wirtshaus” and “Prometheus.” Let Schumann be represented by the tender lyricism of “Du hist wie eine Blume,” but remember that he also wrote “Ich grolle nicht.” Brahms com¬ posed the dark, rich sounds of “Sapphische Ode”—but he also composed “Botschaft,” which combines the buoyancy of Schubert with the smooth, soaring line of Schumann. Wolfs style is often associated with the legato and drama of a song like “Verborgenheit,” but he is also the composer of such comic works as “Ich hab’ in Penna” and “Zur Warnung.” It would seem that the performers of the nineteenth century, as they progressed to¬ ward the weight and intensity of Wagnerian singing, were also required to retain the agility and finesse required for Rossini. Thus we find both “Um Mitternacht” and “Wer hat dies Liedlein erdacht?” among the works of Mahler, and “Ich wollf ein Strausslein binden” and “An die Nacht” within the same group of songs by Strauss (and these are not the most extreme of the Brentano lieder).

Choice of Tempo In the selection of an effective speed for a performance, clarity must remain of primary importance. “Der Musensohn” is a rapid song, but it should not be frantic and unclear. “Mein!” is likewise lively, but the eighth notes must be heard. Most great lied performers gravitate to speeds that are not extreme, making sure that the text is clear in rapid songs and that

322

Performing Lieder: The Mysterious Mix

phrases do not drag in slow ones. If pitches or words become either slurred or too clipped, it is likely that the tempo is too fast. In the world of lieder, there are no prizes for the fastest “Die Rose, die Lillie,” or the slow¬ est “Die Mainacht,” only for the most interesting and communicative per¬ formance. One generality that does seem to apply is: a slow song by later composers such as Brahms, Wolf, and Mahler tends to be taken more slowly than one by Mozart, Schubert, or Schumann, because of the heavier sound and texture typical of these composers.

Choice of Dynamics A basic rule almost always applies: the later the year of composition, the more extreme the dynamics can be. For example, Schubert’s “Liebesbotschaft” and Strauss’s “Standchen” share many characteristics—rapid, light figuration in the piano, a generally low dynamic level, and a wide vocal range. But Schubert nowhere allows himself the expansive forte cli¬ max that builds so naturally in Strauss’s composition.

Vocal Weight Because of the intimacy of most lied performances, extremes of soft singing are available that would not be feasible in opera. An accomplished interpreter will take advantage of this and will not be satisfied with mezzoforte where pianissimo is appropriate. This extended range of dynamics can point up the shortcomings of those singers who have been schooled for opera. More people can sing “Verborgenheit” at a steady mezzoforte than can produce a true, spinning pianissimo and a full, rich fortissimo while performing that particular lied, and singers in the first category probably should avoid material such as “Auch kleine Dinge.” A group of lieder in performance should be notable for great variety of weight, dynamic, and color. As the performers move from “An den Mond” to “Die Allmacht,” or from “Nachtigallen schlagen” to “Immer leiser,” or from “Anakreons Grab” to “Muhvoll komm’ ich,” each song will have its particular family of sounds.

Articulation Some songs call for a legato technique of a classical, “Italianate” na¬ ture, whereas others are more parlando. For example, “Das Wandern” and “Wohin?” sound best when performed bouncily and semi-detached, with the exception of certain phrases in “Wohin?” that Schubert marks with slurs. Elsewhere, Schubert indicates that the right hand (and presumably the voice) of “Gretchen am Spinnrade” is to be performed sempre ligato, while the left hand is staccato. “Ich hab’ in Penna” is an obviously parlando lied, whereas “Mir ward gesagt,” despite the repeated notes, works best ex-

Performing Lieder: The Mysterious Mix

323

tremely legato. A singer of lieder must develop the versatility necessary to be able to choose, employ, and switch articulations as called for.

Rubato The amount of rubato employed in lied performance is again a mat¬ ter of avoiding excess. Self-indulgence is one trap; rigidity is another. The best singers bend a tempo or a phrase not to hide a technical limitation but because of expressive musicality. There is no reason to believe that laws of historical progression dictate that Strauss is more congenial to ru¬ bato than Schubert; “Morgen” and “Allerseelen” work well when counted rather steadily, whereas “Ganymed” can stand a number of changes and displacements. Schumann is the lied composer most likely to write tempo changes into the music, with Mahler a distant second. There is no reason to keep the tempo steady if the text can be made more meaningful by bending it. “Das Wandern,” the opening song of Schubert’s Die schone Mullerin, seems quite motoric; the sixteenth notes of the piano part proceed in regular patterns without interruption. Almost all leading interpreters of this song, however, sing the fourth verse (describ¬ ing the millstones) slightly more slowly than the preceeding ones. This suggests that meaningful emphasis of the text can be important. Also, al¬ most every singer needs to take a fraction of a second of extra time to breathe before starting the last phrase (the fourfold das Wandern). This demonstrates that phrasing and breath can be more important than a steady tempo. This may shock musical purists, who would prefer a literal interpretation of the score. A lied is a musical presentation of text and thought that must both be made clear. A good interpreter will avoid ex¬ cess; younger lied singers probably need to be encouraged toward rhyth¬ mic freedom than toward greater severity.

Phrasing Without sensitivity to phrasing, any performance of lieder is disap¬ pointing. Both singer and accompanist must be aware at all times of the di¬ rection of the music, and must be shading both dynamics and speed to enhance that directional pull. If a song is well written, important words and syllables will fall on important notes within a phrase. The performers must group what goes before these small climaxes so that the phrase moves in that direction. Then they must emphasize these points, by mak¬ ing them louder, by changing color, by delaying the attack, or by extend¬ ing or thickening the initial consonant. It is simple but effective to make a particular stressed syllable stand out by making it louder; sometimes a softer dynamic could be used to make the same point. A richer, more in¬ tense sound can underline a passionate moment in the phrase, whereas less crucial words can receive less intensity. Especially effective is the use of

324

Performing Lieder: The Mysterious Mix

varying attack times to underline the relative importance of words. A singer in German has the freedom to delay the onset of the word in vari¬ ous ways: a word can gain importance by being late; a word starting with a vowel can be separated from the proceeding sound by a greater break in the sound (ewig or allein)', and unlike Italian, an initial consonant in Ger¬ man can be extended, as in suss or mude. Performers must also make decisions about how much to

let the

music breathe,” that is, how much freedom to allow between phrases. Composers sometimes write vocal lines with no rests; Schubert’s “Auf dem Wasser zu singen” is a good example. Here the pianist should bend the flow of sixteenth notes a bit so that the singer is not forced to gulp for air and jerk the phrase endings. Other songs have written-in rests, where the vocal and piano lines intertwine and exchange positions in a continuous flow.

Presentation After expanding his or her technique and grappling with dramatic and interpretive issues, a performer arrives at the act of performing. The program will have been well chosen to suit the singer and be worthy of the extended commitment—even devotion—she or he must give it. The two performers will have polished it until it becomes their personal possession. Thus readied, how is it best presented? In general, singer and pianist should bring to a lieder recital the same preparation and disposition with which musicians ideally approach any performance. Both should, for example, be satisfied that in rehearsal they have achieved a proper dynamic balance in the concert space. Some singers like working in front of a fully open piano because they can hear themselves better; others find it intimidating. But the piano should always be open a bit, either on short stick or with a block placed under the lid, for a completely closed lid muffles the piano’s sound. The singer must have the added readiness to place him- or herself on intimate terms with the audience. The singer becomes the persona of each song and must be willing and able to open up, become confessional, inti¬ mate, vulnerable; he or she must make eye contact—if the text calls for it—with members of the audience in order to communicate sincerely. The singer must remember that he or she is in toto an expressive instrument. Dress should be elegant, yet comfortable. Awkwardness or stiffness will be noticed and will detract from the effectiveness of the performance; they must be avoided. Hands and arms should be used expressively, but spar¬ ingly, otherwise resting comfortably at the singer’s side or with one occa¬ sionally propped on the piano. If a singer likes to move around, he or she should do so. Chaliapin marched while singing Schumann’s “Die beiden Grenadiere,” and Fischer-

Performing Lieder: The Mysterious Mix

325

Dieskau looks for birds in the trees during Wolfs “Fussreise”; Hermann Prey plays drunk during Wolf’s “Zur Warnung.” Janet Baker stood practi¬ cally frozen in place during Schubert’s “Gretchen am Spinnrade” until the climax, and then at “Ach, sein Kuss!” she raised her hand slightly and took one step forward; the effect of the modest movement was shattering. This kind of acting helps, especially when singing in German to a non-Germanspeaking audience. In addition, it is an essential courtesy to the audience to provide texts and translations in the program and to leave the house lights up enough for the audience to be able to read them. The lieder on the program must be ordered in a way that makes sense. A group of an entire program should have variety, including points of high intensity contrasting with more gentle moments. The performers should be comfortable in passing from one song to the next because the changes in mood and character must be instantaneous; no lied is long enough that one can get focused anywhere later than the beginning. The first song in a group or program must be congenial for the singer and inviting for the audience; a later song can be the most intimate. In choos¬ ing the last song one should remember that it may determine the audi¬ ence’s departing mood and judgment. There is, of course, a special case in which the order of a group of songs has already been decided by the composer: that is the song cycle. John Daverio, in his essay (chapter 9, p. 279), discusses how varied the na¬ ture of song cycles can be and how resistant the genre is to simple defini¬ tion. For the present purpose it will suffice to distinguish between those cycles that are narrative and those that are not, regardless of whether the poems were written by one or more poets, constitute a preexistent cycle themselves, or represent a selection made by the composer. Cycles with a story line require a preparation similar to that of an opera singer. The protagonist of a cycle almost always is given opportunity to grow, develop, and change during the course of the several songs, and the performers must follow the clues and directions given in this regard. The length of time the performers must hold the stage in character also dictates that identification with the protagonist’s character be deep and well thought-out. Decisions must be made, just as in the theatre, about the age, background, and beliefs of the protagonist. For example, the heroine of Frauenliebe und -leben must age during the course of the eight songs; she may not, however, become an empty-headed flirt. The pause between lieder becomes vitally important during a cycle. Between contrasting songs of a heterogeneous group, the interval is used to shift mood and assume a different personality. In the cycle, this space is where the protagonist re¬ acts to the preceding text and moves forward with his or her life. Two per¬ formers might decide to minimize a particular pause between songs, for example, by jumping directly from the end of “Der Jager” into the begin¬ ning of “Eifersucht und Stolz” during a performance of Die schone Mullerin. Just as there is usually one particular climax of a song, there is often a

