Franz Schubert and His World

by Gibbs, Christopher H. , Solvik, Morten

  Not only do the texts collectively tell a story, they do so through the voices of three separate protagonists. Though only a few of the songs are definitively associated with a specific character—for instance, those with “Ida” in the title—it is not difficult to assign the roles as implied by the drama. The resulting story centers on a male suitor whose amorous attentions flit from one woman to the next (see Table 8). The feelings of the adventurer, Wilhelm, and two of his broken-hearted mistresses, Ida and Luisa, are presented in short strophic songs set within the typical Romantic conceits of longing and bliss. The first episode of the cycle opens with Wilhelm, who is infatuated with Elwina (song 1) but, it seems, is more enamored of love itself (2). Ida enters, despondent over a lover who has abandoned her (3). As she wanders through a grove of alderwood trees she appears to Wilhelm as if in a vision (4). The two meet; Wilhelm (5) then Ida (6) proclaim their happiness. The tryst continues as Wilhelm urges Ida to look to the stars where a far greater power resides (7). The liaison is short-lived as Wilhelm hears Luisa consoling herself under the night sky (8) and is lured away (second episode) (9). Ida succumbs to the longing that seems deemed to be her fate (10), while Wilhelm continues his escapades with a new mistress (11, 12). The cycle comes to a parenthetical caesura as all three characters sing a trio in praise of the evening (13). The third episode begins, once again, with Wilhelm praising love (14). At this point, Wilhelm’s description of the evening takes on an unaccustomedly dark tone (15). This unease proves prophetic as events take a tragic turn. The ever-distraught Ida sings of her torment (16) and decides to take her own life (17), while Luisa, Wilhelm’s beloved of the second episode, swears her fidelity even as Wilhelm betrays her (18). Wilhelm’s final appearance finds him pining for yet another woman, Rosa (the vision in the trio at the outset of episode three), who is absent (19) and who has also most likely taken her life in the face of her lover’s insincerity (20). Wilhelm is devastated, a victim of his own fickle heart.

  Table 7. Schubert’s Arrangement of the Kosegarten Texts

  The unfolding of a plot in Schubert’s arrangement of the texts can hardly represent the product of happenstance, especially as the resulting story echoes an archetype of the time. There is, admittedly, interpretation in assigning the characters to specific songs, but where the poetic titles do not directly reveal the identity of a figure, the situation and the content of the verses usually provide ample suggestion, such as the tryst between Wilhelm and Ida. Overall, there are three major episodes in this tale: the first focused on Wilhelm and Ida, the second introducing Luisa, and the third implying another lover, Rosa, while the women take their desperate leave.

  Schubert’s Musical Setting

  As surprising as it was to find a Romantic tale emerging from the sequence of songs arranged according to Wolf’s numbering of the documents supposedly in their original order, it was still necessary to determine whether any of this found expression in Schubert’s music. Only proof of the composer’s response to the structure of the story and an attempt to unify its disparate elements with conscious artistic devices could eliminate the chance of a possible, if highly unlikely accidental alignment of independent factors. A close reading of the Lieder does, in fact, reveal musical constructions that support the narrative outline and lend the twenty settings a strong sense of coherence.

  The first of these techniques involves motivic and other resemblances between songs identified with specific characters and moments in the unfolding of the drama. Schubert emphasizes the three-episode scheme in his composition by linking songs positioned just after the beginnings of each of these sections: Alles um Liebe (No. 2), Die Täuschung (No. 9), and Geist der Liebe (No. 14). All are homages to love in E major sung by the effusive protagonist, Wilhelm. Though composed over the span of several weeks, these three songs share obvious similarities. As can be seen in Example 1, all three of these songs open with virtually the same head motive, focusing on the E-major triad and finishing with an upward gesture in a dotted rhythm spanning a third. The subsequent melodic structure of these pivotal songs of the cycle displays the same close relationship (see Example 2). Note the persistence of dotted rhythms and the ascent that delineates first the third C♯–E then D♯–F♯ (see also mm. 9–13 of Huldigung). The relationship between Geist der Liebe and Alles um Liebe is even more profound (see Example 3). Here the melody (a1) and even the inner voices (b and c) are modeled on one another. The completion of the opening phrase in the piano (B–D♯–E) can be found at the end of the vocal line in Geist der Liebe: the last three notes (a2) spell out precisely this sequence, both answering Alles um Liebe and citing a motto that occurs in many of the Lieder throughout the cycle.

