SONGS OF SCHUMANN, BEETHOVEN, SCHUBERT, BERG

This program began with my desire to perform Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte and Berg’s Opus. 4, the Altenberg Lieder—two song cycles that address ways of coping with unfulfilled wishes, with dreams that didn’t come true. All of the songs on this program describe different reactions to loss. Some are stuck in the past—zurückhaltend (“held back”)—some bathe in present pain, some choose the comfort of numb nihilism. My favorites are honest about the pain but unwilling to give up hope. They acknowl­edge both die Liebe and das Leid.

Most of the Schumann songs on this pro­gram were written during the last six years of his life. Particular favorites of mine include “An den Mond,” his setting in German transla­tion of Lord Byron’s “Sun of the Sleepless” from the poet’s collection, Hebrew Melodies. The cold light of the moon illuminates a landscape of loss as the singer is accompanied by some ancient, zither-like instrument. “Einsamkeit” employs a winding, downward chromatic accompaniment to articulate a literal feeling of depression that is transformed into a balm of empathy in Schu­mann’s beautifully simple piano writing. “Geisternähe,” carefully at first, ardently at last, etches a committed hopefulness that is brave because it is not naive—it is the strength of love persisting through the pain of loss.

The second Schumann set includes the latest of his works on this program, “Sängers Trost.” The poem laments the fate of the loner after his death: to go unmourned. It is not hard to attach feelings of despair, resentment, or loneliness to this text, and yet Schumann imbues his setting with transcendent dignity by honoring the sacramental and sacrificial roles the artist plays. Finally, we end the program as it began, with a song about the moon. The exhortation in “Abendlied,” to “cast off that which troubles you,” is offered compassionately. The two-against-three rhythmic dynamic between the voice and the piano illustrates the slow, steady, pace of nature that overcomes loss with its intersecting cycles of renewal. There is majesty and comfort in the constancy of the moon.

Although the notion of a “song cycle” can be traced back to the troubadour tradition of the middle ages, Beethoven’s 1816 An die ferne Geliebte marks the institution of the liederzyklus in 19th-century German art song. The form Beethoven innovated in these six songs inspired the great song cycles of composers such as Schubert and Schumann—the cornerstones of the lieder repertoire. Beethoven took the notion of the “cycle” more literally than most of his successors in the form: in the final song of An die ferne Geliebte, he recapitulates the melody of the first song, bringing the musical and emotional journey full circle. Each song segues into the next—they don’t end so much as flow into each other—such that the harmonic architecture of the cycle is secured and rein­forced by the relationships between keys as well as their poetic through-line.

In my musical analysis of the song cycle, the key relationships between the six songs illustrate the understanding of the text that Beethoven sought to express. Although the first and last songs are in the key of E-flat, I analyze that the tonic or “home” key of the cycle is A-flat, the key of the middle two songs. The singer of these verses begins and ends in the dominant key, a place of unresolved tension. He gazes back to his distant beloved, to his lost home from the hazy, distant hill. His love lives eternally, but eternally unfulfilled and unresolved.

Schubert’s setting of the Gothic ballad “Der Zwerg” illustrates his complex relationship with Beethoven. Beneath the disturbing surface of this grotesque tale, there is also a politi­cal/musical allegory to Napoleon/Beetho­ven. When Schu­bert repeats the famous opening four-note phrase of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony—the Schicksals-Motiv (fate motif)—throughout this grim song, he is evoking both the towering composer as well as the freedom-fighter-turned-tyrant diminutive French em­peror. Schubert (on the short side, himself) loved and admired Beethoven, but also felt dwarfed and doomed by the great composer’s stature. Schubert acknowledges a desire to surpass Beethoven, to vanquish his idol. Indeed, the capacity to destroy a loved one is a terrifying aspect of human nature.

In the later Schubert set “Im Frühling” strikes me as a kind of homage to An die ferne Geliebte. The speaker, sitting alone on a hill, observes the peaceful beauty of spring, unable to share in it because his heartbreak will not permit him to embrace a new beginning. “Alinde” is a folk tale and a dream with a happy ending—a fantasy, perhaps. After interrogating a cast of colorful characters as to the whereabouts of his beloved, our happy narrator is pleasantly surprised that she comes back in the end. The earnest joy of “Wilkommen und Abschied” demonstrates why letting go of such memories is sometimes an unbearable task. “Abendlied für die Entfernte” is an expression of acceptance opposite that found in “Der Zwerg.” Schubert winds through the sad, wise words of this poem by passing through at least nine different keys as the steady thrumm of his barcarolle marches forward like time itself, “if not in joy, then at least in peace.”

Alban Berg was so embarrassed by the audience’s riotously negative reaction to the 1913 premiere of Fünf Orchesterlieder nach Ansichtskarten von Peter Altenberg, Op. 4, that he never published the songs or had them performed again during his life. The score was published in 1953, nearly 20 years after Berg’s death. The editor of that score, the composer and Berg-student Hans Erich Apostel, also created the piano reduction of the orchestral songs we will be performing on this program. The original, massive orchestration would easily overwhelm my voice. The vocal part was originally conceived for a mezzo soprano, and it is hard to imagine a male voice voice successfully navigating the third range with the vocal heft the dense orchestration requires. The clear, light-weight texture that this piano version provides, however, permits even a tenor to scale the vast range by employing vocal colors and effects that wouldn’t fly in the orchestral context.

Unlike the recalcitrant and reactionary audience at the premiere of these songs, I find them deeply lyrical and expressive. To my mind, Berg is a worthy heir to Schubert and Schumann in his creative ability and technical skill in realizing a poetic text in musical form with intellectual and emotional specificity. The opening song, “Seele wie bist du schöner,” begins with a perfectly described snowstorm that establishes both a literal vision of the text as well as the emotional and spiritual space in which the text resides. After the storm of grief, there arrives a stillness and wonder which invites the existential questioning of these poems.

—Paul Appleby