326

Performing Lieder: The Mysterious Mix

turning point in a cycle. In Dichterliebe, something radical occurs before “Ich grolle nicht” to turn bliss into bile. Does this mean that the preceding song (“Im Rhein, im heiligen Strome”) still expresses the poet’s happy de¬ votion, or has the rejection already occurred, causing the poet to seek so¬ lace in the cathedral? Starting with “Ich grolle nicht,” the poet alternates between grief (lieder 8, 10, 12) and anger (lieder 7, 9, 11). Songs 13, 14, and 15 describe the poet’s dreams and hallucinations—providing a type of therapy that enables him to bury the past in song 16. The postlude of the final song quotes from “Am leuchtenden Sommermorgen” (No. 12), re¬ peating the phrase that originally followed the speech of the flowers: “Don’t be angry at our sister, you sad, pale man.” Similarly, singer and pi¬ anist must decide where in Winterreise and Die schone MiiUerin the protago¬ nist gives up hope; in both cases it may be possible for a single measure, chord, or word to provide the turning point toward the final tragedy. For those groups of songs that do not tell a story, the performers can imagine a narrative or psychological context as long as this plot does not betray the text of the poems. It is easy to present Schumann’s Op. 24 as a story of rejection similar to Dichterliebe; it requires considerably more imag¬ ination to make a viable story out of Schumann’s Eichendorff Liederkreis. Such looser collections can be presented as various experiences of a single character, or as merely extended groups of lieder. Whether acting out a story or portraying a series of lyrical moods, the projection of the text is obviously important. This brings up a critical ques¬ tion: If German is not the native language of the performer or the audi¬ ence, why sing lieder in the original language? It is hard enough for an American audience to understand the wordplay of a Stephen Sondheim, much less that of Heinrich Heine. Morike’s poetry is as beautiful as that of Keats, but it is not the native language of the American singer. So why not perform lieder in translation? The justification for singing in German is not solely the communica¬ tion of the text as words, but of the fusion of words and music that the composer has created. We should aspire to sing Strauss’s “Morgen” in Ger¬ man not because we wish to imitate the sound of Fischer-Dieskau singing it beautifully, but because we have discovered for ourselves how inseparable the sensual sounds of the words and their meanings are from the notes composed for them and how inadequate and less pleasing any English equivalent would be. We must come to the conclusion that the fusion of words and music are so necessary and integral that the two cannot be sepa¬ rated. Like the Countess in Strauss’s opera Capriccio, we find ourselves un¬ able to sacrifice either words or music. For a singer whose native tongue is not German, the proper perfor¬ mance of lieder is difficult; one is working in a strange and difficult lan¬ guage, in a musical style of a different era, presenting thoughts and attitudes which may seem distant or naive in late twentieth-century, post¬ modern Western culture. There is, however, no other body of the vocal lit-

Performing Lieder: The Mysterious Mix

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erature that so magically combines carefully wrought and deeply felt music and poetry to evoke the universals of human emotion and expression. In any of thousands of lieder one is likely to encounter a miracle.

Bibliography Adler, Kurt. The Art of Accompanying and Coaching. Minneapolis, 1976. Boyle, Nicholas. Goethe: The Poet and the Age. New York, 1991. Brod, Max. Heinrich Heine: The Artist in Revolt. Trans. Joseph Witriol. Westport, CT, 1976. Coffin, Berton. The Singer’s Repertoire. 2d ed. 5 vols. New York, 1960-62. Daverio, John J. Nineteenth-Century Music and the German Romantic Ideology. New York, 1993. Emmons, Shirlee, and Stanley Sonntag. The Art of the Song Recital. New York, 1979. Fischer-Dieskau, Dietrich. The Fischer-Dieskau Book of Lieder. New York, 1977. Flores, Angel, ed. An Anthology of German Poetry from Hoelderlin to Rilke. New York, 1960. Greene, Harry Plunkett. Interpretation in Song. London, 1912. Helfgot, Daniel. The Third Line. With William O. Beeman. New York, 1993. Kagan, Sergius. On Studying Singing. New York, 1960. Kramer, Lawrence. Music and Poetry; The Nineteenth Century and After. Berkeley, 1984. Lehmann, Lotte. More than Singing. New York, 1945. -. Eighteen Song Cycles. New York, 1972. Mare, Margaret L. Eduard Morike. Westport, CT, 1973. McGlatheny, James, ed. Music and German Literature. Columbia, SC, 1992. Miller, Philip. The Ring of Words. New York, 1973. Moore, Gerald. Singer and Accompanist. New York, 1954. -•. Poet’s Love, The Songs and Song Cycles of Schumann. New York, 1981. Moriarty, John. Diction. Boston, 1975. Prawer, Siegbert S., ed. The Penguin Book of Lieder. New York, 1964. Schiotz, Aksel. The Singer and his Art. New York, 1970. Schwartz, Egon. Joseph von Eichendorff New York, 1972. Siebs, Theodor. Deutsche Aussprache. Berlin, 1969. Spillman, Robert. The Art of Accompanying. New York, 1985. Stein, Deborah, and Robert Spillman. Poetry into Song. New York, 1994. Stevens, Denis. A History of Song. New York, 1961. Wilcke, Eva. German Diction in Singing. New York, 1930.

Index

Note: references for musical examples or poetic excerpts are designated with the letter e, tables with the letter t; references found in notes are des¬ ignated with an n.

Abendroth, Walter, 268 Agawu, A. Kofi, 242 Ahna, Pauline de, 251, 257, 264, 266, 269,270 Alexander, Mary, 163 Alexis, Willibald, 157 Allmers, Hermann, 24t Ameling, Elly, 320 Andersen, Hans Christian, 19, 24t, 81, 82, 95, 103 Arnim, Achim von, 24t Arnim, Achim von, and Clemens Brentano. See Des Knaben Wunderhorn Arnold, Friedrich Wilhelm, 149n Arnstein, Fanny, 161 Asow, E. H. Mueller von, 272n Bach, J. S., 314 Bailey, Robert, 247n Baker, Janet, 325 Barthes, Roland, 289 Bauer-Lechner, Natalie, 240, 248n Bauernfeld, Eduard, 47, 287 Baumberg, Gabriele von, 39, 47 Beethoven, Ludwig van, 31, 51, 57, 167, 238, 280, 282, 284, 285, 286, 292, 296, 297, 299, 305n, 307n An die feme Geliebte, 167, 280, 282, 284, 285, 286, 292, 292e, 296, 305n,306n String Quartet in C Sharp Minor, Op. 131, 307n Bell, Craig, 137 Beller-McKenna, Daniel, 150n

Bellini, Vincenzo, 168, 314 Benjamin, Jessica, 190 Beranger, Pierre, 19, 80 Berger, Ludwig, 161, 166, 284 Die schone Mullerin, 284 Berlin Lieder School(s), xii, 154, 160, 164, 165, 166, 184 Berlioz, Hector, 42, 177, 227 Bethge, Hans, 252 Bible, 19, 52, 110, 146, 179 Bierbaum, Julius, 252 Bierbaum, OttoJ., 24t, 253 Bingham, Ruth, 305 Bird, George, and Richard Stoke Fischer-Dieskau Book of Lieder, 16, 23 Bispham, David, 274n Bloom, Harold, 177 Bodenstedt, Friedrich (pseud. Mirza Schaffy), 170, 174 Bodmann, Emanuel von, 252, 253 Bohm, Karl, 257 Bornhardt, Johann 12 monate, 305n Boyle, Nicholas, 6 Brahms, Johannes, x, xi, xii, 14, 15, 18, 19, 54, 68, 69. 81, H3n, 119-52, 153, 154, 171, 174, 177, 192, 252, 268, 294-98, 302, 316, 320, 321 art songs, 132-46 listed with reference to published analyses, 124-25t folk and folk-like songs, 123-28, 123t form, 122 hybrid songs, 128-32 melody, 121-22

329

Index

330

Brahms, Johannes (cont.) piano accompaniment, 122 poets, 120 songs “Abenddammerung,” 139 “Abschied,” 128 “Ach, wende diesen Blicke,” 139 “Ade!,” 131 “Agnes,” 26n, 128 “Alte Liebe,” 140 “Am Sonntag Morgen,” 130-31 “An eine Aeolsharfe,” 26n “Anklange,” 294, 308n “Auf dem Kirchhof,” 148 “Auf dem See,” 140 “Blinde Kuh,” 135 “Botschaft,” 132, 321 “Da unten im Tale,” 125 “Das Lied vom Herrn von Falkenstein,” 128 “Das Madchen,” 131 “Das Madchen spricht,” 131, 132e, 133-34, 134e “Dein blauesAuge,” 140 “Der Gang sum Liebchen,” 130 “Der Schmied,” 320 “Der Tod, das ist die kiihle Nacht,”

144 “Der Uberlaufer,” 128 “Des Liebsten Schwur,” 128 Deutsche Volkslieder, 125, 128, 144, 148 “Die Mainacht,” 18, 146, 321, 322 “Die Schnur, die Perl an Perle,” 139 “Die Schwestern,” 26n “Die Sprode,” 135 “Die Trauernde,” 126, 126-27e “Dort in den Weiden,” 125 “Eine gute, gute Nacht,” 140 “Entfuhrung,” 131 “Es traumte mir,” 139 “Feldeinsamkeit,” 149n “Gang zur Liebsten,” 125 “Gold uberwiegt die Liebe,” 131 “Gunhilde,” 125-26, 128 “Herbstgefuhl,” 139 “Ich schell mein Horn ins Jammerthal,” 128 “Im Garten am Seegestade,” 140 “Immer leiser wird mein Schlummer,” 144, 146, 147-48e, 322 “In der Feme,” 294

“In meiner Nachte Sehnen,” 139 “In stiller Nacht,” 149n “Klage,” 128 “Komm bald,” 119 “Lerchengesang,” 140, 143—44e “Liebe kam aus fernen Landen,” 297 “Liebe und Fruhling,” 294 “Liebesklage des Madchens,” 130 Liebeslieder-Walzer, 120, 149n “Liebestreu,” 128 “Lied,” 129, 129e, 130e, 308n Lieder und Gesange, Op. 32, 135, 294- 95 Lieder und Gesdrtge, Op. 59, 294 “Madchenlied,” 131 Magelone-Lieder, 120, 122, 139, 294, 295- 98, 308n “Meine Lieb’ ist grun,” 132 “Minnelied,” 121 “Mit vierzig Jahren,” 143, 145e, 148 “Mondenschein,” 294 “Muss es eine Trennung geben,” 297 “Nachklang,” 140 “Nachtigallen schlagen,” 322 Neue Liebeslieder-Walzer, 120, 149n “Nicht mehr zu dir zu gehen,” 135, 136e, 146 “O kuhler Wald,” 131 “O lieblicher Wangen,” 132 Ophelia songs, 119, 309n “Parole,” 294, 308n “Regenlied,” 140, 294 Romanzen aus Tieck’s Magelone. See Magelone-Lieder “Ruhe, Siissliebchen,” 297 “Salamander,” 135 “Sapphische Ode,” 316, 321 “Scheiden und Meiden,” 294 “Schon war, was ich dir weihte,” 144 “Schwermut,” 140, 148 “Sehnsucht,” 135 “Sind es Schmerzen,” 297 “Sommerabend,” 294 “Sonntag,” 128 “Spannung,” 125 “Standchen,” 132 “Strahlt zuweilen auch ein mildes Licht,” 139 “Trennung,” 125 “Treue Liebe dauert lange,” 297 “Uber die Heide,” 143

