Schumann’s Dichterliebe, Part II

Schumann’s Dichterliebe, Part II

June 22, 2015.  Schumann’s Dichterliebe, Part II.  In the absence of any significant birthdays this week we decided to publish the second part of the article on Robert Schumann’s song cycle Dichterliebe (A Poet's Love).  The first part was published here.  As a reminder, Dichterliebe, oRobert Schumannn texts by Heinrich Heine from his Lyrisches Intermezzo, was written in 1840.  That was the year Schumann married Clara Wieck; it also turned into his Liederjahr – the year of songs: he wrote almost 140 of them in a tremendous creative spurt.  Dichterliebe is probably the best known.  To illustrate the cycle, we used recordings made by Fritz Wunderlich.  All but the one were made in Salzburg in 1965.  The recording of Die alten, bösen Lieder was made during a concert in Usher Hall, Edinburgh, on August 4th of 1966.  Wunderlich tragically died just one month later; he was 35 years old.  

The poet’s state becomes even more pitiful in “Das ist ein Flöten und Geigen” (“There is fluting and fiddling,” here) as he witnesses the joyous festivities of the marriage of his beloved to another man. He gazes upon the merriment, watching her dance (“Da tanzt wohl den Hochzeitreigen / Die Herzallerliebste mein”) to the sound of flutes, fiddles, shawms, and drums. Betwixt the sounds of the instruments, the angels weep for the lonely poet (“Dazwischen schluchzen und stöhnen / Die guten Engelein”). Schumann’s setting portrays the dance of the beloved and her wedding guests. However, its D minor tonality and chromatic harmonies undoubtedly identify that the listener is viewing the scene through the prism of the poet’s broken heart.

Utter despair sets in the following song, “Hör’ ich das Liedchen klingen” (“I hear the dear song sounding,” here). Pained by watching his beloved married to another, the poet now hears the sweet song she once sang, a symbol that her love is forever no longer his. In his desolation, he seeks the solace of nature, wandering deep into the forest to weep. Schumann’s setting is through-composed in the key of G minor. The doleful vocal melody closes first in the key of the subdominant at the conclusion of the first stanza, poignantly affected by a Neapolitan sixth. The second stanza then slowly descends back to the tonic of G minor. Against the vocal melody is an accompaniment of descending arpeggios, which with the song’s slow tempo depict the falling tears of the poet. As with many of Schumann’s song, the climax comes as the vocalist exits. Shadowing the final notes of the melody, the piano begins a heartrending coda which culminates as chromatically ascending harmonies beneath a tonic pedal suddenly break into a descending passage of sixteenth notes through almost three octaves. Here, the listener beholds the poet’s heart bursting with pain (“So will mir die Brust zerspringen / Vor wildem Schmerzendrang”). (Continue reading here)

Heine’s satirical tone is evident in the eleventh song, “Ein Jüngling liebt ein Mädchen” (“A young man loved a maiden,” here). The poet tells the timeless story of a young man that loves a maiden, while she loves another man. Ironically, the second man loves a different woman causing the woman, out of spite, to marry the first man that comes along. Indeed, the brief story, narrated within two stanzas, provides a brief moment of comedy, and even borders on turning the entire song cycle thus far into a cliché. Yet, for the poet, the story is very much real, and his heart still breaks with the pain of his loss (“Und wem sie just passieret, / Dem bricht das Herz entzwei”). Abandoning the minor keys that have dominated the last few songs, Schumann’s setting adopts the key of E-flat major, further highlighting Heine’s parody of hapless love. The vocal melody makes use of a frequent dactylic rhythm that gives it a sardonic demeanor, which is further amplified by the mocking off-beat accents of the piano accompaniment. While a few brief turns towards the minor mode during the first half of the song can leave one to wonder if Schumann fully subscribes to Heine’s derision, the comical tone of the latter half, including the sudden and brief modulation into G-flat major, establishes the song as a derisive commentary on the narrative thus far.