  Table 8. Overview of the Kosegarten Lieder

  Voice: W=Wilhelm, I=Ida, L=Luisa; names provided directly in texts to songs 3, 6, 7, 16, and 18.

  Example 1. Head motive in Alles um Liebe, Die Täuschung, and Geist der Liebe.

  Example 2. Melodic affinities between Alles um Liebe, Die Täuschung, and Geist der Liebe.

  Ida’s songs, too, are linked by strong motivic affinities. Her first song, Von Ida, contains two gestures that will recur later. The first (Example 4) is a chromatic ascent from C to F (mm. 9–10) that both recalls the chromatic motion from to in Wilhelm’s Alles um Liebe (and following settings) and points to Idens Nachtgesang (mm. 7–9). Likewise, the descending thirds at the end of the song (measure 11) anticipate the opening of Idens Schwanenlied (measure 1); see Example 5. Note also that the idea of thirds spanning a melodic third (mm. 1–2) had already been introduced in Wilhelm’s Huldigung (measure 16) and will occur later in Die Erscheinung (measure 14).38

  Consecutive songs linked by musical devices are common in the cycle as well. Wilhelm’s first two songs are tied together by voice leading at the end of the first (Huldigung, measure 20) that refers directly to the voice leading at the opening of the second (Alles um Liebe, mm. 1–2).39 Another example links Die Erscheinung and the following Das Finden with statements of “horn fifths,” a hunting sonority highly appropriate for Wilhelm’s successful pursuit of Ida (Example 6).

  Example 3. Motivic references between Geist der Liebe and Alles um Liebe.

  Example 4. Chromatic ascent in Ida’s songs.

  Example 5. Descending thirds in Ida’s songs.

  Example 6. Hunt motive in Wilhelm’s songs.

  Similar, too, is the persistence of a dotted melody in Abends unter der Linde on C♯ at the word “Abendroth” (measure 9) heralding the opening of the following song, Das Abendrot (measure 1), with precisely the same gesture. In the case of Idens Schwanenlied and the following Schwangesang we find strong resemblances in the piano texture and voice line. After the opening gestures in the voice that both trace the F-minor triad, the voice line of Idens Schwanenlied (measure 1) can be found in the lowest line of the right hand in the piano accompaniment to Schwangesang (measure 1), whereas the lowest line of the piano accompaniment in Idens Schwanenlied is echoed by the left hand in Schwangesang. There are other similarities lurking here, but note especially the adherence to the same rhythmic patterns in both songs.

  Portraying individual characters and linking consecutive songs lend a sense of sequential logic to the set as a whole, but Schubert goes further. Within the set we find subtle musical references to moments in the unfolding of the drama between the main protagonists. The tryst between Wilhelm and Ida, for instance, is depicted in three consecutive songs in B-flat major,40 the tonal midpoint between the respective realms of E major and F minor, the keys associated with Wilhelm and Ida, respectively (see Table 8).41 Soon thereafter, Wilhelm and Ida go their separate ways, or, to be more precise, Ida suffers (Das Sehnen) as Wilhelm finds himself in the throes of another romance (Die Mondnacht). In setting Ida’s complaint to a prominent descending tritone (Das Sehnen, mm. 7–8), Schubert anticipates the tragic demise of Idens Schwanenlied (tritone, measure 5) and an echo in Wilhelm’s Die Mondnacht (mm. 7, 11, 12, and 21).42 The text of the latter example is espec
ially noteworthy in its use of an ingenious reversal of meaning. Ida’s lament of yearning (verse 1: “Fliesset, fliesset, Thränen!”) takes place not only at night, but also under the moon (verse 2). Wilhelm’s night song, on the other hand, forms a pendant to this song in a series of oppositions: he, too, sings to the moon, but does so out of joy; what is more, his adulation of the night quickly reveals itself as an homage to a distinctly earthly passion that expressly fulfills his longing: “Eines in andre gar versunken … Solches … kühlte das Sehnen, / Löschte die Wehmuth mit köstlichen Thränen” (“One sinking into the other … This … cooled the longing / Extinguished the sorrow with precious tears,” verse 3; see also “labende Thränen,” verse 2). Such blatantly sexual imagery leaves no doubt of the act being described, yet it accomplishes much more. The “precious tears” of Wilhelm’s fulfillment play ironically upon the “flowing tears” of Ida’s longing, a dialogue, as it were, over the distance that separates desire and consummation.

