Liederkreis op.39 (Schumann)
The Liederkreis Op. 39 is a cycle by Robert Schumann (1810-1856) of twelve settings of poems by Joseph von Eichendorff (1788-1857) for voice and piano, which was written in 1840 and published in a first print version in 1842. Soon afterwards, individual songs from the work enjoyed great popularity. Julius Stockhausen first performed the complete cycle in its final, second version on October 21, 1862 in the Gürzenich Hall in Cologne . Today the song circle forms an important part of the romantic art song repertoire .
Schumann and Eichendorff
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Excerpts from Eichendorff's poems, which Robert Schumann presented in his Neue Zeitschrift für Musik for some reviews of song compositions and sacred music as well as general spiritual topics, show that Eichendorff largely had the traditional image of the folk-song-like, pious poet.
A total of 21 Eichendorff poems have been preserved for posterity in settings by Robert Schumann, 12 of them in the Liederkreis op. 39, which he described in a letter of May 22, 1840 to Clara Wieck , his future wife, as his "most romantic of all" (→ Romantik ). Eichendorff heard some of the songs of the Liederkreis in January 1847 at a meeting in Vienna. He assured Clara that Schumann's music “gave life to his songs in the first place.” In reports by letter about his stay in Vienna at the time, he did not mention Schumann's settings, but rather those by Josef Dessauer , which he described as “incredibly beautifully composed”.
The creation of the song circle
The year 1840 went down in the biography of Robert Schumann as the so-called " song year", in that year he composed about half of his entire song output . Before that he had composed almost exclusively piano music and only a few songs: As a modern “German spirit”, Schumann initially preferred absolute music in the music- aesthetic conflict of the 19th century and placed vocal music “among instrumental music and never considered it a great art. “, As he wrote in 1839 to the violinist and composer Hermann Hirschbach . However, the addition “Don't tell anyone about it” in the same letter gives testimony to his change of heart at that time. At the same time, however, the composer was only able to find an equally personal song style through the previous development of his piano style, which combines the already tried and tested expressive piano setting with clear vocal melodies.
The song circle was written between May 1 and May 22, 1840.
The structure of the cycle
Selection of poems
All the song texts in the cycle were taken from the first edition of Joseph von Eichendorff's poems published in Berlin in 1837, which also included poems that originally had their place in Eichendorff's prose. In April 1840, Clara Wieck sent copies of some Eichendorff poems to Robert Schumann, who had requested copies from her. These poems can be found in Clara's handwriting in the transcripts of poems for the composition. Collected by Robert and Clara Schumann from 1839 onwards. Almost all subject areas of Eichendorff's poetry are represented, only student songs and those with a strongly religious content are missing. Whether the selection of the poems comes from Clara or Robert Schumann or from both cannot be found out. The order in the transcripts of poems for the composition follows the order in Eichendorff's edition of 1837. These poems do not form a cycle in Eichendorff.
In some places there are changes in the texts set by Schumann, which may be due to transcription errors, but in some cases could also be deliberate retouching in order to reinforce the message of a song in a certain direction.
Arrangement of the songs
The original version of the cycle had a different arrangement of the songs, in which the gloomy character prevailed: Forest conversation - In der Fremde ("From the home") - Moon night - Intermezzo - Beautiful strangers - In der Fremde ("I hear" " ) - melancholy - spring night - the silence - twilight - in the forest - on a castle . This choice could be justified by Schumann's life situation at the time, in which his relationship with Clara was disapproved by her father. The old knight in the song Auf einer Burg can also be understood here as a portrait of the relentless Friedrich Wieck . However, after a court decision on August 1, 1840 declared the marriage of the two to be legal, the composer rearranged the cycle: he divided the twelve songs into two by six, with the first half mainly the positive and the second the darker ones Content presented. At the two ends of the parts, however, he positioned the optimistic songs Schöne Fremde and Frühlingsnacht . The last line of the circle of songs in this arrangement, the triumphant exclamation “She is yours, she is yours!” Makes the autobiographical context clear.
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The interaction of keys , time signatures , tempos and expressed emotions in the individual songs and in the overall cycle is shown in the adjacent table. Especially in terms of Schumann's key characteristics is this list very revealing: All songs are in cross -Tonarten, the arc extending from the F sharp minor (Schumann often used in painful moods) of the first song to F sharp major (his "jubilation key") on The end is tense. In between, especially in the second part, songs with the tones E and A. As far as the choice of time signature is concerned, it is noticeable that apart from the two songs in the middle, two identical time measures never follow each other and that the songs in E major are all in three time . |
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Musical overview
In general, the cycle is divided into two parts. These result from the above-mentioned arrangement of contents and keys, but were not expressly set by Schumann.
