Classical Music | Mezzo-Soprano

Recorded on 08/11/2011, uploaded on 09/26/2011

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Hugo Wolf composed the fifty-three songs of his Mörike-Lieder at a frenzied pace between February and November 1888. That year was the beginning of a productive period for the composer, with the Eichendorff- and Goethe-Lieder both completed by the following year, and the Spanisches Liederbuch begun later in 1889. It also marked the start of his mature period and a departure from the models of Franz Schubert and Robert Schumann. Wolf found ample space to grapple with questions of form and of shaping music to augment the meaning of the text in the selections he made from the poetry of Eduard Mörike. Within Mörike’s poems, Wolf found a variety of subjects that demanded of him a remarkable command of text painting, and a dark sense of humor that quite resembled his own.

The seventh song of the set, “Das verlassene Mägdlein” (“The forsaken maiden”) is the sorrowful tale of a young man that has realized to late of his love for a maiden. Before the first light of day, he lights a fire, and though aware of its beauty, is stricken with grief. Then, he remembers that he had dreamt of the girl. Tears unceasingly flow down his cheeks. He wishes in vain for the day’s end, and sleep, to once again overtake him. In a mournful A minor, Wolf’s setting begins with bleak two-voiced chords, alternating between the pianist’s hands and sounded on a drearily pulsating dactylic rhythm. The vocalist enters in the fifth measure, and mimics in its melody the movement of the accompanying chords, now somewhat fuller with the addition of a third voice. Wolf’s keen sense of word painting comes to the fore as the first two lines of the second stanza, in which the poet stares with wonder into the fire, is depicted with alternating A major and C-sharp major harmonies. Yet, suddenly the music becomes even more dolorous as the key shifts to A-flat at the start of the third line, where the poet makes known the grief that plagues his heart. The vocal melody of the third stanza becomes more agitated, particularly with its syncopated rhythmic figure now set against the pulse of the accompaniment. Despite beginning in B-flat major, the nearly ubiquitous presence of augmented triads makes it tonally ambiguous. However, Wolf’s careful harmonic crafting brings about an effortless transition back into the tonic key of A minor. The last stanza is set to similar music as the first. However, slight changes lead into the bleak coda provided by the piano.    Joseph DuBose