Music #362 - Schumann - songs

Grave of Robert &
Clara Schumann

Robert Schumann  

/SHOE-mahn/   (1810 – 1856)

Frauenliebe und -Leben 

/ A Woman's Love and Life
It is a cycle of poems by Adelbert von Chamisso, describing the course of a woman's love for her man. Selections were set to music as a song-cycle by masters of German Lied. 
     The setting by Schumann is now the most widely known. There are eight poems in his cycle, together telling a story from the protagonist first meeting her love, through their marriage, to his death. 
* Bożena Harasimowicz - top tracks

1. Seit ich ihn gesehen / Since I Saw Him
2. Er, der Herrlichste von allen / He, the Noblest of All
3. Ich kann's nicht fassen, nicht glauben / I Cannot Grasp or Believe It
4. Du Ring an meinem Finger / You Ring Upon My Finger
5. Helft mir, ihr Schwestern / Help Me, Sisters
6. Süßer Freund, du blickest mich verwundert an / Sweet Friend, You Gaze
7. An meinem Herzen, an meiner Brust / At My Heart, At My Breast
8. Nun hast du mir den ersten Schmerz getan / Now You Have Caused Me Pain for the First Time
   

   
   

Dichterliebe 

/ A Poet's Love
- The best-known song cycle of Schumann, with the texts for the 16 songs from Heinrich Heine.
- It explores the journey from the joy of new love, through failure, to renunciation.

- Schumann completed this entire masterpiece in only 9 days.

* Songs No.1-6

• Im wunderschönen Monat Mai --- In beautiful May, when the buds sprang, love sprang up in my heart: in beautiful May, when the birds all sang, I told you my desire and longing.
• Aus meinen Tränen sprießen --- Many flowers spring up from my tears, and a nightingale choir from my sighs: If you love me, I'll pick them all for you, and the nightingale will sing at your window.
• Die Rose, die Lilie, die Taube, die Sonne --- I used to love the rose, lily, dove and sun, joyfully: now I love only the little, the fine, the pure, the One: you yourself are the source of them all.
• Wenn ich in deine Augen seh --- When I look in your eyes all my pain and woe fades: when I kiss your mouth I become whole: when I recline on your breast I am filled with heavenly joy: and when you say, 'I love you', I weep bitterly.
• Ich will meine Seele tauchen --- I want to bathe my soul in the chalice of the lily, and the lily, ringing, will breathe a song of my beloved. The song will tremble and quiver, like the kiss of her mouth which in a wondrous moment she gave me.
• Im Rhein, im heiligen Strome --- In the Rhine, in the sacred stream, great holy Cologne with its great cathedral is reflected. In it there is a face painted on golden leather, which has shone into the confusion of my life. Flowers and cherubs float about Our Lady: the eyes, lips and cheeks are just like those of my beloved.

* Songs No.7-11

• Ich grolle nicht --- I do not chide you, though my heart breaks, love ever lost to me! Though you shine in a field of diamonds, no ray falls into your heart's darkness. I have long known it: I saw the night in your heart, I saw the serpent that devours it: I saw, my love, how empty you are.
• Und wüßten's die Blumen, die kleinen --- If the little flowers only knew how deeply my heart is wounded, they would weep with me to heal my suffering, and the nightingales would sing to cheer me, and even the starlets would drop from the sky to speak consolation to me: but they can't know, for only One knows, and it is she that has torn my heart asunder.
• Das ist ein Flöten und Geigen --- There is a playing of flutes and violins and trumpets, for they are dancing the wedding-dance of my best-beloved. There is a thunder and booming of kettle-drums and shawms. In between, you can hear the good cupids sobbing and moaning.
• Hör' ich das Liedchen klingen --- When I hear that song which my love once sang, my breast bursts with wild affliction. Dark longing drives me to the forest hills, where my too-great woe pours out in tears.
• Ein Jüngling liebt ein Mädchen --- A youth loved a maiden who chose another: the other loved another girl, and married her. The maiden married, from spite, the first and best man that she met with: the youth was sickened at it. It's the old story, and it's always new: and the one whom she turns aside, she breaks his heart in two.

* Songs No.12-14

• Am leuchtenden Sommermorgen --- On a sunny summer morning I went out into the garden: the flowers were talking and whispering, but I was silent. They looked at me with pity, and said, 'Don't be cruel to our sister, you sad, death-pale man.'
• Ich hab' im Traum geweinet --- I wept in my dream, for I dreamt you were in your grave: I woke, and tears ran down my cheeks. I wept in my dreams, thinking you had abandoned me: I woke, and cried long and bitterly. I wept in my dream, dreaming you were still good to me: I woke, and even then my floods of tears poured forth.
• Allnächtlich im Traume --- I see you every night in dreams, and see you greet me friendly, and crying out loudly I throw myself at your sweet feet. You look at me sorrowfully and shake your fair head: from your eyes trickle the pearly tear-drops. You say a gentle word to me and give me a sprig of cypress: I awake, and there is no sprig, and I have forgotten what the word was.

* Songs No.15-16

• Aus alten Märchen winkt es --- The old fairy tales tell of a magic land where great flowers shine in the golden evening light, where trees speak and sing like a choir, and springs make music to dance to, and songs of love are sung such as you have never heard, till wondrous sweet longing infatuates you! Oh, could I only go there, and free my heart, and let go of all pain, and be blessed! Ah! I often see that land of joys in dreams: then comes the morning sun, and it vanishes like smoke.
• Die alten, bösen Lieder --- The old bad songs, and the angry, bitter dreams, let us now bury them, bring a large coffin. I shall put very much therein, I shall not yet say what: the coffin must be bigger than the 'Tun' at Heidelberg. And bring a bier of stout, thick planks, they must be longer than the Bridge at Mainz. And bring me too twelve giants, who must be mightier than the Saint Christopher in the cathedral at Cologne. They must carry the coffin and throw it in the sea, because a coffin that large needs a large grave to put it in. Do you know why the coffin must be so big and heavy? I will also put my love and my suffering into it.

Source: Wikipedia