Classical Music | Contralto

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

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

... The tone of the cycle radically changes in the final song. From a joyous D major to a dismal and bleak D minor, the woman now grieves for her dead husband. For the first time, he has caused her pain (“Nun hast du mir den ersten Schmerz getan”). The world, now, is as dark and void as before their blissful life together. Yet, her memories live on (“Da hab ich dich und mein verlornes Glück”) as she withdraws into herself. Schumann’s setting could not provide a starker contrast. The vocal melody loses all of its melodic appeal. Often, it fixates itself on a single tone, as if lacking both the will and energy to move. When it does move, more often than not it is by stepwise motion. In the final stanza, it winds slowly about the tonic before an unresolved close on the supertonic. The accompaniment is equally bleak. Accented chords at first accompany the voice, but then give way to a dreary progression of chromatic harmonies. Attempting to provide the cycle with a sense of unity, Schumann transitions from the inconclusive dominant chord on which the vocal melody ends into a restatement of the opening music of the first song. While this extended postlude serves this structural purpose, most importantly it can be seen as the woman receding into her memories, reliving within her mind her once happy life.      Joseph DuBose

recorded in 1950

courtesy of YouTube