Composer: Franz, Robert
Dates: 1815-1892
Song title: Es treibt mich hin, es treibt mich her! = I
pace along here to and fro
Opus, no., etc.: op.34, Nr.4
Music collection title: Sechs Lieder nach Gedichte von
Heinrich Heine
Imprint(s): Leipzig : F.E.C. Leuckart
Analysis: A sequence of descending left-hand eighth-note half-scales spirals downward, setting the mood of agitated frustration while illustrating the text's back and forth pacing. The rather jagged vocal line (essentially a descending triad) and equally jagged accompaniment of the first phrase is varied and twice extended upwards, each time by a third, expressing anticipation and excitement about seeing the "fair maiden," followed by a calmer, slower setting of the quatrain's last line, as if the singer is trying to quiet his heart. The second stanza (B section) broadens into a slower marchlike rhythm for the dragging procession of the hours, the vocal line characterized by repeated descending triads in quarter notes, rather like trudging through ever-thickening mud. This section wanders rather aimlessly through several keys, ending in A minor, and the vocal lines eventually shorten, as if the singer is running out of breath. A beat of rest breaks the pattern, and the sudden cry of "tummle dich, du faules Volk" in B-flat major is the beginning of a martial fortissimo passage for the piano which modulates back to E minor for the final verse. The latter is Tempo I, but marked molto agitato. It is not a verbatim repeat of the A section, but follows a similar pattern with richer chromaticism, expressive of the poet's emotional anguish and bitterness. The opening piano sequence is echoed and amplified with octave doubling in the postlude. The song's unifying "motive," if it can be called one, is the pattern of descending thirds found in nearly every line of the song, although it is sometimes obscured by passing notes and octave transpositions.
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Copyright © 2000, Peter W. Shea