Classical Music | Soprano

Recorded on 04/10/2012, uploaded on 04/10/2012

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 sixteenth song of the collection, “Elfendlied” is a comic tale of an elf, abruptly wakened from slumber by the watchman’s cry. As he “hobbles down” into the valley, he espies the gleam of lightened windows. Curiosity gets the better of him, but when he ventures over to peak through the windows, the poem comes to an amusing end as the elf bumps his head on a stone. Wolf’s setting begins with the stern cry of the watchmen, with the piano doubling in octaves the vocalist’s rising melodic line. From then on, the song adopts a light and impish demeanor appropriate for the comical exploit of its protagonist. The vocal melody is nimble, and at times a little in the manner of a recitative. The piano accompaniment is highly descriptive of the text, and one can easily hear in it the humorous “hobbling” of the elf, and the rapping of his head on the stone.       Joseph DuBose