Robert Schumann (1810-1856)
Liebesfrühling • Minnespiel • Wilhelm Meister Lieder
The poet Friedrich Rückert wrote his Liebesfrühling
(Love’s Springtime) in 1821, when he himself was
courting his future wife, Luise Wiethaus-Fischer. The
complete collection of poems was first published in the
Collected Poems of 1834, where the poet put them in five
separate ‘garlands’, which, in a later, posthumous edition
were increased to six in number.
From this most successful cycle of love poems of the
Biedermeier period Robert Schumann had already set Du
meine Seele, du mein Herz (Thou my soul, thou my heart)
in 1840, publishing it in the collection Myrthen, Op. 25
under the title Widmung (Dedication), a wedding present
for his bride Clara. A little later, in 1841, followed the
setting of Twelve Poems from Rückert’s “Liebesfrühling”,
partly composed by his wife Clara and partly by Robert
Schumann himself, an artistic confirmation of a
partnership still not overshadowed by sorrows and
disagreements.
For Christmas 1840 Clara had placed on the Christmas
gift-table for her husband some songs she herself had
written, and this inspired Robert Schumann to this project:
‘The idea of producing together with Clara a book of songs
inspired me to this work. From Monday to Monday nine
songs from Rückert’s Liebesfrühling were written, in
which I think again I have found a special voice’, one reads
for the week from 3rd to 10th January 1841 in the
Marriage Diary kept alternately between the two.
Immediately preceding the Spring Symphony, the six
solo songs which Schumann contributed to Liebesfrühling
include three duets. These come in the middle with No. 6
Liebste, was kann denn uns scheiden (Beloved, what can
part us then?) and No. 7 Schön ist das Fest des Lenzes (Fair
is the feast of spring), and at the end of the cycle comes No.
12 So wahr die Sonne (So true shines the sun). However, in
lay-out, No. 6 is not a true duet, as the second voice is
limited to a few parallels with the upper part at the interval
of a third. In the present recording this is balanced so that
the verses are heard from the singers in alternation.
To his diary entry Schumann added: ‘Clara must now
compose settings for some of the Liebesfrühling. O do it,
little Clara!’ She was hampered by the start of pregnancy
and also prevented through Robert’s eagerness for his own
compositions, but first fulfilled this wish for Schumann’s
birthday in June 1841: ‘I have this week sat down to
compose a great deal and have set four poems by Rückert
for my dear Robert’, we read in the Marriage Diary. Three
of these songs, Warum willst Du And’re fragen (Why will
you ask others), Er ist gekommen in Sturm und Regen (He
has come in storm and rain) and Liebst Du um Schönheit
(If you love for beauty) were published in autumn 1841,
together with Robert’s nine songs and duets, by Breitkopf
und Härtel.
In a letter to the publisher Robert Schumann stressed
that his contribution to the work was ‘mostly light and
simple’. This applies particularly to the second song, O ihr
Herren (O you lords) and the strophic sixth, Liebste, was
kann denn uns scheiden. No. 5, Ich hab in mich gesogen (I
have drunk in) is ingenious with its polyphonic
accompaniment that repeats an ostinato figure of wideranging
harmony, and the tripartite No. 8, Flügel! Flügel!
(Wings! Wings!), with its slower central section.
Robert and Clara Schumann were delighted that
Friedrich Rückert, to whom they had sent a copy of their
settings, replied to the gift with an ingenious ghazal:
Long it is, long
Since my love’s springtime song
At the urge of my heart
As it sprang,
The music died away in solitude.
It was at twenty years
I heard here and there
From the flock of birds
One that clearly
Piped a tune, that was from there.
And now even
Comes in the twenty-first year
A pair of birds,
First makes clear to me
That not a note was lost.
My songs
You sing again,
My feelings you sound again,
My emotions
You bring to life again,
My spring
You bring back again,
Me, how fair,
You make young again:
Take my thanks,
Since the world too,
As with me once,
Witholds it from you!
And may you win thanks
As I have achieved with mine.
