Unlocking Late Schumann A guide to late works in the...
Transcript of Unlocking Late Schumann A guide to late works in the...
Unlocking Late Schumann
A guide to late works in the Oxford Lieder Festival (14-29th October 2016)
By Frankie Perry
See the festival’s website, www.oxfordlieder.co.uk/events/forthcoming, for
information about other pieces in the programmes and concert venues.
Join the fun on Twitter by following @OxfordLieder and @RSchumanntweets
n.b. This guide aims to include late music featured in the festival across all genres
from 1849—this year was chosen as it marked Schumann’s fervent return to lied
composition. There will inevitably be omissions, for which apologies.
Friday 14th October, 7.30pm (opening recital)
Christian Gerhaher, baritone
Gerold Huber, piano
Drei Gesänge, Op. 83
March-April 1850.
Texts by various authors, listed below. The provenance of the first song’s poem is
disputed, with its author labelled only ‘J.B.’ in the manuscript. It has been attributed
by many to Julius Buddeus, despite no published volume of his poetry existing.
Schumann’s autograph specifies that the songs were written for soprano voice—an
indication rare among Schumann’s lieder. It opens with a meditation upon unrequited
love, with yearning lines and changing textures that echo the poem’s mix of emotions:
hope, longing, and resignation. A song from the perspective of the ‘flower of
resignation’ follows, which, in contrast, has an immediate lyricism: its memorable
vocal melody is underpinned by a delicate accompaniment coloured with occasional
chromaticism. The concluding song brings another textural change, with a chordal
piano part that roughly follows the vocal line. This D minor song ends unexpectedly
in F major, which heightens the interest of the set’s overarching harmonic logic (D-
flat A d F).
i. Resignation (‘J.B.’, attr. Julius Buddeus)
ii. Die Blume der Ergebung (Friedrich Rückert)
iii. Der Einsiedler (Joseph von Eichendorff)
Sechs Gedichte von N. Lenau und Requiem, Op. 90
August 1850.
Texts by Nikolaus Lenau, except the closing ‘Requiem’, which is a translation of an
anonymous medieval Latin text, supposedly Heloise’s lament for Abelard. Schumann
wrote the songs believing Lenau to have recently died, but news arrived of the poet’s
actual death just before the songs were first performed. Clara noted that the news
added to the bitter tone of the cycle to ‘put us all in a melancholy mood’. Schumann
requested that the publisher, Kistner, should include on the title page emblems of
mourning—‘a funeral bouquet and a star showing behind it’. The cycle begins with a
blacksmith’s song in a resolutely lively E-flat major, but this optimism soon fades.
The rose of the second song is wilting, dying—the music’s prized melody and
tumbling piano figures cannot save it. The trajectory of despair continues to the final,
bitter Lenau setting, ‘Der schwere Abend’, which brings rhythmic and melodic
evocations of the tearful dreams of an earlier poetic persona; while G-flat major is
clung onto in this earlier song (‘Ich hab’ im Traum geweinet’ from Dichterliebe,
1840), it is its relative E-flat minor—the flattest key there is—that prevails here. The
requiem offers hope of redemption in its return to vocal and pianistic lyricism, and it
ends the cycle back in E-flat major.
i. Lied eines Schmiedes
ii. Meine Rose
iii. Kommen und Scheiden
iv. Die Sennin
v. Einsamkeit
vi. Der schwere Abend
vii. Requiem
Saturday 15th October, 7.30pm
Sophie Karthäuser, soprano
Sarah Connolly, mezzo-soprano
Eugene Asti, piano
Sechs Gedichte von N. Lenau und Requiem, Op. 90 August 1850.
Text: Nikolaus Lenau. These songs are introduced in the 14th October listing above,
and are split here between the soprano and mezzo soprano voices of Karthäuser and
Connolly.
‘An den Abendstern’, from Mädchenlieder, Op. 103/iv
May-June 1851.
Text: Elisabeth Kulmann. The cycle is more fully listed under 18th October; this
gentle song to an evening star is the last of Schumann’s duet settings of Kulmann’s
verse.
‘Sommerruh’, WoO. 7
November 1849.
Text by Christian Schad. This little-known duet was written near the end of
Schumann’s ‘second year of song’ (1849), and is a simple paean to the loveliness of
summer. It was prepared for publication by Brahms, appearing in 1893, alongside a
handful of Schumann’s youthful lieder of the late 1820s.
Sunday 16th October, 7.30pm
Christopher Maltman
Graham Johnson, piano
‘Ballade des Harfners’, Op.98a/ii
May-June 1849.
Text by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe; for an introduction to the Lieder und Gesänge
aus Wilhelm Meister, see the complete cycle’s listing on 23rd October. This is the
second song of the cycle, which has been viewed as the furthest removed from
Schumann’s 1840 style. The Harper’s Ballad introduces this famously enigmatic and
troubled character, reflected in the music by frequent and significant shifts in melody,
harmony, and accompaniment. Every page of the score looks completely different, as
the opening’s arpeggiated harp-like chords give way to creeping chromatic quavers
and, eventually, rapid semiquaver motion. Some abrupt texture changes also bring
harmonic shifts: from the B-flat major beginning, we find ourselves suddenly hearing
G-flat, D-flat, and C-flat sonorities in tonal pivots that might bring Schubert to mind.
Der Handschuh, Op. 87
c. 1849.
Text by Friedrich Schiller. The overtly dramatic setting of Schiller’s famous ballad
certainly makes up for its relative brevity; Schumann displays his powers of depiction
by, for instance, subtly changing the musical direction as different large cats (a lion, a
tiger, two leopards) enter the tale. Graham Johnson suggests the composer had
‘clearly closely observed the behavior of the domesticated cat’.
Vier Husarenlieder von Nikolaus Lenau, Op. 117 March 1851.
