Three more cycles, while looser than the one just mentioned, are like it in being set solely to the words of one author. And another,Myrthen, has little beyond a common title for unification. A few other songs have no grouping except that of an opus number.
The first of the songs form aLiederkreis(song-cycle), opus 24, words selected from Heine. This is obviously an experimental work, though it contains several fine numbers.Ich wandelte unter den Bäumendelicately maintains its mood. Number 5,Schöne Wiege meiner Leiden, is pure melody with a simple accompaniment in Schubert’s style, one of the most affecting of all Schumann’s songs. Sung with a constant and rich legato, and with well-chosen modulations of tone quality, it is immediately effective. Number 9,Mit Myrthen und Rosen, is much admired by musicians; it is unlike most of Schumann in giving an unusual lyric freedom to the voice part, but the accompaniment, with its delicate inner voices, suggests what was to come later. TheMyrthenof opus 25 include some of Schumann’s finest. The very first,Widmung(‘Dedication’),[24]is one of the great songs of all time. Such passionate ardor a composer has seldom been able to compress into a few notes. The fine legato contrasting melody, introduced by an impressive enharmonic change, is the purest of German lyricism. The accompaniment, while conventional enough in its relation to the voice part, shows the freedom, and especially the wide separation of notes, which was to flower so magnificently in theDichterliebe. The great danger in singing this song is that of making it sound hurried or ‘choppy.’ Here, as so often in song singing, the correct tempo is half the battle. Let the singer aim to avoid ‘choppiness,’ on the one hand, and dragging, on the other, and the correct tempo will come almost automatically, though, of course, no tempo can hold a song together if there isnot a firm legato behind it.Der Nussbaum(‘The Almond Tree’) is another immortal melody. In this song the accompaniment enters as a lyric element, as it rarely does in Schubert except in interludes. The half-phrase of the voice with its answering phrase from the piano—this is an effect of striking charm. The supporting part of the accompaniment shows the principle of the simple broken (or ‘harp’) chord used more freely than had been the common custom. InDie Lotusblume(‘The Lotus Flower’) the novelty in the accompaniment is very different—a slow and impressive melody arising out of the lowest bass notes of the harmonic support.
In these songs we see the piano beginning to sing with the voice on terms of equality. In number 15, one of the ‘Hebrew Melodies’ of Byron, we see the formal accompaniment very highly developed. It has become quite pianistic, with much figuration, and a profusion of chromatic passings which remind us of Schumann piano pieces. Yet this is a true accompaniment in the old-fashioned sense, and not, as in some of the later songs, an independent piano composition.Lass mich ihm am Busen hängenandDu bist wie eine Blumeare charming examples of Schumann at his simplest. We cannot point out the precise elements of beauty, yet we feel that the music subtly matches the simplicity of the words. In other terms, we see in these two songs that ultimate test of artistic mastery—the command over style. And in these instances the style subsists quite as much in the voice as in the piano part. The great piano stylist of the preceding decade has begun to turn his peculiar gifts to pure vocal music. The grandioseTalismane(‘Talismans’) is perhaps not of high value musically, but it shows the engaging freshness of Schumann’s romantic invention. The three Burns songs—‘Somebody,’ ‘The Highlander’s Farewell,’ and ‘The Highland Cradle Song’—are simply melodiesof great beauty and are to be sung as such. The last-named offers a problem to the singer in the need of combining the somewhat jerky, rocking motion of the cradle with the calm monotony which overspreads the whole.
The five songs, opus 27, need not detain us. Of the three songs from Emmanuel Geibel the last,Der Hidalgo(‘The Hidalgo’), is particularly interesting. As an attempt at local color (which was never Schumann’sforte) it has no special value. But the vigor of the accompaniment, with its varied bolero rhythm, and the quiet passages on the words ‘Die Schönen von Sevilla,’ suggest once more some of the wonderful piano passages of theDichterliebe.
