UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI
Date:______
I, ______, hereby submit this work as part of the requirements for the degree of: in:
It is entitled:
This work and its defense approved by:
Chair: ______
THE IMPACT OF THE LIED ON SELECTED PIANO WORKS OF FRANZ SCHUBERT, ROBERT SCHUMANN, AND JOHANNES BRAHMS
A thesis submitted to the
Division of Graduate Studies and Research of the University of Cincinnati
In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
DOCTOR OF MUSICAL ARTS IN PIANO PERFORMANCE
of the College-Conservatory of Music
2004
by
Yueh-Reng Lin
B.M., National Taiwan Normal University, 1994 M.M., University of Cincinnati, 1998
Committee Chair: Professor Karin Pendle
ABSTRACT
In the nineteenth-century, the German lied, with its subtle expression of poetry and its intimate lyricism, revealed individual expression and emotional content. The piano music in this era also raised a new approach to pianism and the aesthetic of German Romanticism. Composed by three masters in both genres, selected piano works including Schubert’s Wanderer Fantasia
Op.15, Schumann’s Fantasie Op.17, and Waldszenen, Op.82, and Brahms’s Sonata Op.5 in F
Minor, demonstrate their innermost poetic quality, evident in their unique musical language, which is derived profoundly from the spirit of the lied.
To explore the link between lied and piano music, the compositional background, and the thematic, harmonic and structural schemes of these works are analyzed in detail, along with the ways which vocal music had an impact on the style of these piano works.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This thesis has been done passionately, as insomuch as painfully. I wish to express my deep appreciation to Dr. Pendle, whose amazing knowledge, patience, and experience, guided me all the way through the challenging and difficult process during these years. I would also like to give my special thanks to my committee members, Professor Kenneth Griffiths and Professor
Eugene Pridonoff, for their intelligent advice has contributed to the completion of this document.
I have been so grateful to have Professor Frank Weinstock as my piano teacher. His incredible inspiration and true musicianship help me grow as a performer and a person, and this impact will last infinitely. Finally, I wish to express my gratitude to my dear parents, families, and friends, for their endless support and heartfelt encouragement.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES ii
LIST OF FIGURES vii
INTRODUCTION 1
CHAPTER ONE
The Impact: Songs and Piano Music 3
CHAPTER TWO
The Impact of the Lied on the Piano Works of Franz Schubert 15
CHAPTER THREE
The Impact of the Lied on the Piano Works of Robert Schumann 32
CHAPTER FOUR
The Impact of the Lied on the Piano Works of Johannes Brahms 62
CHAPTER FIVE
Comparison and Conclusion 91
BIBLIOGRAPHY 97
i LIST OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES
1a J. S. Bach, Goldberg Variations, var. 30, the text and themes 5
1b J. S. Bach, Goldberg Variations, var. 30, mm. 1-4 5
2a Schubert, Der Wanderer, D. 489, mm.23-30 22
2b Schubert, Fantasia in C Major, Op. 15, Adagio, mm. 189-196 23
3a Schubert, Fantasia in C Major, Op. 15, Allegro con fuoco ma non troppo, 23 mm.1-3
3b Schubert, Fantasia in C Major, Op. 15, Allegro con fuoco ma non troppo, 24 mm.41-46
3c Schubert, Fantasia in C Major, Op. 15, Allegro con fuoco ma non troppo, 24 mm.70-72
3d Schubert, Fantasia in C Major, Op. 15, Allegro con fuoco ma non troppo, 24 mm.82-84
4 Schubert, Fantasia in C Major, Op. 15, transition from Allegro to Adagio, 24 mm.164-172
5a Schubert, Fantasia in C Major, Op. 15, Presto, mm. 245-257 26
5b Schubert, Fantasia in C Major, Op. 15, Presto, mm. 422-442 26
6 Schubert, Fantasia in C Major, Op. 15, Allegro, mm. 598-603 26
7a Schubert, Fantasia in C Major, Op. 15, Allegro con fuoco ma non troppo, 27 mm.109-114
7b Schubert, Der Wanderer, the main theme 27
8a Schubert, Fantasia in C Major, Op. 15, mm. 244-255 28
8b Schubert, Fantasia in C Major, Op. 15, mm. 1-3 28
9 Schubert, Fantasia in C Major, Op.15, mm. 31-47, harmonic reduction 29
10 Schubert, Fantasia in C Major, Op.15, mm. 230-245, harmonic reduction 30
ii 11 Schubert, Fantasia in C Major, Op.15, mm. 534-597, harmonic reduction 31
12a Beethoven, An die ferne Geliebte, Op. 98 No. 6, mm. 6-10 37
12b Schumann’s facsimile of melody and Fantasia Op.17, mm. 65-66 38
13a Schumann, Fantasie in C Major, Op.17, mm. 295-296, “Beethoven theme,” 39 motivic analysis
13b Schumann, Fantasie in C Major, Op.17, mm. 295-296, “Beethoven theme,” 39 motivic reduction
14a Schumann, Fantasie in C Major, Op.17, first movement, mm. 1-9 40
14b Schumann, Fantasie in C Major, Op.17, first movement, mm. 13-18 40
14c Schumann, Fantasie in C Major, Op.17, first movement, mm. 40-45 41
14d Schumann, Fantasie in C Major, Op.17, first movement, mm. 49-50 41
14e Schumann, Fantasie in C Major, Op.17, first movement, mm. 61-64 41
14 f Schumann, Fantasie in C Major, Op.17, first movement, mm. 65-73 41
15a Schumann, Fantasie in C Major, Op.17, first movement, mm. 33-41 42
15b Schumann, Fantasie in C Major, Op.17, first movement, mm. 129-142, 42 Im Legendenton
16 Schumann, Fantasie in C Major, Op.17, first movement, mm. 295-309 42
17a Schumann, Fantasie in C Major, Op.17, second movement, mm. 141-143 45
17b Schumann, Fantasie in C Major, Op.17, second movement, mm. 230-233 45
18a Schumann, Fantasie in C Major, Op.17, third movement, mm. 3-5 45
18b Schumann, Fantasie in C Major, Op.17, third movement, mm. 135-142 45
19a Schumann, Fantasie in C Major, Op.17, third movement, mm. 1-5 48
19b Schubert, “Die Gebüsche,” D.646, mm. 1-6 48
20 Schubert, “An die Music,” D.547, mm. 16-19 49
iii 21 Schumann, Waldszenen, Op. 82, “Eintritt,” mm. 1-4 52
22 Schumann, Waldszenen, Op. 82, “Verrufene Stelle,” mm. 1-3 54
23a Schumann, Liederkreis, Op. 39 No.10, “Zwielicht,” mm. 1-13 54
23b Schumann, Waldszenen, Op. 82, “Vogel als Prophet,” mm. 1-6 54
24a Schumann, Waldszenen, Op. 82, “Jagdlied,” mm. 1-11 55
24b Schumann, Jagdlieder, Op.137 No.1, “Zur hohen Jagd,” mm. 1-13 55
25a Schumann, Waldszenen, Op. 82, “Freundliche Landschaft,” mm. 1-6 57
25b Schumann, Waldszenen, Op. 82, “Herberge,” mm. 37-40 57
26a Schumann, Waldszenen, Op. 82, “Herberge,” mm. 1-2 57
26b Schumann, Liederkreis, Op. 39 No.3, “Waldesgespräch,” mm.1-8 57
27a Schumann, Waldszenen, Op. 82, Einsame Blumen, mm.1-7 58
27b Schubert, “Frühlingsglaube,” Op.20 No.2, mm. 4-7 58
28a Schumann, Waldszenen, Op. 82, “Freundliche Landschaft,” mm. 1-5 59
28b Schumann, Waldszenen, Op. 82, “Abschied,” mm. 1-3 59
28c Schumann, Waldszenen, Op. 82, “Herberge,” mm. 53-56 59
29a Schumann, Waldszenen, Op. 82, “Einsame Blumen,” mm.1-7 60
29b Schumann, “Ein Jüngling liebt ein Mädchen,” Op. 24 No. 11, mm.1-9 60
30a Schumann, Waldszenen, Op. 82, “Abschied,” mm. 4-6 61
30b Schumann, “Sehnsucht,” Op. 51 No.1, mm. 3-6 61
31a Folk song, “Verstohlen geht der Mond auf” 67
31b Brahms, Piano Sonata in C Major, Op.1, second movement, mm.1-11 67
32 Brahms, Piano Sonata in F# Minor, Op. 2, second movement, 68 with Bozarth’s addition of folk text
iv 33a Brahms, Piano Sonata in F# Minor, Op. 2, first movement, mm.1-3 69
33b Brahms, Piano Sonata in F# Minor, Op. 2, third movement, Scherzo, 69 mm. 1-5
33c Brahms, Piano Sonata in F# Minor, Op. 2, fourth movement, Finale, mm. 1-6 70
34 Brahms, Piano Sonata in F Minor, Op. 5, second movement, mm.1-10, 73 the main theme with the suggestion of text setting
35 Brahms, Piano Sonata in F Minor, Op. 5, second movement, mm.1-10 77
36a Brahms, Piano Sonata in F Minor, Op. 5, second movement, mm.10-24 78
36b Brahms, Piano Sonata in F Minor, Op. 5, second movement, mm. 25-28 78
37a Brahms, Piano Sonata in F Minor, Op. 5, second movement, mm. 37-48 79
37b Brahms, Piano Sonata in F Minor, Op. 5, second movement, mm. 49-64, 79 harmonic reduction
38a Brahms, Piano Sonata in F Minor, Op. 5, second movement, mm. 37-40 80
38b Brahms, Piano Sonata in F Minor, Op. 5, second movement, mm. 65-72 80
38c Brahms, Piano Sonata in F Minor, Op. 5, second movement, mm. 144-150 80
39 Friedrich Silcher, “Steh ich in finst’rer Mitternacht” 81
40a Brahms, Piano Sonata in F Minor, Op. 5, second movement, mm. 187-191 82
40b Brahms, Piano Sonata in F Minor, Op. 5, fourth movement, mm. 1-4 82
41a Brahms, Piano Sonata in F Minor, Op. 5, first movement, mm. 1-5 83
41b Brahms, Piano Sonata in F Minor, Op. 5, second movement, mm. 1-5 84
42a Brahms, Piano Sonata in F Minor, Op. 5, first movement, m. 1 84
42b Brahms, Piano Sonata in F Minor, Op. 5, first movement, mm. 6-11 84
42c Brahms, Piano Sonata in F Minor, Op. 5, first movement, mm. 21-26 85
42d Brahms, Piano Sonata in F Minor, Op. 5, first movement, mm. 34-46 85
v 43a Brahms, Piano Sonata in F Minor, Op. 5, third movement, Scherzo, mm. 1-17 86
43b Brahms, Piano Sonata in F Minor, Op. 5, second movement, mm. 1-4, 86 left hand
44 Brahms, Piano Sonata in F Minor, Op. 5, fifth movement, mm. 1-4 87
45 Brahms, Piano Sonata in F Minor, Op. 5, fifth movement, mm. 36-43 88
46a Brahms, Piano Sonata in F Minor, Op. 5, second movement, mm. 1-2, 88 right hand
46b Brahms, Piano Sonata in F Minor, Op. 5, fifth movement, mm. 138-152 88
46c Brahms, Piano Sonata in F Minor, Op. 5, fifth movement, mm. 234-243 88
46d Brahms, Piano Sonata in F Minor, Op. 5, fifth movement, mm. 249-258 89
vi LIST OF FIGURES
1 Schubert’s instrumental works related to lieder 16
2 Schubert, Fantasia in C Major, Op.15, the structure 20
3 Schubert, Fantasia in C Major, Op.15, the variations of Adagio 25
4 Schumann, Fantasie in C Major Op.17, first movement, the structure 43
5 Schumann, Waldszenen, Op.82, keys and formal structure 56
6 Brahms, Piano Sonata in F Minor, Op. 5, the structure 71
7 Brahms, Piano Sonata in F Minor, Op. 5, second movement, Andante 76
8 Brahms, Piano Sonata in F Minor, Op. 5, fifth movement, Finale 87
vii INTRODUCTION
The piano music of the nineteenth century has always fascinated pianists and listeners, and is still on center stage in concert halls all over the world. It has fascinated people for its rich harmonic language, the diversity of its virtuosic pianism, and its unique quality of lyricism — capable of an expression that carried poetic or personal content. Of the countless large-scale masterworks as well as the exquisite character pieces from this period, the piano music of
Schubert, Schumann, and Brahms stands out for the poetic and lyrical quality revealed, among other places, in the works that are linked to specific songs. It is no coincidence that their creators are among the best lieder composers of the nineteenth century, and that German lieder, whether of art or folk origins, past or present, solo or multi-voice, present, along with literature, some distinguishing features of German Romanticism. While approaching instrumental music, the impact of the lied shows not only in the quoted tunes, but also the intimate expression that, combined with fine craftsmanship, provides interpretive potential and great imagination.
Throughout its history, keyboard music has always been able to absorb the fashions of contemporary music, and vocal genres, whether sacred or secular, theatrical or not, have exercised a powerful influence and interaction on instrumental music, and have shown themselves to be much closer to most people, even, say, to the human soul. Thus the development of keyboard music has a part which interacted with vocal music. In addition to ensemble use, mostly as accompaniments, keyboard music has absorbed influences from vocal models in melodic style, form, and most directly in sets of variations based on borrowed songs.
For keyboard music, especially when the piano gained the ability to play legato in a full, round, and subtle manner, a singing quality, termed cantabile, became an essential technical demand for
1 pianists, even though the process of making sound from a piano is basically against the legato or cantabile. This point about the imitation of the sound between the human voice and piano is not a superficial one, but emphasizes the source of the inner quality of expression projected through the instrument.
The impact of lieder on keyboard works of Schubert, Schumann, and Brahms is therefore not without precedent, though it goes even more deeply and profoundly than before. In many surveys of piano literature, the works of these three composers have been cited for their poetic images that differ from the purely pianistic language of such contemporaries as Chopin or Liszt, whose works also show the influence of Italian vocal idioms. This thesis will focus the style of vocal music and its effect on keyboard music. Its most important goal is to explore the unique poetic and lyrical qualities which directly quote and draw significant inspiration from the spirit of the German lied, as it emerges from deep inside a selected group of piano works.
2 CHAPTER ONE
THE IMPACT: SONGS AND PIANO MUSIC
Since the sixteenth century, keyboard music has been always reflected precisely and subtly the compositional styles of its times — including genres, formal schemes, or even the regional culture and musical aesthetics. In nineteenth-century Germany, the art of the musical miniature emerged as Romanticism’s most characteristic type of music. The German word “lied” referred “interchangeably to a poem with music or without.”1 With its subtle expression and its intimate lyricism, it revealed individual expression and emotional content that was also characteristic of certain types of piano music. It shows up not only in actual lied quotations in piano music, but also in the sort of personal expression and poetic lyricism of the aesthetic of
German Romanticism. The melodic construction, the imaginative figuration, and the context of the piano miniature also show a certain inspiration from the lied. In fact, vocal genres have exercised an influence on the style of keyboard music, and stimulated the diversity of these instruments since they were first constructed.
The Tradition: Keyboard Music Linked to Vocal Genres
Music for keyboard has very often mirrored contemporary musical fashions. As early as the fifteenth century, the main function of the stringed keyboard instrument was to accompany vocal music. Many early genres for solo keyboard, such as ricercar, canzona, or capriccio, were transferred from vocal models like motets or chansons. In Germany, the Buxheim Organ Book, a
1 Leon Plantinga, Romantic Music: A History of Musical Style in Nineteenth-Century Europe (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1984 ),108.
3 large manuscript containing more than 250 keyboard pieces, preserved more than 200 works derived from the vocal music of composers like Dunstable and Dufay, ornamenting the original voices, especially the upper one, and rephrasing a singing melodic line into a sequencing style more suitable for keyboard.
In the seventeenth century, vocal music was stimulated by the rise and the development of opera. Arias for the solo voice play an important role in all types of vocal music and reveal a close relationship between poetic and music form. In instrumental music, the term “aria” often refers to the theme of a set of variations, which resemble the strophic variation form of vocal music. The singing, lyrical quality with embellishment distinguished itself from dance-types of music and complex contrapuntal textures of other Baroque forms. Examples include Partite sopra l’aria della romanesca by Girolamo Frescobaldi in his Toccate e partite d’intavolature di cembalo (1615), or the variation set nicknamed “The Harmonious Blacksmith” from a keyboard suite by George Frideric Handel. The singing, melodic quality was never compromised in keyboard music of Johann Sebastian Bach, with its superior craftsmanship in contrapuntal writing, the technical demands on the instrument, and the involvement of all regional styles. In the preface to his Inventions, published in 1723, J. S. Bach declared his purpose: “Above all to achieve a cantabile style in playing and at the same time acquire a strong foretaste of composition.”2 Later, in his Goldberg Variations, he adopted a lyrical aria from a sarabande in
Anna Magdalena’s Clavierbüchlein as the main theme for the following thirty variations. Despite the phenomenal writing of canons, the diverse styles of dance, or the highly demanding keyboard virtuosity in the first twenty-nine variations, the final variation still shines for its two quotations of simple, popular tunes of that time put together in counterpoint in a variation which Bach
2 Johann Sebastian Bach, Inventions and Sinfonia, (Munich: Heinle Urtext, 1979), the preface.
4 called “Quodlibet”(what you please). This variation carries an allusion to German family tradition: to sing different popular and spirited songs successively or simultaneously, a common practice.3 The words of the medley were pointed out by someone associated with J.C. Kittel,
Bach’s pupil.4 The farewell and the humor are hidden behind the contrapuntal variation
(Examples 1a-b).
