four-thirty-three

Apologies in advance: there may not be anything else in this post as good as the title.

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I.

There are two musics (or so I have always thought): the music one listens to, the music one plays. These two musics are two totally different arts, each with its own history, its own sociology, its own aesthetics, its own erotic; the same composer can be minor if you listen to him, tremendous if you play him (even badly) - such is Schumann.

–Roland Barthes, “Musica Practica” (from Image, Music, Text, 1988)

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II.

The moping, distraught lover portrayed in German song cycles bores me, but this feeling in no way detracts from my enthusiasm for the music of the great song cycles of Beethoven, Schumann and Schubert.

-Arthur Komar, “From Heine’s Poems Into Schumann’s Songs” (essay in the Norton Critical Score of Dichterliebe, 1971)

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III.

The best time to start singing Schumann’s songs is somewhere between the ages of 17 and 22. The lyrics are really emo, but it’s OK because most late high-school/undergraduate-aged kids are pretty goddamned emo as well. This isn’t meant to disparage Schumann’s work at all… his song cycle Dichterliebe is a genuine masterpiece, one that I’ve enjoyed singing since first being exposed to it at age 20, my own emo douchebag nadir.

Heinrich Heine published the collection Lyrisches Intermezzo–with the poems that Schumann would include in Dichterliebe–when he was 25 (are you seeing a pattern yet?). Yeah, the poems are a little juvenile, but there’s certainly a place in the culture for overwrought musings about love; if he were born 150 years later, Heine could have made a killing penning pop songs.

(I think Heine tapped into some latent emo-ness that already existed in European culture; a generation before, Goethe wrote the novel The Sorrows of Young Werther, which actually inspired young men throughout Europe to dress like the novel’s protagonist–blue coat, yellow vest–and also to occasionally commit suicide in emulation of their love-tortured idol. If the revised version of Werther were first published in 1987 rather than 1787, there would no doubt have been Congressional hearings and a public outcry led by Tipper Gore.)

Robert Schumann, who was primarily a composer of piano music at the beginning of his career, wrote 168 songs in the year 1840. The sixteen songs that make up Dichterliebe were among them, and were written in about a week.  Schumann had a long and difficult courtship with concert pianist Clara Wieck (daddy didn’t approve) and they were finally able to wed just a few months after Dichterliebe was composed.  Schumann could no doubt identify with the pathos (and occasional bathos) of Heine’s poetry.

Below the cut: a few recordings from Dichterliebe (by tenor Fritz Wunderlich, one of my favorite singers ever… if he hadn’t died relatively young, he’d have had a Pavarotti-level career), with English translations and commentary. Each poem is given an “emo rating” from 1-10.

#1, “Im wunderschönen Monat Mai”

Translation: In the lovely month of May/when all the buds were bursting/then within my heart/love broke forth.  In the lovely month of May/when all the birds were singing/then I confessed to her/my longing and desire.

As far as the recordings go, this is one of my two favorites (along with “Ich Grolle Nicht”). The expression with which Wunderlich sings that last word (verlangen) is just devastating, and Schumann’s score is infinitely tender.  The poem isn’t too neurotic; Heine hasn’t really cut loose yet.

EMO SCORE: 1

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#3 “Die Rose, Die Lilie”

Translation: The rose, the lily, the dove, the sun/I once loved them all with ecstatic love./I love them no more, I love only/the little one, the dainty one, the pure one, the One/She alone, the well-spring of all love/is rose and lily and dove and sun.

See, this poem is really pretty as well. But Schumann kicks it up a notch; he ends the brief song with a restatement of “I love only the little one, the dainty one, the pure one, the One,” which is (I think) just fucking brilliant, because it’s such a great line.

EMO SCORE: 0

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#4 “Wenn ich in deine Augen seh’”

Translation: When I look into your eyes/all my sorrow and pain disappear/but when I kiss your mouth/then I become wholly well./When I lie upon your breast/a heavenly happiness comes over me;/but when you say: I love you!/then I must weep bitterly.

Comments: Oh holy hell, Heine. Nut up! “My loved one finally expresses her love, so I weep? Bitterly, even?”  Roland Barthes would have a goddamned field day with this poem. (Of course, the poet could just be imagining the beloved’s reciprocal profession of love, which would give him reason to weep, but my suggestion that Heine should gird up his loins still stands.)

In the Norton Critical Score, the essayist floats a half-assed hypothesis that the lover could be “weeping for joy,” but he’s wrong. The final words are weinen Bitterlich after all, and there’s nothing bitter about tears of joy.

EMO SCORE: 8 (I think a lot of the reason I roll my eyes at this poem is because the German word weinen carries a resonance of the English verb “to whine” for me.  Any of the philologists in the room wanna confirm whether or not the words are related?)

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#7 “Ich grolle nicht”

Translation: I bear no grudge, even though my heart may break,/eternally lost love! I bear no grudge./However you may shine in the splendor of your diamonds/no ray of light falls in the darkness of your heart./I have long known this. I saw you in a dream,/and saw the night that is in the void of your heart/and saw the serpent that is eating your heart–/I saw, my love, how very miserable you are.

This is my favorite song in the whole set, as far as the music goes, and it’s possibly the most recognizable single song from the work (it’s the one performed on its own most often, plus it seems like every second-year music major in the country has to do a harmonic analysis of this song at some point in music theory class).  The high note on Herzen [heart] is super-effective, the whole song seethes with rage, and Wunderlich (characteristically) nails it.

But sweet Jesus, that poem? What a freak!  ”The night that is in the void of your heart”? Snakes on a motherfuckin’ heart?!?  If I transcribed this poem into an email and sent it to someone, it would end up on Psychotic Letters From Men.

(Because I am a nerd, I used to snicker about the fact that Schlang‘ is a signifier for “snake” AND a homonym of “schlong.” This would have been during my sophomore year, appropriately enough.)

EMO SCORE: 10, because I can’t really give it an 11. It’s the lightspeed emo ceiling beyond which further douchiness is impossible.

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The emo scores of the other 12 songs range from 4 (a little weepy, but the poet will recover with a trip to the pub) to 9 (if Heine’s girlfriend had a car, Heinrich would totally have stood in front of it to keep her from leaving after a fight, reading her some of these poems from his spiral-bound notebook while she contemplated automotive homicide.)

This entry was posted Sunday, July 19th, 2009 at 6:25 pm and is filed under music, poetry. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.