  Schubert strikingly invokes motivic quotation in another section of the drama as well: toward the end of the set when Wilhelm’s forsaken mistresses take their leave. We literally hear the presence of the frivolous lover in the laments by Ida and Luisa as Schubert inserts Wilhelm’s signature head motive into their melodies (Example 7). Hearing echoes of Wilhelm’s enthusiasm as Ida openly greets death and as Luisa swears her faithfulness acts as a twist of the knife, an acerbic musical representation of fidelity in the face of betrayal and its tragic consequences.

  Example 7. Remembering Wilhelm.

  Figure 7. Rough draft of Alles um Liebe (D241).

  That Schubert was aware of the significance of the head motive emerges in another context as well—in a telling alteration made during the composition of one of the Wilhelm songs. In the rough draft to Alles um Liebe (Figure 7) Schubert changed the vocal line in precisely the opening phrase, thus manipulating the musical idea in order to make patent its link with the other songs. As is clear from Example 8, had Schubert retained his first idea, the head motive would not have emerged. Instead, he crossed out the opening notes and reshaped the line into a descending triad followed by the upward dotted motion of a third, thus explicitly applying the head motive to the song.

  In all, motivic references, voice leading, rhythmic constructions, textual continuities, an overall plot, a systematic use of key areas, and alterations in the musical scores lend the Kosegarten Lieder in the sequence suggested by Wolf’s numbering a compelling sense of unity and common intention. Such a preponderance of musical devices linking twenty songs together both in character depiction and dramatic interaction along with the manuscript evidence points to the conclusion that Schubert was constructing a set of Lieder intended as an integrated whole. But are we to understand this as a cycle? How were these twenty settings performed? And how does the set reflect the musical practice of the day?

  Example 8. Alterations to the head motive in Alles um Liebe.

  Songs, Cycles, and Society: The Liederspiel in Schubert’s World

  The starting point for most considerations of Schubert’s song cycles is a set of twenty songs composed in 1823, Die schöne Müllerin. A look at Wilhelm Müller’s poems reveals that the plot of the cycle bears a striking similarity to the Kosegarten set but with the gender roles reversed: the story of a miller apprentice who falls in love with the daughter of the master miller, only to have his heart broken as she chooses another suitor; in the end he takes his life by drowning himself in a brook. In 1827, Schubert composed Winterreise to yet another set of poems by Müller, this time a more abstract tale: wandering through a winter landscape, the fraught character passes the places associated with a bygone love, seeking solace in an unforgiving world. Despite the common tragic tinge of love gone wrong, these later collections share a notable feature absent in the 1815 Kosegarten settings: the presentation of a highly personal telling of a story through the sole perspective of the protagonist, a solo voice with piano charting an inward journey. The performative and psychological framework in the late sets thus departs radically from the multi-character, essentially dramatic quality of the Kosegarten songs.

  The Müller settings have made such a powerful impact on the notion of song cycle that we take for granted the overall features of both as a standard for the genre, though this does not reflect assumptions about collections of songs at the time. Schubert’s contemporaries were perplexed by Die schöne Müllerin. The set was not published as a single work but appeared in five volumes over the course of 1824. There is no known performance of the cycle during Schubert’s lifetime, and the premiere, sung by Julius Stockhausen, did not take place until 1856, twenty-eight years after the composer’s death.43 Perhaps not surprisingly, German Lied production of the 1820s and earlier demonstrates a very different approach from that of Schubert’s mature cycles. Songs could be published individually or, more commonly, in small groups. These songs often had little in common, but at times they were united by a theme or mood or even suggested a loosely narrative structure. The vast majority of Schubert’s Lieder appeared in print in precisely this fashion, and it is notable that publishers played a large role in determining how these works were released.