Index “Unbewegte laue Luft,” 139, 141-42e “Vergangen ist mir Gluck und Heil,” 128 “Verrat,” 135 “Verzweiflung,” 297 Vier ernste Gesange, 69, 119, 144, 146-48, 321 Volkskinderlieder, 123 “Von ewiger Liebe,” 132, 133 “Von waldbekranzter Hohe,” 139 “Vor dem Fenster,” 125 “Vor schneller Schwur,” 131 “Was bedeutet die Bewegung,” 149n “Wenn du nur zuweilen lachelst,” 139 “Wie bist du, meine Konigin,” 135, 137-39, 137-38e, 295 “Wie rafft ich mich auf in der Nacht,” 295 “Wie schnell verschwindet,” 197 “Wiegenlied,” 119, 127 “Willst du, dass ich geh?,” 135 “Willst du des Armen,” 297 “Wir miissen uns trennen,” 297 “Wir wandelten,” 144 Zigeunerlieder, 149n song cycles, 294-98. See also individual tides types of songs explained, 122-23 works other than songs Cello Sonata in E minor, Op. 38, 307n Ein deutsches Requiem, 139, 146 Piano Sonata in A major, Op. 26, 307n Symphony No. 1, 268 Violin Sonata in G major, Op. 78, 140 Braus, Ira, 149n Brentano, Clemens, 5, 23t, 120, 230, 285,321 “Der Spinnerin Nachtlied,” 12e, 13. See also Des Knaben Wunderhom Breuer, Josef, 193 Britten, Benjamin, 22 Brody, Elaine, and Robert Fowkes, The German Lied and Its Poetry, 18, 27n Brown, Marshall, 229 Browning, Robert, 188 Bruch, Max

331

Bruchmann, Franz Seraph Ritter von, 50, 69n Bucknill, John Charles, 188 Buddeus, Julius, 110 Billow, Hans von, 166, 177 Buonarroti. Sec Michelangelo Burger, Gottfried August, 19, 23t, 178, 179,180, 181 Burns, Robert, 19, 80, 81, 97, 100, 171, 273n Busse, Carl, 253 Byron, Lord George Gordon, 19, 24t, 81, 84, 163, 273n, 289 Caccini, Giulio, 314 Calderon de la Barca, Pedro, 252, 273n Candidus, Karl, 24t, 120, 140 Carner, Mosco, 186, 197, 202 Chaliapin, 325 Chamisso, Adelbert von, 19, 24t, 79, 80, 81,82, 83t, 95, 100, 157, 160, 273n,292 Frauenliebe und -Leben, 19, 24, 292 Chopin, Frederick, 186 Chrysander, Friedrich, 175 Claudius, Matthias, 23t, 32, 48 Collin, Matthaus von, 40, 50, 64 Cone, Edward T., xi, 215n, 220 Conrady, Karl Otto, 22 Cornelius, Peter, xiii, 24t, 155,168, 176-82 songs An Bertha, 178, 180 “Auftrag,” 182 Brautlieder, 180 “Dein Wille geschehe,” 180 “Der Entfernten,” 181 “Der gliickes Fulle,” 294 “Die Fauberbriider,” 178 “Die Hirten,” 181 “Drei Kon’ge wandern aus Morgenland,” 294 “Ein Ton,” 180 Rheinischer Lieder, 293 “Sonnenuntergang,” 178-79 Trauer und Trost, 180, 293, 194 Vaterunser, 179-80, 293 “Vergib uns unsere Schuld,” 179 Weihnachtslieder, 178, 180, 181, 293 song cycles, 293-94. See also individual titles works other than songs Der Barbier von Bagdad, 177 DerCid, 177, 182 Gunlod, 177

332

Index

Craigher, Jacob Nicolaus, 66 Curschmann, Friedrich, 154, 166 “Fruhlingsnacht,” 154

Dahlhaus, Carl, x Dahn, Felix, 24t, 252, 253, 257, 302 Daumer, Georg Friedrich, 18, 24t, 120, 135, 137, 139, 140, 144, 149m, 294 “Wie bist du, meine Konigin,” 18 Daverio, John, xiii, xvii, 325 DeGaetani, Jan, 115n Dehmel, Richard, 19, 23T, 253, 264, 265,284 “Am Ufer,” 19, 20-1 e “Befreit,” 19, 20 “Der Arbeitsman,” 19-20e Dehn, Siegried, 172, 178 Del Mar Norman, 20 De los Angeles, Victoria, 313 Des Knaben Wunderhom, 2, 5, 79, 81, 103, 115n, 178, 227, 229, 230, 231, 265 Deutsche Volkslieder mit ihren OriginalWeisen (Kretschmer and Zucccalmaglio), 123 Diabelli, Anton, 48 Dlauhy, Wilhelm, 215n Domling, Wolfgang, 167 Donizetti, Gaetano, 168 Draseke, Felix, 177 Dresel, Otto, 172 Droste-Hulshoff, Annette von, 23t, 179, 180 Droysen, Johann Gustav, 162 Dunsby, Jonathan, 281 Durr, Walther, xiii, 280, 286, 295

Eberl, Anton, 31 “Der Fischer,” 31-32, 33e Echtermeyer, Theodor, Deutsche Gedichte, 27n Ehrlich, Bernhard Ambros, 8 “Als ich sie erroten sah,” 8e, 9 Eichendorff, Joseph Freiherr von, xi, 12, 13, 15, 17, 18, 19, 23t, 24, 79, 80, 83t, 93, 100, 114n, 120, 154, 157, 162, 163, 164, 165, 171, 175, 178, 206, 208, 238, 273n, 282, 286, 294, 299, 304, 308n “Mondnacht,” 13e “Zwielicht,” 93-95 Eliott, T. S., 25n

Faas, Ekbert, 188 Faber, Bertha, 119 Faure, Gabriel, 109 Fellinger, Imogen, 149n Fiedler, H. G., 24 Finck, Henry T., 251 Finscher, Ludwig, 129, 308n Fischer-Dieskau, Dietrich, 8, 9, 11, 12, 15, 22, 23, 108, 169, 272, 317, 320,325,326 Fontane, Theodor, 23t Foucault, Michel, 195-96, 197 Fowkes, Robert. See Brody, Elaine Frank, Betty, 224 Franz, Robert, x, xlll, 154, 167, 171, 171-76, 252 “Abends,” 175 “Bitte,” 175 “Er ist gekommen,” 174 “Es klingt in der Luft,” 175 “Gewitternacht,” 174 “Im Herbst,” 174 “Im Rhein, im heiligen Strome,” 174 Morike songs, 175 Schiljlieder, 172, 176 “Sonnenuntergang,” 174 “Sonntag,” 175 “Voglein, wohin so schnell,” 176 “Wenn der Fruhling auf die Berge steigt,” 174 “Wenn druben die Glocken klingen,” 175 “Willkommen, mein Wald,” 174 Frege, Livia, 172 Freiligrath, Ferdinand, 23t, 157, 167 Freud, Sigmund, 189-90, 193, 196 Fricke, Harald, 17, 27n Friedlander, Max, 4, 135, 149n, 295 Friedrich, Caspar David, 47, 79, 93 Friedrich Wilhelm IV, King of Prussia, 156 Frohlich, Katharina, 62

Gade, Niels, 172 Geibel, Emanuel, 18, 24t, 76, 79, 80, 82, 98, 100, 103, 109, 171, 176, 201, 273n,275n Geiringer, Karl, 113n Gellert, Christian Furchtegott, 5, 23t, 283 George, Stefan, 23t Gerber, Rudolf, 122, 144 Gerhardt, Elena, 251, 257

Index

Geyer, Hans-Herwig, 27n Gieselking, Walter, 257 Giesemann, Lieschen, 295 Gilm, Hermann von, 24t, 252, 253, 254 Glauert, Amanda, 27n Gluck, Christoph Willibald von, xii, 39 Alceste, 32 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, xi, 1-25 passim, 23t, 36, 39, 40, 45, 47, 48, 49, 52, 57, 68, 69n, 79, 80, 81, 83, 100, 103, 105, 109, 120, 140, 154, 155, 157, 158, 160, 163, 164, 165, 168, 169, 170, 171, 174, 176, 178, 188, 191, 193, 197, 198, 200, 201, 227, 230, 238, 251, 252, 253, 268, 273n, 275n,281,282, 283, 284, 285, 286, 296, 299, 303 contribution of, 2-4 poems “An Lina,” 3, 3e “Der du von dem Himmel bist,”

10 “Erlkonig,” 32, 35 “Ganymed,” 12, 17 “Grenzen der Menschheit,” 12 “Gretchen am Spinnrade,” 6, 6e, 13, 216n-e “Heidenroslein,” 2 “Maifest,” 5-6, 6e “Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt,” 9, 9e, 10, 12 “Prometheus,” 12 “Uber alien Gipfeln ist Ruh,” 10, lOe, lie, 13, 21, 22 “Wanderers Nachtlied.” 5ee“Uber alien Gipfeln ist Ruh” and “Der du von dem Himmel bist” West-dstlicher Divan, 18 Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre, 3, 52, 79 Schubert and, 6-12 Goldberg, Clemens, 135 Goldschmidt, Harry, 281 Gottsched, Johann Christoph, 5 Gounod, Charles, 162 Gramit, David, 48 Grillparzer, Franz, 62 Grimm brothers, Jacob and Wilhelm, 2 Grob, Therese, 57 Groth, Klaus, 23t, 120, 140, 294 Griin, Anastasius, 98, 157 Gruppe, Otto Friedrich, 254 Guislain, Joseph, 188 Gura, Eugen, 172, 265