Of the three songs, opus 31, we must noteDie Löwenbraut(‘The Lion’s Bride’) as a fine example of the larger ballad form. This form Schubert frequently attempted without ever achieving better than mediocrity. And Schumann himself failed miserably at it in his later years. But in the present instance he gave us a model. The declamatory voice part agrees accurately with the prosody of the text without ever quite losing a melodic value. The accompaniment of the first section consists only of occasional supporting chords. It is recitative, but, unlike therecitativo seccoof Italian opera, it is recitative raised to the status of music. The singer should be careful never to lose the musical beauty of the voice part and at the same time not try to force it into a formal melody. The middle section illustrates admirably a device which Schumann used better than any other of his time. This is the development of a long passage of vocal music from a single phrase. The vocal part in this middle section is scarcely more than the repetition, in many forms and keys, of one short and very lovely phrase. This device is peculiarly suited to the ballad, which, being in constant forward motion, is liable to lose coherence if themusic does not offer some basis of unification. Schumann used the same device later in his ballad,Blondels Lied(‘Blondel’s Song’), and here with even more poetic fitness; for the phrase on which the piece is built up is that accompanying the constantly recurring refrain of the text and as it develops seems to infuse the whole work with this single burning message.
One more of Schumann’s ballads should be mentioned in this place—the universally knownDie beiden Grenadiere(‘The Two Grenadiers’). Technically the song offers little of interest beyond the composer’s clever and appropriate abbreviation of theMarseillaiseat the end. The overwhelming gusto of the ballad is too obvious to demand more than passing mention.
The twelve songs to words by Kerner, opus 35, include several of especial interest. In this group we see Schumann’s development of the piano part well under way. Each song offers an accompaniment which is a study in pianistic style. Number 2,Stirb, Lieb’ und Freund, has an austere polyphonic support, in the style of Bach, suggesting the majesty of some old cathedral. Number 3,Wanderlust, is a buoyant and youthful melody, and number 6,An das Trinkglass, a fine romantic chorale. Numbers 6 and 8,Stille LiebeandStille Thränen, are intimate psychological studies. In the former the sustained bass melody beneath the hesitating treble of the accompaniment suggests the apprehension of the lover who is obliged to wait in silence. The latter obtains a charming effect with the soft repeated chords of the piano part and offers a typical Schumann ending in the intermingling melodies of the close. The six songs opus 36 contain one which has become a German folk-song—An den Sonnenschein, a melody whichconcentrates the spirit of dignity and sincerity of German popular music.
In the EichendorffLiederkreis, opus 39, there are four songs of the very highest rank. Number 2,Intermezzo, with its soft syncopation in the accompaniment, offers a suggestive contrast with the songs of Schubert and shows how far musical technique had moved in ten or fifteen years. It is the simplest of melodies, but one with a certain atmospheric indecision, strongly contrasting with the downrightness and clearness of outline which Schubert best loved. Number 3 in this group,Waldesgespräch, is as lovely a melody as Schumann ever wrote. It might be called a ballad, with its story of the knight who wandered into the forest at night, finding there a lady in distress, attempting to help her, and discovering that he was in the power of the witch, the Lorelei, who lies in wait for strong men. The lovely thirds of the accompaniment seem to spread the mystery of evening over the song, and when the witch announces her identity the music takes on a momentary grandeur that suggests the old tales of gods and heroes. The song is full of fine and expressive effects. But these do not exist in detail; they rather spring unconsciously out of the musical design. The singer who attempts to make the song too expressive is sure to go astray. If it is sung primarily for its musical beauty it becomes of itself a masterpiece of expressive story-telling. Above all, as so often in great songs, a good legato is the first and chiefest of the virtues. Number 12 of the Eichendorff series is theFrühlingsnacht(‘Spring Night’), with its magical triplet accompaniment. Number 5 is the famousMondnacht(‘Moonlight Night’). Here again we have a song that quite defies analysis. The voice part consists solely of a two-line phrase several times repeated. The first three times it closes on the dominant, the last time on the tonic, with a deep and satisfying sense of repose. Inany but a master hand this form would become monotonous. But with Schumann’s mysterious accompaniment it is all magic. The close is peculiarly characteristic. The voice part comes, as we have said, to a tonic close, but the accompaniment makes a false cadence of it and the piano part continues to its own logical ending. The piano part has become utterly organic and independent. Played by itself, it would offer no clew as to where the voice part ended. That deceptive cadence is Schumann’s ultimatum to the singer. ‘The song is not ended,’ he seems to say, ‘merely because you have finished singing. The song is the voice partandthe piano part one and indivisible. If you hurry through the postlude, or belittle it, or treat it as a useless appendage to the voice part, you are no artist. If you consider the voice part more important than the piano part, or yourself more important than the song you are singing, go and give your feeble talents to vaudeville songs.’ And for audiences, too, this song has a message: the listener who begins to applaud before the piano part is finished (and there are few even to-day who do not) is no true listener. Let him go and listen to a brass band; he has no business with the art-song.
