Carl Loewe's "Gregor auf dem Stein": A Precursor to Late German Romanticism

Item Type text; Electronic Dissertation

Authors Witkowski, Brian Charles

Publisher The University of Arizona.

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Download date 04/10/2021 03:11:55

Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/217070 CARL LOEWE'S “GREGOR AUF DEM STEIN”: A PRECURSOR TO LATE GERMAN ROMANTICISM

by

Brian Charles Witkowski

______Copyright © Brian Charles Witkowski 2011

A Document Submitted to the Faculty of the

SCHOOL OF MUSIC

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of

DOCTOR OF MUSICAL ARTS

In the Graduate College

THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA

2011

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THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA GRADUATE COLLEGE

As members of the Document Committee, we certify that we have read the document prepared by Brian Charles Witkowski entitled Carl Loewe's “Gregor auf dem Stein”: A Precursor to Late German Romanticism and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the document requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Musical Arts

______Date: 11/14/11 Charles Roe

______Date: 11/14/11 Faye Robinson

______Date: 11/14/11 Kristin Dauphinais

Final approval and acceptance of this document is contingent upon the candidate’s submission of the final copies of the document to the Graduate College.

I hereby certify that I have read this document prepared under my direction and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the document requirement.

______Date: 11/14/11 Document Director: Charles Roe 3

STATEMENT BY AUTHOR

This document has been submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for an advanced degree at the University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library.

Brief quotations from this document are allowable without special permission, provided that accurate acknowledgment of source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the copyright holder.

SIGNED: Brian Charles Witkowski

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Special thanks is due to Charles Roe for serving as my primary advisor and committee chair as well as to Faye Robinson and Kristin Dauphinais for serving on my committee and earnestly supporting this project. Additional thanks goes to Jay Rosenblatt and Paula Fan for their expertise in German Romantic music and their assistance in the process. Lastly, thank you Carol Kimball for your inspiration to explore the art song repertory in depth and to bring rare and unknown works to life.

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DEDICATION

First, I would like to dedicate this document to the loving memory of Sister Shirlee A. Hoski (1939–2010), a dedicated Sister of St. Joseph - Third Order of St. Francis since 1958. A woman of many talents, she was a musical and spiritual mentor to many as the minister of music and pastoral associate at Holy Name Parish in Birmingham, Michigan. The undertaking of a project that in part synthesizes music and faith can be credited to her inspiration.

Second, I would also like to dedicate this document to my father, Dr. Michael J. Witkowski, Ed.D, who always encouraged me to pursue my dreams. He instilled me with the confidence that anything in life can be achieved with the right amount of dedication, sacrifice, and resilience.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES...... 7

ABSTRACT...... 8

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION AND BIOGRAPHY OF CARL LOEWE...... 9 A. Introduction...... 9 B. Biography...... 10

CHAPTER 2: THE “BALLAD”...... 18 A. History...... 18 B. Ballads and Parlor Music...... 20 C. Loewe and the Ballad...... 22

CHAPTER 3: LOEWE’S MUSICAL STYLE...... 25 A. Influences...... 25 B. Vocal Lines...... 29 C. Accompaniments...... 31 D. Motives...... 33 E. Forms...... 34

CHAPTER 4: LOEWE AND CYCLES...... 38 A. Brief History of Song Cycles before Loewe...... 38 B. Loewe’s “Cycles”...... 41

CHAPTER 5: THE TEXT OF GREGOR AUF DEM STEIN...... 44 A. Gesta Romanorum and the Legend of Pope Gregory...... 44 B. Franz Kugler and his Adaptation...... 52 C. Theological Aspects...... 58

CHAPTER 6: THE MUSIC OF GREGOR AUF DEM STEIN...... 60 A. I. “Herolde ritten von Ort zu Ort”...... 60 B. II. “Im Schloss, da brennen der Kerzen viel”...... 62 C. III. “Der junge König und sein Gemahl”...... 69 D. IV. “Ein Klippeneiland liegt im Meer”...... 85 E. V. “Wie bräutlich glänzt das heilige Rom!”...... 88

CHAPTER 7: SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION...... 95

CHAPTER 8: PERFORMANCE CONSIDERATIONS...... 100

REFERENCES...... 104

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LIST OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES

MUSICAL EXAMPLE 1: Measures 19-22 of “Herolde ritten von Ort zu Ort”...... 61 MUSICAL EXAMPLE 2: Measures 41-48...... 62 MUSICAL EXAMPLE 3: Measures 1-12 of “Im Schloss, da brennen der Kerzen viel”...63 MUSICAL EXAMPLE 4: Measures 27-33...... 64 MUSICAL EXAMPLE 5: Measures 55-73...... 65 MUSICAL EXAMPLE 6: Measures 77-85...... 67 MUSICAL EXAMPLE 7: Measures 131-133...... 69 MUSICAL EXAMPLE 8: Measures 1-4 of “Der junge König und sein Gemahl”...... 69 MUSICAL EXAMPLE 9: Measures 5-8...... 71 MUSICAL EXAMPLE 10: Measures 9-20...... 71 MUSICAL EXAMPLE 11: Measures 28-37...... 73 MUSICAL EXAMPLE 12: Measures 63-67...... 75 MUSICAL EXAMPLE 13: Measures 52-65...... 75 MUSICAL EXAMPLE 14: Measures 66-82...... 77 MUSICAL EXAMPLE 15: Measures 83-92...... 78 MUSICAL EXAMPLE 16: Measures 159-165...... 79 MUSICAL EXAMPLE 17: Measures 166-175...... 80 MUSICAL EXAMPLE 18: Measures 197-204...... 81 MUSICAL EXAMPLE 19: Measures 211-224...... 83 MUSICAL EXAMPLE 20: Measures 225-240...... 84 MUSICAL EXAMPLE 21: Measures 1-6 of “Ein Klippeneiland liegt im Meer”...... 86 MUSICAL EXAMPLE 22: Measures 10-12...... 87 MUSICAL EXAMPLE 23: Measures 25-30...... 87 MUSICAL EXAMPLE 24: Measures 72-75...... 88 MUSICAL EXAMPLE 25: Measures 15-27 of “Wie bräutlich glänzt das heilige Rom!”..89 MUSICAL EXAMPLE 26: Measures 36-42...... 91 MUSICAL EXAMPLE 27: Measures 46-53...... 92 MUSICAL EXAMPLE 28: Measures 54-64...... 93

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ABSTRACT

Carl Loewe (1796-1869) was a prolific composer of works for voice and piano with an output exceeding 400 pieces. Just as Schubert pioneered Lieder as a new genre of art music in the nineteenth century, Loewe can be credited for his comparable innovation with the ballad, a narrative song that depicts a story. Though Loewe is often considered a conservative musical figure in the nineteenth century, later romantic composers like

Richard Wagner and Hugo Wolf held his ballads in high regard, as they show Loewe’s compositional originality in boldly producing drama through the piano-singer format.

This document displays how Loewe in his ballad cycle Gregor auf dem Stein, Op. 38

(1834) creates a continuous musical drama to enhance a theological legend. This work is an example of how Loewe foreshadows aspects of later German Romanticism, more fully realized by Wagner and Wolf, through use of musical and dramatic continuity, progressive tonality, motives, and declamatory vocal style.

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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION AND BIOGRAPHY OF CARL LOEWE

A. Introduction

Johann Carl Gottfried Loewe (1796-1869) was a prolific composer of works for voice and piano, with an output of over 400. Sometimes called the “North German

Schubert,”1 Loewe also composed operas, oratorios, symphonies, chamber works, and other genres. Loewe was an especially masterful composer of the ballad. Unlike a standard lied, which is usually a setting of lyrical poetry, a ballad is more of a miniature dramatic narrative adapted for singing. Though he outlived Schubert by over 40 years,

Loewe remained a conservative musical figure in the mid-nineteenth century. However, despite his conservative style rooted in the high classical era in which he was born, many of Loewe’s ballads show an innovative composer who was ahead of his contemporaries by boldly producing drama through the piano-singer format. With his ballad cycle

Gregor auf dem Stein [Gregory on the Rock],2 Op. 38 (1834), Loewe creates a musical drama for voice and piano that shows he is a forerunner to aspects of German

Romanticism, later realized by Richard Wagner and Hugo Wolf, through use of musical and dramatic continuity, progressive tonality, motives, and declamatory vocal style.

1 Jürgen Thym, “Crosscurrents in Song,” in German Lieder in the Nineteenth Century, ed. Rufus Hallmark (Routledge: New York, 2010), 178.

2 Translations by author, unless otherwise noted. 10

B. Biography

Carl Loewe was born on November 30, 1796 in Löbejün, a small German town in

Saxony between Halle and Cöthen. He was the twelfth and youngest child of Andreas

Loewe, who was an organist, choirmaster, and teacher for the Catholic parish in Löbejün.

Andreas and his wife Maria, an amateur violinist, were highly intellectual, musical, and extremely interested in the artistic advancement of their children. Given his parents’ and older siblings’ attentiveness to his artistic growth, Carl rapidly developed into a virtuoso musical talent at an early age. Carl Loewe describes the phenomenon by writing, “When I first became conscious of myself, I knew how to play the piano and the organ, and I could sing at sight without being able to remember how I had learned these things, without even the slightest exertion.”3 Moreover, Loewe received vocal instruction from an older brother who studied the Italian method of singing with the famous composer and pedagogue Vincenzo Righini (1756-1812). At the young age of ten, he was one of Halle’s best singers as a choirboy at Cöthen; he became particularly known for singing the

“Queen of the Night” arias from Die Zauberflöte.4

In 1810, Loewe began studies at an orphanage school in Halle with Daniel Gotlob

Türk, who was a noted theorist, teacher, and composer of keyboard music. Napoleon’s brother Jerome, who had become King of Westphalia in 1807, heard Loewe in Türk’s concerts and decided to grant him an annuity to further assist with his education.5 Türk’s

3 Albert B. Bach, The Art Ballad: Loewe and Schubert with Musical Illustrations, 3rd ed. (1897; repr., Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing, 2009), 50.

4 Ibid., 53.

5 Craig Timberlake, “Loewe’s Life and Legacy,” Journal of Singing 53 (1997): 35. 11 choirs sang a wide variety of works including all the Mozart operas, operas by Himmel and Reichardt, oratorios by Handel and Haydn, sacred works by J. S. Bach, works by

Türk’s teacher Johann Gottlieb Naumann, and works by Türk himself.6 Türk gave Loewe no piano instruction but did loan him Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier; Loewe, self-taught, eventually went on to play many virtuosic works by Clementi, Haydn, Mozart, and

Beethoven.7

In 1813, Türk’s death and the end of Jerome’s kingship resulted in Loewe losing both his mentor and income. Loewe remained at the orphanage school until he received a degree in 1817, after which he zealously began theological studies at the University of

Halle. Music played a secondary role to theology during these years, but Loewe acquired superior philosophical refinement that would later manifest itself in the spirit of his compositions.8 Loewe maintained his musical life as the tenor soloist for Türk’s successor Johann Friedrich Naue, and he became involved with a vocal quartet association under the direction of Adolph Bernhard Marx. This group sang through oratorios of Handel and Haydn, operas of Gluck and Spontini, and Mozart’s Requiem. He also met his first wife, Julie von Jacob, a soprano in the association. During his second year at the university, Loewe composed his first two ballads, “Erlkönig” and “Edward,” which, thanks to the effort of A. B. Marx, were later published in 1823 as Opus 1.9

6 Paul Leinbach Althouse Jr., “Carl Loewe (1796-1869): His Lieder, Ballads, and their Performance” (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1971), 16.

7 Ibid., 17.

8 Bach, 57.

9 Althouse, 23-24. 12

In 1819, Loewe travelled with his fiancée Julie von Jacob to Dresden, where he resided until 1820. There, he met Carl Maria von Weber during a midnight mass at the

Catholic Church for which Weber was the music director. Like Loewe, Weber was a devout Roman Catholic; Loewe and his fiancée were invited to Weber’s home multiple times. At that time, Weber was working on his opera Der Freischütz, and he asked

Loewe and other friends whether they felt Agathe should be killed at the end of the opera.

Loewe was on the side of favoring Agathe’s death, a more forward-looking opinion in view of the development of opera through Wagner.10 This opinion was not in view of

Weber’s religious sentiments however, and Weber felt that “a tragic ending would violate the feelings of the audience, and leave them without a sense of consolation.”11

In 1820, Loewe returned to Halle, where he served in the Halle rifle battalion and became its best marksman. Loewe finished his military service in just one year as his patron the Crown Prince, who later would become Frederick William IV of Prussia

(1840-1861), did not want Loewe’s hands in danger of the rifles.12 Thereafter, he spent time in Jena, where he had a chance to meet renowned German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) before going to Berlin to undergo a thorough musical examination in order to receive an appointed position in Stettin. As director of the

Singakademie [Singing Academy] in Berlin, composer Carl Zelter (1758-1832) was the one who had to evaluate Loewe for the position. Loewe sang and played all his lieder for

10 Althouse, 25.

11 Bach, 63.

12 Ibid., 64. 13

Zelter during the weeklong evaluation. Loewe also had to sight-read the most difficult tenor aria from J. S. Bach’s St. Matthews Passion, which was relatively unknown at the time, though the Singakademie owned the parts.13

There is no indication as to exactly how Loewe’s theological studies at the

University of Halle concluded, but in 1820, he received the appointment of Kapellmeister at Stettin. A job Loewe kept for over forty years, this position in Stettin was conventional by nature, akin to many held by German musicians in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries such as Johann Sebastian Bach’s position in Leipzig.14 Loewe spent his summers travelling throughout the European continent performing his works as both the singer and pianist. Writing in reference to Loewe in 1835, Schumann noted the rarity of one person being the composer, singer, and pianist.15 Some of Loewe’s significant travels include: a lengthy tour of Germany in 1837, visiting the Düsseldorf and Mainz festivals, as well as Hamburg, Lübeck and Bremen; in 1844 he visited Vienna; and in 1847 he was in London, where he performed at court and heard the singing of Jenny Lind, a famous soprano of the day.16

Loewe composed operas for most of his early career, but he was unable to have any of them produced until his comic opera Die drei Wünsche [The Three Wishes]

(1834). Critics had reservations about Die drei Wünsche, and a reviewer from the

13 Althouse, 31-32.

14 Ibid, 34.

15 Ibid., 78.

16 Evan West, "Loewe, Carl," The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (London: Macmillan, 2001), xv: 69.

14

Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung [General Musical Newspaper] said, “Dr. Loewe would be even more suited to serious, heroic or tragic opera than comic Singspiel.”17 Loewe came to realize his future was not in opera, and he followed the path of Handel a century earlier; by 1835, he was mainly focused on composing oratorios and songs.18 During his life, Loewe produced fourteen oratorios “in which biblical themes were given a highly charged and dramatically compelling treatment.”19

The German oratorio was a budding genre from 1814 until 1848 due to the popular music festivals that served as forums to express German unity and to celebrate

German culture. Works by Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1857), Louis Spohr (1784-1859),

Friedrich Schneider (1786-1853), and Loewe were repeatedly performed at these festivals.20 Despite Mendelssohn being more renowned today, Loewe along with Spohr and Schneider were very influential on the younger Mendelssohn.21 Moreover, Glenn

Stanley writes, “Loewe was the most prolific oratorio composer of the nineteenth century and the most innovative, experimenting with new forms (a capella oratorios for men’s chorus) and subject matter (Christian legends and secular themes).”22 According to

17 Ibid., 70.

18 Althouse, 55.

19 West, 69.

20 Glenn Stanley, “Bach’s ‘Erbe’: The Chorale in the German Oratorio of the Early Nineteenth Century,” 19th-Century Music 11 (1987): 122.