Example 1. J. S. Bach, Goldberg Variations, var. 30, the text and themes a) the text and themes
b) J. S. Bach, Goldberg Variations, var.30, mm. 1-4
Much of piano music of the Classical period reveals, behind its structural perfection, the human voice, the singing melody and style especially derived from opera. In the piano music of
3 Peter Williams, Bach: The Goldberg Variations (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 89.
4 Ibid., 89-90.
5 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, many melodic ideas come spontaneously from opera, the genre that fascinated him throughout his short life. Not only did he adopt many operatic or popular theatrical tunes by other composers as the main themes of his sets of variations, but his own melodic ideas arching shapes, long-breathed sentences filled with smooth scales or elegant ornamentation, mostly in the higher, soprano range recall those of his operas. Simon P. Keefe, in his book Mozart’s Piano Concertos: Dramatic Dialogue in the Age of Enlightenment, compares operatic, dramatic ideas in the relationships between solo/orchestra and the similarities in formal schemes.5 The melodies of Joseph Haydn, on the other hand, reveal influences of folk songs or popular tunes. For example, his Fantasia in C, Hob.VII: 4, is based on the melody of a
German folk song, “Ich wünschet’ es wäre Nacht” (I wish it were night ).
Later on, piano music was greatly developed by Beethoven in all genres, whether for solo piano or in chamber music and concertos that involved piano. His piano music was more purely instrumental, even in the shadow of orchestra instruments. Yet in his later life, Beethoven also revealed inspiration from contemporary writers such as Goethe, and composed lieder or other genres he labeled Gesänge or Ariette, more seriously than his predecessors had done. Besides variations based on popular theater or traditional tunes, however, the direct imprint of vocal genres is not easily found in his piano music. Yet the lyrical or more personal and even meditative qualities that appear in his late piano works might suggest the subconscious influence of songs. In his piano sonata Op.81a, Beethoven added the title Das Lebewohl ( farewell) in the first movement as a reference to the departure of his close friend, Archduke Rudolph. Beethoven was undecided whether to use the title in French (Les adieux) or German, and finally chose the word Lebewohl to fit the opening horn-call motive (G-F-Eb, “Le-be-wohl”), and placed it under
5 Detailed discussion in Simon P. Keefe, Mozart’s Piano Concertos: Dramatic Dialogue in the Age of Enlightenment (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2001).
6 the first three chords.6 Therefore Das Lebewohl here not only served as a title, but also as a sense of the text. In his last two piano sonatas, Beethoven places the unusual markings such as
Recitativo, Klagender Gesang and L’istesso tempo di Arioso in the final movement in Op.110, to imply a style of vocal origin, and uses the title Arietta in the last movement in Op.111 as the main theme of a set variations in the Baroque sense of Bach’s Goldberg Variations. Both show his eagerness to bring out his inner, lyrical voice by suggestive vocal titles, in the medium of the piano.
The Impact of German Lied in Piano Music
Changes and developments in the lied grew in part from important trends in the last decades of the eighteenth century. The nineteenth century was, according to Lorraine Gorrell, “a very verbal age,” and both song and opera were “verbally oriented arts.”7 In 1802 the influential music theorist Heinrich Christoph Koch provided a definition of the lied:
A lyrical poem of several stanzas, intended to be sung, and united with a melody that is repeated for each stanza and that also is of such a nature that it can be sung by anyone who has a normal and reasonably flexible voice, whether he has any training in the art or not.8
The most distinguishing quality of the lied is its lyrical center, meaning that words suggest the main ideas, conveyed in music by means of a concise formal dimension. The increased prominence of the German lied is a reflection of German Romanticism and nationalism, and this emerging vocal genre has a deeper and more profound impact than does earlier instrumental
6 William Kinderman, “Beethoven,” in Nineteenth-Century Piano Music, ed. R. Larry Todd ( New York: Schimer Books, 1990), 68.
7 Lorraine Gorrell, The Nineteenth-Century German Lied ( Portland: Amadeus Press, 1993), 10.
8 H.C. Koch, Musikalisches Lexikon , quoted in Leon Plantinga, Romantic Music: A History of Musical Style in Nineteenth-Century Europe ( New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1984),109.
7 music, especially piano music.
The late eighteenth century saw the renaissance of German nationalism in literature, philosophy, and music, which gradually increased even while a mixed culture, mostly French or
Italian, was more dominant in this land. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, when the effects of the French Revolution were spreading the ideal of freedom and individuality in Europe, most people in German-speaking lands still had little sense of self-identity. They had been scattered in several areas, among them the Prussia of Frederick the Great (1712-1786), whose military victories did bring German people pride, though he himself was shaped more by French culture rather than by his native German ways.
Gotthold Lessing (1729-81), one of the early leading figures in this revival, guided
German writers to avoid the shadow of French literary models and find their own heritage.
Numerous collections of folk poetry and songs appear at this time. The most respected figure in this field was a German writer and philosopher, Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803), whose collections of Volkslieder (1778-79) inspired many composers such as Felix Mendelssohn or
Johannes Brahms. He believed that people of German-speaking areas had common ideas in spirit, or so-called Volksgeist, which differed from others and reflected the individualism that no culture was better than another. He considered music “a cosmic and natural force as well as the more conscious product of individual genius; reason could not account for it.”9 Also in Herder’s view, folk music and poetry should be valued for their spontaneity and close relation to the expression of real life. The poetry which was set to music reflects aspects of daily life for most people at that time and was easy to sing and remember. Thus the aesthetic concept of native music in
Germany was built up gradually: melodies without unnecessary embellishments that would
9 Peter Branscombe, “Herder, Johann Gottfried” in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie. 2d ed., vol.11 (London: Macmillan, 2001), 410.
8 interfere with the expression of realistic emotion. The other influential works were J.A.P.
Schulz’s Lieder im Volkston (1782-90) and A.W. F. von Zuccalmaglio’s Deutsche Volkslieder.
Their devotion to Volkston left a lasting impression on such later figures as poets Clemens
Brentano, Ludwig Uhland, Joseph von Eichendorff, and Wilhelm Müller. The most remarkable among them is Goethe, who played a very important role in the elevation of German literature and the lied to a high artistic level.
The greatest German writer and poet at the turn of the nineteenth century, Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), whose works were also deeply influenced by music, leaves profound, wide, and long-lasting influences which “makes music with thoughts and words; the greatest succeeded in evoking by these words an almost magical Stimmung or mood.”10 Many of his poems were suitable for music, and he often adopted the manner of folksong, for which he was inspired by his predecessors. Lutheran chorales were also his models. In Goethe’s view, the folksong and the sacred character of church music were the “two pivots around which all true music revolves.”11 That could be the reason for the appearance of chordal, hymn-like style in music at that time, both in vocal and instrumental music. Many important composers, among them Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert, set his poems to music, and Goethe’s contribution to music literature is to make the words “sing” and music “speak” the aesthetic inspirations of
German Romanticism which departed from the rationalism of the previous century: “It embraces everything that is poetic, from the most comprehensive system of art…to the sign or kiss which the poetic child expresses in the artless song.”12 A poetic aura gradually centered on composition,
10 Gustave Mathieu and Guy Stern, ed., Introduction to German Poetry (New York: Dover Publications, 1987), 5. 11 J.W. Smeed, German Song and Its Poetry, 1740-1900 (New York: Croom Helm, 1987), 33.
12 Harry Seelig, “The Literary Context: Goethe as Source and Catalyst” in German Lied in the Nineteenth Century, ed. Rufus Hallmark (New York: Schirmer Press, 1996), 3.
9 with words or without. Many other poets, whether major voices like Heinrich Heine (1797-1856) or minor ones like Wilhelm Müller (1794-1827), also play important roles in this development.
They elevated not only the literary and musical arts, but also a Romantic individualism — a sentimental movement which encouraged self-expression and individual feeling, as affected by personal emotion, nature, or society, and gradually came to have more influence on music, vocal or purely instrumental.
The German lied, whether in folk or art songs, has deep roots in literary development, and the themes of the poetry were usually the crucial point which music transcends. In Peter
Russell’s book The Themes of the German Lied from Mozart to Strauss, there are very subtle and detailed discussions of the topics of the poetry which Romantic composers set to music. To summarize, song texts fall under five main topics: the wooing of the beloved, mostly from a far distance; the scenes from daily family life and work; the quest for happiness with deeply emotional expressions of melancholy, despair, bittersweet experiences, or humor; the world around us: seasons, nature, or wanderings; and the world beyond us: death or religion.13 The
German lied stands out in the refinement, subtlety, and depth of expression of all topics, through the intimacy and sincerity of its musical setting. This quality and the similarities of song topics are also seen in piano music, especially in the miniatures of the nineteenth century that are often referred to as “character pieces.” For instance, Felix Mendelssohn’s collection for solo piano
Lieder ohne Worte (1829-45), contains forty-nine short pieces, each labeled according to its intended expression, all of them described in the list mentioned above: boat songs, hunting songs, funeral marches, and so on. Robert Schumann’s many notable sets of character pieces, such as
Kinderszenen, Op.15 (1838), are also fine examples.
13 Detailed discussion in Peter Russell, The Themes of the German Lied from Mozart to Strauss (Queenston, Ontario: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2002).
10 As mentioned above, the German lied derived from the revival of German nationalism and Romanticism, at the time when foreign culture held a powerful position. In the early nineteenth century, the music, especially that of the dominant vocal genre, opera, by the Italians
Rossini or Bellini, still held center stage throughout Euroupe. The aesthetic differences between the simplicity and sincerity of lieder and the theatricality of Italian opera were quite large.
Herder’s key point in describing the lied was its lyric tone:
The essence of the lied is song, not painting; its perfection lies in tracing the course of passion or feeling in melody, a practice we might refer to with the ancient but fitting term “lay” [Weise]. Without it, a lied has no tone, no poetic modulation, no sustained motion or progression in its melody. No matter its form and imagery, no matter the composition and delicacy of its colors: it is no longer a lied.14
The lyric tone, which, to use Dahlhaus’s words, is at the same time subjective rather than being merely “sensitive,” different from depicted (epic) and dialogue (dramatic), and this
“tone” had a more personal quality when the composer serves as a “lyric ego.”15 Opposed to this, the prevalent style of Italian opera of the first half of the nineteenth century was remarkable for projecting long, fabulous melodies, in addition to dramatic intensity and large-scale musical form.
Surely it was not a compatible medium for most composers who devoted their efforts to lieder.
Those considered to be the most successful lieder composers, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, or
Wolf, wrote no equally successful operas, which shows their different musical aesthetics.
Schumann even wrote about the differences between German and Italian melodies, reflecting his taste for a melody which embodies the spirit of the German lied:
There is a difference between melody and melodies. Whoever has melody, will have melodies; who, however, has melodies, will not always have the former; the child sings his melodies to himself, melody, however, develops only later. In the first two chords of the Eroica Symphony, for instance, there lies more melody than in ten Bellini melodies.
14 Quoted in Carl Dahlhaus, Nineteenth-Century Music, trans. J. Bradford Robinson (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1989), 99.
15 Ibid., 164.
11 This of course, cannot be explained to musical ultramontanists.16
This citation explains Schumann’s aesthetics of melody, which in his interpretation of the term has expressive meaning in every single note; even chords could contain good melody if they meant something other than superficial beauty and brilliance. Schumann also has other criticisms of the theatrical side of Italian music:
Rossini is the most excellent scene painter; but take away from him the artificial illumination and the tempting distance of the theater, and see what remains!17
Perhaps due to their aesthetics of melody and their contrasting ideas between lieder and opera, or even simply because of the growth of German nationalism, the fact that these elite lieder composers were unsuccessful when they attempted to write operas also influenced their compositional sensitivities when they approached instrumental music.
The role of the piano in the development of the nineteenth-century lied is also important.
This instrument could produce an orchestral sonority or show its versatility in creating poetic moods and atmospheres. The piano is also the only single instrument able to create by itself such a range of expressive sonorities and textures. The Romantic lied emerged in part due to the evolution of the piano, the instrument capable not only of imitating sounds but transcending original themes, whether by itself or as a collaborative partner. The piano also exercised stylistic influences: the form, the melodic aesthetics, and the more poetic and profound personal expression than before. The character piece, which arose in the early nineteenth century and was adopted by Beethoven in his late compositions, is similar to the lied in its sense of concise form, often binary or ternary like the typical song form, and the single mood and poetic expressions it portrays. Felix Mendelssohn provides fine examples in this category. Previously mentioned, his
16 Quoted in Thomas Alan Brown, The Aesthetics of Robert Schumann (New York: Philosophical Library Press, 1968), 58.
17 Ibid.
12 exquisite Lieder ohne Worte are albums of piano songs. Mendelssohn leaves the concepts about the title and the works, which represent his idea that lyrical thoughts could be conveyed better by music than by language:
If you ask me what I was thinking of when I wrote it [Lieder ohne Worte], I would say: Just the song as it stands. And if I happen to have had certain words in mind for one or another of these songs, I would never want to tell them to different people. Only the song can say the same thing, can arouse the same feelings in one person as in another, a feeling which is not expressed, however, by the same words.18
The aesthetics of melody in German lied tend to rhythmic and intervallic simplicity and harmonic transparency, with clear outlines yet without unnecessary embellishments, which also has to do with the way of combining language and music. Unlike French or Italian, German is a language based on accentuation which has “logical coincidence on the metrical stress,” pointed out by a German poet Martin Opitz in 1624.19 This could explain the basic rhythmic regularity and clarity of the melodic construction in lieder. There is a further comment on German poetry and its effect :
It demonstrates the astonishing smoothness, elegance, and melody of the German language, and reveals in a small way the German poets’ great concern with musical effects of alliteration and assonance, of rhyme and rhythm….In form, too, German poets cultivated a wide range of structure and meter….Despite a marked emphasis on varied form, a striking characteristic of German poetry is its general use of an unpretentious vocabulary.…This simplicity has undoubtedly contributed toward making German poetry one of the art forms closest to the hearts of the people.20
In addition, motivic variants keep coherence within the subtle poetic moods, and pictorial effects or intonation of the poem, all affect the melodic line. Without losing its lyrical tenderness
18 R. Larry Todd, “Piano Music Reformed: The Case of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy,” in Nineteenth-Century Piano Music, ed. R. Larry Todd (New York: Schirmer Books, 1990), 193.
19 Jack M. Stein, Poem and Music in the German Lied from Gluck to Hugo Wolf (Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1971), 9.
20 Gustave Mathieu and Guy Stern, ed., Introduction to German Poetry, 6.
13 and transparency, this melodic sense works well when the melody is integrated with the counterpoint or other inner voicing. The nineteenth-century German lied was always remarkable for its coherence between voice and piano as well as its lyricism in the melody. When these criteria are applied to piano music, they produce the same qualities by means of craftsmanship in composition.
The most profound inspiration of the German lied on instrumental music, especially on piano music, is its poetic idea which, in Dahlhaus’s thought, dominated early nineteenth-century aesthetics.21 As early as 1799, in the writing of Phantasien über die Kunst (Fantasies on Art),
Ludwig Tieck, one of the leading figures in German Romanticism, stated that instrumental music was the “supreme poetic language,” and later G.W.F. Hegel defined of the “poetic dimension to music” as a “language of the soul.” In Dahlhaus’s summary:
We have, on one side, an aesthetic of form, an emphasis on theme, and the primacy of instrumental music; on the other, an aesthetic of feeling, a focus on melody, and the preeminence of vocal music.22
Without going so far as the programmatic, the poetic idea in music is to stimulate one to think metaphysically about music while the composer, as a “lyric ego,” transmits the expressive messages. Piano music in the nineteenth century, particularly that by Schubert, Schumann, and
Brahms, stands out not merely for its brilliance, but more by the endless potential of this poetic sense, to interpret the immensity of the soul.
21 Carl Dahlhaus, Nineteenth-Century Music, 142.
22 Ibid, 144.
14 CHAPTER TWO
THE IMPACT OF THE LIED ON THE PIANO WORKS OF FRANZ SCHUBERT
Franz Schubert (1797-1828) is known for his unique talent in his song writing, not only for the great quantity of more than six hundred lieder, but for the quality of the songs in their subtlety and originality. The songs share these qualities, along with rich harmony, vivid rhythms, and characteristic figuration found in his other works. Stewart Gordon wrote: “Most observers agree that song writing and vocal expression lie at the center of Schubert’s musical thought,”1 and Moritz von Schwind, a painter and a close friend of Schubert, observed that his instrumental works “stay in the mind, as songs do, fully sensuous and expressive.”2 Therefore the strong ties between Schubert’s lieder and his instrumental music would not be surprising, not only in their singable tunes or the quality of feeling, but also in the form of actual quotations from lieder, their poetic content, and their emotional expression. Consciously or unconsciously, real quotation or not, the lied association stimulated Schubert’s creativity while he was composing many of his instrumental works.
