Classical Music | 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.

In “Neue Liebe” (“New Love”), the poet muses to himself during sleepless hours of the night on the nature of love. Can two people truly possess each other on earth? Can anyone be truly his? Wolf’s settings begins in the key of B-flat major with a melody of simple, loving expression announced in the piano’s two measures of introduction, then repeated and expanded by the vocalist beginning in the third measure. When the poet concludes that he cannot truly possess anyone, the music, quite sharply, moves into the key of C minor and with forte chords reinforces his declaration. Tremolandi appear beneath the vocal melody when the poet’s thoughts are turn to the divine by a flash of light in the darkness. He now marvels at himself that he had not previously realized that nothing hinders him from possessing God, and God him, on earth. The music builds to a powerful climax at the beginning of the final line, but quickly recedes into the quiet coda provided by the piano. With a feeling of religious acceptance and joy, the piano concludes the song with a plagal (“Amen”) cadence.     Joseph DuBose

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