The five children’s songs, opus 40, offer little of interest. But the cycle,Frauenliebe und Leben(‘Woman’s Life and Love’), is undoubtedly the most famous and possibly the greatest song cycle in all musical literature. The poet, Adalbert von Chamisso, selects eight crucial moments in woman’s life and puts into her mouth for each of the eight an exquisite lyric, expressing with wonderful delicacy her emotions and moods. The poems are perhaps a trifle exaggerated in the romantic fashion of the time and certainly do not altogether tally with the emotions of the modern woman. But the groundwork of typical psychology is expressed with such persuasive eloquence and such literarycharm that no one can read the poems without feeling that he has lived through, in some measure, the experience of which they tell.
In the first song,Seit ich ihn gesehen, the young girl has just seen her hero; in a moment, almost, she has cast her young girlhood behind her; she feels strange presentiments; she no longer cares for the games of her sisters; she wishes to be alone; the personality of her hero seems to be ever present. In the second song she has come to know him. She makes no secret of her love; she sings it openly; she is proud of it before the world. In the next song she has heard his proposal. ‘Ich kann’s nicht fassen, nicht glauben’ (‘I cannot grasp it, I cannot believe it’), she says, torn between joy and terror. But in the next song,Du Ring an meinem Finger, she is apostrophizing her engagement ring and looking at the long vista of life ahead. Number 5,Helft mir, ihr Schwestern, is sung on the bridal day. Next, she is in her own home, in the arms of her husband, vainly attempting to make him understand why she weeps when she is happiest. In number 7 she is singing a lively but tender lullaby to her newborn child. In the last song she is singing her grief at the death of her husband. ‘This is your first cruel act toward me,’ she says to the dead body. She sees before her a life of voluntary loneliness, assuaged by memories of her former happiness.
The music with which Schumann interprets these songs may justly be called psychological. The term ‘psychological’ is applied freely and indiscriminately to music and usually without justice. Properly, music is far too abstract an art to carry any precise meanings. Yet with the gradual and persistent process of six centuries, whereby certain musical styles and progressions have come to be associated with definite moods, there has grown up a technique which, with a properly sympathetic audience, may be manipulated to express statesof soul. Whatever this technique is worth, Schumann, in hisFrauenliebe und Leben, has used it with masterly power. In the first song he writes a simple, timid melody, the rhythmic flow interrupted as though by the hesitation of a fluttering heart. ‘Since my eyes first beheld him I seem to have been blind.’ The emotion rises. ‘I care no more for the games of my sisters. I had rather weep.’ Then comes a lovely phrase of tender sweetness. Weeping for love is a precious delight. The broken melody continues. Not until the last bar does the hearer become conscious of its full charm and formal beauty. The second song, ‘He, the Noblest of All,’ is in a very different mood—proud and exuberant expression. It has a grand lyric sweep which only a fine artistic taste can restrain from a somewhat cheap pompousness. The middle section returns for a moment to the girl’s feelings of timidity. ‘Turn from me before it is too late,’ she says; ‘I am not worthy of you.’ Schumann has chosen not to interrupt the flow of his song here. To express the more timid mood he employs dissonance and chromatic progression, which finally resolves into the original clear-cut strain. Throughout the symphonic unity of the song is preserved. The third song, ‘I cannot grasp it,’ returns to the spirit of the first. It is an agitated allegretto movement. The voice part follows the words with utmost faithfulness; it is almost a free recitative, interrupted only by one gentle lyric phrase on the words, ‘I am thine forever.’ Yet here, again, there is a true melody throughout, and a charming one, but it seems only to peep out from behind the detached notes. The fourth song, ‘Thou, Ring upon My Finger,’ has much the design and movement of the second, though quieter. In the fifth, too, melody is dominant. In the sixth the composer returns to the declamatory style. Here the delineative music lies chiefly in the accompaniment, with lovely modulations and snatches of melody suggestingthe timid wonder of the wife in her happiness. The voice part hardly comes to an end at all, but fades away on the words ‘Thy picture,’ while the piano takes up the tale. The next song, the lullaby, musically the least important of the eight, is a simple strophic melody with a broken chord accompaniment. The last is recitative pure and simple. The rests between phrases seem broken with sobs, out of which there rises the heroism of a determination to face life alone and without complaint. The emotional power of those few notes of recitative is beyond description. The stark tragedy of the opening lines becomes clouded over, as it were, with tears, and the music melts into calm grayness as the woman sings, ‘The veil falls; I withdraw into myself, where I have thee and my lost happiness.’ And then, as the great quiet of loneliness settles down, the piano sings softly the whole of the first song, the early glow of delicate color when the girl first beheld her hero. And we seem to see ahead the years of loneliness softened only by sweet memory.
