Classical Music | Baritone

Recorded on 09/10/2010, uploaded on 11/14/2010

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Goethe's Jägers Abendlied ("The Hunter's Evening Song"), written in 1775 or 1776, depicts the restless love of a hunter. As he creeps silently through the fields, he sees the image of his beloved before him and wonders if he, too, appears to her. He is distraught that he was forced to leave her and wander the wild world, but he finds peace in her image.

Franz Schubert set Goethe's poem, minus the third stanza, in 1816. The beginning of the vocal melody imitates the hunting horn with its opening leap upward from dominant to tonic and the triadic motion that follows. The accompaniment, on the other hand, captures the agitation of the hunter in its rising chromatic figure. During the latter half of each stanza, the vocal melody becomes more lyrical, moving largely by stepwise motion, and the accompaniment settles down to mere repeated chords. However, the agitation does not completely disappear. The earlier chromatic figure is transferred to the bass in a subtle, though poignant, transformation.     Joseph DuBose