Classical Music | Tenor

Recorded on 12/31/1969, uploaded on 06/20/2015

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

With “Allnächtlich im Traume seh’ ich dich” (“Nightly I see you in my dreams”), the cycle grows more introspective as the poet dwells increasingly on his dreams. Now, he imagines her greeting him (“Und sehe dich freundlich grüßen”). He throws himself at her feet, but her countenance is sorrowful (“Du siehst mich an wehmütiglich”). In the final stanza, she softly speaks to him a word while offering him a cypress branch, a traditional symbol of death and mourning (“Du sagst mir heimlich ein leises Wort / Und gibst mir den Strauß von Zypressen”). However, when the poet awakes, he cannot recall the word and the branch is gone. After the dismal E-flat minor of the previous song, “Allnächtlich” shines forth in a brilliant B major. Schumann’s setting is predominantly strophic. The vocal melody is charming and is adorned with a simple chordal accompaniment. Only at the close of the first and second stanzas does the piano gain its own melodic interest by appending a brief, but pleasant, codetta. More curious, however, is the interjection of a measure of triple time in the overall duple meter as each of these stanzas approach their conclusion. This change of meter momentarily gives the vocal melody a quasi-recitative character. To achieve the song’s climax, Schumann then expands this measure of triple meter across two measures of duple time in the third stanza. The vocal melody maintains a similar contour as before. However, this time it climbs up to a D-sharp before falling back to conclude on the dominant, leaving the piano to provide the final cadence.      Joseph DuBose

Recorded live on August 19th of 1965 at the Salzburg Festival.

courtesy of YouTube