Texts by Nikolaus Lenau. The military poems go between wild bravado, revelling in
‘women, wine and song’, to dark accounts of bloodshed. The music reflects this, pre-
figuring in many ways the sinister soldiers’ tales found in Mahler’s Des knaben
Wunderhorn. Thematic and musical resonances can also be heard between these
songs and ‘Der Soldat’ from Schumann’s 1840 settings of Hans Christian Andersen
(Op. 40), which is also on the programme.
i. Der Husar, trara!
ii. Der leidige Frieden
iii. Den grünen Zeigern
iv. Da liegt der Feinde gestreckte Schar
Monday 17th October, 1.10pm
Mhairi Lawson, soprano
Stephan Loges, bass baritone
Eugene Asti, piano
Excerpts from Lieder-Album für die Jugend, Op. 79
April-June 1849.
Texts by various authors, detailed below. The Lieder-Album is split across festival
performances; a complete list of its songs and an introductory note can be found at the
end of this guide.
xiii. Marienwürmchen (Anon.)
xxii. Des Sennen Abschied (Friedrich Schiller)
xii. Der Sandmann (Hermann Kletke)
xxi. Kinderwacht (Melchior von Diepenbrock)
xxvi. Schneeglöckchen (Friedrich Rückert)
xxvii. Lied Lynceus des Türmers (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
xvii. Die wandelnde Glocke (Goethe)
Sieben Lieder von Elisabeth Kulmann, Op. 104
May-June 1851.
Texts by Elisabeth Kulmann. The figure of the ill-fated Kulmann, allegedly a literary
prodigy who penned over one thousand poems before her death aged 17, certainly
captured Schumann’s imagination, as he dedicated these settings ‘to the memory of a
girl who ceased to linger among us long ago’, who ‘may have been one of those
wonderfully gifted beings who appear but rarely at infrequent intervals on earth’. The
texts and their settings are tinged at times with sadness, optimism, and naivety.
i. Mond, meiner Seele Liebling
ii. Viel Glück zur Reise, Schwalben!
iii Du nennst mich armes Mädchen
iv. Der Zeisig
v. Reich mir die Hand, o Wolke
vi. Die letzten Blumen starben
vii. Gekämpft hat meine Barke
The songs are followed by a short verbal postscript (‘Nachschrift’) written by
Schumann.
Monday 17th October, 7.30pm Joan Rodgers, soprano
Dietrich Henschel, baritone
Sholto Kynoch, piano
Excerpts from Lieder-Album für die Jugend, Op. 79
April-June 1849.
Texts by various authors, detailed below. The Lieder-Album is split across festival
performances; a complete list of its songs and an introductory note can be found at the
end of this guide.
vi. Sonntag (August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben)
xiv. Die Waise (Fallersleben)
xvi. Weihnachtslied (Hermann Kletke)
xv. Das Glück (Christian Friedrich Hebbel)
xx. Die Schwalben (Auguste von Pattberg)
Tuesday 18th October, 1.10pm Gemma Lois Summerfield, soprano
Soraya Mafir, soprano
Ian Tindale, piano
Mädchenlieder, Op. 103
May-June 1851.
Texts by Elisabeth Kulmann, who is introduced in the listing for 17th October; 24
hours after hearing the Sieben Lieder Op. 104, this concert features Schumann’s four
remaining Kulmann settings, for two female voices, published as Op. 103.
Schumann’s records do list twelve settings of her poetry, but only eleven are extant
today. Again, the poems are entrenched in the imagery of nature, and Schumann’s
settings reflect this youthful love for the world.
i. Mailied
ii. Frühlingslied
iii. An die Nachtigall
iv. An den Abendstern
Drei Gesänge aus Lord Byrons Hebräischen Gesängen, Op. 95
December 1849.
Texts by Lord Byron. Schumann had set single songs from Byron’s Hebrew Melodies
before, including a notable example included in Myrthen, Op. 25 (1840). These three
settings use a German translation of the poems, by Julius Körner, but Schumann
deviates from Körner’s version at multiple points; Jon Finson suggests that his
alterations enhance certain original sentiments that were lost in translation. The songs
were originally written for voice with harp accompaniment, with the score noting that
the piano could be used as an alternative. Traces of the original instrumentation can
be heard through spread chords and through the idiomatic treatment of chromatic
passages.
i. Die Tochter Jepthas
ii. An den Mond
iii. Dem Helden
‘Liedchen von Marie und Papa’, WoO. 26/iii
12 September 1852.
Text by Marie Schumann, who was then 11. The short duet for two voices was first
performed the day after its composition, on the occasion of Clara’s 33rd birthday; it
offers a glimpse into both Schumann’s two-part invention and the family’s domestic
music making.
Wednesday 19th October, 1.10pm Katherine Watson, soprano
William Dazeley, baritone
Sholto Kynoch, piano
Vier Gesänge, Op. 142
May and November 1840.
Texts by various authors, listed below. Despite the late opus number, these songs
were composed in 1840. ‘Trost im Gesang’ was composed to be part of the Kerner-
Lieder Op. 35, while the two Heine settings were destined for Dichterliebe. The four
were published together by Clara after her husband’s death.
i. Trost im Gesang (Justinus Kerner)
ii. Lehn’ deine Wang’ an meine Wang’ (Heinrich Heine)
iii. Mädchen-Schwermut (likely Lily Bernhard)
iv. Mein Wagen rollet langsam (Heinrich Heine)
Excerpts from Lieder-Album für die Jugend, Op. 79
April-June 1849.
