Classical Music | Tenor

Recorded on 12/31/1969, uploaded on 06/07/2015

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

In the opening song, “Im wunderschönen Monat Mai” (“In the wonderfully beautiful month of May”), the poet reveals to his beloved his affection for her, and compares his ardent love to the sights and sounds of Spring: budding flowers (“als alle Knospen sprangen”) and singing birds (“als alle Vögel sangen”). Heine’s brief two stanza poem, however, leaves the reader to question whether the poet’s love is requited. Schumann’s setting even more poignantly expresses the uncertainty of the text. From the first chord, Schumann foreshadows the plight of the poet with an introductory passage in the piano that strongly suggests, though never confirms, the key of F-sharp minor. With the first line of text, the music effortlessly slips into the key of A major. Yet, even as it settles firmly into this key, there remains no sense of security. During the final two lines (“da ist in meinem Herzen / die Liebe aufgegangen”), the introduction of chromatic tones pull the music into B minor and then D major, as the vocal melody climbs longing up the A major scale to a flattened seventh scale degree. Closing the first stanza in such an unsettled manner, the music then shifts back into the ominous music of the introduction before presenting the second stanza in the same manner. Schumann was often keen to conclude the vocal melody on an unresolved chord, but he takes this penchant a step further in the brief three-measure codetta that follows. Returning again to the music of the opening, the song dies away on a disquieted dominant seventh in F-sharp minor, thus leaving the listener to ponder the fate of the poet.      Joseph DuBose

Recorded live on August 19th of 1965 at the Salzburg Festival.

courtesy of YouTube