John Reed, in his book The Schubert Song Companion, presents a list of forty-seven examples of ideas from Schubert’s lieder that reappear in his instrumental works, retaining their characteristic rhythmic pacing, keys, and harmonic structure. The most obvious and comprehensive instances are given below in Figure 1. In these cases, Schubert quotes portions of his own lieder and places them in one of the movements, usually in slow movements, as the
1 Stewart Gordon, A History of Keyboard Literature ( New York: Schirmer Books, 1996), 213.
2 John Reed, The Schubert Song Companion ( New York: Mandolin, 1997), 494.
15 theme for a set of variations.
Figure 1
Schubert’s instrumental works related to lieder
1. Piano Quintet, D. 667 Die Forelle, D. 550 2. Fantasia in C Major for solo piano, Op.15, D. 760 Der Wanderer, D. 493 3. Introduction and Variations for Flute and Piano, D.802 Trockne Blumen, D. 795 4. String Quartet in D Minor, D. 810 Der Tod und das Mädchen, D. 531 5. Fantasy for violin and piano, D. 934 Sei mir gegrüsst, D. 741
Although these direct quotations from the lieder only appear briefly in these large-scale works, the development of the thematic material and the poetic content of the lied’s text makes the connection within these multi-movement works. It could be said that Schubert creates extensions of the lieder, which have limitations in terms of registration or scale, and realizes the extensions in large-scale instrumental works. He achieves these goals by exploring the thematic relationships, the color of tonality, or the formal scheme which could not be realized within the restricted scale of the lied. Yet the expression of the original songs is not sacrificed and, on the contrary, becomes even more subtle and exquisite, within the unique context of instrumental sonority and imaginative figuration.
Schubert’s piano music is remarkable for its spontaneous and deep musical expression, which always drew much more attention than did considerations of technical virtuosity. Although he composed no programmatic works, his piano music, the Impromptus, the Musical Moments, or even the sonatas, the genre which presented the achievements of formal development in the
Classical period, show his inwardness through the beauty of the musical elements, as in the lied.
William Kinderman describes the “latent psychological symbolism” which is embodied in
Schubert’s piano music:
16 A key to this symbolism is found in Schubert’s songs, in which the protagonist, or Romantic wanderer — who assumes the role of the lyrical subject — is so often confronted by an indifferent or hostile reality. Musically, Schubert uses a combination of heightened thematic contrast, juxtaposition of major and minor keys, and abrupt modulation to reflect this duality between internal and external experience, or imagination and perception—between the beautiful, bright dreams of the protagonist, on the one hand, and external reality, on the other.3
There is little exact quotation of themes from lieder in Schubert’s piano music except in the Fantasia in C Major, D.760. Nevertheless, some examples which John Reed has pointed out have strong affinities to individual lieder.4 For instance, from the middle part of “Totengräbers
Heimweh”(Grave-digger’s Home-Sickness), D. 842, the gloomy, minor melodic line in a unison texture resembles the opening statement of the Sonata in A minor, D. 845, which was composed a few weeks later. In Schubert’s last and largest piano sonata, that in B-flat major, D. 960, the mysterious, long bass trill recalls the middle section of “Auf der Donau” (On the Danube),
D. 553. In his book Masters of the Keyboard, Konrad Wolff notes that “ Schubert’s song writing influenced both the nature of the themes in his piano music and, directly, the structure of his movements.”5 There are many other examples that show similar resemblances, yet none of them would be more comprehensible both in terms of direct quotation and poetic content than this significant piece, Fantasia in C Major, Op.15, D. 760.
Fantasia in C Major, Op.15, D. 760
Schubert’s Fantasia in C Major, Opus 15, (D.760) has been considered his most virtuosic
3 William Kinderman, “Schubert’s Piano Music: Probing the Human Condition,” in The Cambridge Companion to Schubert, ed. Christopher H. Gibbs (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 155.
4 John Reed, The Schubert Song Companion, 496.
5 Konrad Wolff, Masters of the Keyboard (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983), 173.
17 piano work. This significant piece stands out in Schubert’s output and in Romantic piano repertoire not only for its brilliant technical pianism, which is present to a degree rarely found in his piano compositions, but also because it represents Schubert’s most characteristic musical styles, including song-related material, dance-like qualities, and a persistent dactylic rhythm, which unify this huge sectional work as a whole. However, what makes this piece unique is the connection with the composer’s own lied, “Der Wanderer,” which provides so much exquisite imagination and inspiration. The genre “Fantasia” suggests that he will explore freely all the possibilities of motivic connections and transformations, unexpected yet colorful modulations, quasi-sonata structure, and pianistic writing. This Fantasia anticipates the later Romantic developments in its single theme transformed and integrated into a form of such large dimensions, which seem to come spontaneously from Schubert’s hands.
The Fantasia, Op.15 was composed in November, 1822. This was a time when Schubert had reached maturity as a composer, marked by his success in Vienna and compositions in all prevalent genres including opera. Shortly before the Fantasia was composed, Schubert was occupied with two other major works. One was the opera Alfonso und Estrella, to which
Schubert devoted so much effort. Unfortunately, it was not as successful as he expected. The other was the Symphony in B minor, which was never completed and later became known as the
“Unfinished.” Following those two works, the Fantasia was written in the end of 1822. It was dedicated to Emanuel Liebenberg, a student of Hummel, a virtuoso pianist and a wealthy landowner as well. Little is known about the connection between Emanuel Liebenberg and
Schubert. It was perhaps Liebenberg’s pianistic skill and his wealth that attracted Schubert to the challenge of writing such a difficult piece in anticipation of a generous reward. However, it was
Diabelli, a publisher, who purchased the score, paying only fifty florins.
18 Schubert worked on this Fantasia with full concentration and confidence. In fact, some have even said that this work is the reason that the B-minor symphony was interrupted and left unfinished.6 This Fantasia begins with a series of strikingly powerful fortissimo chords ascending chromatically from C to E, linked by brilliant ascending arpeggios. Such writing was rarely seen in most of his other works, which tend to begin with lyrical statements. Likewise, the ending of the piece is in a perpetually brilliant bravura style, with demands of technique and endurance that
Schubert could not even meet himself. Robert Schumann even wrote of it : “Schubert would like, in this work, to condense the whole orchestra into two hands.” A critic, Anthony Storr, has written of it as “manic defence”:
A man reverses and denies his depression….he triumphantly proclaims his ability to overcome every obstacle….he omnipotently claims complete self-confidence.7
This pianistic showpiece did not earn the recognition that Schubert expected. Ironically, about thirty years later, it attracted another pianistic giant, Liszt, who was almost a generation removed from Schubert. Liszt noticed this Fantasia for its various treatments of a single theme and the brilliant orchestral sonority. It was bold in its pianistic writing for its thick chords, the tremolo-like sixteenth notes, the shift between contrasting registers, and the extreme range of dynamic change, which produced a diversity of tone colors that reached the maximum available on the piano at that time. In 1851, Liszt transcribed this work into a piece for piano and orchestra.
Schubert’s Fantasia consists of four sections, which are linked one to another by transitions. The order of these sections resembles that of the standard classical sonata structure
6 Elaine Brody, “Mirror of His Soul: Schubert’s Fantasy in C (D. 760),” Piano Quarterly 104 (Winter 1979): 23.
7 Anthony Storr, The Dynamics of Creation, 2nd ed.(London, 1976), quoted in Elizabeth. N. Mckay, Franz Schubert: A Biography (New York: Oxford University Press 1996), 149.
19 (Figure 2): the first an Allegro, with two contrasting subjects, the second an Adagio, a set of variations, the third a dance-like section in triple meter with scherzo-trio construction, and finally, an Allegro, opening with fugal writing and closing in brilliant bravura. However, what really connects or unifies the huge dimensions of this piece is a germ motive a dactylic, long-short-short rhythm, one of Schubert’s favorites in his music, which was also drawn from his own lied, Der Wanderer, that gave the Fantasia its subtitle.
Figure 2
Schubert, Fantasia in C Major, Op.15, the structure
Sections I
The lied Der Wanderer was composed in 1816, a time when German Romanticism had come to the fore. Love of and curiosity about the natural world were growing. The Romantic image of the wanderer symbolizes a sense of exploring the unknown and unfathomable. The paintings of the German artist Caspar David Friedrich, who was an exact contemporary of
Schubert, may be the best example to represent this image of the wanderer. Most of his paintings display spiritual and subtly drawn landscapes as well as deeply emotional depictions of loneliness and melancholy, mysterious yet imaginary. In a painting of 1815, “Wanderer Looking over a Sea of Fog,’’ a man who does not face us stands on a rocky cliff alone, and looks over a landscape surrounded by the thick mists. Friedrich wrote: “I have to stay alone in order to fully
20 contemplate and feel nature.”8
Many poems of Goethe, Schlegel, Heine, and Lübeck, which Schubert loved and set to music, were also associated with the image of the wanderer. They convey a feeling of setting the heart free and experiencing everything unknown and unstable, along with solitude, and even a mixture of love and pain. On July 3, 1822, Schubert had occasion to write “My Dream,” which included the following passage:
I wandered into far-off regions. For long years I left torn between the greatest grief and the greatest love….I again wandered far away. For many and many a year I sang songs. Whenever I attempted to sing of love, it turned to pain. And again, when I tried to sing of pain, it turned to love.9
His other works, such as the song cycle Winterreise or the lieder “Der Wanderer” or “Wanderers
Nachtlied,” convey this aura with subtle aspiration yet naïve imagination. Der Wanderer, with text by Georg Philipp Schmidt von Lübeck, is about a sorrowful and lonely man wandering around in the mountains, the streams, the seas, to look for a land of happiness. Although written by an amateur poet who is only known today through this lied, the poem expresses deep melancholy, helped by Schubert’s musical setting. Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau wrote of the poem:
The poem is one of those emotionally charged pieces of doggerel representing the Romantics’ reaction to the long dominance of the heroic mode and its strict metrical formality. The yearning for safety and security, neither of which was as widespread as the popular idea of the Biedermeier era would suggest, took shape in the characters of such young wanderers who, often in the guise of unhappy lovers, roamed the earth in search of an unattainable ideal.10
In this Fantasia, the quotation of the song comes from the middle part of the original and
8 Clive Gregory, ed., Great Artists of the Western World: Romanticism (New York: Marshall Cavendish Limited, 1988), 90.
9 Elizabeth Mckay, Franz Schubert: A Biography (New York: Oxford University Press. 2001), 127-128.
10 Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Schubert’s Songs: A Biographical Study (New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 1977), 81.
21 presents only eight measures. It appears in the Adagio section of the Fantasia as the basis for a set of variations (Example 2 a-b). Actually, Schubert did not reveal the original source of this theme as completely as he did in his Trout piano quintet, which also contains a theme-and-variations movement based on one of Schubert’s own songs, Die Forelle. The resemblance between the lied and the quoted phrase in the Fantasia was not recognized at first and the subtitle was not given until almost fifty years after the lied and the Fantasia were published. Some people say the resemblance between the song and the Fantasia might be just a coincidence. Others say that the composer did not announce the presence of the quotation because he supposed that people would recognize it anyway, since the lied was popular at that time. Though we cannot know the composer’s original intention, the quotation and the title from the song indicate a probable source of unifying themes and possible programmatic content. The quoted material bears the text: “The sun seems so cold here, the flowers faded, life old, and all speech is empty noise; I am a stranger everywhere.” The mood is sorrowful, even desperate, and is carried over into a set of continuous variations.
Example 2. a) Schubert, Der Wanderer, D. 489, mm. 23-30
22 b) Schubert, Fantasia in C Major, Op.15, Adagio, mm. 189-196
The dactylic rhythm, derived from the lied and appearing in many other works by
Schubert, plays an important role in unifying this sectional piece. This germ motive is integrated into almost every subject throughout the Fantasia and is transformed into all kinds of different shapes. In the opening statement, it is in heavy fortissimo chords that suggest an energetic and passionate character (Example 3a). In the second subject, which contrasts with the first one in mood, the germ motive is now played in pianissimo octaves, tenderly and peacefully (Example 3 b). The following section, which is a long transition from the exposition to development, is comprised of the inversion of the first subject and the transformed second subject (Example 3 c-d ). At the end of the first movement, the rhythmic motive also serves as the basis for a twenty-four measures transition, leading to the next movement, Adagio (Example 4).
Example 3. Schubert, Fantasia in C Major, Op.15, Allegro con fuoco ma non troppo, a) mm. 1-3
23 b) mm. 46-48
b) mm. 70-72
c) mm. 82-84
Example 4. Schubert, Fantasia in C Major, Op.15, transition from Allegro to Adagio, mm. 164-172
The Adagio movement in the Fantasia is the most remarkable for its song quotation and the “wandering” quality, which is also typical for Schubert. It shows in its subtle shift between major and minor keys alternating throughout the set of variations, the forward motion from quarter notes to sixty-fourth notes, and all the imaginative figurations (Figure 3). There is a comment by Eva Badura-Skoda about Schubert’s unique way of expressing feelings, which is
24 “evoked through text”11:
Truthfully painting the contents of the poems by means of colorful harmonic progressions and carefully fashioned motives and melodies, early on Schubert composed for the piano in an advanced, newly developed pianistic idiom.12
There are flowing parallel sixths, pungent chords in contrasting registers, followed by heart-beat-like chords, flowing lyricism, stream-like fluid scales in the right hand, and thunder-like tremolos. The unstable tonality and imaginative figurations match perfectly the aura of wandering, conveying the experiences of a lonely wanderer, the warmth and coldness, the love and pain. It could be also appropriate to borrow William Kinderman’s phrase as a comment on this variation movement:
…the expressive content of the wanderer’s tragic journey is transformed, as it were, into a purely musical structure, absorbed into sphere of instrumental music.13
Figure 3
Schubert, Fantasia in C Major, Op.15, the variations of Adagio
Theme Var.I
Var.IV Var.V
11 Eva Badura-Skoda, “The Piano Works of Schubert,” in Nineteenth-Century Piano Music, ed. R. Larry Todd (New York: Schirmer Books, 1990), 98.
12 Ibid., 98.
13 Originally it described another piano work by Schubert: the Fantasy in F minor for four hands, D.940. William Kinderman, “Schubert’s Piano Music: Probing the Human Condition,” in The Cambridge Companion to Schubert, ed. Christopher H. Gibbs (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 173.
25 In the scherzo-like third movement, the germ motive is slightly changed into a dotted rhythm to fit the dance-like quality here (Example 5a). This dactylic motive is absent only from the trio. Here the theme is stated in equal quarter notes to release the intensity created and accumulated by the motive since the very beginning (Example 5b ). The motive is blended into a fugal subject in the final section and persists into the coda (Example 6).
Example 5. Schubert, Fantasia in C Major, Op.15, Presto a) mm. 245-257
b) mm. 422-442
Example 6. Schubert, Fantasia in C Major, Op.15, Allegro, mm.598-601
26 The idea of cyclic thematic use in multi-movement works might not in itself be an innovation at this time, since Beethoven has given several examples in his piano sonatas.14 Yet this Fantasia by Schubert is the first one in piano literature to use a single motive to unify such a large-scale work, persistently and systematically transformed into different characters.
In addition to the significant way that transformation of the “wanderer” theme unifies the work, the way that Schubert picks up transitional material and develops it as the main cell of subsequent statements is also characteristic. The transition to the quasi-development in A-flat major, ending in A-C-B-flat triplets, moves forward into a new subject on the same tones
(Example 7a-b). Actually, this zigzag motive, which is also cyclically used in the second subject and the trio section, has also been considered to be another organic part of the main theme of the lied, yet it does not have the same vigorous image and frequency as the dactylic motive.
Example 7. Schubert, Fantasia in C major, Op. 15, a) Allegro con fuoco ma non troppo, mm.109-114
b) Der Wanderer, the main theme,
14 Such as Beethoven’s Sonata, Op.26 No.1, or his late Sonatas, Opp.101, 110.
27 Another example, perhaps the best one in this piece, is in the closing transition linking the Adagio to the next scherzo-like section. At the end of the variation movement, there is a sixty-fourth note tremolo in the low register which lasts nine measures. Surprisingly, the figuration turns into a spirited eighth-note motive of the main subject in the scherzo-like movement to follow (Example 8a). In fact, all the figurations in the transitions discussed above consist of the small cell the upward minor second from the first subject at the very beginning of the piece (Example 8b ). The coherence of this Fantasia is made possible by developing the potential of the thematic elements, and the “wandering quality,” to pick up the elements hidden in the unidentified figuration and redirecting them as the next main subject
“the music could have taken a different turn at many points.”15
Example 8. Schubert, Fantasia in C Major, Op.15 a) mm. 244-255
b) mm.1-3
15 William Kinderman, “Schubert’s Piano Music,” 155.
28 The aura of “wandering” in early romanticism reflects the curiosity about the unknown, which also lends the music an unsettling and ongoing character. One of the best-known qualities of Schubert’s music is its harmonic language its shifting between major and minor mode and its unexpected modulations. William Kinderman has observed: “Schubert typically underscores the experiential duality through a combination of thematic and modal contrast often coupled with abrupt modulation.” 16 In his shifts between major and minor he often conveys his own inner duality love and pain. The variation movement, which is discussed above, represents the best example.