Texts by various authors, detailed below. The Lieder-Album is split across festival
performances; a complete list of its songs and an introductory note can be found at the
end of this guide.
xxiii. Er ist’s (Eduard Mörike)
xviii. Frühlingslied (August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben)
vix. Mailied (Christian Adolf Overbeck von Lübeck)
ii. Schmetterling (Fallersleben)
iii. Frühlingsbotschaft (Fallersleben)
iv. Frühlingsgruss (Fallersleben)
xi. Hinaus ins Freie (Fallersleben)
xix. Frühlings Ankunft (Fallersleben)
Wednesday 19th October, 7.30pm Bryony Williams, soprano
John Mark Ainsley, tenor
David Owen Norris, piano
Vier Duette, Op. 78
July-August 1849.
Texts by Friedrich Rückert, Justinus Kerner, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Christian
Friedrich Hebbel. This set is more fully listed under 28th October.
Thursday 20th October, 11.30am Raphaela Papadakis, soprano
Gildas String Quartet
Aribert Reimann, Sechs Gesänge von Robert Schumann, Op. 107
1994
Texts by various authors; the Op. 107 songs are introduced under the listing for 26th
October. Aribert Reimann’s orchestrations and reinventions of Romantic lieder by
Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, and Brahms, fall into a tradition of timbral
adaptation that extends back to, for instance, Brahms orchestrating Schubert’s lieder.
The Ophelia song ‘Herzeleid’ connects the Op. 107 set with the other songs on the
programme: Brahms’s Ophelia-Lieder, also arranged for string quartet and soprano.
Along similar lines, Robin Holloway’s reworking of the Heine Liederkreis, Op. 24,
can be heard on 28th October.
Thursday 20th October, 1.10pm
Benjamin Appl, baritone
Gary Matthewman, piano
Zwei Balladen, Op. 122
June 1852 (ii); September 1853 (i).
Texts by Christian Friedrich Hebbel, and Percy Bysshe Shelley in translation. This is
a rare opportunity to hear two of Schumann’s declamation ballads for speaker and
piano — a genre he had first explored in ‘Schön Hedwig’. The musical emphasis is on
creating an atmosphere that reflects the supernatural literary themes; the pieces
demonstrate the far reaches of Schumann’s exploration of genre, timbre, and text-
setting in the later 1840s. The composer described them as a ‘kind of composition that
arguably does not yet exist’, although precedents to some aspects of the writing can
be found, for instance, in his melodramatic music for Byron’s Manfred.
i. Ballade vom Heideknaben (Hebbel)
ii. Die Flüchtlinge (Shelley)
Sechs Gesänge, Op. 107 January and September 1851; January 1852.
Texts by various authors; for an introduction to this cycle, see the listing on 26th
October.
Thursday 20th Oct, 7.30pm
Rowan Pierce, soprano
Ann Murray, mezzo-soprano
Timothy Langston, tenor
Sir Thomas Allen, baritone
Malcolm Martineau, piano
Spanisches Liederspiel, Op. 74
March 1849.
Spanish poems by various authors, translated into German by Emanuel Geibel (1815-
1884). This is the first of Schumann’s Liederspiele to be heard in the festival; the
Spanisches Liebeslieder and the Minnespiel can be heard in the closing concert on 29th
October. Liederspiele, or ‘song plays’, are collections of songs in various
configurations of four singers and piano, from solos to quartets. They are an example
of Schumann’s vocal collections aimed for domestic markets: amateur musicians
would play through the songs around a piano at social gatherings. In this capacity,
they can be situated within a tradition of music written for enthusiastic bourgeoisie
that dated back to Schubert’s predecessors, such as Johann Friedrich Reichardt. It also
taps into the contemporary fashion for exoticism, with the imagined, idealised
‘Spanishness’ coming through in exaggerated rhythms and heightened melodic
simplicity and catchiness.
i. Erste Begegnung
ii. Intermezzo
iii. Liebesgram
iv. In der Nacht
v. Es ist verraten
vi. Melancholie
vii. Geständnis
viii. Botschaft
ix. Ich bin geliebt
x. Der Contrabandiste
Friday 21st October, 7.30pm Juliane Banse, soprano
Marcelo Amarai, piano
Gedichte der Königin Maria Stuart, Op. 135
December 1852.
Texts collated and translated by Gisbert Vincke; while all were originally attributed to
Mary Stuart, the only one for which this remains even slightly credible is the third,
‘To Queen Elizabeth’. The songs were composed in the spirit of a wide-spread
sentimental fascination with the life and death of Mary Stuart that had swept across
Europe from the mid eighteenth century. Other examples include Donizetti’s opera
Maria Stuarda, and Friedrich Schiller’s 1800 play that dramatises Mary’s final days.
While described by Eric Sams as ‘dismal’, and as representing the end point in
Schumann’s creative decline, they demonstrate an acute sensitivity to dramatic
characterisation in their use of stark chords and almost recitative-like vocal lines.
Textures from Schumann’s earlier song-writing styles also make an appearance, with
the flowing semiquavers and lyrical vocal melody of the first song evoking the
opening of the 1840 Eichendorff Liederkreis.
i. Abschied von Frankreich
ii. Nach der Geburt ihres Sohnes
iii. An die Königin Elisabeth
iv. Abschied von der Welt
v. Gebet
Requiem, from Sechs Gedichte von N. Lenau und Requiem, Op. 90
August 1850.
Text translated from a medieval lament. As an appendage to the Lenau songs, the
Requiem is often performed apart from the preceding six songs. Its themes are
universal: transcendence, peace, (and the beautiful harps of angels). If both the Prayer
that ends the Maria Stuart songs and the Requiem are untransposed in this
performance, a semitonal shift downwards will occur between the pessimistic E minor
close of the former and the gentle E-flat major that begins the latter. For more
information on the Lenau cycle, see the 14th October listing.
Sunday 23rd October, 7.30pm
Bo Skovhus, baritone
Matti Hirvonen, piano
Des Sängers Fluch, Op. 139
January (iv) and July (vii) 1852.