21 Jeffrey S. Sposato, “Saint Elsewhere: German and English Reactions to Mendelssohn’s Paulus,” 19th-Century Music 32 (2008), 29-30.

22 Stanley., 137.

15

Stanley, Loewe’s preference for “dramatic realism”23 and against “imaginary church music”24 kept his oratorios from remaining in the mainstream repertory. Many of his oratorios are better described as “musical dramas in oratorio form.”25 Stanley explains that “[Loewe] strove to entertain his listeners and popularize religious subjects in compositions of mass appeal using a wide variety of musical styles.”26

Loewe was a deeply religious person; his character had notable traits of piety and a fear of God. As a theologian and a devout Catholic,27 his compositions expressed the sincerity of his faith,28 and his satisfaction with his position in Stettin can be attributed to that sincerity. His position was a means of worship, and his personal advancement as a musician was of secondary importance.29 In addition to his oratorios, Loewe also showed his religiosity with his fourth string quartet Quatuor Spirituel [Four Spirituals], Op. 26

(1830) with each movement “exemplifying a religious mood.”30 One movement of the quartet is based on a cantus firmus from the melody of a hymn titled “Media vita sumus

23 Ibid., 140.

24 Ibid., 137.

25 Bach, 73.

26 Stanley, 137.

27 Maurice J. E. Brown, “Carl Loewe, 1796-1869,” Musical Times 110 (1969): 357.

28 Paul Odgers Davidson, “The extra-liturgical Geistliches Lied [Spiritual Song], 1800-1915: A survey with musical and theological analyses of fifty selected works” (DMA diss., The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1989), 106.

29 Althouse, 35-36.

30 Brown, 357.

16 in morte” [In the midst of life we are in death].31 Of Loewe’s works for solo voice and piano accompaniment, Paul Odgers Davidson observes, “At least eighty deal with religious subjects.”32 James Deaville in the Cambridge Companion to the Lied notes that

“in his early works Loewe set texts by noted ballad poets Goethe, Herder, and Uhland . . . often on topics of the supernatural, whereas in his later years—when poets largely had ceased writing ballads—he turned to less significant poets . . . whose tales are based on historical legends or figures.”33

Loewe identified himself as “...a monarchist, glorifying in many historical ballads the magnanimity of crowned heads of all ages, including the then-ruling Hapsburg and

Hohenzollern dynasties.”34 Some examples of such works based on religious, historical, or mythological subjects include: Prinz Eugen, der edle Ritter [Prince Eugene, the Noble

Knight], Op. 92 (1844), a ballad about Prince Eugene of Savoy; Kaiser Karl V [Emperor

Charles V], Op. 99 (1844), a set of ballads based on Charles V’s reign of the Holy Roman

Empire; Tom der Reimer [Thomas the Rhymer], Op. 135a (c. 1860), a translated Scottish ballad about the thirteenth-century Scottish laird Thomas Learmonth; and Gregor auf dem Stein [Gregory on the Rock], Op. 38 (1836), based on the medieval legend of

Gregorius.

31 Davidson, 106.

32 Ibid.

33 James Deaville, “A multitude of voices: the Lied at mid century,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Lied, ed. James Parsons (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 148.

34 Thym, 181.

17

Performances of his oratorios initially motivated his travels in the 1830s, but

Loewe soon became a kind of wandering minstrel performing just his ballads as both the singer and pianist for prominent citizens in various German towns.35 His one-man shows attracted many socially prominent and educated citizens as well as members of the aristocracy; King Friedrich Wilhelm IV was also a devout fan of Loewe.36 After a trip to

London in 1847, Loewe’s touring essentially ended, and he thereafter left Stettin on few occasions. During the 1850s, he continued to compose oratorios and ballads, but less prolifically than the previous decades, and at an even slower pace in the 1860s.37 In 1864,

Loewe suffered a stroke that left him unconscious for six weeks; his recovery was plagued by frequent lapses into unconsciousness and amnesia. In 1866, he was obliged to resign his post in Stettin when it was clear he was no longer able to fully carry out his duties. He retired to Kiel, about 200 miles northwest of Stettin, at the house of his son-in- law, where he spent the last three years of his life; he was paid visits from many admiring friends, including Johannes Brahms.38 Loewe died on April 20, 1869, and he was buried near the Baltic Sea that he loved throughout his life.39

35 Althouse, 74.

36 Thym, 181.

37 Althouse, 74-76.

38 Bach, 91.

39 Althouse, 76. 18

CHAPTER 2: THE “BALLAD”

A. History

Story telling is the oldest preoccupation of literature,40 and ballads in their origin were “poetical productions of the people.”41 The word “ballad” originated in the twelfth century to describe a type of medieval dance-song, as the word is etymologically derived from the Latin word for dance, ballo. Medieval minstrels generally sang ballads to accompany dances, but around the beginning of the fourteenth century, the term began to be attributed to label nearly any simple or popular song for solo voice. Ballads have been widely employed across Europe since the fifteenth century and spread to America thereafter.42 The term ballad obtained a looser meaning over time in different countries; there were ballad operas in eighteenth-century England, instrumental ballads by the likes of Chopin in the nineteenth century, and popular song ballads in the twentieth century.43

William J. Entwistle’s definition of the term ballad is “a short traditional narrative poem sung, with or without accompaniment or dance, in the assemblies of the people.”44

By tradition, Entwistle refers to the fact that ballads were originally not written down but passed on through oral transmission, and the ballads were often derived from a source of

40 Anne Henry Ehrenpreis, The Literary Ballad (London: Edward Arnold, 1966), 10.

41 Bach, 34.

42 William J. Entwistle, European Balladry (1939; repr., Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1951), 16-17.

43 Michael Judd Sheranian, “The Ballade of Eighteenth and Nineteenth-Century Germany: A Useful but Neglected Pedagogical Tool” (DMA diss., The University of Arizona, 1998), 11.

44 Entwistle, 33.

19 local cultural tradition. The ballad served as a form of complete entertainment where those assembled would occasionally join in a chorus while dancing.

The more common definition of the ballad that particularly describes those of the

German tradition in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and is the focus of this study, is that of a narrative song that depicts a popular story. Ballads are characteristically epic in their portrayal of events and actions; they often are derived from spiritual, historical, or legendary subjects.45 Anne Henry Ehrenpreis elaborates:

The way the traditional (or ‘folk’ or ‘popular’) ballad tells a story has long been admired. It deals with a single situation, revealed dramatically, with little intrusion on the part of the storyteller. The ballad’s way of looking at life is unsentimental, often ironical; it can suggest a whole vision of tragedy in the briefest stroke.46

Ehrenpreis compares the ballad’s method of narration to the film technique of montage:

The story is advanced by a series of quick flashes, one distinct scene following another. There is no connecting tissue between the scenes, no explanation of events leading up to the crucial situation or following it.47

A ballad has its own distinct qualities that make it substantially different from other similar genres of vocal music, such as an aria from an opera, oratorio, or cantata, or a Lied. Carl Dahlhaus explains that a ballad is a sung narrative in which the author directly addresses the audience that “perceives the author as a musical narrator.” By contrast, an aria from an opera, oratorio, or cantata is invariably a “role poem” evolving out of a given dramatic situation. Lastly, a Lied, according to Dahlhaus, “is an utterance

45 Bach, 32.

46Ehrenpreis, 10.

47 Ibid., 11.

20 that is not directed ostentatiously at an audience but . . . is overheard by the audience.”

Dahlhaus explains the difference between Lieder and ballads by saying, “Listeners are essential to the ballad, but incidental to the lied.”48 Moreover, “The ballad style is unbound and universal, and the form is singularly free. . . . Any given ballad may exist in many divergent texts.”49

B. Ballads and Parlor Music

Hausemusik [house-music] grew as a popular concept in the late eighteenth century, and it flourished more so in the nineteenth century with the popularity and increasing availability of the pianoforte. Homes moreover proved to be ideal settings to perform Lieder and ballads, given the intimate nature of the pieces.50 Ballads are the epitome of Drama in Kleinen [miniature drama] as they are dramatic dialogues born from the tradition of oral poetry.51 Instead of going to the theater, ballads often served as a vehicle for people to experience drama and emotion in the comfort of the home with works that were effectively “a microcosm of opera” with just a singer and pianist.”52

Moreover, ballads and Lieder in the home became a popular vernacular alternative to attending the French and Italian Operas that dominated the German operatic stages.

48 Carl Dahlhaus, Nineteenth-Century Music, trans. J. Bradford Robinson (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1989), 105.

49 Entwhistle, 117.

50 Bruce Holden, “The German Narrative Dramatic Ballad from Loewe to Mahler” (Ph.D. diss., Temple University, 2000), 14.

51 Bach, 34.

52 Sheranian, 11.

21

The early nineteenth century is also known as the Biedermeier Era,53 which can be characterized as “an intermingling of convivial culture, educational function, and bourgeois self-display.”54 From the start of the Viennese Congress in 1815 to the

European revolutions of 1848, monarchs ruled the German-speaking states in a very conservative manner in reaction to the Napoleonic wars. Opting to remain private citizens, people stayed home more often during this period; the concurrent rise in the popularity of the pianoforte, which replaced the fortepiano as the main accompanying instrument, resulted in a rise in the popularity of parlor music. This period therefore facilitated a kind of open-mindedness regarding the possible genres of music and places to make music.55 In an age of a growing middle class,56 the home became a natural place for small private performances for families and close groups of friends.

More than any other genre, the Lied, or German art song, is quite representative of the Biedermeier period.57 Ballads were an important source for providing parlor music and instigating conceptions of art song settings because it combines epic, dramatic, and lyrical elements, and appeal to composers who want to tell a story as dramatically as

53 “Biedermeier was originally a comic figure whose verses, Biedermeier-lieder [Biedermeier Songs], first appeared in Der Fliegende Blätter [The Flying Leaves]. His name, used to denote an honest ingenuous kind of Philistine, became proverbial. It was given to a period—Biedermeierzeit [Biedermeier Period]—when people with simple tastes cultivated music and art inexpensively.” Karl Kobald, Franz Schubert and his Times, trans. Beatrice Marshall (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1928), 1.

54 Dahlhaus, 174.

55 Sheranian, 10.

56 James Parsons, The Cambridge Companion to the Lied (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 2004), 4.

57 Thym, 181.

22 possible even while they evoke a pervasive mood.58 Ballads inspired many musical settings by composers in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.59 A foundation for greater cultivation of piano-voice music as a major genre by Austrian composers such as Schubert and German composers such as Loewe was laid by Johann

Friedrich Reichardt (1752-1814), Carl Friedrich Zelter (1758-1832), and especially

Johann Rudolf Zumsteeg (1760-1802).60 Loewe and Schubert were born at the right time as the advent of new German lyric poetry, the wider possibilities presented by the pianoforte, and social and political changes enabled the maturation of songs for voice and piano.61

C. Loewe and the Ballad

Loewe “cultivated more than any other Lied composer the art of the narrative ballad.”62 Just as Schubert was the pioneer of Lieder as a new genre of art music, Loewe can be credited for his innovation with the ballad. Althouse further writes, “The intensely lyric poetry of the nineteenth century did not appeal to Loewe, who preferred lighter verse or narrative poetry.”63 Loewe preferred large-scale dramatic settings,64 which

58 Harry Seelig, “The Literary Context: Goethe as Source and Catalyst,” in German Lieder in the Nineteenth Century, ed. Rufus Hallmark (Routledge: New York, 2010), 18.

59 Bach, 34.

60 Holden, 13.

61 Carol Kimball, Song: A Guide to Style and Literature, rev. ed. (Milwaukee: Hal Leonard, 2005), 39.

62 Thym, 179.

63 Althouse, 116. 23 ballads allowed for more so than lyric poems. Loewe actually considered ballads to be more important than Lieder because “the course of drama is placed into the protagonists’ speech, thus proffering action instead of narration that advances to a higher realm of dramatic art.”65 Loewe’s greater inclination to narrative poetry can be attributed to a fascination with story telling that he had throughout his life.66 During winter evenings as a child, Loewe’s mother recited fairy tales, legends, and poetry; his sister also recited ballads for him67 including Lenore, a famous eighteenth-century Gothic ballad by

Gottfried August Burger (1747-1794).

Ballads in Carl Loewe’s compositional output are often based on legends of the supernatural and feature dialogue between multiple characters, often with a narrator interjecting to describe the unfolding dramatic action. As a superb and prolific storyteller,

Loewe capitalized on the dramatic context of the ballad to compellingly draw the audience’s complete attention to the tale.68 Loewe was thus setting forth a new course for composing Romantic music that Richard Wagner and Hugo Wolf, who were fond of

Loewe’s ballads, would more fully realize later in the nineteenth century. Wagner once said, “The verse-melody is the explanatory link between the language of words and that

64 Althouse, 3.

65 Roger Fiske, Scotland in Music: A European Enthusiasm (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 95.

66 Althouse, 219.

67 Bach, 50.

68 Lorraine Gorrell, The Nineteenth-Century German Lied (Portland, OR: Amadeus Press, 1993), 232.

24 of musical sound, the offspring of the union of poetry with music, the most supreme union of both arts.”69

Loewe was prolific at turning any subject matter into a pretext for a musical setting. During recitals, he frequently improvised ballads on texts given to him before the concert by members of the audience.70 Loewe was the first to create musical settings to ballads equal to the quality of the text.71 He overcame his predecessors’ limitations ranging from overly simple and repetitive strophic ballads to through-composed cantata- like ballads lacking structure.72 In Loewe’s ballads often, according to Northcote, “the thematic identity of the two ‘speakers’ is first established, and the musical development thereafter fulfils the growing dramatic intensity perfectly.”73

69 Bach, 114.

70 Thym, 185.

71 Althouse, 169.

72 Thym, 182.

73 Sydney Northcote, The Ballad in Music (London: Oxford University Press, 1942), 105.

25

CHAPTER 3: LOEWE’S MUSICAL STYLE

A. Influences

Having spent his upbringing in or near Halle and then most of his adult life in

Stettin, Loewe never lived in or near a musical capital; he was far removed from the nearest musical centers of Leipzig and Dresden. Loewe though was familiar with the music of his own time as he studied and performed works by major composers, including

J.S. Bach, Handel, Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven. Loewe even named one of his daughters Adelaide after Beethoven’s song by that title, which he once sang.74 There are others composers Loewe came to know personally including Reichardt, Zelter, and Carl

Maria von Weber (1786-1826). There is no evidence that Loewe had significant knowledge of Viennese lieder by Schubert, and others; that is likely attributable to the limited dissemination of lieder at the beginning of the nineteenth century.75 Loewe did know many ballads as poetry from his youth and through the compositions of Zumsteeg,

Zelter, and Reichardt, the three composers who most influenced Loewe’s style.

