The mood remains bleak in the sixth song, In der Ferne (In the Distance). Brokenhearted, a distraught lover leaves his home. Without friends or family, he sees himself as a fugitive in the world. Tearfully he leaves behind the life and love he had known to face the cold world without hope. Yet, in his final parting, he whispers to the breezes to carry his greetings back to the one who broke his heart.
In B minor, the piano provides a dismal opening with stark octaves and a melodic motif that captures the heaving of the hapless lover’s grieving heart. This introduction plays an integral part in the song, returning verbatim to prelude each stanza. The vocal melody of the first stanza further enhances the gloomy atmosphere established in the introduction. At first lifeless, hardly moving from the dominant on which it began, it eventually swells into a grief-stricken cry as the piano begins a chromatic descent through heartwrenching chords, and then concludes by crashing hopelessly back to the tonic. The second stanza is set to similar music. The piano accompaniment remains largely the same, but the vocal melody is greatly varied after the first two measures to highlight the raging emotions of the poet. Yet, as before, the vocal melody comes to the same bleak and disparaging close.
The third stanza, though similar in construction, is greatly varied. As the poet implores the gentle breezes to take his greetings back his beloved, Schubert modulates into the key of the tonic major. However, there is little comfort to be found. Rippling arpeggios capture the breezes while the vocal melody follows initially much the same contour as the previous stanza. Inflections from the minor mode create an unsettling effect during the final four lines of Rellstab’s lyric as the piano provides a varied form of the same despondent chromatic descent heard twice already. The major mode is regained as Schubert repeats the stanza in another varied form. At the close of this repetition, Schubert makes even more poignant the poet’s grief with a particularly dramatic and sudden modulation back into B minor via C major to close the song. Joseph DuBose
This recording of Schwanengesang was made in the 1950s.
Classical Music | Baritone
Franz Schubert
In der Ferne Play
Recorded on 12/31/1969, uploaded on 01/22/2014
Musician's or Publisher's Notes
In der Ferne
The mood remains bleak in the sixth song, In der Ferne (In the Distance). Brokenhearted, a distraught lover leaves his home. Without friends or family, he sees himself as a fugitive in the world. Tearfully he leaves behind the life and love he had known to face the cold world without hope. Yet, in his final parting, he whispers to the breezes to carry his greetings back to the one who broke his heart.
In B minor, the piano provides a dismal opening with stark octaves and a melodic motif that captures the heaving of the hapless lover’s grieving heart. This introduction plays an integral part in the song, returning verbatim to prelude each stanza. The vocal melody of the first stanza further enhances the gloomy atmosphere established in the introduction. At first lifeless, hardly moving from the dominant on which it began, it eventually swells into a grief-stricken cry as the piano begins a chromatic descent through heartwrenching chords, and then concludes by crashing hopelessly back to the tonic. The second stanza is set to similar music. The piano accompaniment remains largely the same, but the vocal melody is greatly varied after the first two measures to highlight the raging emotions of the poet. Yet, as before, the vocal melody comes to the same bleak and disparaging close.
The third stanza, though similar in construction, is greatly varied. As the poet implores the gentle breezes to take his greetings back his beloved, Schubert modulates into the key of the tonic major. However, there is little comfort to be found. Rippling arpeggios capture the breezes while the vocal melody follows initially much the same contour as the previous stanza. Inflections from the minor mode create an unsettling effect during the final four lines of Rellstab’s lyric as the piano provides a varied form of the same despondent chromatic descent heard twice already. The major mode is regained as Schubert repeats the stanza in another varied form. At the close of this repetition, Schubert makes even more poignant the poet’s grief with a particularly dramatic and sudden modulation back into B minor via C major to close the song. Joseph DuBose
This recording of Schwanengesang was made in the 1950s.
Courtesy of YouTube
More music by Franz Schubert
Der Wanderer an den Mond
Tränenregen, from Die schöne Müllerin
Moment musicaux, D. 780 No. 4
Erlkönig
Piano Sonata D. 958, Finale: Allegro
Sonata in B-flat Major, Op. 30, D617
Impromptu Op. 90 No. 2 in E-flat Major, D. 899
Notturno
Impromptu Op 90 N° 3
Standchen, Lieder for Flute and Piano
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