Text: Richard Pohl’s adaptation of a ballad by Johann Ludwig Uhland. This large-
scale work for five soloists, chorus and orchestra was an experiment in genre and
dedicated to Brahms. Two excerpts are performed here, for voice and piano.
‘Provenzalisches Lied’ tells a tale of troubadour song and courtly love; aspects of the
simple, yet still somewhat operatic, song, along with the orchestral version’s reliance
of a basic repeated harp accompaniment, are curiously reminiscent of the songs sung
by Wagner’s Meistersingers, written over a decade later. The ‘Provenzalisches Lied’
is sung by the younger man of the story, while the more stately ‘Ballade’ is sung by
the older Harper, recounting another historical tale, this time of the Harper’s three
songs.
iv. Provenzalisches Lied
vii. Ballade
Lieder und Gesänge aus Wilhelm Meister, Op. 98a
May, June, and July 1849.
Text by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Written in three short bursts across May, June,
and July 1849, John Daverio has described these songs as Schumann’s ‘most
emotionally charged song cycle’. They have been widely considered to be the furthest
removed in terms of style and coherence from the 1840 cycles, and, as Jon Finson
suggests, demonstrate a ‘conscious transposition of the lied from the home to the
concert hall’. These are difficult songs, aimed for professional performers, and show
his powerful commitment to precise and sensitive characterisation. Mignon and the
Harper are two troubled and enigmatic characters from Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister,
whose strange songs have appealed to many composers including, notably, Schubert
and Wolf. Schumann’s music reflects the dark intrigue of the characters, with
creeping chromatic lines, abrupt shifts in texture, unexpected harmonic trajectories,
and melodies that are often strangely hard to grasp.
i. Mignon, “Kennst du das Land?”
ii. Ballade des Harfners
iii. Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt
iv. Wer nie sein Brot mit Tränen ass
v. Heiss’ mich nicht reden
vi. Wer sich der Einsamkeit ergibt
vii. Singet nicht in Trauertönen
viii. An die Türen will ich schleichen
ix. So lasst mich scheinen
Monday 24th October, 4.15pm Schola Cantorum of Oxford
James Burton, director
Two settings of ‘John Anderson’, from Romanzen und Balladen für Chor i, Op.
67/v, and iii, Op. 145/iv
1849.
Text by Robert Burns. Schumann’s regular engagement with the Dresden Chorverein
in the late 1840s led to him composing choral works of many configurations. John
Daverio suggests that in his four sets of Romanzen und Balladen composed in 1849,
he ‘convincingly transforms the lyric-epic ‘I’ into a lyric-epic ‘we’’, thus creating
‘unaccompanied choral lieder’ that have the same immediacy of expression as his
songs for voice and piano. The two settings of the same poem by Robert Burns are not
unalike; in different keys, they share their understated atmosphere and relaxed triple
metre. John Anderson was a carpenter and close friend of Burns.
Two pieces from Vier doppelchörige Gesänge, Op. 141
1849.
Texts by Friedrich Rückert and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Goethe’s ‘Talismane’
was first set by Schumann as a lied in Myrthen, Op. 25; removing the piano and
adding a whole host of extra voices conveys the text in a very different way, with the
interplay between the halves of the double choir demonstrating Schumann’s endless
capacity for invention and reinvention. Rückert’s poem is given a more serene setting,
reflecting the repeated sentiments of the stanzas: the heavenly stars offer hope, peace,
happiness, and dreams.
i. An die Sterne (Rückert)
iv. Talismane (Goethe)
Tuesday 25th October, 7.30pm Mark Padmore, tenor
Simon Lepper, piano
Fünf Lieder und Gesänge, Op. 127
1840 (i, iii, iii, v); 1850 (iv).
Texts by various authors, detailed below. The Op. 127 and Op. 142 sets were among
the last songs that occupied Schumann, in late 1853; however, almost all of them had
been written in 1840. He returned to them over a decade later, but struggled to find
publishers who would take his newly collated sets; each constituted of songs he had
removed from the Kerner-Lieder and Dichterliebe. Clara eventually had them
published, with these five appearing first, as Op. 127 in 1854, and the Op. 142 set
emerging later, after the composer’s death.
i. Sängers Trost (Justinus Kerner)
ii. Dein Angesicht (Heinrich Heine)
iii. Es leuchtet meine Liebe (Heinrich Heine)
iv. Mein altes Ross (Mortiz von Strachwitz)
v. Schlusslied des Narren (William Shakespeare, trans. Schlegel)
Wednesday 26th October, 1.10pm Felicity Lott, soprano
Eugene Asti, piano
Sechs Gesänge, Op. 107 January and September 1851; January 1852.
Texts by various authors, detailed below. Written in two loosely-connected sets of
three, but published as one, this collection was dedicated to the mezzo soprano Sophie
Schloss, with whom Clara performed the Mörike setting ‘Der Gärtner’ in a Düsseldorf
concert in March 1851. Female personas emerge in multiple songs (‘Herzeleid’, ‘Die
Fenterscheibe’, ‘Die Spinnerin’), acting as disparate foretellers of the more sustained
explorations of feminine subjects in the Kulmann songs, written later in 1851, and the
Maria Stuart lieder of 1852. ‘Herzeleid’ is Schumann’s contribution to a cross-century
canon of Ophelia songs: his setting is of Titus Ulrich’s adaptation of Queen
Gertrude’s lament. The song ends with a lamenting repeat of ‘Ophelia’; it is a
subdued setting, quite as full of melancholy and delicacy as those of Brahms, Berlioz,
Rihm, Abrahamsen, and others. ‘Die Spinnerin’ was Schumann’s first setting of Paul
Heyse, who was born in 1830 and would later be set more extensively by Brahms. As
may be expected, the piano’s right hand plays constant semiquavers yet, unlike
Schubert’s Gretchen, the spinning girl spins with complacency rather than dramatic
urgency, as the monotony of her task illuminates the disappointments of life and love.
i. Herzeleid (Titus Ulrich)
ii. Die Fensterscheibe (Titus Ulrich)
iii. Der Gärtner (Eduard Mörike)
iv. Die Spinnerin (Paul Heyse)
v. Im Wald (Wilhelm Müller)
vi. Abendlied (Johann Gottfried Kinkel)
Wednesday 26th October, 7.30pm Christina Gansch, soprano
Bethan Langford, mezzo-soprano
Ben Johnson, tenor
Mark Stone, baritone
Robert Holl, bass
Sholto Kynoch, piano
Lieder für drei Frauenstimmen, Op. 114
1853.
