Composer: Franz, Robert
Dates: 1815-1892
Song title: Kommt feins Liebchen heut'? = Will he come
today?
Opus, no., etc.: op.25, Nr.4
Music collection title: Sechs Lieder nach Gedichten von
Heinrich Heine
Imprint(s): Leipzig : C.F.W. Siegel, [1870?]
Analysis: The song has no introduction. Its melody is in four rising and falling 4-measure phrases, each singable with or without breaths in the middle. The first phrase starts on the subdominant, ends on the dominant, which leads to the first appearance of the tonic in measure 5 at the beginning of the second phrase, similar in outline to the first, but a fourth lower, also ending on the dominant. After a one measure interlude, the third phrase is a repeat of the first, and the last phrase starts the same as the second, but expands with a skip of a sixth into the upper range with a couple of short melismas in sixteenth and thirty-second notes. A short 3-measure postlude echoes the melismas. Little felicities of text-setting include the rising phrases which were likely inspired by first line "Morgens steh' ich auf", the greatly lowered tessitura of the second phrase: "Abends sink' ich hin", and the dreamily "wandering" melismas in the final phrase.
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Copyright © 2000, Peter W. Shea