Another unique harmonic trait, which is also characteristic for Schubert, is his use of modulation by means of long, sequential figurations, which always lead to an unexpected and surprising key destination, and show a “wandering” character: moving forward without specific direction. Yet the modulations, in fact, are rooted in the chords, particularly in augmented sixth,
Neapolitan sixth, diminished seventh, or enharmonic chords. They create the effect of unsteadiness, tension, and sadness. For example, in the transition from the first to the second subjects of the first section, the G major arpeggio figurations are interrupted twice by a G diminished seventh chord. While a clear cadence has prepared us for the new statement of G major, we reach E major instead (Example 9).
Example 9. Schubert, Fantasia in C Major, Op.15, mm.31-47, harmonic reduction
16 William Kinderman, “Wandering Archetypes in Schubert’s Instrumental Music.” Nineteenth Century Music 2/no. 2 (Fall, 1997): 208.
29 In this Fantasia, the huge transitions between movements display the characteristics of
Schubert’s harmonic language. In the tremolo coda of the Adagio movement, Schubert luxuriously uses a series of Neapolitan, German sixth, and diminished seventh harmonies, swinging between the blurred C-sharp minor and major key areas (Example 10). The transition almost ends in E major, yet the note D-natural, as well as the G-sharp enharmonically reinterpreted as A-flat, bridge the space that leads to the following, unexpected A-flat major movement. The D-natural could be seen as the key note of the dominant chord of the Neapolitan
A-flat major tonic chord.
Example 10. Schubert, Fantasia in C Major, Op.15, mm. 230-245, harmonic reduction
A similar case occurs in the third movement, where the climax of the coda, consisting of forty-six bars of widely spaced arpeggios, is remarkable for its the duration bearing colorful shifts of chords (Example 11). The spinning-out of musical ideas make the transition serve not only as a modulatory bridge from one section to another, but also as a subtle emotional demonstration — an uncertain, wandering quality.
30 Example 11. Schubert, Fantasia in C Major, Op.15, mm. 534-597, harmonic reduction
Schubert’s Wanderer Fantasia demonstrates the unique traits of his musical language which is always derived from the lied. The wanderer imagery, which is prevalent in early
Romantic German arts and embodied in Schubert, makes these musical explorations appear spontaneous and genuine. The most remarkable contribution of this large piece, which drew many followers, such as Liszt and Berlioz, and has interested numerous researchers, is undoubtedly its being an early example of a single theme transformed into different characters.
This concept could be viewed as a result of “Schubert’s capacity to use music to paint the external world and internal sensibilities with uncanny subtlety.”16 The single motive plays as a protagonist, being led through different scenes. One of Schubert’s biographers, Elizabeth
Norman Mackay, described this Fantasia as “the music of such a man.”17 This Fantasia is
Schubert’s personal journal, and truly a wanderer’s journal.
16 Leon Botstein, “Realism Transformed: Franz Schubert and Vienna,” in The Cambridge Companion to Schubert, ed. Christopher H. Gibbs (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 33.
17 Elizabeth Mckay, Franz Schubert, 130 .
31 CHAPTER THREE
THE IMPACT OF THE LIED ON THE PIANO WORKS OF ROBERT SCHUMANN
The solo piano works of Robert Schumann (1810-1856) not only contain many musical quotations, but also reveal strong links to literature and other extra-musical allusions which usually move them toward the category of programmatic music. Schumann considered himself a tone poet and conveyed personal emotion and messages through wordless piano music, the medium to which he was devoted during most of the first decade of his maturity as a composer, when the lied was not yet a genre with which he was very familiar. One might say that before
1840, “the year of song,” Schumann already had a poetic essence in his mind while composing nonverbal piano music.
In fact, Schumann did try his hand at lieder in the early stage of his career, before writing his series of significant piano works. These songs were never published during his lifetime, and have been considered not as mature as his later songs in their union of poetry and music.
However, these works do show his initial enthusiasm over realizing a poetic expression by means of song. Schumann even described himself in his autobiographical sketch as “poet and composer in one person.”1 Also in a fragment from his diary dated August 13, 1828, he stated his view that
“Song unites the highest things, word and tone, the latter an inarticulate letter in the alphabet of humanity; it is the purely extracted quintessence of spiritual life.” Later in the same year, in the entry of August 14, he wrote, “My songs were intended as an actual reproduction of my inner
1 John Daverio, Robert Schumann: Herald of a New Poetic Age (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 30.
32 self.”2 Although they were not successful, these early lieder have attractive cantabile melodies, and some of them were reused and incorporated beautifully into his piano works. The two songs on Kerner’s poems, An Anna II and Im Herbste (In the Fall), reappear as the bases of the second movements in Schumann’s two piano sonatas, Op.11 in F# minor and Op. 22 in G minor, respectively. The other early song, Hirtenknabe (Shepherd Boy), became the main theme of the
Intermezzo, Op. 4 No. 4, for piano.
These attempts reflect the poetic principle of his aesthetics: “All the arts are interconnected.”3 Schumann is also described by John Daverio as “a master of transforming one genre into another.”4 It is possible to say that in the 1830s, Schumann, if viewed as a sentimental lyricist, realized his poetic expression better in solo piano works than in songs, since he was trained as a pianist initially and the keyboard was the more familiar medium. Yet the poetic essence was always central, the illusion that was always linked to his personal means of expression while composing for the piano.
The most successful of Schumann’s piano works, such as Carnaval, Op. 9, Kreisleriana,
Op. 16, or Fantasie, Op. 17, were mostly composed in the early years of his maturity, the 1830s.
In addition to their large dimensions and the technical approach to pianism, these works are well known for the allusions and quotations from letters and literature, as well as the reuse of earlier musical works, which somehow meant more to him than it can ever mean to anyone else.5 The interaction between lieder and piano works in this period shows in his recycling of his own songs
2 Ibid., 30
3 Thomas A Brown, The Aesthetics of Robert Schumann ( New York: Philosophical Library Press, 1968), 8.
4 John Daverio, Robert Schumann, 30
5 Gerald Abraham, “Robert Schumann,” in Stanley Sadie, ed The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, vol.16 (London: Macmillan Publishers Limited, 1980), 850.
33 and those of his predecessors. His Fantasie in C Major, Op. 17, which is always cited as one of his most significant works, not only quotes music originally by Beethoven, but reveals a profound interpretation and expression by means of this putative lied quotation.
Schumann created cycles of piano pieces, short pieces grouped under general titles with well conceived plans of key relationships, as in his song cycles. In the late 1840s, after he devoted himself to refining his composing of lieder, Schumann went back to focus more on piano works again, in the more intimate and accessible style of Hausmusik. Here the traits of German nationalism represent “seriousness, simplicity and Volksthümlichkeit in opposition to the frivolous, artificial French characteristics,”6 along with the poetic aura which had fascinated
Schumann throughout his life. Waldszenen, Op. 82, the nine-movement cycle composed in 1849, which originally prefaced each piece with a poem, represents the best example of its type.
Fantasie in C Major, Op.17
Schumann’s early piano works, such as Papillons, Op. 2, Davidbündlertänze, Op. 6, or
Carnaval, Op. 9, abound in allusions. The allusions are of several kinds: the cryptogram, which always appears in connection with names of real or imaginary characters, literary allusions, and musical quotations from his own works or those of others. The Fantasie in C Major, Op.17, composed in 1839, has always fascinated scholars and performers in its profound allusions and the imagination it brings to the use of quotations. There have been numerous detailed studies of this piece for the significance of its originality in compositional style and particularly its controversy about the source of the main theme, the “tone” which is strongly linked to events in
6 Anthony Newcomb, “Schumann and the Marketplace,” in Nineteenth-Century Piano Music, ed. Larry Todd (New York: Schirmer, 1990), 272.
34 his life and carry endless poetic imagination and possible interpretations.
The lied quotation from the last song of Beethoven’s cycle An die ferne Geliebte is the most celebrated, and yet some scholars, among them Anthony Newcomb, call it a “putative” quotation, since Schumann never admitted its identity in any of his correspondence or diaries.
However, since it was first mentioned in Hermann Abert’s Robert Schumann in 1910,7 the assumption that the quotation is authentic has been established by a century of scholarship.
Besides, Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte also left shadows on several of Schumann’s songs of the 1840s, either in melodic or textural resemblances, and Eric Sams even calls it “a favoured reference to Schumann’s love for Clara.”8
This Fantasie has an interesting background that involves the choice of genre, the title, the opus number, and the dedication.9 These factors all affect this piece, yet cannot compare to the deep impact of the original reason for its birth and the secret message that Schumann conveyed. Since 1828, nearly nine years before this work was published, there had been a plan for contributing to a monument in Bonn to Beethoven, whom Schumann had greatly admired.
Yet not until 1835 was this plan seriously worked out by a committee that included August
Wilhelm von Schlegel, an influential literary critic and older brother of Friedrich von Schlegel, whose poetry has influenced this Fantasie. One year later, Schumann learned of the project and showed his interest in his journal, the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, in the summer of 1836. Later the same year, Schumann had the idea of composing a work, “Grand Piano Sonata for
Beethoven’s Monument,” with separate subtitles for three movements: Ruins, Trophies, and
7 Ibid., 295.
8 Eric Sams, The Songs of Robert Schumann, 3rd ed. (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1993), 135.
9 Detailed discussion in Nicholas Marston, Fantasie, Op.17 ( New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 23-33.
35 Palms (later withdrawn), as a contribution to raise funds for this monument. This enthusiastic idea did not interest publishers Kistner and Haslinger, and eventually this work was published by
Breitkopf & Härtel in 1839. The final version, now known as Fantasie Op.17, was dedicated to
Liszt, an influential donor to the Beethoven monument and a supporter of Schumann’s music, even though they had not met each other yet.10
However, the real protagonist behind the scenes is Clara Wieck, who always was an inspiration in Schumann’s personal and compositional life. Schumann probably had begun working on the first movement in June, 1836, before he had the idea of a contribution to
Beethoven’s monument. On March 18, 1837, Schumann wrote a letter to Clara, including the most celebrated citation in which the Fantasie is mentioned:
I have finished a fantasia in three movements that I sketched in detail in June 1836. The first movement is, I think, the most passionate thing I have ever composed a deep lament for you.11
By the late 1830s both Robert and Clara were enthusiastic about Beethoven’s dramatic works like Egmont and Fidelio, which might coincide with their passionate and turbulent relationship during that unhappy time.12
A stanza from a poem by Friedrich von Schelgel, Die Gebüsche (The Copses), was placed at the head of the first movement as a motto when the work was published. This poem was pertinent to Robert and Clara’s situation while they were forced to separate by Clara’s father,
Friedrich Wieck, who strongly opposed Schumann’s wish to marry his daughter.
10 Alan Walker, “Schumann, Liszt and the C Major Fantasy, Op.17: A Declining Relationship,” Music and Letters 60 (1979): 156-65
11 Quoted in Joan Chissell, Schumann (New York: Straus & Giroux, 1967), 108.
12 J. Barrie Jones, “Beethoven and Schumann: Some Literary and Musical Allusions,” Music Review 49 (1988): 117-118.
36 Durch alle Töne tönet Through all the tones that sound Im bunten Erdentraum In Earth’s unquiet dream Ein leiser Ton gezogen There is one gentle note Für den der heimlich lauschet For the secret listener13
Various letters written between from January 25 and June 11, 1839, are important sources of the messages behind the music:
The Fantasie (of which you know nothing), which I wrote during our unhappy separation and which is excessively melancholy….it is dedicated to Liszt.
You can only understand the Fantasie if you imagine yourself back in that unhappy summer of 1836, when I was separated from you.14
The key letter is that containing Schumann’s citing of a melody, which resembles the opening of
Beethoven’s final song of the cycle An die ferne Geliebte:
Write to me what you think about the first movement of the Fantasie. Doesn’t it stimulate a lot of images in you? This melody I like the most. I supposed that you are the “tone” referred to in the motto. I almost believe it.15
In this letter Schumann inserted a fragment of music, which appears in measure 65 in the
Fantasie, and the facsimile of the “melody” here is arranged in this version16 (Example 12a-b).
Example 12. a) Beethoven, An die ferne Geliebte, Op. 98 No.6, mm. 6-10
13 Quoted and translated in J. A. Fuller-Maitland, Schumann’s Pianoforte Works (London: Oxford University Press, 1927), 33.
14 Both fragments are quoted in Berthold Hoeckner, “Schumann and Romantic Distance,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 21 (1997), 110-111.
15 Ibid., 111
37 b) Schumann’s facsimile of melody and Fantasia Op.17, mm. 65-6617
In this letter, Schumann seems, in Hockner’s words, “to seek confirmation of the poetic vision that had inspired his music.”17 The theme from Beethoven carries the text “Nimm sie hin denn, diese Lieder” (Accept then these songs that I sang to thee), and later the same melody bears the text “Und du singst was ich gesungen” (And you sing what I have sung), which even suggests a deeper connection to the situation of Robert and Clara. This brief quotation is significant for its message that Schumann sends to his “distant beloved,” Clara, at that difficult time. It is blended into Schumann’s movement seamlessly in a slightly different shape and without thematic development.
Although the Beethoven theme comes in so briefly, transposed from E-flat major to C major, and shifts from downbeat to upbeat all features that leave room to question its identity
the short melodic phrase indeed provides the pivotal melodic inspiration and poetic interpretation of the first movement and, by means of its variants, of the multi-movement work as a whole. First, an exact quotation of the Beethoven theme appears almost at the end of the first movement, which provides the first real tonic cadence of resolution. Also, the theme contains the figures which become important cells in Schumann’s other melodies in this piece. It also could be reduced harmonically to three notes (Example 13a-b), containing one of Schumann’s favorite
16 Ibid., 111 n.130.
17 Ibid.
38 figures, the descending fourth, which will be pivotal in the second and final movements.
Example 13. Schumann, Fantasie in C Major, Op.17, mm. 295-296 a) “Beethoven theme,” motivic analysis
x ascending 3rd y descending 4th z falling 4th in scale a repeated notes b dotted rhythm c repeated notes following by descending 2nd b) “Beethoven theme,” motivic reduction
C: V/V I 6 V7 I 4
The Beethoven theme takes on different shapes, yet not as a result of motivic development or thematic transformation, techniques used systematically by Beethoven or Liszt.
Rather, the theme is fragmented, drawn out with different rhythmic and intervallic combinations
(Example 14a-f).18 The dotted rhythm and syncopation, seen in many of Schumann’s works, create the intensity of this theme. The syncopations, starting from measure 33, are derived from the motivic cell of the Beethoven theme, and anticipate the new theme in the middle section, which Schumann labels Im Legendenton (Example 15a-b). The melody here is integrated contrapuntally into the figuration, often shared by both hands, a texture also seen in many of
Schumann’s lieder, where voice and piano share the melody and the moods. Near the end of the
18 For detailed thematic analysis, see also John Daverio, “Schumann’s ‘Im Legendenton’ and Friedrich von Schlegel’s Arabeske,” Nineteenth Century Music 11(1987): 157, and Nicholas Marston, Schumann Fantasie, Op.17 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 64-65.
39 first movement, the lyrical theme appears three times completely and straightforwardly repeated as the whole content of coda (Example 16).
Example 14. Schumann, Fantasie in C Major, Op.17, first movement a) mm.1-9
z falling 4th in scale a repeated notes b dotted rhythm c repeated notes following by descending 2nd b) mm.13-18
x ascending 3rd y descending 4th z falling 4th in scale a repeated notes c repeated notes following by descending 2nd
40 c) mm. 40-45
z falling 4th in scale a repeated notes b dotted rhythm c repeated notes following by descending 2nd c) mm.49-50
y descending 4th a repeated notes c repeated notes following by descending 2nd e) mm. 61-64
z falling 4th in scale a repeated notes b dotted rhythm c repeated notes following by descending 2nd f) mm. 65-73
x ascending 3rd y descending 4th z falling 4th in scale a repeated notes c repeated notes following by descending 2nd
41 Example 15. Schumann, Fantasie in C Major, Op.17, first movement a) mm. 33-41, transition from the first to the second theme
c) mm. 129-142, Im Legendenton
Example 16. Schumann, Fantasie in C Major, Op.17, first movement, mm. 295-309
42 In his article “Schumann’s Systems of Musical Fragments and Witz,” John Daverio points out: “Schumann was surrounded by fragments, or more exactly, he had highly developed ears and eyes for picking them out of his cultural environment,”19 and “Schumann’s collection of miniatures, regardless of their inner elaboration or outward scope, is a series of principles and properties that stamp them as musical fragments in the first place….”20 He also cites Friedrich von Schlegel’s claim: “A fragment, like a miniature work of art, has to be entirely isolated from the outside world and complete in itself like a porcupine.”21 This represents one of the central concepts of the aesthetics of Romanticism. Originally referring to Schumann’s song cycles, the paragraph on Romantic fragments by Charles Rosen also seems to fit here, in view of
Schumann’s use of melodic cells:
The Romantic Fragment is, therefore, a closed structure [a melodic cell], but its closure is a formality: it may be separated from the rest of the universe, but it implies the existence of what is outside itself not by reference but by its instability.22
The harmonic language in the first movement is also unique for its “instability,” to use
Charles Rosen’s term.