No group of songs has ever more perfectly achieved the union of words and music. The faults of this cycle on the artistic side are the faults of the generation. People’s views of life have changed much since Chamisso set maiden hearts a-fluttering. The notion of the wife as the bounden slave of her husband—a notion only a step or two removed from the theory of the harem—has given place to the healthier view of the wife as one of two high contracting parties. One cannot help noticing in Chamisso’s poems how small a part the child plays in the woman’s life. And the idea that upon the death of the husband the woman’s thoughts should be solely of her own past rather than of her child’s future is little short of repulsive. These are the faults of an individualistic, a pessimistic, an over-sentimental age. They are reflected in the spirit of the music. Since then our art, if it has become moresensuous, has also become more vigorous. Schumann’s work was for an age rather than for all time.
In the singing of these songs the singer must avoid stressing too much the declamatory character of the three slow ones as well as the melodic exuberance of the others. The songs seem on paper to be detached and broken. All the more they must be sung smoothly, discreetly, without undue emphasis. The singer will not go far wrong in following the notes and the time signatures quite literally. Many a singer has been astonished by that old miracle of art—that if the notes are sung as written they will work their own magic. The composer has seen to that. If a song relies wholly on a ‘singer’s personality,’ the composer has failed. So in these songs pure intonation, just rhythm, and careful diction will interpret the poet truly. If the singer finds that with the observance of these values the songs do not express what they should, let him put them aside for a while. As his technical artistic powers grow he will find that the songs have grown along with them. If he is much concerned about bolstering up the song by giving it ‘expression,’ he is sure to be on the wrong track.
Of the ‘Romances and Ballads,’ opus 45, we need only notice the spiritedEs zogen zwei rüst’ge Gesellen. Opus 48, however, is the immortalDichterliebeseries, probably the most individual of all Schumann’s song works. Here, again, we find Schumann suffering somewhat from the faults of romanticism. To put the case briefly, he took Heine seriously. Heine himself, we cannot but feel, was not so taken in by his own poetry. In addition to the ever-present grin which is in almost every one of his lyrics there is a certain playful quality, as though he were only teasing the sentimentalism of the human heart. If Heine suffered only a hundredth part of the pangs described in his mass of short poems he must have had more love affairs than any one mancould attend to in three lifetimes. The truth is, Heine was dealing with moods, and Schumann supposed he was dealing with emotions. We see the contradiction to an almost grotesque degree in the songIch grolle nicht(‘I do not complain’). Here the poet tells his love that he will not complain of his unhappiness because, though she goes about in diamonds, he has seen in a dream that she, too, is unhappy. This is pretty sentiment and charming playful heroics. Tragedy it is not. But Schumann’s music is tragedy of the noblest strain. It strikes an emotional depth which the composer rarely equalled. To such music the Puritans of Cromwell’s time might have left their wives and children to go out and fight on the side of the Lord. We have said that Heine has nowhere in his poems written words that might be put into the mouth of a hero. But in this case Schumann wrote music that a hero might have sung. Perhaps if Schumann’s sense of humor had been a little more human and a little less literary he might have seen the incongruity. But it would have been an unfortunate event, for it would have cost the world the wonderful music of this song. Indeed, many of the greatest works of art would never have been created if their authors had possessed a keen sense of humor.