Reichardt spent the final years of his life near Halle, and he likely served as a mentor to Loewe as the younger composer was receiving his musical education.76 Türk introduced Loewe to Reichardt’s ballads, and he introduced Loewe to Reichardt in person around 1812.77 Reichardt’s collection of Goethe settings were published just a few years

74 Althouse, 38.

75 Althouse, 27-28.

76 Thym, 180.

77 Althouse, 21-22.

26 prior,78 and Loewe wrote that he had the opportunity to sing Reichardt’s works. Loewe even criticized the established composer by saying “Goethe’s Lieder der Müllerin

[Goethe’s Songs of the Miller], set by Reichardt, never pleased me on account of the text.”79 Reichardt’s setting of Goethe’s “Erlkönig,” for example, is more of a popular romance in strophic form and lacks dramatic action. Both Reichardt and Zelter can be associated with the Second Berlin School of song composition, where tuneful strophic songs with simple accompaniments to create a folk-like quality was generally the common practice.80 The ballads of both composers tend to lack any particular dramatic interest as the same melody is generally repeated in every stanza.81

Also based on the Romance form, Zumsteeg in his ballads attempts to musically illustrate the narrative through the piano accompaniment, but it is still less than interesting overall.82 Jürgen Thym describes Zumsteeg’s ballads as being “lengthy” and

“in cantata-like sequence of recitatives and arias without a compelling overall structure.”83 Nonetheless, as a young adult in Halle, Loewe often sang Zumsteeg’s ballads. Loewe said of them:

“The music of this old and unjustly slighted master always deeply moved me. Its motives are characteristic and ingenious; they follow the poem with perfect fidelity, but they are mostly of an aphoristic nature. I fancy that the music ought

78 Althouse, 129

79 Ibid, 22.

80 Kimball, 41.

81 Bach, 44.

82 Ibid.

83 Thym, 182. 27

to be more dramatic, and should have been worked out with more fully elaborate motives, somewhat in the style in which I have tried to write ballads.”84

Many of Loewe’s ballad composing techniques were copied from Zumsteeg, such as inserting sections of recitative for dramatic emphasis, composing melodies more declamatory than song-like, and text painting in the piano parts to add to the narrative drama.85 However, while his predecessors were more content to maintain the older folk- like forms and stylistic traditions of the ballad,86 Loewe was the first composer to give the ballad the proper musical tone with a true narrative style.87

Loewe lived to the age of seventy-three, more than twice as long as Schubert.

During his career, he met many composers, including Carl Maria von Weber and Felix

Mendelssohn, but having spent most of his life far north in Stettin kept him outside the mainstream of German musical life. With the closest German musical centers of Dresden and Leipzig being a three-day coach ride away, Loewe was not influenced greatly by the musical trends and currents of his day. Moreover, no significant evolution in Loewe’s compositional style can be identified; Althouse summarizes this conservativeness of

Loewe’s style:

Fifty years of changing style left almost no imprint on [Loewe]. Schumann’s emergence as a probing songwriter in 1840 did not affect Loewe’s style, nor did the development of opera with Wagner. One can survey the works of Loewe,

84 Bach, 63.

85 Sheranian, 51.

86 James Husst Hall, The Art Song (Normal, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1953), 55.

87 Bach, 44.

28

which span some fifty years, and gain no real sense of what was changing around him.88

Loewe’s relative isolation from the rest of the German musical scene nonetheless allowed his compositional output to exhibit a sense of originality.89 Moreover, improvisation also played a role in Loewe’s style; Loewe considered an improvised performance still part of the compositional process.90 Althouse suggests:

An important part of some of Loewe’s ballad performances was improvisation. On these occasions, he would receive a poem from the audience, read it over a few times, and sing it on the spot. In some cases, e.g. his “Wallhaide,” the improvisation was written down and published. Loewe like any skillful improviser must have worked from stock formulas and an arsenal of sure-fire harmonic progressions and accompanimental patterns. In fact, this quality of standardized harmony and accompaniment afflicts many of Loewe’s written- down songs; we have noticed several moments where both the accompaniment and melody were effective, but not inspired, thus suggesting that he wrote down the first thing that came to mind.91

As with many other prolific composers, examples can be extracted from Loewe’s output to demonstrate the sort of stock formulae and standardization suggested by Althouse.

While Loewe’s arsenal of musical devices might have been lesser than other composers, his primary goal was to produce drama through the music; original musical artistry was a subsequent result. Improvised music can have an organic quality that enhances the drama, as the first thing that comes to mind can also feel the most natural. Gregor auf dem Stein,

Op. 38, is an example where the music sometimes has an organic flow befitting the

88 Althouse, 284.

89 Sheranian, 52.

90 Althouse, 234.

91 Ibid., 243.

29 drama, and the music is too specific to the storyline and the text to suggest it is merely stock formulae replicated in other works.

Loewe strived to allow nothing but the intention of the poet be served by his music, and he expanded the means of musical expression by using harsh dissonances, unprepared modulations and more; critics of his time shunned it as “the music of the future.”92 Carl Dahlhaus further writes that Loewe was successful at maintaining German tradition while still being futuristic in his music:

Educated music-lovers demanded of compositional sophistication that it be interpretable as a key to the work’s expression, and Loewe has met these demands without sacrificing that convivial singspiel tone which, from the eighteenth century, had been the musical hearth and home of the German bourgeoisie.93

B. Vocal Lines

One mature Romantic aspect to Carl Loewe’s compositional style is a prevalence of declamatory vocal writing, a form of heightened or emphatic speech that can be characterized as a purely verbal accentuation within a musical context. Loewe preferred syllabic text settings,94 which undoubtedly led to this stylistic aspect to his vocal works.

There are arguably two basic lines of composers in the nineteenth century with regard to

German vocal music representative of whether the text should serve the music or the music should serve the text. The former is from Schubert to Brahms and Mahler, all

92 Bach, 117.

93 Dahlhaus, 175.

94 Elaine Brody and Robert A. Fowkes, The German Lied and Its Poetry (New York: New York University Press, 1971), 183.

30 generally known for broad flowing melodies. The latter idea is from Loewe to Schumann,

Liszt, Wagner, and Wolf; they all composed based on motives with more declamatory vocal lines.95 In Loewe’s ballads, each character or situation has its own musical symbol and is developed in the voice or accompaniment.96

Loewe’s declamatory writing came about from his experience as a singer with a powerfully imaginative poetic insight. Loewe often composed entire phrases in monotone for greater emphatic effects, and he refrained from using coloratura to maintain the folk- like nature of his ballads.97 Despite this declamatory style, Loewe’s melodies are often still tuneful and memorable. Sydney Northcote writes, “Singers will always admire

Loewe for a vocal line which maintains a melodious continuity despite the declamatory requirements.”98 Loewe’s efforts to allow the poet’s intentions guide his musical expression99 resulted in a sort of simplicity and directness of his melodies that would keep the poetry in the foreground.100 Hugo Wolf would more fully realize Loewe’s methods and ideals in a more profound and sophisticated manner later in the nineteenth century.

Many of Loewe’s songs were written for his own voice, which exhibited a range spanning more than two octaves; he wrote ballads that extend as low as F2 and as high as

95 Sheranian, 32-33

96 Hall, 55.

97 Brody and Fowkes, 183.

98 Northcote, 49.

99 Bach, 117.

100 Althouse, 283.

31

A4.101 Loewe considered himself a tenor, but his range was more of a high baritone, a sort of voice that Rossini and others were writing for in his day. Many of his ballads place demands on the voice at the outer limits of its range.102 Loewe’s virtuoso vocal capabilities freed him to employ the compositional technique of setting the melody in a higher tessitura when the narrative intensifies, leading to a more energetic vocal production and a heightened dramatic presentation.103 Wagner and Wolf later utilized this practice in their vocal works. Loewe himself says, “My compositions demand a master on the piano, a great vocalist with clear pronunciation and declamation; if the singer has these requisites at command, the spirit of the composition will soon wing its upward flight.”104

C. Accompaniments

In the nineteenth century, piano accompaniments evolved from being mere harmonic and rhythmic support mechanisms that doubled the vocal line to being firm partners with the vocal line in that they set the mood, illustrate the poetry, interplay with the voice, and more.105 The realm of accompaniment and harmonic development is where

Loewe and Schubert bring about the most change from the older-styled works of

101 Pitch identification in this document uses A1 for the lowest note on the piano (C4 is Middle C).

102 Craig Timberlake, “Bicentennial of a Balladeer: Carl Loewe (1796-1869),” Journal of Singing 52, No. 3 (1997), 33-34.

103 Holden, 33.

104 Bach, 13.

105 Kimball, 40. 32

Reichardt, Zelter, and Zumsteeg. Loewe’s accompaniments in particular also serve as a means of commentary, play characters in the ballad, and further the dramatic action.106

As Loewe said, his works require a “master on the piano.” His piano writing is rarely ornate and does not necessarily possess the refinement associated with Schumann and Liszt, however his employment of vivid, expressive, and virtuosic accompaniments to worthily maintain the dramatic tension is significant.107 Althouse acknowledges,

“Loewe was not a musician’s songwriter, as was Schubert.”108 Articulation of the text was of primary importance to Loewe, thus his accompaniments are subsidiary to the vocal line. To prevent competition with the voice—which was Loewe’s own in his day— the piano often exerts little individuality and is sometimes reduced to rapid repetitions of chords.109

In many of Loewe’s dramatic ballads, such as Erlkönig and Edward, “the piano’s sole function is to present sharply delineated accompanying materials that throw into relief the horrifying dialogue between the characters.”110 Loewe’s accompaniments therefore often resemble piano reductions of orchestral scores.111 Use of the tremolo is one of Loewe’s accompanimental techniques to create such an orchestral nature, as it

106 Holden, 28.

107 Northcote, 47-49.

108 Althouse, 282.

109 Ibid., 229-30.

110 Thym, 183.

111 Brody and Fowkes, 183.

33

“[heightens] the tension and eeriness of the music.”112 Holden further explains that

Loewe was also “expanding harmonies such as diminished seventh chords, creative pedal points, and other chromatic effects.”113 Some consider Loewe’s harmonic movement to be too slow and too predictable to be satisfying.114 However, as Althouse writes, “The central aim of the ballads is to present a narrative incident, and for this reason they made different requirements with respect to both harmony and melody than do lieder.”115

D. Motives

Another aspect of mature romanticism found in Loewe’s music is his utilization of motives that represent emotional or physical reactions to the dramatic situation.

Loewe’s motives are instrumental in character, much like Wagner’s,116 and thus they commanded Wagner’s attention.117 Wagner later would advance the concept through use of his Leitmotif, a short recurring musical phrase or theme representing a person, thing, or idea. Wagner uses such motives to interpret the dramatic situation through the orchestra;

Loewe similarly uses such motives in his piano accompaniments. Given that he was seventeen years older than Wagner, it is possible to conclude that Loewe’s motives are

112 Holden, 29.

113 Ibid.

114 Althouse, 232.

115 Ibid., 233.

116 Ibid., 230.

117 Kimball, 48-49.

34 more pictorial and less sophisticated,118 but nonetheless, he was among the early nineteenth-century pioneers in using motives and developing them as part of a musical and dramatic progression.119

Loewe’s ballads often contain motives appropriate to a certain aspect of the story.

According to Althouse, the motives generally are not sung, but function as a sort of backdrop for the dramatic action.120 Such motives in the piano may resemble things such as blowing wind, rushing water, a galloping horse, a crack of thunder, a drawing of a sword, etc. While Schubert, whom Loewe did not come to know, also carries out such actions in his accompaniments, they are primarily of ongoing actions that paint the overall setting of a lied, whereas Loewe creates isolated motives to bring out specific actions and to convey moods or emotions.121 Usually a song contains several motives appropriate to a different aspect of the poem. The motives in the accompaniment also can establish unity within a piece.122

E. Forms

Loewe from an early age was against the repetitive nature of eighteenth-century musical traditions. He exhibited a belief that repetition of text is not an attribute he wanted to afford his music. For example, he was to compose a concert aria for the

118 Althouse, 283.

119 Holden, 33.

120 Althouse, 231.

121 Ibid., 230.

122 Sheranian, 51.

35 commencement of his studies with Türk. A friend selected text titled, “Didone abandonata.” The text had only four lines:

Der Troer hat mein Herz bezwungen, Erloschen ist des Gatten Bild, Tief ist der Pfeil ins Herz gedrungen, Die Liebesflamme lodert wild!

[The Trojan has conquered my heart, Extinguished is my husband’s image, The arrow has penetrated deep into my heart, The flame of love burns wildly!]

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and other predecessors of Loewe composed a number of such concert arias with only a few lines of text, which are ornately repeated multiple times in a sonata-form fashion. The piece Loewe derived from the above text ended up possessing much ecstasy but was quite short, as it had absolutely no repetition of text or music. Loewe explained, “It did not seem natural to me that a despairing woman who is at the point of throwing herself into the flames should repeat her words.”123

Most of the poetry from the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century is arranged in strophes, and most of Loewe’s chosen poems contained more than two strophes. Loewe’s ballads are composed in a manner that maintains a strophic organization, but unlike his predecessors, Loewe modifies strophes with contrasting material appropriate to the dramatic situation.124 As Loewe was attentive to the subtleties

123 Bach, 55-56.

124 Thym, 182.

36 of the text,125 he would write melodic and harmonic variations to maintain interest and escalate the drama, no two stanzas are exactly alike in most of his ballads.126 Moreover,

Loewe often gives different material to different characters to bring about further strophic variations.127 Loewe also achieves variety by using alternating and irregular meters and irregular phrase lengths, which underline the folksy nature of many of his ballads.128

Musically fulfilling all the psychological changes in the narrative, Loewe’s form is, according to Northcote, “adroitly fashioned out of the inevitable sequence of dramatic events.”129 Northcote adds that “Loewe’s musical form is very obvious, it is true, and the music is sometimes quite commonplace. But the formal definiteness has its advantages, and the ‘musical actor’ can lend it a certain degree of vividness.”130

Another key Romantic method used by Loewe that enables his strophic forms to be successful is refraining from composing authentic cadences at the ends of phrases or stanzas. In order to keep the listener engaged as well as maintain musical continuity and further propel the drama, Loewe often ends phrases with half cadences and deceptively begins new material in contrasting tonal areas to further the dramatic intensity. Loewe

125 David Michael Gross, “Song composer and critic: A comparative study of selected songs by Robert Schumann and by composers he reviewed in the ‘Neue Zeitschrift fuer Musik’” [New Journal for Music] (DMA Diss., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2001), 60.

126 Althouse, 225.

127 Ibid., 227-28.

128 Brody and Fowkes, 183.

129 Northcote, 47.

130 Ibid., 65.

37 also at times engages in what would later be commonly known as progressive tonality, which is the later Romantic practice of beginning in one key and ending in another.