First part
The cycle opens with the song In der Fremde ("From Home"), which is sung to the guitar in Eichendorff's story Much Ado About Nothing . This detail can be found in Schumann's arpeggiated piano accompaniment . In the second verse of the song, after the words “How soon”, the ascending fifth appears in the piano for the first time , which is an important recurring motif of the circle of songs and always conveys positive content. Here it symbolizes hope, although it is hope in death.
But already in the next piece, the Intermezzo , which is in the love key of A major , the fifth motif follows the word "miraculous". This second song is based on a poem that Eichendorff wrote in 1810, probably for his fiancée Luise von Larisch. The composer implements the wonderful text “floating on metaphors ” with equally floating syncopations in the accompaniment.
The following forest talk is in the form of a dialogue, in the novel Awareness and Present it is also presented as an exchange conversation. Schumann portrays the two characters in two different musical spheres: while the rider's words are underlaid with brisk dotted rhythms and horn fifths , the witch Loreley is initially accompanied with harp-like chords on an organ point , later with dramatic altered chords . The musicality of Eichendorff's original is particularly evident in this song, when the man prefers short, consonant-rich words, while the witch prefers those with long and dark vowels.
The next song, Die Stille , is from the same novel as the Waldesrechner , but leads to a completely different mood: It is about suppressed but internally exploding love. Schumann sets it to music as a happily swaying 6/8 time signature in G major , but mutes the expression with the performance designation Not fast, always very quiet and with the initially short, breathy notes of the voice. Only with the words “I wish I was a little bird” does a melodically expressive arc begin, which is, however, suppressed again shortly afterwards, as Schumann changes the original and at the end takes up the first stanza of the poem again.
The moon night is probably the best-known song of the cycle and one of Schumann's most popular creations, because music and poetry complement each other in a unique way: The text captivates with its emphatically simple but deep associations and leads right at the beginning with a subjunctive a kind of dream situation. Musically, this idea is implemented through dominant chords such as the ninth chord right at the beginning and the pulsating repetition of individual tones or intervals that are reinterpreted harmonically. While the first four half-verses are always sung with the same melody, the line "And my soul strained ..." takes a new path harmoniously and melodically, which makes the departure of the soul audible and noticeable.
The first part of the song circle is concluded with the song Beautiful Strangers . In this poem, too, we encounter a typical Eichendorff nighttime situation, which at first appears unsafe and dangerous, but ultimately culminates in a prediction of “great luck”. Schumann sets this climax to music by making the harmony rather diffuse at the beginning and not yet establishing a clear tonic - only at the end of the song does B major become clearly recognizable as the basic key. In this last stanza, the fifth, which previously played an important role, is extended to the sixth , which also represents the most important interval in the piano replay.
Second part
Right at the beginning of Auf einer Burg , a descending fifth is introduced, which, symmetrical to the ascending “ leitmotif ” of the first part, represents the defining design feature of the second half. The song describes the frozen situation around a dead, petrified knight, which is illustrated by static, sluggishly progressing and ancient church-toned harmonies. With the only Italian tempo designation (Adagio) and the half- ending with which the song ends, Schumann deliberately alludes to older musical styles.
Although the following song In der Fremde (“I hear”) has a completely different content at first glance, it is closely linked to Auf einer Burg . On the one hand because with its A minor it dissolves the previous E major chord, on the other hand because the two songs are very similar in terms of motifs, as the above illustration shows. The falling fifth can also be found here in the recurring sixteenth-note garlands of the piano (marked in blue in the illustration).
In the song Wehmut the poet himself takes over the word and compares his songs with those of the nightingale, to whom everyone listens with pleasure without hearing their inner suffering. Schumann made the accompaniment of the song very simple and homophonic in order to put the text and its melody in the foreground and to distract from it with additional musical ideas. Perhaps he wants to show that this is about more to him than just the romantic portrayal of a lyrical self , that he really wants to tell something about himself. Only in the last stanza does the piano part become a little more independent and in the aftermath expresses the “deep suffering” through a chromatic departure in the bass .
One of Eichendorff's strangest and darkest creations is the poem Twilight (again from hunch and present ), in which danger is warned from every direction, even from the best friend. Here, too, the material of the prelude is derived from the descending, this time diminished , fifth: In the first measure, the interval g-c sharp is used, in the second fh. This prelude forms the harmonic framework on which all stanzas are based. Robert Schuman also composes various musical figures in Zwielicht in order to accentuate the ambivalent atmosphere acoustically. The figures are found in the vocal part: Kyklosis , Sigh and Exclamatio . Furthermore, the recitative is used in several places . The following musical figures appear in the accompaniment of the instruments: tritone , dubitatio , extensio and anabasis . The rhythm is also partially veiled in order to acoustically underline the aspect of impending danger.