Generally, however, Schumann did not make this mistake. In nearly every other one of theDichterliebesongs he found music which was as gossamer, as little fundamental, as Heine’s words. To some students they may seem at first cold and pedantic. Certainly they do not draw their greatness from melodic charm. Merely as melodies, few of these songs would have lived to this day. Undoubtedly their first appeal is a technical one—to the musical theorist and the pianist as well as to the singer. But this is by no means to say that they lack poetry. It is merely that their poetry is concealed and reveals itself only to him who has mastered and understood their finer technical appeal.Take, for instance, the ninth song,Das ist ein Flöten und Geigen(‘I hear the flutes and violins’). The rejected lover hears from a distance the orchestra playing for dancing at the wedding of his beloved. The accompaniment is a waltz rhythm, with repeated notes deftly inserted to suggest perhaps the trumpets of the band. The waltz is steady and continuous. It has none of the sensuous softness, none of the simplicity and balance of phrase which we are accustomed to in popular waltzes. It tinkles on continuously, without an opportunity to draw a breath—and hence seems at first glance aimless. Instead of the engaging warmth we expect from waltzes, it gives a chilling effect. And that, of course, is exactly the effect it had on the rejected lover. It is a tinkly, monotonous waltz, perhaps heard through the winter air. The voice has a little half melodic, half declamatory complaint, but it seems almost independent of the piano part. When the voice rests that waltz is still going on, throbbing, monotonous. Now, any indifferent pianist will make a sorry affair of this accompaniment. It demands the most delicate and exact finger work, the nicest regard for rhythm, the most delicate modulating of tone power. It must be played almost without pedal, and it reveals instantly any slip in the pianist’s technique. It might almost be published independently as a piano étude. The singer must deliver his part with great delicacy of diction and achieve expression on the most limited scale. The piece has no contrasts. It is so closely bound together that a single omission of a note will spoil the whole design. Decidedly this is not an interesting song to a bad musician. Every detail is a difficulty. If he cannot master it, it remains to him cold and austere. But to him who can master it, it becomes a rare delight. Each technical difficulty becomes an expressive quality; the austerity becomes only poetry more delicately refined. The whole is a challenge to the taste of the singer andthe accompanist. The song, within its limits, is without a flaw.
Much the same can be said of every one of theDichterliebesongs. There is no superficial similarity between any two. Each one uses technical means which are employed in no other. In each the technical means are nicely adapted to the character of the music. Each one of the accompaniments calls upon a different department of the pianist’s art. Each is developed, technically, in its own manner and in the manner of no other one of Schumann’s songs. In other words, each of these remarkable songs has that thing known as style. Each has a personality as distinct as the personality of one interesting man is distinct from that of another. The accompaniments might be published alone as Essays in Style. Such an achievement marks a development of detailed technical resource hitherto unheard of. From it all later German and French song writers directly derive. Nor must it be assumed that the voice parts are uninteresting or unvocal. Quite the contrary. Only in these songs, as in none that had preceded them, the voice parts are not the songs, nor a small part of the songs; the songs are inconceivable, are non-existent, except as voice and piano parts intimately combined.
Songs 1 and 2, ‘In the Wondrous Lovely Month of May’ and ‘From Out My Tears,’ are simple melodies, charming, but little self-conscious, demanding something of the singer’s art and learning if they are not to sound trivial. The third song, ‘The Rose, the Lily, the Dove, the Sun,’ is a technicaltour de force, an extremely brief and rapid little piece, demanding the utmost delicacy of intonation and enunciation, which might almost be sung in a single breath. The fourth song, ‘When I Look Into Thine Eyes,’ is a sort of duet between the voice and the piano. Each phrase from the singer is tenderly echoed in the accompaniment.The whole melody has a touching simplicity. Number 6 looks austere. Here Schumann’s effort to maintain a single style (both technically and poetically) throughout has perhaps led him to dispense with detailed expression. ‘In the Rhine, the Holy River,’ runs the first line, and the accompaniment depicts the Rhine flowing, ever so slowly and majestically, past the Cathedral of Cologne. And, since he is particularly interested in these songs in homogeneity of style, he makes the whole song flow along to this type of accompaniment. If the singer is chiefly interested in exhibiting his voice, he will leave this song in disgust as cold and unpoetic. But let him beware that his real motive be not the difficulty he experiences in singing it well.
The following song is the famousIch grolle nicht[25](‘I do not complain’), which is easily one of the great songs of the world. Accepting the words as real tragedy, we must pronounce the music one of the noblest expressions of emotion in all song literature. The quiet and dignified melodic line of the voice part seems to suggest the hero’s stoic acceptance of his fate. The repeated chords of the accompaniment, moving in solemn progression, reflect the calm of a great soul. And the marvellous bass part, moving deeper and deeper down the scale, calling forth from the modern grand piano its most terrible and wonderful tones, till the very soul seems to quiver in response—this furnishes a foundation of grandeur which might have served for a tragedy of Æschylus. But Schumann rarely repeated this achievement. He was a gentle poet or an ardent technician, or, in his later years, a verbose bore, but only rarely, as in this instance, a tragedian.