Some of Loewe’s ballads turn to the mood of their openings to musically show life going along as before, creating a variation on Sonata or ABA form. Heinrich der

Vogler [Henry the Bird-Catcher], Op. 56, No. 1 (1836), is an example where the beginning musical material is recapitulated at the end after the dramatic climax to musically represent life going on as usual. Loewe’s ballads that are more horrific do not recapitulate the beginning material, as seen in Edward and Erlkönig. Althouse explains:

Certainly, the horror ballads do not return to the mood of their openings because the severity of the course of events makes such a return virtually impossible. Musical form in these cases tends to be progressive, without any backward glances, i.e., ABCD.... Within each section there may be several strophes set to the same music, but whole musical sections, once abandoned, tend not to return. That which results is often called cantata form. Loewe uses cantata form in many of the larger ballads.131

131 Althouse, 227.

38

CHAPTER 4: LOEWE AND CYCLES

A. Brief History of Song Cycles before Loewe

A cycle is a series of musical items composed to be performed as a group that are sometimes linked by theme, drama, or music. Composed in 1816, Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte [To the Distant Beloved], Op. 98, is often considered the very first song cycle, but at best, it was only the first group of songs to be described as a Liederkreis

[song circle] in publication.132 An die Ferne Geliebte consists of six songs set to poems by Aloys Jeitteles (1794-1858) published in a local newspaper. Each song is linked musically with transitional material, and in a sonata form fashion, there is a recapitulation of the opening song followed by new exclamatory music to conclude the cycle.

However, there were other varying concepts of song groupings that preceded An die ferne Geliebte and could be considered a “song cycle” today. In an effort to create an alternative to the French and Italian opera dominating the German stages, Friedrich

Reichardt, for example, created Liederspielen [song plays], small plays that included multiple folk-like songs that could be performed in a small public theater or in the house.

Lieb’ und Treu [Love and Truth] is Reichardt’s earliest known Liederspiel [song play] and was first performed in Berlin in 1800.133

Liederroman [song novel] was another term used in the early nineteenth century to describe songs grouped together in a narrative nature. One such example is Alexia und

Ida, ein Schäferroman [Alexia and Ida, a Pastoral Novel] (1813) by Friedrich Heinrich

132 Barbara Turchin, “Robert Schumann’s Song Cycles in the Context of the Early Nineteenth- Century ‘Liederkreis,’” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1981), 11.

133 Ibid, 13-14. 39

Hummel (1765-1814), a musical setting of pastoral poetry by Christoph August Tiedge

(1752-1841).134 Critical issues raised by this work revolved around it not forming into a musical whole and lacking variety among the forty-five songs in its musical and poetic material. Critics were more apt to prefer compositions that were shorter in length and possessed more variety in terms of the poetry and music.135 Though the circumstances surrounding Beethoven’s composition of An die ferne Geliebte are obscure, Beethoven nonetheless realizes more of what these critics desired, setting it apart from preceding works in the song cycle tradition.136

The two well-known song cycles after An die ferne Geliebte are Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin [The Beautiful Miller Maid] (1823) and Winterreise [Winter Travel]

(1827). Consisting of 20 and 24 songs, respectfully, they are considered the first great

German song cycles of remarkable character and quality.137 Like Beethoven’s cycle, each song in Schubert’s cycle forms an essential part of the whole work,138 but unlike

Beethoven’s cycle, each song in Schubert’s cycles can be extracted and performed individually. Schubert published the songs of his cycles in small groupings, thus he likely conceived that the cyclical songs could be performed individually or as a whole unit—the

134 Ibid., 19.

135 Ibid., 25.

136 Ibid., 51-52.

137 Kimball, 52.

138 Ibid., 63.

40 first documented complete performance of Die schöne Müllerin in 1856 was considered a new and “experimental concept.”139

However, there were other cyclical conceptions well before Schubert’s cycles. In particular were Wanderlieder [Hiking Songs] (1817) and Frühlingslieder [Spring Songs]

(1820) by Conradin Kreutzer (1780-1849); both are settings of poetry by Ludwig Uhland

(1787-1862) and had an impact in the musical and literary circles at that time.140 Though composed only four years after An die ferne Geliebte, Kreutzer’s Wanderlieder, like the

Schubert cycles that came later, has little in common: it has no piano transitions between songs, there is no structural return to previous material, and it is “tonally open” in that it does not end in the same key.141

A sort of evolution of German song cycles could be deciphered through the above works by Reichardt, Hummel, Beethoven, Kreutzer, and Schubert. However, the mounting market for Lieder in the nineteenth century resulted in many composers trying to distinguish themselves with fancier titles for their publications of songs using such terms as Liederzyklus [song cycle], Liederkreis [song circle], Blumenkranz [flower wreath],142 Liederroman [song novel], Liederreihe [song series], Liedergabe [Song

139 John Daverio, “The Song Cycle,” in German Lieder in the Nineteenth Century, ed. Rufus Hallmark (Routledge: New York, 2010), 364.

140 Turchin, 68-69.

141 Barbara Turchin, “The Nineteenth-Century Wanderlieder Cycle,” Journal of Musicology 5 (1987): 503-04.

142 Ruth O. Bingham, “The Early Nineteenth-Century Song Cycle,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Lied, ed. James Parsons (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 101.

41 giving], and Liederstrauss [song bouquet].143 There was no universally defined cyclical genre or accepted definitions to the above terms in the early nineteenth century; composers thus employed such terms liberally to describe any grouping of songs. Carl

Loewe proved to be no exception in this regard, as Althouse writes, “Loewe frequently refers to any set of ballads as ‘Cyclus.’”144 This is not just in regards to multiple songs composed to form a whole work, but Loewe also uses the word to describe a performance program of any sequence of any of his ballads. Given that Loewe did not hear much of the contemporary Viennese lieder, and thus the preceding song cycles, he likely did not follow any earlier model when he composed his cyclical works in the 1830s.

B. Loewe's “Cycles”

There are six groupings of songs by Loewe that are labeled as “cycles” in either the Verzeichniss, the record of the composer’s works, or in various secondary sources:

Bilder des Orients [Pictures of the Orient], Op. 10 (1833); Gregor auf dem Stein

[Gregory on the Rock], Op. 38 (1834); Der Bergmann [The Miner], Op. 39 (1834);

Esther, Op. 52 (1835); Frauenliebe [Womens’ Love], Op. 60 (1837); and Kaiser Karl V

[Emperor Charles V], Op. 99 (1845).145 Bilder des Orients as it is listed in the

Verzeichniss is divided into an “Erster Kranze” [First Wreath] and a “Zweiter Kranze”

143 Daverio, “The Song Cycle,” 364.

144 Althouse, 67.

145 Franz Espagne, “Verzeichniss sämmtlicher Werke Carl Loewes,” [Directory of all the Works of Carl Loewe] in Carl Loewes Selbstbiographie [Carl Loewe’s Autobiography], ed. Carl Hermann Bitter (Hildesheim, Germany: Georg Olms Verlag, 1976), 11.

42

[Second Wreath]. The first “wreath” is labeled “Wanderbilder” [Hiking Pictures] and the second is labeled “Bilder der Heimath” [Pictures of the Home]—Further evaluation of each group shows that they are merely similarly-themed songs without any dramatic progression. Frauenliebe [Women’s Love], a setting of some of the same Chamisso poems as set by Schumann in 1840, is defined as a “Liederkranz” [Song-Wreath].146 The last piece, Kaiser Karl V., is labeled as “Vier historischen Balladen” [Four Historical

Ballads]; it consists of four ballads on Emperor Charles V. using texts of three different poets to highlight key parts of his reign.

The remaining three cyclical works were all published in 1836, and all are comprised of multiple ballads based on a single story line and all are closely related musically to form a unifying whole. Gregor auf dem Stein is Loewe’s first such cyclical work. While other secondary sources call it a cycle, the Verzeichniss says: “Gregor auf dem Stein. Legende in 5 Abtheilungen, von Fr. Kugler” [Legend in Five Parts by Franz

Kugler].”147 The subsequently published work, Der Bergmann, however is defined as

“Ein Liederkreis in Balladenform in 5 Abth v. L. Giesebrecht” [A Song Cycle in Ballad-

Form in Five Parts by Ludwig Giesebrecht].148 Likewise, Esther is labeled “Ein

Liederkreis in Balladenform in 5 Abtheilungen, ged. Ludwig Giesebrecht” [A Song

Cycle in Ballad-Form in Five Parts, poetry by Ludwig Giesebrecht].149 All three of these

146 Espagne, 11.

147 Ibid.

148 Ibid.

149 Ibid.

43 works were published in 1836. Though only the latter two works are labeled as

“Liederkreis,” all three have “breaks marked by unambiguous cadences between songs,”

“harmonic connections,” and “recurring motives.”150 The word “kreis” or “cycle” is not utilized elsewhere in Loewe’s opuses, and perhaps Loewe decided to use the term “cycle” only after composing Gregor auf dem Stein.

Many of the secondary sources nonetheless refer to Gregor auf dem Stein as a

“cycle,” and the work out of all Loewe’s cyclical pieces best fits into the one of the varying conventional definitions of a cycle as it consists of five musically connected ballads, each representing a subsequent scene of Kugler’s drama. Like the songs in

Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte and Schumann’s Dichterliebe, each ballad in Gregor auf dem Stein musically sets up the next ballad. A review by Oswald Lorenz written for the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik [New Journal of Music]151 in 1837 describes the ballads of

Gregor auf dem Stein as all being in related keys and thus forming “a musical whole.”152

The two subsequent cyclical works, Der Bergmann and Esther, for which Ludwig

Giesebrecht (1792-1873) was the poet of both, each consist of five poems written mainly in the first person, but form only a loosely connected story in ballad fashion.153

150 Bingham, 118.

151 Oswald Lorenz, Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 6 (1837): 141

152 Turchin, “Robert Schumann’s Song Cycles in the Context of the Early Nineteenth-Century ‘Liederkreis,’” 213.

153 Althouse, 120.

44

CHAPTER 5: THE TEXT OF GREGOR AUF DEM STEIN

A. Gesta Romanorum and the Legend of Pope Gregory

“Of the Wonderful Dispensations of Providence, And of the Rise of Pope

Gregory”154 is the title of the eighty-first tale in Gesta Romanorum [Deeds of the

Romans]. Gesta Romanorum was an enormously popular book of many tales from classical, oriental, and unknown sources compiled around the year 1300. Exact details of its original authorship are not definitive; three differing versions based on different sets of manuscripts were first published in the 1470s followed by numerous differing reprints.155 Each tale in the book is followed by an allegoric moralization of the tale and its theological application. It was compiled to help preachers, who would use them to add force and interest to their sermons.156 The title page of the version translated into English by Charles Swan includes this statement below the title:

Invented by the Monks as a fireside recreation, and commonly applied in their discourses from the pulpit: whence the most celebrated of our own poets and others, from the earliest times, have extracted their plots.157

Originally written sometime in the eleventh century,158 the legend of Pope

Gregory is fictitious and unrelated to any actual pope; it resembles, from Greek literature,

154 Charles Swan, tr. and Wynnard Hooper, ed., Gesta Romanorum: or Entertaining Moral Stories (New York: Dover Publications, 1959), 141.

155 Edwin Burton, “Gesta Romanorum” in The Catholic Encyclopedia 6, http://www.newadvent .org/ cathen/06539b.htm (accessed October 25, 2011).

156 Ella Bourne. “Classical Elements in the Gesta Romanorum,” in Vassar Mediaeval Studies. Ed. by Christabel Forsythe Fiske, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1923), 345.

157 Swan and Hooper, 1.

45 the Oedipus-Jocasta story in the beginning, and the story of Prometheus in the end.159

Medieval German poet Hartmann von Aue (born 1160-70, died 1210-20) composed a famous verse on the legend, followed by other versions thereafter leading up to Kugler’s adaptation. The legend commences with Emperor Marcus, who fathered only one son and one daughter, dying from sickness. Just before his death, Marcus told his son, “All my concern resides in an only daughter, whom I have not yet bestowed in marriage.

Therefore, do thou, my son and heir, upon my blessing, provide for her an honourable and befitting husband; and as long as thou livest, value her as thine own self.”160 His son began his reign and strictly fulfilled his father’s wishes, “He seated her in the same chair with him at table, and assigned to her a separate couch in the same apartment that he occupied himself.” The unhappiness then began, as the son, “tempted by the devil...gave way to the most horrible desires,” and despite the girl’s pleading, “violated every law both human and divine.” He attempted to console her, but bitterly weeping tears of

161 ignominy, she refused all comfort after the incestuous act.

About half a year later, the brother scrutinized his sister’s looks and asked at table, “Why dost thou change color? the upper part of thine eyelids darken?” And she responded, “ No wonder, for I bear the weight of this most fearful wickedness.”162 The

158 Carl Loewe and Maximilian Runze, Gesamtausgabe der Balladen, Legenden, Lieder und Gesänge, für eine Singstimme [Collected Works of Ballads, Legends, Lieder and Songs for Solo Voice] (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1970), XXV.

159 Ibid., 372.

160 Ibid.

161 Ibid., 142.

162 Ibid. 46 emperor wept, and his sister told him “we are not the first who have grievously offended

God,” and suggested he contact the knight most approved by their father to provide counsel on how they “may make atonement to God.” The Knight commanded the emperor to hasten to the Holy Land and told him to charge his kingdom to be obedient to his sister, his only heir. The Knight and his wife, who would take care of her, swore to not reveal to anyone the incestuous situation.163

Upon the birth of the male child, the sister commanded the Knight to prepare an empty cask, and she placed in the cradle small tablets with the following words, “Know ye, to whomsoever chance may conduct this infant, that incestuous affection. For the love of God, then, cause it to be baptized. Under the child’s head, you will discover a quantity of gold, and with this let it be nurtured. At the feet is an equal weight of silver, designed to assist it in the future prosecution of study.”164 The child was then enclosed in silk garments embroidered with gold in the cask, and the Knight was commanded to cast it out to sea under the trust that God would carry it to a place of safety.

Thereafter, a messenger from the king returned from the Holy Land to reveal to the town that the King had died in battle. The sister sorrowfully wept, tore her hair, wounded her face, and shrillfully shouted “Woe is me! May that day perish in which I was conceived! May that night be no more remembered in which so great a wretch was born. How vast is my iniquity! In me all things are fulfilled. My hope is broken, and my strength; he was my only brother—the half of my soul. What I shall do hereafter, alas! I

163 Ibis., 142-43.

164 Ibid., 143.

47 know not.” Thereafter, the Duke of Burgundy sent messengers to demand the lady in marriage; but the Queen declared her fixed determination never to marry. “She who fills the throne shall enjoy little satisfaction,” 165 the Duke said, and he collected his troops and devastated every place in the Kingdom, except for a far castle that the Queen fled to that was safe and well defended, where she continued her reign many years.