Texts by various authors, listed below. This little-performed set was written late in
Schumann’s life and reflects his ongoing explorations of the possibilities and confines
of genre; the three settings lie somewhere between lied and part-song. The first song
pointedly nods to choral writing in its ceremonial, chorale-like lamentation on the
death of a bird. The second places the three voices in close harmony, while the third
uses an intricate and chromatic contrapuntal figuration: the voices enter canonically
with a wandering melodic line, underpinned by the piano, before coming together for
a simple conclusion in F major.
i. Nänie (Ludwig Bechstein)
ii. Triolett (Christian L’Egru)
iii. Spruch (Friedrich Rückert)
‘Meine Rose’ and ‘Einsamkeit’ from Sechs Gedichte von N. Lenau, Op. 90
August 1850.
Texts by Nikolaus Lenau. The complete cycle is described under the 14th October
listing. The two songs here are the second and fifth in the cycle, and present very
different examples of Schumann’s late lieder. ‘Meine Rose’ recalls the immediate
melodic beauty and lyricism of Schumann’s 1840 style, and perhaps for that reason is
one of Schumann’s best known and loved late songs. ‘Einsamkeit’ is based on
wandering lines akin to those first heard in the 1840 songs ‘Zwielicht’ (Op. 39) and
‘Muttertraum’ (1840): sparse, chromatic, linear and quasi-contrapuntal piano writing
became a much more frequently employed textural device among Schumann’s later
songs. Susan Youens describes this, beautifully, as his ‘propensity to begin with a
single line of pitches and then have subsequent countermelodies branch off from the
main stem like leafless branches on one of Caspar David Friedrich’s trees in winter’.
Deklamation ‘Schön Hedwig’, Op. 106
December 1849.
Text by Christian Friedrich Hebbel. Schumann first had the idea of writing for
spoken, rather than sung, voice in 1845, but it was the end of 1849 before he
completed his first foray into the genre. Kistner, who published the Lenau songs Op.
90 among others, abruptly rejected the setting in 1852; it was accepted instead by
Barthold Senff, who suggested it was something ‘completely new’ that he hoped
would ‘pleasantly surprise the musical world’. With the voice deprived of sung lines,
different manners of dramatic expression are explored, as is demonstrated by the
highly active piano part.
Der Rose Pilgerfahrt, Op. 112
1851
Text by Moritz Horn. The Pilgrimage of the Rose is another work situated between
genres. More usually performed in its version for orchestra, soloists and choruses,
where it is thought of as a fairy-tale cantata, here it is heard in its original version for
piano accompaniment. Schumann insisted that both versions were suitable for
performance. A story unfolds of a rose who longs to experience human emotion; she
becomes Rosa, and does exactly that. Richard Wigmore has described the work as
‘German Romanticism at its most sickly sweet’, and Schumann’s music certainly
reflects Horn’s imaginative world.
i. Die Frühlingslüfte bringen
ii. Johannis war gekommen
iii. Elfenreigen: Wir tanzen, wir tanzen
iv. Und wie sie sangen
v. So sangen sie, da dammert's schon
vi. Bin ein armes Waisenkind
vii. Es war der Rose erster Schmerz!
viii. Wie Blätter am Baum
ix. Die letze Scholl' hinunter rollt
x. Gebet: Dank, Herr, dir dort im Sternenland
xi. Ins Haus des Totengräbers
xii. Zwischen grünen Bäumen
xiii. Von dem Greis geleitet
xiv. Bald hat das neue Töchterlein
xv. Bist du im Wald gewandelt
xvi. Im Wald, gelehnt am Stamme
xvii. Der Abendschlummer
xviii. O sel'ge Zeit
xix. Wer kommt am Sonntagsmorgen
xx. Ei Mühle, liebe Mühle
xxi. Was klingen denn die Hörner
xxii. Im Hause des Müllers
xxiii. Und wie ein Jahr verronnen ist
xxiv. Röslein!
Thursday 27th October, 1.30pm Sophie Daneman, soprano
Mark Stone, baritone
Sholto Kynoch, piano
Excerpts from Lieder-Album für die Jugend, Op. 79
April-June 1849.
Texts by various authors, detailed below. The Lieder-Album is split across festival
performances; a complete list of its songs and an introductory note can be found at the
end of this guide.
xxiii. Er ist’s (Eduard Mörike)
xiii. Marienwürmchen (Anon.)
xii. Der Sandmann (Hermann Kletke)
x. Käuzlein (Anon.)
i. Der Abendstern (August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben)
v. Vom Schlaraffenland (Fallersleben)
viii. Des Knaben Berglied (Johann Ludwig Uhland)
xxv. Des Buben Schützenlied (Friedrich Schiller)
ix. Mailied (Christian Adolf Overbeck von Lübeck)
xv. Das Glück (Christian Friedrich Hebbel)
Thursday 27th October, 7.30pm
James Gilchrist, tenor
Anna Tilbrook, piano
Sechs Gesänge von Wilfried von der Neun, Op. 89
May 1850.