  This is not to say that Schubert did not experiment with groupings of songs early in his career. Although not widely known, musical and codicological investigations of Schubert’s Lieder over the last few decades have turned up new evidence tying together what were once thought to be disparate musical compositions. Walther Dürr, for instance, has pointed to groupings of manuscripts in Schubert’s output such as the Selam Musenalmanach songs of 1815 that reveal an aesthetic affinity spanning seven songs.44 David Gramit has brought our attention to a “cluster of songs” centered on the Johann Mayrhofer settings from Heliopolis,45 and Richard Kramer has focused on “distant” connections between various songs spanning most of Schubert’s career.46 Nor should we forget such sets as the Don Gayseros songs (probably of 1816) or the Novalis Hymnen of 1819. Schubert’s 1815 settings of Kosegarten have been considered in this light as well, at least some of them. Already in 1928, Alfred Heuß found compelling similarities between Die Erscheinung, Die Täuschung, and Die Mondnacht and suggested that they be performed together.47 Kramer isolates a “modest Trilogy to the Night” in Die Mondnacht, Das Abendrot, and Abends unter der Linde.48 Walther Dürr refers to a “type of cycle” in the seven Kosegarten settings of October 1815; his arguments in favor of grouping these works are partly based on manuscript evidence, partly poetic mood, partly stylistic likeness.49

  Truly narrative collections, with at least one clearly defined protagonist and the unfolding of dramatic content, can also be found in the song literature of other composers of the time. The most famous of these is certainly Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte (1816), in which a pensive lover tells the story of his longing for a distant beloved in an uninterrupted sequence of six Lieder. Beethoven makes the unusual decision to tie together the whole by means of musical links between the songs, thereby solidifying the set into a type of through-composed composition. Though this approach is virtually unique, the idea of consecutive songs organized into the telling of a story is not. In 1799 Josef Woelfl published a set titled Die Geister des Sees that relates another tale of longing, this time of a woman who finally encounters her lost mate in the form of a ghost. Friedrich Methfessel’s Des Sängers Liebe, ein kleiner Roman in Liedern (1806?) comes to a similarly tragic end as the blooming of a romance is cut short by the death of the girl. And in Alexis und Ida (ca. 1814) Friedrich Heinrich Himmel assembled forty-six songs “for one, two and several voices” relating the sentiments of a pastoral romance between a shepherd and a maiden.

  The twenty Kosegarten settings of 1815 have all the trappings of these types of collections and demonstrate that Schubert was engaged in a similar project of compiling a sequence of songs sung by several characters meant to be performed together—eight years before his radical reconception of song cycle in Die schöne Müllerin. The works are all strophic in
construction, short, quite approachable for the amateur singer, and no doubt intended for presentation in a Biedermeier salon. As we have seen, the story of Wilhelm and ill-fated love is a familiar one, echoing those sketched above and countless others from the period. In all, the plot, the musical simplicity, and even the grouping of songs to act out such a story reflect the conceits and cultural practices of its day.

  The most common term associated with such groups of songs that collectively told a story and involved multiple characters from this time period was “Liederspiel.” Literally a “song play,” the genre involved the dramatic interaction of several characters, usually spoken dialogue, and Lieder performed at key moments of the story to present the sentiments of the individual figures. The songs demanded little vocal ability, were nearly always strophic, and focused on a single mood or thought. The composer usually credited with inventing the art form is Johann Friedrich Reichardt (1752–1814). Writing in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung in 1801, Reichardt tells of his abhorrence of vocal exaggeration in the theater, a fashion simply meant to rouse audiences by elevating the aria with effective but empty histrionics: “That inspired in me the thought of trying it with a short, songlike piece whose whole character was set on awakening but a single, pleasant impression and whether the theater public could be made interested in the simple and simply pleasant.”50 Reichardt launched a successful series of theatrical works such as Lieb und Treue that drew their texts largely from well-known poems and highly approachable, sometimes familiar tunes accompanied with a minimum of orchestration. The technique of borrowing implied here drew its inspiration in part from the French tradition of vaudeville, though the dramatic emphasis focused less on raucous parody and more on sentimental, sometimes patriotic topics. Other examples of the form include works by Friedrich Heinrich Himmel (Fanchon oder das Leyermädel, 1804) and Franz Carl Adelbert Eberwein (Lenore, 1829).