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With his Minnespiel, Op. 101, (Love’s Game),
Schumann returned years later to Rückert’s Liebesfrühling,
a reminiscence of 1840/1841, but also the continuation of
an idea that he had first tried out in his Spanisches
Liederspiel, Op. 74. As there, separate numbers in
alternating setting for one or more voices form a loose
sequence that yet has no connection with the Singspiel
concept going back to Carl Friedrich Zelter of the
Liederspiel with a continuing plot.
Much in Op. 101 points back clearly still to the ecstatic
cadences of the compositions of the Year of Song, 1839-
1840, when Schumann had been seized by a truly creative
burst of enthusiasm. This is heard in the tenor Meine Töne
still und heiter (My music quiet and cheerful), that is to be
imagined as a serenade by the window of the beloved and
from the initial four-crotchet metre which finds its way to a
spirited 6/8. Liebster, deine Worte stehlen (Beloved, your
words steal), starts in recitative style, with which the
soprano answers the tenor’s wooing, before a syncopated
figure leads forward to the song proper. To the climax of the
cycle surely belongs Mein schöner Stern! (My fair star),
where the ecstasy of the singer is bound into a thoroughly
ingenious, wide-layered polyphonic lay-out of the whole
song with solemn bass accents. Melancholy permeates, in
contrast, O Freund, mein Schirm, mein Schutz (O friend, my
shield, my shelter). In this song the rhythmically rigid
accompaniment is marked by many chromatic turns: the
setting seems rather to represent the torments of the quest
than the finding of this shelter.
Typical of the songs of Schumann’s later period, like
Minnespiel, are the Wilhelm Meister settings, Op. 98a of
1849, expanded to the dimensions of an oratorio in Requiem
for Mignon, Op. 98b. In the arrangement of the nine
numbers of Op. 98a, Schumann preferred changes in the
order of the lyrical interpolations in Goethe’s novel.
Mignon’s songs were brought further forward to create a
contrast with the songs of the harper. Nur wer die Sehnsucht
kennt (Only he who knows longing), originally in Wilhelm
Meisters Lehrjahre indicated as an ‘irregular duet’, is,
following Goethe’s later version, also given by Schumann
to Mignon alone.
It is not by chance that the title of Schumann’s work is
given as Lieder und Gesänge. The Wilhelm Meister settings
display a substantially new treatment of the voice part, in
contrast to the compositions of the Year of Song. The
Lieder element, in the narrower sense of the word is only
slight, and much in Op. 98 has come in from Schumann’s
intervening experiences with the composition of oratorio
and opera, elements of drama, recitative and declamation.
This may be connected with a plan Schumann had already
conceived in February 1844, to make an operatic libretto
from Wilhelm Meister, as emerges from a note in his diary.
For the gloomy songs of the harper, in which the
burden of former guilt is expressed, Schumann finds
exceptionally expressive music with theatrical outbursts,
excited octave leaps and unvocal diminished intervals. The
accusation ‘Ihr führt ins Leben uns hinein’ (You lead us into
life) in No. 4 is suddenly hurled out, before the song ends
over heavy piano chords in the manner of a recitative, and
Mignon’s Heiß mich nicht reden (Tell me not to speak) is
also influenced by this dramatic lay-out. The setting forms a
sequence of recitative and arioso, and the eloquent piano
gestures before the concluding Schumann repetition of the
opening words sound exactly like a Leitmotiv from
Wagner’s Ring.
Lieder technique marks the harper’s An die Türen will
ich schleichen (To the doors will I creep), No. 8, with its
motivically uniform piano accompaniment, and the first of
the group, Kennst du das Land, that had already formed the
conclusion of the Lieder Album for the Young, Op. 79, and
taken from there by Schumann, is in strophic form. This
song is not given again here, but is included with the
complete recording of Op. 79. Unlike many other setters of
Goethe Schumann also took into consideration Philine’s
song Singet nicht in Trauertönen (Sing not in tones of
mourning), with the omission of one verse. With its
soubrettish simplicity it forms an effective contrast with the
dark songs of the harper and Mignon, so full of longing, and
follows completely Goethe’s specification of a ‘little song
with a very graceful and pleasing melody’.
Gerhard Dietel
English version by Keith Anderson