Texts by Wilfried von der Neun. These songs were written at the request of a young
and unknown poet, Friedrich Wilhelm Schöpff (von der Neun being his pseudonym),
who sent his poems to Schumann in the hope that they may be elevated to higher
planes by the addition of music. Schumann obliged, but, in Jon Finson’s words, ‘it
should come as no surprise that op. 89 does not stand as his most inspired group of
lieder’, as he ‘typically wrote his best songs to verse of high quality’. The sixth song
is perhaps the best-known, opening with the singer alone: ‘Röselein, Röselein!’; the
piano moves between off-beat accompaniment figures and upward flourishes, and the
general air is one of a distorted dance, somewhere between Schubert’s
‘Heidenröslein’ and the more serious ‘Meine Rose’ that Schumann would compose in
his next collection of songs. It ends with the reminder that all roses are thorned.
i. Es stürmet am Abendhimmel
ii. Heimliches Verschwinden
iii. Herbstlied
iv. Abschied vom Walde
v. Ins Freie
vi. Röselein, Röselein!
Friday 28th October, 1.10pm Johnny Herford, baritone
Aoife Miskelly, soprano
William Vann, piano
Drei Gedichte aus den Waldliedern von Pfarrius, Op. 119
September 1851.
Texts by Gustav Pfarrius. Rustic themes abound in this set of three forest-songs by the
little-known Pfarrius. Schumann’s long standing appreciation for both the idyllic and
supernatural capacities of the forest in the Romantic imagination is displayed here,
with the two outer settings, both in G major, displaying a folkloric optimism and
simple musical style. The central ‘Warnung’, in the relative B minor, is more
ominous, full of a foreboding similar to that of ‘Zwielicht’ from the Eichendorff
Liederkreis (Op. 39, 1840); both songs enact a marked change of mood within their
respective sets. Susan Youens hears hints of ‘post-revolutionary disillusionment’ both
in Pfarrius’s poem and in the ‘acerbic clashes’ of Schumann’s setting.
i. Die Hütte
ii. Warnung
iii. Der Bräutigam und die Birke
Fünf heitere Gesänge, Op. 125
June-July 1850 (i, ii, iii, v); January 1851 (iv).
Texts by various authors, detailed below. Schumann’s final collection of mis-matched
songs to texts by various poets was promptly accepted by its publisher, who
responded well to Schumann’s suggestion that he should produce a set of ‘cheerful
songs’. The elusive poet ‘Buddeus’, first encountered in Op. 83, makes another
appearance here. The first and third are playful settings, while the final two present
more complicated, and perhaps more nuanced, interpretations of their folk-based
texts.
i. Frühlingslied (Frédéric Ferdinand Braun)
ii. Frühlingslust (Paul Heyse)
iii. Die Meerfee (attr. Julius Buddeus)
iv. Jung Volkers Lied (Eduard Mörike)
v. Husarenabzug (Carl August Candidus)
Friday 28th October, 5.30pm
Bengt Forsberg, piano
Gesänge der Frühe, Op. 133
October 1853.
Schumann’s wordless Songs of Dawn, for piano, were described by Clara as being
‘completely original pieces as always, but difficult to grasp, for a completely original
tone resides therein’. That Schumann called these pieces Gesänge—songs—calls to
mind both his large body of works for voice and piano, and the intimacy of expression
associated with the lied. Yet, sung words are absent, so we have no extra-musical or
poetic frame from which to begin interpreting these short pieces and their complex,
irregular structures. This elusiveness continues in the work’s dedication to the
mysterious Diotima, who appeared in an early version of the title (Gesänge der
Frühe, An Diotima). Musically, the movements display some thematic connections
but inhabit quite different expressive spheres. The first and last are chorale-like and
sombre, the second and fourth use chromatic lines familiar from his earlier piano
writing, and the third is propelled by a persistent dotted rhythm.
i. Im ruhigen Tempo
ii. Belebt, nicht zu rasch
iii. Lebhaft
iv. Bewegt
v. Im Anfange ruhiges, im Verlauf bewegtes Tempo
Geistervariationen, WoO. 24
February 1854.
Reaching the very end of Schumann’s creative output, the Ghost Variations were
written around the time of his suicide attempt. In E-flat major, like the Rhenish
Symphony, legend has it that after being rescued from the river, he rushed back to his
desk to compose the most turbulent variation. Schumann claimed that these variations
had been dictated to him by, variously, angels, and the spirits of Schubert and
Mendelssohn. Today they are rarely performed or recorded, but they are full of lyrical
melody and harmonic adventure.
i. Leise, innig
ii. Variation 1
ii. Variation 2 - Canonisch
iii. Variation 3 - Etwas belebter
iv. Variation 4
v. Variation 5
Friday 28th October, 7.30pm
Kate Royal, soprano
Johannes Kammler, baritone
Roger Vignoles, piano
Lieder und Gesänge (III), Op. 77
May 1840 (i); April-July 1850 (ii-v)
Texts by various authors, listed below. As with many of the later collections,
Schumann struggled to find publishers willing to take these songs; many promptly
rejected his scores for not being simple and melodious enough to appeal to their
market. The publisher André, in this case, named ‘op. 42 and even the new op. 89’ as
suitable songs. The opening Eichendorff setting originally appeared in place of ‘Im
der Fremde’ at the beginning of the op. 39 Liederkreis; before Schumann revised the
cycle, early performances used the two interchangeably. The stylistic jump between
this song (written in 1840) and the following four (1850) is marked, as is the shift in
character. Between the upbeat march of the Eichendorff setting—alluding, it has been
suggested, to the opening of Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin—and a similarly lively
(albeit restlessly so) final song, the three central numbers are variously bitter,
contemplative and melancholic. Through a striking melodic similarity in its central
section, the third song ‘Geisternähe’ seems to evoke the spirit of ‘Sehnsuct nach dem
Walde’, an 1840 setting of Kerner (Op. 35/v).
i. Der frohe Wandersmann (Joseph von Eichendorff)
ii. Mein Garten (August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben)
iii. Geisternähe (Friedrich Halm)
iv. Stiller Vorwurf (Oskar Ludwig Wolff)
v. Aufträge (Christian L’Egru)
Lieder und Gesänge (IV), Op. 96
July 1850.
