Classical Music | Tenor

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

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Robert Schumann was already familiar with the poetry of Justinus Kerner when in late 1840 he composed an entire song cycle based on selections from the poet’s works. Published as his opus 35, the 12 Gedicthe are perhaps unusual in that they do not reflect the otherwise joyful period of that prolific “Year of Song” during which his love for Clara came to fruition in their marriage. Instead, the songs echo feelings of longing and at times even sorrow. Though a song cycle, there is no narrative to it as there was in Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin or Winterreise. However, there is a decidedly strong relationship between the tonic keys of each song—all (except for the one song in C major) are among the nearly related keys of E-flat major, in which four of the songs are written.

In a brilliant B-flat major and lilting compound meter, the seventh song, Wanderung (“Wandering”), is a joyous excursion among the wondrous scenes of nature. A brief two-stanza poem, the poet speaks of “unknown lands” and of his admiration for Heaven and Earth, calling them even his closest kin. Schumann’s setting his quite appropriate for the blissful tone of Kerner’s text. Throughout much of the song, the piano imitates the open tones of hunting horns in a galloping rhythm as a means of invoking an energetic romp through unknown landscapes.  On the poem’s final two lines of text, the vocal melody adopts soaring arpeggios that are oddly reminiscent of Schumann’s Konzertstück for four horns that would appear nine years later.       Joseph DuBose

The Steans Music Institute is the Ravinia Festival's professional studies program for young musicians.