Composer: Schumann, Robert
Dates: 1810-1856
Song title: Schöne Wiege meiner Leiden
Opus, no., etc.: op.24, Nr.5
Music collection title: Liederkreis nach Gedichten von
Heinrich Heine für eine Singstimme mit Klavier
Imprint(s): Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1840
Analysis: The wonderful melody of the A sections (stanzas 1, 2 and 4, plus a repeat of 1) is accompanied by restless eighth-note duplets, "syncopated" in the sense that the more prominent right hand chords are off the beat. Towards the end of stanzas 1 and 2 (and the repeat of 1) these change to punctuated quarter-note cadential chords, but the voice makes an unexpected turn to b instead of e at the end of the stanzas' final lines, and a characteristic chromatic motive given only to the piano leads the way to the real cadence on repeats of "lebe wohl" ("farewell"), doing violence to the poem while extending and amplifying its wrenching self-pity. At the right "lively" tempo a hectic feeling is added to the longing and sorrow of the arching vocal phrases. A dramatic break is accomplished immediately after the cadence of stanza 2, with sudden repeated octave B eighth notes pivoting to G major, to which the key signature changes as well. After only a quarter rest, the faster B section begins with a passage (on "Hätt ich dich noch nie gesehn") which in its bitter declamatory vocal style and forceful repeated chords foreshadows "Ich grolle nicht." The accompaniment gradually reverts to the A section pattern, while the voice remains declamatory. As is only appropriate to such a bitterly unhappy outburst, this section is a bit more unsettled harmonically, moving eventually to A minor. After the unresolved vocal cadence on V7/V in A, a short modulatory passage for piano ends back in E major at the beginning of the third A section (4th stanza). Instead of "lebe wohl, this stanza repeats the words of its final line ("wo dein Odem weht") after the deceptive cadence. This repeat is itself wrenched from its expected E major goal into the C section (stanzas 5 and 6) via diminished chords which continue and intensify the fourth stanza's cadential quasi-recitative chords. Above these and other dissonant chords bursts forth a vehement and jagged accusation in the vocal part, and then Schumann launches into an extraordinary modulatory passage where the suddenly more lyrical vocal phrases (first descending, and then chromatically ascending) are offset by the virtuosic agitation of the piano part: descending scales or arpeggios in the left hand punctuated by pedal tones in the deep bass, and doubled an octave higher and a sixteenth note later in the right hand. Care must be taken here by the pianist not to overpower the voice, as well to follow the vocal rubato at the end of this section. For the final words of the poem ("ferne in ein kühles Grab") the voice, now at its lowest ebb, exhaustedly intones another rising chromatic line nearly a cappella. The last word is held long over an unresolved chord, before a final push up another half step brings us suddenly (and ideally without a breath) to the reprise of stanza 1. The postlude, Schumann's longest and most complex to this point, is a reworking of material taken from the C section, first with long-breathed chromatic motives, mostly ascending, overlaid by the syncopated eighth-note accompaniment, followed by a descending passage with sliding chromatic six-four chords.
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Copyright © 2000, Peter W. Shea