Meanwhile, the cask with the boy floated through many countries. About “six monkish holy days from the time of its departure,”166 the cask was noticed by the abbot of a monastery with his fishermen at the seashore. The worthy monk noticed the garments showing that it is of noble blood and he read the writings on the tablets indicating the child’s incestuous conception and that he was not yet baptized. He immediately baptized him and named the child after his own name, Gregory. He entrusted the child to a fisherman, and the boy grew up universally beloved. The abbot provided for his studies in his seventh year, and he mastered his studies, eventually acquired more knowledge than the other monks. When he was a young adult, he learned that the fisherman and his wife were not his parents, and the abbot showed Gregory the tablets. Gregory then told the monks, “I will hasten to Holy Land and do battle for the sins of the unhappy authors of my being; and there I will end my life. I entreat you, therefore, my lord, without delay to make me a knight.”167

165 Ibid.

166 Ibid., 144.

167 Ibid., 146-47.

48

As Gregory and his sailors embarked upon the Holy Land, the wind sent them in a contrary direction, they eventually landed on the coast of the country where his mother’s castle stood. After finding an inn, Gregory inquired what state it was, and his host explained that there used to be a powerful emperor who died in the Holy Land leaving the throne to his sister. He also explained that the Duke of Burgundy would have married her but she was pleased to refuse his offer, and the Duke conquered everything except for a single city where the Queen resides. Gregory obtained permission from the seneschal to fight on behalf of the Queen in exchange for remuneration, and he triumphed in every engagement, eventually beheading the Duke in his own palace.168

After his victories, Gregory returned to the seneschal asking for his hire before he would proceed to another country. Gregory had apparently merited much more than the agreement with the seneschal, who proceeded to the Queen and urged her to take Gregory for a spouse, as he was in every respect suitable and beneficial to the safety of the state.

The Queen, who previously rejected a second marriage, was overcome by the arguments and urgency of the seneschal. When the day came for her answer, she told an assembly of nobles, “Since my lord Gregory has valiantly and effectually liberated both us and our kingdom from the thralldom of oppressive foes, I will receive him for my husband.” The audience rejoiced, celebration for their nuptials was arranged, and they were espoused with approval from the whole country.169

168 Ibid., 148-49.

169 Ibid., 149.

49

Both ignorant of their relationship, Gregory and the Queen loved each other tenderly. One day a handmaid of the Queen wondered if the Queen had offended

Gregory; the handmaid noticed that everyday when the table is set, “[Gregory] enters his private chamber in great apparent pleasure; but when he returns it is with lamentation and wailing.” The Queen upon hearing this thoroughly inspected Gregory’s private chamber and she came across the tablets inscribed with the shame of Gregory’s birth, which he read daily. “How has he obtained this dark testimony of my crime if he not be my son?” she piteously wept. “Woe is me, that I ever saw the light of heaven—would that I had died ere I was born.” Her soldiers overheard her crying, and after she spent considerable time weeping on the floor, finally speaking at length, she told them “If ye desire me to live, hasten immediately for my lord.”170

The King left his hunting chase and returned to the castle in the chamber where the Queen was laying on the floor. The Queen urgently asked Gregory, “Only tell me, from what country you came, and who are your parents; and unless you speak truthfully,

I will never more touch food.” Gregory responded “I was brought up by an abbot from my earliest age; and from him I learned that I was found cradled in a cask.” The Queen then showed him the tablets asking him “Dost thou remember these?” Gregory fell flat to the ground and the Queen cried:

My son! . . . for thou art so my only son, and my husband, and my lord! Thou art the child of my brother and myself. Oh, my son I deposited in the cask with thee these tablets. Woe is me! why, O God, didst thou permit my birth, since that I was born to be guilty of so much wickedness! Would that the eye which looks upon me might reduce me to ashes; would that I had passed from the womb to the

170 Ibid., 150.

50

grave! . . . Oh, thou Almighty Being, behold my son—my husband, and the son of my brother.171

Gregory replied, “I thought . . . to shun this danger, and I have fallen into the snares of the devil. Dismiss me, lady, to bewail my misery: woe! woe! my mother is my mistress— my wife! See how Satan hath encompassed me!”172 The Queen offered her son to govern the kingdom, but Gregory refused, “Do you remain, my mother: you are wanted to rule the realm. I will roam about, until our sins are forgiven.”173

That same night, Gregory broke his lance and dressed up as a pilgrim, wished his mother farewell and, “with naked feet, walked till he reached the uttermost boundaries of the kingdom.”174 He arrived at a city and sought lodging at the house of a fisherman, who noticed Gregory could not be a true pilgrim given his elegant bodily features. Gregory responded, “Well, though I am not a true pilgrim, yet, for the love of God, I beseech you to give me harbourage.”175 Gregory directed his bed be made at the gate, but the fisherman told him, “Pilgrim, if you would become holy, go into some remote place.”

The fisherman sailed with Gregory about sixteen miles to a huge rock with chains that required a key to unlock. The fisherman undid them, threw the keys into the sea, and then

171 Ibid., 151.

172 Ibid.

173 Ibid.

174 Ibid.

175 Ibid.

51 returned home. “With every feeling of the most perfect penitence,” Gregory remained there on the rock for seventeen years.176

Upon the moment the pope died, “a voice from heaven cried out, ‘Search after a man of God, called Gregory, and appoint him my vicar.’” The electors rejoiced and sent messengers around the world. Some of the messengers lodged at the house of the fisherman, telling him at dinner, “We are harassed by journeys through town and country, in pursuit of a holy man, called Gregory, whom, when we find, we are to place in the pontificate.” The fisherman explained that Gregory is likely dead as it had been seventeen years since he left him at sea, but then he happened to gut a fish in which he found the keys he had thrown into the sea. The fisherman took the messengers to the rock early the next morning, and upon finding Gregory, they said “Man of God, go up with us; by the command of the Omnipotent, go up with us: for it is His will that thou shouldst be appointed his Vicar upon earth.” Gregory responded, “God’s will be done.”177

As Gregory approached Rome, bells rang and citizens hastening to meet him said,

“Blessed be the Most High, he cometh who shall be Christ’s vicar.” Pope Gregory conducted himself remarkably and people came from all over the world to seek his counsel and assistance. His mother heard of his renowned sanctity and sought help from the holy man not knowing it was her son. She hastened to Rome and confessed to the pope. After the confession, the Pope Gregory recollected his unhappy mother and said,

“Dearest mother, and wife, and mistress, the devil dreamt of bringing us to hell; but, by

176 Ibid., 152.

177 Ibid., 152-53

52 the Grace of God, we have evaded his toils.” She fell at his feet and wept tears of joy before the pope raised her up and embraced her. He then founded a monastery over which he made her abbess, and thereafter both yielded up their souls to God.178

B. Franz Kugler and his Adaptation

German Poet Franz Kugler (1800-1858) was an historian of art culture, an author of two large-scale works on general history, a novelist, a poet, and a composer, according to an extensive article about him in the German publication Historische Zeitschrifte

[Historical Journal].179 He was born and raised in the town of Stettin, where Loewe resided for much of his life, though Kugler spent much of his adult life in Berlin a professor of art history at the Akademie der Künst [Academy of Art] and the University of Berlin.180

Kugler was friends with Loewe, 181 who composed music to ten of Kugler’s texts.182 Loewe approached his choices in poetry much the same as Schubert, in that both

178 Ibid,. 153.

179 Wilhelm Treue, “Franz Theodor Kugler: Kulturhistoriker und Kulturpolitiker” [Franz Theodor Kugler: Cultural Historians and Political Culture], Historische Zeitschrift [Historical Journal] 175, No. 3 (1953): 483.

180 Lee Sorensen, “Kugler, Franz.” Dictionary of Art Historians. http://www.dictionaryofart historians.org/kuglerf.htm (accessed October 6, 2011).

181 Ludwig Finscher, “Balladen- und Lied-Opera, Balladen- und Liedzyklen” [Ballads and Song- Operas, Ballads and Song Cycles], in Carl Loewe 1796-1869: Bericht über die wissenschaftliche Konferenz anlässlich seines 200. Geburtstages vom 26. Bis 28. Sepember 1996 im Händel-Haus Halle [Carl Loewe 1796-1869: Report from the Scholarly Conference on the Occasion of his 200th Birthday from the 26th through the 28th of September, 1996 in the Handel House of Halle], ed. Konstanze Musketa and Götz Traxdorf (Halle: Händel-Haus, 1997), 362.

182 Althouse, 288.

53 composed songs set to new or recent poetry, much of which was written by friends and or acquaintances.183 Many of Loewe’s songs and ballads moreover were composed very shortly after the publication of the text, suggesting that he was always looking for new poetry and composed whatever happened to come his way.184 According to the

Verzeichniss, the settings of texts by Kugler include: Der Jungfrau und der Tod [The

Young Woman and Death], Op. 9 (1827), which is labeled as “Scene eines Todentanzes”

[Scene of a dance of death];185 “Die Waldelfen” [The Wood Elves] from Stimmen der

Elfen [Voices of the Elves], Op. 31 (1833); “Jungfrau Lorenz” [The Virgin Lorenz], from

Op. 33 (1834); 186 the five ballads of Gregor auf dem Stein, Op. 38 (1834); and “Der

Frühlingsverein” [The Spring Association], the third of a group of six songs titled

Vierstimmige Gesänge für S. A. T. u. B. [Four-Part Songs for Soprano, Alto, Tenor and

Bass] composed by Loewe’s wife and published as Opus 79 (1841).187 Franz Kugler published the text to Gregor auf dem Stein in 1832, and Loewe likely composed the piece less than two years later in 1834.188

183 Ibid., 122.

184 Ibid., 116.

185 Espagne, 6.

186 Ibid., 10.

187 Ibid., 16.

188 The Verzeichnis has an asterisk in lieu of a given year of composition, with “fehlt in Loewe’s Aufzeichnung” [missing from Loewe’s records] justifying the asterisk. However, Opuses 33 through 40 were all composed in 1834, giving credence to the likelihood that Opus 38 was also composed that same year. Espagne, 6.

54

Medieval German poet Hartmann von Aue (born 1160-70, died 1210-20) composed a famous German verse on the Gregorius legend, from which Kugler created his text.189 In order to adapt the legend to fit into five sequential narrative ballads, Kugler naturally leaves out or alters certain details of the story. Anne Henry Ehrenpreis writes,

“A large proportion of popular ballads tell their stories almost entirely through question and answer. Information about events is limited to what we are told by the participants.

Because the story is stripped of irrelevancies, the result can be highly dramatic.”190

Kugler’s adaptation follows this tradition, as most of the text throughout the cycle is dialogue between the Queen and Gregory; the rest is the narrator, mainly narrating key parts of the story that cannot be demonstrated through dialogue by the characters. The

Queen and Gregory as a result show heightened degrees of their varying emotional states throughout the ballad cycle that often contrast to what is portrayed in a thorough reading of the legend. Kugler’s adaptation, moreover, begins more than halfway through the legend, leaving any of the earlier details to be revealed through the characters’ dialogue throughout the cycle.

The first ballad in the cycle, also the shortest as it merely serves as a prelude to the drama that will later unfold, is about Queen’s announcement that she is looking for a husband to be King to protect the land from invasion. Her dialogue describes her brother’s passing in the crusades twenty years earlier and the triumphs of the heathen prince, the Duke of Burgundy she refused to marry, that have devastated her kingdom. In the end of the five-stanza ballad, she declares that she will give herself and her royal

189 Loewe and Runze, XXV.

190 Ehrenpreis, 11. 55 throne as the reward to whomever defeats the Duke. This is in contrast to the legend itself, in which the seneschal, or the steward of the Queen, strongly urges her to marry

Gregory after he surprisingly defeated the enemies.

The legend only briefly discusses the marriage ceremony to come thereafter, but the second ballad text by Kugler describes the kingdom’s victorious celebration in the first three stanzas followed by six stanzas devoted to a private conversation between the

Queen and Gregory in the garden. In this dialogue, Kugler presents a Queen full of happiness that her enemy was conquered and that she is getting married. Kugler presents

Gregory as an emotionally unstable and cautious person. The Queen asks Gregory why he is short of words, he responds by saying thought he heard a cry of woe; the Queen says it is only the nightingale. The Queen then asks Gregory why he slowed his walking pace, and Gregory says he thought he saw a third person walking nearby in pilgrim’s clothes; the Queen then responds that the moon simply fooled him. The ballad then concludes with Gregory telling the Queen his heart has been hers since they first met, and the Queen responds by saying, “Come on my hero! Let the priest announce our hearts’ bond!”191

The third ballad in the cycle is an even more extensive dialogue between Gregory and the Queen in which Gregory’s anxiety continually increases in contrast to the

Queen’s calmer, more spiritually grounded persona. It is through this dialogue that the background details of the legend are mentioned, such as Gregory’s upbringing, his incestuous birth, and ultimately the shocking revelation that he is the Queen’s son.

191 Carl Loewe, Lieder & Balladen Vol. 12 (Georgsmarienhütte: CPO, 1999). Translations specific to the text of Gregor auf dem Stein throughout this document are based on the translations provided on pages 25-30 of this album’s liner notes. 56

Kugler sets up the scene by giving the narrator the first stanza, which talks of them sitting in the high hall, and the Queen looking rich in charm and grace while Gregory is gloomy and pale. This setting is unlike the legend, where the Queen on her own account enters

Gregory’s chamber and discovers the tablets and the parchment, faints in that very room, hastens Gregory to return to the castle, and she asks him questions about his past vowing that she might die if he does not tell the truth. Kugler’s adaptation presents Gregory as a depressed and anxious individual who eventually reveals the shocking truth more on his own accord.

Once the wicked revelations are made, Kugler ends the dialogue by having the

Queen say, “Cursed be the hour I bore you. Cursed are you king. Cursed is your wife who bore you in her womb!” The narrator then mentions that the Queen faints away and

Gregory silently leaves through the castle gate. This ending of the third ballad gives the impression that the Queen after screaming out her curses simply faints away in utter despair and Gregory swiftly and quietly departs the castle. However, in the Gesta

Romanorum legend, the Queen does not actually say these words at this point; there is additional discussion and actions between the characters regarding the subsequent events:

“…I have fallen into the snares of the devil. Dismiss me, lady, to bewail my misery: woe! woe! my mother is my mistress—my wife! See how Satan hath encompassed me!” When the mother perceived the agony of her child, she said, “Dear Son, for the residue of my life, I will expiate our crimes by hardships and wanderings. Thou shalt govern the kingdom” “Not so,” returned he; “do you remain, my mother : you are wanted to rule the realm. I will roam about, until our sins are forgiven.”192

192 Swan and Hooper, 151.

57

The above negotiation in the story possesses less dramatic intensity by itself in comparison to more dramatically efficient presentation by Kugler. It is subsequently followed by details about night breaking and Gregory rising to break his lance, dress up as a pilgrim, bid his mother farewell, and walk until he reaches the furthest boundaries of the Kingdom with naked feet.193

Skipping everything in the tale about the pilgrimage and the fisherman taking him out to sea, the fourth ballad begins with Gregory on the rocky island at sea amidst a severe storm and high waves. There is no detail given in the legend as to how Gregory specifically spent his seventeen years on the rock, but the narrator begins by describing the conditions of Gregory dressed in only his hair, having the rock as his bed and the clouds as his roof. Then Kugler includes Gregory praying to God, e.g. “Lord of grace and mercy, wash away our guilt.”