Texts by various authors, listed below. This set comprises an unusual concoction of
poets: from the revered Goethe, to a humble ‘anon’, to Schumann’s only setting of
August von Platen. Goethe’s ‘Wandrers Nachtlied’ was, and remains, one of the best
known examples of German lyric poetry, and its gentle meditation on universal
themes of nature and eventual eternal rest are reflected in the slow and careful
musical atmosphere. Schumann’s second snowdrop setting (‘Schneeglöckchen’)
begins in A-flat major, enacting a submediant shift between songs that follows
seamlessly from the subtle harmonic sleights-of-hand of ‘Nachtlied’. This song is
more complex both poetically and musically than the Rückert setting about the same
flower found in the Liederalbum für die Jugend, Op. 79; here, it represents ‘a strange
pale child’. A-flat major remains for the Platen song, and the first von der Neun
setting moves to an energetic C minor before the final song—‘heaven and earth’, to
complement the message of the opening ‘Nachtlied’—concludes the cycle in A-flat.
i. Nachtlied (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
ii. Schneeglöckchen (Anon.)
iii. Ihre Stimme (August Graf von Platen)
iv. Gesungen! (Wilfried von der Neun)
v. Himmel und Erde (Wilfried von der Neun)
Vier Duette, Op. 78
July-August 1849.
Texts by various authors, listed below. Each duet in this collection of four uses a text
by Schumann’s most frequently used poets. ‘Tanzlied’ is a leisurely waltz, in the
simple key of G major but slipping with ease into moments of B-flat and E-flat. The
second assumes E-flat as its tonic, with the singers taking on the characters ‘he’ and
‘she’, and is intensely lyrical, as the voices sing complementary stanzas before joining
together in a delicate duet. The Goethe setting continues in a similar vein, back in G
major, while the lullaby for a sick child begins in an unstable E minor coloured with
sharp dissonance, soon finding sanctuary in G major. A brief sink into the submediant
C major brings a further brief pivot into E-flat, as the singers—we assume now
parents—will their child to sleep; the tight-knit key relations here add to the sense that
these four songs present four snapshots in a couple’s life, not unlike the narratives that
drive Frauenliebe und –leben and the Maria Stuart lieder.
i. Tanzlied (Friedrich Rückert)
ii. Er und Sie (Justinus Kerner)
iii. Ich denke dein (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
iv. Wiegenlied am Lager eines kranken Kindes (Christian Friedrich Hebbel)
Friday 28th October, 10pm Mark van de Wiel, clarinet
Simon Tandree, viola
Bengt Forsberg, piano
Märchenerzählungen, Op. 132
October 1853.
The Märchenerzählungen is the second of Schumann’s chamber works inspired by
fairy tales, the first being the Märchenbilder of 1851. Both are entirely instrumental
works, with no explicit clues left about what fairy tale narratives, if any, the
movements may represent. They demonstrate that Schumann’s literary impetus and
his love for the fantastical, which was so clear in his piano pieces of the 1830s,
remained important in the final stages of his life and career. Indeed, documents
suggest that Schumann had recently been assembling a new fictional league—a late
offshoot of the Davidsbund—that was headed up by Brahms. October 1853 saw
Brahms and Joachim make regular appearances in the Schumanns’ lives; many
associate the productivity of this time with the positivity of Brahms’s presence. The
movements are lively and whimsical, full of rustic dances and dream-like episodes.
i. Lebhaft, nicht zu schnell
ii. Lebhaft und sehr markiert
iii. Ruhiges Tempo, mit zartem Ausdruck
iv. Lebhaft, sehr markiert
Saturday 29th October, 4.30pm Rosalind Coad, soprano
Rozanna Madylus, mezzo-soprano
Josep-Ramon Olivé, baritone
Benjamin Nicholas, conductor
The Choir of Merton College, Oxford
Excerpts from Lieder und Gesänge aus Wilhelm Meister, Op. 98a
1849.
Text by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. These songs are introduced in the listing for
Saturday 23rd October.
i. Mignon, “Kennst du das Land?”
iii. Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt
v. Heiss’ mich nicht reden
ix. So lasst mich scheinen
Requiem für Mignon, Op. 98b
1849.
Text by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Schumann struggled to get his Op. 98
published, partly because, in addition to the 9 songs from Wilhelm Meister, he wished
to include as part of the same work this Requiem für Mignon, written in multiple
movements for soloists, chorus and orchestra. Two genres within one opus number
was practically unheard of, and demonstrates the importance of genre experimentation
and flexibility to Schumann’s response to texts in 1849. The eventual publisher Härtel
designated the songs Op. 98a, and the Requiem Op. 98b.
i. Wen bringt ihr uns zu stillen Gessellschaft?
ii. Ach! Wie ungern brachten wir ihn her!
iii. Seht die machtigen Fleugel doch an!
iv. Ich euch lebe die bildende Kraft
v. Kinder, kehret in’s Leben zuruck!
vi. Kinder, eilet in’s Leben hinan!
Requiem, Op. 148
April-May 1852. Schumann’s Requiem is rarely performed, certainly when
considered against the enormously popular ones of Mozart, Verdi, and many others.
