Classical Music | Contralto

Recorded on 12/31/1969, uploaded on 04/05/2015

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

... In the next song, the woman praises the man she loves. She praises his temperament (“Wie so milde, wie so gut”), his appearance (“Holde Lippen, klares Auge”), and his intellect (“Heller Sinn und fester Mut”). To her, he is a bright and distant star in the heavens. Yet, melancholy creeps in among her admiration for him. Her wishes are only for his happiness (“mein stilles Beten / deinem Glücke nur geweiht”). Feeling herself unworthy of him, she then praises the one that will be (“Und ich will die Hohe segnen / viele tausendmal”), but then will weep for her own broken heart, as she rejoices in his happiness. An anxious accompaniment of repeated chords persists through nearly the entirety of Schumann’s setting. In the majestic key of E-flat major and with a fanfare-like manner, the beginning of the vocal melody (“Er, der Herrlichste von allen”) outlines the tones of the tonic triad on a regal, dotted rhythm. Schumann then proceeds setting the stanzas in a rondo form. The first two stanzas being set to near similar music, the third introduces a new melody. The woman’s anxiety, culminating in the line “Selig nur und traurig sein” (“to be blessed and sad”), is expressed in the gradually ascending vocal melody and its accompanying harmonies. Beginning with a brief suggestion of C minor in the first measure, the piano echoes the vocal melody a tone higher. The voice then responds with a new phrase, which is, in turn, imitated by the accompanist. The final line, given above, begins to move the music towards G minor, but a poignant chromatic descent, in both the vocal melody and accompaniment, captures the woman’s disquietude, while also effecting a transition back into the tonic key and a slightly altered reprise of the opening music for the fourth stanza. The fifth and last stanzas form the rondo’s second episode. Both stanzas are set to similar music, with the latter being a third lower. The conflict of the woman’s heart—praising at once the one who will make her beloved happy, yet weeping for her own broken heart—is borne out in the ambiguous tonality and the near consistent deceptive resolutions of the many seventh chords and their inversions that permeate the section. All the while, the restless vocal melody is punctuated by affecting “sighs” in the accompaniment. To complete the song’s rondo form, Schumann repeats the first stanza. This reprise begins at first in the key of C major, but Schumann quiet deftly reestablishes the tonic of E-flat major by the second measure. As the vocal melody ends, the repetitive chords of the accompaniment begin to wane and ultimately give way to an affectionate, contrapuntal passage that brings the song to a close.      Joseph DuBose

recorded in 1950

courtesy of YouTube