Classical Music | Tenor

Recorded on 09/15/2005, uploaded on 03/27/2011

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Franz Liszt composed two settings of Heinrich Heine’s poem, Im Rhein, im schönen Strome. The first, penned in 1840, was a dramatic operatic treatment of Heine’s verse. The second, appearing in 1856, was a revision of the early 1840 setting with the operatic idiom stripped away and replaced with subtler, more intimate music, though both maintain many similarities. Liszt persistently revised many of his compositions, resulting in many different versions of the same pieces and a cataloguing nightmare for musicologists. Though with his piano music, revisions were often to remove extreme technical demands, such as with the Transcendental Etudes and to place the pieces in reach of more pianists, with his vocal music, however, it seems that Liszt’s constant revising was more focused on finding the ideal setting for the chosen poem. In general, he regarded the subsequent revisions of his songs, rather than the originals, as the better version. Such is the case with Im Rhein, im schönen Strome, and the 1856 rendition is the more oft-performed of the two.

Liszt’s setting to Heine’s text portrays, with remarkable imagination, the reflection of the city Cologne in the waters of the Rhine. A rippling accompaniment of arpeggios is set against the melancholic melody of the first stanza, while the addition of a minor triad on the dominant creates the musical impression of a reflection of reality. The middle stanza is set in like manner, though ventures into the key of the dominant at its close. The final stanza, however, turns more solemn as the text describes the image of the “beloved Lady.” Sustained chords underpin rising arpeggios, which unlike the arpeggios of before, seem to reach yearningly towards a nobler, higher purpose. The accompaniment pauses, leaving the voice to utter each of the ennobling features of the “beloved Lady”—the eyes, the lips, the cheeks—with tender melismas. These last two lines of Heine’s text are repeated and in soft, but brilliant, chords the song comes to a peaceful close.     Joseph DuBose

The Song "Im Rhein, im schönen Strome " by Franz Liszt, intepreted by Alessandro Maffucci (tenor) and Roberto Russo (piano) is part of a CD recorded and edited by "Istituto Liszt" of Bologna (Italy) in 2005.
The piece has been recorded on a Steinway piano of 1860.  For further information, please visit www.liszt.it