His sacred choral music has posed some problems to scholars and critics: he planned
a large amount of sacred settings in the late 1840s and early 1850s, and in many cases
it is unclear whether they were intended for church or concert performance, and
whether they reflected anything of Schumann’s personal religious—or political—
leanings.
i. Introitus: Requiem aeternam
ii. Sanctus
iii. Benedictus
iv. Agnus Dei
Saturday 29th October, 7.30pm (closing concert)
Ailish Tynan, soprano
Kitty Whately, mezzo-soprano
James Gilchrist, tenor
Jacques Imbrailo, baritone
Sholto Kynoch, piano
Bengt Forsberg, piano
Minnespiel, Op. 101
May-June 1849.
Poems by Friedrich Rückert. The second of Schumann’s Liederspiele, composed
between the two Spanish collections and in the wake of the Dresden Uprising. Again,
the movements are written in a mix of configurations from solos to quartets. For
many, the musical highlight is the fourth song, ‘Mein schöner Stern!’, a declaration of
love sung to a yearning melody with delicate interplay between voice and piano. The
sixth song is, musically, a transformation of ‘Mein schöner Stern!’, echoing its
melodic contours and harmonic patterns, with a soprano responding to the tenor of the
earlier song. The collection is a celebration of love, expressed through declamations
of the related joys of, for instance, spring and friendship.
i. Meine Töne still und heiter
ii. Liebster, deine Worte stehlen
iii. Ich bin dein Baum
iv. Mein schöner Stern!
v. Schön ist das Fest des Lenzes
vi. O Freund, mein Schirm, mein Schutz!
vii. Die tausend Grüsse
viii. So wahr die Sonne scheinet
Spanisches Liebeslieder, Op. 138
November 1849.
Spanish poems by various authors, translated into German by Emanuel Geibel (1815-
1884). The social context for the Liebeslieder is largely the same as that of the
Spanisches Liederspiel: see information under the 20th October listing. One new
element here is the incorporation of piano duet, heard in the Prelude and foretelling
the popularity of Brahms’s Liebeslieder Waltzes.
i. Vorspiel
ii. Tief im Herzen trag ich Pein
iii. O wie lieblich ist das Mädchen
iv. Bedeckt mich mit Blumen
v. Flutenreicher Ebro
vi. Intermezzo
vii. Weh, wie zornig ist das Mädchen
viii. Hoch, hoch sind die Berge
ix. Blaue Augen hat das Mädchen
x. Dunkler Lichtglanz, blinder Blick
‘Bei Schenkung eines Flügels’, WoO. 26/iv
August 1853.
Text: Robert Schumann. One year after Clara was presented the ‘Liedchen von Marie
und Papa’ for her 33rd birthday, Schumann gave her a grand piano for her 34th (it also
marked the occasion of their thirteenth wedding anniversary). Along with it, he wrote
the text and music for this short song for SATB voices and piano: ‘The gift of a grand
piano’. The poem begins by describing the oranges and myrtles that adorn the lid of
the piano, and it is worth noting that myrtles—often found in wedding bouquets—had
been recurring flowers in Schumann’s songs. Thirteen years earlier, in 1840, myrtles
and roses adorned the book of songs bound for a distant lover in the Heine setting that
ends the Op. 24 Liederkreis, and Schumann gave his Op. 25 Myrthen collection to
Clara as a wedding present. The final lines of the awkwardly rhyming song are sadly
prophetic; this would be the last of Clara’s birthdays they would spend together, and
Schumann would not be at home for much longer.
And when I cannot always be with you,
Hasten then to your friend and think of me!
Yet I think that we shall always
Bear all joy and suffering together.
(Trans. Richard Stokes)
And one final large, late song collection that is split in performance
across the festival…
Lieder-Album für die Jugend, Op. 79
April-June 1849.
Texts by various authors, listed below. Schumann composed most of this large,
loosely-cyclic collection of songs for children in the month immediately before the
Dresden uprising. The texts are sourced widely, linked by themes of nature and
flowers, folk characters and animals. Musically, the settings are largely simple and
accessible, and they display a wide array of Schumann’s approaches to song
composition. The second half becomes more complex, as Schumann suggested the
collection as a whole should follow a progression towards maturity. The cycle ends
with ‘Kennst du das Land?’, the song of Goethe’s troubled, adolescence-nearing
character Mignon.
i. Der Abendstern (August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben)
ii. Schmetterling (Fallersleben)
iii. Frühlingsbotschaft (Fallersleben)
iv. Frühlingsgruss (Fallersleben)
v. Vom Schlaraffenland (Fallersleben)
vi. Sonntag (Fallersleben)
vii/1. Ziguenerliedchen 1 (Emmanuel von Geibel)
vii/2. Ziguenerliedchen 2 (Geibel)
viii. Des Knaben Berglied (Johann Ludwig Uhland)
ix. Mailied (Christian Adolf Overbeck von Lübeck)
x. Käuzlein (Anon)
xi. Hinaus ins Freie (Fallersleben)
xii. Der Sandmann (Hermann Kletke)
xiii. Marienwürmchen (Anon)
xiv. Die Waise (Fallersleben)
xv. Das Glück (Christian Friedrich Hebbel)
xvi. Weihnachtslied (Kletke)
xvii. Die wandelnde Glocke (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
xviii. Frühlingslied (Fallersleben)
xix. Frühlings Ankunft (Fallersleben)
xx. Die Schwalben (Auguste von Pattberg)
xxi. Kinderwacht (Melchior von Diepenbrock)
xxii. Des Sennen Abschied (Friedrich Schiller)
xxiii. Er ist’s (Eduard Mörike)
xxiv. Spinnelied (Anon)
xxv. Des Buben Schützenlied (Schiller)
xxvi. Schneeglöckchen (Friedrich Rückert)
xxvii. Lied Lynceus des Türmers (Goethe)
xxviii. Mignon, “Kennst du das Land?” (Goethe)