333

Hafiz (14th c. Persian poet), 18 Hallmark, Rufus, xii, xvii Halm, Friedrich, 120 Hamburger, Michael, 21 Hamann, Johann Georg, 5 Hammer-Purgstall, Joseph, 18 Hancock, Virginia, xii, xvii Handel, George Frideric, 175, 315 Hanslick, Eduard, 146, 227, 247n, 280 Hardenburg, Friedrich von. SeeNovalis Hart, Heinrich, 24t, 257, 258 Hartmann, Fritz and Franz, diaries of, 283 Hausegger, Friedrich, 273n Hebbel, Friedrich, 23t, 103, 178, 180 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 166, 188, 287 Heine, Heinrich, xi, 5, 12, 14, 17, 18, 23t, 26n, 47, 51, 53, 66, 79, 80, 81, 83t, 87-90, 92, 93, 100, 120, 144, 154, 157, 160, 162, 163, 164, 167, 168, 169, 171, 173, 176, 178, 219, 238, 245n,273n,280,281, 282, 284,289, 290, 319, 325 Buck derLieder, 14 “Die beiden Grenadiere,” 17 “Du bist wie eine Blume,” 87-90 “Im wunderschonen Monat Mai,” 14, 14e “Leise zieht durch mein Gemut,” 15, 15e “Tragodie,” 245n-e Hellborn, Kreissle von, 45, 47 Henckell, Karl, 24t, 253, 257, 265 Henschel, George, 149n Hensel, Fanny Mendelssohn, x, xiii, 154,161-66 “Ach die Augen sind es wieder,” 164 “Bergeslust,” 163, 164 “Bitte,” 163 “Dein ist mein Herz,” 164 “Die friihen Graber,” 164 “Die Mainacht,” 164 “Im Herbste,” 163 “Morgenstandchen,” 164 “Nachtwanderer,” 165 “Schwanenlied,” 163, 165 “Verlust” (Und wiissten’s die Blumen), 164 “Vorwurf,” 163 “Warum sind denn die Rosen so blass,” 164 Hensel, Wilhelm, 161, 162 Luise and, 284

334

Index

Herder, Johnann Gottfried, 2, 3, 5, 11, 24t, 157, 158, 228, 283 “Edward” (Scottish folk ballad translated), 17 Stimmen der Volker in Liedem, 2 Volkslieder, 2 Herwegh, Georg, 169, 170 Herzogenberg, Elizabeth von, 131, 135, 139, 146 Hesse, Hermann, 23t, 253, 304 Heuberger, Richard, 121 Heyse, Paul von, 24t, 135, 178, 201, 202 Himmel, F. H„ 283, 284 Alexis und Ida: Ein Schaferrornan, 284 Die Blumen und die Schmetterling, 306n DieFarben, 305n Hindenlang, Karen, 307n Hoffmann, E. T. A., 77, 169, 283 Hoffmann von Fallersleben, August Heinrich, 24t, 80, 100, 103, 157, 273n,275n,294 Hofmannstahl, Hugo von, 23t Holderlin, Friedrich, 21, 23t, 178, 179, 275n,286, 292 “Halfte des Lebens” (Mit gelben Birnen hanget), 21-22, 21e Holty, Ludwig, 18, 23t, 48, 120, 163, 178, 179, 182, 286 “Die Mainacht,” 18 Holz, Arno, 23t Homer, 48 Hook, James The House of Love, 283 The Seasons, 283 Hotter, Hans, 268, 273n, 275n Hugo, Victor, 168 Humboldt, Alexander, 162 Hurka, Friedrich DieFarben, 305n Huttenbrenner, Anselm, 47

Jachmann, Johann, 172 Jackson, Timothy, 262, 304 Jacobi, Johann Georg, 24t, 48 Janssen, N. A. Lehrbuch des gregorianisches Kirchengesang, 179 Jean Paul. See Richter, Jean Paul Jefferson, Alan, 262 Jeitteles, Aloys, 24t, 285 Jenner, Gustav, 121, 122 Jensen, Adolf, 154 “Fruhlingsnacht,” 154

Jeritza, Maria, 251 Joachim, Amalie, 119, 172 Joachim, Joseph, 172 Johnson, Graham, 51, 57 Jost, Peter, 308n Junges Deutschland, 157

Kalbeck, Max, 121, 135, 149n, 241, 295, 308n Kalish, Gilbert, 115n Kant, Immanuel, 188, 228 Kapper, Siegfried, 131 Keats, John, 326 Keller, Gottfried, 18,23t Kerman, Joseph, 286, 306n Kerner, Justinius, 23t, 75-76, 79-80, 83, 90-92, 100, 289 “Frage,” ix-e “Stille Thranen,” 90-92 Kerr, Alfred, 260, 266-67, 302 Klenke, Louise von, 68 Klein, Bernhard, 166 Klopstock, Friedrich Gottlob, 5, 6, 23t, 39, 48, 163, 164,286 “Die friihen Graber,” 5, 5e Knobel, Betty, 252, 253 Koch, Heinrich Christoph, Musikalisches Lexicon, 280 Kochert, Heinrich, and family, 193-94 Komar, Arthur, 281 Kopisch, August, 24t, 135 Korner, Theodor, 53, 57, 273n Kosegarten, Gotthard Ludwig, 47, 286 Kostlin, Karl, 283 Kramer, Lawrence, xii, xvii, 7, 286 Kramer, Richard, 281 Krauss, Clemens, 270 Kravitt, Edward, 240 Kretschmer. See Deutsche Volkslieder Kreutzer, Conradin, 252, 280, 284 Fruhlingslieder, 280 Wanderlieder, 284 Kristeva, Julia, 205-6 Kugler, Franz, 24t, 157, 159 Kuh, Emil, 24t Kulmann, Elisabeth, 80, 100, 104

Lang, Josephine, 154 Lappe, Carl G., 24t, 66 Lauri-Volpi, Giacomo, 313 L’Egru, Christian, 24t Lehmann, Lotte, 251, 317 Leitner, K. G. R. von, 24tn 51

Index Lemcke, Karl von, 24t, 120, 135, 140 Lenau, Nikolaus, 23t, 80, 100, 163,

335

Lenya, Lotte, 314

“Der Wirtin Tochterlein,” 157 “Die Gruft der Liebenden,” 159 “Die Waffenweihe Kaiser Heinrichs IV,” 159 “Edward,” 157, 158, 160

Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim, 24t Levetzow, Ulrike von Goethe and, 285 Lewis, Christopher, v, xiii, xvii Lilencron, Detlevvon, 19, 23t, 253 Lingg, Hermann von, 24t, 146

“Erlkonig,” 155, 157, 158 “Gregor auf dem Stein,” 159-60 “Herr Oluf,” 158 “Karl V,” 159 “Mohrenfurst auf der Messe,” 157, 159

168, 171, 172, 174, 175, 176, 273n

Liszt, Franz, xiii, 18, 19, 40, 154, 162, 166-71, 173, 174, 177, 178, 192, 293, 315 “Angiolin dal biondo crin,” 168, 170 “Das Veilchen,” 170 “Der Alpenjager,” 169 “Der du von dem Himmel hist,” 169, 170-71 “Der Fischerknabe,” 169 “Der Konig von Thule,” 169 “Des Tages laute Stimmenschweigen,” 170 “Die drei Zigeuner,” 168 “Die Vatergruft,” 168 “Du hist wie eine Blume,” 169 “Einst,” 170 “Es muss ein Wunderbares sein,” 168 “Es rauschen die Winde,” 169 “Gebet,” 170 “Ich mochte hingehen,” 169 “Im Rhein, im schonen Strome,” 168 “Klinge leise, mein Lied,” 168, 170 “Lasst mich ruhen,” 169 “Liebestraume,” 167 “Liebestraum” No. 3 (O lieb, so lang du lieben kannst), 167, 168 “Loreley,” 168, 169, 171 “Mignon’s Lied” (Kennst du das Land), 168, 169, 170 “Oh! quandje dors,” 168 Tre Sonetti di Petraca, 167, 168 “Wanderers Nachtlied,” 169 “Wer nie sein Brot mit Tranen ass,” 170 “Wieder mocht ich dir begegnen,” 168, 170 Lochhamer Liederbuch, 175 Loewe, Carl, xiii, 17, 154, 155-60, 252, 286, 292 ballads, 157-60 “Archibald Douglas,” 159 “Der Heinzelmannchen,” 159 “Der letzte Ritter,” 159

“Odens Meersritt,” 158 lieder, 160 “Die Uhr,” 160 “Die Lotosblume,” 160 “Ganymed,” 160 “Meine Ruh ist hin,” 160 “Tom der Reimer,” 160 song cycles, 289. See also individual titles above Esther, 289, 292 Frauenliebe und -Leben, 160, 292 Liederkreis, 160 Lohr, Friedrich, 220 Ludwig, Christa, 317, 319 Mackay, John Henry, 19, 24t, 253, 257, 258 Magnus, Helene, 172 McCorkle, Margit, 149 MacDonald, Malcolm, 120 MacPherson, James, 48 Mahler, Alma, 223, 238, 240 Mahler, Gustav, x, xi, xii, 24t, 81, 153, 197, 218-50, 301-2, 320, 321, 322,323 romantic artist, dilemma of, 228-30 song composition complete list of, 221—22t early songs, 219-20 premiere performances during Mahler’s lifetime, 225-26t publication and reception, 220-28 Ruckert and Mahler, 238-45 song cycles, 301-2. See also individual titles Wunderhorn and Gesellen Lieder, 230-38 songs “Ablosung im Sommer,” 238 “Blicke mir nicht in die Lieder,” 223 “Das himmlische Leben,” 223, 237, 238,239

336

Index

Mahler, Gustav (cont.) “Der Tambourg’sell,” 223 “Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt,” 235, 239, 320 Des Knaben Wunderhom songs, 220, 223,224,227, 230-38, 239, 240, 241 “Die zwei blaue Augen,” 234, 234e, 236-37e, 302 “Es sungen drei Engel,” 223, 238 “Fruhlingsmorgen,” 224 “Ging heut’ Morgens ubers Feld,” 224,233e, 236e, 301 “Hans und Grete,” 224, 231, 301-2 “Ich atmet’ einen linden Duft,” 223,239, 239e “Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen,” 223, 238-39 “Ich ging mit Lust,” 231, 235e “Ich hab’ ein gliihend Messer,” 236e “Im Lenz,” 220 “Im wunderschonen Monat Mai,” 219 “In diesem Wetter,” 223 Kindertotenlieder, 218, 223, 227, 228, 229, 301, 302,321 “Liebst du um Schonheit,” 223, 248n Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen or Gesellen-Lieder, 220, 223, 223, 227, 229,230-38, 239, 246n, 301 Lieder und Gesange, 220, 223, 224 Lieder und Gesange aus der Jugendzeit, 246n “Lob des hohen Verstandes,” 237, 238 “Maitanz im Grunen,” 220 “Nun seh’ ich wohl,” 223, 241-44, 241e, 242e, 244e-t, 248n analytic sketch, 243e levels of poetic meaning, 244t Tristan parody, 242e “Nun will die Sonn’ so hell aufgehen,” 223, 301

