Ravinia 2019, Issue 5, Week 9

such as the play Genoveva (1840), which provid- ed source material for Robert Schumann’s opera of the same name; the poem “Requiem” (1857) set to music by Peter Cornelius, Max Reger, and others; and Die Nibelungen trilogy (1862), one of the finest dramatic renderings of the Nibelun- gen myth in the 19th century, though not the text used in Richard Wagner’s Ring cycle. Heb- bel’s Dem Schmerz sein Recht ( Pain Is His Right ; published 1857) is a cycle of 11 poems expressing great anguish. Scholars have detected symbol- ic musical references to the singer Helene Na- howski, the probable illegitimate daughter of Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria, whom Berg would marry on May 3, 1911. The key of D mi- nor (one flat) almost always held a special asso- ciation with Helene in Berg’s music. The lower pitches in the opening vocal line—A, B-flat, and B-natural—form an acrostic interlinking the names A lban– B erg– H elene (H = B-natural in German notation). The next three songs are derived from the po- etry of Der Glühende ( The Glowing ) by Alfred Mombert (1872–1942) and constitute something of a cycle-within-a-cycle. In correspondence with poet Richard Dehmel (May 31, 1898), Mombert compared these poems to emotion- al states of the world-weary, claiming to have written each in 30 to 60 seconds “in almost an- imalistic-bestial emotion.” Musical allusions to Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde —the Prelude to Act One, Love Duet, and “Liebestod”—tighten the association with Berg’s still-unfulfilled love for Helene. (Her legal father, Franz Nahowski, ob- jected to their relationship due to Berg’s meager professional prospects and the alleged immo- ralities of his family members.) Two significant melodic motives in the second song, Schlafend trägt man mich in mein Heimatland , are pure Berg. They mingle with the A-B-H acrostic in the subsequent piece, Nun ich der Riesen Stärk- sten überwand. Scholarly study of the sketches suggests that Berg composed these two songs first as an integrated unit. The final song, Warm die Lüfte , dispenses with tonality, a depiction perhaps of the maiden who wanders aimlessly while waiting for her lover’s return. In 1910, Berg financed the publication of his Four Songs, op. 2, a fact that caused much personal embarrassment, and he created his own cover design. Berg dedicated the score to Helene. ROBERT SCHUMANN (1810–56) Dichterliebe , op. 48 Other than a few isolated examples from his teenage years, Schumann preferred to compose piano miniatures rather than songs for voice and piano—until 1840, that is, when a frenzied rush of Lieder composition yielded close to 150 songs. The catalyst for this creative outburst was his beloved fiancée, Clara Wieck, whose father (Friedrich Wieck, Schumann’s piano teacher) vehemently opposed their marriage. Frustration caused by the constant legal battles, a blossom- ing yet unfulfilled love for Clara, and Robert’s desperate attempts to demonstrate the financial viability of his talent and career all contributed to this phenomenal production. The two lovers finally joined in marriage on September 12, 1840. During this miraculous period, Schumann com- piled 18 song collections, including four cycles (“Liederkreis” in German). Unity resulted from the choice of poems by a single author, selecting texts that focus on a central theme, and inte- grating musical and textual material. Schumann created his 1840 cycles in this order: Lieder- kreis , op. 24 (texts by Heine); Liederkreis , op. 39 (Eichendorff); Frauenliebe und -leben , op. 42 (Chamisso); and Dichterliebe , op. 48 (Heine). Dichterliebe ( Poet’s Love )—completed between May 24 and 31, 1840—lingers on the loss of a beloved, a symbolic portrayal of the compos- er’s own emotional state. Schumann originally set 20 poems from Heinrich Heine’s Lyrisches Intermezzo (part of a larger Buch der Lieder , published in 1827). Before offering Dichterliebe to the public, Schumann removed four songs. This simple and direct vocal writing never de- scends to maudlin melodrama. Piano accompa- niments essentially extend the poetic thought and mood through well-crafted preludes, inter- ludes, and postludes. The composer originally dedicated his cycle to Felix Mendelssohn, but offered the printed score to soprano Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient. Schumann eloquently stated his aesthetic credo in a review of songs by Carl Friedrich Zöllner. “The simplicity has to do specifically with the accompaniment … the melody in the voice part is the main thing: in order to do justice to their spiritual depth, a singer must understand how to recite, and just as the songs follow every nuance of the poems, so we need a singer who is high- ly sensitive to these [nuances]. How often are we fortunate enough to encounter this? Good lieder singers are almost as rare as good lieder composers.” HUGO WOLF (1860–1903) Drei Gedichte von Michelangelo Italian sculptor, painter, and architect Michel- angelo Buonarroti (1475–1564) produced a sig- nificant body of approximately 300 poems— epigrams, epitaphs, madrigals, and sonnets. Themes of love and mortality course through his sonnets, many of which Michelangelo dedicated to the two great affections of his life: the noble- woman and fellow poet Vittoria Colonna, with whom he maintained an ardent though platon- ic relationship from 1536 until her unexpected death in 1547, and Tommaso dei Cavalieri, the nobleman (and father of composer Emilio de’ Cavalieri), who inspired overtly homoerotic poetry. Wolf received Walter Heinrich Robert-Tor- now’s recently published translations of Michel- angelo’s poems as a Christmas gift from Paul Müller, his friend and the founder of the Berlin Hugo-Wolf Verein, in 1896. After familiarizing himself with the volume, Wolf drafted an initial plan to set six poems to music. In the end, he composed four Lieder, but he destroyed the last (“Irdische und himmlische Liebe”) as “unwor- thy.” The surviving three Michelangelo Lieder strike a deliberately introspective tone as the composer grappled with the poetic reflections on human mortality. He completed the Mi- chelangelo triptych in a 10-day surge of creativ- ity—March 18–28, 1897. Little could Wolf have realized that these contemplative songs would be his last before the onset of syphilis-induced dementia. Michelangelo remained the narrative voice in Wolf ’s Three Michelangelo Songs , his only col- lection conceived as a cycle. The composer in- tently studied Hermann Grimm’s biography of Michelangelo in developing a character profile: “Naturally, the sculptor must sing bass.” Wohl denk’ ich oft an mein vergang’nes Leben (How often have I thought about my past life) reflects on its author’s incomplete and imperfect former existence, before achieving fame and fortune. Wolf diagrammed his musical plan in a letter to Robert Schumann (1839) Hugo Wolf RAVINIA MAGAZINE | JULY 29 – AUGUST 4, 2019 92