 

In “Am leuchtenden Sommermorgen” (“On a shining summer morning,” here), the poet, in resigned loneliness, wanders about his garden. Though he maintains pensive (“Ich aber wandle stumm”), the flowers pity his hapless state (“Es flüstern und sprechen die Blumen, / und schaun mitleidig mich an”). Schumann’s entire setting passes by in hushed tones, and the quiet arpeggios convey the whispered murmurings of the flowers. It opens with an enharmonically spelt German augmented sixth chord in B-flat major, which Schumann later uses to briefly move the music into the distant key of B major on the word “Blumen.” With equal ease, Schumann promptly returns to B-flat major to close the first stanza. The move to B major, however, proves to be a foreshadowing of the second stanza’s closing. By means of another augmented sixth chord, Schumann sidesteps into the key of G major, with the melody ascending a semitone from B-flat to B-natural, on the flower’s sympathetic whispers: “Sei unserer Schwester nicht böse, / du trauriger, blasser Mann!” (“Do not be angry at our sister, you sad, pale man!”). These last words fall chromatically again as the stanza concludes on a half cadence in the tonic key. As with “Hör’ ich das Liedchen klingen,” the coda is as equally important as the vocal melody. With a syncopated unease, the melody climbs through chromatic harmonies to the dominant before descending into the final tonic chord.

 

Leaving the passive resignation of “Am leuchtenden Sommermorgen,” “Ich hab’ im Traum geweinet” (“I wept in my dream,” hear) returns to the bleaker tone of some of the earlier songs in the cycle. The poet’s despair now plagues him even in sleep. In the poem’s three stanzas, he describes three dreams: in the first, his beloved has passed away and lies in her grave (“Mir träumte, du lägest im Grab”); in the second, she has abandoned him (“Mir träumt', du verließest mich”); lastly, in the third, she has remained faithful to him. In each case, he awakes from the dreams with tears. Schumann’s setting remarkably captures the powerful emotions of Heine’s poem with minimal means. The vocal melody of the first two stanzas is virtually unaccompanied—its phrases are punctuated by either isolated chords or a short funereal motif. Yet the melody, moving gloomily about in the key of E-flat minor in a quasi-recitative manner, poignantly reflects the poet’s gloom. The third stanza, in which the poet awakes having dreamed his beloved has remained faithful to him, begins similarly as the previous two, though now the piano provides sustained chords beneath the vocal melody. Though the dream was pleasant, the brutal remembrance of reality is portrayed in the slow ascent of chromatic chords leading to the heartrending climax in A-flat minor. Schumann poignantly interjects a full measure of silence before the brief coda allotted to the piano, in which the funereal motif returns to close the song.

 

With “Allnächtlich im Traume seh’ ich dich” (“Nightly I see you in my dreams,” here), the cycle grows more introspective as the poet dwells increasingly on his dreams. Now, he imagines her greeting him (“Und sehe dich freundlich grüßen”). He throws himself at her feet, but her countenance is sorrowful (“Du siehst mich an wehmütiglich”). In the final stanza, she softly speaks to him a word while offering him a cypress branch, a traditional symbol of death and mourning (“Du sagst mir heimlich ein leises Wort / Und gibst mir den Strauß von Zypressen”). However, when the poet awakes, he cannot recall the word and the branch is gone. After the dismal E-flat minor of the previous song, “Allnächtlich” shines forth in a brilliant B major. Schumann’s setting is predominantly strophic. The vocal melody is charming and is adorned with a simple chordal accompaniment. Only at the close of the first and second stanzas does the piano gain its own melodic interest by appending a brief, but pleasant, codetta. More curious, however, is the interjection of a measure of triple time in the overall duple meter as each of these stanzas approach their conclusion. This change of meter momentarily gives the vocal melody a quasi-recitative character. To achieve the song’s climax, Schumann then expands this measure of triple meter across two measures of duple time in the third stanza. The vocal melody maintains a similar contour as before. However, this time it climbs up to a D-sharp before falling back to conclude on the dominant, leaving the piano to provide the final cadence.

