Lied / Taubert

Composer: Taubert, Wilhelm
Dates: 1811-1891
Song title: Lied
Opus, no., etc.: op.12, Nr.3
Music collection title: Sechs deutsche Lieder mit Begleitung des Pianoforte
Imprint(s): Leipzig: Friedrich Hofmeister
Source(s) for score: photocopy of original edition (Pl. no. 1936) supplied by Duke University Library.
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: 1837?
Nationality of composer: German
Language(s) of text: German
Tempo marking: Agitato
Key: A minor
Time signature: 3/8
No. of measures: 45
Approximate duration: 1 min.
Form: Through-composed
Vocal range: e to f' (e' to f"), tenor or soprano
Vocal tessitura: medium to slightly high tessitura (hovers around c' to e' much of the time) (Go to chart)
Vocal rhythms: mostly by eighth note, but with quite a few quarters and sixteenths
Vocal intervals: predominantly stepwise with occasional skips of a third to a fifth, plus a three-measure passage of back-and-forth octave leaps
Vocal comments: assuming the tessitura is OK this song should present no particular technical problems
Textual variants, etc.: in the first stanza "der zimmert" is repeated, perhaps to give a quicker, hammer-like effect from the words while staying in a four-measure phrase structure; the final line is repeated entire
Instrumental part(s): piano part presents some challenges; mostly constant sixteenth notes in the right hand throughout; occasional inner voices to bring out, as well as Vorschläge and similar two-note ornaments in both hands
Summary: A well-crafted, conservative setting unified by a rhythmically varied "motif" which descends stepwise through a third, and by the constant repeated sixteenth-notes of the accompaniment. This intense, rather concentrated song focuses mainly on the mood of nervous agitation with a few apropos instances of word-painting. Standard early-nineteenth-century chromaticism. (Go to analysis)