Figure 4
Schumann, Fantasie in C Major, Op.17, first movement, the structure
Section A B Im Legendton A Coda Adagio Material a a’ trans b trans b trans a d trans c’ d’ a’ b trans b’ trans a coda Measure 1 29 33 41 53 62 97 118 129 156 181 195 225 245 254 274 287 295 Key C Eb c g d F C c Db c Eb c Eb C C Harmonic V/V vii i i6 V V/i vii V V V V I Progress
19 John Daverio, Nineteenth-Century Music and German Romantic Ideology (New York: Schirmer Books, 1993), 54.
20 Ibid., 58.
21 Ibid., 75.
22 Charles Rosen, The Romantic Generation (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995), 51.
43 The movement begins with the dominant chord of C major in rhapsodic figurations in the left hand. The harmonic scheme in section A is built on this unstable dominant chord, interlacing the shifts between the keys mostly in major-minor or third relationship, without a long process of modulation. The second section, Im Legendenton, also starts with an ambiguous chord, the dominant of C minor. In the recapitulation, we hear again the dominant chord of E-flat major.
Eventually a clear tonic cadence in C major appears in measure 299, eleven measures before the end. This unstable harmonic scheme, helped by thematic “fragments,” gives this movement a restless and passionate essence, like an endless searching over a distance that finally ends.
Novalis, a nineteenth-century poet and philosopher, provides a poetic interpretation of the concept of distance, which is also a good interpretation of this movement, its harmonic language, and the Beethoven quotation, “to the distant beloved”:
Distant philosophy sounds like poetry because every call into the distance becomes a vowel. On both of its sides or, surrounding philosophy, lies +[sic] and minus poetry. Thus, in the distance everything becomes poetry-poem. Actio in distans. Distant mountains, distant people, distant events, etc., everything becomes romantic, quod idem est — from this results our essentially poetic nature.23
Now the “fragment” is also blended into the following two movements. As analyzed above, the Beethoven theme could be reduced into three pivot notes. In the march-like second movement of the Fantasie, the three-note pivot is spread in wide leaps of staccatos in the middle section and long-short germs in the coda (Example 17a-b). In the beautiful and dreamy final movement, these three notes become an outline of the waving sextuplets. At the end this motive is prolonged, making it a great poetic ending without block chord reinforcement (Example
18a-b). In fact, Schumann even considered bringing back the main theme, the Beethoven
23 Quoted in Berthold Hoeckner, “Schumann and Romantic Distance,” in Journal of the American Musicological Society 50, no.1 (Spring, 1997): 111.
44 quotation, in the final movement in the original version of the Fantasie, which would have made this lied more valid as an interpretive source.19
Example 17. Schumann, Fantasie in C Major, Op.17, second movement a) mm. 141-143
b) mm. 230-233
Example 18. Schumann, Fantasie in C Major, Op.17, third movement a) mm.3-5
c) mm.134-140
19 According to Wolfgang Boetticher, preface to Robert Schumann, Fantasie Opus 17 (Göttingen: Henle Urtext, 1987), III.
45 In addition to thematic connections, the “fragment” concept also emerges in the formal scheme. The first movement is conventionally considered a quasi or loose sonata form. It is not wrong to say this, since Schumann did name this three-movement work sonata originally.
However, the fragmented thematic relationships and the ambiguity of the key scheme present problems in applying the term. The major problem lies in how one defines the middle section, Im
Legendeton, which is central to this movement yet seems, tonally and thematically, to appear from nowhere. Linda Correll Roesner calls the whole structure a parallel form parallel between two A sections in which the middle section, Im Legendenton, seems outside this parallel and thus loses its weightiness.25 In 1858, Joseph Wilhelm Wasielewski referred to it as a
“development in song form, ”26 a development section with strophic structure, in which the main theme is actually derived from the transition of the exposition. This might be a better concept, for it would not leave Im Legendenton outside or barely joined to any part of a sonata scheme, thought it is not theoretically accurate in a strict definition of sonata allegro form. John Daverio considers it an interlude within the recapitulation, and calls it an Arabeske:
…a humorous, witty or sentimental digression that intentionally disturbs the chronological flow of a narrative, but as a total form, the arabesque tempers a seemingly chaotic diversity through a deliberately concealed logical process.27
There are several other analyses of this movement’s formal scheme, which could be seen to support, even subconsciously, the result of Schumann’s poetic-fragment concept while composing this movement. Furthermore, the weighty and unique qualities of the section Im
Legendenton is noteworthy. When Schumann was composing the first movement in 1836, he
25 For Daverio’s and Roesner’s analyses, see John Daverio, “Schumann’s Im Legendenton,” 153, and Linda Correll Roesner, “Schumann’s ‘Parallel Form,’” Nineteenth-Century Music 14 (1991): 279.
26 Quoted in Marston, Schumann: Fantasie, 44.
27 John Daverio, “Schumann’s Im Legendenton,” 153.
46 considered the Fantasie a single-movement work and, in his autograph manuscript, he once called this middle section romanza, a type of song with the quality of the simplicity and lyricism of a ballade yet with more emphasis on vocal line.28 Schumann used romanza as title for some of his songs later on. Finally Schumann chose the indication Im Legendenton, which might be more accurate in the sense the composer wants to convey, “a deep lament for you” or “to the distant beloved.”
In addition to the term choice which brings interpretation source, the Im Legendenton section is also unique for its theme. As mentioned above, the main theme is derived from the transition between the first and second subjects. However, instead of exemplifying the sonata-allegro principle of organic development, the theme is modified into a complete melody, compared to the previous thematic “fragments,” and is able to serve as a main theme of variations in this section. This Legendenton theme, as well as the Beethoven quotation which appears only at the very end of this movement, are the only two melodies with well-rounded shapes and clear cadences. It could be seen as the ton of Legendenton, a narrative song which can be complete in itself within this large movement, and this might be the only point that the analyses cited above have in common, whether the theme is labeled romanza, arabesque or
“development in song form.” And as Marston, who did thorough research on this piece, wrote:
What remains significant, though, is the fact that Schumann’s use of the terms Romanza and Legende strongly exposes his importation of vocal genre into the instrumental world of the Fantasie….29
In his book on the Fantasie, Marston has also pointed out other possibilities for
Schumann’s use of quotations, though mostly subconsciously. With the stanza quoted from
28 Roger Hickman, “Romance” in Stanley Sadie, ed. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, vol. 16 (London: Macmillan,1980), 124.
29 Marston, “Im Legendenton,” 236.
47 Friedrich von Schlegel, with its images of the sorrows and joys of the love, Schumann alluded to his love for Clara. This poem, Die Gebüsche, was also used by Schubert for a song written in
1819 and given the same title. The waving sextuplet figuration in the piano part and the harmonic progression in the introduction resemble the third, dreamy movement of Schumann’s Fantasie.
There is no clear evidence that Schumann quoted Schubert’s song, which was not published until
1885, and it is still conceivable that the reference is just a coincidence, since Schumann did study
Schubert’s lieder and piano works, and the wavy, sextuplet figuration is a typical element in accompaniments in Schubert’s lieder (Example 19a-b).
Example 19. a) Schumann, Fantasie in C Major, Op.17, third movement, mm.1-5
b) Schubert, “Die Gebüsche,” D.646, mm. 1-6
48 The other possible resemblance between this passage and the melodic fragment, also noted by Nicholas Marston, is reasonable. It is a relation to another Schubert song, An die Musik.
Schumann wrote a letter to his friend Zuccalmaglio in 1836, indicating his awareness of claims for the power of music in Franz von Schober’s poem An die Musik, which Schubert had set in
1817; this music restored Schumann’s courage when he felt despair.30 The melody carries the text
“in eine bess’re Welt entrückt!”( transported to a better world!). Schumann was suffering the separation from Clara; the lied and its text offered warm consolation to his sorrowful mind
(Example 20).
Example 20. Schubert, “An die Musik,” D.547, mm.16-19
During the 1830s Schumann accomplished many of his best piano works, which were mostly composed with ambitious pianistic virtuosity and large-scale formal scheme. The
Fantasie, Op.17, with its huge dimensions in quasi-sonata structure and its creative and difficult pianism, is in this category. Yet this piece truly stands out as well for its subtle lyricism and passionate power, which come from the composer’s emotional link to the fragments of the lieder from Beethoven, Schubert, or his own Legendenton, in both melodic and poetic content, sung through the whole piece, as “Ein leiser Ton gezogen, Für den der Heimlich lauschet” (One gentle note for the secret listener).
30 Ibid., 42.
49 Waldszenen, Op. 82
Although not always viewed as a significant piece in piano repertoire, Schumann’s
Waldszenen, Op. 82, for solo piano, still stands out among his compositions for its exquisite poetic quality. Unlike his other famous piano cycles, such as Papillons, Op. 2, Carnaval, Op. 9, or Kreisleriana, Op.16, which were composed in the 1830s, this nine-movement cycle was one of his noteworthy works from the last ten years of his life. It also differs from to his piano works of the 1830s, which always carry allusions or messages and ambitious pianism, whereas
Waldszenen shows the simplicity, naïve expression, and spontaneity of his lieder. Charles Rosen described it as a “song cycle without words the landscape cycle was to return to Schumann’s work late in his career but without words.”31
In the late 1840s, while Schumann was more occupied with larger-scale works like chamber, orchestral, or stage music, Waldszenen still displays the composer’s stylistic writing and stands out among his late piano works, even among all types of music written during the same years. It was sketched completely within nine days, from December 24, 1848 to January 6,
1849, yet Schumann held it for refining and polishing, and finally had it published in September
1850, almost two years later. He showed that he highly regarded this cycle in a letter to the publisher, Barthold Senff: “A piece I much cherish. May it bring you reward and, if not an entire forest, at least a small trunk for a new firm.”32
Waldszenen consists of nine pieces. Each of them carries a descriptive title and was originally prefaced with a poetic motto. Schumann’s lieder leave shadows on this lovely collection in several ways. John Daverio points out the connection with Schumann’s song cycles:
31 Charles Rosen, The Romantic Generation, 221.
32 Quoted in Eric Frederick Jensen, “A New Manuscript of Robert Schumann’s Waldszenen Op. 82,” Journal of Musicology 3 (1984): 69.
50 “Three potentially contributing factors to a song cycle’s coherence narrativity, tonal logic and motivic recurrence,”33 are also found in his earlier piano cycles to a greater or lesser degree. The narrativity is much more about story-telling than poetic content. In Waldszenen, the pieces are linked by an identical topic scenes of the forest and the mood is close to the poetic
Märchen (fairy tale), as pointed out by Eric Frederick Jensen, having “a quietly progressive tone, a certain innocence of representation,” as noted by Ludwig Tieck. 34 Novalis, in his Fragment, states a beautiful interpretation of Märchen:
Fairy tales are just as the canon of the poetical, everything that is poetical must be like a fairy-tale, all fairy-tales are nothing but dreams of this naïve world which is everywhere and nowhere.35
The writing style of the fairy tale was developed in Germany of the Romantic era and inspired
Schumann, who also wrote several other music compositions of this kind in his late works, such as the piano trio Märchenerzählungen (Fairy Tales), Op.132, the duet for viola and piano
Märchenbilder Op.113 (Fairy-pictures), and the oratorio Der Rose Pilgerfahrt (The Pilgrimage of the Rose), Op.112. In Waldszenen, the fairy tale is narrated through the nine innocent, animated and dreamy pieces, from the first piece Eintritt (Entance), to the last, Abschied
(Farewell).
Schumann had chosen a similar unifying concept in the lyrics of his Liederkreis, Op.39, with text by Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff (1788-1957), whose poems are remarkable for, among other things the quality of naïve beauty and simplicity, many of them inspired by “God’s
33 John Daverio, Robert Schumann, 213.
34 Eric Frederick Jensen, Schumann (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 324, quoting from Marianne Thalmannn, The Romantic Fairy Tale: Seeds of Surrealism (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press 1964), 13.
35 Clemens Goldberg, “Going into Woods: Space, Time, and Movement in Schumann’s Waldszenen Op. 82,” International Journal of Musicology 3 (1994): 153, quoting and translating Novalis, Werke in einem Band, ed. Uwe Lassen. (Hamburg 1959), 414-15.
51 world,”36 forests, moonlight, or mountains. Both the lieder and the piano cycles convey the poetic content inspired by the landscape, another theme prevalent among German Romantic creative artists, involving more emotional expression than programmatic description of the scene.
Schumann originally put lines from poetry as mottos on each piece after the whole cycle was completed. Though finally all except the fourth one were taken away before the cycle was published, the poems did leave their suggestion of scenes and moods. The first piece, Eintritt
(Entrance), originally bore the motto:
Wir geh’n auf tannumzäuntem Pfad, Durch schlankes Gras, durch duft’ges Moos, Dem grünen Dickicht in den Schoss.
(We go on the fir-bounded path, through tall grass and fragrant moss, into the heart of the green thicket.)
The warm, peaceful, and pleasant atmosphere is conveyed through the smooth melodic line, shared by both hands, in a way similar to Schumann’s lieder, where the melodic line is echoed between voice and piano (Example 21). Charles Rosen also referred to the opening in the left hand as a “horn call, a traditional Romantic evocation of the forest.”37
Example 21. Schumann, Waldszenen, Op. 82, “Eintritt”, mm. 1-4
36 Osman Durrani, ed. German Poetry of the Romantic Era (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1986), 135.
37 Charles Rosen. The Romantic Generation, 221.
52 The only poem left in the published edition of Waldszenen is “Verrufene Stelle” (Haunted
Spot ) by Friedrich Hebbel:
Die Blumen, so hoch sie wachsen, Sind blass hier, wie der Tod; Nur eine in der Mitte Steht da im dunklen Rot.
Die hat es nicht von der Sonne: Nie traf sie deren Glut; Sie hat es von der Erde, Und die trank Menschenblut.
(The flowers that grow so high are here as pale as death, only in the middle grows one which gets its dark red not from the sun’s glow but from the earth which drank human blood.)
The dotted rhythm of the piece’s opening gesture conveys the serious, sinister, and dramatic intensity of the poem. This piece was regarded as “one of Schumann’s most successful tone poems”38 (Example 22).
Example 22. Schumann, Waldszenen, Op.82, “Verrufene Stelle”, mm.1-3
The other notable motto was meant for the seventh piece, Vogel als Prophet (Prophet
Bird), a line from the poem Zwielicht by Eichendorff which Schumann also set to music in his
Liederkreis, Op. 39.
Hüte dich, sei wach und munter! (Take care, be alert and on guard!)
38 Carolyn Maxwell, ed., Schumann Solo Piano Literature (Boulder, Colo: Maxwell Music Evaluation, 1986), 263.
53 The similarities between the lied and the piano piece based on the same poem include their long, disjunct melodic lines featuring harsh intervals such as diminished fifth, along with the intensity of the dotted rhythm. Yet in Vogel als Prophet the intensity is much more dramatic and dark, due to the contrasts between the dotted rhythms, the fast notes, and the disjunct intervals, mostly in a high register to imitate the sounds of birds. This kind of effect could only be performed by an instrument, especially on piano, not by the human voice, in the nineteenth-century musical sense
(Example 23 a-b).
Example 23. a) Schumann, Liederkreis, Op. 39 No.10, “Zwielicht”, mm.1-13
b) Schumann, Waldszenen, Op.82, “Vogel als Prophet”, mm.1-5
54 In the following piece, Jagdlied (Hunting Song), the original motto was drawn from two poems in Heinrich Laube’s Jagdbrevier (Hunting Breviary), a popular topic for German men’s choruses. Schumann also set the poem later in his Jagdlieder for male chorus (Example 24 a-b).
Frisch auf zum fröhlichen Jagen Ihr Jäger auf der Hirsch ! Wir wollen den Hirsch erjagen, Den edlen rothen Hirsch. (Come on to the joyous hunt, you deerstalking hunters! We want to hunt the stag, the noble red stag.)
The chorale-like texture in 6/8 meter with a light yet strong and passionate spirit, is the typical hunting song. Besides this piece, Schumann also composed hunting songs in his piano work
Album für die Jugend , Op. 68, as did Mendelssohn in his Lieder ohne Worte.
Example 24. a) Schumann, Waldszenen, Op. 82, “Jagdlied ”, mm. 1-11
b) Schumann, Jagdlieder, Op.137 No.1, “Zur Hohen Jagd ”, mm. 1-6
55 Like all of Schumann’s piano and song cycles, the pieces of Waldszenen are organized in related keys centered on B-flat major (Figure 5). Motivic recall also adds coherence to the cycle.
For example, the opening phrase of “Freundliche Landschaft” (Friendly Landscape) is reused and transformed in the next piece, “Herberge” (Country Inn) (Example 25a-b). Furthermore, the ascending fourth, as a leap or filled in, is always one of Schumann’s favored melodic constructions whether in lieder or instrumental works. The singable, tuneful, folk-like quality of
“Herberge” recalls the lyrical quality of Schumann’s lieder: the range of the melodies is mostly singable without sharp contrast. Some melodic fragments even resemble lieder. The first theme of “Herberge” resembles the melodic line of the piano introduction in Waldesgespräch
(Conversation in the Forest), the third song in Schumann’s Liederkreis, Op.39 (Example 26 a-b).
