Lieb Liebchen, leg's Händchen / Reisenauer

Composer: Reisenauer, Alfred
Dates: 1863-1907
Song title: Lieb Liebchen, leg's Händchen
Opus, no., etc.: Nr.3
Music collection title: Traurige Lieder : Fünf Gedichte von Heinrich Heine für eine Singstimme mit Clavierbegleitung
Imprint(s): Berlin: Challier, 1896 (Pl. no. 3559)
Source(s) for score: Famous poets, neglected composers ... -- Madison : A-R Editions, 1992 -- (Recent researches in the music of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries ; v.10)
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: Sehr langsam
Key: E minor
Time signature: 3/4
No. of measures: 28
Approximate duration: 1 min., 55 sec.
Form: Through-composed
Vocal range: B to f' (b to f"), excellent for a baritone or mezzo with a good high f', or tenor or soprano with good low B's
Vocal tessitura: middle tessitura (f to b) (Go to chart)
Vocal rhythms: mostly by eighth-note triplets and duplets
Vocal intervals: mostly by step and third, with a few fourths, a crucial upward leap of a diminished fifth, and another of a minor sixth
Vocal comments: most challenging aspect may be rhythmic coordination of vocal triplets against piano duplets in a slow tempo
Textual variants, etc.: comma added after "ach" in first stanza; a single word change from "damit" to dass" in final line -- an essential change for Reisenauer to acheive the effect described in the analysis.
Instrumental part(s): piano part rather simple, but crucial to the overall effect: an ostinato off-beat eighth-note figure on b' (marked "klopfend") over four-voice chords moving in quarter-, half- and dotted half-notes; a note after the tempo marking says "die Begleitung durchweg ohne jeden Ausdruck" (the accompaniment throughout without any expression)
Summary: This setting is rather similar to Lange-Müller's in its use of a piano ostinato over low-lying and slow-moving chords, and in the generally, albeit somewhat less restricted compass of the voice. However, Reisenauer's version is more a portrayal of a broken and grieving heart, conveyed by great economy of means, as opposed to Lange-Müller's portrait of hallucinatory obsession. Very simple and spare harmonies evolve into a contorted, ambiguous chromaticism. (Go to analysis)