Heine-Lieder : Morgens steh' ich auf und frage / Crabtree

Composer: Crabtree, Leslie
Dates: 1941-
Song title: Morgens steh' ich auf und frage
Opus, no., etc.: Nr.1
Music collection title: Lieder
Imprint(s): -
Source(s) for score: unpublished, acquired from composer; not listed in Metzner
1st line of poem: Morgens steh' ich auf und frage (Go to text and translation)
Source of poem: Buch der Lieder: Junge Leiden: Lieder, Nr.1
Date of composition: -
Nationality of composer: Canadian
Language(s) of text: German
Tempo marking: Moderately [slowing throughout]
Key: A major
Time signature: 4/4
No. of measures: 27
Approximate duration: 1 min. 25 sec.
Form: Through-composed
Vocal range: c-sharp to a' [c-sharp' to a"]
Vocal tessitura: middle (Go to chart)
Vocal rhythms: mostly in quarter and eighth notes
Vocal intervals: wide-ranging melody with many skips of third or fourth.
Vocal comments: Very singable, with a couple of possibly difficult moments such as an eighth-note skip from e' to a high a' and back, and several narrow "ee" vowels on e' or f'. Male singer (tenor) more appropriate to text.
Textual variants, etc.: -
Instrumental part(s): Piano part is quite easy, with only occasional doubling of the voice; more often a counter-melody. Right hand moves in quarters and eighths, often chordally, sometimes with syncopated eighth-notes. Left hand alternates syncopated chords over half-note pedal tones with conventional broken-chord arpeggios.
Summary: This is of interest as a well-crafted late-twentieth-century North American emulation of the well-beloved lieder style of the Schumann school. Although it would suffer from direct comparison with Schumann's op.24 (as would most other settings discussed here), standing alone, especially as a cycle, Crabtree's songs should be quite pleasing and effective. (Go to analysis)