“Urlicht,” 223, 238 “Wenn dein Mutterlein,” 223 “Wenn mein Schatz Hochzeit macht,” 231-32, 232e, 236e structure of text, 230t “Wer hat dies Liedlein,” 227, 321 “Winterlied,” 220 works other than songs Das klagende Lied, 218 Das Lied von der Erde, 218 “Das Trinklied vom Jammer der Erden,” 301 Symphony No. 1, 218, 224, 233, 234, 301 Symphony No. 2, 218, 223, 235, 238 Symphony No. 3, 218, 223, 235, 240 Symphony No. 4, 218, 223, 235, 237, 240 Symphony No. 5, 238, 240 Symphony No. 7, 218 Symphony No. 9, 231 Mahlert, Ulrich, 100, 103 Manet, Edouard, 205 Mann, Thomas, 159 Marschalk, Max, 231, 246n Marschner, Heinrich, 279, 288 Seeks Wanderlieder von Wilhelm Marsano, 279, 288 Marvin, Elizabeth West, 260 Marx, Adolf Bernhard, 158 Matthison, Friedrich, 24t, 39, 47 Mawner, Richard, 172 Mayrhofer, Johann, 24t, 26n-e, 36, 40, 47, 48, 49, 66, 70n, 78, 286, 288 Mendel, Hermann, Musikalisches Conversations-Lexicon, 280 Mendelssohn, Abraham, 161 Mendelssohn, Fanny. SeeHensel, Fanny Mendelssohn Mendelssohn, Felix, 15, 19, 86, 154, 160, 162, 163, 164, 165, 167, 172, 178, 276n, 294, 307n “Auf Fliigeln des Gesanges,” 86 “Die liebende schreibt,” 154 Zwo If Lieder, Op. 9, 307n

“Oft denk’ ich, sie sind nur ausgegangen,” 223 “Revelge,” 223

Mendelssohn, Henriette, 161

Riickert-Lieder, 223 Sieben Lieder aus letzter Zeit, 223 “Tragodie,” 219-20, 245-46n-e “Um Mitternacht,” 223, 321

Mengelberg, Willem, 218

Mendelssohn, Lea (Salomon), 161 Mendelssohn, Rebecca, 163 Meyer, Conrad Ferdinand, 23t Meyerbeer, Giacomo, 154 “Sie und ich,” 154

Index Michelangelo Buonarroti, 24t, 252 Milde, Rosa von, 181 Milder, Anna, 40

Osterwald, Wilhelm, 171, 174 Overbeck, Chr. A., 24t

Mirza-Schaffy. See Bodenstedt Mitchell, Donald, 220, 223, 224 Momberg, Alfred, 24t Moore, Thomas, 19, 24t, 81 Morgenstern, Christian, 23t Morike, Eduard, 15-17, 18, 23t, 26n, 100, 102, 103, 108, 120, 128, 140, 154, 157, 176, 182, 188, 192,

Peake, Luise Eitel, 280, 283, 306n Percy, Bishop Thomas, Reliques of

194, 197, 199, 200, 208, 299, 319, 325 “Gebet,” 16, 16e “Im Fruhling,” 17, 17e “Verborgenheit,” 16, 16e Mosen Julius, 24t, 116n Mottl, Felix, 255 Mozart, 47, 321, 322 “Abendempfindung,” 321 “Das Veilchen,” 321 “Die Alte,” 321 Die Zauberflbte, 39 Don Giovanni, 32 “Vedrai carino,” 53 “Romm lieber Mai,” 321 Muldenberg, Anna von, 234 Muller, Wilhelm, 24, 24t, 47, 51, 157, 163, 282, 284, 286 Die schone Mullerin, 24, 283, 286 Winterreise, 24, 283, 286 Muller, Wolfgang, 174 Musgrave, Michael, 149n Nageli, Hans Georg, Liederkranz fur das Jahr1816, 283 Naturalism, in German poetry, 19-22 Neefe, C. G., 283, 284 Bilder und Trdume, 284 Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik, 7, 78, 86, 166, 171, 173 Neukomm, Sigismund, Aennchen und Robert, 284 Neun, Wielfried von der (Schopff, Wilhelm), 80 Newman, Ernest, 186, 204, 251 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 20, 23t, 188 Nordmann, 168 Novalis (Friedrich von Hardenberg), 10-11, 23t, 59, 283 Hymnen an die Nacht, 10

Ancient English Poetry, 2 Performance of lieder, 313-27 communication with audience, 314-15 fidelity to composer’s wishes, 315-16 presentation, 324-27 style, 320-24 articulation, 322-23 composer’s characteristics, 320-1 dynamics and vocal weight, 322 phrasing, 323-24 tempo and rubato, 321-23 technique, 318-20 diction, 318-19 line, 319 pianist, 320 understanding, 316-17 appropriateness of material to singer, 316-18 concept of text, 317 point of view, 317-18 Petersen, Barbara A., xiii, xvii Petrarch, 18-19 Pfarrius, Gustav, 104 Pfitzner, Hans, 18-19, 252 Pichler, Caroline, 50 Pilsach, Arnold Freiherr Senfft von, 172 Piltti, Lea, 251 Platen, August von, 18, 23t, 42, 100, 104-5, 120, 135, 149n, 179, 294 Plantinga, Leon, 27n, 295-96 Plato, 188 Poets (major German lyric poets and additional lied poets), 22-25 additional lied poets, 23t major German lyric poets (1750-1900), 22-23t Poisl, Josephine, 220 Pope, Alexander, 19, 24t Prey, Hermann, 325 Preyss family, 193 Pschorr, Johann, 251, 275n Puttmann, Max, 247 Pyrker, Johann L., 24t Raabe, Peter, 167, 268

Ophuls, Gustav, 149n Orientalism in German poetry, 18

337

Raff, 177 Rath, Felix vom, 257

338

Index

Realism, in German poetry, 15 Redwitz, Oskar von, 24t, 168 Reed, John, 57 Reger, Max, 252, 273n Reichardt, Johannes Friedrich, xii, 3, 31, 32, 155, 157, 164,283 “Erlkonig,” 32, 35e “Lieb und Treue,” 283

Scher, Steven Paul, 6 Scherzer, Otto, 154 “Ein Stundlein wohl vor Tag,” 154 Schiller, Friedrich, xi, 1, 23t, 40, 47, 48, 49, 52, 59, 65, 70n, 79, 81, 103, 169,171, 286 “Das Lied von der Glocke,” 1 “Die Gotter Griechnlands,” 40, 42

Reichardt, Louise, 154 Reil, Ferdinand, 24t, 42 Reinick, Robert, 24t, 79, 80, 83t, 97, 128

Schilling, Gustav, Encyclopedie der gesarnmten musikalischen Wissenschaften, 280

Reining, Maria, 251 Reissig, C. L., 24t Rellstab, Ludwig, 24t, 26n, 51, 169

Schillings, Max von, 252 Schindler, Anton, 51 Schlaf, Johannes, 24t Schlechta, Franz Xavier von, 24t, 32,

“In der Feme,” 26n-e Rethberg, Elisabeth, 251 Richter, Jean Paul, 75, 77, 283 Richter, Joanna, 220 Rieter-Biedermann, 294 Ries, Ferdinand, Seeks Lieder von Goethe, 284 Riethmuller, Albrecht, 168 Rilke, Rainer Maria, 18, 23t, 284 Rolf, Marie, 260 Romanticism, xi, xiii, 2, 4, 11, 79 aftermath of, 15-19 rationalism and, 4-6 romantic artist and dilemma of, 228-30 romantic poetry and romantic lieder, 12-15 Roquette, Otto, 174 Rose, Alfred, 218 Rossini, Giacomo, 50, 321 Ruckert, Friedrich, xi, 17, 18, 23t, 66, 79, 80, 83t, 93, 100, 103, 109, 114n, 143, 149n, 154, 157, 174, 223,265, 273n, 275n,286, 289 Kindertotenlieder, 24 Mahler and, 238-45 Runge, Philipp Otto, 47 Runze, Max, 157 Saar, Ferdinand, 170 Salis-Seewis, Johann G. von, 24t, 48 Sallet, Friedrich von, 254 Sams, Eric, 26n, 27n, 95-97, 108, 115n, 122, 128, 149n, 186, 295, 299, 307n Schack, Adolf F. von, 24t, 69, 139, 252, 253, 254, 257 Scheffel, Joseph Viktor von, 24t Schenkendorf, M. von, 24t Schenker, Hainrich, 52, 149m

45, 50, 66 Schlegel, August Wilhelm, 18, 309n Schlegel, Friedrich, 2, 3, 18, 23t, 39, 42, 59, 68, 161, 228, 282, 291 Schlotke, Otto, 296 Schlotterer, Reinhold, 252 Schmidt, Hans, 24t Schmidt von Liibeck, Georg Philipp, 24t Schneider, Friedrich, 172 Schober, Franz, 24t, 50, 286 Schoenberg, Arnold, 182, 238 Schopenhauer, Arthur, 149n, 188 Schreiber, Aloys, 24t Schroter, Corona, 157 Schubart, Christian Friedrich, 23t Schubert, Franz, x, xii, 6-12, 14, 18, 19, 22, 31-74, 81, 87, 90, 131, 139, 140, 153, 154, 155, 156, 158, 160, 164, 165, 167, 172, 173, 176, 182, 186, 187, 194, 195, 196, 207, 229, 232, 239, 244, 279, 280, 281, 286-88, 296, 297, 299, 300, 301, 316, 317, 318, 320, 321, 322, 325 Goethe and, 6-12 poetry and, 45-52 song composition, periods of, 57-69 between Die schone Miillerin and Winterreise, 66-69 “miracle year” of 1815, 57-59 1817-1822, 59-64 1822, 64-66 song cycles, 286-88. See also individual titles songs, revisings of, 52-56 songs, style traits of melody, 42 onomatopoeia, 36-39 operatic elements, 39