In addition, the theme of “Einsame Blumen” (Lonely Flowers) recalls the main theme of
Schubert’s song, “Frühlingsglaube” ( Faith in Spring )39 (Example 27a-b).
Figure 5
Schumann, Waldszenen, Op.82, keys and formal structure
Titles Key Formal Structure Eintritt B-flat AABA’B’ Coda Jäger auf der Lauer d AABBCC Coda Einsame Blumen B-flat AA’BA’’CA’ Coda Verrufene Stelle d ABA’Coda Freundliche Landschaft B-flat Intro. ABA’Coda Herberge E-flat ABA’B’Coda Vogel als Prophet d ABA’ Coda Jagdlied E-flat AABBA’CA Coda Abschied B-flat Intro’ A BA’C Coda
39 Ibid.
56 Example 25. Schumann, Waldszenen, Op. 82 a) “Freundliche Landschaft”, mm. 1-6
b) “Herberge”, mm.37-40
Example 26. a) Schumann, Waldszenen, Op. 82, “Herberge,” mm. 1-2
b) Schumann, Liederkreis, Op.39 No. 3, “Waldesgespräch,” mm. 1-8
57 Example 27. a) Schumann, Waldszenen, Op. 82, “Einsame Blumen,” mm. 1-7
b) Schubert, “Frühlingsglaube,” Op. 20 No.2, mm. 4-7
Compared to Schumann’s earlier piano cycles, the pieces in Waldszenen are smaller in scale, with some flexible repeats of phrases, just as the dimensions and the formal constructions are modified in his lieder to meet the needs of the poem. Rufus Hallmark calls this a “rondolike procedure” that “Schumann used this recursive rather than merely repetitive form with great flexibility, producing unity within variety in myriad incarnations”40 (Figure 5). The structural similarity to lieder is also shown in their openings, which feature piano preludes to the entrances of the melodies, interludes to connect stanzas, or coda-like postludes to conclude the song.
Examples in Waldszenen include “Freundliche Landschaft”, “Abschied”, and “Herberge”
(Example 28 a-b-c).
40 Rufus Hallmark, ed., German Lied in the Nineteenth Century. (New York: Schirmer Books, 1996), 84.
58 Example 28. Schumann, Waldszenen, Op.82 a) “Freundliche Landschaft,” mm.1-5 Prelude
b) “Abschied,” mm. 1-3 Prelude
c) “Herberger,” mm. 53-56 Postlude
The integration of the voice and piano part in Schumann’s lieder is unique. The two media share melodies as well as moods, and become much more integrated than in Schubert’s lieder. This trait is also found in Waldszenen. In the first piece, Eintritt, the upper, right-hand chordal figurations echo the main melody in the thumb voice of the left hand. Also, many song-related accompaniments are seen in the following examples. In “Einsane Blumen,” the left-hand figuration plays under the two voices that interact with each other in the right hand
(Example 29 a-b). The last piece, Abschied, is also clearly a voice-with-accompaniment texture, with prevailing triplet chords which are often seen in Schumann’s lieder, such as “Die
Lostosblume” (The Lotus Flower), and the first song in his song collection, Op. 51, Sehnsucht
(Example 30 a-b). Clemens Goldberg cites verses by Eichendorff, whose poems have some
59 involvement in Waldszenen, to sum up the messages this piano cycle intends to convey:
Schläft ein Lied in allen Dingen, Die da träumen fort und fort, Und die Welt hebt an zu singen, Triffst du nur das Zauberwort.
(A song is sleeping in all things, those that are dream on and on, and the world begins to sing if you only sound the magic word.)41
The movements in Waldszenen are all like parts in a dream, and a cycle of lieder begins to sing even beyond the words.
Example 29. a) Schumann, Waldszenen, Op. 82, “Einsame Blumen,” mm.1-7
b) Schumann, “Ein Jüngling liebt ein Mädchen,” Op.24 No.11, mm.1-9
41 Quoted and translated by Clemens Goldberg, “Going into Woods: Space, Time, and Movement in Schumann’s Waldszenen Op. 82,” 153.
60 Example 30. a) Schumann, Waldszenen, Op.82, “Abschied,” mm. 4-6
b) Schumann, Op. 51 No.1, “Sehnsucht,” mm. 3-6
The most successful genres in Schumann’s output are certainly his lieder and piano music.
These two media are like the languages that Schumann embodies and is able to transfer seamlessly from one genre to the other, and, most important, to express the innermost lyricism.
Waldszenen may be the best example of its kind, a final, exquisite intersection of these two musical genres in the composer’s late life.
61 CHAPTER FOUR
THE IMPACT OF THE LIED ON THE PIANO WORKS OF JOHANNES BRAHMS
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) composed lieder throughout his life and was particularly interested in the German Volkslied. Not only did he make fifty-seven arrangements of German folksongs for solo or multi-voices, but nearly half of his composed lieder are folk-related. These include setting folk texts to his own folk-like tunes and folk-like texts set in art song style.1
Brahms referred to himself as Platt-Deutsch (Low German)2 in many letters, which symbolizes his sympathy for the “Volk” and reflects the depth of his love of homeland. In a letter to his friend Widmann, he wrote about his countrymen: “I mean the best of them; I mean the real people, those occupying the cheapest seats in the theater.”3 Brahms collected folk songs in his youth and started writing piano accompaniments and vocal arrangements by the age of twenty-five, in 1858. When his collection of 49 Deutsche Volkslieder was finally published in
1893, he commented to Joachim: “Never have I written anything with so much love, or with so much being in love.”4 Brahms’s deeply rooted German spirit not only shows in his devotion to folk songs, but expands to include many of his compositions. Burnett James has noted that:
Brahms’s indebtedness to German folk-song was the direct result of his German temperament, the inherent saturation of his mind and spirit in the totality of Germanism,
1 Virginia Hancock, “Johannes Brahms: Volkslied/Kunstlied,” in German Lieder in the Nineteenth Century, ed. Rufus Hallmark (New York: Schirmer, 1996), 123.
2 Lorraine Gorrell, The Nineteenth-Century German Lied (Portland, Oregon: Amadeus Press, 1993), 258.
3 Johannes Brahms and Theodore Billroth, Letters from a Musical Friendship, ed. Hans Barken (Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1957), 248, quoted in Lorraine Gorrell, The Nineteenth-Century German Lied, 260.
4 Anneliese Landau, The Lied: The Unfolding of Its Style (Washington D.C.: University Press of America, 1980), 72.
62 both in the times in which he lived and in the long historical perspectives of the individual and collective unconscious.5
At the age of fifteen, Brahms arranged some German songs for a men’s choir at a local church in Winsen, a small town near Hamburg. Although this music has not survived, it is the earliest record of the composer’s involvement with folk songs. Also in his early years, Brahms was strongly influenced and inspired by some collections of folk poetry and music, such as
Johann Gottfried Herder’s Stimmen der Völker (Voices of the People) and August Kretzschmer and Anton Wilhelm von Zuccalmaglio’s Deutsche Volkslieder, which he found in Schumann’s library. He quoted from these collections, as well as poems from other German Romantic writers, in his own diary, Des jungen Kreislers Schatzkästlein (The Young Kreisler’s Treasure Chest),6 in which one may trace the development of Brahms’s aesthetics rooted in folk music. His earliest surviving works, songs and piano music written in his late teens, reflect these thoughts. With his love of simple and genuine melodies of German folk song, Brahms was also deeply inspired by their melodic ideas in much of his music: their triadic melodies, modal coloring, rhythmic simplicity, long-breathed phrases without embellishment, and their inner, intimate quality, mostly in the alto register. This characteristic style provides a warm, deep expression in both the vocal and instrumental music.
In addition to his strong roots in folk songs, there are other characteristics of Brahms’s lieder that he frequently adopted or mirrored in his instrumental music. As a composer of lieder,
Brahms is known for the wide range of the poetry he selected with no particular emphases.
Unlike Schumann, he also chose texts by lesser-known poets, such as G. F. Daumer or Klaus
Groth. Eric Sams views this as the reason that “his settings are a response to a general mood
5 Burnett James, Brahms: A Critical Study (London: J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd., 1972), 4.
6 Jan Swafford, Johannes Brahms: A Biography (New York: Vintage Books, 1997), 35.
63 rather than to poetry as such.” 7 In other words, his settings are related more to his personal reflections on the poetry than to the poetry itself. And Hans Gál also points out an example of
Brahms’s vocal quartet Heimat, Op. 64 No. 1, to illustrate that the composer’s inspiration and lyrical feeling could even come from one line or one word of the text:
One senses that nothing of the entire poem by C.O. Sternau was significant for Brahms except the opening word Heimat (Homeland). It opened all the sluices of the composer’s emotion and invention….8
There are two contrasting moods in his lieder: one is calm, tender yet dark, gloomy, and nostalgic, using texts about home, sentiment, isolation, or unrequited love. The other side, which might be linked more to folk elements, includes some exotic flavors like pseudo-Hungarian, and is lighter, more direct or even rhapsodic in style. These two opposing qualities or moods are also embodied in his piano compositions, such as his late piano pieces, seen in the passionate and agitated style in the Capriccio, Op.118 No.1 and the meditative quality of No. 6 in the same set.
Brahms loved simple and clear, mostly strophic or ABA formal schemes in his lieder, and even made adjustments to the stanzas of the poetry to suit the perfect form.9 Most of his notable characteristic pieces late in his life, Opp. 76, 117, 118, and 119, use strict ABA forms.
The other strong influence on Brahms’s compositions was his enthusiasm for early polyphonic music. Even in his teens, Brahms studied and collected early music, books or manuscripts, from the Renaissance and Baroque, especially sacred choral music from Germany and Italy. Favorite composers were Palestrina, Schütz, and J.S. Bach. They not only inspired
Brahms in his later large-scale vocal works, especially those for chorus and orchestra such as Ein
7 Eric Sams, Brahms Songs (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1972), 8.
8 Hans Gál, Johannes Brahms, His Work and Personality, trans. Joseph Stein (New York: Greenwood Press, 1963), 185.
9 Eric Sams, Brahms Songs, 12.
64 deutsches Requiem, Op.45; they also had a profound influence in his purely instrumental music.10 Brahms was tremendously influenced by the rich and firm harmonization of early polyphonic choral music as well as solid counterpoint, qualities that distinguished him as a composer of choral music who did these things without sacrificing linear melodies. Brahms even left this advice for a composer of songs: “Make sure that together with your melody you compose a strong independent bass.” 11
Like Schubert, Brahms sometimes directly quoted and varied lieder, whether by himself or another, to make instrumental versions, usually for piano. The most famous example is in his first violin sonata, Op. 78, where his own song, “Regenlied” (Rain Song), Op. 59 No.3, with text by Klaus Groth, sings through the whole final movement poetically. The Andante of his second piano concerto in B-flat major is also based on a lied, his own “Todessehnen,” Op. 86 No. 6, as noted by Max Friedlaender.12 The piano trio Op.8 contains a reference to Schubert’s Am Meer in the third movement,13 and a Schubert lied, Die Stadt, appears in the slow movement of his piano quartet Op. 26. In his orchestral work Academic Festival Overture, Op. 80, there are numerous quotations from student songs. Describing Brahms’s transformation of the songs from one medium to another, Eric Sams wrote, “ His songs are always ready to turn into instrumental
10 Detailed discussions and analyses of these influences can be found in Virginia Hancock, “Brahms and Early Music: Evidence from His Library and His Choral Compositions,” in Brahms Studies: Analytical and Historical Perspectives, ed. George Bozarth (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), 29-48, and Yu-Ting Chen, “ Brahms, the Early Choral Music Heritage and His Piano Music.” D.M.A. thesis, University of Washington, 2001.
11 Quoted in Sams, Brahms Songs, 7.
12 Max Friedlaender, Brahms’s Lieder: An Introduction to the Songs for One and Two Voices, trans. C. Leonard Leese (London, Oxford University Press, 1928), 153.
13 Max Kalbeck, Brahms, I, 155, quoted in Dillon Parmer, “Brahms, Song Quotation, and Secret Programs,” in Nineteenth Century Music 14 (1991): 161-190.
65 music.”14
Beginning with the very first steps of his compositional career, lieder and piano works spanned Brahms’s entire lifetime. Among his early works, which include the lieder Opp. 3, 6, and 7, the three piano sonatas Opp.1, 2, and 5 have always been considered to belong to the category of absolute music with symphonic ambitions, referring particularly to their formal schemes, large scale, and full sonorities. However, recent research by George S. Bozarth and
Dillon Parmer emphasize more extra-musical ideas — the lied quotations and poetic mottos that might characterize a more profound expression of the qualities of Romanticism. All three sonatas contain Andante movements that quote or relate to lieder, to the degree that George Bozarth calls them “Brahms’s Lieder ohne Worte.”15 Robert Schumann also comments on these sonatas:
There were songs, veiled symphonies, rather; songs the poetry of which would be understood even without words, although a profound vocal melody runs through them all….16
Jan Swafford, in his recent biography of Brahms, described these three sonatas:
The song-based sonata movements adumbrate another, more subtle prophecy of his coming work: a sense of meanings beneath the surface, secrets hidden with the abstract forms of instrumental music.17
Brahms labeled the Andante movement of Sonata in C Major, Op.1, Nach einem altdeutschen Minnelied (After an old German love song) and placed a four-line stanza of text under the melodic line in the left hand. This lied also has melodic similarities to a real folk song
14 Eric Sams, Brahms Songs, 5.
15 George S. Bozarth, “Brahms’s Lieder ohne Worte: The ‘Poetic’ Andantes of the Piano Sonatas,”in Brahms Studies: Analytical and Historical Perspectives, ed. George S. Bozarth (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), 345-377.
16 Robert Schumann, On Music and Musicians, ed Konrad Wolff, trans. Paul Rosenfeld (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1984), 253.
17 Jan Swafford, Johannes Brahms: A Biography (New York: Vintage Books, 1999), 97.
66 which appeared in Kretzschmer and Zuccalmaglio’s collection, Deutsche Volkslieder, as well as in Brahms’s arrangement, which was published late in his life (Example 31a-b).18
Verstohlen geht der Mond auf, Blau, blau Blümelein. Durch Silberwölkchen führt sein Lauf; Rosen im Thal, Mädel im Saal, o schönste Rosa.
(Stealthily the moon rises, blue, blue little flower. Through silver clouds it makes its way; Roses in the valley, maiden in the hall, Oh most beautiful Rosa!)
Example 31. a) Folk song, “Verstohlen geht der Mond auf”
b) Brahms, Piano Sonata in C Major, Op.1, second movement, mm.1-11
18 George S. Bozarth, “Brahms’s Lieder ohne Worte,” 350.
67 According to Bozarth, Brahms not only creates the poetic mood, but the musical content also matches the strophic form of the poem in the three variations based on the main theme.19 In this early work, Brahms has shown his ability to develop a simple theme subtly into a set of variations which, later on, became the trademark genre in many of his large-scale piano works.
The second sonata, Op. 2 in F-sharp Minor, is similar, according to his fellow composer and friend, Albert Dietrich,20 for its inspiration is the text of an old German song by Swiss poet Kraft von Toggenburg, “Mir ist leid” (It is painful to me). Bozarth also suggests a way to fill in text to match the melody21 (Example 32).
Example 32. Brahms, Piano Sonata in F# Minor, Op. 2, second movement, with Bozarth’s addition of folk text22
19 George S. Bozarth, “Brahms’s Lieder ohne Worte,” 350.
20 Ibid., 353.
21 Ibid., 356.
22 Example cited from George S. Bozarth, “Brahms’s Lieder ohne Worte,” 356.
68 In these works, one can see the effect of predecessors whom Brahms admired and surpassed ambitiously. The opening of Piano Sonata Op.1, with its ragged, heavy chords, recalls
Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata, Op.106, the most challenging piano sonata he ever wrote.
Brahms’s driving chordal or arpeggio figurations also project the spirit of Beethoven. The second sonata, on the other hand, is clearly Lisztian, with the series of octaves in both hands, mostly built chromatically from the high register, the octaves in difficult trills, and the long embellishments which are rarely seen later in his works. However, beside the most ambitious pianistic virtuosity, the other three movements of these two sonatas have strongly thematic or motivic connections which derive from the slow movements by Brahms’s unique modification of thematic material (Example 33 a-b-c). Walter Frisch described Brahms’s early instrumental works, including the three sonatas and the original version of the piano trio Op. 8:
The sonata-type works of 1852-1854….exhibit a remarkable confluence of musical techniques and aesthetics. Specifically, Brahms attempts to reconcile the principles of thematic development and thematic transformation.23
Example 33. Brahms, Piano Sonata in F# Minor, Op. 2 a) first movement, mm.1-3
b) third movement, scherzo, mm. 1-5
23 Walter Frisch, Brahms and the Principle of Developing Variation (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1984 ), 35.