The song Im Walde begins as a happy hunting scherzo in a rather lively 6/8 time, where there is talk of a funny wedding, but changes its mood to the negative when the narrator is left alone. The galloping movement alternating between eighth and quarter values stops. The poem ends with the line “And me shudders in the heart of the heart”, in which Schumann leads the singing voice down to the small a, the lowest note of the cycle. Shortly before the triumphant end, there is a final emotional low point.
This ecstatic end is reached in the last song, Spring Night , in which the music creates a joyful mood from the start: the harmonies form a sweeping chain of seventh chords , high-lying chords pulsate in sixteenth- note triplets that only ever appear at the end of each of the three verses come to a standstill. During the second stanza a new upward swinging motif is introduced, which is extended to the seventh at the end of the song with the words “She is yours, she is yours!” (Sheet music example on the left). So where at the end of the first part the ascending fifth was enlarged to form a sixth, the cycle now culminates in the even wider seventh. In the piano aftermath, however, the fifth dominates again, which closes the motivic circle of the entire work.
Discography
For many music lovers, the interpretation of the song circle by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Gerald Moore , as it was recorded live at the Salzburg Festival in 1959 (Orfeo C 140301 B), is legendary. Equally impressive is the recording of Fischer-Dieskau with Christoph Eschenbach (with Dichterliebe and Myrthen) from 1975. The GDR record company Eterna released a 1972 recording of the cycle with Peter Schreier and Norman Shetler (Eterna 8 26 498). The recording by Thomas Quasthoff (RCA / Sony BMG, 1993) also received excellent reviews . There are interpretations with a female voice by Sena Jurinac accompanied by Franz Holletschek (1952, Westminster), Dame Janet Baker accompanied by Daniel Barenboim (EMI 1968/1975), Jessye Norman (Philips / Universal, 1987), Dame Margaret Price accompanied by Graham Johnson ( 1991, Hyperion), Soile Isokoski accompanied by Marita Viitasalo (1993, Finlandia Records 1995) and by Anne Schwanewilms accompanied by Manuel Lange (Capriccio, 2013).
literature
- Theodor W. Adorno : Schumann's circle of songs based on Eichendorff poems, Op. 39 . In: Accents. Journal of Poetry . Munich 1958.
- Eckart Busse: The Eichendorff reception in the art song. Attempt of a typology based on compositions by Schumann, Wolf and Pfitzner . Eichendorff Society, Würzburg 1975
- Dietrich Fischer Dieskau: Robert Schumann. The vocal work . dtv, Munich 1985, ISBN 3423104236 .
- Reinhold Brinkmann: Schumann and Eichendorff: Studies on the Liederkreis opus 39 . Ed. Text + criticism, Munich 1997 ISBN 3883775223
- Christiane Tewinkel: Singing about the noise. Robert Schumann's 'Liederkreis' Op. 39 based on poems by Joseph von Eichendorff (= Epistemata 482), Würzburg 2003 ISBN 3-8260-2652-7
Web links
- Liederkreis op. 39 (Schumann) : Sheet music and audio files in the International Music Score Library Project
- Song cycle. Haslinger, Vienna 1842. Digitized edition of the University and State Library Düsseldorf
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Kazuko Ozawa: Foreword . In Robert Schumann: Liederkreis op. 39 , versions 1842 and 1850, Urtext, G. Henle Verlag, 2010.
- ↑ Christiane Tewinkel: Singing about noise. Robert Schumann's 'Liederkreis' op. 39 based on poems by Joseph von Eichendorff . Würzburg 2003, pp. 114–121.
- ↑ Christiane Tewinkel: Singing about noise. Robert Schumann's 'Liederkreis' op. 39 based on poems by Joseph von Eichendorff . Würzburg 2003, p. 83 f.
- ↑ Kazuko Ozawa: Remarks . In Robert Schumann: Liederkreis op. 39 , versions 1842 and 1850, Urtext, G.Henle Verlag, 2010. P. 70. Location of the copies: Robert-Schumann-Haus, Zwickau, call number 4871 / VIII, 4-5977-A3.
- ↑ On the meaning of this moment Andreas Dorschel, Listening to Landscape: A Romantic Evocation of Sound and Mood. In: Roger Scruton (Ed.), Chora: Landscape and Mindscape. The Alpine Foundation, Venice 2018, pp. 62–75, p. 68.