Index

339

piano, difficulty of, 36 poetico-musical correlation, 45

“Der Jungling und der Tod,” 32 “Der Leiermann,” 288

tonal language and harmony,

“Der “Der “Der “Der “Der “Der

39-42 songs, unfinished, 182 songs “Abendstern,” 50 “Als ich sie erroten sah,” 8, 8e “Am Bach in Fruhling,” 50 “Am Feierabend,” 70n “Am Fenster,” 50 “Am Flusse,” 281 “Am Grabe Anselmos,” 48 “Am Meer,” 53 “Am See,” 50 “Amphiaros,” 57 “An den Fruhling,” 49, 52 “An den Mond”(Goethe), 49, 322 “An den Mond” (Holty), 48 “An die Entfernte,” 281 “An die Geliebte,” 53-55, 55e “An die Musik,” 50 “An die Nachtigall,” 48, 54, 55, 56e “An die untergehende Aonne,” 47 “An mein Herz,” 51 “An Mignon,” 49, “An Schwager Kronos,” 36, 49 “An Sylvia,” 66 “Antigone und Oedip,” 70n “Atys,” 296 “Auf dem Flusse,” 40, 288 “Auf dem See,” 49 “Auf dem Strom,” 51 “Auf dem Waser zu singen,” 47, 324 “Auf der Donau,” 40 “Aufenthalt,” 51 “Auflosung,” 36, 66-68 “Berthas Lied in der Nacht,” 62-64, 63e “Das Lied im Grunen,” 42, 43e “Das Rosenband,” 48 “Das Wandern,” 287, 323 “Das Wirtshaus,” 321 “Dass sie hier gewesen,” 40, 66 “Der Doppelganger,” 52, 66, 69, 139,207, 207e “Der du don dem Himmel bist,” 10 “Der Fluss,” 42, 44e, 68 “Der Geistertanz,” 39 “Der Hirt auf dem Felsen,” 35 “Der Jager,” 326 “Der Jungling am Bache,” 49 “Der Jungling an der Quelle,” 48

liebliche Stern,” 70n Lindenbaum,” 288 Morgenkuss,” 39 Musensohn,” 49, 69n Pilgrim,” 49 Rattenfanger,” 57, 321

“Der Sanger,” 39 “Der Schmetterling,” 39 “Der Sieg,” 50 “Der Taucher,” 49 “Der Tod und das Madchen,” 32, 48, 316 “Der Ungluckliche,” 50 “Der Wanderer an den Mond,” 50 “Der Wegweiser,” 66, 306n “Der Winterabend,” 51 “Der Zwerg,” 50 “Des Bachs Wiegenlied,” 287 “Des Fischers Liebesgluck,” 51 “Die Allmacht,” 322 “Die bose Farbe,” 287 “Die Erscheinung,” 286 “Die Erwartung,” 32n “Die Forelle,” 317 “Die Freunde von Salamanka,” 51 “Die Gotter Griechenlands,” 40, 42 “Die liebe Farbe,” 57, 286 Die Schone Mullerin, 36, 53, 57, 59, 70n, 167, 173, 280, 281, 287, 296,306n,323,326 “Die Sommernacht,” 39 “Die Spinnerin,” 57, 58e “Die Stadt,” 52 “Die Sternennachte,” 36 “Die Taubenpost,” 35, 50 “Drang in die Feme," 51 “Du bist die Ruh,” 66 “Du liebst mich nicht,” 40, 42 “Eifersucht und Stolz,” 326 “Einsamkeit,” 50, 288 “Ellens Zweiter Gesang,” 321 “Erlafsee,” 47 “Erlkonig,” 35, 36, 39, 57, 69n, 93, 155,158 “Fahrt zum Hades,” 50 “Fischerweise,” 50, 66 “Freiwilliges Versinken,” 40 “Fruhlingsglaube,” 18 “Fruhlingssehnsucht,” 51 “Fruhlingstraum,” 288

340

Index “Rast,” 140 “Rastlose Liebe,” 49 “Sangers Morgenlied,” 53 “Schafers Klagelied,” 49, 57 Schwanengesang, 51, 167, 281, 306n

Schubert, Franz (cont.) “Ganymed,” 40, 49, 323 “Geheimnis,” 49, 69 Gesdnge aus Wilhelm Meister, 300. See also individual titles “Gondelfahrer,” 36, 38e “Greisengesang,” 66 “Gretchen am Spinnrade,” xii,

“Schwestergruss,” 69n “Sehnsucht,” 52-3. See also “Nur wer die Sehnsuchtkennt”

6-7e, 8, 45, 49, 57, 131, 139, 160, 195, 216n-e, 316, 317, 322, 325 “Gruppe aus dem Tartarus,” 49,

“Sehnsucht” (Was zieht mir das Herz so), 57 “Sehnsucht” (Mayrhofer), 50

59-62, 60e, 65 “Gute Nacht,” 288, 305n Harfenspieler songs, 49, 52, 281 “Heidenroslein,” 39, 317-18 “Heimliches Lieben”, 68 “Heiss mich nicht reden,” 300 “Herbstgefuhl,” 69 “Herrn Josef Spaun, Assessor in Linz (Epistel),” 50 “Hoffnung,” 70n

“Sehnsucht” (Seidl), 50 “So lasst mich scheinen,” 300 “Standchen” (Rellstab), 51 “Standchen” (Shakespeare), 66 “Suleika I,” 36, 37e “Todesmusik,” 286

“Ihr Bild,” 52 “Im Abendrot,” 66 “Im Freien,” 50 “Im Fruhling,” 51 “In der Feme," 51 “Labetrank der Liebe,” 53 “Lachen und Weinen,” 66 “Lambertine,” 53 “Liebesbotschaft,” 51, 322 “Liebeslauschen,” 50 “Liebeslied,” 68 “Lied der Mignon.” See “Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt” “Lied des Orpheus,” 48 “Lied eines Schiffers an die Dioskuren,” 48 “Litanei auf das Fest aller Seelen,” 48,320,321 “Meeresstille,” 49, 52, 318 “Mein,” 287, 321 “Memnon,” 50 “Mit dem griinen Lautenbande,” 287 “Morgengruss,” 53 “Muth,” 287 “Nachtgesang,” 57 “Nacht und Traume,” 40, 41e, 50 “Nebensonnen,” 287 “Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt,” 52, 70n, 300 Ossian Gesange, 296 “Pause,” 287 “Prometheus,” 321

“Totengrabers Heimweh,” 66, 68 “Totengraber-Weise,” 45, 46e, 66 “Tranenregen,” 59, 287 “Trockene Blumen,” 173 “Trost in Tranen,” 57 “Uber alien Gipfeln ist Ruh,” 10 “liber Wildemann,” 51, 286 “Ungeduld,” 287 Vier Refrainlieder, 50 “Wanderers Nachtlied,” 10, 49 “Wasserflut,” 288 “Was zieht mir das Herz so” (Sehn¬ sucht), 57 “Wehmut,” 50, 64—66 “Wer sich der Einsamkeit ergibt,” 52 “Widerschein,” 32, 34e “Wiegenlied,” 47 “Willkommen und Abschied,” 281 Winterreise, 36, 51, 167, 279, 280, 281, 282, 288,301, 318, 326 “Wohin?,” 322 Schubring, Adolf, 196 Schulze, Ernst, 24t, 50-1, 70n, 286 Schumann, Clara Wieck, 77, 78, 81, 119, 120, 121, 123, 148, 149n, 154, 167, 289, 299, 307n “Liebst du um Schonheit,” 154, 307n Schumann, Elisabeth, 251, 258, 276 Schumann, Felix, 24t, 119 Schumann, Robert, x, xi, xii, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 31, 68, 75-18, 119, 123, 138, 140, 149n, 153, 155, 157, 160, 165, 166, 167, 172, 173, 176, 178, 180, 186, 187, 194, 196, 229, 144, 252, 280-81, 282, 283,

Index 289-93, 293, 295, 296, 297, 299, 300, 301, 302, 303, 305n, 316, 317, 318, 321, 322, 323, 325 character of songs, 81-87 early career and Liederjahr, 75-79 editions of music and texts, 116 interpretations of selected songs, 87-97 late songs, 100-13 multivoice songs, 97-100 Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik, 77, 78, 86 poets and poetry, 79-81 rondo-like forms, 86t songs “Abendlied,” 109 “Am leuchtenden Sommermorgen,” 138, 326 “An Anna,” 75 “An den Mond,” 116n “An den Sonnenschein,” 114n “An die Turen will ich schleichen,” 300 “Auf einer Burg,” 114n, 307n “Aus den Hebraischen Gesange.” See “Mein Herz ist schwer” “Aus meinen Tranen spriessen,” 14, 292 “Ballade des Harfners,” 316 “Belsatzar,” 81, 93 “Botschaft,” 76 “Das ist ein Floten und Geigen,” 173,319 “Das Schwert,” 115n “Das verlassene Magdelein,” 26n, 80, 102 “Der Abendstern,” 104 “Der frohe Wandersmann,” 114n “Der Gartner,” 108-9 “Der Handschuh,” 81

341

“Die Fensterscheibe,” 108 “Die Hutte,” 104, 105e, 114n “Die Kartenlegerin,” 80 “Die Lotosblume,” 81, 86, 160 “Die Lowenbraut,” 80 “Die Meerfee,” 81 “Die Rose, die Lilie,” 322 “Die Soldatenbraut,” 26n, 80, 102, 103e “Die Spinnerin,” 109 “Die Stille,” 114n “Die Tochter Jephthas,” 116n Drei Gedichte vonE. Geibel, 281 “Du bist wie eine Blume,” 86, 87-90, 89e, 321 “Du Ring an meinem Finger,” 114n,292,317 “Ein Jungling liebt ein Madchen,” 81,173 “Er, der herrlichste von alien,” 114n,292 “Er ist’s,” 26n “Familiengemalde,” 98, 114n Frauenliebe und -Leben, 79, 80, 81, 83, 98, 115n, 180, 280, 289, 292, 305n,317,325 “Freisinn,” 83, 87, 104, 105e “Fruhlingsfahrt,” 80, 114n “Fruhlingsnacht,” 114n, 291, 291e Funf heitere Gesange, 104 Gedichte der Konigin Maria Stuarts, 80 “Gesungen!,” 116n “Hauptmanns Weib,” 87 “Heiss mich nicht reden,” 149n “Helft mir, ihr Schwestern,” 114n “Herzeleid,” 108

Dichterliebe, 81, 83, 98, 108, 115n, 173, 283, 291, 296, 303, 307n, 317, 319, 326 “Die alten, bosen Lieder,” 292 “Die Ammenuhr,” 115n “Die beiden Grenadiere,” 17, 80, 95, 114n, 325

“Hochlandisches Wiegenlied,” 97 “Hor’ ich das Liedchen klingen,” 108, 114n Husarenlieder, 80 “Ich bin dein Baum,” 98, 110 “Ich grolle nicht,” 173, 321, 326 “Ich hab’ im Traum geweinet,” 108,115n “Ich sende einen Gruss,” 86, 114n “Ich will meine Seele tauchen,” 115n “Ihre Stimme,” 104-5, 106e “Im Herbste,” 76, 76e “Im Rhein, im heiligen Strome,” 114n, 174, 326

“Die Blume der Ergebung,” 116n

“Im Walde,” 81

“Der Hidalgo,” 76 “Der Kontrabandist,” 109 “Der Nussbaum,” 86t, 87, 116n “Der Soldat,” 80, 95 “Der Spielmann,” 80, 95 “Der wandelnde Glocke,” 81 “Derweisse Hirsch,” 115n