The eleventh song of the cycle, ‘A Young Man Loved a Maiden,’ has a simple melody suited to the spirit of the words, supported by a lilting accompaniment admirably unified in style. The next song, ‘On the BrightSummer Morning,’ is dignified by the device of the continued downward arpeggio in the accompaniment. The thirteenth song, ‘I Wept in My Dreams,’ is especially interesting. The voice part is almost a recitative, and the accompaniment a sort of orchestral commentary. Sometimes deep chords form the only support for the singer, sometimes little rhythmical phrases tell their message. The whole suggests admirably the effort of the speaker to disentangle his dreams from the mental mist that surrounds them. The fourteenth song, ‘Each Night in Dreams,’ is one of the most appealing melodies Schumann ever wrote. The last of the series,Die alten, bösen Lieder(‘The Old and Evil Songs’), is a magnificent example of Schumann’s power to put subtle moods into his accompaniment. The mocking spirit of the words, the grandiose strutting of little emotions, the legendary paraphernalia which is invoked by the poet—these seem to be embalmed in this tricky but brilliant accompaniment. The postlude to the cycle is the melody of song number 12, freely developed.
The later songs of Schumann can be summed up in a few lines. There were a few written in the 1840 period, apparently cast aside as unworthy and inadvisedly published later when Schumann’s matchless faculty of self-criticism had become weak and dim. Opus 51 contains a delightful folk-like song, ‘When I into the Garden Go.’ Opus 53 contains the fine ballad,Blondel’s Lied, already described. Opus 79 is a book of songs for children, containing two or three, notablyKäuzlein,Sandmann, andMarienwürmchen, which bring back a breath of the youthful romantic Schumann. But nothing could be more pitiful than the settings which Schumann about this time gave to some of Goethe’s finest poems—especially theWilhelm Meisterand the ‘Western Divan’ songs. The settings of Queen Mary Stuart’s poems, published in 1852, are perhaps better than the other pieces of the period, especially the prayer, whichhas an appealing melody and much harmonic freedom in the accompaniment. But the ballads of this later period—including Schiller’s ‘The Glove,’ Hebbel’s ‘Fair Hedwig,’ and others—are mere collections of musical bombast. Let us draw the veil. For soon Schumann was to throw himself into the Rhine in attempted suicide, a martyr to the vigorous activity of fifteen years—years, one of which produced the remarkable songs which we have just been studying, by which alone his name need be known in song literature.
Among Schumann’s contemporaries in song literature we may mention his wife Clara, his friend and rival Mendelssohn, together with several lesser known composers—Reinecke, Volkmann, and Jadassohn—and, finally, two important men, Chopin and Glinka. Clara Schumann (born 1819, Clara Josephine Wieck, died 1896) was a talented composer and a virtuoso pianist who worked throughout her married life in closest sympathy with her husband. Three of her songs appear in Schumann’s opus 37—namely, numbers 2, 4, and 11,Er ist gekommen,Liebst du um Schönheit, andWarum willst du and’re fragen?These songs must be ranked high, for their scholarly command of style and their general finish, though they are obviously not works of special inspiration. The best of the three is probably the second, in which the composer makes extensive use of one of her husband’s devices, that of repeating a single phrase in various forms and building up the song as out of a single shape of stone. The last named of the three songs also has a good melody to its credit.
Mendelssohn wrote many songs during his short lifetime and was probably the best known of all song-writers of the forties. But his work in this department has all but passed into oblivion. They are not ambitiousefforts. They make no attempt to strike out new paths; they have no interest in sounding depths of emotion; they are content with the old forms and the old formulas of accompaniment. The best that can usually be said of them is that they are pleasing in melody and faultlessly graceful according to canons of correctness. On the whole, the ones best worth singing are those which are consciouslyvolkstümlich. Among these we may name the very beautifulEs ist bestimmt in Gottes Rath, opus 47, No. 7;O Jugend, O schöne Rosenzeit, opus 57, number 4;An die Entfernte, opus 71, number 3; andDas Lieblingsplätzchen, opus 99, number 3, words fromDes Knaben Wunderhorn. ‘Italy,’ in opus 8, andIm Herbst, in opus 9, have a very real charm.Neue Liebe, in opus 19, suggesting the elf riding through the forest, is about as near as Mendelssohn ever got to descriptive music in his accompaniments. TheFrühlingsliedin opus 71 is by all means one of the best of his songs, showing contrast and depth of mood and rising to a thrilling climax on the wordsBist nicht allein.