Presuming that Gregory has already been rescued and taken to Rome, the fifth and final ballad illuminates the festivities in Rome of Gregory being elected Pope. Kugler’s text does not reveal specifics of the Queen’s travels to Rome, nor does it clarify that she was unaware of the pope being her son. Kugler’s text simply makes mention of her arriving to Rome and stepping into the confessional with Gregory listening and then reacting joyfully. Leaving out the details of the mother’s reaction and Gregory making her abbess of a monastery, Kugler concludes the cycle on a spiritually uplifting note by ending with Pope Gregory’s words to his mother: “Durch meines heil’gen Amtes Kraft lös ich dich aus der Sünden Haft. Du lässest Deinen Diener nun, o Herr der Huld, in

193 Ibid. 58

Frieden ruhn!” [By the power of my holy office, I release you from sin’s arrest! Let Your servant, o Lord of grace, rest in peace!].194

C. Theological Aspects

A section of theological “Application” follows the legend in Gesta Romanorum, as translated by Charles Swan:

My beloved, the emperor is Christ, who gave His daughter, that is, the human soul, to the charge of the brother, that is the flesh. They lay in one chamber, that is, in one heart, or in one mind. The son born of these is all mankind. The cask is the Holy Spirit, which floats upon the sea of the world. The Duke of Burgundy is the devil, who invades the soul, exposed by sin, and conquers it; until the Son, that is Christ, who is God and man, enfranchises it, and marries the mother, that is the soul. The tablets are the Ten Commandments. The abbot is God, who saved us by His only-begotten Son. The fisherman-nurse is any prelate; the ship St. Gregory afterwards embarks in is the Church. The seneschal is a confessor. The broken lance is to put away or destroy an evil life. The rock is penitence.195

A deeper understanding of the legend of Gregorius as well as some of its theological aspects beyond knowing the translation of Kugler’s text allows for a greater development of the characters and a more grounded interpretation of Gregor auf dem

Stein. For example, the mother provided Gregory with stone tablets containing writing about his noble birth and spiritual advice akin to warning about the seven deadly sins, such as the dangers of “sich überheben” [having pride]. These tablets were sent away with him while he was a newly born child; Gregory was not given these tablets by those who raised him until much older in his life when he was a student in a monastery.

Though he achieved great things as a student, Gregory was jealous of others who were

194 Ibid., 153-54

59 lucky enough to be enjoying the life of chivalry with great honor. When he finally received the tablets from his caretakers and the news they bore of his noble birth, his pride and hope for a better life only enabled his knightly ambitions. Moreover, the mother’s warning only served to make his worldly desires stronger because he already rendered himself guilty.196 As Kugler’s text does not present this information, by studying the legend, we learn that Gregory’s failure to heed her advice and his committing of the last of the seven deadly sins, pride, gives the Queen one more layer of motivation to curse Gregory at the end of their dialogue in the third ballad.

There are additional theological aspects of the legend as well that extend beyond the ostensible sins from their incestuous marriage.197 The breaking of the lance symbolizes the destruction of an evil way of life, in this case Gregorius being a warrior.198 Thus, the character of Gregory changes dramatically as he humbly decides to seek a form of ultimate penitence for existing because of sin and then engaging in sin himself. His penitence of being chained on the rock at sea, as portrayed in the fourth ballad, has parallels to the crucifixion of Christ. Gregory in the ballad pleads with God, to whom he credits for keeping him alive year after year, to take him into his gracious embrace in order to wash away everyone’s sins.

196 David Duckworth, Gregorius: A Medieval Man’s Discovery of His True Self, (Stuttgart: Kümmerle Verlag, 1985), 149-50.

197 Murdoch, 66.

198 Duckworth, 154.

60

CHAPTER 6: THE MUSIC OF GREGOR AUF DEM STEIN

A. I. “Herolde ritten von Ort zu Ort” [Heralds ride from place to place]

The first ballad is the shortest of the five, serving mainly an introductory purpose to set up the dramatic progression of the cycle. Given that the ballad is tonally closed in

B-flat major, as well as Loewe’s use of standard classical phrase structures, this ballad seems less innovative than his other works and later parts of the cycle. However, the key of B-flat major is mainly reserved for the piano’s prelude, interlude, and postlude, as well as only when the narrator speaks. Most of the ballad consists of the Queen speaking; the tonality of her monologue begins in C minor and modulates in fifths until an A major cadence, as shown in m. 20 in musical example 1. Loewe uses a deceptive V-VI progression to score the narrator’s “So spricht die Königen” [So speaks the Queen] interjection in m. 21 (musical example 1) in the tonic area of B-flat major. Loewe is thus engaging in the later Romantic practice of unexpectedly shifting into different key areas and having juxtaposing phrases in different keys. Moreover, Loewe maintains musical and dramatic continuity by resisting clear authentic dominant-to-tonic cadences when it would be appropriate in the classical style.

61

MUSICAL EXAMPLE 1: Measures 19-22 of “Herolde ritten von Ort zu Ort”199

The final stanza of the Queen speaking begins as a variant from the previous two and includes an injected interlude reprising the introduction. After the interlude, Loewe at last sets the Queen’s words in the tonic of B-flat major. Loewe is musically giving her character a sense of firm sincerity behind her commitment to marry whoever defeated the enemy. The final phrase of the ballad, “mich selbts und meinen Königsthron” [I will give myself and my royal throne], is set to a melismatic scale from F3 to G4,200 the highest point in the ballad in mm. 47-48 (musical example 2). This motive is also reprised at the end of the second ballad in mm. 119-120 to the words, “Du sollst ja nun mein Königs

199 Carl Loewe and Maximilian Runze, Gesamtausgabe der Balladen, Legenden, Lieder und Gesänge, für eine Singstimme [Collected Works of Ballads, Legends, Lieder and Songs for Solo Voice] (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1970), xiii: 116.

200 Note names from the vocal line are identified according to the baritone voice. 62 sein” [You shall now be my king]. Thus in a motivic fashion, Loewe is musically portraying the Queen as staying true to her word of vowing marry whoever is the victor.

MUSICAL EXAMPLE 2: Measures 41-48201

B. II. “Im Schloss, da brennen der Kerzen viel” [In the castle, many candles are burning]

Following the first ballad in B-flat major, the second ballad is in its subdominant key area of E-flat major in a contrasting allegro maestoso tempo. With melodic turns, broken octaves, and scales, the piano accompaniment (musical example 3) has characteristics of a Beethoven piano sonata, many of which Loewe played in his youth when he was “haphazardly” teaching himself how to play—because Türk thought he

201 Loewe and Runze, 117.

63 could better learn to play on his own.202 In a “French Overture” style, Loewe employs dotted rhythms to exemplify the royal celebrations taking place. While composing again in standard four-bar phrases, Loewe concludes the initial phrase not on the dominant or tonic, but the subdominant A-flat, as seen in mm. 4 and 12 (musical example 3).

Musically maintaining the dramatic continuity, Loewe in this ballad does not have any vocal lines end as part of an authentic cadence in the tonic of E-flat major until the end.

MUSICAL EXAMPLE 3: Measures 1-12 of “Im Schloss, da brennen der Kerzen viel”203

202 Althouse, 238.

203 Loewe and Runze, 118.

64

Musical example 4 shows the piano alone concluding the first major section of the ballad in the tonic of E-flat major in m. 28. Beginning in m. 29 is a contrasting legato section in A-flat major to illuminate the garden scene where Gregory and the Queen are meeting in private. Syncopated octave chord-roots in left hand in mm. 29-32 give a processional feel to the scene stylistically similar to a slow section in a Beethoven piano sonata. Measure 33 is example of where Loewe breaks the accompanimental pattern and changes the harmonic progression, preventing a literal repetition of m. 29.

MUSICAL EXAMPLE 4: Measures 27-33204

Thereafter, Loewe composes another contrasting section with a lyrical melismatic melody to narrate the sweet, warm spring air, and the fragrance of the linden blossom. It is material that Loewe reuses three more times for much of the Queen’s dialogue. First, as shown in musical example 5 in mm. 55-59, to extol her happiness with her hero in what is the first line of dialogue for either character in the ballad. Gregory responds in mm. 60-64 (musical example 5) by telling her she is the victor’s victor. Loewe sets

Gregory’s dialogue here to a recapitulation of the beginning. By setting his text to a

204 Ibid., 119.

65 harmonic progression ending in the subdominant key area, Loewe is musically depicting an unconfident Gregory, at an event that seems to be igniting personal insecurities rooted in his incestuous birth.

MUSICAL EXAMPLE 5: Measures 55-73205

205 Ibid., 120-21.

66

MUSICAL EXAMPLE 5 – Continued

Following their initial dialogue is another interlude that begins as a refrain of the earlier interludes, but Loewe in mm. 67-72 shifts into new material in A-flat minor

(figure 5). In another later aspect of Romanticism, Loewe is using the accompanimental material to comment on the dramatic situation. In the only scholarly publication with some analysis of Gregor auf dem Stein, Jürgen Thym explains the motive: “The descending lower-sixth neighbor-note figure . . . is an ominous symbol for the imaginary presence of a third person, namely Gregory’s father, in the otherwise happy courtship processional.”206 Loewe regularly uses the piano accompaniment to represent additional characters in many of his ballads. While there is no tangible evidence that this instance is specifically symbolic of Gregory’s father; the text by Kugler includes Gregory saying,

“Mich dünkt, o süsses Weib, es schritt unfern uns Zweien ein Dritter mit. Mich dünkt er trug, ein Pilger gewand. Er streckte dräuend empor seine Hand.” [I thought there was a third person with us wearing pilgrims-garb, and he threateningly stretched up his hand.]

After his death in the crusades, Gregory’s father no longer holds any tangible presence in the legend itself, but given that the first crusaders in 1096 embarked on the Holy City dressed in pilgrim’s garb, Kugler’s text presents an allusion to him or his ghost. As a

206 Thym, 186. 67 result, Loewe’s musical characterization as shown in musical example 6, with sparse texture in the accompaniment, presents Gregory as someone ridden with anxiety. After each of his fearful qualms, the Queen simply responds that he hears the nightingale or sees the moon using the same lyrical melody (from musical example 5) beginning in m.85. Thus, Loewe is musically contrasting her with the emotionally unstable Gregory by showing she is stable and steadfast.

MUSICAL EXAMPLE 6: Measures 77-85207

207 Loewe and Runze, 120-21.

68

The second ballad ends with Gregory recapitulating its original melody once again to reaffirm his love for the Queen, followed by the long-awaited perfect authentic cadence in E-flat major set to the Queen saying, “Let’s make known to the priest our hearts’ bond!” A postlude prolonging the tonic area of E-flat major using the earlier piano material plays out, but in m. 132 (musical example 7), Loewe in the right hand adds in a neighboring diminished chord of A-flat, C-flat and D-natural on beats two and four above the final sustained E-flat octaves in the left hand. The neighboring lowered sixth note of

C-flat is particularly interesting in this post-cadential sequence. It amounts to a subtle musical commentary on the dramatic situation; Hugo Wolf similarly does this in many of his postludes, albeit with a greater variety of textures and colors. “Geselle, woll’n wir uns in Kutten hüllen?” [Friends, shall we wrap ourselves in frocks?] and “Und willst du deinen Liebsten sterben sehen” [And if you want to see your lover die], songs 14 and 17 from Wolf’s Italienisches Liederbuch [Italian Song Book], are two examples with such postludes also employing such a prevalent lowered-sixth scale degree above a prolongation of the tonic key after the last major cadence. With this mechanism, Loewe and Wolf seem to be harmonically insinuating that something dramatic is happening or about to happen; moreover, it effectively maintains the engagement of the listener going into the next piece.

69

MUSICAL EXAMPLE 7: Measures 131-133208

C. III. “Der junge König und sein Gemahl” [The young king and his wife]

The third ballad is the longest and most dramatic in the cycle. An extensive dialogue between Gregory and the Queen, it develops in intensity throughout, culminating with the shock of Gregory revealing his incestuous birth followed by the

Queen disclosing that she is his mother. The ballad begins with an allegro moderato e maestoso tempo with the narrator singing in C minor (musical example 8). Loewe initially scores the piano with forte C minor chords on the downbeats of mm. 1 and 2, followed by softer first-inversion dominant-seventh chords to illustrate a stormy night.

MUSICAL EXAMPLE 8: Measures 1-4 of “Der junge König und sein Gemahl”209

208 Ibid., 123.

209 Ibid., 124.

70

In contrast to the other ballads in the cycle, and most vocal works in the early nineteenth century, Loewe begins with the voice alone on the common tone of G from the previous key of E-flat major. The declamatory vocal line in this example sets a serious tone for the ballad by repeating G3 to a rhythm written to fit the natural flow of German speech; the stressed syllables are given longer duration and occur on the strong beats.

Though declamation by itself was not new in Loewe’s age, Loewe employed it more freely, such as at the beginning of a piece as in musical example 8. Many of Loewe’s contemporaries and predecessors were known first and foremost for composing to lyrical and formal principles; the declamatory style later became a trademark of later composers like Wagner and Wolf. The Phrygian cadence at the end of the phrase in m. 4 is only the first of numerable half cadences that appear regularly throughout the ballad; as do the later Romantic composers, Loewe continues to resist composing apparent V-I cadences to maintain continuity.

Following the Phrygian cadence that Loewe dramatically concludes with a sforzando in m. 4, Loewe contrasts the next phrase (musical example 9) by scoring it piano in E-flat major. Loewe is again unexpectedly shifting into different key areas and having juxtaposing phrases in different keys. The narrator in mm. 5-6 lyrically sings of the Queen being rich in kindness and grace, which Loewe’s music reflects. This is followed in mm. 7-8 by a description of King Gregory looking gloomy and pale, set in C minor and ending with another Phrygian cadence.

71

MUSICAL EXAMPLE 9: Measures 5-8210

Subsequently in m. 10 (musical example 10), the ballad becomes a dialogue between the Queen and Gregory. Loewe composes contrasting music for both characters to effectively depict their opposing emotional states. The Queen speaks first in E-flat major in mm. 10-14 (musical example 11) asking Gregory if anyone has offended his royal right; her melody and accompaniment both possess qualities traditionally associated with femininity in the period: soft dynamic and legato articulation. Gregory in mm. 14-18 abruptly responds in C minor with a masculine fervor and a marcato articulation over staccato accompaniment. His text declares that his good sword defends him, and Loewe employs a motive symbolic of a sword gesture in m. 16.

MUSICAL EXAMPLE 10: Measures 9-20211

210 Ibid.

211 Ibid. 72

MUSICAL EXAMPLE 10 – Continued

Leading into the sword gesture motive is a tonicization of F minor in mm. 15-16

(musical example 10), a possible early allusion to the progressive tonality Loewe will be demonstrating in this ballad by ending in F minor instead of its initial key of C minor.

The vocal lines in musical example 10 are also written in more of a declamatory style;

Gregory’s lines in particular exemplify this through the eighth notes and the dotted rhythm on “Königin” [King] in m. 15 and the triplet on “jeglicher” [any] in m. 16. This is in direct contrast to the Queen’s more lyrical melody that remains in E-flat major. A notable moment of silence occurs in m. 18 before the Queen speaks again in the same lyrical tone following Gregory’s outburst. This could be Loewe’s way of musically insinuating that the Queen remains constant and is untroubled at this time. Perhaps

Gregory’s anger is a regularly occurring emotional exchange in their marriage. 73

Additionally in musical example 10, the piano provides more commentary to the story as it unfolds. Measures 9-10 in musical example 10 make up an interlude that repeats in multiple variations in the allegro moderato maestoso section of the ballad.

