Heine-Lieder : Es treibt mich hin, es treibt mich her! / Crabtree

Composer: Crabtree, Leslie
Dates: 1941-
Song title: Es treibt mich hin, es treibt mich her!
Opus, no., etc.: Nr.2
Music collection title: Lieder
Imprint(s): -
Source(s) for score: unpublished, acquired from composer; not listed in Metzner
1st line of poem: Es treibt mich hin, es treibt mich her (Go to text and translation)
Source of poem: Buch der Lieder: Junge Leiden: Lieder, Nr. 2
Date of composition: -
Nationality of composer: Canadian
Language(s) of text: German
Tempo marking: Quickly (many tempo changes)
Key: A minor
Time signature: 6/8 (occasional measures in 3/8, 9/8, one section in 4/4, 6/4)
No. of measures: 66 measures
Approximate duration: 2 min.
Form: Through-composed
Vocal range: B to f-sharp' [b to f-sharp"]
Vocal tessitura: medium (Go to chart)
Vocal rhythms: mostly in eighth and quarter notes
Vocal intervals: wide-ranging with many skips, most often by third or fourth, but quite a few larger ones, up to a tenth
Vocal comments: Passages with extra-wide skips and/or many accidentals may be a little difficult to learn. Male singer (tenor or high baritone) more appropriate to text.
Textual variants, etc.: -
Instrumental part(s): Piano part may pose some difficulties, depending on the pianist's technique and the tempo chosen, with several fast solo passages in left-hand octaves and right-hand thirds or sixths. When accompanying the voice, things are usually a little simpler, mostly with broken chords and similar figures.
Summary: This poem seems to invite settings which are episodic. Crabtree takes the invitation to heart with the most sectional setting, full of contrasts and "text-painting", and also the longest of those settings reviewed here. All this makes it a little harder to meld the song into a convincing whole in performance, but it is an exciting setting, well worth the effort. Diatonic harmonies with several sudden key shifts. (Go to analysis)