342

Index

Schumann, Robert (cont.) “Im wunderschonen Monat Mai,” 108, 140, 292 “In der Fremde” (Aus der Heimat), 115n, 290, 291e

Myrthen, 81, 82, 84, 87, 114n, 115n, 281,282,289 “Nur ein lachelndes Blick,” 116n “O wie lieblich ist das Madchen,” 109 “Ratsel,” 86t “Resignation,” 110-13, 112e,

“In der Fremde” (Ich hor ein Bachlein), 115n, 296, 291e “In der Nacht,” 98, 110, llle “Ins Freie,” 114n “Intermezzo,” 114n, 290, 291e “Kennst du das Land,” 104

113e Romanzen und Balladen (Op. 45, 49, 53), 80, 82 “Rose, Meer, und Sonne,” 307n

“Landliches Lied,” 98 “Liebesgarten,” 97 “Liebesleid,” 116n “Liebhabers Standchen,” 97-98 “Liebster, deine Worte stehlen,” 116n “Lied” (In meinen Garten), 98, 99e “Lied der Suleika,” 86t, 104-5, 107e Liederalbum fur die Jugend, 81, 97, 103,104, 115n Liederkreis Op. 24 (Heine), 83t, 280,282, 289, 290, 307n, 326 Liederkreis Op. 39 (Eichendorff), 83t, 92, 114n, 282, 286, 289, 290, 299, 326 Liederreihe Op. 35 (Kerner), 83t, 289 Liederund Gesange (Opp. 27, 51, 77, 96), 80, 82

“Sangers Trost,” 83n “Schlusslied des Narren,” 79 “Schone Fremde,” 115n “Schone Wiege meiner Lieder,” 97, 114n Sechs Gedichte eines Malers (Reinick), 83 Sechs Gesange Op. 107, 108-9 Sieben Lieder von E. Kulmann, 104 “Sigeunerleben,” 81, 100 “Sonntags am Rhein,” 115n Spanische Liebeslieder, 97 Spanische Liederspiel, 97, 100, 109, 283 “Stille Tranen,” 90-2, 91e, 115n “Stirb, Lieb’ und Freud,” 114n “Siisser Freund, du blickest,” 114n, 292,293e “Talisman,” 86t “Tragodie,” 114n “Trost im Gesang,” 83n

Lieder■ und Gesange aus Goethes Wilhelm Meister, 296, 299-300 “Lied fur ***,” 113n “Lust der Sturmmacht,” 97 Madchenlieder, 104 Maria Stuart songs, 80 “Marienwurmchen,” 104 “Marzveilchen,” 95 “Mein altes Ross,” 114n

“Und wiissten’s die Blumen,” 114n “Unterm Fenster,” 97-98 “Verratene Liebe,” 81, 95

“Mein Herz ist schwer” (Aus den Hebraischen Gesange), 84, 85e, 86t, 95 “Mein schoner Stern,” 109, 115n, 116n “Mein Wagen rollet langsam,” 98 “Melancholie,” 100, lOle, 109 Mignon songs, 281 Minnespiel, 80, 97 “Mondnacht,” 14, 93, 115n “Mutter, Mutter,” 86, 114n “Muttertraum,” 95, 114n

“Von dem Rosenbusch,” 109 “Waldesgesprach,” 115n “Wanderlied,” 114n “Warte, warte, wilder Schiffmann,” 115n “Was hor’ ich draussen vor dem Tur,” 316 “Wehmut,” 114n “Weh, wie zornig ist das Madchen,” 209 “Widmung,” 86 Wilhelm Meister songs, 100 “Zwielicht,” 93, 94e, 95 Zwdlf Gedichte (Kerner), 83, 289 Zwolf Lieder aus F. Ruckerts Liebesfruling, 83t, 290 song cycles, 81-83, 83t, 108-9, 289-93. See also individual titles works other than songs

Index

Abegg Variations, 77 Camayal, 77 Davidsbundlertanze, 307n Kinderscenen (Der Dichter spricht, Traumerei), 77 Kreisleriana, 78 Noveletten, 78 Papillons, 77, 113n Piano Sonata in F sharp minor, 76 Piano Sonata in G minor, 76 Piano Trio, Op. 110, 149n Scott, Sir Walter, 19, 24t, 66 Seelig, Harry, xii, xviii Seidl, Johann G., 24t, 50 Seidlin, Oskar, 26n Shakespeare, William, 19, 24t, 66, 79, 81, 88, 238, 252, 253, 268 Hamlet, 303, 309n Siebold, Agathe von, 119 Silz, Walter, 228, 229 Simrock, Karl, 24t, 140, 268, 303 Soldan, Kurt, 372 Song cycles, 279-312 genre, song cycle as a, 279-82 of Brahms, 294-98 of Cornelius, 293-94 of Loewe, 289 of Mahler, 230-45 passim, 301-2 of Schubert, 286-88 of Schumann, 81-83, 108-9, 289-93 of Strauss, 302-5 of Wagner, 298-99 of Wolf, 299-301 prehistory of, 282-85 sonnet, in German nineteenth-century poetry, 18-19 Sonnleithner, Leopold von, 42 Spann, Meno, 14, 15 Spaun, Josef von, 24t, 32, 69n, 280, 283 Sperontes, Singende Muse an derPleisse, 283 Speyer, Lotte, 273n Spiess, Hermine, 119 Spillman, Robert, xiii, xviii Spitta, Philip, 175 Stagemann, State Councilor, Liederkreis (social gathering), 283, 284 Stahl, E. L„ 25 Stein, Jack, 6, 7, 16, 120 Steinitzer, Max, 272 Sternfeld, Fredrick, 4, 5 Stieler, Karl, 254 Stockhausen, Julius, 172, 280, 296

343

Stokes, Richard. See Bird, George Stolberg, Friedrich Leopold, Graf zu, 24t, 47 Stoll, Josef Ludwig, 24t, 53 Storm, Theodor, 23t, 120, 143 Strauss, Franz, 254, 270 Strauss, Pauline. SeeAhna, Pauline de Strauss, Richard, xiii, 19, 153, 168, 250-78, 302-5, 320, 321, 322, 323,326 career as song composer, 253-71 career, overview of, 250-1 early songs, 253-54 lieder, selected, 1880s, 254-57 lieder, 1895-1906, increasingly var¬ ied, 264-66 lieder in transition, 266—69 orchestral songs and orchestrated lieder, 269-71 Vier letzte Lieder, importance of, 257-63 editions, notes on, 271-72 poets and poetry, 251-53 publishers and publishing, 271-72 recordings, notes on, 272 songs Acht Gedichte aus “letzte Blatter” von Hermann von Gilm, 254 “Allerseelen,” 254, 323 “Alphorn,” 274n “Amor,” 271, 321 “Anbetung,” 265, 273n “An die Nacht,” 321 “Befreit,” 264 “Begegnung,” 254 “Beim Schlafengehen,” 304 “Besinnung,” 272n “Bruder Liederlich,” 268 “Cacilie,” 257, 258, 259-60e, 270 “Das Bachlein,” 275n “Das Lied des Steinklopfers,” 265, 267e, 273n “Das Rosenband,” 270, 275n “Der Arbeitsman,” 265, 273n “Der “Der “Der “Der

Fischer,” 252, 253, 273n Graf von Rom,” 273n Pokal,” 268 Spielmann und sein Kind,”

269 “Des Dichters Abendgang,” 275n “Die Drossel,” 274n “Die erwachte Rose,” 254 Die Handler und die Kunst. See Krdmerspiegel

344

Index

Strauss, Richard (cont.) “Die heilige drei Konige,” 270,

“Ruhe, meine Seele,” 257, 258e, 260, 262, 262e, 263e, 275n, 304

271 “Die Nacht,” 254 Die Tageszeiten. Ein Liederkreis fur Mannerchor und Orchester, 273n Drei Gesange dlterer deutscher Dichter,

“Schneiderpolka,” 272n

275n Drei Hymnen von Friedrich Holderlin,

bloss,” 303 “Standchen,” 255, 257, 272, 273n,

272, 275n Drie Leibeslieder, 254 Drie Mutterlieder, 270

321,322 “Stiller Gang,” 264 “Traum durch die Dammerung,”

“Einkehr,” 252 “Erschaffen und Beleben,” 268,

264,264e, 272 Vier Gesange (voice and orchestra)

269e, 275n “Freundliche Vision,” 275n “Fruhling,” 304 “Fur funfzehn Pfennige,” 265, 320 “Gefunden,” 252 “Gluckesgenug,” 264 “Guten Morgen, ’s ist Sankt Valentinstag,” 303 “Hab ich euch denn je geraten,”

Op. 33, 269-70 Vier Gesange (soprano and orchestra; “Cacilie,” “Morgen,” “Liebeshymnus,” “Das

303 “Hat gesagt—bleibt’s nicht dabei,” 265 “Heimliche Aufforderung,” 257, 258,261e “Himmelsboten,” 265 “Ich liebe dich,” 264 “Ich trage meine Minne,” 264 “Ich wollt’ ein Strausselein binden,” 321 “Im Abendroth,” 273n, 274n, 304 “Im Fruhling,” 274n “Junggesellenschwur,” 274n “Kein Ander,” 271 Kramerspiegel: Zwolf Gesanage von Alfred Kerr, 260, 266-67, 302-3 “Lass ruh’n die Toten,” 253 “Liebeshymnus,” 270 “Lied der Frauen,” 271, 275n “Madchenblumen,” 260, 302 “Malven,” 252, 272, 272n “Meinem Kinde,” 270 “Morgen,” 257, 259, 260, 262e, 270,272, 273n,323,326 “Mettertandelei,” 270 “Nacht,” 272n “Nebel,” 253 “Notturno,” 271

Seeks Lieder nach Gedichten von Clemens Brentano, 270 “September,” 304 “Sie trugen ihn auf der Bahre

Rosenband”), 270 Vier letzte Lieder, 250, 271, 272, 272n,274n,303-5 Vier Lieder Op. 27, 257-63 “Waldseligkeit,” 275n “Wanderers Gemutsruhe,” 303 “Weihnachtslied,” 250, 268 “Wenn,” 264 “Wer hat’s getan,” 272, 273n, 274n “Wer wird von der Welt verlangen,” 303 “Wiegenlied,” 257, 270 “Winternacht,” 254—55, 256e “Winterreise,” 253 “Winterweihe, Winterliebe,” 275n “Zueignung,” 254 “Zugemessene Rliythmen,” 268 Zwei Gesange (bass and orchestra) Op. 51, 270, 275n Zwei grossere Gesange (low voice and orchestra) Op. 44, 270 Zwei Lieder aus Calderon’s “Der Richter von Zalamea, ” 273n song cycles, 302-5. See also individual titles works other than songs Alpensinfonie, 303 Arabella, 268 Ariadne auf Naxos, 266, 271 “Du Venus’ Sohn,” 271 Capriccio, 271, 303, 304, 326