Another song writer of peculiarly Germanic cast was Karl Reinecke (born 1821), friend of Schumann and Mendelssohn and protégé of the latter, who was for thirty-five years director of the Gewandhaus concerts at Leipzig. Reinecke’s songs cannot be called great, but they have to a remarkable degree insinuated themselves into the affections of the German people. They are at their best when they are nearest to theVolkslied, showing the German genius of achieving deep and noble expression in the simplest forms. We may mention especially the Children’s Songs, opus 37, of which the best are the lilting lullaby,Wenn die Kinder schlafen ein, and the movingGebet zur Nacht. The essential wholesomeness of his talent is shown in theSingspiel,Ein Abenteuer Händels(‘An Adventure of Handel’s), of which the very simple song,Lied so treuund herzlich, is typical. His song cycle,Schneewittchen(for soprano and contralto with chorus of women’s voices), is excellent in its way. The simple prologue is a thing of great beauty, andSchneewittchen’ssong,In seiner Kammer, has a charming archaic style, recalling the long and flowing lines of the Minnesong. Salomon Jadassohn (1831-1901) and Robert Volkmann (1815-1883) were likewise successful song writers whose lyric work has largely passed into obscurity. Carl Friedrich Curschmann (1805-1841), a pupil of Spohr, was a prolific and extremely popular writer of songs in a sentimental and popular vein, marked by the sensuous quality which Franz Abt used so richly. An artist of more varied talents was Karl Gottfried Wilhelm Taubert (1811-1891), who held important official positions in Berlin, chiefly in the Royal Opera, and composed numerous songs. The best of these are theKinderlieder, of which the charming ‘Lullaby’ is still popular.
Chopin’s Polish Songs, opus 74, are his only vocal works. They purport to be arrangements of Polish folk-songs, but it is to be doubted whether they are to any great extent popular melodies. Probably Chopin drew freely on Polish motives and rearranged them to suit himself. However that may be, some of them are masterpieces. ‘The Maiden’s Wish’ is well known to concert audiences through Liszt’s arrangement of it for piano. TheBacchanalis a glorious piece, admirable for an encore number, the simplest of quatrain tunes, but overpowering in its frenzied energy. ‘The Spring’ is a charming thing, undoubtedly of folk origin, a tender alternation of major and minor which would become monotonous except for its ineffable beauty. ‘Melancholy,’ a folk-like tune with a genuine Slavic touch, is likewise among the best, and ‘My Sweetheart,’ which recalls the Tyrolese folk-songs, is well worth knowing. These songs are of the simplest character. The last two of the collection, the ‘Lithuanian Song’ and‘Poland’s Funeral Song,’ are more pretentious—rather like scenas thanLieder—and in spite of certain beauties are overweighted with pretense.
Another song writer who does not usually find his way into song lists should be mentioned here. This is Michail Ivanovitch Glinka (1804-1857), founder of the national school of Russian music. Glinka was a man of remarkable talent, one who was able to fuse Italian grace, French subtlety, and German solidity into an individual style of his own, and to develop out of it an original native touch which had never appeared before in Russian music. Of his eighty-five or more songs (exclusive of those in his operas) a great number are in the thin and pretentious style of the day. But from a few of them there speaks real genius—the forerunner of the wonderful Russian song literature of recent times. The grand Hebrew Song from the incidental music to ‘Prince Kholmsky’ is the work of a man in whom much learning could not stifle the personal message. Another song, ‘Our Rose,’ is in a mixed rhythm which foreshadows the wonderful songs of Moussorgsky, and yet another, a ‘Traveller’s Song,’ makes use of the lively two-four rhythm which has since come to be associated with the Russian Cossacks. The lyric known as ‘Ilia’s Song’ and that entitled ‘Deserted Land’ both show the personal genius of the composer. We should also mention ‘Doubt,’Meine Ruh’ ist hin, and ‘The Lark’ as among his best. It is not likely that singers will dig up these old songs for study, but Glinka’s distinguished name should not be forgotten in the examination of the wonderful Russian song literature which took its rise from him.