Lieb Liebchen ..... / Alwin

Composer: Alwin, Karl Oskar [Pinkus, Alwin Oskar]
Dates: 1891-1945
Song title: Lieb Liebchen .....
Opus, no., etc.: Nr.5
Music collection title: Sechs Lieder für eine Singstimme mit Klavierbegleitung
Imprint(s): Berlin: Verlag von Albert Stahl
Source(s) for score: original edition: Hebrew Union College Library, OCLC #2205989
1st line of poem: Lieb Liebchen, leg's Händchen aufs Herze (Go to text and translation)
Source of poem: Buch der Lieder: Junge Leiden: Lieder, Nr.4
Date of composition: -
Nationality of composer: German
Language(s) of text: German
Tempo marking: Mäßig bewegt
Key: A minor
Time signature: 6/8
No. of measures: 28
Approximate duration: 1 min., 10 sec.
Form: through-composed
Vocal range: c to f'
Vocal tessitura: medium (Go to chart)
Vocal rhythms: mostly dotted-eighth/sixteenth/eighth-note pattern, with occasional even eighth-note triplets; a couple of eighth-note duplets in final phrase
Vocal intervals: most motion by step or third, with several fourths, and one each of descending fifth and seventh; a couple of tricky key shifts
Vocal comments: although labeled for "Mezzosopran oder Bariton," this is appropriate for nearly any voice; quite easy overall
Textual variants, etc.: Second stanza, line 2: "aus dem" instead of "um den"
Instrumental part(s): fairly easy; in general, a two-voice texture in left hand, with ubiquitous dotted-eighth/sixteenth/eighth-note ostinato often functioning as pedal; longer dotted-quarter-note or syncopated quarter-note chords (3-5 voices) predominate in right hand; no vocal doubling
Summary: With its ominous dotted rhythms and semitone oscillations, the nearly obligatory (for this text) ostinato permeates the entire song, mostly in the piano's left hand, but also appearing frequently in the vocal line. Although this was written in the first third of the 20th century, the young composer eschewed more modernistic tendencies for solid but colorful mid-19th-century harmonies, remaining in A minor/major except for a couple of sudden shifts to and from C minor. This song is slight in frame but is powerfully dramatic in its use of contrasting dynamics, motivic permutation and varied declamation. Two examples: a short fortissimo interlude, marked "hämmernd" with multiple accents, is echoed pianoand in mirrored contour by the following vocal line "Es hämmert ..."; the voice's first entrance is marked scharf deklamiert while the final two phrases are langsamer and gesangvoll).