Ophelia songs, 268, 303

Die Frau ohne Schatten, 266, 303 Der Rosenkavalier, 267, 270, 303, 304 “Di rigor armato,” 271 Don Juan, 257

“Rote Rosen,” 254, 255e, 273n

Don Quixote, 270

Index Ein Heldenleben, 264, 303 Elektra, 266 Feuersnot, 266 Guntram, 257, 266 Macbeth, 277 Salome, 266 String Quartet Op. 2, 271 Symphonia Domestica, 270, 303 Telschow, 157 Tennyson, Alfred Lord, 187, 188 Thalmann, Marianne, 249 Thym, Jurgen, xiii, xviii, 291 Tieck, Ludwig, 23t, 120, 163, 282, 294, 295, 297, 298, 309n Tiedge, Christoph August, 24t, 284 “Das Echo,” 284 Tietze, Ludwig, 305n Trevier, Bernard de, and Magelone tale, 295 Turchin, Barbara, 279, 280, 284 Turk, Daniel Gottlob, 155 Uhland, Ludwig, xi, 5, 17, 18, 23t, 100, 115n, 157, 163, 252, 173n, 284, 294 “Fruhlingsglaube,” 17-18 Ullrich, Titus, 108 Ulrichs, Karl Heinrich, 215n Ursuleac, Viorica, 251, 270 Veit, Dorothea, 161 Verdi, Giuseppe, 315 Vesque von Piittlingen, 154, 155 Victoria, Queen of England, 156 Vischer, Friedrich Theodor, Aesthetik oder Wissenschaft des Schonen, 282 Vogl, Johann Nepomuk, 24t, 157 Voss, Johann Heinrich, 163 Wagner, Richard, 19, 21, 40, 42, 154, 155, 157, 166, 169, 170, 173, 174, 177, 178, 181, 182, 188, 192, 196, 198, 243, 257, 268, 298-99, 321

345

Wesendonck Lieder, 154, 182 “Der Engel,” 298, 299 “Im Treibhaus,” 298 “Schmerzen,” 298 “Stehe still!,” 298 “Traume,” 298 Waldau, Max, 176 Walker, Frank, 186 Walter, Bruno, 237 Walter, Gustav, 131 Weber, Carl Maria von, 275n, 284, 305n Die Temperamente, 306n Leier und Schwert songs, 284 Webern, Anton, 21, 238 Weinheber, Josef, 253 Weininger, Leopold, 257 Weisse, Christian Felix, 24t Wellek, Rene, 229 Wenzig, Josef, 24t Werner family, 193 Wesendonck, Mathilde, 24t, 120, 298 Wiedebein, Gottlob, 76 Wiese, Benno von, 27n Wilkinson, Elizabeth, 13 Willemer, Marianne von, 24t, 36 Wintle, Christopher, 295 Wittgenstein, Princess Caroline, 169, 177 Wolf, Hugo, x, xi, xii, 12, 15, 19, 62, 69, 70n, 108, 110, 120, 121, 139, 140, 153, 172, 182, 186-217, 302, 321,322, 325 “mental science” (psychology) in late-nineteenth-century Europe and its relation to literature, 188 Oedipus complex (Wolf s), 188-94 Oedipal regime, 189-91 third lucky son, 191-94 Oedipus complex and rhetorical scheme of Wolf s songs, 194—215 scrutinizing mode: confession and recognition, 194-98 songbooks, Oedipal careers in,

Der Ring des Nibelungen, 182, 298 Die Meistersinger, 268 Gotterdammerung, 303 Lohengrin, 173, 177 song cycles, 298-99. See Wesendonck

198-204 songbooks, sampling Oedipus complex in, 204-15 song composition, “legend” about and its inadequacy, 186-88

Lieder Tannhauser, 257 Tristan und Isolde, 154, 169, 170, 177,

songs “Abschied,” 200, 200e “Ach, des Knaben Augen,” 194 “Ach, wie lang die Seele

178, 181, 182, 242, 242e, 243, 298,302

schlummert,” 197

346

Index

Wolf, Hugo (cont.) “Anakreons Grab,” 322 “An die Turen will ich schleichen,” 299, 300 “Auch kleine Dinge,” 322 “Auf ein altes Bild,” 194 “Auf einer Wanderung,” 208-11, 210-lle “Das Standchen,” 206-8, 206e, 207e, 209 “Der Feuerreiter,” 212-15, 213e, 214e, 215e “Der Genesene an die Hoffnung,” 199-200 “Der Knabe und das Immlein,” 299 “Der Mond hat eine schwere Klag,” 204 “Die ihr schwebt,” 194 Eichendorff songbook, 206 “Ein Stundlein wohl vor Tag,” 299 “Epiphanias,” 193-94, 193e “Erstes Liebeslied eines Madchens,” 319 “Fussreise,” 325 “Ganymed,” 198 “Geh’, geliebter, geh’jetzt,” 202, 203e, 204 Goethe songbook, 197, 198, 200 “Grenzen der Menschheit,” 200, 201

“Heb’ auf dein blondes Haupt,” 204 “Heiss mich nicht reden,” 299, 300 “Herr, was tragt die Boden her,” 197 “Ich hab; in Penna,” 321, 322 “In der Nacht,” 110 “In dem Schatten meiner Locken,” 204-6, 209 Italienisches Liederbuch (Italian Songbook), 201, 202-4 “Kennst du das Land,” 197, 198, 201

“Klinge, klinge, mein Pandero,” 202 “Mein Liebster ist so klein,” 69 Mignon songs, 300 “Mir wird gesagt,” 204, 322

Morike songbook, 199-200, 208 “Muhvoll komm ich und beladen,” 197, 322 “Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt,” 299,300 “Prometheus,” 200 “Schlafendes Jesuskind,” 194 “So lasst mich scheinen,” 299, 300 Spanisches Liederbuch (Spanish Songbook), 194, 197, 201-2, 204 “Um Mitternacht,” 139, 197 “Und willst du deinen Liebsten sterben sehn,” 204 “Verborgenheit,” 321 “Wenn du, mein Liebster,” 204 “Wenn du mich mit den Augen streifst,” 204 “Wer nie sein Brot mit Tranen ass,” 198, 199e, 200, 299, 300 “Wer sich der Einsamkeit ergibt,” 299 “Wunden tragst du, mein Geliebter,” 197 “Zur Warnung,” 321, 325 song cycles, 299-301 works other than songs Der Corregidor, 192 Manuel Venegas, 192 Penthesilea, 192 Wolf, Philipp, 191 Wolff, Christoph, 32 Wordsworth, William, 11 “It is a beautiful evening, calm and free,” lie Wullner, Ludwig, 308n Wunderlich, Fritz, 319 Youens, Susan, xii, xviii, 284 Zelter, Carl Friedrich, xii, 154, 161, 163, 164, 194-95, 252, 283 “Um Mitternacht,” 154 Zimmermann, Georg Wilhelm, 116n Zola, Emile, 205 Zuccalmaglio. See Deutsche Volkslieder Zumsteeg, Johann Rudolf, 32, 155, 157 ballads, 32 “Lenore,” 32

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(Continued from front flap) Numerous music and text examples are used to illustrate the authors’ points, and extensive notes and bibliographies accompany each essay. ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS John Daverio is associate professor of music at Boston University and author of NineteenthCentury Music and. the German Romantic Ideology (Schirmer Books, 1993). Rufus Hallmark is professor of music at Queens College, City University of New York, and author of The Genesis of Schumann’s Dichterliebe. Virginia Hancock is associate professor of music at Reed College and author of Brahms’s Choral Compositions and His Library of Early Music. Lawrence Kramer is associate professor of English and comparative literature at Fordham University. His books include Music and Poetry and The Nineteenth Century and Afler. Christopher Lewis was assistant professor of music at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, and author of Tonal Coherence in Mahler’s Ninth Symphony. Barbara A. Petersen is assistant vice president for concert music administration at Broadcast Music Incorporated and author of Ton und Wort: The Lieder of Richard Strauss. Harry Seelig is associate professor of German languages and literatures at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and has written widely on music and literature. Robert Spillman is professor on the faculty of the College of Music at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and author of The Art of Accompanying (Schirmer Books, 1985). Jurgen Thyrn is professor and chair of musicology at the Eastman School of Music. He has written sev¬ eral studies of lieder and edited an anthology of songs on texts of Eichendorff. Susan Youens is associate professor of music at the University of Notre Dame and author of Retracing a Winter’s Journey: Schubert’s Winterreise and other studies of Schubert and Wolf.

STUDIES IN MUSICAL GENRES AND REPERTORIES R. Larry Todd, General Editor Books in this series explore the various genres and repertories of music—including piano music, the symphony, chamber music, choral music, and the art song. Each volume is illustrated with musical examples, facsimiles, and works of art.

Keyboard Music Before 1700 Edited by Alexander Silbiger

ISBN 0-02-872391-0

Covering music for the organ as well as the harpsichord and clavichord, this volume sur¬ veys the rich diversity of the keyboard repertory prior to Bach, from the late fourteenth to the early eighteenth century. Six well-known scholars of the era explore through repre¬ sentative works the styles, textures, genres, instruments, and performance practices that characterize the European keyboard music of this period. Eighteenth-Century Keyboard Music Edited by Robert L. Marshall

ISBN 0-02-871355-9

This volume presents the canon of keyboard music from J. S. Bach through the early works of Beethoven. Distinguished musicologists survey the instruments and perfor¬ mance practice of the time as well as the specific works of the Bach family, Scarlatti, Clementi, Haydn, Mozart, and many others. “Interesting reading and most informative.” —The Keyboard Teacher Nineteenth-Centwy Piano Music Edited by R. Larry Todd

ISBN 0-02-872551-4 (cloth), 0-02-872555-7 (paper)

Nineteenth-Century Piano Music examines, through representative works of eight major composers, the styles, instruments, and performance practices that characterize the principal piano repertoire of the nineteenth century. Ten internationally known contributors bring to the volume the insights of exceptional musical scholarship. “A wel¬ come addition to any musician’s library.” —American Music Teacher Twentieth-Century Piano Music David Burge

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Detailing the development of different styles through a survey of the principal works written for the piano in our century, this book provides a personal and inviting overview by an eloquent advocate of twentieth-century piano literature. ‘An indispensable guide.” —David Dubai, The Juilliard School

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9 0 0 0 0> JindnrtilhrctTntitm: Schubert and Josephine Frohlich at the piano; behind them, the singer Johann Michael Vogl. Drawing by Ferdinand Georg Waldmiiller.

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References