69 c) fourth movement, Finale, mm. 1-6
In his three piano sonatas, the Andante movements, which all have connections to lieder, were composed earlier than the other movements and became the thematic base of these multi-movement works, a process that Frisch describes as “[writing] whole sonatas…from the inside out.”24 The third sonata, in F minor, Op. 5, is unusual in having two Andantes, which are related to each other, and is the largest and the longest of the three sonatas. Yet this sonata has been considered the least ambitious technically. Nevertheless, behind the huge, abstract formal scheme, it is remarkable, for its sustaining the most poetic quality and the deepest expression, both of which might be derived from the content of the poems and lieder.
Sonata in F Minor, Opus 5
Composed in 1853 when he was twenty, Brahms’s third piano sonata in F minor, Op. 5, is the longest of any of his piano solo works, and shows its composer’s youthful ambition in its five large-scale movements, sonata in scope and symphonic in sonority. Yet what really makes this piece stand out is the poetic aura that fills the entire work. This sonata also shows more the quality of inner, personal expression than the other two early sonatas. Malcolm Macdonald regards this sonata as
24 Ibid. 51.
70 a grand synthesis of and capitalization upon everything he had learned in the earlier ones….The result stands with Liszt’s B-minor Sonata and the Grande Sonate of Alkan as one of the three greatest piano sonatas of the mid-nineteenth century.25
The sonata is unusual in having five movements, which could be seen as producing an over-all symmetry in tempos, keys, and scales of the movements (Figure 6).
Figure 6
Brahms, Piano Sonata in F Minor, Op.5, the structure
Mov. I II III IV V Tempo Allegro Andante espressivo Scherzo Intermezzo Finale Allegro Maestoso Allegro energico Andante molto moderato ma rubato Key f Ab---Db f-Db-f b-flat f-F Measures 222 191 305 53 365 Form sonata-allegro modified binary Ternary ABA’B’ coda Rondo,abacac’coda
The two Andantes, which were composed earlier than the other movements, are placed second and fourth. Brahms sent a letter to Barthold Senff, the publisher of the Sonata Op. 5 and the songs Op. 6, asking him to add a verse from a poem called “Junge Liebe” (Young Love) by C.O.
Sternau, a minor poet whose real name was Otto Inkermann, above the first Andante. He wrote:
“It may be necessary or convenient for comprehension of the Andante.” 26
Der Abend dämmert, das Mondlicht scheint, Da sind zwei Herzen in Liebe vereint Und halten sich selig umfangen.
(Evening draws nigh, the moonlight gleams, as two hearts are united in love and blissfully embrace each other.) 27
Brahms is known for his limited use of extra-musical associations in his works. However,
25 Malcolm Macdonald, Brahms (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990 ), 67.
26 Quoted in Styra Avins, Johannes Brahms: Life and Letters, trans. Eisinger and Styra Avins (New York: Oxford, 1997), 31.
27 Ibid.
71 this letter shows his humility yet eagerness to provide more expressive suggestions for this piece, especially knowing that he himself had sealed the manuscript of the sonata and that it was about to be published right when the letter arrived. Brahms did not place the lines under the melody, as in his first sonata, but put it at the head of the Andante, in small print. Knowing Brahms rarely composed with literary or programmatic connections, many critics like Harold C. Schonberg and
Florence May avoided exploring the meaning of the motto, which could be misleading in terms of programmatic music, and tried to “appeal to the purity of musical meaning and expression.”28
Yet other researchers, from a hermeneutic point of view, have tried to match the poem to the music, since the composer did leave it for “necessary or convenient for comprehension.” Detlef
Kraus used the three lines which Brahms quoted to suit the music from the opening to the middle of the section (mm.1- 76).29 This, however, causes problems in the “over-emphasis on only local correspondence between text and music.”30 Bozarth instead assigns the love scene to the whole movement, with a detailed discussion of the form, the mood and imagery, by adopting the original, complete poem, Junge Liebe, from which he believes Brahms derived the overall ABA’ design of the movement.31 Dillon Parmer, on the other hand, has thought that such a procedure
“might focus only on details of imaginary and neglect accounting for the movement as an expressive whole.” Parmer also did his interpretation by matching the whole poem to the two
28 Parmer, “Brahms and the Poetic Motto: A Hermeneutic Aid?”, 355.
29 Detlef Kraus, “Das Andante aus der Sonate Op.5-Versuch einer Interpretation,” in Johannes Brahms als Klavierkomponist: Wege und Hinweise zu seiner Klaviermusik (Wilhelmshaven, Noetzel, 1988). Discussion in Dillon Parmer, “Brahms and the Poetic Motto: A Hermeneutic Aid?” in Journal of Musicology 15 (1997): 358-359. See also the Table 1.
30 Ibid., 358.
31 Bozarth, “Brahms’s Lieder ohne Worte,” 353.
72 Andantes,32 which are obviously related to each other.
Besides these interpretations and analyses of the relationship between the poem and the music, there is a point of view that would be more in keeping with the composer’s spirit of songs, discussed above. The three-line motto could be matched to the opening ten measures, and since the first ten-bar section is repeated, the composer left the message that this it is the theme to remember. The melodic line could be also characteristic of Brahms’ lieder: triadic, rhythmically simple, and arch-shaped melody with wide leaps. Gerald Abraham pointed out that “Brahms on several occasions prefixed a movement or piece with a poetic fragment that fits the opening melody perfectly” and “[Brahms’s instrumental music] often aspires to the condition of song.”33
Abraham’s view can apply, if the text is set to the songful melody of the second movement in a general way, which it matches in mood, in rhythm, and in tone painting (Example 34).
Example 34. Brahms, Piano Sonata in F Minor, Op. 5, second movement, mm.1-10, the main theme with the suggestion of text setting
(Der A------bend däm---mert,das Mond---licht scheint Da sind zwei Herzen..
Liebe……………………………………………… …….um------fan gen.)
The descending triad arpeggio in legato eighth notes matches the falling twilight, and the following ascending triad relates to the image of the gleam of moonlight. A similar melodic shape, yet in a subtle, mode shift with the keynotes C to C flat and finally back to C, tells the
32 Parmer, “Brahms and the Poetic Motto: A Hermeneutic Aid?”, 355.
33 Quoted in Walter Frisch, Brahms and the Principle of Developing Variation, 97.
73 love messages between two hearts. The mood of calm and warmth, created by the simplicity of the texture and the long legato, cantabile lines, suits the atmosphere of a peaceful night. This opening ten measures, matched by the poem, is more like a song preceding a story, sung twice by a narrator, and it did increase comprehension, as Brahms suggested himself, of the inner mood.
Instead of implying himself as a protagonist, Brahms set himself more as an observer who transferred his emotional reaction to his music, as he did mostly in many of his lieder.
However, it could never be a successful attempt to set this text to the melody due to its particular rhymes scheme and its nonvocal quality for singing. Nevertheless, its mood based on the text and created by music, its melody and accompanied, rolling sixteenth figuration texture make it quality of a song. 34 In addition to the coherence of the lyric meaning and melody construction, some keynotes could even “sing” the keywords perfectly, such as the final E-flat of the first phrase (m. 4) sings scheint (shines), and the end note C (m.10), which is back from unstable, C/C-flat shifts, sings the last syllable of “umfangen” (embrace). Bernard Jacobson leaves the opinion of Brahms’s song writing:
For Brahms, the technique of song lies ultimately in creating a lyrical image for the idea of the words, and then letting it do its work by purely musical logic instead of allowing it to change direction at the dictate of every new verbal twist.35
Christiane Jacobsen, who discussed Brahms’s poem and songs that:
A poem must have a special quality which lends itself naturally to music. This is not identical with the musicality of words and verses…but apparently is a matter of mood and substance.36
34 Ivor Keys wrote about this: “It is not ‘a song without words’ insomuch as Brahms’s tune does not fit them.”…. “But, as with many a Brahms song, commonplace words are sufficient to spark off the music.” Ivor Keys, Johannes Brahms (London: Christopher Helm, 1989), 233.
35 Bernard Jacobson, The Music of Johannes Brahms (London: The Tantivy Press, 1977), 134.
36 Quoted in Ludwig Finscher, “Brahms’s Early Songs: Poetry Versus Music,” in Brahms Studies: Analytical and Historical Perspectives (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), 331.
74 The first ten bars of this Andante could be considered as the sense of songfulness, and the text is rather than the literal suggestion,37 for it perfectly matches the mood of the text that arouses
Brahms’s deep emotion, and yet not actually singable unless it sacrificed the design of melody.38
Of all movements in his early sonatas, this one is perhaps unique in its formal and key schemes, and its beauty characterizes the poetic mood. Laurence Wallach comments on this movement:
…the quotation of three lines of poetry at the head of the Andante, suggests a song-not-quite-without-words in clear Volkston (folk manner). The ballade-like structure of this melody carries through the episodes and generates the throbbing and overt Romanticism of the Andante molto mentioned above as the Urmelodies of the whole sonata.39
George Bozarth provides a subtle interpretation of the movement, based on the entire poem.40
Another author, John Rink, considers this movement an “instrumental commentary on the love scene,” and concludes that it reveals “the shift from a vocal medium to a symphonic one a fundamental change of idiom intended to articulate the ‘poetic’ commentary.”41 To see the scope of the whole sonata, it would be better to start from this movement, since it was composed earlier than the rest of the piece.
Instead of variations based on the opening theme, as in the preceding two sonatas, here
37 Besides the Sonata Op. 5, there are three cases that Brahms left text on published instrumental works: Sonata Op.1, second movement, Ballade Op.10 No.1, and Intermezzo Op.117 No.1. All of three are directly related to existed folksong.
38 Frisch described Brahms’s song writing that “rarely sacrifices a clear, easily comprehensible design whether of melody, harmony, or large-scale structure for the details of a poem.” Frisch, Brahms and the Principle of Developing Variation, 98.
39 Laurence Wallach, “Sonata No. 3 in F Minor, Opus 5,” in Leon Botstein, ed., The Compleat Brahms (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1999), 163.
40 Bozarth, “Brahms’s Lieder ohne Worte,” 360-364.
41 John Rink, “Opposition and Integration in the Piano Music: The Vocal and the Symphonic in Op. 5” in The Cambridge Companion to Brahms, ed. Michael Musgrave (Cambidge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 85.
75 Brahms develops a very long slow movement in a modified binary form, with the very subtle
mood shifts by means of variation traits. The term modified binary form, which is often used in
lieder as a varied strophic form, would be the best suited for describing the formal scheme
(Figure 7).
Figure 7
Brahms, Piano Sonata in F Minor, Op.5, second movement, Andante
Section A B A B’ Coda a b a’ c c’ c” c’ c” a” b a”’ c”’ a”” Measures 1 11 24 37 52 68 77 92 105 116 129 144 179 186 Key Ab Db/Ab Ab Db VI/Db Db VI/Db Db Ab Ab Db Db Db Db
The poem quoted by Brahms did inspire the rest of this movement, and the variation
principle, one of the composer’s remarkable traits, helps to convey the poetic sentiment
successfully: the subtle major-minor mode variation within the steady and solid harmonic
progress changes, the rhythmic variation beyond the figuration changes, and the variations of
voicing with the delicate use of pedal tones. In section a (mm.1-10), which is repeated, the
espressivo and peaceful mood has been set up well by two arched melodic lines within the
mezzo-soprano range, paralleled below in tenths by rolling thirds. The shift from the crucial
notes C to C-flat and F to F-flat creates an unstable feeling and different colors between the two
phrases (Example 35 ).
76 Example 35. Brahms, Piano Sonata in F Minor, Op. 5, second movement, mm.1-10
In section b, ben cantando (mm.11-24), the pedal tones in staccato and piano sixteenth note heart beats, appear as pivots of the harmonic progression, with the whole passage moving up to a higher register. The E-flat pedal tone is the suspension that joins two similar phrases, while the
B-flat plays the same role in the next passage. The ambiguity, built on minor and major key-change, b-flat/B-flat in the first phrase and f/F in the second, is transferred seamlessly by means of several keynotes . The following transition, leading to section a’, has similar shifts circling between German sixths and dominant chords of A-flat major. All these keynotes are hidden as passing tones or neighbor tones, which make this section the most exquisite and delicate. Section b suggests the interpretation of the motto reasonably: the uncertainty or to use Bozarth’s term, the bittersweet tinge42 when two people initially fall in love (Example
36a). The next section a’(mm. 24-36) is a slight variation of a, with the rolling sixteenth notes moving to the right hand, replaced by a long, dominant pedal tone in left hand. Thus the whole circle of A is complete (Example 36b).
42 Bozarth, “Brahms’s Lieder ohne Worte,” 353.
77 Example 36. Brahms, Piano Sonata in F Minor, Op. 5, second movement, a) mm.11-24
b) mm.25-28
In the following B section, Poco più lento, also labeled Äußerst leise und zart (extremely light and tender), the key becomes D-flat major and the meter 4/16, which makes every single sixteenth note more weighty. The sixths alternate like dialogue between right and left hands, as between the “zwei Herzen” in Sternau’s poem,43 solidly supported by a tonic D-flat pedal tone in the bass line, later joined by A-flat and D-flat in the right hand to frame the scene. Section c’ is a harmonic variation of c, while the tonal center moves from tonic to submediant B-flat major, a descending-third relation to D-flat major, and shifts to F-flat major, an ascending-third relation to
D-flat major, by means of changing notes, F-flat and B-double flat to B-flat. As in the examples
43 John Reek, “Opposition and Integration in the Piano Music,” in The Cambridge Companion to Brahms, ed. Michael Musgrave, 83.
78 previously discussed, these subtle shifts, somehow resembling, though more delicate and carefully shaped, the manner of Schubert, will create many emotional moments for the rest of the movement (Example 37a-b).
Example 37. Brahms, Piano Sonata in F Minor, Op. 5, second movement a) mm. 37-48
b) mm.49-64, harmonic reduction
Db: vi iii IV I i/ V/V V V I Fb:vi V I V I V V7
Section c” is truly a rhythmic variation of c, with the melodic line extending into dotted eighth notes and the accompanying figure changed from stable pedal tones in eighth notes to driving sixteenth-note triplets circling the pedal tone D-flat. This is the most passionate section, emerging from the generally peaceful mood. Continuing from c’’, the driving sixteenth-note triplets in the left hand bring back section A, which is followed by another song-like theme,
79 derived from B’ (m.144). The theme of the B’ section is a varied version of that in mm. 37-40 and mm. 68-71. The meter changes to 3/4, yet the harmonic scheme and the melodic outline resemble those of section c. Walter Frisch called it “a full-bodied version”44 (Example 38a-b-c).
One could even say that the previous variations build up to this hymn-like section, which leads brightly to the end.
Example 38. Brahms, Piano Sonata in F Minor, Op. 5, second movement a) mm. 37-40
b) mm. 65-72
c) mm. 144-150
44 Frisch, Brahms and the Principle of Developing Variation, 50.
80 Adolf Schubering, a German music critic, pointed out in 1862 that the theme here is even more closely related to a real lied.45 It is the German song in folk style called “Steh’ ich in finst’rer Mitternacht” ( I stand in dark midnight) (Example 39) by Friedrich Silcher, a German composer in the first half of nineteenth century who was also devoted to folk songs. Like
Brahms’s poem, the text of this song also tells of a young soldier in the darkness of midnight, thinking about his distant love. In fact, this folk-like melodic construction also appears in several of Brahms’s lieder, such as “Sonntag,” Op. 47 No. 3, and “Soll sich der Mond nicht heller scheinen” in Deutsche Volkslieder, No. 35.
Example 39 Friedrich Silcher, “Steh ich in finst’rer Mitternacht”
The dynamic level in this section increases gradually from ppp, with sempre les deux pédales, to ff , coming along with the pedal tone from eighth notes to eighth-note triplets in octaves, driving up to sixteenth notes, and fading into a chorale-like coda. Instead of returning to the original key of A-flat, this movement ends, surprisingly, in D-flat major, which is also the key of section B. This could be interpreted as “distant love,” symbolized by key, and perhaps is the reason Brahms wrote the second Andante, to complete the umfangen (embrace). The subtle uses of variation technique, which also has an impact on the formal scheme in this movement, show
Brahms’s ability to “create new ambiguities, and hence to impart new aesthetic meaning to the
45 Ibid., 362, See also footnote 26.
81 traditional gestures of the closed forms.…Brahms found his most intimate voice in this form,” comments Elaine Sisman.46
The second Andante, Intermezzo, also bears a subtitle, Rückblick (Reminiscence), and does refer to the first Andante thematically and even emotionally. Seeking the meaning of this unusual movement, Max Kalbeck, Brahms’s first major biographer, first noticed another Sternau poem, Bitte (Request), which Brahms entered into his early notebook directly after Junge
Liebe.47 Bitte recalls a blessed and blissful love which lasted only one year, thus matching the brevity of this movement, while its title, Rückblick, refers to its thematic connection to the first
Andante. The opening third starts where the first Andante leaves off (Example 40a-b). The descending arpeggio theme resembles that of the first Andante, yet it is transposed to B-flat minor, accompanied by gloomy, timpani-like triplets, like the “Fate” motive of Beethoven’s
Symphony No. 5. If one adopts Kalbeck’s suggestion about the poem’s connection to this movement, the moods of the two Andantes could match: love now is only a memory, a duality: sweetness and bitterness.