After the Queen’s second question beginning in m. 18, the two-bar interlude repeats before Gregory’s response. The prevalent 4-3 suspensions on beats three and four in mm.

10-11 represent a literal suspension of the drama before each character decides what to say next. Musical example 11 shows the third and fourth occurrences of the interlude. In mm. 28-30, the motive is half a measure longer and has a different melodic figure to make a different predominant chord; the interlude in mm. 35-37 has a different melody, is longer, and features an Italian augmented sixth chord to further show the tension. The interlude is featured twice more before the Allegro assai section (musical example 13).

MUSICAL EXAMPLE 11: Measures 28-37212

212 Ibid., 125. 74

In another subtle musical characterization by Loewe, musical example 11 also has the Queen singing in Gregory’s C minor for the first time when she says in mm. 30-32,

“Hidden guilt troubles you,” hidden guilt that she also shares in. Loewe then shifts to E- flat major in mm. 33-34 when she says, “Entrust yourself to Christ and his grace.” It is conceivable that the devout Catholic and theologian in Loewe made a conscious compositional decision to cast thoughts of guilt and sin in minor keys and to highlight the

Christian aspects of the drama through lyrical music in major keys.

In the Allegro assai section of the ballad (musical example 13), Gregory starts revealing more of his anguish, which is rooted in his incestuous birth that the Queen is unaware of at this point in the drama. Shown by itself in musical example 12, Loewe employs a new motive to express the distraught psychology in the accompaniment, which is used to transition into different sections with greater intensity. This fast motive, first in mm. 63-67, includes appoggiatura eighth notes in the right hand stressing the half steps of the minor scale to express emotional distress. The left hand meanwhile colors the motive with harsh dissonance using chord tones from a fully diminished B7 chord above a pedaled C3 and against the right hand’s C5s. This motive is similar to thematic material found in the first movement of Beethoven’s “Tempest” Sonata No. 17 in D minor. It recurs six more times often in different ways and followed by contrasting material.

75

MUSICAL EXAMPLE 12: Measures 63-67213

Musical example 13 includes the 11 measures leading up to the motive. The progression starting in m. 53 is the first time the tonality of the ballad starts to center around the concluding key of F minor. The end of the phrase is another example of how

Loewe employs unprepared modulations and avoids V-I cadences. Instead of an F minor authentic cadence going into m. 56, a logical tonal expectation, Loewe calls for an unexpected fortissimo F major chord; a circle of fifths progression then leads to another half cadence in F minor, at m. 63. The motive follows, pushing the tonality further and propelling the drama more as it ends on the dominant of the dominant.

MUSICAL EXAMPLE 13: Measures 52-65214

213 Ibid., 126-27.

214 Ibid., 126.

76

MUSICAL EXAMPLE 13 – Continued

At the conclusion of the motive with octave Gs in m. 67 (musical example 14),

Loewe unexpectedly has Gregory begin in E-flat major, the first time he sings the

Queen’s original melodic material, with an added F#3 to reflect the agitation. When

Gregory says he wished that his sword had not been victorious against the proud foes, the tonality switches back to C minor and the whole phrase ends with a half cadence at m.

75, in which the singer has his highest note thus far, a G4. The motive begins again in m.

75 in G, but also ends on G in m. 79 instead of going to D as a direct transposition would.

77

MUSICAL EXAMPLE 14: Measures 66-82215

Beginning in m. 79, Loewe abruptly follows the octave Gs with a C dominant- seven chord. This is another example of Loewe’s unprepared modulations, this time into a recapitulation of the music from the beginning of the allegro assai as Gregory says to the Queen, “Oh, if only you and your throne were not the victor’s reward.” Instead of ending the phrase with a half cadence on the dominant of F minor as in m. 60, Loewe

215 Ibid., 127.

78 finally writes the first authentic cadence in F minor at m. 87. The motive then occurs in F minor, in direct transposition of the original ending on C in m. 91; Loewe follows it with new material in which the Queen finally speaks again beginning in m. 91. Her reactions to Gregory’s words are in F minor but the ensuing music includes C major dominant chords occurring on the strong beats and the F minor chords on the weak beats; this demonstrates her lack of control of the situation to further propel the drama.

MUSICAL EXAMPLE 15: Measures 83-92216

More examples of Loewe intensifying the drama via unprepared modulations to distant keys are in musical examples 16 and 17, occurring after the Queen asks Gregory what act of shame his parents committed. To symbolize the magnitude of what Gregory is about to reveal as he commands her fullest attention, Loewe suddenly shifts to broken

216 Ibid., 127.

79 open octaves in m. 159 on A, and Loewe then gives it a leading-tone function to the open

B-flat broken octaves in mm. 160-61. Loewe is employing a V-VI deceptive cadence, and then he is pivoting by giving B-flat a dominant function, which results in the distant key of E-flat minor for the moment he begs his wife not to stare so fearfully in mm.162-64.

Thereafter in mm. 165-66, Loewe steps up the tension with the same progression up another half step—enharmonically spelled—to the VI of E-flat minor.

MUSICAL EXAMPLE 16: Measures 159-165217

The B-natural tones of m.165 serve as a dominant function to the distant key of E minor in mm. 167-69 (musical example 17), when Gregory is trying to stop himself from revealing this disreputable truth. Loewe is engaging in the practice of setting the tessitura of the vocal line higher and higher in concurrence with Gregory’s heightening emotional

217 Ibid., 127.

80 state. The pressure builds even more as the tonal sequence is repeated up another half step. In m. 171, Gregory finally reveals to his wife that he had a mother who was incestuous with her brother for a year. This disclosure is partly accompanied by the same harsh chord as under the original motive in musical example 12.

MUSICAL EXAMPLE 17: Measures 166-175218

218 Ibid., 127.

81

Following musical example 17, the motive as originally written (musical example

12) occurs again in m.177. The piece begins to climax as the Queen then demands to see the cross and stone tablets she left with Gregory at his birth as proof that he is actually her son, set to G4s in the vocal line. When Gregory brings out the items, the Queen lets out a loud scream before the penultimate occurrence of the motive as shown in musical example 18. This time, instead of having the modulatory material in the second half of the motive, mm. 199-200 repeat mm. 197-198. The narrator in mm. 199-200 then sings above the motivic material for the first and only time in the ballad stating that the Queen is tearing her dark hair in despair in reaction to the evidence verifying the Oedipal truth.

MUSICAL EXAMPLE 18: Measures 197-204219

219 Ibid., 127.

82

Musical example 18 is also another example of Loewe using a wide tessitura spanning nearly two octaves. The Queen says to Gregory “Curse the hour that I bore you!” spanning the range of a thirteenth with tones from a fully diminished seventh chord built on E natural in mm. 200-205. The heightened tension from the emotionally volatile situation continues as the Queen curses Gregory, as well as herself, to a tremolo accompaniment prolonging the harmonic instability of a fully diminished seventh chord for nearly ten measures. This homogeneous continuation of an unstable chord, with a

“tremando” or “trembling” quality, also depicts the Queen’s physicality as well as her emotionality, a staple of Loewe’s style that is distinct from his contemporaries.

Moreover, this is an example of Loewe’s accompaniments being more orchestral in nature, akin to a piano reduction of a Wagner opera score.

This unstable section, marking the epic psychological and dramatic peak of the cycle, is followed by the motive once more beginning in m. 213 (musical example 19).

Starting in m. 217, it develops onward for two more measures down another octave instead of the right hand ending on G4 as before. In m. 219, it seems to settle on G, but it slows down and descends to C3 and then C2 where it finally settles in mm. 223-224.

Despite F minor being a recurring primary area in the allegro assai section of the ballad, the development of this motive gives a sense that it might be finally concluding according to classical form in the original key of C minor.

83

MUSICAL EXAMPLE 19: Measures 211-224220

In musical example 20, as the narrator mentions the Queen fainting away in mm.

225-27 and Gregory silently leaving the castle in mm. 227-32, Loewe completes his progressive tonality by definitively resolving to F minor in m. 233. It is the only perfect authentic in F minor in the ballad, including a definitive cadential 6-4, to give the listener the long-awaited sense of finality to the piece. These 16 measures significantly contrast the previous 224 given the longer sustained vocal phrases and the whole-note chords in the accompaniment.

220 Ibid., 133. 84

MUSICAL EXAMPLE 20: Measures 225-240221

The postlude of the ballad plays out over an F1 pedal tone with an additional authentic cadence in the right hand in mm. 234-5 (musical example 20) to reinforce the F minor tonality. Similar to the postlude of the preceding ballad, there is then a plagal-like cadence using a Neapolitan sixth chord in mm. 236-7, which subtly foreshadows the subsequent ballad by accustoming the listener to sounds of G-flat and D-flat. Loewe in mm. 238-40 writes only octave Fs to conclude the ballad without additional chord

221 Ibid., 134. 85 members to define the quality. This open-endedness helps shift it into serving a dominant function to make for a nearly seamless transition going into the fourth ballad in B-flat minor (musical example 21) where Gregory repents on the rock at sea. Loewe is thus engaging in the sort of continuous music that is more becoming of Wagner in his music dramas. Unlike Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte, in which the songs are all musically linked by clear transitional material, Loewe’s tonal planning according to the dramatic progression does not necessitate additional intermediary music to maintain continuity.

D. IV. “Ein Klippeneiland liegt im Meer” [A rocky island lies at sea]

Musical example 21 is the beginning of the fourth ballad, which takes place on a rocky island at sea, where Gregory stays and repents for 17 years. The previous ballad appropriately befits the ongoing dramatic progression between Gregory and the Queen by being through composed and tonally open. This ballad is in clear contrast by being more strophic and tonally closed, making for a powerful characterization of Gregory’s monotonous life on the rock, where all he can do is routinely pray to God. Loewe regularly returns to B-flat minor at the commencement of each verse, but in the typical

Loewe fashion, each verse possesses its unique harmonic progression and melodic attributes to bring out the text.

Loewe composes an ostinato piano accompaniment, initially alternating every two bars between tonic and first-inversion dominant, to portray the consistently ongoing storm and waves—the triplets represent the incoming tides, the quadruplets the outgoing tides. Rhythmic ostinati is a regularly used technique in Romantic German works to 86

“create a myriad of effects of motion and stillness.”222 The storm and waves keep moving, while Gregory is chained to the rock, unable to go anywhere. Nature was a major theme in German Romanticism, and Loewe’s portrayal here has characteristics foreshadowing works such as the prelude of Wagner’s Rheingold, which is a prolonged arpeggiation of E-flat major for 136 bars to depict the flowing Rhine River.

MUSICAL EXAMPLE 21: Measures 1-6 of “Ein Klippeneiland liegt im Meer”223

Loewe breaks the established ostinato pattern to create additional motives within the established accompanimental framework; Loewe accompanies the word “Kräuter”

[Herbs] with sixteenth notes in m. 11 (musical example 22); in the second verse, he does likewise to the word “Nacht” [Night] in m.26 (musical example 23). Both these instances

222 Yonatan Malin, Songs in Motion: Rhythm and Meter in the German Lied (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 97.

223 Loewe and Runze, 134. 87 can be considered illuminations of the wind gusts in the stormy night. Moreover, when

Gregory begins to speak, the accompaniment switches to strict triplets to accompany his prayerful words for the remainder of the ballad. Loewe also makes notable breaks in the ostinati accompaniment for Gregory’s plea to God to “wash away our guilt” accompanied by half-note rolled chords, and again at the very end to the word “glory.”

MUSICAL EXAMPLE 22: Measures 10-12224

MUSICAL EXAMPLE 23: Measures 25-30225

224 Ibid., 135.

225 Ibid., 136. 88

The postlude plays out as a repeat of the same initial thematic material, but Loewe in m. 74 (musical example 24) breaks the triplet-sixteenth note pattern by replacing the sixteenth notes with a repetition of the triplets. By excluding the prominent lowered-sixth note, Loewe ends the ballad with an untainted tonic prolongation, unlike the previous two postludes. Concluding with just the triplet figures followed by a rolled tonic chord gives a sense of finality; the listener is left to wonder what may have happened to Gregory because the continuity stopped.

MUSICAL EXAMPLE 24: Measures 72-75226

E. V. “Wie bräutlich glänzt das heilige Rom!” [Holy Rome splendidly shines like a bride]

After seventeen years on the rock at sea, the fifth and final ballad celebrates

Gregory as the newly elected pope in B-flat major in an andante-maestoso tempo with a piano accompaniment that depicts the ringing church bells and cheering crowds. In mm.

15-21 (musical example 25), Loewe scores the narration about Pope Gregory in the tonic, and the subsequent narration of the Queen, by contrast, begins in m.23 in B-flat minor and then shifts to E-flat minor in m.26. As E-flat major was the key of her newfound

226 Ibid., 139. 89 happiness upon getting married, E-flat minor, by contrast, now reflects her lamentation.

Thereafter, the narration concludes with a Phrygian half cadence on B-flat major when the focus turns back to Pope Gregory sitting in the confessional.

227 MUSICAL EXAMPLE 25: Measures 15-27 of “Wie bräutlich glänzt das heilige Rom!”

As one of Loewe’s three known ballads “mit imaginiertem Chor” [with imaginative choir],228 Loewe employs the chorale “Gott sei uns gnädig und barmherzig”

227 Ibid, 135.

90

[May God be merciful and compassionate for us], BWV 323, from Johann Sebastian

Bach’s book of collected chorales, as the accompaniment beginning in m. 37 (musical example 26). The text and translation, a paraphrase of Psalm 67, is as follows:

Gott sei uns gnädig und barmherzig und gebe uns seinen göttlichen Segen. Er lasse uns sein Antlitz Leuchten, Dass wir auf Erden erkennen seine Wege!

[May God be merciful and compassionate for us and give us his divine blessing. May he let his face shine upon us so that on earth we may know his way!]229

This chorale text is not utilized by J.S. Bach, but its melody is employed to

“Meine Seele erhebet den Herren” [My soul magnifies the Lord] in The German

Magnificat. The origination of the melody, which has been used by multiple composers since the sixteenth century, is unknown. Loewe utilizes this chorale first as an interlude in

G-flat major to represent the Queen entering the confessional. Loewe wrote in the score above the chorale:

Bei diesem Accompagnement denke man sich einen unsichtbaren Chor in der Höhe der Kirche, der die angegebenen Worte leise singt. Es ist ein alter katholischer Beicht = Cantus, den auch Luther in das Deutsche übersetzt hat. 230

228 Reinhold Dusella, “Die Chorballade Die Walpurgisnacht op. 25 und die Kantate Die Hochzeit der Thetis op. 120a als mögliche Gattungsbindeglieder von Solo-Ballade und Oratorium, nebst anmerkungen zum Begriff ‘balladisches Oratorium’ bei Philipp Spitta” [The choir ballad Die Walpurgisnacht, Op. 25 and the cantata The Wedding of Thetis, Op. 120a as a possible genus of links in solo ballads and oratorios, along with notes on the term 'ballad-oratorio’ by Philipp Spitta], in Carl Loewe 1796-1869: Bericht über die wissenschaftliche Konferenz anlässlich seines 200. Geburtstages vom 26. Bis 28. Sepember 1996 im Händel-Haus Halle [Carl Loewe 1796-1869: Report from the Scholarly Conference on the Occasion of his 200th Birthday from the 26th through the 28th of September, 1996 in the Handel House of Halle], ed. Konstanze Musketa and Götz Traxdorf (Halle: Händel-Haus, 1997), 97.

