music. It conjures up for eye and ear the dark vault of the starry heavens, the solitudes of haunted woods, the firefly's restless lamp, the song of nightingales, the accents of human passion idealised, and all else that makes the half-real and the half-unreal world in which the romantic spirit loves to dwell.
In Schumann's music to Eichendorff's words, the accompaniments have even more importance and beauty than the melodies; while the latter seem only to suggest, the former unfold the sentiment of the song. This is the case in the 'Frühlingsnacht,' the 'Schöne Fremde,' and the 'Waldesgespräch': and in another song of the same opus, 'Ich karm wohl manchmal singen' (Wehmuth), the melody is fully developed in the accompaniment, and merely doubled in the voice part. Of like kind is the work of Schumann's hand in the 'Liederreihe,' op. 35, containing 12 songs by Justinus Kerner, and in Rückert's 'Liebesfrühling,' op. 37; but Rückert's verse did not perhaps evoke in him so full a measure of spontaneous melody as Eichendorff's and Kerner's. The simplest and most melodious, and probably the best known of the Rückert collection, are Nos. 2, 4, and 11; and they are by Frau Clara Schumann. Chamisso's cycle, 'Frauenliebe und Leben,' op. 42, is described elsewhere in this Dictionary, and does not require further notice here.[1]
To the poems of Reinick and Burns Schumann imparts more of the Volkslied form; but the poet to whom his own nature most deeply responded was Heine. There was not a thought or feeling in his poetry which Schumann could not apprehend and make his own. Whether Heine be in a mood of subtle irony or bitter mockery, of strong passion or delicate tenderness, of rapturous joy or sternest sorrow, with equal fidelity is he pourtrayed in the composer's music. What Schubert was to Goethe, Schumann was to Heine; but the requirements of the two poets were not the same. Goethe's thought is ever expressed in clear and chiseled phrase; but it is a habit of Heine's to adumbrate his meaning, and leave whatever is wanting to be supplied by the reader's imagination. The composer who would adequately interpret him must, therefore, have poetic fancy no less than a mastery of his own art. This Schumann had, and none of his songs rank higher than the splendid cycle 'Dichterliebe,' from Heine's 'Buch der Lieder,' which he dedicated to a great dramatic singer, Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient. Their melodic treatment is declamatory—not in recitative, but in perfectly clear-cut strophes. The metrical accents of the verse are carefully observed, and, if possible, still more attention is bestowed on the accentuation of emphatic words. That there may not be even the semblance of a break or interruption in the continuous flow of the phrases, the same rhythmical figure is retained throughout the accompaniment, however the harmony and the melody may change. As a general rule, the instrumental part of Schumann's songs is too important and too independent to be called an 'accompaniment'; it is an integral factor in the interpretation of the poem.[2] Thus in the 'Dichterliebe' cycle, the introductory and concluding symphonies to 'Im wunderschönen Monat Mai,' 'Das ist ein Flöten und Geigen,' 'Die alten bösen Lieder,' and 'Am leuchtenden Sommermorgen,' have all a closer relation to the poem than to the music, and seem to evolve from it a fuller significance than it could ever have owed to the poet's own unaided art. Further proof of the importance of Schumann's accompaniments is afforded by the peculiarity that in many of his songs the voice part ends on a discord, and the real close is assigned to the accompaniment.[3] In 'Ich grolle nicht' the accompaniment is occasionally used to strengthen the accents, and discords also enhance the grand effect; only rarely does he allow the independence of the accompaniment to remain in abeyance throughout a whole song. In short, his songs should be both played and sung by true artists; and the riper the intellect, the more poetic the temperament of the artist, the better will the execution be. No composer is more worthy of thoughtful and finished execution than Schumann; together with Schubert in music, and Goethe and Heine in literature, he has lifted the Song to a higher pinnacle of excellence than it ever reached before. Whether such work will ever be surpassed, time alone can show.
We will here allude to another branch of modern German Song, which has been handled by the greatest composers, and comprises the Ballade, the Romanze, and the Rhapsodie. In the ordinary English sense, the ballad is a poem simply descriptive of an event or chain of incidents; it never pauses to moralise or express emotion, but leaves the reader to gather sentiment and reflections from bare narrative. But the Ballade, as a form of German song, has some other properties. Goethe says that it ought always to have a tone of awe-inspiring mystery, to fill the reader's mind with the presence of supernatural powers, and subdue the soul to submissive expectancy. The Romanze is of the same class as the Ballade, but is generally of more concise form, and by more direct references to the feelings which its story evokes, approaches nearer to the lyric song. As distinguished from the Ballade and the Romanze, the Rhapsodie is deficient in form, and its general structure is loose and irregular. The first poet who wrote such poems was Burger; his example was followed by Goethe, Schiller, Uhland, and others: and then the attention of composers was soon caught. Inspired by Schiller, Zumsteeg first composed in this vein, and his work is interesting as being the first of its kind; but cultivated and well-trained musician though he was, Zumsteeg had too little imagination to handle the Ballade successfully. He generally adhered to the Romanze, and 'Bleich flimmert in stürmender Nacht' is
- ↑ See Schumann, vol. iii. p. 412.
- ↑ See under Schumann, vol. iii. p. 412.
- ↑ See the end of 'Frauenllebe und Leben,' and of the exquisita 2-part song 'Grossvater und Grossmutter.'