 

In the penultimate song, “Aus alten Märchen winkt es” (“From old fairy tales beckons,” here), the thoughts and dreams of the poet finally turn from the painful rejection of his beloved. He now dreams of a strange, magical land drenched in golden twilight (“Wo bunte Blumen blühen / Im gold'nen Abendlicht”), filled with the songs of nature (“Und grüne Bäume singen / Uralte Melodei'n”), and spectral figures that dance to the strange chorus of music (“Und Nebelbilder steigen / Wohl aus der Erd' hervor, / Und tanzen luft'gen Reige”). Longingly, the poet yearns to enter this magical dreamland of bliss where he will finally be free of his pain and suffering. Yet, despite his most ardent wish, each morning the idyllic land fades all too quickly from his mind (“Doch kommt die Morgensonne, / Zerfließt's wie eitel Schaum”). In E major, Schumann’s setting opens in a rustic 6/8 meter with a piano introduction that foreshadows the vocal melody. The galloping rhythm of both the melody and accompaniment persists through much of the song, at times even adopting an almost Mendelssohnian sprightliness. The mood, however, turns more earnest at the penultimate stanza, which Schumann specifically marks “Mit innigster Empfindung” (“With deepest feeling”). As the poet longs for his fantastical dreamland, the tempo is slowed and the vocal melody is now accompanied by more sustained harmonies in the piano. Chromatic harmonies lead to the close of the vocal melody, as the poet’s visions slips from his reach with each morning. Following a brief pause, the piano concludes the song with a hushed restatement of the introduction.

 

With the last song, “Die alten, bösen Lieder” (“The old, angry songs,” here), Heine’s narrative comes to its fateful end. The poet now beckons a coffin to be brought, one larger than the cask at Heidelberg (“Der Sarg muß sein noch größer, / Wie's Heidelberger Faß”)—a reference to the famed Heidelberg Tun, the world’s largest wine barrel. Next, he calls for a death bier with planks longer than the bridge at Mainz (“Auch muß sie sein noch länger, / Als wie zu Mainz die Brück'”), a city on the Rhine River; then, for twelve giants stronger than St. Christopher at the Cologne Cathedral (“Die müssen noch stärker sein / Als wie der [heil'ge]3 Christoph”), who according to legend was over seven feet tall. He then instructs that the coffin be carried away and plunged into the sea (“Die sollen den Sarg forttragen, / Und senken ins Meer hinab”), since only it would be great enough to conceal the poet’s love and anguish. Schumann’s setting brings Heine’s narrative full circle with a dramatic introduction on a C-sharp minor chord, echoing the opening tone of the first song. Beneath the steady, determined vocal melody is a busy piano accompaniment depicting the assembly of the coffin, bier, and giants at the poet’s behest. Beginning with the second stanza, the next two end successively a tone higher as the key rises from E major, though F-sharp minor, to G-sharp minor. From this point, the beginning of the fifth stanza, the tonic key is regained. Yet, the music sinks fatefully downward as Schumann depicts the coffin being carried away into the sea. A dramatic pause occurs on the “hinab” (“down”) with the vocal melody sinking into a flattened dominant over a diminished seventh harmony. The final stanza, in which the poet rhetorically asks his audience why the coffin must be so large, the music turns introspective. Over a sustained dominant seventh in F-sharp minor, the vocal melody progresses towards its most heart-wrenching conclusion. Atop a D major chord which affects a deft modulation back into C-sharp minor, the vocalist gives a poignant appoggiatura on the word “Liebe” (“love”). Once again, Schumann lets the vocal melody trail off without reaching the tonic, as if he imagines the poet suddenly unable to no longer speak, while the piano takes center stage to close the cycle. Unwarranted by Heine’s text, yet providing an effective conclusion for the cycle, Schumann appends a lengthy coda in D-flat major which provides the cycle with a bittersweet ending.