Example 40. Brahms, Piano Sonata in F Minor, Op. 5 a) second movement, mm.187-191
46 Elaine Sisman, “Brahms’s Slow Movements: Reinventing the ‘Closed Forms’,” in George Bozarth, ed., Brahms Studies: Analytical and Historical Perspectives (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), 85.
47 Ibid., 364. See also note 27.
82 b) fourth movement, mm.1-4
The rest of the movements of this large work now can be seen as derived from the two
Andante movements thematically and emotionally. Besides the thematic connections, these movements have one thing in common: the clear, strong bass lines, throughout almost all five movements. If the beginning statement of the first movement is outlined, the upper voices resemble the left hand of disjunct sixteenth-note figuration accompanying the main theme of the second movement, in retrograde, and the bass in octaves are descending chromatically (Example
41a-b). This whole movement is dominated by the terse opening motive, which consists of a cell, with a melodic outline that goes down, ascends more widely with a different intervallic combination, mostly circling thirds, like the theme of the first Andante movement. Such a theme also reminds one of many of his other works, since the melodic ideas of Brahms are so often triadic. This motive is transformed into different rhythmic and intervallic figures (Example 42 a-b-c-d). In other words, this could be seen as a monothematic movement.
Example 41 Brahms, Piano Sonata in F Minor, Op. 5 a) first movement, mm.1-5
83 b) second movement, mm. 1-5
However, emotionally it contains extreme contrast, made by the transformations of the motive.
For example, the tragic maestoso opening of heavy chords and octaves in sharp contrasts of register is followed, after a clear break, by gloomy parallel sixths with the triplets which relate to the second Andante, and with a reiterated fifth pedal harmony below . Walter Frisch describes this contrast mood:
Brahms clearly wants his listeners to be aware of the phrase juncture and to focus on the wondrous metamorphosis of the motive from a frenzied half cadence into a muted sigh.48
Example 42. Brahms, Piano Sonata in F minor, Op. 5, first movement a) m. 1
b) mm. 6-11
48 Frisch, Brahms and the Principle of Developing Variation,39.
84 c) mm.23-28
d) mm.34-46
The manuscript of this sonata, and that of Brahms’s first sonata, was signed with the name Kreisler, a character from E.T.A. Hoffmann’s novel Kater Murr, who had a variety of personalities. In the second theme of the first movement, the motive is extended rhythmically into a lyrical theme in the related key of A-flat major, in counterpoint to another line, also built on the same motive. Besides showing the composer’s ability to use variation elements on single motives, the contrary characters between the thematic transformations also reflects the duality inside Brahms. Frisch, in his detailed analysis of the variations in this movement, wrote that it was
an essay in thematic development, but as a series of discrete character studies of a single motive…that movement is rescued from utter stagnation by the progression of the shapes toward what I called lyrical fulfillment or apotheosis. 49
The third movement, Scherzo, is in strict ternary form. The energetic octave theme is a modified form of the first theme in the first movement. The downbeat octaves of left hand
49 Ibid., 39, 56.
85 provide a clear outline of the chromatic harmonic progression. The main theme of this movement is built on thirds. The second phrase is related to the first Andante movement with rolling third contour (Example 43a-b).
Example 43. Brahms Sonata in F Minor Op. 5 a) third movement, Scherzo, mm.1-17
b) second movement, mm.1-4, left hand
The finale is in rondo form (Figure 8). The figurations in parallel thirds and sixths are typical for many of Brahms’s later works. The thematic relation between this movement and the first or Andante movements is not so obvious, yet still shows the inverted motive of the opening theme of the first movement (Example 44). In the b section there is a melodic theme resembling the shape of the opening motive of the first movement, and also referring to F. A. E , Frei aber
86 einsam (free but lonely) (Example 45).50 This is an important motive that Joseph Joachim, one of
Brahms’s close musician friends, used to describe his own life of being single. Brahms,
Schumann, and another contemporary, Albert Dietrich, all composed music based on this motto
around the time this sonata was finished. This perhaps is a good comment free but lonely
on the whole work emotionally, after a love experience. The triadic descending line of the theme
in section C recalls very much the Andante movement, like a flashback. Brahms demonstrates his
talent for counterpoint and rhythmic variety in the long coda, and give this sonata a great ending
to a truly great piece (Example 46 a-b-c-d ).
Figure 8
Brahms, Piano Sonata in F Minor, Op.5, fifth movement, Finale
Section A B A’ C A’’ Coda Measure 1 38 78 140 216 249 Key f F f D-flat F F
Example 44 Brahms, Piano Sonata in F Minor, Op. 5, fifth movement, mm.1-4
50 Bozarth, “Brahms’s Lieder ohne Worte,” 373.
87 Example 45. Brahms, Piano Sonata in F Minor, Op. 5, fifth movement, mm. 36-43
Example 46. Brahms, Piano Sonata in F Minor, Op.5 a) second movement, Andante, mm. 1-2, right hand
b) fifth movement, mm. 138-152
c) fifth movement, mm. 234-243
88 d) fifth movement, mm.249-258
Arno Mitschka has a summary of Brahms’s unique use of thematic variation in this sonata:
The emphasis lies not on the deployments of thematic-motivic powers, but on the expressive content of melodic shapes, which emerge as the goals or results of the developmental process.51
Ivor Keys compares this sonata to the other two:
…less sprawling than in the earlier sonatas because the themes, though individual, are less heterogeneous and the technique of deriving them from each other is much more subtle. It is clear evidence of the early mastery of the technique of making one thing lead to another which Brahms and Wagner were at one in regarding as the essential element of large-scale composition.52
But what makes this sonata even more superior is, as Ivor Keys mentions that “the survival of the heart on the sleeve is also the essence of the matter, as is here conspicuously the case.”53 Eric
Sams has the comment on Brahms’s concept of songs: “Thus Brahms inhabits that hinterland of the Lied where song borders on absolute music.”54 The deep expression of each melodic line, whether in upper, middle or bass voice, is never sacrificed in this large-scale sonata by Brahms,
51 Frisch, Brahms and the Principle of Developing Variation, 56, quoting and translating Arno Mitschka, Der Sonatensatz in den Werken von Johannes Brahms (Gütersloh: Inaugural-Dissertation, Mainz, 1961 )145.
52 Ivor Keys, Johannes Brahms (London: Christopher Helm, 1989), 232.
53 Ibid.
54 Eric Sams, Brahms Songs, 5.
89 who believed that only song, especially folk song, could serve as suitable source for melodic inspiration.55 Brahms also once said to Clara Schumann, “The ideal is the folk song.”56 In the
Sonata Op. 5, Brahms let the song idea, as “the heart,” grow to produce larger dimensions than he ever created in the sonata genre. Its melodic and poetic essences derived from the spirit of
Brahms’s lieder, by means of the linear voicing and variation skills that he mastered later through his compositional career. Compared to the more Beethovenian Sonata Op. 1, and the ambitious
Liszt-like Sonata Op. 2, in this third piano sonata, also his last one, Brahms discovered himself by means of the genuine idea, the song, expressing each melodic line, along with the most subtle change of emotion, through this huge, abstract sonata frame.
55 Quoted in Dillon Parmer, “Brahms, Song Quotation, and Secret Programs,” 19th-Century Music 19, No.2 (Fall,1995):162, see also footnote 13.
56 Sara Ruth Watson, “The Romantic Brahms,” The American Scholar 17 (January, 1947): 73.
90 CHAPTER FIVE
COMPARISON AND CONCLUSION
Music in the nineteenth century shows profound interrelationships between genres songs, opera, instrumental works and arts, such as literature or painting, much more than in the eighteenth century, when much music reflected the aesthetics of structural purity and symmetry. The German lied, whether of folk origins or not, as one of the leading genres of the nineteenth century, left its profound influence on all other media. The melodies and poetry of lieder sing through from Schubert’s solo piano music to Mahler’s symphonies. In piano music of the nineteenth century, this influence also left its mark, affecting not only interpretation, but also pianistic approach.
Piano music of nineteenth-century Germany developed a manner of deep personal expression and poetic associations. It owes this development to the rise of German Romanticism and the lied as well. In terms of pianistic writing, the piano music of Schubert, Schumann, and
Brahms moved away from the clarity and perfection of the Classical period, as seen in the works of Mozart, or the showy virtuosity of Chopin and Liszt. The lied, which represents the essence of
German Romanticism, often occupied their minds, perhaps subconsciously, while composing piano music, whether these works actually quoted lieder or not. Thus a vocal genre could be a factor in shaping piano music. The impact of the German lied, which is also associated strongly with German Romanticism, nationalism, and the development of German literature in the nineteenth century, profoundly yet seamlessly pervaded the piano music of Schubert, Schumann, and Brahms, who themselves were also masters of lieder. This relationship could explain the difficulties that numerous researchers have had identifying specific thematic relationships
91 between songs and piano works: the link might be subconscious, growing out of a deep-rooted sense of identity. It is significant in this connection that few of the supposed quotations of songs were announced by composers themselves. Lieder thus became not only the sources of melodic quotations, but also the poetic inspiration when extended into a large form. This impact, moreover, affects compositional and pianistic style, especially when compared to the works of their contemporaries.
Just as the different aesthetics between the poetic or even personal essences of lieder contrast with the dramatic content and high showmanship demanded in opera, there are different approaches to piano music at this time. The piano works of Schubert, Schumann, and Brahms, which have at times been criticized for the awkwardness of their pianism, contrast with the works of Liszt or Chopin in their fantastic, purely pianistic language. One could not compare the difficulties of Brahms’s Sonata Op. 5 to Liszt’s B-minor Sonata. Yet Liszt, who also composed lieder, made numerous piano transcriptions of Schubert’s songs that were faithful to the original complete melodic versions. This could be considered the best way for Liszt to “enshrine it [the song] in the piano,”1 yet the spirit of these lieder did not have as deep an impact as in Schubert’s
Wanderer Fantasy, although it only carries a brief passage from the song. Also comparing the difference between the approaches of Schumann’s and Liszt’s lieder arrangements, Carl
Dahlhaus observes that “ If Schumann’s arrangement is designed to direct out attention to the poetic side of the composition, Liszt, though without disregarding the poetic, stresses its virtuoso aspect.2 The crucial point, the word “poetic,” carries strong literary connotations, referring to a unique musical taste as well as the very personal roots of German lieder. The poetic qualities that
1 Alan Walker, “Liszt and the Schubert Song Transcriptions,” The Musical Quarterly 67 (1981 January): 261.
2 Carl Dahlhaus, Nineteenth-Century Music, trans. Bradford Robinson (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1989), 145.
92 permeate the fragments of lieder play out in the scenes of Schubert’s Wanderer Fantasy, the allusions in Schumann’s Fantasia, Op.17, and the ideal melodic sources of Brahms’s sonatas, combining their most characteristic and outstanding compositional traits. Lieder truly provide significant inspiration, making these works unique and different from works of Chopin or Liszt, though the latter are also frequently described as “poetic,” “expressive,” or “lyrical.” To make this point clearly and distinguish these works from those taking their inspirations from the lied, it is worthwhile to contrast such works with those inspired by another vocal genre, opera.
The influence of opera on nineteenth-century piano music is as deep as that of lieder, yet reflects an almost opposite aesthetic. The style known as bel canto, developed in nineteenth-century Italian opera, emphasized beautiful tone, mostly in long phrases with embellishments and high notes, and demanded the finest technical abilities. In the first half of the nineteenth century the operas of Rossini, and Bellini, and Donizetti, whom Schumann had criticized adversely, had dominated opera stages in Europe. The music of Rossini embodied the grace and spontaneous spirit inherited from Italian tradition. In his view the bel canto style, which represented the characteristic quality of traditional Italian singing, required “a naturally beautiful voice with full range,” “careful training with effortless delivery of highly florid music,” and “a mastery style only learning from listening to the best Italian exponents.”3 Rossini admired the works of Bellini, who is also known for his graceful melodies. This singing style leaves a certain effect on other composers whether writing opera or not, as Alan Walker relates in
Chopin’s biography:
Chopin made acquaintance with Italian-Franch opera and developed his great love of bel canto singing and the “decorated” aria long before he settled in Paris, and as Arthur Hedley has wisely warned us in his Grove article on Chopin, anything “Italian” in him
3 Edmond Michotte, Richard Wagner’s Visit to Rossini (Paris, 1860) and An Evening at Rossini’s in Beau-Sejour (Passy), trans. Herbert Weinstock (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968), 106.
93 had been acquired “before he made acquaintance with Bellini’s music.”4
During the early nineteenth century in Paris, where Chopin spent most of his life, opera was “the central point of civilization,”5 and both French and Italian style opera were equally important. Chopin absorbed it and “translated its liquid beauty to the piano.”6 He also encouraged his pupils to attend Italian operas. In addition to the nationalism derived from the music of his native country, Poland, Chopin displayed the long melodic lines and exquisitely ornamented profiles which owe to the singing style of Italian opera. Like Italian opera composers, who knew how to explore the finest tone in the human voice, Chopin was gifted in developing the most beautiful and effective yet mature manner of pianistic writing. No matter how extreme difficult the technical demands are in his music, the pure pianism still remains alongside this beauty.
Liszt, on the other hand, was a dramatist at the keyboard, one who was able to absorb influences from all regions of Europe, wherever he went. Ben Arnold described Liszt’s musical indebtedness:
He was influenced by folk traditions in these countries as much as he was by more formal operatic production, particularly those of the bel canto Italian composers with their long cantabile melodies.7
The operatic influences which Liszt displayed in his piano music are found not only in the highly virtuosic approach to melodic writing, but also their dramatic intensity. These operatic features
4 Alan Walker, Frédéric Chopin: Profiles of the Man and The Musician (London: Barrie and Rockliff, 1966), 39.
5 Quoting and translating Louis Huart, Galerie de la Presse de la Littérature et des Beaux-Arts, “Marie Taglioni,” La Presse (Paris), in William G. Atwood, The Parisian World of Chopin (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), 187.
6 Ibid., 196
7 Ben Arnold, ed., The Liszt Companion (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2002), 74.
94 are revealed in his numerous transcriptions based on the themes of operas: Réminiscences de
Don Juan, based on themes from Mozart’s Don Giovanni; Réminiscenses de Norma,
Réminiscenses de Lucia di Lammermoor, Rigoletto, paraphrase de Concert, and other transcriptions on original themes by Glinka, Gounod, Meyerbeer, Rossini, and Wagner. These works show Liszt’s extraordinary ability of transferring opera elements, the thematic material as well as theatrical effect, to his gifted, brilliant and creative virtuosity on the piano. Stewart
Gordon comments:
In those works that represent the original more faithfully, Liszt’s care and respect for the music can clearly be seen at work, and often the music emerges as a keyboard piece of remarkable beauty.8
While both Schubert and Liszt arranged lieder as piano music, both the operatic qualities and their differences from lieder had an impact on nineteenth-century piano music which could be attributed to differences in their stylistic sources. This also explains the different styles of
Schumann’s and Liszt’s literature-related works, and between ballades by Brahms and Chopin. In short, one source (the lied) is lyrical and personal, while the other (the opera) is more dramatic and audience-oriented.
In addition to its poetic impact, the typical melodic structure of the lied also left influences on the structures of piano compositions. The rhythmic regularity and intervallic simplicity in the lied’s melodic contours often provided the potential for the motivic and thematic transformations, developments, counterpoints, or variations, as we see in the examples discussed in previous chapters. A citation of Brahms’s own words about his compositional process, reported by George Henschel, might help to reinforce this suggestion:
8 Stewart Gordon, A History of Keyboard Literature: Music for the Piano and Its Forerunners (New York: Schirmer Books, 1996), 309.
95 There is no real creating without hard work. That which you would call invention, that is to say, a thought, an idea, is simply an inspiration from above, for which I am not responsible, which is not merit of mine. Yea, it is a present, a gift, which I ought even to despise until I have made it my own by right of hard work. And there need be no hurry about that, either. It is as with the seed-corn; it germinates unconsciously and in spite of ourselves. When I, for instance, have found the first phrase of a song, I might shut the book there and then go for a walk, do some other work, and perhaps not think of it again for months. Nothing, however, is lost. If afterward I approach the subject again, it is sure to have taken shape: I can now begin to really work at it. 9
Here the “idea” or “gift” could be referring to “the first phrase of a song,” a melodic inspiration which has its root in the composer’s mind and might come out, consciously or unconsciously, in the complete shape of a phrase or even just the germ of a song.
The impact of the lied on instrumental music of Schubert, Schumann, and Brahms, especially for solo piano, is not only profound but also thorough. The lyrical and poetic quality, the sincerity and intimacy of melodic ideas, combining with composers’ characteristic styles, make the music fascinating despite the less technically effective, showy, and fantastic beauty of their pianism when compared with works of some of their contemporaries. Georg Wilhelm
Friedrich Hegel provides a good statement of what makes these works unique:
This poetic dimension to music, this language of the soul which gives vent to our inner desires and pain, and in so doing alleviates and uplifts us above the natural force of emotion by turning our momentary inward feelings into self-perception and voluntary self-absorption, thereby liberating our spirit from the pressures of joy and sorrow — this free resounding of the soul in the realm of music is, first and foremost, melody.10
9 Quoted in Walter Frisch, Brahms and the Principle of Developing Variation, 33. See also note 60.
10 Quoted in Carl Dahlhaus, Nineteenth-Century Music, 144.
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