229 Francis Browne, Bach Cantatas Website, http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Texts/Chorale110- Eng3.htm (accessed August 23, 2011).

230 Loewe and Runze, 141. 91

[In this accompaniment, imagine an invisible choir at the height of the church, singing the words quietly stated. This is an old Catholic confessional chant that even Luther translated into German.]

MUSICAL EXAMPLE 26: Measures 36-42231

Upon completion of the first verse of the chorale, which ends in E-flat minor,

Loewe scores the narration regarding Gregory’s happiness at hearing the confession by transitioning back to the relative major of G-flat and the phrase ends with a half-cadence on D-flat major (musical example 27) in m.46. Before Gregory speaks his divine words,

Loewe employs another unprepared modulation in m.46 back to B-flat major (musical example 27) using only an applied chord in strict counterpoint. To underscore Gregory’s divine holy power, Loewe mostly uses just B-flat octaves in the voice and piano to score

231 Ibid., 141. 92 the phrase, “Durch meines heil’gen amtes Kraft, lös’ ich dich aus der Sünden Haft!” [By my holy office’s power, I release you from sin’s arrest!]. The main exception is on

“Sünden” [sins], set in E-flat minor in m.51; Gregory is moreover singing the stress syllable on the same lowered-sixth scale degree (G-flat) that has been prevalent throughout the cycle.

MUSICAL EXAMPLE 27: Measures 46-53232

The chorale comes back again in m. 54 (musical example 28) with its second verse, this time in the key of B-flat major. Loewe has the voice singing above the chorale to the words of Gregory saying, “ Let your servant, O Lord of grace, rest in peace!”

Throughout this ballad, Loewe also maintains the open-endedness of the dramatic

232 Ibid.

93 continuity by not employing authentic cadences in the tonic at the ends of vocal phrases.

At the end of the cycle, an expected musical conclusion would be to end in B-flat major to make it tonally closed. Loewe instead uses the harmonic progression of the chorale, which would end in G minor if a strict transposition of the chorale was employed.

However, Loewe modifies the last two measures to conclude the chorale and thus the cycle with a Picardy third in the final chord, consequently ending with the G major tonality. This musically represents a spiritual revolution that occurs in the characters of

Gregory and the Queen. Moreover, leaving the cycle tonally open leaves the listener unsure of what would come next. Another example of Loewe doing what is unexpected, this makes for a dramatic ending unsettling to listeners accustomed to the classical style.

MUSICAL EXAMPLE 28: Measures 54-64233

233 Ibid.

94

Albert Bernhard Bach writes that the “zeal” of Loewe’s theological studies at the

University of Halle can be attributed to the “superior philosophical refinement, which is manifested so largely in the spirit of his compositions.” 234 According to Loewe,

“Genuine art must be rooted in the soil of philosophical culture.”235 The philosophical culture from his devoted Catholicism shows though his music in Gregor auf dem Stein.

The theologian in Loewe through this work is thus musically depicting the transformative power that redemption can have in one’s spiritual life.

234 Bach, 57.

235 Ibid. 95

CHAPTER 7: SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

In Gregor auf dem Stein, Loewe composed a cycle of ballads all closely linked together in their key areas. Three of the ballads consist of a variety of modulation within, but begin and end in the same key area, with the third and the fifth ballads being the exceptions. The first ballad is in B-flat major, the second in E-flat major, the tonally open third ballad begins in the C-minor but ends in F minor, the fourth ballad is in B-flat minor, and the final ballad is in B flat major—with the G major conclusion. As in

Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte earlier, this cycle has elements of sonata form overall.

Following the expositional first two ballads, the modulatory third ballad is akin to a developmental section, and its F minor conclusion tonally befits the retransition section for a sonata piece in the key of B-flat major. A recapitulation of the first ballad would then befit the classical sonata formula, however, given its dramatic content, the fourth ballad is cast in a tonally closed B-flat minor. That is then followed by the celebratory final ballad in the key of B-flat major, which can be viewed as a recapitulation of the original primary key area, though it transformatively ends in G major.

The progressive tonality as shown in the third ballad is unlike Loewe’s major cyclical predecessors of Schubert and Beethoven and even Schumann six years later. All the songs in Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin (1823) and Winterreise (1827), as well as

Schumann’s Dichterliebe (1840) and Frauenliebe und -Leben (1840), start and end in the same key or in the parallel minor or major. Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte (1816) has deceptive cadences and transitional material in between songs, but each song is nonetheless tonally closed and maintains the same tonic key area throughout. 96

In the nineteenth century, instrumental music was considered a “representation of some kind of emotional content.”236 As shown in Gregor auf dem Stein, Loewe uses the piano accompaniment to accentuate and comment on the characters’ emotional states and the dramatic situations with contrasting harmonies and developing motives. In Opera and

Drama, Richard Wagner writes, “What sung words could not communicate, the orchestra should convey in ever recurring musical ‘motifs of memory.’”237 Thus, it was only natural that Wagner held Loewe and the musical motives in his ballads in high regard.238

Robert Spillman explains that in piano-vocal music, “The accompaniment supports, comments on, and illustrates the text . . . . Music can of itself express, indicate, or

239 represent extramusical things, whether thoughts, emotions, objects, or actions.”

Wagner also believed that the text “must share equally with the music in realizing the drama . . . and the vocal line should derive directly from the rise and fall of the words.”240 Loewe does likewise with his text in determining the melodic shape and direction of his vocal lines, which escalate or fall in concurrence with the dramatic progression. For example, Loewe in the third ballad sets the melody higher and higher as

Gregory is about to reveal his parentage; at the culmination of the dramatic dialogue, he sets the Queen saying, “verflucht” at the extreme top of the vocal range and the

236 Ibid., 5.

237 Kimball, 98.

238 Ibid., 49.

239 Robert Spillman, “Performing Lieder: The Mysterious Mix,” in German Lieder in the Nineteenth Century, ed. Rufus Hallmark (Routledge: New York, 2010), 406-07.

240 Kimball, 98.

97 successive narration of “Ohnmächtig lag sie” at the bottom of the range. Moreover,

Loewe modifies the melodies and harmonic progressions of the verses in his more strophic sections in order to capture the essence of the textual meanings, such as in the prayerful fourth ballad.

German operatic baritone Eugen Gura was one of the foremost Wagnerian singers of the late nineteenth century and regularly performed Loewe ballads, including a performance of Gregor auf dem Stein in 1895.241 Dr. Maximilian Runze, the editor of the

Loewe Gesamptausgabe [Collected works], included in the introductory pages devoted to the cycle the following write-up by Professor Robert Hirschfeld for the Vienna newspaper Die Presse reviewing the cycle and Gura’s performance:

The ballad, the most wonderful of poetry that magically weaves together word, epic, and drama so uniquely, demands the highest of masters, such as Loewe and Gura, who possess the softest of lyrical feelings as well as the highest power of dramatic expression. Had Loewe and Gura, Loewe’s prophet, not given evidence through the simplest of means, it would have been incomprehensible that through the single solo voice and a plainly drawn piano part such profound and shocking dramatic effects could be reached. The Ballad of Gregory draws the kind of powerful mental image that we feel as though we were living the drama and its heart-wrenching events ourselves. In the incomparably detailed performance, each individual character steps forward. The tragic conflict comes alive as on a stage; out of the music, images blossom of victorious celebration, an intoxicating night in Spring, the island of cliffs on which the fate of a penitent Gregory is tied, and sacred Rome appears before our eyes, all with a power unequaled by the most elaborate of scenic stage apparatuses . . . And often, with just one chord, one melodic figure, or a trill, Loewe guides the powerfully aroused imagination on a path towards the endlessly wondrous kingdom of the Romantic.242

241 Bach, 80-81.

242 Loewe and Runze, xiii: XXIX. “Die Ballade, das Wunderwerk der Dichtung, welches Lyrik, Epik, und Dramatik so Zauberhaft ineinander schlingt, verlangt Meisteren wie Loewe und Gura, die selbst das weichste lyrische Empfinden, epische Kraft und die zwingende Gewalt des Höchsten dramatischen Ausdrucks besitzen. Wenn Loewe und Gura, Loewe's Prophet, nicht den einfachsten Mitteln Thatbeweis gegeben hätten, so wäre es unfassbar, dass mit den einfachsten Mitteln des Einzelgesanges und einer naiv zeichnenden Klavierbegleitung die erhabenste, erschütterndste Wirkung des Dramas erreicht werden könnte. Die Ballade von Gregor stellt Gura mit solche Bildkraft vor das geistige Auge, dass wir ein Drama, 98

Gura was only one of many Wagnerian singers to have performed Loewe’s ballads in the late nineteenth century. Wagner regularly directed his singers to sing

Loewe’s ballads; Loewe’s name often appeared in the public performances of Wagner

Associations in Germany.243 Hugo Wolf similarly wanted singers to sing ballads by

Loewe, including tenor Hugo Faisst.244 There is no evidence that Wagner, Wolf, or other later romantic composers ever heard or saw the score to Loewe’s Gregor auf dem Stein; few sources mention the cycle, and the Verzeichniss indicates that it was “missing from the record.”245 Parsifal, WWV 111, Wagner’s last opera, is based on another poetic work by Hartmann von Aue. Aue’s Parzifal and Gregorius both share a similar philosophical basis according to Duckworth.246 Thus if Wagner had the opportunity, perhaps he might have been inclined to create his own version with a more “truly dramatic rendering, [by] using more than one singer”247 for each character and thus another full-fledged music drama. Nonetheless, Loewe well carries out the task with just voice and piano, effectively

nein, die herz beklemmenden Ereignisse selbst zu erleben glauben. Aus dem unvergleichlichen, streng individualisirenden Vortrag heben sich die einzelnen Gestalten ab; der tragische Konflikte empfängt Leben wie auf der Schaubühne; aus der Musik blühen die Vorstellungen der Siegesfeste, der liebeseligen Frühlingsnacht; wir werden mit einer Kraft, welche der üppigste Scenen-Apparat nie und nimmer erreicht, an das Klippen-Eiland, an die Geschicke des Büssers Gregor gefesselt; das heilige Rom der alten Zeit ersteht in seiner Grösse vor unserem Blicke . . . Und oft mit einem Akkord, einer Tonfigur, einem Triller weist Loewe der mächtig angeregten Phantasie die Wege in dem endlosen Wunderreiche der Romantik.”

243 Bach, 80-81.

244 Ernest Newman, Hugo Wolf (London: Methuen and Co., 1907), 102.

245 Espagne, 6.

246 Duckworth, x.

247 Althouse, 213.

99 creating an epic music drama in miniature with vivid characters and transformative experiences more becoming of the later German Romantic repertory. 100

CHAPTER 8: PERFORMANCE CONSIDERATIONS

In his chapter titled, “Performing Lieder: The Mysterious Mix,” Robert Spillman writes, “Those who aspire to the successful performers of German lieder . . . must possess not only a dependable technique and a sense of what is beautiful, but also the understanding of two languages, one musical and the other literary. It has always been the goal of great composers for the voice to bring together text, musical sense, and performing skill.”248 Loewe’s works are no exception as he himself once said that his ballads “demand a master on the piano” and “a great vocalist with clear pronunciation and declamation.”249 Bach further adds that Loewe’s ballads “should only be performed by accomplished artists, as they require noble vocalization, great compass, and much culture.”250 A suitable performance of Gregor auf dem Stein would particularly allow for no less given its duration of twenty-three minutes, a two-octave range, varying tessitura requirements, and the dramatic and theological depth behind the storyline.

Althouse concludes that the recordings of nineteenth-century singer George

Henschel represent “the closest approximation of Loewe’s own performances.”251 For example, Althouse’s analysis of an early twentieth-century recording of Loewe’s

Erlkönig, Op. 1, No. 3, indicates “slight broadenings of the tempo help express the pathetic frailty of the child and the evil of the Erlking.”252 Thus, in Gregor auf dem Stein,

248 Spillman, 406.

249 Bach, 13.

250 Ibid.

251Althouse, 279.

252 Ibid., 266-67. 101 it can be plausible to adjust the tempo to likewise befit the characterization of the line or the declamation of the text, particularly in the third ballad where a strict allegro tempo would hinder the singer’s ability to breathe sufficiently and maintain laryngeal relaxation.

Few indications are given in Loewe’s scores regarding specific variants in tempi; this can be attributed to the fact that Loewe was the primary singer and interpreter of his songs in his lifetime, and “he must have taken such dramatic responsibilities for granted.”253 An effective performance of Gregor auf dem Stein or any other ballad by Loewe therefore requires the utmost collaborative effort between the singer and the pianist so that each is familiar with precisely how the dramatic progression will unfold.

Concerning taking liberties with embellishments, nineteenth-century German composers, in contrast to the Italian Bel Canto composers, generally did not allow embellishments to their works. Though small embellishments were considered tasteful in some of Schubert’s works, the practice of strictly adhering to what was written on the page increased as the nineteenth century progressed. Expanded orchestras and theater sizes required larger voices and simpler singing. Changes in harmonic thinking moved composers, including Loewe, away from writing formal cadential points associated with the trill.254 Martha Elliot writes that Carl Maria von Weber “forbade his singers any ornamentation whatsoever in his music, and Mendelssohn’s attitude was also

253 Gorrell, 224.

254 William Crutchfield, “The Trill is gone…But it May be Coming Back,” Opera News 63 (1999): 28.

102 conservative.”255 Given Loewe’s friendship with Weber and Mendelssohn in his lifetime, one can assume that Loewe likewise kept such melodic liberties to a minimum, if at all, particularly in a work such as Gregor auf dem Stein, in which simpler singing with a primary focus on the projection of text produces the desired dramatic and spiritual effect.

Nineteenth-century German singers nonetheless followed the Italian school of singing, from which Loewe in his youth was trained by his elder brother. It was not until

1865 that Wagner would push for a German school of singing that ideally maintains the

Italian school’s “beautiful tone” while giving the German text “equal importance” to the music with “clear diction and natural declamation.”256 Wagner moreover said, “Singers should give the impression of heightened speech when singing.”257 Thus, in an effective performance of Loewe’s ballads as Althouse writes, “Text projection is the primary consideration” adding that “explosive consonants and extreme vocal coloration should not be expected to be a means to this dramatization.”258 Althouse is agreeing with

Wagner’s idea of staying true to the Italian school and not compromising vocal beauty for dramatic effects. The most essential skill necessary to successfully perform Loewe’s ballads, as Lorraine Gorrell writes, is to be a "talented storyteller” as Loewe himself was, in addition to being a “charismatic singer.”259 When a singer possessing these traits sings

255 Martha Elliot, Singing in Style: A Guide to Vocal Performance Practice (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), 172.

256 Ibid.

257 Kimball, 98.

258 Althouse, 264.

259 Gorrell, 231. 103 with beautiful tone, clear diction, and natural declamation, to use Loewe’s own words,

“the spirit of the composition will soon wing its upward flight.”260

260 Bach, 13. 104

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